Pete Doherty (posting requires reading thread guidelines)

[Carrme]

What a beautiful project! Confessions looks like quite a story!

 

[SpanishCaravan]

IM BACK IN TFS AND IN THIS THREAD, AND IM GOING TO LONDON IN A MONTH hello everyone, finially!

 

[SpanishCaravan]

last month 2 of my best friend was hanging in camden, and he just walked by :'(( taller than everyone else in like a suit or something. im going to london the 19th of july. he better walk by me

 

[*ana*]

charlottegainsbourg tumblr via anniehall

 

[*ana*]

ZANI – A Portrait of the Artist

(...)

ZANI caught up with Pete in a cosy little pub off Camden High Street before his performance at a private gig nearby.

ZANI - As we know you have a current film project in production, Alfred de Musset’s The Confession of a Child of the Century where you play the lead Octavian and you star alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg, I bet that is a pretty cool project.
Pete Doherty – It is really exciting, and a pretty amazing part of my life

I understand that you are having waltzing lessons for the part, are you any good at waltzing?

At this point Pete Doherty gets and demonstrates his waltzing to ZANI, then sits down smiling.

I am getting better.

Nice moves. Even though Charlotte Gainsbourg was born and raised in England, I see her as a French actress because of her father, Serge Gainsbourg the French composer and actor. I have always found French actresses like Bridget Bardot, Catherine Deneuve , Audrey Tautou and Sophie Marceau inspiring, exotic, sexy and intelligent.
Yeah, I get on with Charlotte Gainsbourg, there were no airs or graces about her. But I do find it a bit surreal appearing in a French film because I used to go out and rent all the French films like Belle De Jour, Rififi, Bob le Flambeur, Jules and Jim, 400 Blows, and so to be in one is pretty cool.

It is pretty cool, I love all the films you mention. I often go to Fopp in Earlham Street and spend a small fortune on world cinema, in particular French and Italian films, and my favourite actress is Monica Bellucci, not just for her beauty, but the depth of emotions and compassion she brings to her roles.
I can go along with that.

Staying on the French topic, please tell us about Alize Meurisse, novelist and photographer, whose artwork you exhibited in Paris in 2009.
She has an unbelievable talent that girl, it’s very rare in life to meet someone who puts their money where their mouth is, she is a genuine person. She was living on the sofa, and just throwing herself into her artwork, and when I saw them, it blew me away, so I have supported her in anyway I can.

Last year you launched your Jewellery range Albion Trinketry, which is inspired by Moroccan Silver and German Chain Watches, what instigated you to start that?
It’s just something I felt the urge to do, I love dapper fashion accessories like jewellery and hats and I always adored those countries’ take on jewellery, I think the whole concept looks quite Mod especially the gold watches.

Like Tilbury Hats, I know you are a big fan, and I read that you thought people looked cooler in the forties and the fifties.
People seemed to make more effort in those, and even right up to the early seventies.

I agree. I mean, look out of this window, all the fellas seem to be in jeans and trainers and the only time most people don a suit is for a wedding, funeral, job interview or a court case.
Well if you work in the courts, you can wear a suit all day…

True. Like you, I am a massive fan of Tony Hancock, the pioneer of modern day rebellion, the beautiful outsider. Of course Hancock was a brilliant comic but a lot of his heyday was due to the writing talents of Galton and Simpson, the Lennon & McCartney of comedy maybe?
Like Lennon & McCartney, who never put out a bad album, Galton and Simpson never put a foot wrong. And when Hancock left them, they carried on and produced Steptoe and Son. So like The Beatles, Galton and Simpson weren’t into flogging dead horses. Both Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, are classic and timeless pieces of British comedy, still relevant now as they were back in the day.

Yeah I’ve got both box sets, a little Christmas present to myself. With regard to Tony Hancock, it’s a shame that he is remembered for his suicide and his final years, such as his failure to make a success in the US - and his alcohol problem. I think if he had just hung in there, got himself sober it could have been different. Or if he had not gone to Australia, and maybe if there hadn’t been a postal strike he might have got the letter from the UK from his lover Joan Le Mesurier and decided not to end his life.
There are a lot of ifs there, but you could be right, he might have got back with Galton and Simpson.

Imagine a guest appearance in Steptoe and Son, and vice versa, they would have been the ultimate in the British sit com, unbeatable in fact.
True, but Hancock never played second fiddle to anybody, he needed to be the star. I know everyone quotes one of his suicide notes: "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times" But the one that gets me is: “Nobody will ever know I existed. Nothing to leave behind me. Nothing to pass on. Nobody to mourn me. That’s the bitterest blow of all.”

Hearing that, makes it even sadder, because he was so wrong. He has left behind a legacy of comedy, and inspired so many people, like I said he was a rebel and more outspoken than The Sex Pistols.
He was out there. Have you seen the ATV series that he did after he left the BBC and Galton and Simpson?

No, I haven’t. I am not sure I want to, because from what I have read, the ATV shows are a sad reflection of the great former Tony Hancock.
You can see them on YouTube; I might be able to get you a copy. They were poor, and Hancock knew that, he was so wrapped up in himself, and he couldn’t handle the fact that he had produced a **** show. But he did set the world alight.

You have even written a song called Lady Don’t Fall Backwards based on the classic The Missing Page episode, where Hancock and his co-star Sid James try to solve a “whodunnit?” book, because the last page is missing. I love your song and to this day, no one knows whodunnit.
Please don’t start that, because I spent hours one night, trying to work out who done it.

So have I. When I was watching the box set again over Christmas, I noticed that when Hancock got in with the rebellious aspect of London society, ‘Angry Young Men’ I suppose that’s what they were called in the late fifties, they were all wearing Duffle Coats, (I own one by the way), and to me, these must have been the predecessors to the parkas that became in vogue with the original Mods of the sixties.
I reckon there is certainly a connection between Angry Young men, and original Mods. Both were into black music, wearing their own uniform, inspired by overseas culture and so on and so forth. There is even a Hancock press shoot from 1958 with Bill Kerr, his radio co-star in a parka, not a duffle coat. That is interesting theory, and I like it. You can see a lot of Hancock in Jimmy the Mod from Quadrophenia.

And I can imagine that the young Pete Townsend, and The Who’s first manager Pete Meaden, were likely massive Hancock fans.
You are probably right, it’s like Marc Bolan at the age of 14, going to East London and buying all those Italian shirts and suits, and becoming a Mod face. Not intentionally, he was just absorbed with what was going on in London, which was the same with Hancock and Galton and Simpson. Bolan was just a creative genius, and another person like Hancock who died too early.

Sadly just before his death in that road accident, he was pushing new music especially Punk on his new TV Show ‘Marc’ and he even gave The Jam one of their early TV appearances.
Talking of Galton and Simpson’s other work Steptoe and Son which spans over two decades, the sixties Steptoe and Son, shot in black and white, is more sombre and sometimes is like a play by Henrik Ibsen, while the seventies episodes shot in colour are more saucy, full of double entendres, which seem to have been the comedy norm of the early seventies. Do you have any preferences to which Steptoe and Son era you like? First of all, I had trouble watching the black and white Steptoe and Son but now it is the other way round. I love the one where Harold and Albert go to see Fellini’s 8 ½, the whole idea of two rag and bone men from Shepherd's Bush, going out to see Fellini’s 8 ½ is unreal.

Yeah, it’s a brilliant insight into the psychology of human relationships. Harold wanting to better himself, and yet he keeps saying he wants to leave, but Albert, his father ,is clearly in his comfort zone. Harold had plenty of opportunities to leave, but he never does, as it seems they both needed each other’s company after all.
Definitely, there were rare moments, where they even showed each other genuine affection, but as we know they were few and far between.

And sadly that is pretty much the same of all human nature. When Harold scrubbed up, he was a bit of a dapper dresser, and had no trouble in meeting women, his problem was that he couldn’t keep hold of any of them.
Yeah, there was a bit of Mod in Harold. He wore nice jackets, with Italian shirts, and he did meet some girls.

Yeah and very curvy they were too. It is clear that you are a creative person, am I right in assuming that your creative inspiration came from being read to as a child?
I have never really thought of my inspiration like that before. But a child that reads, or is read to at an early age, develops a good imagination as they are taken into another world before bedtime. Be it Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in The Willows, The Magic Faraway Tree. You feed the mind, and you create a fantasy world, that helps you escape the rut that you live in.

I gather you have a vast book collection
I love to go into charity shops and buy books.

As well as collecting books, vintage clothes and jewellery, it is also well documented that you have a vast collection of guitars.
I just love old classic and vintage guitars, be it Gibson or Epiphones, even old Yamahas, I’ve just got a thing for the six string.

Do you always have a guitar close at hand?
I sure do.

It is a bit of a cliché, but is your guitar your best friend?
When she is in a good mood she can be.

As a life long QPR fan, I bet you are pleased with the promotion to the premiership.
Of course I am, it was nice for the FA not to deduct the points, next season will be a good season.

Do you think they will keep Neil Warnock, I even read that QPR might go after Lippi, the ex Italian manager.
That’s just hearsay, and that will always be about in football, we will just have to wait and see with regard to Warnock.

Love your new website, The Albion Rooms, the images are good, and it’s like entering a secret world, away from the mundane humdrum of every day life, and your blogs to your fans are good, and well written
Cheers.

I understand that another hero of yours is Charles Baudelaire, the French poet and your favourite poem by him is The Flowers of Evil?
Yes he is , but I have seen there are three different translated versions of The Flowers of Evil. Unless you are going to read it in French, you lose a lot of the meaning, so you have to read the poem in its native language.

Is your French good?
It’s OK, but I am not fluent.

Was it the NME who started calling you Pete, and at the time you wanted to be called Peter?
At the time it annoyed me, but now I don’t care.

Your closest friend, at one point was Carl Barât, you shared a dream that came true. I bet it was nice to play again together at the festivals last year. I know you have both played a few times since the demise of The Libertines, but this was the big one. Did the experience help to get rid of the demons?
It was a mass of emotion really; it took me about two months to get over it after all those years of not being in The Libertines. The demons were back and forth in abundance.

Listening to your acoustic playing, I take it that Neil Young is a huge influence and you described your album Grace/Wastelands like Neil Young’s Harvest
Not so much of a Neil Young fan but I love his album Harvest.

As Stephen Street produced Grace/Wastelands, and you have worked with him before with Babyshambles it must have been a great honour as I understand you are a big fan of Morrissey?
Morrissey was a big hero of mine, until he said unkind words about me. He said that Pete Docherty is just trying to be like Sid Vicious and it has all been done before. That kind of hit me, but I do like working with Stephen Street, who co-wrote some of Morrissey’s earlier stuff, like The Last of the Famous International Playboys and Everyday is like a Sunday. International Playboys was a corker of a tune.

Yeah one of my favourite Morrissey tracks. Going back to creative imagination, you have created a character Lonely Villain, is that something you are going to develop more?
I am working on it, it will develop further

Look forward to it. So finally what would you say you have learnt from life?
The alphabet.

Indeed he has, as his words have entertained us from his first commercial break way back in 2002. From speaking to Doherty, you get the sense you are speaking to someone like the great Romantic poet Shelley, a man who turned his back on his heritage to pursue his dream of being a poet, and protester. For sure there is something similarly magical when the debonair Doherty speaks. While all great artists and writers have their darker side, Pete’s struggle with drug addiction does not seem to have overshadowed his incredible talent as a poet. You still get the sense that he will just weather such storms, and simply move on to another creative aspect of his life.

He will always be near to the wild heart of life.

© Words – Matteo Sedazzari/ ZANI Media

zani.co.uk

 

[CholoChic]

I wish he write music. his music is very beautiful.

