Today marks the release of Maggie the Cat’s second solo single, “I Love You and I’ve Got a Gun.” For those of you who are new to the work of this femme fatale extraordinaire, she’s formerly the lead singer of South London’s witchiest glam-rock group Madonnatron, and currently flying solo under the moniker, Maggie the Cat.
Her new single, “I Love You and I’ve Got a Gun,” showcases her signature flair for film noir drama interwoven with deeper themes of power, baring the psychological struggles that so often accompany love affairs, and threading her work with a feminist undercurrent.
The impetus for the song occurred in 2019, when Maggie the Cat’s two-year old son, who’d just begun to speak, toddled up to her and announced: “I love you, and I’ve got a gun.”
“I thought, ‘Oh my God!’ ” Maggie remembers. “A: why’s he talking about guns? And B: that’s amazing. So I held onto that (phrase) as an idea, and I wrote the song.” Stefania (of Madonnatron) suggested that Maggie might find inspiration for the song’s lyrical content in the Italian B-movie, “The Girl with the Pistol,” starring Monica Vitti.
” …I watched the film and I loved it,” Maggie explains. “It went so well with the title, I just literally wrote the lyrics about the film, and about the character in the film: her madness, her obsession. Following on from Madonnatron, there’s nothing like a bit of amorous killing. I’ve worked on it from time to time over the last couple years and it’s morphed from being a guitar song into this kind of pop, arabesque thing, that now will grace the airwaves.”
A haunting, fretful ballad with gorgeous instrumentation influenced by both modern North African pop music and traditional rai, “I Love You and I’ve Got a Gun,” is ultimately a powerful blend of ‘a tale as old as time,’ with the strong left hook of a crime thriller.
You can follow Maggie’s adventures on Instagram @maggiethecatmusic and @trashmouthrecords.Her latest single, “I Love You and I’ve Got a Gun,” is available to stream on all platforms, and available for purchase on Bandcamp.
And just like that, summer’s over and it’s October, the month when spooks and ghouls roam the earth freely. Prime time for the debut solo release from a founding member of south London’s finest and freakiest gang of voodoo high priestesses, Madonnatron.
If you’ve heard Madonnatron, then you’ve heard Maggie. Her voice is the lynchpin of the band’s signature sound, the gathering force that holds it all together, powerful and hypnotic. She’s recently struck out on her own, embarking on a solo career under her Madonnatron moniker, “Maggie the Cat.”
With her Farrah Fawcett hair, glam rock eye makeup and brooding, melancholy, stare, she explained the evolution of her solo work thusly: “Maggie the Cat emerged over the last few years like the mutant love child of covid and my long running obsession with Elizabeth Taylor, most notably her character of that name from the Tennessee Williams play, ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.’
Her debut single, “I Think Last Night I Killed A Man,” is a definite shift from Madonnatron’s harsh, witch-punk sound. The production is more technically intricate: “… centered around a lot of quite dark, melancholic symphonic refrains juxtaposed with 80s synth sounds and disco drum patterns. The vocals are something of an id festival and may have ventured into other realms in places as I’m shamelessly emotional and the voice is a real channel for the soul, I think,” Maggie explains.
“Bianca Jagger rides in on a horse any second…” she teased on Instagram, days before the single’s release. A fitting comparison; the stylization is very Studio 54, albeit with a touch of what Maggie the Cat calls, “general murderous content,” a sinister speciality of supposed sweetness followed by violence, honed in the service of years of lyric writing for Madonnatron. Her blog describes the forthcoming album as “…simultaneously bewitching, erotic, menacing, and occasionally chilling (although never without mischief.)”
Trashmouth Records, the infamous New Malden-based independent record label that nurtured the raw, loose-cannon power of cult favorite rock n’ roll bands such as Warmduscher, the Fat White Family (and of course, Madonnatron) into musical adulthood, are backing Maggie the Cat’s solo efforts.
You can purchase “Last Night I Think I Killed A Man,” via Bandcamp at the link provided below. It is available to stream on all platforms.
Madonnatron formed in 2014 by “arising unabashed from the mists of the Thames,” (that’s according to their Spotify bio) released their eponymous debut album in 2017 and, since then have gone on to conquer the hearts of listeners the world over with their 2019 album Musica Alla Puttanesca, featuring the hit single, “Goodnight Little Empire,” (which appears in the soundtrack of Netflix’s Emily inParis.)
