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| Source: Q Magazine; Scans: anthonykiedis.net |
Q Magazine posted an interview with Beth Jeans Houghton in the May issue. The scan you see above is from anthonykiedis.net. And here's the transcript:
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JEAN GENIE
Railing against her nu-folk tag and talking to Marc Bolan. Welcome Beth Jeans Houghton
Curled up on a coffee-shop seat in West London, Beth Jeans Houghton ponders Q's question about her alleged teenage confabs with a long-dead Marc Bolan. "It wasn't really him talking," she explains, perhaps unnecessarily. "Him replying was actually me replying in my voice. I thought it would be cool to have a friend like that. It's like when you have a fake grandparent?"
A what?
"A fake grandparent?" she repeats. "One who isn't related to you? I had a fake grandma who was a great inspiration. She's dead now but I still talk to her all the time."
In an age when "serious" pop musicians are prone to yawnsome platitudes, Houghton is manna of a refreshingly nutty kind. Despite the fact her new album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose - a bewitching, macabre, genre-bending beast - is her first full-length outing, the 22-year-old Geordie singer is already emerging as a genuine star with beguiling, old-school allure.
It's not just risque get-ups, crazy wigs and warpaint that have got her noticed. Last year, she was romantically linked with Red Hot Chilli Pepper Anthony Kiedis ("I don't talk about it," she smiles) and was seen driven around California by Neil Young ("my friends in LA are just friends, I know them just as normal people").
If all this paints Houghton as a calculated, professional kook with an irksome disregard for situations ordinary people might consider mindblowingly weird, then the mistake is ours. In the flesh, Houghton is unassuming and chatty, her bonkers-ness a function of a healthy appetite for the esoteric. Over coffee and cigarettes she enthuses about books (Rhona Byrne's The Secret is a fave), old vinyl, Starsky & Hutch, films and, above all, her own music.
A school leaver at 15, she began writing songs inspired by her graphic-designer parents' record collection (Love, Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Joni Mitchell), influences that seep into Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose. An extraordinary record blending mariachi folk-rock, spangly glam and enchanting old English folk, veneered throughout with Houghton's dulect, athletic vocal.
Houghton, though, baulks at the nu-folk tag. "Wikipedia described it as "sweet and gentle folk", so I tried to change it. Wikipedia got in touch and told me not to change an entry for someone I knew nothing about. I protested that I was Beth Jeans Houghton but they accused me of being a time-waster, and now I'm banned."
Q extends its sympathies. She smiles, then asks brightly, without a hint of self-consciousness, "If I ate the skin on my finger, would you think I'm a cannibal?"
A new star, it seems, is born.
Railing against her nu-folk tag and talking to Marc Bolan. Welcome Beth Jeans Houghton
Curled up on a coffee-shop seat in West London, Beth Jeans Houghton ponders Q's question about her alleged teenage confabs with a long-dead Marc Bolan. "It wasn't really him talking," she explains, perhaps unnecessarily. "Him replying was actually me replying in my voice. I thought it would be cool to have a friend like that. It's like when you have a fake grandparent?"
A what?
"A fake grandparent?" she repeats. "One who isn't related to you? I had a fake grandma who was a great inspiration. She's dead now but I still talk to her all the time."
In an age when "serious" pop musicians are prone to yawnsome platitudes, Houghton is manna of a refreshingly nutty kind. Despite the fact her new album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose - a bewitching, macabre, genre-bending beast - is her first full-length outing, the 22-year-old Geordie singer is already emerging as a genuine star with beguiling, old-school allure.
It's not just risque get-ups, crazy wigs and warpaint that have got her noticed. Last year, she was romantically linked with Red Hot Chilli Pepper Anthony Kiedis ("I don't talk about it," she smiles) and was seen driven around California by Neil Young ("my friends in LA are just friends, I know them just as normal people").
If all this paints Houghton as a calculated, professional kook with an irksome disregard for situations ordinary people might consider mindblowingly weird, then the mistake is ours. In the flesh, Houghton is unassuming and chatty, her bonkers-ness a function of a healthy appetite for the esoteric. Over coffee and cigarettes she enthuses about books (Rhona Byrne's The Secret is a fave), old vinyl, Starsky & Hutch, films and, above all, her own music.
A school leaver at 15, she began writing songs inspired by her graphic-designer parents' record collection (Love, Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Joni Mitchell), influences that seep into Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose. An extraordinary record blending mariachi folk-rock, spangly glam and enchanting old English folk, veneered throughout with Houghton's dulect, athletic vocal.
Houghton, though, baulks at the nu-folk tag. "Wikipedia described it as "sweet and gentle folk", so I tried to change it. Wikipedia got in touch and told me not to change an entry for someone I knew nothing about. I protested that I was Beth Jeans Houghton but they accused me of being a time-waster, and now I'm banned."
Q extends its sympathies. She smiles, then asks brightly, without a hint of self-consciousness, "If I ate the skin on my finger, would you think I'm a cannibal?"
A new star, it seems, is born.
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Author: Pat Gilbert, Matt Allen
Photos: Switch for Thomas Fehlmann/Mavrix/Xclusive
Scan: anthonykiedis.net
Source: Q Magazine
Date: May 2012
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