PEACHES AND FIFI BROWN


Peaches Geldof is famous for lots of things, but above all for being Bob Geldof and Paula Yates’s spiky, loud-mouthed, khol-eyed daughter who never smiles in photos. Despite turning 17 in March, plenty has been written about her being famous just because she’s a famous person’s kid.

Like many kids of famous folk, she’s a regularly snapped face on the celeb circuit, but she’s also a firm fixture on London’s indie scene, citing the Fly, Fabric, Camden Barfly, KOKO and the Macbeth as faves. And for the past seven months she’s also been a DJ, one half of indie girl DJ duo the Trash Pussies. On Saturday they play at Sean McLusky’s 1234 Records night at 333, although, as usual, the slot is only billed under her name.

‘Because it’s me,’ says Peaches, discussing her DJing style, ‘this embarrassing teen icon, people expect me to play crappy pop like The Kooks or Kaiser Chiefs. But we [Fifi Brown, her best friend and Trash Pussies partner] play obscure music like rave, grime, garage, hip hop, ’60s psych, ’60s rock ’n’ roll… as well as the generic indie hits. We’re always getting big DJs coming up and saying “what’s that record?” ’ Like what? ‘We play electro, like Miss Kittin, Chromeo and Fischerspooner. DJ Dee Kline’s “Sexy Cinderella” is sick. And we play cheesy rave. Our favourite is “The Key The Secret”.’

‘We wanted to go out and enjoy ourselves at indie clubs,’ she says, explaining why she and Fifi first picked up the headphones, ‘but the DJs were crap. The kids we’re with get it now, they’re responsive. It’s part of the whole new rave thing, like Shitdisco and The Klaxons. People like Teens of Thailand and Erol Alkan were doing it before, but we’re taking it to new club nights.’

It can’t be easy being famous when you’re a teenager, and she readily admits that fame isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. While her name has helped her secure work making TV documentaries (her latest follows her living in Morocco wearing a hajib: ‘I learned that Islam is not as it’s portrayed, it can be a beautiful religion.’), she seems tired of the indie circuit. Her MySpace page contains a diatribe about ‘going to the same clubs, seeing the same faces… pretentious wankers in skinny jeans with vacuus [sic], dead eyes and false smiles’, but she laughs this off.

‘It’s a piss-take, a private joke for a girl who writes really crap blogs. But,’ she continues, ‘the scene Fifi and I DJ for is quite Warholian. People popularise certain characters on the indie scene and they become god-like. They don’t realise that it isn’t tangible.’

Moments after I hang up the phone, she rings back.

‘Can you write that we always DJ with the Shamones? They’re like the boy equivalent of us. And you have to mention the Fisher Price Soundsystem, they’re friends and they’re sick. Oh, and New Testament Party Crew. Their “Laryrinth” record is the top record of them all. If you put them in the article, I’ll love you the rest of your life!’

 



 

block3