Seen recently on the ATB ‘live review’ pages after playing alongside Garbage and Skunk Anansie at Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre, Du Blonde is Beth Jeans Houghton – an English multi-disciplinary musician, composer, artist, animator and video director. With four albums to her name, plus the recently released Du Blonde – Live at The Portland Arms (a first ever live album) Beth also creates art using photography, illustration, animation, video, sculpture and embroidery. She has also directed and animated music videos for multiple artists including Ezra Furman, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Laura Marling’s band LUMP

Beth joins us for a Why I Love on a similar polymath and fave of many of the ATB squad, Frank Zappa.

Photo: Ellen Dixon

THE DRAW OF CALIFORNIA

From a young age I was always drawn to California – Los Angeles to be precise. This in part was probably to do with the film Grease, but mostly because of the music I grew up listening to as a child of a mother who loves music from the 60’s and 70’s. Early on I got an extensive education in the music that came out of Laurel Canyon during that time, from Joni Mitchell and The Mamas and The Papas, to the Byrds and more obscure music like Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and some of my all-time favourites, The GTO’s (Originally a dance troupe of self-proclaimed groupies who joined acts like Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention on stage, later recording an album produced by Zappa called Permanent Damage, released on his record label Straight Records).

I spent a lot of my childhood poring over the liner notes of vinyl LPs and making a map in my head of all the musicians who played on each others records from that time, akin to the type of wall display a detective might erect during a murder investigation. I could claim any one of those musicians as an influence, but the reason I’m speaking about Zappa here is because of the sheer breadth of his weirdness, musicality and impact on the music industry, from showing us exactly what it looks like for a creative force to release weird as fuck music entirely on their own terms, to the record labels he built to assist other musicians in doing the same, to his tireless fight against US censorship and suppression of the First Amendment in music. 

THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL

I’ve been obsessively making music since my childhood and early teens and for better or for worse, I began my professional career as a solo artist at the age of 15. My life has been entirely dedicated to the pursuit of weird and wonderful music that makes a person feel something, and what I feel, and what I want to express, changes day by day. This turned out to be a problem once I signed to record labels at the age of 18. Variation and genre hopping is a nightmare for companies who to all intents and purposes, are selling a product.

Being an AuDHD (Autistic and ADHD) teen with a distrust in authority and pathological demand avoidance, I was probably the worst person they could possibly sign. Having grown up watching such musical chameleons as Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Grace Jones and even Neil Young, I knew it was possible to hop genres, change masks and explore the length and breadth of musical possibility without losing fans, so thanks to those musical giants, my inability to do what I’m told, and to the chagrin of a lot of men-in-suits, I never gave up fighting to release exactly what I wanted.

THE INDEPENDENT WAY

In 2021, after 15 years signed to record labels, I finally caved and went back to my roots. I left record labels for good, and having been inspired by Zappa’s creation of twin record labels Straight Records and Bizarre Records, created to allow musicians both commercial and avant-garde to release music without corporate censorship, I created my own label Daemon T.V. Initially DTV was a way for me to release music independently in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way, reclaiming ownership over my own work.

But after the success of my self-released album Homecoming, and recouping the costs of the album before release, I realised I could help other artists do the same. I committed to making DTV a physical-only label, manufacturing physical copies of artist’s records at no cost to them, providing them with merchandise they can make a profit on, while allowing them to retain 100% of their master rights and digital income. 

A REFUSAL TO BEND

Zappa’s refusal to bend to the mainstream and commercial expectations of record labels, radio stations and some of the public, has created a blue-print for artists worldwide who hold the integrity of their ideas above mainstream success, money and fame and I hope his story and body of work continue to inspire many generations to come. Within an ever-changing landscape in which art is repeatedly commodified, in which a musicians success is seemingly judged by their follower count and more and more people are absent-mindedly consuming AI generated work built from the bricks of real human artistry, we should be more invested than ever in protecting originality and the magic human creativity. 

Our thanks to Du Blonde for their insights.

Here’s TV Star from the Sniff More Gritty album:

You can read more from our extensive archive of Why I Love pieces from a wide array of artists on an even wider array of subjects, here.

Du Blond: Website

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