Their sonic impression live has been likened to that of Michigan-born proto-punk marauders the Stooges as well as early-career Joy Division, and if the miraculous melding of those two disparate sounds doesn’t melt your synapses in the best way imaginable upon the first listen, then darling, you’re simply not human.
Trashmouth Records have recently released a remix of “Venus and Rahu,” a track off Musica Alla Puttanesca, as part of their 10th anniversary 10 Years Still Not Dead celebration compendium.Within days of its release, the remix had already been spun and praised by Amy Lamé on her BBC 6 radio show.
In their own words, Madonnatron say: “If ever there was a real pulsating, strutting, superbad music ‘scene’ in South London at any point in the last ten years, it is a certainty that visionaries Liam and Luke of Trashmouth Records, were firmly at the epicentre. Flying the flag of truth for outsider music in this stifling elitist terrain, the brothers May have lovingly catapulted bands such as feral darlings the Fat White Family, Warmduscher, Meatraffle, and not least Warrior Queens of utmost sonic savagery MADONNATRON to your stereos. 10 Years Still Not Dead is the vinyl equivalent to the book of revelations, go forth and listen to its delinquent teachings! Forever Trashmouth!”
Madonnatron
You can hear Madonnatron live at The Victoria on September 25th, where they will be supporting fellow Trashmouth record label signees, Meatraffle, as well as the avant-garde stylings of Nuha Ruby Ra.
The Trashmouth remix of “Venus and Rahu” (as well as Madonnatron’s album Musica Alla Puttanesca and a treasure trove of singles) are available via Bandcamp, linked below.
Madonnatron, Shame, Warmduscher, Fat White Family, Meatraffle, the Moonlandingz, Goat Girl, Sorry, Pregoblin, Insecure Men and, yes, Secure Men—they’re all there. Large as life and almost as loud. It’s a testament to his storytelling ability that Dave Thomson, author of Woo! Strange Happenings at the Windmill and Other Tangential Rants, a free-wheeling gonzohistory of the last ten-plus years of south London’s fertile music scene, can conjure up such a diverse cast of characters. While the rest of the so-called civilized world suffers through a banal, auto-tuned repetition of vanilla pop, south London has been blessed with artists unafraid of criticism or cancellation and therefore transcendent.
Thomson, who has been an initiate of London’s diverse music scenes since his twenties, hadn’t thought of writing a history of the south London scene in particular, until, as he says: “… after a drunken conversation with Alex Sebley of Pregoblin, during Madonnatron’s debut album launch party (held at the Windmill Brixton in 2017), in which he practically challenged me to write it down, to document it all in some way and capture some of the magic brewing. So, I had a go, the result of which is this book.”
Saul Adamczewski ( Fat White Family, Insecure Men) and Alex Sebley (Pregoblin.) Photograph by Lou Smith.
Written with a cutting perceptiveness akin to Hunter S. Thompson, and with Anthony Bourdain’s ability to nose out juicy metaphors and similes, Woo! is a satisfying read. Like that venerable punk bible, Please Kill Me, or Henry Rollins’ hallowed tome, Get in the Van, Woo! is equal parts how-to DIY guide and spiritual helpmeet for the souls of the moshers, the music-addled and the amp-deafened. It’s a balm of Gilead for feedback-starved formerly (ie, pre-Covid) avid gig-goers, interspersed with canny socio-political commentaries and run through with threads of events from the author’s personal life, including an all-too-familiar tale of friendship on the rocks.
Madonnatron and La Staunton. Photograph by Lou Smith.
Thomson, who owned and operated an alternative record store in northern Lincolnshire before moving to London aged 20, became a confirmed devotee of south London’s musical progeny upon seeing the Fat White Family play at the Electric Ballroom in 2014. As he describes, he was, “…instantly smitten and before long found myself drawn into the heart of this peculiar musical community. I soon realised something uniquely special was happening, but moreover, why it was happening – because unlike the Thatcher years, this time London was suffering too. People felt battered by austerity, exasperated by corruption and angered by gentrification – all of which gave everyone involved a sense of purpose and solidarity, the like of which I had not seen since moving to London all those years ago.”
