Listen to a Londoner: K Anderson

Listen to a Londoner is a weekly interview with a Londoner – someone who lives in this city, born here or elsewhere. If you’re up for being interviewed, email littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk.

K Anderson, 28

K Anderson plays ‘lesbian music by a boy’ – confessional, conversational songs about the important things in life – getting older, bad sex, and needing a special someone in your life who can shave your back hair for you.

LLO: Which aspects of London life most influence your creativity?
KA: I think the randomness of London life is what is most inspiring. Turn a busy street corner and you could walk into a makeshift market, a film shoot, a drunken punch up or a protest march – you just never know. Speaking of random, the other day I ran into a girl who I went to primary school with on the other side of the world. My head is still spinning about that.

LLO: Where are you from originally, how long have you been in London and what brought you here?
KA: This is always a bit confusing: I was born in Scotland, but emigrated to Australia with my family when I was 8, and then moved to London when I was 22. My friends in high school were obsessed with Oasis, and I was obsessed with the Spice Girls, so England was the obvious place for us to plot our escape to. I was the only one who actually managed to move here, though…

LLO: Tell us about the making of your video for “Shrug”. Lots and lots of feet…
KA: I carried a video camera with me for a few months, and sheepishly asked all of my friends to dance for me when I caught them in a good mood.  I wanted a light and breezy video to go with ‘Shrug’, which is one of those toe-tapping songs disguising a sinister lyric. The hook of the song – ‘You want to call what we do love, I want to call it dirty sheets’ – keeps getting me into trouble with prospective romantic partners…

LLO: Favourite place in London to spend a Saturday night out on the town?
KA: My favourite club night is ‘Unskinny Bop’, which is held at The Star of Bethnal Green. They always play totally random songs, and so you find yourself dancing to tunes you haven’t heard in years and years. Expect Betty Boo followed by The Temptations, Fuzzbox, and The Backstreet Boys. Amazing!

LLO: What’s the best part about living in your postcode?
KA: I live in Stoke Newington, and although there are a number of pushchairs to avoid when walking down Church Street, I don’t think I would want to live anywhere else. There is a real sense of community here, and everyone I meet is fiercely proud of this little village. Oh, and there’s an amazing vegan stall at the local farmer’s market.

LLO: I hear you’ve been inviting people into your big new bed. Tell us more.
KA: I’m slightly modest when talking about my music, but if you start me talking about my bed you won’t get me to shut up! It’s a super-king-size, and I have been madly in love with it since I bought it last year. I started a video series, ‘In Bed With K Anderson’ as a way of not only showing it off, but the talents of my many singer/songwriter friends. The premise is simple – people come over and sing a cover of a recent hit song in my bed with me. It’s been such an inspiring project for me, and it’s great to discover they way other people approach music making.

LLO: While you were in bed singing Rihanna/Eminem cover, you wore a t-shirt with iron-on letters that says “vegans make better lovers.” Are you vegan? If so, what’s your favourite place to go out for vegan food in London?
KA: I am, indeed, a vegan. I would have to say that my favourite place to go in London for vegan food is RootMaster (www.root-master.co.uk/) – it’s an old routemaster bus which has been converted into a bustaurant (see what they did there?), and has delicious pizzas. Oh, and the cheesecake is quite delicious too.

LLO: What’s your favourite unique London discovery?
KA: Candid Café, which is behind Angel station, is just lovely. In an area which is riddled with Starbucks, Café Nero and Pret a Manger, it is nice to find a little, unique space which sells plenty of varieties of teas and has proper, worn-in couches to spend an afternoon lazing in. What’s especially good about it is that there’s almost always a place to sit!

LLO: You just launched your album, The Overthinker. Why should we immediately pick up a copy and have you thought about what’s next?
KA: ‘The Overthinker’ is a snapshot of London life for an unsure 20-something year old; someone who is no longer cocky enough to believe the world will bend at his whim, but also not yet fully comfortable with the person he is becoming. It is at times awkward, brash, and comforting. At all times, though, it is honest. Perhaps too honest.

For the future, I am most looking forward to doing more writing – bringing out an album is hard work! Before that, though, there will be more ‘In Bed with K Anderson’ sessions and music videos to accompany songs on the album. I will also be hitting the road soon, visiting different parts of this country with my guitar on my back…

LLO: What’s your favourite place to play a gig in London?
KA: I love playing at the cabaret venue Royal Vauxhall Tavern, because it has a proper stage, lovely sound, and a really appreciative audience. Oh, and it’s probably one of the only venues I play at in London which has its own dressing room. It may not be swanky, but it’s rather fun telling people that you have to go to the dressing room to get ready.

Thanks K!

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Listen to a Londoner: Owen Duff

Listen to a Londoner is a weekly interview with a Londoner – someone who lives in this city, born here or elsewhere. If you want to be interviewed, email littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk.

Owen Duff, 29

Singer-songwriter and sometime conceptual artist Owen Duff was born in Northern Ireland, grew up in Hull and now lives in Hackney, East London, where he makes songs and videos. His latest project is the EP ‘Under’, which is a set of songs inspired by living in the capital.

LLO: Which aspects of London life most influence your creativity?
OD: I think the biggest influence is just being amongst so many people, and being able to observe the things that people spend their time and energy making and doing. Life seems to happen faster here, so all these experiences, relationships, environmental and cultural changes are coming and going in quick succession, which can be overwhelming on a personal level but good for sparking off ideas. I also think the kind of people London attracts has an effect, in that it’s quite easy to meet people who’ve come here to try and achieve big and exciting things. Conversations with these people is often instrumental in provoking new thoughts and ideas.

LLO: You just released your first video to the song “London You’re My High”. What should we remember to appreciate about living in London if our spirits start to droop?
OD: Well, it’s an amazing place; most of us live in relative wealth and freedom, in a city with so much variety, history, and culture… really there’s so much opportunity to enjoy ourselves that we’re spoiled. Having said that, for me it’s the personal relationships that London has allowed me that I appreciate most – the size of the city means that I’ve been able to find many people with whom I have a lot in common and whose company I enjoy, whereas in a smaller town I might only have found a few.

LLO: Tell us a bit more about the video itself, where the idea came from, some of the locations you’ve picked out that are especially special to you, etc.
OD: The video was an idea I had whilst trying to get to sleep (most of my best ideas happen at this time; I’m a bit of an insomniac). I wanted to create something that both summed up my personal history in this city and was universal enough for other people to relate to. I started by making a list of all the memorable things that have happened to me since moving here, and then I started to think about where these things had taken place, which led me to think geographically, which is when I had the idea to use Google Earth to map out these experiences. I could have been more specific about what exactly each event was, but I wanted to leave it vague enough that people can read what they want into each.

LLO: You sing, play piano, guitar, ukulele, cello and percussion; write, record and produce. Sounds tiring. What are the most rewarding and most challenging aspects of producing an EP from start to finish?
OD: I think the rewarding-challenging aspects are intertwined – it is in overcoming the challenges that one finds the sense of reward. Certainly the early stages of writing can be totally euphoric, but after the initial inspiration comes the hard work of turning ideas into finished songs.

Lyrics are the thing I usually spend longest on, musically I tend to work quite instinctively and a lot from improvisation (sometimes I’ll just record a piano improvisation then go back and put words over the top, and that’s the song finished). There is a definite tension between the words and the music – often in order to express something properly I’d want to squeeze in as many words as possible, but that can really compromise melody and the ability to sing something well, so a balance has to be found. I tend to use extended metaphors and conceits quite a lot in my lyrics, which can make them hard work to complete as you’re trying to write about several different things at once.

I also find production difficult at times – unfortunately, I don’t have the skills nor resources to always arrange my songs as I imagine them (I’d love to arrange for different instrumental ensembles), so I have to find compromises, some of which work better than others. Production is so influential on people’s overall impression of a song that I can get quite hung up on trying to get it right. For example, ‘London You’re My High’ has gone through five different arrangements over a few years…

LLO: Your bio on your website says “Owen sometimes hides CDs in weird places around the world, just to see who finds them.” I’m intrigued. Tell us more.
OD: I did a project between 2008 and 2009 – http://twentytwominutesfourweeks.blogspot.com. The first part was writing and recording twenty songs in four weeks, which was a challenge I set myself just to see if I could do it. Once I’d finished the songs I was mulling over how and if I would release them, and decided that it would be fun to play with the way people find recorded music now. The ease with which music can be discovered and heard on the internet means some of its value is perhaps lost (of course there are many advantages to this, in terms of everyone’s ability to access music). I wanted people who found the music I’d made to feel that there was something different and enigmatic about them, so I had the idea to start hiding CDs with the twenty songs on them around London, for people to come across, without knowing what they were or who had left them there. I then extended the idea and started asking people in other cities around the world to help out – photos of all the different places that the CDs were hidden were then recorded on the blog. People should take a look! I haven’t hidden any in a while but I might do it again for a future project.

LLO: Favourite venue to play a gig in the capital?
OD: Well, I played Bush Hall last year, which was lovely, it’s a really nice building and has a good acoustic. I think though the favourite gig I played was at the Fleapit in Columbia Road, it was completely unplugged so I just sang and played guitar without having to worry about how I sounded through a microphone.

LLO: According to Twitter, your reading rate needs to match your book buying rate. Where are the best places to buy books in London?
OD: The best book shop I’ve found in London is in Notting Hill, the Book and Comic Exchange. I also like wandering around the second-hand bookshops south of Euston road.

LLO: Favourite London discovery?
OD: Ah, that’s a difficult one… I think it would have to be the amazing experiential/site-specific theatre that happens here, Punchdrunk being the main proponents. I have to give a mention to You Me Bum Bum Train as well, as I had an absolutely mind-blowing experience courtesy of them just last night.

LLO: Where is the most unique or quirky place you can recommend for food or drinks round here?
OD: I love Mess Cafe in Hackney, but it closed recently for refurbishment and I’m a bit worried they’re not going to reopen… For drinks my current regular haunt is the Nelson’s Head (also in Hackney), and I went to the Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell recently, which is quite special – the current building dates back a few hundred years and going in there feels a bit like traveling back in time.

LLO: What’s next for you and your music career?
OD: At the moment I’m working on another EP/album derived from some of the 20 “Two Minutes 4 Weeks” songs. I have woodwind arrangements I wrote for a live show in 2009 so would like to get those recorded. Once that’s done I’ll be gigging again, although I’d like to find more offbeat venues to play than those on the regular London circuit. I’m also working on new songs to release after that, and recording a few cover songs and videos – so far I’ve done Buddy Holly, Joanna Newsom and Whitney Houston, and I’m very open to suggestion as to others I could do. Last but not least I have some side-projects which involve different styles of music to be released under different names, but which will all exist under the banner of ‘Clothmother’, which is a sort of nominal label I created recently. After that, who knows…

Thanks Owen!

Links:

http://www.owenduff.co.uk
http://www.owenduff.co.uk/videos
http://owenduff.bandcamp.com

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