January 10, 2011
INTERVIEW WITH “I SAW YOU STANDING” CREATOR

Street style documenting has come a long way from the trendy backstreets of major cities. Now a lucrative industry, amateur blogs pit against national newspapers, magazines and big hitter websites. But like most things, anything that becomes big news also drips in over-saturated fat.

I Saw You Standing appears to be the next level in street style photography. Shot on video and accompanied to music, the focus pulls in and out on the small details of regular people stopped in the street. Created by Stan Still from T-Shirt Party and Nina Manandhar, co-founder of Hardcore Is More Than Music, for Platform, I Saw You Standing promises to deliver the goods. But more importantly, Still hates street style blogs. WTF?

“They’re usually filled with the same dumbass looking trendies looking all stush on their way to their media jobs dolled up in whatever’s on trend. I see more interesting looking people on my local high street everyday so I wanted to build an archive about real peoples style.”

Where did the idea come from?
“I’ve always liked time capsules, libraries and archives so I guess it’s an idea that’s been in my head for a while. It’s a documentation of personal style and people rather than being about clothes and fashion. Documenting street style ain’t nothing new but moving it into moving image and adding music really gives the format new life.”

What should we be expecting to see?
“Matalan shoppers rubbing shoulders with bond street ones.”

What would your ultimate spot be?
“Who knows. My local newsagent lady wears TSP. That’s always pretty special when I see her in one of my tee’s.”

T-Shirt Party is drawing to a close in a few months. Do u plan to go out with a bang or on the quiet? Would you do something clothes related again?
“I’m going out with a bang, trust. Not sure about going into clothes again. Not really to sure how clothes related TSP was. Maybe Tea Cup Party? Porcelain could be a good future for me. Everyone likes tea, huh.”

I Saw You Standing: http://www.readplatform.com/category/style/isys/

(Source: nothingbadmag.com)

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January 10, 2011
INTERVIEW WITH DEVLIN

As the start of the summer sun melts everything around us, Devlin perches on a wall outside his management’s offices and smiles, and with good reason. 2010 began with an appearance on the BBC’s yearly hit music-maker longlist (“Sound of…”) and by March he was signed to a major label (Island).

 ’It’s weird,’ he says. ”Cos it’s every musicians dream (to sign). It still hasn’t really sunk in. It’s everything I’ve wanted and now I’ve got it.’

 As always, the internet was there from the start. Kanye West blogged about him. 27,000 “liked” him on Facebook. His 3 videos combined received 2 million views on Youtube. But like most good stories, fame didn’t knock overnight.

 Born and raised in Dagenham, Essex, James Devlin joined the grime crew, Outakers, at 15. Pirate radio, solo mixtapes and heavy radio play followed. The single, “London City”, stayed at the top of the Channel AKA (formally Channel U) for 10 weeks.

 November 1st sees the release of his debut album, “Bud, Sweat & Beers”.

 ’I’ve been recording for the past year. I tried making this album before but I didn’t think it was strong enough so we drew a mixtape from what songs were there. We really hit the studio hard to give ourselves the most choice of music.’

 Is he worried he’ll ever lose his edge? ‘A lot of musicians are different. I just want to make music that’s true to me.’ He smiles. ‘I just wanna come do my bit now.’

Photo - Katie Coleslaw

(Source: nothingbadmag.com)

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January 10, 2011
INTERVIEW WITH SLEIGH BELLS

So, Alexis’s mum. Now the band has taken off is she the biggest fan of Sleigh Bells?
Derek: She is a huge fan, for sure…very cool woman. I mentioned in a different interview how honest she is, which is true. She came into the studio, heard a rough mix of “Tell ‘Em” was kinda unimpressed and not shy about it. The truth hurts, we just wanna be lied to.


Inside your album Treats are yours and Alexis school photos. Did you enjoy school? Did you always know you wanted to make music for a living?
Derek: I’ve always loved music, but I didn’t always anticipate making a living off it. It slowly became obvious that I was gonna have to pursue it even if it meant being extra broke. I’m approaching “semi broke” which is an improvement.


Is there a difference touring with a girl as opposed to touring with a bunch of guys (Derek was previously in hardcore band Poison the Well)? I’m sure the van must smell a lot nicer…
Derek: Much nicer. This is gonna sound boring, but Alexis and I get along very well. It’s usually fun. Her feet smell though, so the van scent is still “off”!


