Dean Rodney, the charismatic singer of The Fish Police. Photograph: The Fish Police
‘It’s gonna be a big one,” warns Dean Rodney, lead singer of the Fish Police – and although size is always relative, he isn’t wrong.
Within minutes of taking my seat at Café Oto, the five-piece launches into a song that has the venue on its feet. ‘Coco Butter’ nods to the quirky alternative hip-hop of De La Soul with its blaring 80s funk keyboards, but as a paean to the pale-yellow, edible vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean, this is music that inhabits its own unique world.
“Just a little cream, raise your hands up to the skies, it will moisturise,” Rodney implores. Won over, the crowd obeys. Before I know it the chairs are folded away – I’m in danger of becoming an island in a sea of revellers.
There’s no raised stage so audience and band blur into one as the dirty fuzz bass and spoken-word intro to ‘Black Scissors’ kicks in, calling to mind the silliest (and most fun) excesses of George Clinton.
The Fish Police play catchy and uplifting pop songs informed by singer Dean Rodney and guitarist Matt Howe’s autism. The band is part of a nascent music scene, where learning-disabled acts share bills and audiences with those unaffected, that includes Ravioli Me Away, a post-pop-punk trio with a penchant for costume who are the evening’s excellent support act.
Listening to the Fish Police takes you away from the drudgery of the real world into a joyful realm inhabited by cartoons.
Through the course of the night we hear about a Japanese girl who is “always reading and falling asleep in the classroom” and Monica 300, whose defining feature is her blue hair.
Watching the band is pure escapism from everyday drudgery, with Rodney’s deadpan delivery balanced by soulful backing vocals and some very capable musicianship from bassist Charles Stuart and drummer Andrew McClean (both of whom have played in Grace Jones’s backing band, no less).
The biggest crowd pleaser of the night is ‘Chicken Nuggets for Me’, in which Rodney whips the crowd into a frenzy promising “I’m gonna tell you how I like my chicken” before doing just that in the chorus (no spoilers).
Jumping up and down about chicken nuggets is an oddly liberating experience, and one that – like the rest of this band’s extraordinary output – comes highly recommended.
There aren’t too many acts out there that can say they brought punk to Ethiopia. That is, however, one of the more colourful entries in Dutch group The Ex’s pretty darn colourful CV.
But just because you bring it, doesn’t mean anyone actually wants it. “No one had ever heard of punk; they’d heard of hip hop and jazz, but none of them knew our type of music,” recalls guitarist Andy Moor, originally of these shores. “They found it quite amusing – there was a lot of laughing.”
In the interests of balance, it is worth pointing out that punk is something of a misnomer. Sure, The Ex started out in 1979 (of course), fitting in nicely with the likes of Gang of Four, The Slits and Birthday Party.
But when Moor joined in early 1990s, bringing with him a love of African and Eastern European music, the band were set on a more experimental course. Moor identifies meeting and collaborating with American cellist Tom Cora as a real turning point, and soon The Ex found themselves invited to play at jazz festivals.
“The Ex grew out of the punk scene, but mutated into its own thing. It’s hard to define, but we don’t have to!” (Attempts by others range from anarcho-punk to ethno-punk to jazz punk.)
Many collaborations have followed, some with popular acts – the likes of Sonic Youth and Tortoise – others with less well-known jazz artists (depending on who you ask) such as Han Bennink or current collaborator, saxophonist Ken Vandermark.
It is these collaborations, Moor explains, in combination with the band’s own (untrained) spontaneity that drives their musical direction. “We don’t want to have a jam with every musician in the world; we’ll just hear a sound that appeals to us. They don’t even have to be great players.”
His favourite joint project is the work the band did with legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. “It was his idea – he saw us playing after we’d invited him to Amsterdam to play with the Instant Composers’ Pool (ICP). He came to us after, and said, ‘I want The Ex to be my band.’ We started rehearsing with him – none of us could speak Amharic, he couldn’t speak English, so we just communicated with hand signals, music, smiling, laughing. Somehow it worked – we were playing his pieces, songs he’s been playing for 40 years. That was my favourite maybe because it was so unlikely.”
One of the reasons The Ex can enjoy such musical freedom is their refusal to get involved with the trappings of the music industry – they have never had anything to do with a label or any type of management (now that’s pretty punk).
“I think the music industry has nothing to do with music. There’s great music that comes out of it, but the shit you have to deal with … we decided we’ll do it ourselves.”
It’s a fairly gruelling approach, Moor admits, which means they have to tour to live, and one which also means, he admits, they aren’t as well known as they might be (except, apparently, in France).
This might be read also as a political gesture as well as an artistic one – and indeed, the guitarist happily admits The Ex are a political band: “You sing about love, you sing about football, or you sing about your beliefs – we get frustrated, we see lot of shit happening around us – we manage to release a lot of that anger, but there’s also positive energy too. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of music – we want to make music we’ve never heard before, and music that we love. It’s simple.”
