We were wondering around John Walter’s new art installation Alien Sex Club, when we bumped into Alan Bonner. A fey, tattooed character with blonde curls and blue eyes, we weren’t surprised to be told he was a singer. But it was upon our friend’s insistence that Bonner was ‘truly, really brilliant’, that we headed to his Soundcloud to suss him out.
Talia, the first track, begins with a burst of cello string and a cascading drop of piano chords. We thought to ourselves, ‘quite like this number already’, as we smiled and drank red wine and listened.
But then the lyrics began, in their curling cigarette smoke of poignancy, cradled in Bonner’s heart-breaking voice. Heart-breaking because he reminds you of that first love, the one you threw away by mistake; heart-breaking because he holds this whole history of gay men’s relationships in his music that Beyonce as a straight woman will never once hold.
And what lyrics they are; there’s no hint of pretension here; other than, of course, this review. Simple clarity is spliced with contemporary ‘starving artist’ (read: anybody in their twenties in London) imagery.
‘Jack Daniels bottles with candle stuck out of them / Hungover Sundays in dressing-gowns almost lived in,’ begins the song, before a reference to the glamour of past idols: ‘Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, and lots of red wine.’ All the while tied with a knife-edged string behind the lines, before Bonner moves on to his next chapter of gay sex and drugs:
‘Cocaine nights on the pavement of Camden Town / Every Sunday you nurse me through my comedown / Always there with a smile and a cuddle and lots of red wine,’ he sings, then invests the song with a laconic, topical humour. ‘Drink me under the table / Pick me up from the floor… Talia, you’re the girl I would marry / If girls were my thing / But they’re not / So there won’t be a wedding or ring.’
The tune and arrangement of melodies carry the listener happily on Bonner’s journey traced in imagination. Sand sifts through fingers as we watch the memories of these two men’s relationship slip grain by silver grain. What we’re left with are images that linger, dancing on the brain: ‘Like Bonnie and Clyde with no guns and no violence… Just lots of red wine.’
• Alan Bonner will be playing at ‘Let’s Talk About Gay Sex & Drugs – Aliens’ at on Thurs 13th August, 6.30pm, at Alien Sex Club, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS.