new york – and so she thinks

The Importance of Happiness: Noel Coward and the Actors’ Orphanage by Elliot James – an interview

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 19:54:23 +0000

The Actors’ Orphanage was a home for the abandoned children of struggling or incapacitated actors. In 1934 it was a harsh and brutal institution. Meanwhile however, the playwright and cultural phenomenon, Noel Coward, was looking for more meaning in his life. After success after success, he would always ask… ‘What now?’ In The Importance of Happiness: Noel Coward and the Actors’ Orphanage by Elliot James, this little known and inspiring true story shows how the legendary Noel Coward and his committee of famous actors transformed the austere Actors’ Orphanage into a place of love and laughter. The lives of many children were greatly improved, against many odds.

Using documents from the archives, many of these events have never been written of before. Elliot James explores how Noel fixed serious, multifarious problems and ended a reign of terror within the orphanage. How he created a rural idyll and led the glamorous fundraisers, such as the Theatrical Garden Parties, midnight matinees at the London Palladium, cabaret at the Cafe de Paris and charity galas at West End theatres. Until, that is, World War II arrives and the Blitz. Now the entire orphanage is evacuated across the dangerous Atlantic Ocean to the United States. The New York years see a new level of happiness for the children, as they put on a Broadway show and meet stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Gertrude Lawrence. However as some grow up they are inevitably called back to Europe and the War. The difficult post-war years see Noel struggle to make the orphanage solvent and successful once again. There will be more problem children, monstrous staff and glamorous fundraisers before Noel can finally hand over the reins to his young protege, Richard Attenborough.

I had a quick chat with him.

Why did you decide to write the book?

I have been a Coward fan since I was young… I was living in Canada and got terribly homesick and in a cliched way, only wanted to watch very English films or or read very english books… to quell the homesickness… and who is more ‘classically English’ than Noël Coward. So I discovered his work and was hooked… it started with his ‘Live at Las Vegas’ album and then I discovered his plays, books and everything. Well, a few years ago I was living in LA and got homesick all over ago (age 36!) and RE-discovered Coward all over again. He’s a wonderful role model and example, in terms of spirit, attitude to life, humour, discipline, work ethic and… kindness. When I returned to England I pursued my passion and started writing articles on various aspects of his life and work… and quickly found that there was a part of his life little known of… his presidency for 22 years of the Actors’ Orphanage. I’d found the subject for my next article! I started interviewing surviving orphans and uncovering files from various archives…. there was enough material for a book! So I wrote it.

Can you tell us more about the history of the orphanage and Noel?

The Actors’ Orphanage took in the children of struggling or deceased actors… for example, an actor might have fallen on hard times in the theatre and been unable to work, due to illness or war injuries. Some fathers had been killed. Sometimes children were the product of an affair.. and the stigma of the time meant that they must be sent away somewhere… out of sight. And a single mother working in the theatre, touring the country would have been a hard life. Remember welfare did not exist then. The Orphanage provided a home and basic education… but it was quite austere.

Noël Coward meanwhile had been a star for many years. In 1934 he was the reigning ‘King of the Theatre’ but… he was beginning to question what else was there to life? He’d achieved so much so young… As the most famous man in the theatre he was asked to be the president of the charity… and the role seemed to give him an answer to what else there was to life. Now he could help others in a very deep and meaningful way. It enriched his life, gave him self worth and was a kind of personal salvation. And my goodness, the orphanage needed a saviour in 1934.

Did you learn something about it?

I discovered so much fascinating history. For example, they evacuated all the children to New York for the duration of World War II. Many did NOT want to return to post war, bomb damaged England. Later, one of the boys was terribly naughty and Coward tried to help him. He became his godfather and got him into show business. That boy was Peter Collinson who later directed The Italian Job, which was Noël’s final film appearance. A sweet swansong for Noël and a sign that Peter appreciated Noël’s help at the orphanage when he was growing up. I also learnt about the fabulous, star studded fundraisers, the marvellous forgotten stars of the era, the many problems they had to contend with… staff issues, bullying, financial trouble, and… so many little acts of kindness by those blessed by success in the acting profession. Coward encouraged many of his show business friends to help with the orphanage.

