Posted on April 2, 2009 - by Mark Zonda

A Postcard From Kate

“What’s eating you is a mystery /but go home with her one more time / and you know you’ll be history”

“A lot of people say ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ is our best song. I’d say it’s one of the strongest. It’s a song we’ve played live at every gig since we wrote it, and that’s probably the only song we’ve ever done that with. It might not have been a ‘hit’, but it’s one that’s essential to play from our point of view – our set was always built around it. It’d just feel extremely weird not to play it. It’s been played at quite a few indie nights around the country, and I’m not entirely sure why – I mean, have you tried dancing to it? The rhythm’s all over the place!”

Reenie Hollis on Drowned in Sound

It takes a long breath to try to explain in words what a great band like The Long Blondes meant to me. To mine generation the band was a real avatar for all the great rebellion and romanticism that we used to admire on the darkest pages of the ’80s, when club gave the chance to dance some cleaver and touching music via The Smiths, The Fall, Joy Division, Elvis Costello, Delta Five, Elastica and Blondie. Blame it on Franz Ferdinand, that right in the middle of y2k decade turned on the revival of the old disco-punk grey ol’ whistley band up beat tempo, with stright disco drums, brilliant and touching lyrics and a not so secret tooth for coolness and sophisticated glamour.

First time I heard a Long Blondes song was in a club also. THE CLUB: Phoenix, London, 2005, How Does It Feel To Be Loved Friday Night. The song: “Gitty Stratosphere“. It was one of the early mix, probably even not at its final version. It didn’t looked like a modern song at all! I don’t know about the producer, but the sound was EXACTLY the one of ’70s disco clubs, expecially for the funky guitar, with chours and delays. And the voice! Kate Jackson really seemed a lot like Loni Anderson to me!

Years passed (a couple) and I became aware that THAT band was alive and kicking (just to throw you a quote).  It was“Someone to drive you home” (Rough Trade, 2006), the album. What a magic era! We used to listen to EACH song of the album EVERYWHERE. ANYTIME. I mean… it was not so uncommon to head for a friday night listening to “Swallow Tattoo”“, drink a couple of beers in a pub with a DJ spinning “Heaven Help the New Girl”, then going to a disco with “Once and never again” to find yourself in another car to your way back home listening to the same record. And never having enough!

The Long Blondes really marked an era.

Seeing them live was something too. Kate was passionate (she sang with all her heart), human (she kept on telling people not to riot and threw her water plastic bottles to fandom), and energic (Kate was a skater, on her mind and on stage as well). Band simply unbelievable (I used to stalk the UK fan in forums and they were so impressed to see through my youtube clips that Emma was ACTUALLY playing guitars).

Yes. ‘Cause there’s this urban legend too: The Long Blondes were nothing more than a group of friends really fond on retro-indie music that one day decided to pic an instrument only by its extetic value and start to practice as a bend in three weeks, aiming for songs above tecnique. And what a band we got!

Popularity breeds contempt. Guitarist and composer Dorian Cox had difficoutis due to his health, and could’t afford to keep on playing guitar anymore. The split-up, foretold by the strange sophomore album “Couples”, not so odd to say keyboard oriented.

Dear Kate, what will we get from your future solo career? Only Bonnie Parker knows…

The Long Blondes – “Madame Ray”

Let it ring on...

• How Does It Feel (0)
• When Blind Terry Wrecked My Mind (0)