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By Iva Wilcox © 2010 ~ Three dapper skeletons are all dressed for the big night - October 31! Available on SpookyTime Jingles.com and in my Etsy shop.
Taken on Dapper Day Spring 2016 in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Dapper Day is held twice a year at Disney parks in Florida, California, and Paris, and is a reason to dress in vintage or other upscale wear and both see and be seen. Visit www.dapperday.com for more information.
Starstruck 'The Road to Fame' cassette cover
Bosque Records
bosc 016
1997
SIDE A
Curtis Glitters
Fat Star
Bea
Let you be
No time for Bimbo
Song for Mark
A farewell to limbs
SIDE B
Rig of the month
Bad boy
Fondled orange
14th floor
Starstruck :- (On 'The road to Fame' LP)
Likeable tinkers living languidly in a leaky 'n' lavish caravanette.
(Their previous incarnation was as the superb 'Million Teddybears',
which disolved after they aquired the taste for blood, leopardskin and pussy.)
With this live lp, you can dance to the very best of a decade of Starstruck; from the flambouyant furore of 'Rig of the Month', to the prissily pensive 'Party on your Own'. With their sticky, floundering, hot stench, they put the 'tar' back into 'Starstruck'.
(Pat Laureate)
Starstruck - The Road to Fame
More glam (as in glamorous) rock shenanigans from one of the most entertaining live acts in Glasgow. Accompanied by a great booklet and , as you’d expect from Bosque, great packaging.
(Gayle Brogan / Boa)
interview by Kate for Galactic zine. If anyone knows where Kate is ask her to send me the photos.
STARSTRUCK pulled into town straight from their acclaimed Newcastle performance with Delicate Vomit and Milky Wimpshake. They transformed 120 Rats with the aid of just leopard and tiger print furs, a disco ball spinning on a dansette and their own innate glamour. Even the failure of the glitter ball two songs into the set did not dampen the performances of:
Lawrence (drums and 3-piece suit),
Philippa (keyboards, PVC blouse and knee high boots),
Dominic (bass and silver PVC dress),
Mark (guitar and sparkly flares) and
Tom (singing, crushed velvet flares and moonboots).
Starstruck were born to perform, born to wow audiences with their unique blend of 'classic rawk' riffs and cheesy keyboards. Tom and Mark are Bet Lynch's (other) illegitimate sons and heirs to her wardrobe.
As befits such a stylish combo, Starstruck have been interviewed by i-D magazine for a feature
on Vesuvius bands. This slightly less prestigious interview was conducted in the back of their van (decorated with huge flame murals, of course), once dapper Lawrence had finished using it as a dressing room...
You release your own records and tapes. Is this through choice?
T: Nobody else will put a record out by us. People think it's a good idea then come and see us and hate us. It's obviously important to put records out so...
P: Someone from a record company came to see us a few weeks ago but we were really really pissed and really really shite, so I think we totally ruined our chances.
L: Bob Stanley from St Etienne is quite interested in the idea of us and is remotely interested in hearing us.
And he's got quite a lot of money. Buys Jagermeister.
So if Bob Stanley turns up you’ll stay sober?
P: I'm not staying sober for anybody.
T: It's not worth it. Fish has been quite supportive. We appeal to his sense of parochialism 'cuz he's from just outside Edinburgh where we started out.
P: We're hoping to get a tour with Suzi Quattro soon. I think we're about this far (puts fingers very close together) from getting it. If we get that we're on our way.
T: We're going to end up on the sixties revival North of England circuit. Town halls .
That's your career plan?
T: That's it, just get a bit older.
L: Being on Sounds of the Seventies, that's my ambition.
T: Soon enough, people will just think of us as having been around forever and the actual length of time won't be important. I mean we're playing seventies music...
How long have you actually been together?
T: About 15 years.
P: No, it's more than that, it’s about 22.
T: It's basically since first meeting. Every song that ever got written whether it was 9 years old or five years old has been used in a Starstruck set at some point. One of the songs we're doing was written when I was about 13 and you (Mark) were about 7 - no, you were about 2 - I used to torment you with it. I used to torment a screaming little baby with a song about Satan. Children really get taken in with all that God/Satan stuff. When you're older you can educate yourself and become a bit more cynical and wary;
God's an improbability.
L: I believe in God. I would say I've gone the other way around. I was brought up an atheist and it's taken me a long time to get it out of my system.
T: But your schooling...
L: My school was very irreligious...
T: At school I touched a radiator, got an electric shock and passed out for a few minutes and saw God.
(Silence ensues but the interview returns to the secular).
When did YOU come up with the name?
T: The name was actually originally Stars Truck. We went to David Bellamy's Festival of the Future in Fife and there was this band that drove past, and it said 'Stars Truck' on it, which we thought was really good.
M: So we just broke into the truck and stole it.
T: Coincidentally, it was full of really good quality musical equipment - all of which we've subsequently pawned, so we're just left with shitty P*ls*r amps. But it was a good start, it was a help.
What's been the biggest problem you've faced as a band?
T: Bass players.
L: This one excepted. (Dominic, also of Dominic Waxing Lyrical, who originally comes from York!)
T: We found this one on a service station on the way to Newcastle. He was hitching north but we just took him south.
L: And he's really, really good. But other ones just ripped us off. There was this guy Alec, he's just so hard, he's a black belt in karate, the kind of guy you just don't argue with.
T: He wiped all these really great tapes we'd done in the studio.
M: We know where you live!
T: It was the LP that was going to break us. He had this ludicrous idea that it was 'hissy' 'cuz he'd accidentally not turned on the Dolby on the back of the reel to reel machine. It was class, it was classic rock 'n' roll. Paul Weller would've loved it. No, Paul Weller would’ve hated it.
L: Everybody sounds like Paul Weller. Have you noticed that? Everybody's turned into Paul Weller.
What other bands in Scotland would you recommend?
T: Marillion.
L: There's this band that's got this guy's name in the title. It's something like D…
P: Henry Waxing Lyrical. I think.
T: We put a single out by him. It's really good. So everyone should buy it?
T: If everyone bought it there wouldn't be enough.
M: We've got 500.
P: Trout!
Everyone else: Trout!
D: Salmon!
L: It's this really weird band 'cuz initially Willie the singer seems like the crazy one and Steve the bass player seems like the sensible one and the drummer seems a wee bit mad but as you get to know them better you realise that Willie the one who looks crazy is actually completely sane.
P: And the other two are completely off their heads.
L: The other two are fucking lunatics.
P: But they're really nice.
L: Oh yeah. Absolutely great. Kenny the drummer sort of walks on one leg more often than he does on two and it's really easy to spend half an hour in his company and not understand a single word he says.
What kind of music do you listen to?
P: Technotronic, S'Express
M: 2Unlimited. Melanie
L: Kenickie (To Dominic) You're in a band with a couple of blokes from York aren't you
D: How do you know that?
L: Somebody told me.
D: Oh no!
(Everyone laughs)
L: St Christopher, St Christopher.
D: It's the guys out of St Christopher. It's called the 21st Turn On
(more laughter)
and I'm proud. I'm just a pawn in what we're doing. I just dress up and play bass.
(They describe how they found a romper suit - with bunny rabbit - to fit a six foot man in Newcastle, but Dominic unfortunately refused to wear it)
What do you think of Take That splitting up?
P: It depends what they do next.
L: I'll give them a couple of years to come
up with some interesting solo projects but after that questions will be asked.
D: I keep getting likened to one of the guys in that so I'm thankful they're splitting up.
L: What's his name?
D: Mark
P: The cute one!
D: The way he smiles
(He smiles and everyone laughs. Poor boy.)
What did you see yourself doing when you were younger and have things turned out like you expected?
L: When I was younger, I thought I'd be something really great. I thought I'd be
something like the Prime Minister, quite an ego driven child. It's turned out quite disappointing.
M: I thought that I would’ve won the lottery by now. I thought I'd be really rich.
D: I was told I'd be really rich as well.
Louise (band's friend): Who by?
D: By someone in the church congregation.
L: Bend over little boy and l'll make you rich!
T: I thought I'd be completely bald by this time so I'm quite happy.
P: I'm still quite young. Come back in ten years time.
What are your favourite outfits for wearing on stage?
L: A white raffia sack that was upside down with numbers all around and Mark wrote 'Judy Teen' on it. It was really square. I had no knickers on and I never thought that when I was playing the drums.
M: It was alright when he was walking.about but when he sat down at the drumstool…
L: I feel like people will always look at me in the street 'cuz of that and that's what I want to do - reach out.
D: I don't have a problem with it but I enjoy wearing ladies' clothes on stage, it's one of the few places you can wear them without people asking too many questions.
T: I've got a really nice one piece Elvis jumpsuit which my friend Lucy made for me. It says 'Bad Boy' on the back in rhinestones.
P: Usually when we play a gig I drink loads of lager. My stomach swells up, so l like something to hide the fact that I look pregnant. So anything really that covers that stomach thing.
D: Like the keyboard.
P: I can balance it on my belly.
M: I just like dressing up. It's fun. We spend more time dressing up than we do practising.
Which is more important to you - the music or the clothes?
M: The clothes.
T: We wonder why people come out to see us; well, we suspect it's just to find out what we're wearing.
M: Sometimes it backfires.
T: We did an acoustic gig a few weeks ago where we all wore white. We were all gleaming white and drinking milk on stage. The gentlemen had little moustaches.
L: We were sitting on the stage trying to look creepy but everyone just thought we were pissed off.
Where do you get your clothes from?
M: Charity shops.
P: My wardrobe.
M: Paddy's Market is the main supplier.
P: Jumble sales.
T: Bosque Records is going broke because of payments on the clothing allowances that everyone has. It's a bummer but it's going to go down sometime so better for it to go on clothes than some rubbish CDs.
Have you thought of doing a line of clothes instead of records?
T: We are going to have vests soon. They're going to be random vests with a star striking a figure. (Lawrence draws the design on the van window).
M: I don't want that, I want the one with the burning skull, sort of apocalyptic, Starstruck written like SS, really heavy metal.
Do you think you are inspired by heavy metal?
M: No. We play heavy metal but we're no inspired by it.
L: You read the letters page in the NME and you just think, you wanks, little anal arseholes. But if you read the letters page in Kerrang it's just really nice letters and I do genuinely look at it and think I would much rather have a heavy metal audience 'cuz people just write in and say 'what kind of guitar strings was he using on such and such a solo' and there isn't any pretence of like 'I'm involved in this'. It's just 'I worship these people from afar'. Thats how I've always felt about music.
T: We all started out just being starstruck with a small 's'.
Whatever that means.
Superhero bros looking dapper in their suits, NYC. L->R: Captain America, Wolverine, Green Lantern, Spiderman.
I feel bad because I was able to photograph group of Dapper Ladies while I was in Montreal last year. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that I needed a better way to organize my images on the road, and I've lost most of the shoot. Fortunately, I got a nice one of an old friend I met when she started dancing in the DC many years ago.
#dapperlady
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This man was one of the contestants for the Best Dressed Gentleman at the Eroica Britannia festival last year.
spent the morning with my two favorite flickr friends. They always make hanging out fun. I almost forgot that normal people don't walk around the D in a tux, in the middle of woodward, in traffic, or with a gas mask. It seemed completely normal and reasonable to me ;)
anyway.... Dr Mike looking super dapper and handsome in his tux. He flew in on his plane and then drove over in his convertible and then jet skied across the river.... j/k. he is the kindest, most giving person ever. and that's what I like about him. thanks guys for letting me tag along!
Well you can see it was raining - it poured for a while and then stopped so we didn't stay long - didn't get to see the Dapper Dan's either since they didn't come out while we were there.