Whose story is this? Of the children or Noel Coward?

It is a kind of double biography. It’s the complete history of the orphanage, yes, but with a focus on the 22 years that Noël was president… and an analysis of what was going on in his life while he was president… with flashbacks to his own, very different, childhood. His life became entwined with the orphanage in all kinds of ways… for example his knighthood was blocked because he was in the US trying to negotiate the evacuation and upset the wrong people… it’s a complicated story but it’s all in the book. His fabulous cabaret career was born out of the charity fundraisers for the orphanage! From a damp tent in Regents Park to raise funds to the Desert Inn, Las Vegas!

How does theatre help people?

Theatre never dies. The Ancient Greeks had it… Ancient tribes telling stories around a campfire was a kind of theatre. So it must be something we need. The greatest genius of the theatre was William Shakespeare and what did his plays do? What do they still do? They make us think and feel what it is to be Human. They connect us. Coward said that Theatre must be entertaining above all else… but his best plays… Private Lives, for example, are full of subtext and emotion…. it’s a very moving play along with all the tremendous humour and fun. So yes, theatre makes us laugh, makes us feel things, connects us…. and it’s a communal activity and we ARE a social animal, we need communal activities. Seeing Blithe Spirit boarded up on St Martins Lane in the West-End is very sad. Coward’s comedy had originally run in London through the entire War… but now we are living through a very different problem… but theatre never dies. It will be back and we will appreciate the magic of theatre even more.

Sorcha Richardson – Lost

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:25:37 +0000

Dublin born and based in New York, Sorcha Richardson sings songs of life, love and loss. So does everyone else you may well say. But in her simple lyrics of stealing your favourite tipple, summers spent in a cider haze, dancing off heartbreak and more, she stands out with the kind of clear storytelling usually only seen in the best novels, with alarmingly arresting pop music, eminently danceable on the same time as being imbued with a flicker of world weary knowingness. Ruin Your Night starts stripped back and melancholy, but then starts looping in a frenzy of chanting hooks and swooping melodies, and the barrage of brilliance lures you into a sweet excitement and before you know it you’re obsessed with Sorcha Richardson. Or at least that’s my experience. Brilliant.

The Districts – 4th and Roebling

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 11:48:00 +0000

At times rootsy, at times rocking Pennsylvanian The Districts are a complex bunch, especially given that none of them are yet at the legal drinking age in their home country. 4th and Roebling is the lead single from their new album A Flourish and Spoil and is drenched with that east coast garage freneticism that makes for such infectious and rousing rock’n’roll. The intro is not dissimilar to The Strokes’ New York City Cops, albeit a bit more stripped back and there’s a boozy and bluesy swagger to the track (named after the first place they parked their car during their first trip into New York to play a gig). It struts with confidence at the same as melting down in a complex and fraught fuzz. It’s a testament to life as being saturated with the good and the bad, the flourishes and the spoils, an energetic and uplifting rawness pervading the brisk and pacey tune. Basically, it’s a belter.
A Flourish and Spoil is out now on Fat Possum Records.

Leverage Models

admin — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 13:10:00 +0000

Seizing on electro and drawing on the depths of consciousness,Leverage Models create deliciously vibrant music. A bubbling sonic palette doused in multiple dimensions, the band makes glorious glistening sounds, nuanced with commentary and clever perceptive notes, that pulse with passion, short pounds and reverberating rhythms adding a complexity that never digresses from what it is – pure pop. Churning and bristling with self-confessed dark emotions, there’s a restlessness to it all, a deliberate provocativeness that thrives. It’s the masterwork of producer and creator Shannon Fields, his inspired hand sketching and shifting through the sounds of the bandmates to build music to dance, shake, groove and live to.
Do you think that musicians must have a certain style, or is just a case of creativity and response to what is around you?
For a long time I looked down on the idea of making music within the framework of genre. I thought if that’s where your head was at that you were probably thinking too much about fame, fashion and other extra-musical things, and paying too little attention to the sounds themselves. But I’ve very slowly changed my mind. You can’t really shake external references to the larger world, it’s impossible to make non-idiomatic music. It seems to me that the more abstraction that’s involved in song-based music, the less meaning andmagic the music holds for most people because the less it’s referring to the things around us.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLpHc4-JHIk]