The Ex perform at Oslo, Hackney Central on 19 August 2015
The Slits’ Viv Albertine lights a cigarette next to Sid Vicious
“You, you’re a careerist generation basically. Always want an answer and a goal,” insists Viv Albertine, the punk musician turned writer. “I grew up without any goals, which may be terrifying or unusual for people today. That film came along, that book I had to write, that album I had to make: if I’m going to go through another fallow period, so be it. I’m not just going to churn out creative work to keep myself in the public eye, or to earn a few hundred quid, or for ego reasons. If I’m not passionate, then I won’t do it. I don’t give a fuck what does or doesn’t come next.”
Despite the message, it doesn’t come across at all anachronistic, heavy-handed, or preachy. In fact, as far as accusations go, I can’t help but feel swayed. Now 59, Albertine has carved out her entire life from a fierce, yet wholehearted independence: from her days as a teenager, haphazardly venturing off to Amsterdam with a mere five pounds, her significant role in the formation of punk with her band The Slits, to vetoing the suggestion of having her recently-released autobiography ghostwritten. Even today, she refused to give up on our interview. “I shifted and became the rock,” she tells me serenely. “My husband was my rock until then, but when I had a daughter, I became the strong one.”
The day before we were originally scheduled to speak – and the evening of her book launch – Albertine’s mother passed away. A flurry of overwhelming admin meant a second date was cancelled, while on the day itself even her venue of choice was closed. Undeterred, we amble across to Hackney Picturehouse and take up residence in the cafe.
Albertine was actually born in Sydney. Her parents had moved to Australia because “in the 50s there was this thing where people could move there for 10 shillings”. When she was four, the family took a boat back to England, and set anchor at a North London council estate. “Muswell Hill wasn’t as cool as it is now,” she explains. “But at the time, young Communist families lived there – there were a lot of very forward thinking people and their children in the area.” Albertine was fortunate enough to attend one of the first comprehensive schools in Britain, with other sonic luminaries such as Rod Stewart and the Kinks her fellow alumni.
It was while studying fashion and textile design at the Chelsea School of Art that she met Mick Jones, who went on to form The Clash. As punk began, the art connection proved fertile: “Art schools back then used to put on brilliant bands – Bowie was first put on by art schools, Roxy music and Pink Floyd too,” says Albertine, between sips of steaming green tea. “Don’t forget that punk didn’t exist. I was the scene, I was part of making it. Through Mick I met John Rotten, he was just a kid in a band, and Mick knew Malcolm [McLaren]. It was just people who knew each other around the same time. By the time it was called punk, it was already dead – it only lasted 18 months.”
In her autobiography, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, Albertine writes candidly, almost brazenly, about the scene at the time. Johnny Rotten supposedly complained that she was “trying too hard” when attempting to fellate him, while Sid Vicious apparently was still a bedwetter despite his hardman persona. As a devotee of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s fetish-influenced clothing, she claims many guys at the time “didn’t know whether they wanted to kill us or fuck us”. Her bandmate Ari Up, the 15-year-old singer of The Slits, was stabbed twice by strangers on the street within a single year.
In 1978, Albertine became pregnant by Mick Jones, and decided to have an abortion to continue with the band. It’s a decision that haunts her to this day. “I didn’t regret it for 20 years,” she writes. “But eventually I did. It’s hard to live with.” She explains on the day: “Up till I was in my mid-30s, I couldn’t bear the thought of being a mother. It absolutely revolted me. It made me feel nauseous to see someone pushing a pram, because to me it represented the end of all opportunities. Then, when I fell in love, whether it was biology or age catching up to me, I had to have a daughter.”
What followed was “seven years of absolute madness”: attempts to get pregnant via IVF, diagnosis with cervical cancer six weeks after the birth of her daughter and an ill-fated attempt to become an obliging housewife. Albertine became so ashamed that her daughter initially grew up unaware that her mum had been in a band, but she eventually resolved to be honest. “I decided to let her know who I am, and trust that she will love me anyway,” Albertine enunciates in her lingering North London drawl. “I was a very natural mother. It surprised me. I knew what to do. That may be a legacy from my own mum, who was a very strong woman.”
Since The Slits disbanded in 1981, Albertine has variously been an aerobics instructor, a filmmaker, a ceramicist, a solo artist and the co-star of Joanna Hogg’s art-house movie, Exhibition. Now, she lives in an artist community in Hackney, and in a way, there’s a sense of completion. “I’ve lived in North, South, and West London, but never ever East. But a year ago, I had to move, with my divorce and all that, and I just got absolutely drawn here. It’s so funny, but now I actually feel like I’ve come home.”
Albertine is one of several music icons now residing in the borough, alongside the likes of Thurston Moore, whose label released her EP Flesh. “I absolutely adore it. I love getting the bus home, and I start hitting East London. I love the old warehouses, and the higgledy piggledy.”
The title of the autobiography actually comes from her mother, who once said that clothes, music and boys was all her daughter was interested in. What advice would she give herself as a young girl, I ask. “You’ve got to live your life as if you’re not going to have a tomorrow. Of course I’m still scared and feel like a twit, and know I can’t play very well, but I’m going to live my life how I want live it, because when I go, no one’s going to give a shit that I’ve made a fool of myself here, there or anywhere.”