 

[*ana*]

Very short, but much more honest and beautiful than the VMA tribute.

 

[Mirik]

Grazia Italy N 105 9 septembre 2011 ebook30

 

[CholoChic]

thank you

 

[Mirik]

\
Vogue Paris Decembre 2011 - Janvier 2012 ebook30

 

[*ana*]

For Spring/Summer 2012, The Kooples presents a brand new capsule collection with none other than image-loving rock star Pete Doherty. Combining the dark elegance and neat cuts of Parisian style from The Kooples with the casual romance attitude of Monsieur Doherty, the collection perfectly embodies his sound, image, decision and obsession to detail.

zootmagazine.com

 

[*ana*]

New album?!

lanadelreyfan.com

 

[CholoChic]

that sounds good!

 

[Mirik]

Grazia France 3-9 February, 2012 ebook30
Pete Doherty by Boo Georges

 

[*ana*]

Too bad I haven't got any magazine yet with the ads, it looks like he even took a shower to take these pictures


thekooples.com

 

[*ana*]

'Confession of a Child of the Century' photocall and preimière at Cannes (May 20)


dailymail.co.uk via tigerrouge


theblemish

Trailer

 

[ckgirlbr]

Pete Doherty raps on new track – listen

Track taken from new recording sessions for his second solo album


Pete Doherty has rapped on a new track – which you can listen by clicking on the link at the end of this article.

Two new tracks have been posted on the blog of London producer Adem Himli, who has been recording Doherty's second album at his studio in west London.

The track, 'Siberian Fur', was written by Peter 'Wolfman' Wolfe, with whom he collaborated on 2004's hit 'For Lovers'. It will be familiar to fans as Doherty often brings it out at solo sets. The new version - which features a rap - has a hip-hop feel with added bass lines, which he explained to NME were string samples from "old silent movies".

The second track, 'Down For The Outing' is a brand new number, although versions of it have been online for a while. Speaking about it's Parisien feel, Doherty said: "It's 'cos I applied for French citizenship…No, I haven't. But I'm living in Paris and that's authentic-sounding Parisian street music".

Doherty told NME, who were invited to hear the new material in the studio, that there are no plans to release the material yet as it was still in demo stage but said that he has a hard-drive full of new tracks. "A few more songs have taken more of a definite shape," he said. "Things that were ad libs and off the cuff we're putting into the traditional pop song structure - er. I don't know what the traditional structure is, but I've got a few more ideas I’m going to try".

You can listen to the new tracks on producer Adem Himli's blog here. The top track is 'Down For The Outing' and the bottom track is 'Siberian Fur'.

|nme.com|

I kinda liked Siberian Fur

 

[iluvjeisa]

I hope he is well....

 

[jexxica]

dailymail

 

[jexxica]

An Evening With Pete Doherty: The Full NME Cover Interview

“Oi! Mate! Try not to stand on that, will ya? I know it might not look like much, but a lot of it’s important. Just take your boots off!” It’s 3am and I’m edging my way around Pete Doherty’s east London hotel room, trying to find bits of carpet underneath the heaving mass of stray guitars, strewn clothes, shoes (no laces), toolboxes, paintboxes, beer bottles, water bottles, lighters, typewriters, ripped-up letters, blood-splattered artworks-in-progress, passports, laptops and other assorted paraphernalia that obliterates every centimetre of the room. It’s impossible, so I give up and take refuge on the edge of the bed.

Opposite me, Doherty is leaning on an ironing board that has a pressed shirt draped valiantly off it – a singular piece of perfection among an Aladdin’s cave of disjointed personal artefacts. He’s just played a solo gig at London’s Hackney Empire, larking about in front of the cameras beforehand for NME photographer (and long-time Libertines cohort) Roger Sargent. At one point during our shoot, without direction, he suddenly beckons Sargent into the backstage toilets, turns on the showers and strips butt-naked, hat aside. Sargent snaps away while Doherty, much like a naughty, drunk schoolboy, cackles maniacally. The entire room, watching open-mouthed, suddenly erupts with him.