From attending Madonnatron’s first album launch party (“like a witches’ choir in a Tim Burton movie,”) to Zsa Zsa Sapien’s of Meatraffle’s gold front teeth (“like he’s been punched in the mouth by Midas,”) to the origins of Fat White Family (“Barely noticed at first, like bacteria left to fester within a neglected Petri dish, something alien, unwholesome and seriously strange took form… Something very fucking special,”) Woo! is a series of candid snapshots of a unique place in time. To preserve a history is to perpetuate it; Woo! helps to cast the scene in amber.
Ben Romans-Hopcraft (Warmduscher.) Photograph by Anna Yorke.
At the heart of the book, is, of course, the legendary musicians’ haven known as the Windmill Brixton, described by Thomson as: “… a veritable microculture, a disparate melting pot of musicians, artists, poets, chancers, DJs, bloggers, blaggers, filmmakers, producers, youtubers, self-abusers, ‘oholics of all colours, all persuasions, it takes in the young, the old and every imaginable slice of humankind in between. No one is judged, all and everyone’s accepted, except, perhaps, anyone who turns out to be a cunt.”
“…The role the Windmill plays in a band’s development is significant, for they are channeling something fantastically unique, an interstellar nursery for all manner of burgeoning talent or any nutter with a mad idea.” (Of course, in world of the Windmill, “sanity is so fucking relative…”)
Saul Adamczewski and Ben Romans-Hopcraft. Photograph by Lou Smith.
Primarily written and edited during the onset of the pandemic, Woo! delves into many of the terrifying new variables that continue to affect our lives. It may be a book about the past, but it looks to the future, and what we’ll have to do to get there: “We are living through strange, febrile times…Truth and reason so far out of reach there’s nothing left to grab hold of, just a feeling in our bones that we’re at the end of something and the beginning of something else, yet unable to envisage precisely what.”
You can order your very own copy of Woo! on Warmduscher’s Peasant Vitality website (linked here.) All UK proceeds will go directly to the Brixton Windmill.
After a month of an environmental microbiology summer course at uni, and two months of unloading produce trucks at farmer’s markets, I return to you a changed girl. This means I’m absolutely exhausted, so tanned my dermatologist is frightened, and I’ve cut my own bangs again. The good thing is I’m still 20 and according to everyone I know who’s over 40, completely exhausted, broke, and sporting a questionable hairstyle is just how I’m supposed to be at this particular age, so at least I’m living up to someone’s expectations.
Speaking of expectations, the Berlin-based chanteuse Anika’s sophomore album Change recently appeared on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart, an exciting development in the trajectory of a very worthy artist’s career. Limited edition, cherry-red vinyls of the album are available on Bandcamp, and tickets for her upcoming fall tour are available via a link in the recent interview Totally Wired conducted with her.
2021 is the 10th anniversary of Trashmouth Records, and as Charlie Steen of Shame says: “Trashmouth fear no fever, no nausea or fatigue, no symptom can scare them; they are the antidote.” In light of that statement, I think we should place all our trust and possibly also all of our money into Trashmouth, as an antidote is exactly what we need right now, in so many ways.
Before I was exposed to the sonic wonderland created by the Trashmouth tribe, I foolishly thought all modern music could either shuffled into the category of Taylor Swift or Avenged Sevenfold, and therefore I didn’t listen to much, as when given the choice between songs about sad cheerleaders or necrophilia, I’d rather hear the sound of silence. And then along came Madonnatron and Warmduscher on Iggy Pop’s BBC 6 radio show, and I was hooked, enchanted, a devoted convert.
Trashmouth’s latest release is a single that will feature on their anniversary compilation album, a remix of Weston Decker’s “Lazy.” Weston Decker is an American artist based in Boulder, Colorado; in his Spotify bio, he purports to have been conceived in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. I consider DFW to be the first circle of hell in my own private model of the inferno, so I tip my hat to anyone who has been summoned into being somewhere in its chaotic grey arteries, and managed not be plagued by demons, etc. “Lazy,” is a tasty little indie pop number with an infectious rhythm, and the Trashmouth remix of the song has sharpened it–brought out its cheekbones, as it were—the driving electronic beats making a good thing even better.
Also on the Trashmouth release radar is a remix of Madonnatron’s “Venus and Rahu,” out today on all platforms. According to their Spotify bio, Madonnatron formed by “arising unabashed from the mists of the Thames.” In 2019 the band released Musica Alla Puttanesca, a much-lauded musical experience (the album cover of which depicts the laser-eyed gaze of the Madonna setting the world aflame, a theme which falls perfectly in step with Madonnatron’s usual agenda of the more darkly delicious art forms) on the Trashmouth label.