It’s been a crazy few months for SB. Is there a particular event or moment that has stood out?
Derek: It got pretty heavy for me a few minutes before our set at The Fader Fort during SXSW. We were playing the second to last slot, right before Bone Thugs, on Saturday night. It was our 19th show or something…a ridiculous situation to be in for such a young band. I suppose it’s called “growing pains” but I realized then that it was sink or swim…people aren’t interested in excuses. We were decent at best.


Is it hard not to Google yourself? I just did and about 18,000 pages came up.
Derek: If I’m being honest, yes. I rarely do it anymore. It always feels wrong, even when the results are positive. Best to ignore it all.


Now that you’ve released your album and touring a lot, are days off rare?
Derek: We work hard but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Waiting tables is like a never ending night out…everyone drinks and goes out every night when a shift is over. I had just come off a few years of  that so the change is exciting. No complaints.

Photo - Katie Coleslaw

(Source: nothingbadmag.com)

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December 19, 2010
BEST EVER INBETWEENERS EPISODES

The Inbetweeners final series ended last week and joined the big TV heaven in the sky (a feature length movie is penciled for next year though). To celebrate, we’ve spent the past 7 days (seriously, i’m exhausted) putting together the best ever episodes -


Series 1, Episode 2 -
Already described as the best ever episode, this is also probably the most talked about episode of The Inbetweeners. Bunking off school, they buy alcohol and get pissed round Neil’s house where Will proceeds to call Neil’s dad a “bumder”. Steaming drunk, Simon decides it’d be a good idea to do “a Banksy” graffiti love heart in front of Carly’s house. The gang laughs until she invites him back later.


On the wrong side of drunk, Simon asks Carly to finger herself while he watches then pukes onto her little brother who runs out crying following Will’s stories of nuclear bombs and how his parents will probably die in one. The horror of seeing the gushing stream of puke splattering the kid’s face is probably one of the greatest TV moments ever.



Series 1, Episode 4 -
Unbelievably, Will manages to pull the fittest girl in the year above at a house party. While the boys are downstairs trying to work out which of the school bullies she dates, Will and Charlotte are making out (“Is this a practical joke?”) on the stairs. We’re also introduced to a new friend of Jay’s which immediately involves a piss take from the boys throughout the episode, resulting with Jay exploding on top of the new friend’s car, stomping up and down on the bonnet while screaming “friend! friend!” We’ve all been there.


Having convinced Charlotte he’s experienced in the sack, she invites Will round to hers for sex. In bed he proceeds to undo all his hard work and ends up grinding up and down on her leg like the inexperienced virgin he is. “Sorry to ask, have I just lost my virginity?” “I’m not going to count that one.” “Can I count it though?” “Probably not, no.” Ahhhhh, triple cringe.



Series 1, Episode 5 -
Eternal liar Jay has maintained throughout the past 4 episodes that ‘Caravan Club‘ is a place he regularly gets up to his nuts in guts with loose girls, including two sisters. The boys decide to see if this it really is a place for pussy-on-tap and tag along for the weekend. They text the sisters and amazingly, one of them texts back with a picture of herself. It’s at this moment the viewer begins to think that, for once, maybe Jay isn’t lying, announcing, “I promise you when you come back from this place you’ll be begging your parents to buy a caravan.” It seems unlikely, especially when the party is predictably shit, held in what Will describes as “a giant garden shed.”


Then suddenly Will is propositioned by a girl who wants to fuck him and Neill gets a handjob in Simon’s car. Simon takes one of the sister’s outside, rips her top and strips naked with nothing but a condom over his exposed penis. The girl’s horrified expression is enough to convince us that Jay has never had sex with any of the girls at Caravan Club who are just as inexperienced as he is. The boys leave with the smell of Neill’s penis floating around the car and knowing that Jay is and will always be a liar.

Series 2, Episode 1 -
Despite Simon stripping down in a dingy with a sock over his penis, this episode belongs to Jay. Telling the gang he only took Geography A-Level because of the carnage he’d heard about from previous field days, he tells them about a horny housewife who every year bangs one boy from their school. As ever, this seems highly unlikely.


