Did you see the documentary on Channel 4 the other night, Stalking Pete Doherty? If you didn’t, this is roughly what happened:
A man follows Pete Doherty and his band Babyshambles around, falling slowly and obsessively in love with him. When the love isn’t reciprocated, the man has a breakdown of sorts and sells pictures of Pete smoking heroin to a newspaper, and there’s a bit of a fight that we don’t see.
It was a slightly distasteful thing to watch, this video diary of a fragile man in need of help. Mainly because none of the people in the Babyshambles camp thought twice about treating him as their court jester, exploiting his weaknesses for their enjoyment.
All except one – Gemma Clarke, the drummer. She’s since left Babyshambles to rejoin her first love: The Suffrajets.
Formed by Gemma and Alex Gillings, The Suffrajets almost made it big two years ago – their video for the song Distinction was the most requested on Scuzz TV in 2003 – but a major tour-bus accident on the M25 put them out of action for while.
In that time, Gemma went drumming with Junkie Pete, but now she’s back with Alex, along with Vicky Kingston and Claire Wakeman with the song Sold, a three-minute blast of ramalama that’s got more balls than a roomful of testicles playing table tennis on spacehoppers.
It also manages to be at least be the equal of anything we’ve heard so far from Babyshambles, thankfully. The song’s been out for a couple of weeks and is already number eight in the Official Rock Charts.
They’re working on their album right now, and they’re playing the Donnington Download Festival next month. We won’t be going, it’s far too loud and filthy, but you should.
Plus, girlbands are the future. Just ask Vanilla Ninja.
phe says
hahahaha