Paris, Pants, Pulp at O2, an Oasis influencer event, and Antwerp (randomly)

bonj?

I’ve returned from a three week trip (I wanted to stay longer but being an American who remains in Europe for a month or more is very embarrassing, it’s giving “today’s office”) and also from a six month hiatus from the Substack to tell you…what? Trying to work that out has been a large factor in the erratic (to put it mildly) nature of this whole thing. That and my lack of “hustle and grind” mentality, Ken Burns-esque podcast full time job, and probably the fact that my house burned down earlier this year (sorry I haven’t worked out a less casual way to mention that yet and I don’t have a good joke for it here due to jet lag). At the risk of being uncool (I heard Substack isn’t cool so I think it’s okay to do that here) I’ll tell you that I just keep feeling narrowly confined to filling this letter with just music stuff because that’s “my thing” and not to be all “I contain multitudes” but like…I do? We all do? So with this unnecessary preamble out of the way I’m going to go ahead and talk about whatever the fuck I want here going forward, hopefully (first rule of Fast & Loose Substack is we do NOT commit to frequency) more often.

PARIS

If you, like myself, recently had a small menty b and cut off your waist length hair into a bob even though you know it is very curly and thus when unstyled makes you look like George Washington (I call this “going founding fathers mode”) and you need a good place for a blow-out (or a “brushing” as they call them in France) I loved Rose Donald in Le Marais. You can tell within minutes due to the force and technique with which someone round brushes your hair if it’s going to be a good one (see - multitudes) and the woman at Rose Donald (perhaps it was Rose herself? didn’t come up) had excellent wrist strength. Plus there’s a cute dog there.

I can’t take credit for this tip as it was 100% my mother who packed an entire can of Persian pickles (they are different and in ways superior to normal pickles, you can get them at your local Middle Eastern market, Sadaf is a solid brand) in her suitcase because while Paris boulangerie sandwiches are of course fantastic they really are fucking elevated by some Persian pickles. Yes she also brought the jar to transport them into from the can she is a special genius.

Also perhaps your house recently burned down (there she go again) and you felt it necessary to buy the most expensive pair of trousers you have ever owned (but the VAT, she tells herself)? Off to the Phoebe Philo “store” (isn’t it really just a branded section at Galleries Lafayette?) then. These pants are seemingly designed for WBNA players (or very rich women who don’t care if the hems drag all over the ground) but wearing them I felt like I could do anything (similar to meth in a way but also in a way not so similar to meth) plus they tailored them for free. Plus… (shrill) the VAT…

ANTWERP

I went through a range of emotions the two days I was in Antwerp alone on some eat pray shop shit. There’s something vaguely Canadian about the place that I can’t quite put my finger on? Anyway my hotel was beautiful and much more affordable than Paris or London, the food was fantastic at every single random place I went (I’m a longtime supporter of mayonnaise with fries), and the city is full of young people who have the same energy that everyone had everywhere when I backpacked through Europe in 2002 (I was 19 and wore those Soffe shorts basically every day).

The Ann Demeulemeester flagship store has the most beautiful dressing room I’ve ever seen in my life. I bought some men’s shorts? Closet rebuild is chaotic so far.

Highly recommend listening to the entirety of the Cameron Winter album while walking around in here (I mean it this time).

LONDON

I got to see Pulp play a sold out show at the O2 arena my first night in London and it was very cool both because they put on a fantastic, super high production value (the string section!) show but also because it was so interesting to experience them in the place where they are truly (and arguably rightfully) full on famous and massive. The crowd was very much screaming crying throwing up for Jarvis and co and was also more varied than the ones I’ve been part of in LA at least (on the train on the way home there was a pregnant woman in full like Siouxsie level goth make up that was also coming back from the show). I was however upset when Jarvis threw a pink glove on stage (!!!!) and then immediately said “but we’re not playing that song” and went into “Common People” instead. Working on moving on from this emotionally.

Thank you so much to the fabulous Jeanette Lee (who at a different point on this trip introduced me to her Rough Trade partner Geoff Travis while I was wearing a bootleg Smiths shirt…pain…) for the tickets.

Walking out of the arena through that bizarre sort of Vegas style mall thing with Miranda Sawyer we did pass a pub full of people raising their pint glasses in the air singing along to “Wonderwall” which I did find to be a little on the nose.

Speaking of, thank you to the nice people at Adidas UK who noticed I was in Blighty and invited me to the Oasis x Adidas “Originals Forever” event and for the cute jersey. I live to influence and of course to aid the Gallagher brothers in securing the bag in any way possible.

I hope this post makes up for the fact that I did indeed “nick” this champagne glass.

And lastly thank you to the creators of Department Q for this exquisite show that I watched all nine episodes of while in the extremely comfortable bed at The Laslett hotel in Notting Hill instead of you know, going outside to see what the city had to offer or whatever. Not pictured: delivery fish & chips from Poppies (with curry sauce AND mashed peas) which I do agree is an insane thing to order into your hotel room for olfactory reasons but I will not apologize.

This was very long by accident so next time I’ll be back to talk about some new music, some old music (Elastica probably), and who knows what else, life is a highway.