Skunk Anansie and Metallic Knitted Boleros- Yes it’s Fucking Political.
The train from London Bridge to New Cross sweeps through a few neighbourhoods, over top recycling plants, and past council blocks, but one compound which it only narrowly misses has always intrigued me. On one side of the building I could see stacks boxes and files filling every window, worn and yellow. From the other side of the building though I could see activity, a grizzled man-boy smoking a butt out the window, or some shit-hot hipsters clambering on to roof. Once or twice I swear I heard music. This past sunday, I learnt that this complex was the biscuit factory, and within the sprawling blocks named Almond and Pecan lay The Music Bank which the posters allege is a collection of shit-hot rehearsal studios.
I was at the biscuit factory (no relation to the chateau de gateau) with Craig Lawrence, as per usual, and Fred Butler as they finished pieces for Skin, the infamous front of Skunk Anansie. The band was running through their final rehearsal before the tour launched the next day, which will hit London in a matter of hours. As a suburban (sorry) from the other side of the Atlantic (apologies again), I won’t feign to have known their first incarnation well, but when they started playing the raw force of their music combined with something that I can only call the athleticism, rather than cynicism, of iconic punk/britrock/heavy-fucking-alt-rock from another era. Yes, I was drawn in. Yes I had began to pine for beer and a crowd to thrash about in. After they tested the flammability of Craig’s knitted griffin-like metallic bolero – Belgium apparently is a land of health and safety where these things matter – Britain is less so – I went to relieve myself of their beer I had wished for. As I struggled with the doors of the cargo lift, I caught site of a hand drawn poster from 1997, the Bizarre Fest in Cologne, Skunk Anansie headlining with Faith No More. Then I understood. Angel Dust was one of my first cassettes, I could place Skunk Anansie now, if only by proxy, and understood just what this comeback meant, what it would be worth for all the people who hadn’t known them but will get that chance now. I’m on my way to the London gig at Electric Ballroom in Camden now. I can’t fucking wait.
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