Once there, Jay seems to be believing his own lie and goes off in search of this “sex starved” housewife. There is an old woman in an ice cream shop along the seafront. They decide that this silver haired lady is the one (“she looks like she only has one leg”). After ordering a Cornetto, he propositions her. “Are you the lady who sucks school boys off?” “Sorry?” “Will you suck me off?” He leaves the old lady startled and confused as he legs it. TV gold.


Series 2, Episode 2 -
Will ends up at a car mechanics on work experience (“It’s not that I’m better than this, it’s just I’m much cleverer than you need to be to work here”) and immediately sets himself up for a week long of ribbing.  When asked which page 3 girls boobs he’d like to “spunk” over, he ends up lying about sleeping with Carly, telling them she’s “fit, she’s older than me and she goes like a porn star.” Inevitably, one of the mechanics shows up that night to the bar where Carly works, tells her what Will said and watches with delight as she pours a drink over his head.


In the meantime, Simon pulls a girl who looks at least 14 who pours vodka into his coke and wanks him off at the side of the disco. This added to Carly sees them all hiding in the toilets when it’s announced over the speakers that Will’s mum is waiting outside to pick them up. The embarrassment.


Series 2, Episode 6 –
Will shits himself during an exam. It’s cringing, it’s shocking, it’s gross. It’s fucking hilarious.


Series 3, Episode 4 –
Despite suggesting to have sex in the bushes at the end of his garden, Simon and his new girlfriend go to stay with her sister at Uni so they can have “lots of lovely sex”. With the rest of the gang tagging along for moral support, Jay advises Simon to have a wank before he has sex so he can last all night. This, obviously, is complete shit and Simon ends up bashing in his own penis that will not get erect again.


In the next room, Neil wets the bed and Jay creeps into the room of another house mate and tries to have sex with her. Needless to say, they’re all kicked out and drive back half naked.


Series 3, Episode 5 -
Will’s mum goes away for the weekend so naturally the gang invite themselves round. Jay is happy to use Will’s mum’s bed to wank in having recently been unable to do at home as the family’s dog, Benji, watches him. Failing to lose Benji over at the park, he tells his parents that the dog’s been shitting in the house. This plan backfires when he receives a call from his dad telling him Benji has been put down, explaining old dogs that shit in the house mean they are dying.


While cruising on a “pussy patrol”, Jay gets “mugged off” by a squirrel and unable to live this down, he reveres his car and runs it over. Horrified, they stare at the squashed dead rodent, Jay awash with regret, noting the squirrels eyes “look sad”. Not a good episode for animals.

(Source: nothingbadmag.com)

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December 6, 2010
WAGNER HAS THE X FACTOR

“Has your hair lost its mojo?” Cheryl coos in her latest shampoo advert and then in walks Wagner, apparently the epitome of too much hair mojo and everybody gasps.

Yep, The X Factor is definitely With a wooden choker sticking to his throat and the not-too-distant call of pan pipes, the former P.E teacher could have been the next Jedward – but without the annoyance of bad songs and a lard of butter riding a wave as hair.


Wagner in tight white clothes. Wagner sniffing a rose. Wagner picking petals off said rose and throwing them into a lake. Everything about him screamed to me MUST WATCH TV.

I liked the veins popping in his neck as he sang, the feeling that he really did give it his all and wasn’t the same old spiel. If Louis had put him through it would’ve been a risk to take and when was the last time we saw them do something like that?


For the first time ever I’ve found myself hooked on the X Factor. Maybe it’s something to do with the weird mix of absolute no-hopes to people I think may have a shred of real talent. Wagner, I’ll miss you. But for the first time ever I can safely say I LIKE The X Factor.

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November 11, 2010
IN DEFENSE OF “SEVEN DAYS”

R.I.P Seven Days, four months and eight episodes old. The television programme wrongly billed by the press as the heir to Big Brother aired for the last time Tuesday night taking with it some of the best TV moments this year. Yes, really.

The first episode featured Malcolm, above, the dreadlocked property manager, trying to get a mortgage. So far, so what. But then as the episode rolled on he was also reveled to be the sort of person to run away for two years after the death of his cat, paint a mural for it in his basement jacuzzi and then place said cat’s dead body on a pillow in the fridge. My jaw dropped, tv-gold aghast. Yet somehow even this didn’t seem to be enough to hold my attention and after the first episode, I stopped watching.

Then late one night I caught a repeat. And then another. And then before I knew it I was subconsciously counting down the days to the next episode. The people and their minor problems became likable, their problems real, their lives truly captured on television.

Ben and his mother living together in squabble and little harmony, was something I could relate to. Laura and Sam harboring big dreams, Hannah and her dad, the airline pilot couple, and the Asian guy going to Uni who we never saw again. As their lives played out before us they backed each other through the small, and the big stuff, of life in Notting Hill.

But what sealed my love for Seven Days was the tenderness for each person. The cameras played out at a distance capturing events in these peoples lives that were, at times, raw. Witnessing the emotional collapse of the cousins and brother, Javan Stacy and Lawei, on the anniversary of their aunt/mother’s death was one of TV’s most earnest moments. As the cameras rolled we watched as they let go and clung to each other. It was unexpected, it was raw… it was essential TV viewing. And in what I had come to expect viewing Seven Days, it swung round to unintentional humor when Malcolm came over and began to weep for his own mother. This wasn’t mocking people; this was experiencing something with them.

Seven Days succeeded in capturing people as they truly are; at times total idiots but others emotional and vulnerable. There was shameless, cringing laughter, but there was also tear brimming heartache. It’s just a shame we never saw where it could lead to next.

(Source: nothingbadmag.com)

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September 20, 2010
LFW S/S ‘11: NICOLE FARHI

Like that Incubus song (sorry) where he sings, the ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket, the clothes at Nicole Farhi resembled that of diamonds as sequins twinkled under the afternoon sun of the Royal Opera House’s glass roof.

Watched by a heady mix of fashion celebs on the front row (Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld and Bill Nighy – I’m serious), Farhi’s summer pallet contained a dewy mix of pastels and all things floaty.

Halfway through the show we realised that from where we were standing we could see  the cusp of the backstage area. The unique vantage point showed us Nicole Farhi herself adjusting the clothes of the models before they hit the catwalk, last minute hair tweaks and makeup touched up.

It also included models mistaking a wall for a door -

The colour white blended into metallics and silver towards the climax of the show and though none of the clothes were of any surprise, summer hung in the air as we pulled on our winter coats and wished for July again.

Photos - Katie Coleslaw

(Source: nothingbadmag.com)

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August 2, 2010
SPENCER PRATT: TV HERO

Spencer Pratt: reality TV star; crazy healing crystal bad guy. Anyone with half a brain cell will know that perfectly named Pratt and his wife’s plastic face are the single best thing on TV. After every episode I like to sit and contemplate what I have just watched because it takes a few minutes for my brain to compute such levels of TV genius.

The most recent episodes of season 6, sadly the final season of The Hills, have been the greatest for the Pratts. We’ve seen Heidi ride an elephant, Spencer rub his face with healing crystals and just about every one of their friends drop them.

Spencer Pratt is the TV “star” we all need to embrace and if you don’t believe me, I have gone to the trouble of putting together just a few Pratt gems. I defy you by the end of the list not to stand up and applaud his ridiculousness.

He hates everyone and calls his wife’s mom “just a vagina” -
I always get excited when I see the veins pop in Spencer’s neck because I just know that shit is about to get real. Look at the photo above. Can you see the vein? It’s throbbing like an amazon jungle river, carrying along little boats full of hate. The fingers come out to point and he has to control himself not to “murder” somebody. He always says this and now I’m just playing the waiting game until he actually does it.

So Heidi and her new face went to visit her mom and her mom cried. I mean, her new face is pretty bad. Spencer accuses her mom’s tears of “emotionally raping” Heidi (I’m serious) and then proceeds to call her mom “just a vagina that gave birth to Heidi”. And I watched all this thinking, jeez, TV doesn’t get much better than this.

He is obsessed with healing crystals and has reportedly spent $500,000 on them –
Firstly, healing crystals. Secondly, $500,000. What can you get for $500k? Magical rainbows that allow you to climb up onto a cloud? The power to turn water into champagne? The ability to tie dye any item of clothing really, really well? Whatever it is, I like it. Now whenever Spencer gets stressed he slaps a piece of rock to his head and closes his eyes and inhales.

His inventive way of eating -

See above. Not even chips stand a chance against Spencer’s mouth.

He pulls out tears and the crystals in nightclubs -


This is a man who isn’t afraid to show his true feelings.

He gives his friends thoughtful presents -

Because you just never know when a feather might come in handy.


Heidi on an elephant -


Heidi on an elephant

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(Notes: 1)
  
May 11, 2010
2 NEW MOVIES REVIEWED

4 LIONS: From the opening monologue recording a suicide messages to the  final act of blowing themselves up, Chris Morris’ film 4 Lions is relentless in creating characters in scenarios that are hilarious, heartwarming and, dare I say it, inoffensive.  Because if heaven is like skipping the queues to fast track the big rides, then 4 Lions is surely the Disneyland’s Teacup merry-go-round.

IRON MAN 2: In what must be a first for a big-budget action movie, Mikey Rourke hardly needs makeup to play the bad guy with hair extensions and a side-kick bird (a feathered one, not Scarlett Johansson) working on a scale 100 times more effective than Frank Langella’s mashed-up face in The Box. In the same way Mikey Rourke lights up the screen as Whiplash, Robert Downey Jr. must be kissing the feet of his Iron Man suit as his role as Tony Stark is so utterly convincing and hilarious that I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if Iron Man was suddenly declared non-fiction.

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April 23, 2010
THE ALTERNATIVE DEBATE REVIEW

My brain always struggles to compute debates. It’s like it can sense boredom approaching and does the honourable thing and switches off. Tonight’s debate I somehow made it to the end, my brain only half aching. I felt as bored as the audience looked and realised I could only be certain of two things.

One was the size of David Cameron’s head. It’s huge. Every time the camera zoomed in on his face my eyes didn’t know what to do: concentrate on that and its perfectly round shape, or look away and pay attention to what was being said. My  brain took the sensible route and opted for his head size.

During Head Watch I came to notice that whenever one of the leaders was saying something important, or meant to be considered important, the camera zoomed in. Schools? Zoom in. Immigration? Zoom in, please. Pensions? I’m ready for my extreme close-up now. Twitter was a buzz of hash tags and @ symbols on every subject raised and I favourited all of them in the hope that a 140 character written review would tell me who to vote for.

The second thing I could now decide on was that I finally knew who Nick Clegg was. Up until two weeks ago I had no idea what he even looked like. Fast forward two weeks and now this guy and his yellow tie are everywhere. Head Watch taught me that he has bird-like features and is nowhere near as good looking as Barack Obama.

After the debate the ITV poll showed that most of their studio audience prefered bird-man Clegg. I don’t know if this is because we always like an underdog but something tells me it’s going to take more than a yellow tie and Twitter hash tags to be the next PM.

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April 23, 2010
I, I, I, I REALLY LOVE DIE ANTWOORD

Who are Die Antwoord? Or, more to the point, is Die Antwoord? “The answer,” MC Ninja, the band’s front guy with the WW2 razor sharp crop, answers here. The answer to what? Silence, then, “Whatever, man. Fuck.”

Their video, ‘Enter The Ninja’, went viral and before long it became a blogger’s quest to uncover the truth. Were Die Antwoord serious? Was it considered ironic to like them because you were ‘in’ on the joke? Did MC Ninja posses the world’s worst tattoos? Maybe, Maybe, Yes.

Die Antwoord are three people; MC Ninja, Yo-Landi Vis$$er and DJ Hi-Tek and have been together since 2009. That’s pretty much all I know. I also know that on paper Die Antwoord seem like shit. And then you listen to their music and you realise that they actually are the shit. Self confidence with extra lashings of insane rapping interwoven with their local Afrikaans slang with seriously intense beats sounds like a recipe for disaster. And yet, strangely, it’s not. At all.

On ‘Enter The Ninja’  Ninja actually stops the song to declare that his own song, is, in fact, “like the coolest song I ever heard in my whole life.” I admit, when I first watched the video my first thought was, WTF. Swiftly followed by, WTF I NEED TO WATCH THAT AGAIN. Followed by, WHERE CAN I SEE ANOTHER VIDEO.

Then I watched this interview and my obsession was sealed -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_pS46YRMIQ&feature=player_embedded

What the fuck is going on? Why is there a slow motion shot of him thrashing his dong? Yo-Landi is like a quivering nymph, her non-supported boobs free to dance alongside Ninja, the wonky handwritten tattoos that adorn his chest now almost making sense. The post-modern ironic factor is apparent, yet there is something about their beats and the craft of the songs that make me realise that if this is a joke, then it’s a very clever one. Because like the million other new fans, I’m utterly hooked.

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April 23, 2010
WELCOME TO JERSEY SHORE

Jersey Shore burst onto US TV screens last year like a hairspray explosion in a holiday suitcase with a concept so ridiculous and boring-sounding that it does a 360 and comes back to you as Jersey Shore. The premise: eight self-proclaimed Guido’s and Guidettes (the younger generations term for a good looking Italian, the older generations term for a lower working class chav, essentially an ethnic slur) living in rented accommodation along the New Jersey beachfront. That’s it. No secret rooms or hidden cameras. Just a 3-storey beach house in a part of town known to locals as “Sleazeside Heights”, occupied by people who all appear to have nicknames, like JWoww and Snooki and Pauly D, one guy even naming his abs “The Situation”. By the fourth episode there had been 3 hook ups, 1 break up and a knock out at a local club. It had also sealed itself as car-crash TV and an ultimate must-watch.  

Having finally arrived in the UK on MTV a few weeks ago, Jersey Shore came shrouded in controversy. The first show had barely scrapped over a million viewers when first screened in America and UnicoNational, the largest Italian-American organization in the States was outraged. Soon sponsors were pulling out left right and centre. Even Jersey Shore hated Jersey Shore. The entire borough. The New Jersey Convention and Visitors Bureau issued a statement calling MTV and the TV show itself a “one-dimensional, dramatized version” - which only got our taste buds pumping for more scandal. Then something happened.

 
As each episode aired the ratings began to rocket and by the season finale, 4.8 million people tuned in. The US had become Jersey Shore obsessed.Michael Cera slopped gel onto his hair and posed with Pauly D. Olympic snowboarder Shaun White said he wanted to appear as an extra. Snooki partied with Lindsay Lohan. Leonardo DiCaprio offered advise to Vinny about the dizzy heights of fame. The band Phoenix called Snooki a prostitute in French on the red carpet at the Grammys and instead of questioning how she had even managed to get on the red carpet at the Grammys we instead reached for our laptops and Googledcagole. If someone had asked you for a sign that the world was ending, surely this was it.  

In a way Jersey Shore had become the antibody to reality TV shows. It was fighting back against everything else currently happening within the world of reality TV and we applauded them for it.They relished in what programs such as The Hills were desperate to escape from. The press could call them fame hungry, self-obsessed bozos and it wouldn’t matter because to them that was the highest form of complement. 

I found myself wanting to know just how Pauly D got his hair so spiky and looking forward to seeing Snooki shuffle around the house in pink slippers and talking to her parents on a duck-shaped phone. It was everything Big Brother should’ve been and as the credits roll at the end of every episode, I sometimes think I can hear the Channel 4 directors quietly weeping.

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February 26, 2010
YOUNG AND LOST

Luckily Sara Jade had the desk in front of Nadia Dahlawi otherwise Young and Lost Club might never have happened. “We were 12 and Sara kept turning round to talk to me,” Dahlawi recalls of their boarding school days. “We were really good friends straight away.”

The music industry is synonymous with hard-nosed men signing the next fame school kid just to rake in the money. Refreshingly, Young and Lost Club are the complete opposite. And it’s their knack for finding the best new music that has made them one of the industry’s hottest labels.

“Ideally we would’ve formed a band, but I play the harp and Sara’s not musical. It was never going to happen!”

At 16 found them down the darkened corridors of their boarding school at night, photocopying their fanzine while the rest of the school slept on above them. From there they began to venture out into London and became the Pyrrha Girls, running regular nights at Soho dive Push Bar.

“We tried going to uni but we both dropped out in our first years,” says Jade. “Nadia got a summer job as the Queens of Noize assistant and I worked for Razorlight’s press office.”

Slowly, and with money saved from working the door at their Push Bar nights, they started Young and Lost Club at the tender age of 19.

“When we first started the label we were always broke. We used to have to DJ for 7 hours straight at bars around London. That was pretty boring.”

