Showing posts with label Palatinate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palatinate. Show all posts
Summer Spin Cycle...
My last ever shoot/issue for Palatinate. Shot at the beautiful Old Cinema Launderette using some of my hand dip-dyed, hand-studded denim shorts.
My penultimate issue as fashion editor
Tracey Emin confirmed for Durham’s Lumiere light festival
By Olivia Swash
Turner Prize nominee and controversial leading member of the Young British Artist movement Tracey Emin will be the highlight of this year’s Lumiere festival. Emin’s neon work will star amongst 30 installations by local, national and international artists and light designers using light art to illuminate the nooks, crannies, bridges and buildings of Durham‘s historical city centre.
The light festival, organised by Artichoke, returns for 4 nights in November at the cordial invite of Durham County Council after their previous successes enticed 75,000 people to the city to witness the unique illuminations.
The globally-acclaimed and oft misconstrued artist is most famous for her ‘My Bed’ piece, which was presented at the Tate Gallery as it was when she had spent many days within it feeling suicidal because of relationship issues. Her Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 piece also raised eyebrows with an assumed euphemism- a tent with an interior jigsawed together from appliqued names of relatives she has slept next to, sexual partners, and her two aborted children.
Details of Emin’s neon contribution to the festival is still under wraps, although is rumoured to be one of the main pieces exhibited at her major solo retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery earlier this year. She has previously donated neon work to auction for charity and in 2007 her neon Keep Me Safe reached over £60,000.
Lumiere will catch your eye between 17th – 20th November around Durham city.
Interview with Bombay Bicycle Club
Palatinate Issue # 716 - NME Awards Tour Special
Walking through the breeze-blocked corridors backstage at the O2 Academy with slight apprehension after last minute YouTubeing of past slightly awkward and unresponsive Bombay Bicycle Club interviews, I turned the corner to see a rather chilled scene of four rather mismatched-looking guys sitting around eating takeaways and strumming banjos. Hailing from north London, the NME-acclaimed foursome formed in secondary school and after winning Channel 4 and Virgin Mobile's 'Road to V' competition in 2006, have clambered to international commendation. They are currently working on their follow-up to first album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose as well as commencing on a tour which is sure to hoist them further up the indie ladder. I had a chat with them pre-gig on the first date of their current tour alongside The Maccabees, The Drums and The Big Pink...
Bombay Bicycle Club, you started out young and your first album was influenced by teenage experiences. What will your second album be influenced by?
Jack: Well it's hard to write songs about being on tour... When we were teenagers we went out and did loads of stuff. Now there's nothing to write about apart from being in a band! (woe is me)
How is it touring with three other bands?
Jack: It's only our first date, but it's the first time we've been on a tour of this size... You can't walk around backstage without any clothes on!
You're young to be successful, do you plan on carry on being musicians for the foreseeable future?
Jack: Yeah. Well Jamie has a place at Cambridge to do Classics.
Jamie: Not sure if I'm gonna go though. But I don't want to do one thing my whole life.
You're releasing 400 limited edition vinyl singles of Evening/Morning as a re-release with hand-painted covers. What made you want to do something so different?
Jack: Our record company said we had to do a re-release, and we hate when bands do re-releases, so said we'd do it under the one condition that we could make it special. I don't think at the time we thought about how much work it was gonna be!
Ed: It took 12 hours!
Are you still releasing an EP of folk songs?
Jack: Yeah, it's turned into an album now though. It's also good cos it kinda buy us more time to write the second album.
Do you think you'll follow the folk route or is it more of a side project?
Jack: Alongside really, but we kinda don't like doing it, we think people think 'oh they've listened to Mumford and Sons on Radio 1 and it's so kooky, I wanna do that!'
So The Big Pink, The Drums, The Maccabees... Kill, marry, shag?
Jamie: I'd definitely shag the Maccabees!
Jack: The Big Pink is the only band with a girl in so maybe them... Shag The Drums, marry The Maccabees, kill The Big Pink, but that's only because we've never met them and we've been in a bit of competition with them.
Are The Maccabees good marriage material then?
Jamie: Yeah I think they'd cook for you and stuff....
What do you have in store for the rest of the NME Awards Tour? Any suprises?
Jack: Suren has a new do-rag he might wear.
Jamie: We've been so rushed, we haven't really thought about it.
Jack: We could do the whole set unplugged on the banjo. Or our guitar tech might come onstage and do a shit.
