The Horse Hospital....

.....is celebrating 15 years of existence!

I was invited to the private view about five minutes before it was due to start so wasn't able to arrange babysitting and missed a great party by all accounts but now I'm over it and I thought I'd give you a nudge in case you didn't know about the Horse Hospital or haven't been, this is a great opportunity to find out what they're all about.

The flyer is self-explanatory, I've never seen so many words on a flyer in my life!!! But it's saved me a job, so get thee to Bloomsbury!!!!

Madame xx

Tripping the Night Fantastic!!!

T-shirts were distributed....The Lovely Jonjo demonstrated the technique while pulling on his Lone Dog t....



Lektrogirl chose the Nigel Waymouth pop Jean Harlow...

Max felt that the Femmes Fatale was more him...

Jeff Dexter did us proud with his psychedelic set and even brought his own light fittings!

Wonderful turn out, Guy Sangster Adams from the Horse Hospital must've said something very shocking to Caz Facey....

Lara Clifton and Liza Angst popped in for a beer before their pub crawl around the brothels and strip clubs of the east end....

Jenny Drag from the Priscillas was in full leopard print force....

I played a storming set though I do say so myself, there were people actually dancing on the TABLES! Nice to have living legends Nigel Waymouth, Tommy Roberts and Jeff Dexter partying alongside Hoxton's finest....The Look Presents...another success, and any of these Granny Takes a Trip t shirts are available at Top Man for twenty quid. The brilliant thing is they go from xxs to xxl - bisexual t shirts! Get down to Topman boys and girls!

Cheers!


Madame x

Violet Time

Guy Sangster Adams came to Maison B to shelter from the rain with the Horse Hospital film crew last week having planned an interview with Alexis from The Violets in an outdoor setting surrounded by architectural splendour......A compromise to say the least was our bijoux basement and possibly the steadicam was slightly surplous to requirements!

I tried not to eavesdrop too much on their interview but my ears perked up as Alexis mused on Hitchcock's Marni as a huge influence....I love that film and saw it when very young as she did, I love Hitchcock's brittle complicated blondes and Marni's red-trigger makes her one of the more dangerous of the genre. I was interested to check out their music which you can do here, she's got an incredible set of lungs and comparisons to Siouxsie are lazy but there aren't many women around with big voices like this.....

I was so pleased with my picture of Alexis with new lilac hair against our pink wallpaper.....

....and I know I should have photoshopped the light switch out but I've got so much blogging to catch up on....

Madame xx

STEPHEN FOWLER EXHIBITION

My friend Stephen Fowler is about to have a new exhibition - this time at The Horse Hospital. Let's hope I make it to the opening on Friday without having to stand outside 'in the fresh air' and lean on a car because I was worried I would pass out and die from too much drinking the night before, then end up at Tsouni's birthday by accident with a bottle of Lucozade in my hand and end up playing musical statues til 5 in the morning watching Amph and Alex T wrestle in their socks. [Like I did and the last one...]

The Chamber of Pop Culture Is Proud To
Present:

'Instead of wives, they shall have toads" 
An exhibition by Stephen Fowler

Exhibition
Saturday 5th July - Saturday 26th July, 12-6pm
Mon-Sat 
Private View Friday 4th July, 6.30pm till late

The artist will be in residence on Thursday, Friday
& Saturday of each
week.



Stephen Fowler is a Folk Artist of extraordinary complexity, who over the past 5 years has created a vast body of work illustrating a deep emotional journey of personal identity. Discovering Fowler's work is literally like leafing through the pages of a giant eclectic scrapbook, which at first glance could have been created half a century ago, Fowler's multifarious practice embraces many traditional crafts, forgotten techniques and skills that belong to bygone age, drawing freely from the worlds of Dada, Surrealism, Constructivism, Abstract Expressionism, Outsider Art and Steam Punk to create his own diverse and rich aesthetic.

From naïve paintings of remote architecture, places of worship and hospitals, to moving portraits of troubled individuals, plant life and shell fish, Fowler presents us with a chronicle of assorted drawings, paintings, prints, posters, intricate handmade bookworks, leaflets, flyers, badges, sculptures, found objects and ephemera which reflect his various obsessions for graphics, poetry, old records, photographs, film.

"Instead of wives, they shall have toads" puts forth a meloncholy and playful world engendered carefully and lovingly 
by this sensitive artist. 

Fowler is well known for his creative collaboration with: The Murri Folk Club, Tapestry Music Festival, Tatty Devine, Zeel, Mark Pawson, Rob Ryan & Rocky Alvarez.

To accompany the exhibition there will be a programme of film and live music events. Curated by the artist.

FILM NIGHTS +
EVENTS

Wednesday 9th
July, 7.30pm
£5-£4 mems/concs 
We Have No
Art 
1967 26 minutes 
+
Mary's Day 
1964 12
minutes
Two documentaries on the Artist, Teacher, Nun; Sister
Corita. 
+
Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful
Noise HERE)
2006 105 minutes
Starring Danielson Famile & Sufjan Stevens with cameos from Steve Albini, Rick Moody, David Garland and DANIEL JOHNSTON.

Tuesday 15th
July 7:30pm
£5-£4 mems/concs
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum 
Directed by Lynn Shores
1940 B/W 66 minutes
Wax figures, hidden rooms, secret passage ways and pelting rain.
Sidney Toler stars as Charlie Chan in this claustrophobic museum setting.
+
The Bat Whispers 
Directed by Roland
West
B/W 83 minutes 1930
An old dark house melodrama.

Friday 25th July
7:30pm
£7/£5 members & concessions 

Home Made Record Sleeve Performance
(D.Js Nervous Stephen and Rocky play records from 'Home made records sleeves volumes 1 and 2' books, as corresponding record sleeves are projected). 
+
William Fowler Band 
(Post Barrett Space Folk)
Monogram
(Old Timey tunes)
The Country Teasers
(The Fall meets The Carter Family)


The Chamber of Pop Culture - "SERVING UP POPCULTURE FOR 15 YEARS
The Horse Hospital - Colonnade - Bloomsbury - London - WC1N 1HX
phone 44(0)207 833 3644
The Horse Hospital

xx Emma

The Great Unsaid

Vive le Punk is an intriguing film of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren talking at the retrospective of their work in 1993 at The Horse Hospital. I went to the Horse Hospital on Tuesday night to watch the film with Paul Gorman, Caz Facey and El Vez. Strange to view the piece in the very space it was filmed. You find yourself flicking your eyes from screen to surroundings as Vivienne leans against a pillar, thinking, is that the one? The film is a gem. To have Westwood and McLaren in a room together is a rarity in itself, since apparently they don't communicate any more and hadn't for several years previous to this meeting.



Dressed in similar gentlemen's overcoats and regarding each other with much suspicion it's an incredible study in awkwardness and the unsaid.....Vivienne Westwood spends the first half of the interview smoking, wincing at McLaren's incessant narrative, drinking her way through several glasses of red wine and barely being given the chance for a word in edgwise. Both are incredibly eloquent and brilliantly eccentric and Vivienne gets the last word in an amazing comment the young.....I don't know if there are plans to realease the dvd, it needs considerable cleaning up as there's a lot of irritating background scrapings and fidgeting, but it would be worth doing I reckon.

We had an intelligent discussion following the screening....

....and Paul chose to demonstrate his impressive wink...I'm always impressed with this as my face and mouth have to go into a state of animated shock to coax a wink, but as you can see, Gorman is a natural...

Great to spend time also with the wonderful El Vez, he is the Mexican Elvis impersonator but so much more...check out his En El Barrio video here....

And check out Madame the Giant here....

El Vez is not tiny as this picture suggests, I was just clutching him to my chest to show I like him!!

Madame x