GONZO WEEKLY #241: Carol Hodge interview

Radio Gonzo

Carol Hodge is a remarkable young lady and possessed of a remarkable talent. I first heard about her when she joined ex-Crass vocalist Steve Ignorant about halfway through his 'Last Supper' world tour, in which he performed songs by Crass for the last time, at least in the style to which we have become accustomed over the past three and a half decades. Carol had some pretty big boots to fill, as she was singing material originally recorded by the legendary Eve Libertine back in the day. Her renditions of 'Shaved Women' and 'Poison in a Pretty Pill' were particularly impressive. For lots of reasons, mostly health ones, I was not able to go to any of the shows, but I followed the tour avidly on YouTube. The final show, at what was then The Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, is now available in a swish DVD set with a cover by yours truly, from Gonzo. So you can see it for yourself. There were several highlights from this show; not the least being when Eve Libertine joined her on stage for an impromptu rendition of the aforementioned 'Shaved Women'. But the highlight for me, which always brings a hint of a tear to my eye, was when the band played 'Bloody Revolutions' for the last time, and Steve was obviously overcome with emotion as well. Then up came Carol with a big sisterly look on her face, and held his hand as the two of them finished off the song: “Nothing changed for all the death, that their ideas created It's just the same fascistic games, but the rules aren't clearly stated Nothing's really different 'cause all government's the same They can call it freedom, but slavery is the game There's nothing that you offer but a dream of last year's hero The truth of revolution, brother...is year zero.” Hell! Forget about pinpricks of tears. The first time I saw this I was blubbing like a big blubby thing, and I still find it massively moving to this day. After seeing that, I decided that I needed to find out more about Ms. Hodge. Carol adopted the personality of Miss Crystal Grenade, an existentialist Victorian artist, singer and freak show performer with a peculiarly deformed hand. Accompanying herself on piano, and with some songs featuring multi-tracked vocals (presumably by her), this music fills the same sort of cultural territory as did the recent BBC detective series Ripper Street; a gloriously aesthetic re-creation of the latter days of Victorian London. In Miss Crystal Grenade this slice of ur-historical synthesis now has the perfect soundtrack. I was so impressed by this that I rang my old friend, and boss, Rob Ayling, the Gonzo Grande Fromage, who was equally impressed, and proceeded to sign Crystal Grenade to Gonzo. Then, a few months later, I was in Manchester with Corinna, to see Peter Gabriel performing an emotionally tinged show on his 'Back to Front' tour. We had a couple of days in Manchester, and I wanted to do some filming in the Natural History Museum there, but I took the opportunity to arrange an assignation with Carol, and Corinna, Carol and I spent a happy hour chit chatting in the museum gift shop. Then, in 2014, Carol came and sang at the Weird Weekend in character as her existential Victorian waif and – with the addition of a few more interviews over the years – that brings the story pretty much up to date. EXCEPT (and this is a bloody great big except), this year Steve Ignorant and his band Slice of Life, for whom Carol still sings, played Glastonbury. Steve was the headlining act at the final Weird Weekend last summer, and for Igs & co. to have performed such a prestigious event seemed too culturally significant for us to ignore. Carol (who seems to have ditched her Victorian persona for the moment) has also got an exciting new project in the works, and so I decided that it would be jolly good to phone her up and talk about both of these things.