Working with more than 12 people on your latest album must have been an experience! Was it hard, and was the process collaborative or did you have to ensure control?
If you feel you have to work hard to maintain “control” than you probably aren’t in the right situation, and also know myself enough to know when it’s the right time to seek out collaboration and when it’s the right time to shut myself away for 3 months in my upstate studio and not talk to or share music with anyone. At the moment, collaboration feels natural and easy, and I’m working with the right people who give me the right amount of criticism, encouragement, feel good about contributing, and whose contributions make me excited about music. Leverage Models is still my baby, and everyone knows that, but there’s a lot of mutual respect and love with the people I choose to work with, that’s criteria #1 for me.

You love your gear don’t you?

I’m not really a studio geek. I work on intuition. I believe in the things now that I believed in as a teenage music fanatic. I never cared much for stuff that seemed like it was a put-on, or rehearsed, or like a fashion accessory. That’s what I feel a kinship for.
Why did you move from New York City to Cooperstown? Does location have an impact upon sound?
I do think location can have an impact on sound…I think location has a particularly heavy impact on performances in the studio, especially when any real level of improvisation is involved. When I produce other bands from NYC I often try to convince them to leave the city to do it. For me I’m not sure moving has had any obvious or direct impact on the sound of Leverage Models aside from removing some outside influences I didn’t really find helpful. The move to the country (we live on a working horse farm) was a joint decision with my wife and it had mostly to do with the quality of our lives…and some decisions we had to make about the kind of people we did and did not want to be. But my bandmates are based in Brooklyn and Queens and I’m in the city every few weeks, so that creative umbilical cord is still important and intact.
The Guardian describes your music as ‘worship of 1982’ and a desire to recreate the sound. Is this conscious? Is any of the music making process conscious?
I think, like a lot of these things a publicist threw up a reference to 1982 in a press release or an email and a writer decided to run with it. It’s a good press ‘hook’ for the story. I’m hyper-aware of the musical past I’m playing around with but I’m also not personally interested in pastiche. I’m not sure what MJ’s “Thriller”, ABC’s “Lexicon of Love”, The Associates “Sulk”, and Segun Adewale’s “Ase” (all made in 1982) have in common that could be picked out of a lineup of records spanning the late 70’s through the mid 80’s. They’re very different. A lot of records were made in 1982… I love records and, yes, I’m a bit of a music and music production nerd, but not so much that I could isolate the production techniques and fashions of 1982 (as opposed to 1981 or 1983) and claim to be an heir to them. There are also a lot of late 80s and 90s digital synths and guitar sounds on the Leverage Models record too. And a lot of auto-tune and current R&B rhythms and textures. What draws me to a lot of the records I love from the late 70’s and early 80’s, is the really blatant combination of studio slickness and post-punk amateurishness, especially in some of my favorite vocalists of that time. There is a kind of hysteria in some of these records, a reckless abandon that I connect with, a lot of really beautifully weird experimentation with early digital technologies sitting aside a very settled and perfected use of analog technology and that clash of traditions excites me. I want pop music to make the moment feel like it matters at the same time that I want to dance. I want to dance and shake around like my life depended on it…and to believe that. I don’t want to ever feel like I’m wiser than the things I’m dancing to, I don’t believe in guilty pleasure. I don’t believe that good art is timeless because we aren’t timeless – we’re on a very short timer, you and I.
http://nyc.thedelimagazine.com/17698/interview-leverage-models