But right now, with his post-show adrenalin rush fast subsiding, he’s knackered. He only checked into the hotel two days ago, but this has been his way of living for many years now. Something of a nomad since leaving London in 2009 in a bid to kick drugs, technically Doherty splits his time between Paris and the UK. But he’s set up shop anywhere and everywhere over the past few years, thanks to his and girlfriend Katia’s beaten-up ’80s camper van, which they drive everywhere. This includes the middle of Hyde Park: when The Libertines played there to 65,000 people two years ago, Doherty shunned the offer of a tour bus, instead making the journey himself from France via Glasgow, where the band had played a warm-up gig. When he arrived, he simply tooted his horn, drove in, parked up next to the stage and played the biggest gig of his life. Then he drove all the way home again.“I could be anywhere,” he says when I ask why he doesn’t settle. “I just need my space to work. When I’m here [in the hotel] I live like I do at home, really. I just need somewhere I can live affordably.”

Doherty was in the French capital during the terrorist attacks last November, and was the first artist announced to play the soon-to-reopen Bataclan theatre, where 89 died, a year on from the tragedy. Given his ties to the city, that must have been a no-brainer when the offer came in? “Well, yeah. I went down there [after the attacks] and just sat outside with my guitar. Just to be there. Katia lost about five people she was at school with.” He wonders if the French government should have paid for the attackers’ funerals (he can’t decide), and berates the fact that it was young people who committed the atrocities.“They’re declaring war on their idea they’ve got of the decadent West, and Satan. They just believe that Satan controls our politicians, our production and the decisions that are made by people in power. And they’re willing to die for it. They believe they’re the victims.

“Anyway,” he says, “Let me play you this… It came out of nowhere, bang.” Onto the stereo comes a jaunty, Pogues-esque demo of a track called ‘Hell To Pay At The Gates Of Heaven’. It’s so simple and immediate that I recognise it straight away from the gig Doherty played with his new solo band a few hours previously, where it had cut through instantly. Although he debuted eight unreleased tracks in total at the Hackney Empire show (all are vying for inclusion on his forthcoming second solo album), there was something bigger about this song, a three-chord, whiskey-drenched waltz complete with impassioned vocals and a brilliant line about John Lennon’s favourite acoustic guitar, the iconic Gibson J-45.
“It’s about the f**king Bataclan,” Doherty says of the track. “About how we’re under attack. At that age, when you’re desperate to fight for something it can catch you off balance. When you’ve got the faith and belief, you’ll put as much into it as a lad who’s obsessed with guitars. So the lyric is, ‘Come on boys, choose your weapons / J-45 or an AK-47?’ Both take dedication and belief. To fight, or to make music.”

If he nails the recording properly, ‘Hell To Pay At The Gates Of Heaven’ has the potential to rival Doherty’s greatest songs. Tracks like ‘Time For Heroes’ (written about the May Day riots in London in 2000) and ‘Albion’ (which he wrote as a teenager obsessed with William Blake, Oscar Wilde and the idea of total, unabridged escapism from all mainstream realities) stand the test of time not just because they’re indie classics, but because they say something meaningful. But with over a decade of tabloid headlines about him, it’s easy to forget just how adept and vibrant a songwriter the 37-year-old is. While his battle with addictions has been well-documented, he says he now has regular bursts where he’s able to manage them. “I think I’ve probably slept 27 of the last 30 nights” is his way of telling me he thinks he’s doing OK. His relationship with his parents, meanwhile – his father refused to talk to him at the peak of his addictions a decade ago – has improved tenfold. “Yeah, it’s f**king great. It makes me wanna try harder. He’s reaching out to me.”

