MW Questionnaire: LESLEY WOODS

LESLEY WOODS

(Au Pairs)

answers the MUSIC WORKS Questionnaire

1. QUALIFICATIONS?
Law degree, fully qualified barrister of the Bar of England & Wales. practise and specialist in UK immigration law. Very mixed bag of work, mostly refugees and human rights.

2. CREATIVE LIFE HIGHLIGHTS?
Recording Playing With A Different Sex and it getting such positive acclaim. Finishing my EP finally.

3. WHAT AMBITIONS DO YOU STILL HAVE TO FULFIL?
Work with great collaborators and also make an album of which I am proud. Maybe write a book.

4. SONGS YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
There are many, too many to jot down here. The Passenger by Iggy Pop, Αllelujah by Leonard Cohen, the Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel, Anarchy by the Sex Pistols, Working For The Man by PJ Harvey, Candy Says by Lou Reed, The Message by Grandmaster Flash, Because the Night by Bruce Springsteen, Get up Stand up by Bob Marley and Gloria by Van Morrison.

5. DESERT ISLAND DISCS?
Drrrr……. it would include tracks by Fiona Apple (Criminal), St Vincent (Fast slow disco), Talking Heads (Once in a Lifetime), Gang of 4 (Anthrax), David Bowie (Sweet Thing), Lou Reed (Vicious), Iggy Pop (Lust for Life), The Bush Tetras (Too Many Creeps), Skunk Anansie (Hedonism), The Selecter (Too Much Pressure), Sonic Youth (Shadow of a Doubt), Dianne Reeves (Bridges Made out of Love), Nina Simone (Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood), Aretha Franklin ( Say a Little Prayer), Marvin Gaye (Inner City Blues),  James Brown (Get Up Offa That Thing), Sly & the Family Stone (If You want Me To Stay ), Janis Joplin (Piece Of My Heart), Black Uhuru (Stalk of Sensimilla), Bob Marley (Roots Rock Reggae), The Cure (A Forest), Joy Division (Love will tear us apart), Grace Jones (Pull up to the bumper), Billie Holiday (Strange Fruit), Jeff Buckley (Lilac Wine), Joni Mitchell (Blue Motel Room), Lady Gaga (Disease), Carole King (Way Over Yonder), Neil Young (Only Love Can Break Your Heart) and Sinead O’ Connor (Mandinka).

6. FAVOURITE ARTISTS/BANDS OF ALL TIME?
Talking Heads, B-52s, Joy Division, The Cure, Sonic Youth, Gang of Four, The Fall, Chic, James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, Fiona Apple, Lady Gaga, Patti Smith, Gail Ann Dorsey, Aretha Franklin, Lucinda Williams, Nina Simone, Buena Vista Social Club, Tanya Maria , Celeste, Sammy Davies, John Martin, Leonard Cohen, Chet Baker, Quincy Jones and Sinead O’ Connor

7. WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
The Cure’s new album, Anja Huwe’s new album, Chet Baker, Sonic Youth, my new EP and I have Radio 6 on all the time. I play Fiona Apple and St Vincent a lot and my doggy likes chilling out to both Lucinda Williams and celeste as do I.

8. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
“Mute” by Dave Barbarossa and about to start reading “A Woman in Berlin” by anonymous and “Simple Passion” by Annie Ernaux. I got both books as birthday presents recently.

9. HOBBIES?
Cooking , jogging and long walks in nature with my little dog “Dusky” who is an exceptionally long legged Pomeranian aged 14 months, music, singing, dancing,  writing, sunbathing, reading, yoga and looking at polar bears

10. VINYL, CASSETTE, CD, MP3, WEB STREAMING?
I have managed to hold onto a small eclectic collection of vinyl. it includes a 78 by Eartha Kitt, albums by the Cure, Nina Simone, Talking Heads, Guns and Roses, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, James Brown, Tuxedo Moon, James Hamilton, Aretha Franklin, Shirley Brown, Kraftwerk, Archie Shepp & Jeanette Lee, Miles Davis, the Au Pairs, James Brown, Peggy Lee live at the Hollywood Bowl.  I used to have 100s of cassettes. I have lots of CDs but mostly go to Spotify as is so convenient. Listen on Bose Bluetooth and CDs also on Bose CD player. Bose is high quality. Henceforth when I hear an album on Spotify I like, I will buy the CD.

11. MUSIC IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET (RELEASE, PROMOTION, GIG…) ?
Writing new material for an album, been offered some big gigs supporting some really admirable artists but nothing confirmed yet & hoping to set up more gigs and play festivals and work with a great drummer, female bass player and guitarist, horn player and synth/keyboards. Everything very much up in the air at the moment, need to get someone to make CD copies of my digital EP.

12. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?
Pride is not a bad thing when it urges us to hide our own hurts and not to hurt others and finish wot you started.

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LESLEY WOODS

In The Fade

Lesley Woods is the former frontperson, singer, songwriter and guitarist with the formidable band The Au Pairs who formed circa winter 1979 in Birmingham with 3 others including one other female. Their 1982 album Playing with a Different Sex has been acknowledged as being a seminal work and regarded as being advanced for its time with its dry witty lyrics about faking orgasms and other issues arising in the arena of sexual politics.

Sadly, the band folded in around 1983 by which time the band had released 2 studio albums, several singles and a live album from the Venus Weltklang (Women’s Rock festival held in Berlin in the days of the Berlin Wall where several prominent all-female bands performed including the Slits and the Modettes). Currently Au Pairs are signed to BMG who intends to re-release the 2 studio albums in Jan/Feb 2025.

To coincide with that event Lesley is releasing her new 4-track EP on Bandcamp. The EP has been a long time in the making. It started with a bunch of new songs and meeting Tim Sagar from Brighton with whom she became great. friends. He put down the bass lines on 3 of the tracks. Tragically Tim died of cancer at end of 2022 having been diagnosed at beginning of Covid. Prior to that Andy Gill from Gang of Four put Lesley in touch with a soundperson called Josh Rumble who assisted with drum parts and who created 3 of the EP’s 4 drum tracks
Having played a few solo gigs using the tracks as backing tracks ( including supporting Lena Lovich, playing at Punk Rebellion in Blackpool and Grauzone Festival in the Hague where she met and was interviewed by Jon Rob of the Membranes ) and having purchased a brand new Stratocaster, Lesley almost completely abandoned the project until in Summer 2023 she was asked if she would like to support the Chameleons on 11 of their UK tour dates, an opportunity she immediately snatched. She also performed at the Female Empowerment festival in Autumn 2023 sharing the line-up with Gina Birch and Farida Amadou and sang backing vocals on Theo Hakola’s new album “Shalalalala”

She then enlisted the technical assistance of one Theo Bard who helped in turning 11 tracks (comprised of material she wrote during Au Pairs days and new material) into backing tracks which could be played through a relatively large PA and then she went on the road for the first time in over 40 years. The feedback was positive and she then decided it was well-nigh time to make a recording worthy of release. However, Theo, who had just become a first-time papa, was unable to assist and again she was on the lookout for someone who would be willing and happy to spend the time and effort and who had the requisite skills to bring the project to fruition.
It came as a big surprise when she met Celine Belli on Linkedin of all places having responded positively to the art images of a woman artist called Maya Van Malden (Artists Anonymous) who was showing pictures of art on that platform. She happened to be a close friend of Celine’s. It turned out that Celine had been the soundperson at a festival in Manchester at which Lesley had played around 10 years earlier. Having messaged Celine on Linkedin they agreed to meet for lunch . That was in early Summer 2024.

Celine came over, checked out the tracks, liked them and an agreement was reached whereby Celine undertook to mix and master them once the final guitar and vocal parts had been recorded. Then disaster struck when Lesley’s PC ran out of storage and in an effort to create more, Lesley deleted many crucial audio files.
After an urgent visit by a man from Amazon who de-installed everything on the PC hard drive and then installed a new 4 TB of hard drive and having re-installed the remaining material, Lesley set about re-recording the lost audio files this all being achieved by late Summer 2024
After a great many hours of recording, mixing and mastering, the product reached its final stage, and was released on New Year’s Day 2025.
Thereafter it is hoped that gigs will follow, that there will be an album release and time to find and work with other musicians as well as migrating to Manchester sometime this year!

press release

AU PAIRS

Sense and Sensuality

Sense and Sensuality (1982) was the second and final album by
seminal British post-punk band The Au Pairs. The four-piece group
from Birmingham were very much in tune with the early 80s growth
pangs from the first punk explosion – stripping down their music from
their debut LP to a funkier, more rhythmic essence, and shifting the
focus of their lyrics to the personal rather than the political.
The addition of horns and imaginative synthesizers allowed for more
satisfying sonic diversity, from the disco-informed dance-punk of
“Instant Touch” to the cabaret swing of “Tongue in Cheek”. While
“That’s When It’s Worth It” takes several elements of popular post-
punk – looping auxiliary percussion rhythms and a sporadically used
horn section – and crafts them into a wild sound that’s equal parts
dance, psychedelia, punk and art pop.

Their distinctly punk take on sex and gender politics, meanwhile, was
their strongest thematic strain – and that’s truly where Sense and
Sensuality shined. Despite only reaching #79 in the UK when first
released, it’s now widely seen as one of the best post-punk albums ever.
Sense and Sensuality will be available as a limited numbered edition
of 750 copies on silver colour and contains an insert.