Strangelies in Dalston (DVD)

Strangelies in Dalston

This short silent film was mostly shot in early 1969 when Dr Strangely Strange came over from Dublin to London to record their first LP, Kip Of The Serenes after producer Joe Boyd had signed them to his Witchseason company.

The band stayed in Albion Square, Dalston with old Dublin mates Renchi and Judith Bicknell; round the corner in Albion Road was another ex-Trinity College friend, writer and film-maker Iain Sinclair. Using a small 8mm Bolex, Iain had started keeping silent ‘film diaries’ ‘to map and log the lives that were being lived in this Hackney community.’ One of the film diary techniques you’ll notice when you watch this DVD was single-frame shooting, which enabled him to record images in a very dense way. It’s evident that the camera tended to be passed round rather like the Gorgons’ eye, and it’s quite possible that some of the sequences here were filmed by Renchi or by band members. Here’s an attempt to sort out who’s who.

Iain himself appears in one of the first sequences, shot in the street outside his house; his wife Anna is also in some of the shots. Much of the film takes place in Renchi’s basement, including a clip of Ivan Pawle at the harmonium playing an embryonic Kilmanoyyad Stomp. Linus also appears at this point – she’s the one in a brightly coloured patchwork jacket. After a bonfire night scene, probably filmed earlier, we see Tim Goulding working on a print.

The next footage takes us to Sound Techniques recording studio in Chelsea where the band are listening to a playback, quite possibly Mirror Mirror (one of first songs recorded at the first session, 5/1/69). You can just make out Joe Boyd at the mixing desk on the right-hand side of one of the shots. After being filmed upside down, Tim Booth recovers enough composure to – quite possibly – ask the budding auteur to make him a cup of tea.

The scene shifts abruptly to Dublin where we catch a glimpse of the infamous ‘Orphanage’ in Sandymount, Dublin where the band lived communally and ‘the Egyptians hanging on my wall’ in Tim Booth’s room there.

We’re back in Albion Road again, with a cameo for Gosport Lil, the band’s Renault 4, as the Strangelies head to Battersea Park to enact a mysterious medieval pageant scene, which Ivan appears to be ‘directing’. Next, it’s Tim G and ‘Orphan Annie’ Moran we see enacting a short poem about an egg by Samuel Beckett. The film ends with a lot of red smoke – quite possibly something to do with the mummers’ play. No-one can remember.

For the film’s 2007 premiere at London’s 12-Bar Club, I asked Tom Barwood to produce a Kip Of The Serenes ‘mash-up’ to use as a soundtrack. Even though he’d never seen the footage, he produced something that we thought combined excellently with the images, and so we’ve added it on the DVD.

Adrian Whittaker

if you would like to buy a copy of this DVD, please email joe rosen