SONGS:

We’ve completely finished three new tracks – Scumpop, Stepford High Street and our cover of Let’s Spend The Night Together. Scumpop is the Glitter Band-meets-Bobby ‘O’; Spend is a pretty straightforward rocker (which samples the drum track from Larry T’s Supermodel); and Stepford is… quite unlike anything we’ve ever done before. It’s a moody electronic piece about urban paranoia with a big queasy chorus, though we couldn’t resist basing some of the words on one of our favourite upbeat ‘60s beat hits. It’s very intricate and was a bugger from start to finish.

In development are; I Love You At 200,000 Feet, a Giorgio/Donna Once Upon A Time-type love song; Everything Is Great, a sad tale of domestic violence; and Next Time, our Radio 2 friendly MOR classic. Two new songs are at the lyric stage – I Wasted Years In Pink and Philippe. Philippe’s meant to be our first French punk classic but you never know. Wonder how they’ll come out…

GIGS:

We didn’t do The Cock stage at Pride because the stage was exposed and Jemerey – rightly – didn’t want to chance getting his vintage Rolands soaking wet. In a daring Sex Pistols type highwayman sleight, we got paid anyway, though this was more to do with the generosity of Jim from The Cock than any Malcom McLaren wheeler dealing on our part.

Pride night however did see us do an impromptu 3-song set at Duckie. We were so pissed we can’t really remember it but we’re told it was good. There’s nothing like your own crowd.

The Cock Live at Crash in late-August was a blast. We were on the bill with Atomizer, Scissor Sisters and Synthetic Pleasures. Mark Moore, Tasty Tim and Phil Normal played the records and Tim did a marv job at MC-ing. We wore handmade kilts and played Spend, Scumpop, Bitch and Stepford. Apart from the drum track it was all proper live – well, you can’t keep doing Sinitta-style club PA’s forever, can you? Everyone seems to prefer the raw live Wifes anyway, and a big thanks to everyone who came down to see us. You can even see some pictures here

Way, way back in the earlier part of the summer we did two gigs at Egg in Kings Cross. The first was a Friday night club thing for our mate Johnny Slut. Nerves were a bit frayed because it was the club’s first night (hence, the PA was still being assembled when we arrived) but it was fine in the end-up. A few weeks later we played at The Face’s relaunch party, supporting our hero Pete Burns. The night was a right old rag-bag of hip-hop DJ’s, gender benders on stage, and celebs and the fashionista. Can it be true that we danced to the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Unfortunately, it is!

MEDIA:

Not much here, because we’ve been lying low in the studio, ready for our next onslaught. The Face, as usual, have been very supportive. For a laugh we put in our Top Ten Songs We’ve Seen People Have A Fight To (reproduced below) in July and in August I wrote a piece about our favourite tipple, Gin & Tonic. In September we were part of a line-up for a huge shoot of London’s electronic gay clubbing underground. It was all very hastily assembled and because Mark Satanic was on holiday and because I was busy at the Kerrang! Day Of Rock, we ended up in the line-up as a three piece. With Kim & Jez is a Chelsea clone called Hayley. She’s our mate and a DJ in her own right at Underpass on a Saturday. We thought it was a funny idea, to send along a clone.

TOP 10 SONGS TO HAVE A FIGHT TO:
1. The Logical Song - Scooter (2 girls, one boy, outside chip shop,
Kirkcaldy, 2001)
2. The Lady In Red - Chris DeBurgh (groom and bride's father, naff
wedding, Hersham, 1987)
3. Relight My Fire - Take That & Lulu (2 lesbians, next to big wheel,
funfair, Gay Pride, 1994)
4. Muzak (2 tramps, The Plaza, Oxford Street, Christmas 2000)
5. The Harper Valley P.T.A. - Jeannie C. Riley (husband & wife, outside
country & western night, Old Kent Road, 1994)
6. Shake Your Love - Debbie Gibson (2 girls in school uniform, Great
Western Street, Moss Side, 1988)
7. Geno - Dexy's Midnight Runners (2 skinheads, school disco, Woking,
1980)
8. 5-6-7-8 - Steps (2 generic gays, generic gay pub, Compton Street,
1999)
9. Devil Gate Drive - Suzi Quatro (2 rough biker girls, family pub.
Slough, 1974)
10. Wannabe - Spice Girls (huge gang of 6 year olds, birthday party,
Essex, 1996)

DJ:

We finally got our seventh free to punters mix CD out in August. We called it House Of Readers Wifes. Music includes Goldfrapp, Suzi Quatro, Pete Shelley, The Clash, B-52’s, Hole and The Supremes. Clips include Widows, Footballers Wives, Diners, Johnny Slut on X-FM, The Book Group, Rock Follies and a Baader-Meinhof documentary. At the last minute we added some bits from that documentary about the jerk who cheated on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Apart from the weekly club night, a couple of one-off DJ gigs stand out. We did Duckie in Edinburgh to close a very successful run of C’est Vauxhall. It was mental, the highlight being Miss Highleg Kick, Ursula Martinez and Marissa Carr all dancing on podiums to Iggy’s I Want To Be Your Dog.

Back in June we did a 1978 night at the Retro which was fun. Can’t wait to have a bash at 1979 which was the best year in pop ever. Here’s the setlist for ’78.

1. You Took The Words / Meat Loaf
2. From East To West / Voyage
3. Every 1's A Winner / Hot Chocolate
4. Neon Lights / Kraftwerk
5. If The Kids Are United / Sham 69
6. Bama Boogie Woogie / Cleaveland Eaton
7. Never Let Her Slip Away / Andrew Gold
8. Airport / Motors
9. Jilted John / Jilted John
10. Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah) / Chic
11. Davy's On The Road Again / Manfred Mann's Earthband
12. Automatic Lover / Dee D Jackson
13. Macho Man / Village People
14. Top Of The Pops / Rezillos
15. My Best Friend's Girl / Cars
16. Love's Unkind / Donna Summer
17. Hi Tension / Hi Tension
18. What Do I Get? / Buzzcocks
19. Miss You / Rolling Stones
20. Do Or Die / Grace Jones
21. I Can't Stand The Rain / Eruption
22. Nice 'n' Sleazy / Stranglers
23. Bicycle Race / Queen
24. Supernature / Cerrone
25. Do It Do It Again / Rafaella Carra
26. I Am The Fly / Wire
27. Don't Fear The Reaper / Blue Oyster Cult
28. Givin' Up Givin' In / Three Degrees
29. Take Me I'm Yours / Squeeze
30. Theme From 'Which Way Is Up' / Stargard
31. Pump It Up / Elvis Costello & The Attractions
32. Love Is Like Oxygen / The Sweet
33. Galaxy Of Love / Crown Heights Affair
34. One Nation Under A Groove / Funkadelic
35. Another Girl, Another Planet / Only Ones
36. Sweet Talkin' Woman / Electric Light Orchestra
37. Fantasy / Earth, Wind & Fire
38. Hong Kong Garden / Siouxsie & The Banshees
39. Shot By Both Sides / Magazine
40. Let's All Chant / Michael Zager Band
41. Summer Night City / Abba
42. Public Image / Public Image Limited
43. White Man (In The Hammersmith Palais) / The Clash
44. Native New Yorker / Odyssey
45. Rasputin / Boney M
46. Because The Night / Patti Smith Group
47. Shame / Evelyn 'Champagne' King
48. Dance (Disco Heat) / Sylvester
49. Presence Dear / Blondie
50. Uptown Top Ranking / Althia & Donna
51. Boogie Oogie Oogie / A Taste Of Honey
52. The Day The World Turned Dayglo / X Ray Spex
53. Substitute / Clout
54. MacArthur Park / Donna Summer
55. No One Is Innocent / Sex Pistols
56. Hammer Horror / Kate Bush

On September 11th we did a big party for Rellik, the vintage fashion labels shop. It was wicked and packed and full of the fashionista! We met up with our old friends Chris De Pietro and Guido and Phaggsy made best friends with Pam Hogg and Lady Miss Kier. He’s such a pisshead. We ended with Wuthering Heights. Naturally.

Sometime in June we also did Graham Norton’s 40th Birthday Party which was nice because we saw Mo Mowlam groovin’ to Booket T & The MG’s. We played from a sort of platform under the eaves of the roof and Graham was awfully nice.

Thanks to everyone who bought the single, and for those of you who dont have it yet there are still a few copies left in Virgin Megastore, Oxford St. There is also two new mixes of Bitch at the Brits, one is a sort of Electroclash mix, done by Jeremy, and theres a High Energy Bobby "O" style remix, Im not sure what we are doing with them yet, but we will let you know as soon as we have decided.

At the moment we are busy rehearsing for the Madame Jo Jo's gig, trying to get some of our new songs finished in time, and who knows maybe unleashing yet another DRAMATIC NEW LOOK!

Love from Kim Phaggs

Then the next day we all went to Dominics studio to re do the vocals for Bitch at the Brits, (as the previous session had to be canceled)God I cant tell you how ropey I felt, still very hungover from the night before, but we managed to do what i think was a nice new version, See what you think.

THEN, on Wednesday this week we went to see Mark O'Flaherty to get our picture taken for BOYZ magazine "Yikes!" as they wanted to put us on the cover of next weeks issue, so we did that and the test shots looked quite nice and everything, and now today we are going to do the interview to go with the photos.So thats about it for now, Oh yes theres a little review of Bitch at the Brits in this months FACE magazine, which is lovely.
Love Kim Phaggs.