Fortunately the latter didn't happen.
Walking through the breeze-blocked corridors backstage at the O2 Academy with slight apprehension after last minute YouTubeing of past slightly awkward and unresponsive Bombay Bicycle Club interviews, I turned the corner to see a rather chilled scene of four rather mismatched-looking guys sitting around eating takeaways and strumming banjos. Hailing from north London, the NME-acclaimed foursome formed in secondary school and after winning Channel 4 and Virgin Mobile's 'Road to V' competition in 2006, have clambered to international commendation. They are currently working on their follow-up to first album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose as well as commencing on a tour which is sure to hoist them further up the indie ladder. I had a chat with them pre-gig on the first date of their current tour alongside The Maccabees, The Drums and The Big Pink...
Bombay Bicycle Club, you started out young and your first album was influenced by teenage experiences. What will your second album be influenced by?
Jack: Well it's hard to write songs about being on tour... When we were teenagers we went out and did loads of stuff. Now there's nothing to write about apart from being in a band! (woe is me)
How is it touring with three other bands?
Jack: It's only our first date, but it's the first time we've been on a tour of this size... You can't walk around backstage without any clothes on!
You're young to be successful, do you plan on carry on being musicians for the foreseeable future?
Jack: Yeah. Well Jamie has a place at Cambridge to do Classics.
Jamie: Not sure if I'm gonna go though. But I don't want to do one thing my whole life.
You're releasing 400 limited edition vinyl singles of Evening/Morning as a re-release with hand-painted covers. What made you want to do something so different?
Jack: Our record company said we had to do a re-release, and we hate when bands do re-releases, so said we'd do it under the one condition that we could make it special. I don't think at the time we thought about how much work it was gonna be!
Ed: It took 12 hours!
Are you still releasing an EP of folk songs?
Jack: Yeah, it's turned into an album now though. It's also good cos it kinda buy us more time to write the second album.
Do you think you'll follow the folk route or is it more of a side project?
Jack: Alongside really, but we kinda don't like doing it, we think people think 'oh they've listened to Mumford and Sons on Radio 1 and it's so kooky, I wanna do that!'
So The Big Pink, The Drums, The Maccabees... Kill, marry, shag?
Jamie: I'd definitely shag the Maccabees!
Jack: The Big Pink is the only band with a girl in so maybe them... Shag The Drums, marry The Maccabees, kill The Big Pink, but that's only because we've never met them and we've been in a bit of competition with them.
Are The Maccabees good marriage material then?
Jamie: Yeah I think they'd cook for you and stuff....
What do you have in store for the rest of the NME Awards Tour? Any suprises?
Jack: Suren has a new do-rag he might wear.
Jamie: We've been so rushed, we haven't really thought about it.
Jack: We could do the whole set unplugged on the banjo. Or our guitar tech might come onstage and do a shit.
Fortunately the latter didn't happen.
You Ain't Born Typical
Palatinate - November 2008
The Kills
The Other Rooms, Newcastle
The crammed and unusually box-like venue on the evening of Wednesday 5th November seemed to perfectly complement the anticipation for the grungy, raw preachings of The Kills that we all know and love.
Although they may be criticised for only being famous because the fella is ‘shagging that skinny bird’, the already sweaty crowd were genuinely there for the music rather than a chance of peeking Mossy’s gaunt phizog.
The Kills’ lack of mainstream music coverage and ability to retain their underground sound despite their sudden boom of appearances in Heat is endearing yet somewhat understandable when seeing them perform – their unrefined chaos on stage is a spectacle of theatre and an acquired taste.
The audience must translate their enigmatic and incredibly visual behaviour personally rather than being spoon-fed a rehearsed performance, which seems a rare element in modern music. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart (AKA Hotel and VV) have been signed to independent label Domino Records for 5 years, having toured with Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand as well as having numerous headline tours and summers of festival-hopping. The Baltic art gallery in Gateshead housed 1000 Polaroid photographs and a video by The Kills in 2007 as part of their Andy Warhol vs Dazed and Confused exhibition.
The Kills have an electric presence on stage, emitting soaring levels of sexual chemistry through their dramatic tomfoolery. They tease and physically euphemise each other as props, meaning the experience of seeing them live adds another dimension to merely listening to their gutsy tunes.
