Hell's Belles

Vintage sounds, dusty grooves, and 21st-century freaks.

A band’s first gig can be a nerve-wracking, bowel-melting experience. Generally, the paranoia stems from pretty benign stuff: “What if no one shows up? What if tons of people show up, and we suck?” They usually don’t worry about stuff like being detained by the government for several months on suspicion of falsifying identity papers, which is exactly how Bravo’s first gig in 1984 ended.

Music in the Soviet Union was tightly controlled by the state.  Musicians intending to earn money from their talent and craft could only do so legally via the state-owned label Melodia. Unsurprisingly, performances needed to be declared family-friendly and lyrics politically neutral by censors.  However, the invention of the tape recorder allowed an underground musical subculture to flourish.  Bravo formed in 1983 in Moscow and became a part of this movement, garnering themselves a following mainly by word of mouth and distributing their first album on cassettes through friends. (more…)

I meant to post this 5 March, but between then and now my life took on the plotline of a country and western song and the blawg took a backseat for a while.   So I owe the lovely Thomas at Fantastic Voyage a massive apology for the delay in posting this.

Normally budget-priced comps scare the hell out of me – more often than not they’re either very low quality recordings, 12 tracks of clangers hung round one or two familiar tunes that you already have elsewhere, or are rubbish alternative takes – and sometimes all of the above. (Garage punk comps are especially guilty of this.)

It turns out that my suspiscion of Sassy Sugar’s sub-£10 price tag is unfounded.  These 3CDs deliver a ton of bang (and twang) for your buck – in addition to the advertised rock ‘n roll, you get a cowboy-sized helping of uptempo country, jivey r’n'b, and the odd bit of doo-wop.

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As London Fashion Week kicks off this week, I thought it was about time for a post on vintage style.

There are few things DD and I like better than dressing up, though I have to admit a bouffant hairdo can prove problematic when DJing (headphones and all that).  Oh, how we suffer for beauty.

Although dressing up isn’t compulsory at most of the nights we play at, it’s a big part of the fun.  And the most fun part of the whole process is – of course – the shopping.  What fun is ordering a Pink Ladies jacket or Elvis wig online compared to spending a day rummaging through racks of vintage treasures, followed by tea and cakes with your friends? NONE, I tell you.

Here’s some of our favourite London-based and online shops.  It’s by no means exhaustive, as I intend to add to this post as I visit more shops and get more time to write them up properly.  (I’ve left out the ones that concentrate mostly on 80s vintage because, well, I hated 80s fashion the first time round and time hasn’t mellowed me any.)  If you have any suggestions, please feel free to post them in the comments and I’ll add to this list.

And here’s a little gladrags-inspired mix for you to listen to while you drool over all the vintage treasures.  If you download it from the little “down” arrow and you use iTunes, it’ll show titles and photos for each of the tracks.  NEAT.

Vintage Hire / Buy

Blackout II
51 Endell Street WC2 (020) 7240 5006 Covent Garden, Tottenham Court Rd tubes

Mostly women’s, though they have a good selection of hats for men.  The shop is small, but everything in it is carefully selected, and thus packed with treasures.  I bought an incredible 1940s tea dress to wear to DD’s wedding, and a 50s choker to match in here. You won’t find many bargains in here, but when you consider that a £80 dress from Topshop will be dishrags by this time next year, the same amount spent on a frock that still looks fabulous after 60 years doesn’t seem so bad.  If that’s still too dear, they do also hire.

Modern Age
65 Chalk Farm NW1 (020) 7482 3787 – Chalk Farm or Camden tubes

Camden’s overrun with tourists nowadays, and as a result the prices in the shops have increased due to spiralling rents, but Modern Age does hire as well as sell 40s-70s styles with a great selection for men too.

Vintage Shops

Beyond Retro

110 Cheshire Street, E2 (020) 7836 5678 Whitechapel or Liverpool Street tubes; or 58 Great Marlborough Street W1 (020) 7434 1406 Oxford St or Tottenham Court Road tubes

Massive shop tucked away in railway arches just off Brick Lane, much beloved of the Shoreditch art school types.  They can go a bit quantity over quality – last time I went there were truckloads of awful 80s floral dresses – but there’s still plenty of 50s and 60s gems, with tons of accessories.  It’s also very reasonably priced.  Also check out Hunky Dory vintage and Rokit nearby.

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You can’t beat a good song about chicken, especially one by a West Virginian one-man-band.  With influences like Hank Williams Sr, Jimmie Rodgers, Little Richard, and  Colonel Sanders and a vast catalogue of songs about love, heartbreak, police, death, decapitation, hot dogs, aliens and tasty, tasty chicken… well… sheeee-it, if you haven’t got down with The Haze yet, you done might as well be deaf.

NYC-based Norton Records has been keeping the fryer sizzlin’ since poor Hasil tragically kicked the KFC bucket in 2005.  This glorious nugget  can be found on the Out To Hunch collection.

Hasil Adkins – Chicken Walk by hells-belles

MP3: Hasil Adkins – Chicken Walk