Table Cloths and Toques, Worn with Verve

Oh glorious day! The Verve are gonna call a truce and reunite for another album! That's the word on the street, and let's hope the music originates from that same great place of clever, streetwise cynicism and from that same sort of street Ashcroft walked down while singing those unforgettable lyrics from "Bittersweet Symphony". Yep, singing and aggressively body checkin' anyone who got in his way. Ya rude bastard, workin' out yer probs while workin' it out on the sidewalk catwalk. Nice one.

I adore Ashcroft. I feel for Ashcroft the same warm and squishy that spotty gamer nerds feel for Lara Croft. You look and you think, "Yeah, that's perfection." Ashcroft is real and Croft isn't, but Richard does have that surreal, almost cartoonish quality to him, as if someone asked a illustrator to design a "quintessential British pop star", and whiz bang, Richard appeared on the easel perfectly rendered and easy on the eyes. What a face the man has...all angles and sharp turns, pouty Jagger lips with a softer/easier vibe of Keith Richards damage.



Ashcroft's first solo album, "Alone With Everybody" was the first CD I purchased when I moved to Europe, and now every time I listen to it, I am transported back to breakfasts in Milan, lunches in London, dinners in Paris, and late night snack attacks in Amsterdam.

Alas, it was hard to readjust to the partaking of sustenance in Toronto, where you are often served your meal with a "healthy" dose of Bryan Adams with a side of Nickelback.

If you haven't heard Ashcroft's solo stuff, go on, get to that particular music buffet table and load up. Satisfaction guaranteed.


Richard, baby, and wife Kate (formerly of the band Spiritualized), photo from liner notes, "Alone with Everybody", 2000


Check it, brother is wearing a Monkees T-shirt. Fookin' brilliant. The man gets it. The Monkees are totally underrated as a band. Particularly Mike Nesmith. Man, you need only listen to trax like "Love is Only Sleeping", and "Door Into Summer" to be convinced that the Monkees, once they took the musical reins, and cut the puppet strings, deserved some heavy props.

Plus Nesmith was hip to the power of the toque years and years before Seattle claimed it as the official headgear of the sludge and grudge, flannel shirt tied around the waist and wasted on Mudhoney and Pabst Blue Ribbon set.



Micky should also be afforded some deep 'spect for having the cajones to wear a table cloth. True story. Good idea actually, I hear ponchos are making a come back. Why spend mega bux on a ready made version, when all you need to do is cut a hole-for-the head in a table cloth from Target? Crafty!



Micky, in addition to being resourceful fashion-wise, was also pretty hip gear-wise. He was one of the first owners of the Moog Synthesizer, and the track "Daily Nightly" was one of the first songs to feature this revolutionary piece of gear.


"You have reached the Moog Switchboard, how may I connect you?"

Yep, the Monkees were boss. Plus Nesmith's mom invented liquid paper. Again, true story.

Tablecloths, liquid paper, Moogs and toques. Bittersweet symphonies. Just another Fashion Friday, here at HIWATT central.

currently listening to: Nino Rota, Original Score, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet