David Lynch, Girls and Guitars

I suggest that 1977's Eraserhead, David Lynch's first movie, was not only his best work, but the most frightening film ever made. I watched it on DVD on a portable TV on my own, in the dark, and I almost died of fright. In a cinema it must be even more powerful.

My interest in The Lynch revived when the Twin Peaks revival series came out in 2017. We gradually noticed that almost every episode would end with a girl, or a band led by a girl, singing dreamily in the Roadhouse dive bar. It was powerful. As is my wont, I started to dig, and found a name: Johnny Jewel.

Johnny is a proponent of what some people call synthwave or synth-pop but is a sort of electrified Americana. The Chromatics appeared in that series and are a good example of this. When the Australian saxophonist Jorja Chalmers, now based in Margate, signed for his Italians Do It Better label, I took note. She is Bryan Ferry's go-to sax and keyboard player.

Johnny's music also includes something called noir disco, and in that arena I consider Pearl Charles to be the shizz. It's not quite disco. It is nothing like Abba. Sometimes she will use a fiddle. It is synthy pop, but with a darkness in the mood and in the lyrics. She is a spirit of the night. As is The Lynch. His contribution to film and TV is famous. What is his contribution to music?

“Art is not a hobby, it’s a necessity,” says Johnny Jewel. “I have an unquenchable thirst for sound and tone.”

Lynch and Johnny Jewel provide some of the solution to my own troubles. Why did I start writing seriously about Americana music in February? Why do I love Lynch? Why do I work so much? Three ego-based questions about me. The truth is that I don't know the answer to any of those questions, but I can start to see some connections.

This week I saw Pearl Charles in Hackney, East London, and managed to chat to her at the merch stand. Why was I there? She's not a roots or "big C" Country artist. Some of her older stuff might be, but this new Desert Queen album has the disco about it. Perhaps a little Sophie Ellis-Bextor but dark. Some if it is really dark, but Pearl lives in the desert at Joshua Tree, in the light. The only dark things about Pearl Charles are her hair and her mind.

London's Moth Club spoke to me. I mean the very fabric of the building. I was stunned. I walked off a quiet street into a working men's club in broad daylight but was transported, once inside, into David Lynch's Roadhouse at night with no windows. I sent a photo of the red stage with its gold backdrop and its vaulted ceiling decorated with gold glitter to Calmer Sounds and she immediately sent back a GIF of the Roadhouse. I was in Twin Peaks and it was a shock. And it linked Pearl's music back to David Lynch. Suddenly pennies / nickels started dropping.

A couple of hours later I was staring intently at Beyoncé fans at Marylebone. Those English cowgirls had just spent two hours watching the first night of the Cowboy Carter residency over in The Spurs stadium. I spend a lot of time at Marylebone Station after work. It is the end to every single one of my nights out in London, for better and worse. It was where I first listened to some unreleased demos by Cyrena Wages on April 29th, mouth agape. It was also where I was when the new Valley James single dropped at midnight on the night of 5th June 2025. Valley James is a phenomenon. Her very name conjures up the American West, as does the photo below.

But that photo does not represent my Valley James and not the one who dropped the single Electric Blue this week. She has gone all Richard Gere in a Pretty Women suit (with bright lipstick) this week. The song and the look today are much more David Lynch. I put the song on in the car on the way home. In a car, in the dark, I felt like I was taking part in a remake of Lost Highway. This is why I like these songs so much: they link me back to David Lynch, which takes me all the way back to when Twin Peaks was new, in 1990. In the UK it aired on BBC2 on October 23rd of that year. Our world changed that night.