The allure of Alison’s voice as it effortlessly dips in and out of Sonic Youth-esque rocky growls is perfectly balanced by Jamie’s hushed and unperturbed accompaniment as The Kills open set with their most recent single, stripped-to-the-bone tune U R A Fever, Hince looking quite the ragamuffin sporting a straw hat, beige cardigan and a black eye. Alison frequently sweeps back her trademark mop of shaggy dark hair to expose a surprisingly calm countenance as she scales the walls and clambers atop speakers.
The pair build anticipation during Tape Song and Last Day of Magic, intertwining the microphones and forcing awkwardly intimate space between the two. The country-influenced Kissy Kissy sees the two seductively singing into the same microphone and feigning head butts at the climaxes.
The crowd was treated to a lingering rendition of Pale Blue Eyes by Velvet Underground, a band which played a major role in forming The Kills back in 2000, as Alison and Jamie had a mutual obsession with the band, amongst other New York 60s and 70s punk bands.
Midnight Boom, the title of the new album, came from their work on song writing, describing their ability to work doubly as hard alone during many nights of nocturnal graft.
The album was influenced by a sixties documentary about sinister songs children sung in American inner-city schools, so Jamie and Alison experimented with an old hip-hop drum sequencer and reeled out what Jamie describes as 'modern-day playground songs'.
The Kills are unpretentious and unadulterated guts, putting to shame most of today’s myopic modern rock music. They encompass the effrontery of the 70s bands which inspired their work, unleashing rusty and unrestrained primal lust. A band such as The Kills comes along but once a decade, so make the most of them.
Midnight Boom is out now on Domino Records.
The Kills
The Other Rooms, Newcastle
The crammed and unusually box-like venue on the evening of Wednesday 5th November seemed to perfectly complement the anticipation for the grungy, raw preachings of The Kills that we all know and love.
Although they may be criticised for only being famous because the fella is ‘shagging that skinny bird’, the already sweaty crowd were genuinely there for the music rather than a chance of peeking Mossy’s gaunt phizog.
The Kills’ lack of mainstream music coverage and ability to retain their underground sound despite their sudden boom of appearances in Heat is endearing yet somewhat understandable when seeing them perform – their unrefined chaos on stage is a spectacle of theatre and an acquired taste.
The audience must translate their enigmatic and incredibly visual behaviour personally rather than being spoon-fed a rehearsed performance, which seems a rare element in modern music. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart (AKA Hotel and VV) have been signed to independent label Domino Records for 5 years, having toured with Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand as well as having numerous headline tours and summers of festival-hopping. The Baltic art gallery in Gateshead housed 1000 Polaroid photographs and a video by The Kills in 2007 as part of their Andy Warhol vs Dazed and Confused exhibition.
The Kills have an electric presence on stage, emitting soaring levels of sexual chemistry through their dramatic tomfoolery. They tease and physically euphemise each other as props, meaning the experience of seeing them live adds another dimension to merely listening to their gutsy tunes.
The allure of Alison’s voice as it effortlessly dips in and out of Sonic Youth-esque rocky growls is perfectly balanced by Jamie’s hushed and unperturbed accompaniment as The Kills open set with their most recent single, stripped-to-the-bone tune U R A Fever, Hince looking quite the ragamuffin sporting a straw hat, beige cardigan and a black eye. Alison frequently sweeps back her trademark mop of shaggy dark hair to expose a surprisingly calm countenance as she scales the walls and clambers atop speakers.
The pair build anticipation during Tape Song and Last Day of Magic, intertwining the microphones and forcing awkwardly intimate space between the two. The country-influenced Kissy Kissy sees the two seductively singing into the same microphone and feigning head butts at the climaxes.
The crowd was treated to a lingering rendition of Pale Blue Eyes by Velvet Underground, a band which played a major role in forming The Kills back in 2000, as Alison and Jamie had a mutual obsession with the band, amongst other New York 60s and 70s punk bands.
Midnight Boom, the title of the new album, came from their work on song writing, describing their ability to work doubly as hard alone during many nights of nocturnal graft.
The album was influenced by a sixties documentary about sinister songs children sung in American inner-city schools, so Jamie and Alison experimented with an old hip-hop drum sequencer and reeled out what Jamie describes as 'modern-day playground songs'.
The Kills are unpretentious and unadulterated guts, putting to shame most of today’s myopic modern rock music. They encompass the effrontery of the 70s bands which inspired their work, unleashing rusty and unrestrained primal lust. A band such as The Kills comes along but once a decade, so make the most of them.
Midnight Boom is out now on Domino Records.
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