WOLVVES

admin — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 09:09:00 +0000

It’s hard to get close to electronic trio WOLVVES, shrouded in mystery as they like to be. I gives= it a go, but like their sound, the answers could be drenched in layers of clandestine and furtive yet frenzied secrecy. Quivering synths, harmonized and fused vocals, the triplets take their classical training in piano, guitar, harpsichord, drums, and voice, chuck it in to their personal obsessions with synthesizers, drum machines, analogue tape and a host of buttons and beats, breaking down barriers in genre to create what they call ‘witch step.’ It’s an effort to listen to – this isn’t sunny afternoon music – but keep at it and on every go a new sound or state unfurls itself at, lucid and angry in shadowy ecstatic agitation. Bristling along before a detonation, it always feels a little terrifying, but utterly beguiling. This is the first time that New York triplets Joshua, Elizabeth and Lewis Valleau have united in music making, and it is taking them to peculiar and petrifying heights.

The titles of your songs all suggest dark emotions and life turmoil, do you write from experience or interest in this side of life?

Dark emotions perhaps, but not necessarily life turmoil. If the tone is dark, it’s exultant! We are reveling in the night. We see our songs as being quite pious in a way – offerings to the gods like Kali or Tezcalipoca or Paula Abdul. We feel it’s important to cover all our bases just in case. “A Breath Away” for instance is a kind of ecstatic love and longing song about the Moon. We think she was appreciative, based on her recent astral acrobatics. An important part of our songwriting is storytelling as well. Our forthcoming album will complete the saga of teenage triplets who run away from a cottage in the woods towards the bright lights of the city. Sadly they are attacked and eaten by wolves on their journey, but in the process they become half-ghost/half-predator creatures that both remember being alive and enjoy their new lives as pure-minded killers. The story is semi-autobiographical. 😉 “It Speaks” is really the seed of the album – the moment of transformation.

Sibling rivalry or support?

Support, to the point of Hive Mind. TwinSpeak. Sympathetic Magick. Pushups. We make kick-ass band meals together. We do high-speed borough laps in the middle of the night banging Berghain techno mixes. We are love.

What is the ghostliest experience to have happened to you? Do you believe we are ‘living in someone else’s past?’

The quote about “someone else’s past” is actually something William Gibson said at a talk we attended (his writing are a huge inspiration to us). We have had many experiences of slipped time, and a sense that the future, fully formed, is looking back on us. Neil DeGrasse Tyson could say it better – but the universe is powerfully haunted by itself. We hope this means that Beyoncé will somehow live forever.

New York is a city of bright lights – why so dark?

In the dark, the light shines brightest. New York City is our ultimate muse – our home; holy ground. It lures to devour, and surrendering yourself is the first step of ascension. It baptizes you with poverty, aggression, bad smells and the elements, and you emerge reborn as its fierce offspring. It’s joyous, but very wild. Also Lombardi’s.

Your music isn’t the most accessible – is it a process of creating for fame and success, or an elemental urge?

We respect and honor musical tools like pop and hooks – they are powerful energy conductors, and some of our songs will demand them. But the songs are people too. Others will need to be a little more liminal, abstract – maybe a little oblique. We are passionate about stretching out the moment between things – the emotions and colors we don’t have words for. We think these are the truest parts. Fame is never a factor, but we believe in power of a riot.

Are you inspired by visuals and other art forms? It sounds like it… I can imagine glacial landscapes and deep philosophical conversations.

