The Ghost of Greenwash
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Yes it’s true. We are delighted and honored. We are being remixed by an amazing array of artists including AGF, Bruce Gilbert, Susan Stenger, Neotropic, SFT, Jem Finer and dj Mutamassik. We are steamy with anticipation at the potential results. Probably a good thing considering these chilly times.
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A lovely photo of us just after our Whitechapel Art Gallery gig – with costumes by Mandy McIntosh – we love the crocheted gorilla masks, which remind us of our heroines The Guerilla Girls.
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The Gluts perform Passionfruit Pie live for the first time
Played Modern Art Oxford on friday night. We were in the cafe, which has been recently transformed from a loading bay to a street-facing coffee house designed by Richard Woods. The long and thin space made it difficult to connect to the audience – I found myself constantly looking from left to right and back again (remember the green-cross code?) The sound system was great and there were reports that we managed to stay in tune 60% of the time! We certainly had fun playing and singing.
Held an impromptu auction for the floods in Pakistan in the middle of the set; The Gluts auctioned off (amongst other things) one of our ‘outer’ bras with GLUTS sewn across it. Unwashed since Copenhagen, a right bargain.
I heard that a few people left during the set because they thought we were parodying the green movement… if you are still out there, we weren’t. If anything, we are parodying capitalism, our part in it and the ecological demise that it has bought with it. We are cracked, contorted and twisted absurdists. Thanks to everyone at MAO for being so kind.
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Gina is busy editing video material and Kaffe is preparing sound for this weekend, when we will be showing some videos at the Spiral 10 Festival. It’s an all female line-up… the other residency artists presenting work are Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa and Serena Korda, both of whom have been working with dance. Emma has been collaborating with a choreographer and will be teaching people how to dance like rock gods (this is certainly a workshop for The Gluts) and Serena has worked with dancers, choreographing the assemblage of a sculpture. Looks very exciting.
Alongside sowing (ha! typo) our videos, we will be shooting ‘Passionfruit Pie’ in the CAC garden on Saturday 28th at 3pm and performing live on Sunday 29th at 3.30pm. If you are thinking of coming over – check out travel for the weekend as there are lots of closures for maintenance on the tube and overland lines to Finchley Road.
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We were back in the studio at Camden today, videoing our anthem GMNO while wearing 3 metallic green gimp suits. Gina and I nearly suffocated in ours and had to cut holes for our eyes and mouth – a very claustrophobic experience. We played a kind of video ‘musical-statues’, where we danced and then stopped the music for one of us to run on, unzip the others costume and squeeze a piece of fruit or veg down it. After this the dancing would start again (all in the name of video continuity of course). It worked well and we really got that genetical mutation going using our delicious palette of broad beans, cucumber, apples, potatoes and melons!
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We are at the top of Primrose Hill to shoot Spaghetti Carbonorama. It’s one of our most popular hits and will always get the crowd jigging along. Right now it gets the Italian tourists jigging along as we have the music playing and our doing our most spectaular and synchronised dance routine with the London skyline behind. Gina has restyled her costume with knee pad breasts and an aeroplane neck rest hat adding a vibratory bonus to the opening sequence. Check January entry for the original version.
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At last we are in the garden. This time back at Camden Arts Centre to shoot Locally Grown Worm and Potato Salad. This is one of our favorite numbers possibly to do with the splendid costume additions, romantic musical style opening-breaking-down-to something quite unexpected, and inspired ending. It’s quite silly and very funny, celebrating the joy of growing your own vegetables within a lyrical prose. Yes we love this number so have an even better time when we discover the three pronged tree to slip in and out of in the garden rather than the usual on stage peek-a-boo routine from behind chairs. Quel jour. In fact we will be performing this live for the Spiral Weekend, next Sunday afternoon August 29th.
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Day three of our video shoot found us in The City – under the gherkin and outside The Royal Exchange. Dressed in over-sized suits we sported comedy moose-tashes and sung our song Roast of Greenwash into mobile phones. The City was quite empty and we imagined everyone on holiday (at their second homes in Tuscany perhaps?) The bankers who weren’t on their holidays were spending their time chillaxing on the steps of The Royal Exchange – texting a deal or two on their mobile phones or arranging a date perhaps? All in all, it seemed that there were more tourists than bankers around. We tried to assimilate ourselves, and hung around making a deal or two before going for a large lunch with lots of wine, port and stilton.
I overheard a banker speaking on their phone:
“Who is the owner of this planet?
I need to buy some more, dammit.
I haven’t got enough,
give me more of your stuff.
Put a green stamp on it,
I just don’t give a shit.”
Uncanny, it was just like listening to our own lyrics!
We are working with a lovely cameraperson Luke Perkin – he has been absolutely brilliant today. Thank-you Luke.
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Just finished a long day working on a video for our song Arctic Roll. We created a very convincing 1970s sitting room in the studio at Camden Arts Centre and then sang into our spoons while eating this special ice-cream.
I haven’t eaten arctic roll since I was a child, it still tastes the same, though the ‘carpet’ sponge seems a bit thinner now. They may have changed it a bit, as there is now a raspberry swirl through the middle.
All together now…
Roll-up, roll-up for some arctic roll!
The last desert on earth
At home with The Gluts
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