But it’s not all sticky CDRs and backroom nightclubs. “Once we were flown to Tokyo to DJ at an indie club. That was definitely our best DJing experience! Another time there was a stage invasion during one of our sets. The security guard just shook his head at the kids on stage as they all meekly jumped back into the crowd. Timid, but impressive!”

In March sees the release of their 50th single as well as their 5th anniversary. “We were only 19 when we started this, it’s amazing that any bands trusted us.”

In the middle of it all the girls somehow found time to start PUSH, an extremely successful club night at the now defunct Astoria 2 with fellow DJ Imran Ahmed. “Sometimes it does seem like we are YALCing all the time.”

Although they do stress to having a social life, it’s not long before the conversation turns back to work.

“We’re going to release our compilations album in March as well as the Oh Minnows album and the Planet Earth album and the Noah and the Whale EP…”

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February 12, 2010
NEW VIDEOS SORT OF REVIEWED

The internet is great for finding new music, huh? Since this magazine launched we’ve been getting emailed daily with (mostly) awful dance music that their PRs say we should be “telling the world” about. Except that no one in the world wants to hear it because no one in the world actually cares. But hopefully you’ll care about these handpicked gems we found around the internet lately…

Archie Bronson Outfit “Shark’s Tooth” (Domino)
I’m pretty certain 90% of my guy friends sometime stand in their bedrooms holding their guitars waiting for lazer beams to shoot out. Archie Bronson Outfit just got lucky this time.

Sunderbans “We Only Can Because We Care” (Young and Lost Club)
At the beginning of this video I felt like I was on ‘shrooms. And by the end of this video I realised I definitely was on ‘shrooms.

Lemonade “Lifted” (True Panther Sounds)
Man… I really wish I was playing around in water wearing only shorts instead of sitting around my living room wearing my pajamas

Munch Munch “Cyclorama” (TOMLAB)
You remember when I said I felt like I was on ‘shrooms while watching the Sunderbans video? Well, can I apply it to this video too? If not, then this is my video review for Munch Munch: this video features lots of shapes and the band performing.

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February 6, 2010
INTERVIEW WITH BLOGGER WHITE LIGHTNING

For a blog that started on a whim, White Lightning is pretty damn good. Elizabeth Spiridakis’s daily musings attracts a readership in its thousands and counts Kanye West as a fan. And it’s easy to see why. With fashion bloggers now in their millions (it feels that way), rarely are they ever this good. Or funny.

Maybe it’s owing to a career spent in print media that has helped or just the fact that even now her good, nerdy taste from her formative years echoes that of her taste now.

“But I love music first and foremost,” she explains. “I pasted Kim Gordon’s face onto my backpack. I loved Pavement, Guided by Voices, Mary Lou Lord, Hole…”

Her teenage years saw her with “dyed black hair parted down the middle” with “a patent leather backpack from Patricia Field on 8th Street”. Spiridakis has always lived and breathed the quirky side that fashion has to offer. “I used to worship Winona Ryder and Liv Tyler, xgirl tees and stickers from xgirl & Ben Davis tees from XLARGE from their stores on Lafayette.”

Her blog turned 2 years last August and through it has received some insane experiences. “Going to London to make a blogger zine for POP was incredible, as was attending some major fashion shenanigans during New York Fashion Week. Kanye West writing about White Lightning on his blog was also a pretty serious high.”

But where there are highs, there are also those pesky lows. But luckily for Spiridakis, the lows don’t come too often.

“I once got some of the nastiest comments ever (I surprisingly don’t get many) when I was gifted a pair of Chanel two-tone tights. But there aren’t too many, bloggin is LOVE.”

Now, a typical day would find Spiridakis having breakfast to Howard Stern before heading to her office to catch up on blogging and writing. Her current project is a zine on First Kisses.

“I love to talk about first kisses. Or First Heartbreak. I love firsts. Everyone has a story! Or a great funny sad sweet goofy detail that they remember. Marisa (co-ed on the project) and I often have great ideas about projects for ‘someday’. The zine is one that we loved so much we couldn’t not get it going.”

What’s next for Elizabeth Spiridakis? For the first time, she is coy.

“Oh, you mean “IN LIFE”? That is a big question. I have a few things in the works…”

2:56pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZaGYLyWt4sF
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