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everybody's favorite suede.net enigma, wouk, shares some thoughts on the cinematic nature of suede.

x-rated ramblings: suede at the movies

pornographic and tragic - two words that best describe the controversial art-house movie baise-moi. released a few years ago, the film starred and was directed by former adult industry “performers” and came across as a venomous cocktail of one part death wish, two parts thelma and louise and one mighty big part deep throat.

deep throat with guns - what better way to describe suede’s tenure in the music biz? sex and violence with the odd spot of romance was always the side order of the day with brett and the boys. from fucking in cars with a slip of a man as the engine ran (or cut out on a regular basis if you own a hand-me-down ford escort) to the killing of flash boys (otherwise known as beating up employees at barclays bank for a hobby).

suede is essentially, in film terms - a romantic porno, but with the nasty violent bits left in by british film censors for a change. people get hurt in suede songs, they get fucked up and they do stupid things. they also fall in love, sometimes badly.

which brings us back to baise-moi. surely the most suede-like of all films - two girls go on a fucking and killing spree in revenge for male crapness. it’s “stay together”, “can’t get enough”, and “killing of a flash boy” rolled into one big seedy spiff. it’s also possibly the direction suede would have taken to further extremes had they continued with a sex-funk beat already peeking through the keyhole in last bow tracks like “golden gun” and the now legendary “music like sex”. there you go again - sex and guns. told you!

on suede’s official forum a few years back, lucky posters got the chance to submit their questions to god (aka brett anderson) and wait for a reply. i based my personal probing around the fact that i thought baise-moi seemed like a perfectly good idea for a suede song - captured from film stock and burnt to cd. did brett think so too, i asked? surprisingly enough - he did. brett cited this film as being an ideal choice for a suede soundtrack, and a film that certainly embodied the suede sound (post-anm no doubt).

it seems perfectly possible this was the direction brett saw suede going in at the time, or possibly going back to: embracing a movie about fucking, fighting and unhappy endings - surely just a few of the lyrical themes littering the first two albums. it seemed like a throwback and a lifeline to the earlier, spunkier (and probably quite literally a lot spunkier when justine, the original animal lover, was around) days of old. days of suede, when sex, drugs, a bit of glamorising of violence and a will to shock was the name of the game, something lost throughout much of suede’s last studio album, barring the odd spot of genius, most notably “lost in tv” - and that one was all about watching stuff on the telly with your bird: maybe not baise-moi, and more likely an episode of some daytime soap - but it still counts.

film, tv, making shadow shapes on a wall, you name it - visual creativity of all kinds seems to kick start brett anderson’s creative drive, whether a punch-up and mass massacre on jerry springer or a drunken tracy emin wielding a machete on a live art debate (it could happen!): film, tv and, hey - even dedicated drum machine simon gilbert's extensive tour footage, all show suede to be in love with the moving image.

suede, after dog man star, lost that filmic element to their work. previous songs have been small dramas set to sound, short films with a beat. “stay together”, “the asphalt world”, “pantomime horse”: all could be movies: a raunched up pedro almodovar headrush, a stately jim jarmusch walkabout or a john waters trash flick heavy on the retro porn and dogshit, or paracetamol shitting.

as good as coming up, head music and parts of a new morning were, the songs were more generic now and less of a woven tapestry with a storyline - they were suddenly snippets of a life, not a full screenplay: they were now about not getting enough sex, or being lazy, or feeling like trash. as much as suede idolised the films of mike leigh in their early years, the early songs were far more rooted in the cinema of the absurd, in the world cinematic canvas. only in their later years did the suede songwriting delve deeper into one track thoughts and singular feelings, huddled around a kitchen stove with a tetley tea bag.

the baise-moi link pretty much says it all for me as far as early suede songs are concerned. forget the mike leigh references you may have read about: the first suede album reeked of burton and taylor throwing dirty dishes at each other, and then shagging on the hot roof tiling before being stabbed by a rampant fashion photographer with an arse fetish. mike leigh is a worthy enough director, but for me he lacks the courage to portray the real sex and suburban violence that bleeds through early suede tracks.

film references seep through such early suede tracks as "whipsnade’s" crack of the ‘filmstar whip’, “this hollywood life’s” plea to be rescued from a life of dulled glitter, “heroine’s” marilyn mentions, "daddy’s speeding" spawning the immortal lines: ‘whiplash caught the silver son, took the film to no.1...’ and “the big time’s” warning about a life in the headlines. if not the film world itself, then the trappings of fame and trashed glamour generally seem to be something of a brett obsession over the years. but the coming up track “filmstar” gave it to the silver screen totally.

as the cinematic influences in brett’s writing fell away, it was inevitable that the final studio album, a new morning, would mix up the film reels up even further. if anm has any cinematic presence at all, it’s one that oscillates wildly: suede were no longer coming up, but coming down quick, and rewriting the scripts as they fell. it was a lyrical uncertainty that mirrored the album’s making: more laboured than a birth full of triplets. all pretence of angry drama and poetic pretensions fell away like the clothes of a showgirl: brett started listing some favourite things in the second single off the album: “obsessions” (mary poppins anyone?) and then a little ditty called “when the rain falls” (a strong contender for singing in the rain 2: the revenge of the umbrellas guest starring a dodgy spoken bit in the middle of a song). little wonder brett commented near the end of suede as we know and love them, that he intended to get his demon back after this release. we just didn’t know at the time that the demon he was talking about just happened to be a certain mr. bernard butler.

suede have certainly livened up many a flawed film with their music over the years: spicing up surreal crime flick b. monkey no end, well - it spiced up the bits which weren’t already spiced up by the divine miss asia argento prancing around the screen rather cleverly (in terms of tickets sold) quite naked. suede also contributed the soundtrack to far from china - and the song taken from this: simon, is one of the very best suede tracks ever recorded, showing what a strange young force that wide-eyed boy known as neil codling was to middle-period suede cool. shame the film was shit. no, only joking!

much-missed director derek jarman also linked up with suede in their formative years, the jarman camp also providing the memorable tour films for dog man star, the naming of which would provide one of the hottest potatoes in suede fan chat for years to come: was the naming of the album dog man star derived from a series of cult short movies from the 60s, directed by stan brakhage under the banner of dog star man? brett confessed nearly all in david barnett’s biography love and poison that the film was an influence of sorts - but c’mon brett, we know it played more than just a small part, and we promise not to sue! thank goodness you didn’t call the album secrets & lies and really lay your washing up-soaked cards on the line.

finally - the man who had cinema’s worst ever case of indigestion following a vindaloo overdose (or was it an alien impregnation?): alien’s very own john hurt, pranced and preened and generally looked a bit silly in the video for “attitude”, a song, looking back, that was also a bit silly when you think about it (sorry “attitude” fans everywhere!). talking of curry: that’s where brett met up with bernard after suede’s split last year - in a curry house, or so it’s rumoured. now that would have made a great mike leigh scene: brett and bernard whispering conspiratorially over a plate of poppodums. just before the armed gang burst in and shoots everyone dead after having anal sex with them all first. some things, like bernard butler’s hairstyle, go round in smart cycles - on a fast and bloody spin. time to start fucking in cars again people, and leaving the engine on. butler and anderson are back.

the end