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I just spent a long but very satisfying day at the video shoot for Dana Jade‘s forthcoming single “Little Sister” at my favourite video/photo studio in London, The Low Fidelity Disconnect. Dana and I met last year after she read about me in The Guardian and got in touch. I fell in love with her vibrant, driven sound and she was nice enough to come and play on a bill with me at Re-Dress last August. It’s brilliant to see her making ace videos to go with her ace songs, like this one for her cover of M.I.A.’s “Galang: (also shot at LFD):

Today I stepped in as temporary studio manager as the LFD-ers are away touring at the moment, and was very happy to dress up as an Orwellian clown for a cameo, too:

It was a joy to photograph the stream of beautiful ladies (some from Gaggle, the wonderful female choir Dana Jade is a member of) who turned up throughout the day in striking costumes and more of my photos will turn up in due course, but here are my favourites:

[If you want to use the photos online please email me and credit me with a link to She Makes War, ta!]

I’ll post the video as soon as it’s online – can’t wait! In the meantime enjoy these videos from Gaggle:

But first – for more great female music recommendations sign up to the RSS feeds of Wears The Trousers and The Girls Are. There’s such a wonderful wealth of music out there that you’ll never ever hear about if you rely on billboards, most radio stations and the telly, and that obviously goes for boy music too. Free yourself from the tyranny of the mass media!

So here are some of my favourite musical women at the moment, selected for their personality, style and general loveliness (unlike some female musicians I’ve come across, these ladies are welcoming to other women):

Maggie 8 – VISIT
“a little bit pop, a little bit folk, Hindustani classical with some old Bollywood tinges”.

Kristin Hersh – VISIT
@kristinhersh
Always utterly wonderful on record and in person. Her book Paradoxical Undressing is beautiful, too – known as “Rat Girl” in the US!

Dana Jade – VISIT
@dana_jade
Fun fact: Dana’s recent video for her cover of M.I.A.’s “Galang” this video was shot in the same studio as Let This Be and Olympian – The Low Fidelity Disconnect in North London).

Lobelia – VISIT
@lobelia
Beautiful tunes from a beautiful lady and her lovely husband.

Little Fish – VISIT
@littlefishmusic
Raucous raw rock ‘n’ roll from Oxford’s finest.

Emily Baker – VISIT
@emilybakermusic
Wonderfully down to earth, charming, funny lady making dreamy pop tunes.

Anna Madeleine – VISIT
@annamadeleine
Wonderful nutty squelchy psych electro. Video evidence will follow in due course.

Highlights of the weekend for me (aside from performing, obviously) were watching The Hysterical Injury [not only is bassist/vocalist Annie fun and lovely but one of the best bassists I've ever seen live, creative and noisy and captivating, working perfectly in synch with drummer Lee, also brilliant] and Mary Epworth, rocking out on the autoharp with her excellent all-singing all-awesome band. It was wonderful to hear “The Saddle Song” live after loving the video and getting to see a series of excellent spoken word performances at the So She Says event at The Horatia yesterday. Kati Rynne made me laugh out loud and Laura Dockrill was an impressive whirl of patter, chatter and effervescent bloodthirsty screams. Ladies to keep an eye on!

Here’s yesterday’s #Vlomo10 entry with a bit of backstage camaraderie and a performance of “Got Milk”:

More performance videos from the night are here, plus there’s a version of Let This Be and A-Hole.

I am now booking house concerts, video and photo work, lectures, social media chats and coffee/lunch rendezvous(es?) for early December around the UK – contact me if you want me to stop by your neck of the woods!

I’m trying not to bombard you all with #Vlomo10 entries but they are all kept here and yesterday’s was a rehearsal of “Got Milk”, an album track I performed for the first time live at Ladyfest yesterday:

Thank you for watching!

Read the interview here.

Friday 12th November
No Fiction Club at Power’s Bar, Kilburn.
Music from 8pm.

Saturday 13th November
Ladyfest 10 at The Garage!
Stage time 3.30-4pm. Full lineup and ticket info here.

and a cheeky extra…

Sunday 14th
Ladyfest 10 ukulele jam at The Horatia. I’ll be leading a fun session working through some riot grrrl tunes for a mass singalong. Come down!

Thanks so so much to everyone who voted for me in the “Just A Girl” band competition, both online in the run up to the live final and on the night. I feel honoured to have been included in such an ace lineup of all female bands and solo artists and am very excited about supporting MEN, Nicky Clark, Battant, Vile Vile Creatures, Veronica Falls, The Hysterical Injury, Severin and Femmepop on Saturday 13th November. Tickets are available now – go go go!

The Girls Are have just published a writeup of the night here which has links to all the excellent artists from the night and also features my brand new vBlog episode 17 which should give you a taste of the night. Yep, I was pretty drunk at the end.

It’s been a crazy week – seeds are starting to flower and though I’m finding it harder to stay on top of everything myself I’m doing my very best. If you’ve emailed me I will respond soon!

Stems are gradually appearing over on SoundCloud, remixing types – check out the Scared To Capsize set now if you fancy having a play. I am planning a remix album for early 2011 and will be asking you all to contribute so please enjoy, feel free to share them and upload your tracks to the SMW Remix Group.

Toby Vail wrote a really beautiful tribute to Ari on Jigsaw yesterday – have a read.

On reflection, entering a competition seems like a weird thing to do at this stage of my solo career. Having recorded and released my debut album and with head down working on enhancing my live solo set, creating more videos to accompany the album tracks and planning far flung tour dates (yes, the Inter Rail tour is still very much on the cards, it just got delayed a little) I’m in no need of constructive criticism from, well, anyone. This is not an arrogance issue, but a means of survival. I had a great chat with my brilliant musical friend Steve Lawson on this subject on the drive home from Unconvention last Sunday night where we agreed there were very few people in our lives who were allowed to comment on our music. I have a very small circle of close friends I feel happy playing demos to and asking for their feedback, but aside from that I’m just not interested in what people think, good or bad, because I’m not in the business of making music by committee.

Plus, obviously “Disarm” is recorded and released now, so any feedback I might receive from the judges, as respectful as I am of their personal achievements, is completely useless. So why on earth did I enter this competition, you may well ask!

Draw # 1 – the Ladyfest connection. I would LOVE to play at a Ladyfest because I think they’re great, and very important, and that’s the prize for the winner of the final. For that reason alone I would like to win, as I have no desire whatsoever to be crowned “better” than any of the other artists performing on the night.

Draw # 2 – Annette Barlow. A brilliant, motivated, creative individual with seemingly limitless energy and enthusiasm for championing female music on and offline. I’ve only met her twice but have such admiration for her work, and gratitude for her efforts to highlight female music in general and mine in particular, so I wanted to support her competition (she is co-running Ladyfest 10 and runs the excellent blog The Girls Are).

Draw # 3 – Reaching a new audience – getting the good She Makes War name out and about is my main job now the album is out there so it was very nice to be listed among the 15 contenders for the competition and even nicer to be among the final 6. I know at the moment my fans are mainly male – hello boys! – and I’d really like to even that out a bit. I can’t believe women don’t want to hear a female viewpoint in songs as much as the fellas do, but I also know the majority of people who have bought the album are men.

So, I’m not sure how it’s going to go on the night. The best course of action seems to be to do my best to play an ace show and then be polite about whatever comments come my way, ignoring any “you should do this” or “you should work on that” bits and focusing instead on supporting the other artists performing and on getting to know this new audience. I’ll be selling merch too – digital downloads via coded postcards + CD/DVD packages + necklaces + badges – and just generally milling about enjoying the rare ambience of an all female show.