Hi I'm Gemma from Savages
I'm Fay.
I'm Ayse.
Hi, I'm Jehnny Beth from Savages and this is 'What's in My Bag?'
I see that you're holding Run The Jewels in your hands.
Did you happen to see them on Saturday?
That was the reason why I picked it up. I saw them and I really enjoyed it. I thought they were brilliant.
I'd heard a few tracks off the record and really really enjoyed it.
So I went to see them at FYF and then I was sold, yeah.
I love that track title: 'Close Your Eyes and Count to Fuck'
So I've got this guy.
One of the best records of all time.
One of my favorite records when I was at school. I don't have it on vinyl.
The creepiness inside me, I think, came from that.
Listening to Richard D. James
The first thing I found, which I was really pleased, was the Arvo Pärt documentary, '24 Preludes for a Fugue'
Arvo Pärt is an estonian composer
Probably one of the most amazing still-living composers. He's been a massive influence on me.
And this documentary is really, really beautiful
I mean, this is a musician who didn't listen to music or play music for a 10 year period to try to understand what he was doing.
So he sat in silence for 10 years. And then went back to his work.
He talks about every single note having its own character and having a relationship with another note
and he has a piece called 'Fur Alina' where he's talking to these students
and he's talking about each melody with its character and how it interacts.
He's a very honest, real composer/artist and it's an awesome documentary
While we're on films I'm going to show you this: 5 films by John Cassavetes.
He's my favorite American director, and he's been for a long time, since I was a young girl.
Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night
I like his films, but I also like the character, the man behind it
The way he managed to build a family with his presence.
John pioneered another view of filmmaking. I would just call it 'family filmmaking.'
He was there for his friends, who were playing also in his films. And he was a real leader, he was very inspiring.
Film is, to me, just unimportant but people are very important.
I think it's really rare to find people like that around now.
He threw us all in together to be a family. And we became a family very quickly.
And we all cared for each other and we all, y'know, it was wonderful.
Ok, so I've got a couple of books.
'Iron in Her Soul,' a story of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
She's one of the leading feminists and communists in America, where she was.
And it's a story about her, and that sounds interesting.
I've got some jazz records.
I stayed in the jazz section a bit too long.
Jazz is my first love in music, and that's how I learned to play music, piano and sing.
It just stayed with me. So these are some of my favorites.
Monk, Thelonious Monk, this is my favorite record of his, 'It's Monk's Time.'
My favorite piano player of all times.
We have Ornette Coleman, who died recently.
'Tomorrow Is The Question.' That's a great title.
Yeah, I mean, he really had great titles. They all have actually.
Coltrane, the ultimate. 'A Love Supreme'
I think, if there was a god, it would be Coltrane, basically.
To top the list, I picked a Nina Simone one
because she's the goddess. If Coltrane's the god.
And this particular one has my favorite song of hers: 'Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair.'
And I love that dress.
I got two of the same artist, and it's Chelsea Wolfe. And this is her record 'Abyss' that has just come out.
She's an American musician. I also have her 'Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs'
because the first piece that I saw was just her with a guitar and voice.
That was the first video I saw of her
and it's very dark, very strange, and very very strong.
Completely her own thing, her own world.
And I've been listening to the songs that've been slowly released from this new record
and they're kind of doom, kind of very very heavy things but
just looking into all her musicians into her writing and everything she's just really
really impressive
Ok so I've got these guys: Terry Riley and Steve Reich
Again, childhood favorites. I love that cover, look at him. He's such a lovely dude.
I met him the other day actually, and he was equally as lovely as he appears here.
The book I chose is Crumb's 'Sex Obsessions.'
I really like Crumb, and I really like his drawings of women.
He's a man who is obsessed by big butts.
Like I am. There you go. There you have a few.
And he lives in France now, actually. There's a really good documentary about his life.
He always represented himself sitting on top of butts of women.
So it's like a (inaudible) piece of reading, which is really good.
I picked up some fanzines, just because I like the cover of that, and I have a bit of a thing for that. Looks pretty awesome.
It reminds me of being a teenager and loving fanzines.
So, yeah, I picked those up.
I also picked up this flier, original punk flier.
Which I thought was pretty interesting.
You can get your tickets in advance.
Not much in advance anymore.
No, exactly, so I kind of thought that was...anyway.
A book about...selective writings about love and death, which
we're all closely connected to I guess, so I thought that was something interesting to read.
I don't know this writer, Klaus Mann, at all.
But the book sounds extremely interesting
'Mephisto,' about an actor who plays Mephisto in Nazi Germany
These two are connected, in a way.
Freda Kahlo, and this book, because I've been reading, getting into a painter called Charlotte Solomon
In the Nazi occupation of France she was in hiding
in a year, basically the last year her life, she knew she couldn't escape from France
and she painted seven hundred and fifty paintings
about her life in one year. And it was all based on her family history which was very dark
because most of women in her family committed suicide.
She always played with whether she should commit suicide or she should make this work
and she put everything into this work, to try and understand her family
and the situation she was in, which was pretty dire.
She reminded me very much of Frida Kahlo and kind of the painting of her life
and understanding herself but also with the idea of artists in
very dire situations that can only follow their art, to try and explain their situation.
I was wandering around the electronic section
and I'm trusting Kyle, because it was a staff pick
and I thought, actually, I'd quite like to listen to that.
It kind of grabbed me, I was like, yeah, let's do that.
Nicola Kazimir. 'Repetitive Juxtaposition'
His writing's quite small, so...
Steel Band, Gemma's favorite.
I love Steel Band. I used to play in a steel band.
Yeah I was like one of these guys. I played that one.
Yeah. It was cool. With my dad as well. It was really cool.
Really big moment for me.
And then, I chose a little box from a cartoon.
Who wants to play video games?
So that's bmo
"bmo!"
It's a character from 'Adventure Time'
It's absolutely psychedelic
and bmo is a little Game Boy.
It reminds me of the first time we came to play in the US
I had a massive transformer for all the gear, and we named it 'bmo.'
We left it in a venue.
Oh, shit. Well I got it back.
So, Adventure Time. I suggest you watch it, it's great.
bmo, is there a way for us to get in the game for real?
Yes, of course Jake. If I push this button
If I push this button...
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thanks.