The phrase “Let’s make it sound the way ____ smells…” is not an uncommon statement when we are working. Haha… All three of us have varying degrees of synaesthesia and therefore mixed metaphors are essential. We’d like put the whole world in our mouths, but for the sake of time let’s just talk about movies. 🙂 In the studio at all times Blade Runner is playing it 1/35th speed. Peter Greenaway, David Lynch, Kenneth Anger, Cronenberg, Buñuel, Jodorwosky, Guy Maddin, Blah blah blah Amen. However our favorite movie might be The Return of the Pink Panther. Or Purple Rain.

http://nyc.thedelimagazine.com/17653/wolvves-interview-enigmatic-brooklyn-band

Catey Shaw

admin — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 09:02:00 +0000

Isn’t it funny how what once may have been a byword for cool suddenly becomes a term with which to slate. Take Brooklyn. The neighbourhood is now pilloried for being a hipster cliche as a result of that other dirty word: gentrification. Catey Shaw was pilloried for her video for debut Brooklyn Girl, people bellowing it as the final nail in the coffin of cool. Screw ‘em. Shaw makes poppy plastic music doused with suggestive coos that sticks in your head. An undeniablely sharp buoyancy oozes throughout album ‘The Brooklyn EP’ – and you know what, she sounds happy? There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes being cool as fuck isn’t that cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2poC56ycWA

Lazer Cake

admin — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 09:09:55 +0000

We’re from short in music with an eighties influence, but that’s not to say there’s not room for more. Rhythmic synths throb under exultant melodies and chiming beats through songs designed for twitching nervously on the dance floor. Earnest vocals from singer/drummer Robby Sinclair are backed up by a dynamic wash of synths Alan Markley, swaying guitars from Tom Deis and Grant Zubritzky’s punchy bass. Lazer Cake are like the early hours of a party when all is a little hazy – and you’re not too late to join them.

Cassandra Jenkins – Rabbit

admin — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 18:30:18 +0000

It starts with a crashing cymbal and ends with moonlight twinkle. In between, on Rabbit, we find a gentle halcyonic rolling wash of guitar and precise yet eerie keys, perfectly placed percussion dissipating into Cassandra Jenkins‘ bittersweet tones that tell tales of a queen and a king that seem somewhat disillusioned but tinted with hopefulness. There’s a languor to proceedings, at least to start with, before a teasing frivolity and back and forth gasping vocal scales. Rabbit has just the right amount of production at the touch of co-writer Sam Griffin Owens – not so much lo-fi but genuine.

The song is dedicated to Jenkins’ goddaughter in memory of her parents’ now deceased pet rabbit and comes with the following note: ‘After Rabbit passed away in 2004, her body was sent to North Carolina to the teenage taxidermist, Amy Ritchie. She returned to New York beautifully preserved with one peculiar detail. On one side of her face she bears a neutral expression, and on the other a beguiling smile.’

Free Time

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 15:17:12 +0000

‘New York was there, but what did I care,’ sings lead singer of Free Time, Dion Nania, on Here & There from their debut and eponymous album. Apparently, a lot, since he upped sticks from home town Melbourne to the big city in 2011, and brought his jangly strained guitar vibes with him. With a disinterested bounce, Free From tell the tales of suburban frustration and misery in a whimsical fashion, and where similar bands Real Estate, Beach Fossils and mates Scott & Charlene’s Wedding vibrate slowly with resurgent intensity. Song titles such as I Lost Again, World Without Love and It Doesn’t Stop suggest a pessimistic outlook, but new tracks Guess Work and Esoteric Tizz, the new 7″, are delivered with such nervy skittish disillusionment that the songs never sound bleak. Sunny melodies and exasperated lyrics just sound like the reality of being in the world’s greatest city, but on a rainy grey day

Icewater – Bite Fresh Air

admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:40:20 +0000

Delicate and detailed, Bite Fresh Air by Brooklyn band Icewater is a song of understated dexterity, all meandering melodies exploring the soundscape, waves of colour and visions of yearning. Not folk exactly, not acoustic, it is earnest and entrancing, with shifting strains of elegant guitars and a hazy spirit that lays over rhythmic and hypnotic gentle beats. Although housing a bittersweet sound that surely must be imposed by the listener given that it was recorded before the tragic and sudden death of founder member Grant Martin in August last year, there’s a gentle warming feel to it that endures and endears throughout its wandering.