The Spanish rock supergroup Hinds recently collaborated with the German musician Kid Simius on a driving, upbeat, club track entitled “We Like to Party,” out now on Jirafa records. It’s the ideal track to make summer last a little longer, to stretch out those last lingering days of warmth and relative freedom. Hinds like to party; I remember watching them give a full-throttle rock n’ roll performance in an abandoned church at 2 a.m. one hot summer night a few years ago, and being duly impressed with their IPA consumption, as well as their musical prowess.
This, then, is my final “notes from the trenches,” as I think everyone has swallowed quite enough of my opinions over this long, hot, pandemic summer. In the words of Groucho Marx, “Art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew ‘em they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now… you tell me what you know.” It’s someone else’s turn to give you their opinions on life, music, the universe, and everything. If you need me, I’ll be in the bar. All you have to do is whistle.
Black Flag vocalist and renaissance man Henry Rollins practices something he calls Protein/Carbohydrate listening. It’s a system in which he organizes his sonic consumption into two categories. New music—stuff he’s never heard before—is classified as protein, while old favorites are classified as carbs. He tracks his daily intake of ‘protein’ and ‘carbs’ in the obsessive manner of any fitness fanatic or health freak.
So far this month, my carb consumption has been way up, and my protein consumption has been way down, nonexistent but for the excellent, Austin, Texas-based band BLACK BOOKS, whose recent single Goodbye Cool (released in early 2020) is eerily prescient in the same sort of way that Contagion is eerily prescient. Watch it and see for yourself…
My roommate’s been playing the most recent HINDS album, The Prettiest Curse, on repeat 24/7, and I don’t mind a bit. The neighbors, however, are absolutely losing it–but then they always behave as though loud music is something physically threatening, like a crazed triceratops bulldozing through the front door. (An absolutely absurd stance on their part, and I find it’s best to help them work through it by blasting Frank Zappa.)
You know what Eve Babitz (cult writer and demi-monde darling of 1970s L.A.) said about really good songs? She said they were like booster shots, like concentrated doses of vitamins. The Prettiest Curse (despite its title) is like having an IV of healthful, revitalizing stuff. Through my roommate’s love of Hinds I’ve discovered the Spanish indie pop singer ESCORPIA, whose recent single Ten Cuidado has a promo video not unlike a three minute snippet of an Eric Rohmer movie.
In other news of tremendous importance, INSECURE MEN have confirmed via a reply to an Instagram comment that their third album is forthcoming, a joyous prospect indeed. There’s been a gaping hole in my soul ever since it became obvious that Ben Romans-Hopcraft’s supremely excellent outfit Childhood were not going to be continuing on in the immediate future, and hearing his work in Insecure Men consoles me greatly.
Totally Wired’s favorite “synth sensation,” JESSICA WINTER, has also hinted at new music. (Which reminds me: limited edition clear vinyls of her LP Sad Music, are currently available on her Bandcamp site, and I’d highly advise snapping one up for your record collection.)
DECIUS, a techno/acid-house outfit comprised of members of Paranoid London, Trashmouth Records and the Fat White Family (a combination calculated to make any self-respecting music geek hyperventilate) have released their first EP, entitled Bread and Butter, available wherever you get your music–I can’t keep track of all the ways to get music anymore–but it’s out there, so go get it.
Trashmouth Records, an independent label run by brothers Liam and Luke May, is the New Malden equivalent of Muscle Shoals’ Fame Studios.
The Mays recorded, engineered and produced the debut albums of bands such as Madonnatron, Warmduscher and the Fat White Family. “Trashmouth produced and released records by bands that no one else would touch with a 10-foot pole and not only lived to tell the tale but proved to have been visionary in their blind faith.”
As scouts of raw talent and miners of sonic gold Trashmouth Records are unequalled by any in their contribution to recording some of the best music of our era…
Clams Baker, the inimitable front man of Warmduscher (the best boogie band in London, and that bass, my God) spoke lovingly of Trashmouth: “When I think of the South London music scene, I immediately think Windmill, Fat White Family, and Trashmouth Records, then I forget what I was thinking about thanks to the last 10 years they are celebrating! Very blessed and honored to be a part of it. Long live the hustle, I can’t wait to see what they think of next.”
Clams Baker III, Benjamin Romans-Hopcraft and Saul Adamczewski of Warmduscher (and friends) at the Windmill. Photo by Lou Smith @lousmithphoto.
The label is soon to release a celebratory album of remixes. “Trashmouth Records – 10 Years Still Not Dead” marks the 10th Anniversary of the inception of the Trashmouth Experiment & features remixes of some of the label’s favourite tracks and artists…”
Thus far one remix has been dropped, a Trashmouth redux of “Yolk Buns USA,” from Warmduscher’s infamous debut album Khaki Tears (an album which was recorded in a mere three days if the rumors are true.)
Other remixes which will be included on the album are a Trashmouth redux of “Heaven on Earth,” a sonically schizophrenic rocker from Fat White Family’s scorching debut, Champagne Holocaust, and other auditory delights from Madonnatron and Meatraffle among others.
Brothers Luke and and Liam May, who founded and continue to operate Trashmouth Records.
In the label’s own words: “The LP will…encompass a visual history of the label within its artwork, featuring photographs of the now legendary Trashmouth nights at the Brixton Windmill, where bands bitched and bonded, where blood, booze and tears were spilled in almost equal measure and where the seeds of a small corner of modern musical history were inadvertently sewn.”
Join the infamous label in celebrating ten years of “Blood, Booze and Tears in Equal Measure…” by purchasing their 10th anniversary record featuring remixes from their top artists, available May 17th on Bandcamp and beyond.
It’s been a whirlwind month for the poor suckers out on of the frontlines of the music industry, myself included. Like everybody else, I have been glued to my laptop for livestreams, during which I have broken two Bose speakers and possibly also ruptured my roommate’s left eardrum, but I’m chalking that up to her allergies and not to the volume at which I was blasting MISTY MILLER’s livestream with Easycome Acoustic Club.
Speaking of recent noteworthy streams, Glasgow’s own indie goth-pop darlings, THE NINTH WAVE (rock n’ roll social workers if ever any did exist) played a livestream show at Leith Theatre with Lucia and the Best Boys, and I hope to hell you blessed your ears and eyes with it—it was the first time the songs from their sophomore album Happy Days! were played live, and thus a red-letter day…
Glaswegian indie rock outfit the Ninth Wave. Photo credit: @olierskine
If you are of the festival going-persuasion, LUCIA AND THE BEST BOYS announced that, come September, they will headline the River Stage at TRNSMT Festival. (Other headliners include Lil Simz—be still, my beating heart!—Sports Team and Walt Disco.) A word of advice, preorder your tickets, plan your wardrobes and sort your granola out NOW. It’ll give you something to live for. And don’t bring a tent if you really want to have fun; tents just get in the way. So does complicated eye makeup, which only summons rain. Just wear some big earrings. Searing the lead singer’s retinas with reflective bling is a far better way to get their attention than looking like a raccoon having an existential crisis.
Lucia of Lucia and the Best Boys. Photo credit @neelastica
The Best Band in all the World, GOAT GIRL, are headlining Wide Awake Fest on Friday, September 3rd where they are billed above Idles. This suggests that there is indeed justice in the Universe. Black Country New Road, black midi, and Tropical F Storm (Iggy Pop’s BBC 6 show turned me on to these freaks, go give their tune “Brain Drops,” a listen, it’ll melt your synapses) will also perform.
The magnificent South London indie rock band Goat Girl. Photo credit: @hollyemmw
If you like GOAT GIRL then saunter on over to Bandcamp and check out The Most Underrated Band in all the World, MADONNATRON, who are once again flying under the radar. I’m over here chewing my acrylics in anticipation of what fresh sonic delights they are possibly preparing to unleash upon us unworthy listeners. Musica Alla Puttanesca was released nearly 2 years ago and I’m hungry for more…
Speaking of bands rumored to be releasing new albums in the near(ish) future, FAT WHITE FAMILY released their firstborn film, a gonzo digital diary entry romantically dubbed Moonbathing in February. I’m sure the sight of Alex White’s lovely mullet in a bubble bath was enough for many of you to give the film a five-star rating but hearing the Fat Whites revert to their country roots—with Lias on guitar, Nathan on keyboards, and Alex on flute and sax–was melancholy bliss beyond belief.
(Lias Saoudi and Saul Adamczewski of Fat White Family. Photo credit: the incredible @lousmithphoto)
