On 9th December, 2007 The Hammersmith Lyric took a break from its heavy panto schedule to play host to an evening of poetry, music and film to delight all the gentlefolk of West London who like to add another dimension to their musical enjoyment. The event was "curated" by Edward Larrikin, Blue Flowers (Chiswick-based new music mercenaries) and the enigmatic Alice, who also "Creatively Directed" the event and edited the Alchemy of the Verb - an audacious programme of events that doubles as a poetry anthology with contributions from some of the brightest and best lyricists around.
The affair was attended by a near capacity crowd of happy looking cardigan types and had a surprisingly unpretentious atmosphere. A few celebrities, including performers, ambled uninterrupted around the indoor Christmas market and watched some of the archive-based films by the legendary Jona Mekas (his first work for years and if you can find anywhere else showing it we massively recommend you go).
The centre-piece and climax of the evening was the first live performance of Ed Larrikin's latest incarnation The Pan I Am. SUPERSWEET managed to coax him into telling us about some of his plans for the new band (there are lots) and what its origins are (they are him
Patrick Wolf
"It’s just me, just under a different name, the Pan I Am, but I do have a live band that I’ve kind of put together friends and family and stuff. I was just trying to record and finish but that was really nice because I've been working with a guy called Dan Clarke; it’s him and I and a couple of other friends. It’s nice to start again... On the record I’ve got a couple of guest singers as well... [including] Fyfe from the Guillemots and Jock Scot who’s kind of a legend hero of mine."
Fyfe Guillemots is too part of in the Alchemy of the Verb with a couple of vignettes he hasn't (yet) set to music.
Jock Scott also featured as one of the highlights on stage; with long silences, constant references to lack of time and insistence that no-one clap until the end, his pan is one of the deadest and funniest around. These bleak confessionals were preceded by pretty but fragile Patrick Wolf. Wolf took the poetry element of the proceedings to heart and gave a characteristically personal reading of Dylan Thomas as well as his own poem based on the fairy tale The Tinder Box.
The wealth of fancy new talent present and the scope of the evening is a testament to the rallying powers of Larrikin and his Blue Flowers friends and in keeping with his feverish productivity:
"I’ve got huge amount, I’ve got 3 albums’ worth of material. All these songs on the first record will have different themes - and there are 9 songs that they’ll change, they’ll just go in [somehow]…I started thinking about the Pan I Am maybe like a year ago, I first started thinking of which songs are not gonna be featured in my last band and in May after my last band (Larrikin Love) broke up I immediately went down to Cornwall for a week and recorded there and then. Came back to London and we finished it off."
Jock Scott
All of the performances looked and felt great in the auditorium – it’s what you get for the price of being able to dance around and have your face melted by speakers: the chance to listen. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea but this crowd seemed to love it. It also allowed the evening to be a whole event, which is in-keeping with Larrikin and partner Alice’s (the director) approach to The Pan I Am.
“I’m really excited about putting out this record, putting out a couple of singles and just doing really interesting shows rather than... you know, you won’t find the Pan I Am at the Barfly or anything like that, we’re just going to choose a couple of events – I learned from the last band that I’m not such a huge fan of touring and I don’t see why I should be so…" he laughs.
"I’m doing other stuff as well, at the moment I’m talking to a couple of publishers about a collection of poems and prose and stuff that I’ve done and Alice is illustrating and the publisher is really excited about that and I want to move into that book art world where you’ve got illustrations with the poems and that’s something that we’re into as well that’s another project in 2008.”
Ed Larrikin
The Pan I Am as a straight-out band will have big appeal in the regular Barfly type (sorry Ed!) venues too. Larrikin’s band is organised and his livid, overbearing presence on stage to cries out for a crowd with the elbow room to join him. We reckon there will be lots of people willing to go there.
For those who prefer the quieter sophistication of the dramatic auditorium in which to enjoy the new Pan’s work his first play, Camusflage Krokodial, will be opening as part of the London Word Festival on March 8th. He’s very excited about that too!
“I’ve been working on this play for ages, well not that long actually…I’m going to be focusing on that after the 9th. Get this casting of one role character, I’m really excited about that as well - about finding the right person.”
We hope this is the start of many events to come from Ed and his friends. It looks like Pan (once a mythological God of Nature) is looking to rule the world (again).
Words: SUPERSWEET
Photography: Burak Cingi