Throughout it all, Doherty is always writing music. He shows me his iTunes collection on a battered and blood-splattered laptop, and there are hundreds of unreleased recordings. He’s currently itching to release a few of them as his second solo album, the follow-up to 2009’s ‘Grace/Wastelands’. Whereas that record was a treasure trove of songs that tapped into the collective consciousness of everyone from Gorillaz to Bert Jansch, the new batch are far more simplistic. There’s ‘Kolley Kibber’, named after the Brighton Rock character and with dreamy, Lee Hazlewood-style backing vocals. There’s ‘Birdcage’, which is like a long-lost St Etienne track living inside a garage-rock shell. And there’s ‘She Is Far’, a beautiful, pastoral folk song that was originally written by a teenage Doherty alongside ‘Albion’ back when he was still learning the guitar. It sounds like something Neil Young might have come up with had he moved to London rather than California in the mid-’60s, and was partially inspired by Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’. “Some people have this inverted working-class snobbery where if you like Simon & Garfunkel you have to be put up against a wall and hurt. But that’s a great song,” Doherty says proudly.

Recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Recordings with producer Johann Scheerer over the past couple of years, the tracks are currently the subject of a record company bidding war – so it’s still unclear when they’ll be released. But Doherty, having grown tired of waiting, has already taken matters into his own hands and formed a new solo band to play the songs live.“It was only 10 days before the first gig of this tour [he played a handful of UK shows in May] that I decided I wasn’t just gonna do it acoustic. I went for a little relaxation in the camper van with Katia. We were gonna go and see my sister in Madrid, but we stopped off in Barcelona and I met Rafa, who I haven’t seen in years. He’s a drummer – he’s always been looking for a break. He was in a Tarantino covers band! And we had a jam and then we thought, ‘F**k it, let’s do it.’ So Drew [McConnell, Babyshambles bassist] flew over, and then Stefany [Kaberian] came in with the accordion, and Miki [Beavis] turned up with a violin.”

The five-piece are joined on some songs by Katia on keys, and although they’re a mishmash of different styles, there’s a freshness in the way they gel together. While some people might think it wildly uncool for a guy so closely aligned with garage rock to flirt with something that, on paper, seems closer to Mumford & Sons than The Clash, Doherty has always been a devotee of folk songs (today he’s on a country tip, waxing lyrical about Gram Parsons and Blaze Foley). It’s a far cry from The Libertines’ huge festival fees and travelling crew of 40 roadies.

“People are so far away,” he says of gigging with The Libs, adding that on their last arena tour six months ago he struggled with the lack of interaction between the band and audience resulting from that distance.“I don’t enjoy it,” he says matter-of-factly, “but I have to do it because it’s in my blood, it’s in my soul, it’s who I am. But I would never use the word ‘fun’ [to describe it].” I’m surprised by his honestly, and press him on it. He can enjoy playing those huge Libertines shows, he eventually admits, but he has to dig deep. “This is something I have to learn – this is a fault of my own. It’s not an idealistic thing where I think, ‘You should not have fun, you should be serious.’ Not at all. I’d love to go out there and have fun and enjoy it, but I just can’t. It’s not in my make-up. I find it very difficult.”

The new solo band, Doherty says, will provide something of an antidote to all that. “These new songs, this new line-up – I’m part of it, you know? It’s a small group. There’s more people in the band than there are in the whole crew plus management.” I ask him if he ever finds it difficult to write, and like everybody else I’ve posed the question to – from Paul McCartney to Alex Turner – he says no. He just picks up a guitar, finds a melody and presses record. Where Doherty differs from the others, though, is that he’d be fine if it was all to stop tomorrow. “I wish that would happen, because I could just crack onto something else. But it just keeps coming. I think I’ve got a lot of wasted… I’ve got a lot of things invested in my songwriting and it drains me. Too many things get in the way of the essence.” The essence, he continues, is finding that one-in-a-million tune. When it happens, everything pays off. “At the moment, I’m really inside these new songs. I believe in them. And I know if people are into my other tunes it’s just a matter of time. Sometimes people just need two or three listens. Or sometimes I’ll get to the second chorus and that’s it – they know the song and they love it.” With that, he picks up a guitar and sings. “Come on boys, choose your weapons…”

nme.com