FMS Issue 03

£3.00

JUN/JUL/AUG 2009

Fill My Shoes

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on/your/cd Ellie goulding 1.Guns and Horses 2.Every Time You Go european lust 3.Kiss 4.A Hundred Lovers the jesse rose trip 5.Before I Ask 6.Down and Out the third man

7.Dangerous (Unmixed Version) bobby long 8.Dead and Done 9.Left to Lie

BONUS TRACKS 12 dirty bullets 10.Fire 11.Dream for a Friend roses kings castleS 12.Sparkling Bootz sha la las 13.Ode to Nothing will and the people 14.Misunderstood darker my love 15.Two Ways Out nightwaves 16.Even Money Oh yes, please find your FREE CD attached. Do what you please with it. Have it on repeat, stick it on your iTunes, add it to your Mp3 player, use it as a template to draw round things... What with not only our Five Unsigned who are verging on the next best thing, but also tracks from Will and the People, Darker My Love, Roses Kings Castles and many more, this is THE summer spinner; brought to you with summer lovin’ from not only FMS but Breed Media too...let the music play!

All rights of the producer and the owners of the work reproduced reserved. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this record prohibited.

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MASTHEAD Editor-in-Chief Sarah Hardy Photo Editor Michael Robert Williams Art Editor Elliott Webb Music Editor Andrew Future Style Editor Jodie Ball Editorial Assistant Connie Hart Web Editor Kellie Watton Contributors Rebekah Roy, Mollie Griffiths, Nick IDM, Kate Kearney, Evie Stoddart, Rosie Bee Williams, Adam Burrell, Stuart Gadd, Richard Chesterman, The Mofo, Josh Legg, Kyle Petersen, Neely Shearer, Gemma Hughes, Matthew Finnegan, Jenna Walker, Leonie Cumiskey, Elizabeth Clubb, Lucy Barker, Isabel Dexter and Aline Bentley Special thanks to Tom Hunt & Breed Media, Donal Rogers, James Rees, Daniela Foster, Iveta Niklova, Samuel Powley, All Star Lanes, David Carter, Jewel Bar and all of the above

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Publisher Sarah Hardy FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE Limited Printers Warners Midlands Plc, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH Tel: 01778 391000 Distributors Native PS, 33 Swinnow Green, Pudsey, Leeds, LS28 9AW Tel: 0113 290 9509 Staff Contact first name@fashionmusicstyle.com Advertising Contact sales@fashionmusicstyle.com Sponsorship Enquiries sponsorship@fashionmusicstyle.com ********************************************************* Disclaimer Views expressed within the pages of FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE are those of the contributors and not necessarily those shared by the publisher.

All content is believed to be correct at the time of printing.

Unauthorised reproduction of any editorial or images is strictly prohibited.

Editor’s letter Nothing quite like feeling delirious when you’re writing your letter from the editor; but that’s what happens when you’re up the whole night to ensure you get the damn thing to print on time. It’s been fun, and after all it only goes up front for peeps to read and judge you left, right and centre on; so all good there then.

Anyway welcome to our footwear issue and I hope you like shoes because this is issue is full of them – old, new, bespoke, customised - that you can win! We

even chatted to some guy who likes to…err…get off on them. Aside from all that we do of course have a ridiculous amount of music features AND a free CD sponsored by Breed Media…we love them. Speaking of love I must say an absolutely humungous thank you to my fabulously talented team and contributors.

This issue is our best so far and we are amazing…xxx PS Little Boots cover – see what we did there?

Sarah Hardy Editor-in-Chief

COVER: LITTLE BOOTS MAKE-UP: ADAM BURRELL USING MAC STYLIST: REBEKAH ROY photo: michael robert williams

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LITTLE BOOTS

Idle Pop

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BLOC PARTY Years of Refusal

OU EST LE SWIMMING POOL

Hello Buoys

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42 12 DIRTY BULLETS

Bang Bang Rock ‘n’ Roll

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five unsigned With the birth of FMS came the Five Unsigned and our desire to scout out the best new talent in the UK; not only giving them the opportunity for print exposure but to publish music on CD for the masses. So draw your attention to who we believe have captured that star quality.

FMS Five Unsigned is sponsored by Breed Media.

Breed Media Group Ltd Tel +44 (0)114 255 2460- www.breed-media.co.uk

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ellie gouldin................................... 16 european lust. ................................32 the jesse rose trip........................48 the third man..................................74 bobby long.......................................88

contents jun/jul/aug 2009 ISSUE 3

features

12. MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS Music’s new best friend

20. DARKER MY LOVE LA’s Best Kept Secret

22. Architectual footwear -

Cityscape shoes

36. SPEECH DEBELLE -

65. mobius band Managing Editors

66. ALL DAY FASHION BREAKFAST -

Food for thought

76. THE LINES -

Half a dream away

78. Sex, shoes and rock ‘n’ roll -

Debelle of the Ball

Are footwear fetishes still taboo?

38. around the world in 80 steps -

82. ABSENT ELK -

44. Sha la las -

85. Shooting bands -

The hottest shoe destinations this side of the galaxy

Are they the Hoosiers in Disguise?..

We check in and they share an Ode to Nothing

Getting loud at All Star Lanes

56. WILL AND THE PEOPLE -

86. STREET FEET We get snap happy in London town

Shiny Happy People

58. customised footwear -

From Jon Laurence and Sneakart™

90. MR. SCRUFF -

Tea, No Chaser

61. roses kings castles The Flipside of Chaos

regulars 10. NEWS What’s up?

80. camp it out Our favourite festival picks

18. give it some sole: boys -

92. POSTCARD FROM L.A -

We go shopping so you don’t have to

46. give it some sole: girls -

Dreamwave sounds from Binary

95. BRIEF ENCOUNTER: ANNIE MAC -

Again, we go shopping…

Radio royalty and every dancers DJ

60. WIN IT Design it and it could be yours

98. Ask the DJs -

FMS requests the top ten tunes to pick your clothes to...

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Luke Crowther Joel Stoker THE RIFLES

fly53.com fly53store.com

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s m f fms news. s w e n : s m fms:news f art against knives.

THE LIST. Seatwave are a fountain of knowledge when it comes to what’s going down in the world of ticket sales; so we poked our nose right in and asked what the bestsellers were this year…so far. www.seatwave.com

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Michael Jackson

This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fundraiser, in aid of Central Saint Martins student Oliver Hemsley, was a brilliantly put together exhibition and a great success. If you weren’t there this time then there will be more chances for you to admire and even snap up some wonderful pieces of art from both talented young artists and wellestablished art veterans. Katy Dawe, one half of the duo behind Art Against Knives explained what the future holds for the venture: “The response we have had is amazing. I’ve decided to take a year off and we are going to make Art Against Knives a registered charity,” she told us. The Shoreditch House auction, which attracted the attention of Tracey Emin and Daniel Radcliffe, managed to raise an impressive £65,000.

All of the proceeds will go towards the medical care that Oli now requires, after an unprovoked knife attack in East London last year left wheelchair-bound and paralysed from the neck down. “The highest sellers were Banksy, Rankin, Anthony Gormley and Wolfgang Tillmans,” Dawe revealed. Interestingly though, her and Oliver pipped them all to the post with a collaborative image made on the day they first met, which fetched £3,000. Clearly as talented artists as they are curators, these two are proving themselves to be an unstoppable force whose passion and optimism is very much welcomed in the light of such a tragic event.

ARTAGAINSTKNIVES.COM

U2 Beyonce The Killers Oasis Pink Take That Girls Aloud AC/DC Hard Rock Calling

DONNELLY24 AND DEADMAU5.

There’s no stopping those Mancunian Donnelly brothers and co-founders of Gio-Goi clothing fame. If there was a potion to mix fashion and music in style then they’ve pretty much got it made. Yourownclothing.com is their newest fashion venture and they’ve collaborated with Deadmau5 to develop some new and unique clothing designs. It doesn’t stop there. Anthony and Christopher set up new production company Donnelly24.com to produce the video for Deadmau5 & Kaskade’s first single entitled ‘I Remember’.

s:news fms:news

young lords in london.

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This fanciable five some first graced our pages when they were snapped by New York photographer Eric Guillemain as part of our fashion shoot for issue 1. Now Young Lords are taking a break from the Big Apple and bringing their own blend of country infused rock to our capital. “We’re really excited to finally make this trip happen” said front man Blair Van Nort.The band’s first official show will be at West Rocks on the 19th June. Also confirmed is 26th June at the Young & Lost Club Party. More dates to come and they’ll be around until the 2nd July so check out their myspace for the latest.

PHOTO: GUY AROCH / MYSPACE.COM/YOUNGLORDS

Both the Prince of Wales pub and Electric Ballroom in Camden (along with other clubs in cities worldwide) recently hosted the launch screening of the short film collaboration with their latest fashion venture.The video directed by Colin O’Toole (director of Ian Brown, Black Strobe music videos and Grierson) stars Deadmau5’s favourite actor, Stephen Graham (This is England, Snatch, Band of Brothers). Shot entirely on location in Manchester, the video recalls the acid house scene and how illegal raves were instigated ‘back in the day’ with little or no money. Part short film and part music video, Stephen Graham delivers an attention grabbing monologue throughout. Watch the ‘uncut’ 8 minute version (the first of a five part film) online.

U R the night.

SMIRNOFF EXPERIENCE™ U.R THE NIGHT Ever wanted a guaranteed great night out, where they play all your favourite tunes and serve up that ever elusive cocktail that makes you go mmm…? Well, for those of you who are as narcissistic as me but also don’t have the money or time to throw your own fabulous soirée, Smirnoff U.R The Night might just be what you’ve been waiting for.

You have the chance to co-create the event that takes place this July at London’s biggest and best new club, Matter, along with a warm-up boat party. Sadly you don’t get to totally call all the shots, think of it more as a democracy rather than a dictatorship in terms of clubbing. Wannabe organisers are asked by Smirnoff to submit their ideas and cast their votes concerning every aspect of both events in order to win tickets to what will undoubtedly be one of the summer’s most sophisticated happenings. I mean, come on, it’s bespoke clubbing daaahling.

The Smirnoff Experience has seen success in New York, Paris and – obviously – vodka capital Moscow. Acts already onboard include Hot Chip, Little Boots and the amazing Tom Middleton so even now it’s looking like a crowd pleaser.

Idea submissions and voting started on the 18th May, get involved!

FACEBOOK.COM/URTHENIGHT

YOUROWNCLOTHING.COM

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marina & the diamonds WORDS: CONNIE HART - IMAGE: MICHAEL ROBERT WILLIAMS

Stylist: Rebekah Roy

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anifested in ambition and bursting at her fashionable seams with creativity, assertiveness and individuality, 23 year old Marinas ‘tour de force’ embraces stirred up synth pop and melodramatic storytelling. The half Welsh half Greek beauty has been mesmerizing ears, eyes and audiences with her un-conventional song structuring and unregulated musical notation. She has a harmonious quirk within her possession, brilliantly powerful once in action.

Not only does Marina colour a stage with her presence, but she creates songs that don’t turn frustrating after being in your head for a couple of weeks. You’ll trip over her passion and charm, fall onto her tracks and not want to get back up again for a while.

She gleamed from her first release, the musically capricious ‘Obsessions’, which heavy heartedly tells of loves grimaces while keeping an amazingly bright energy throughout. On the B side ‘Mowgli’s Road’ is a curiously exotic experiment with Marina’s signature vocals hop scotching another of her cabaret-esque arrangements.

Following this debut, we are pleased to announce

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the next set of diamonds from the mine titled ‘The Crown Jewels EP’. Routed by the innovative upstart indie label ‘Neon Gold Records’ in June, this three track’er includes ‘I am not a Robot’ - pairing strings, an actual heartbeat, melodic piano plops and a beautiful voice that cuts as sharp as a knife - along with ‘Seventeen’ and ‘ Simplify’ all of which have made appointments to be the next pop classics, and believe you me there will be no cancellations.

However much pop sensibility Marina shares with GaGa, Little Boots, La Roux, there’s a wonderful oddity and sharp edge that clearly defines each musical princess; just as there was with the likes of Kate Bush, Cindy Lauper, Annie Lennox and et al. There’s no denying once the conveyer belt has moved onwards and upwards, on the back of Glastonbury, Latitude, Get Loaded in the Park, The Big Chill (to name just a few) EVERYONE will know Marina, and the show she will ride.

The future’s bright; the future is Marina and the Diamonds.

Myspace.com/marinaandthediamonds

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Ellie goulding

Stylist: Rebekah Roy

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he mere whisper of her name seems to create a stir in London at the moment, and you may think there are enough girls with their guitars or keyboards doing the rounds, but none of them have what this little box of promise has.

Sweet Bjork-esque vocals over sharp acoustic guitars and soft electro beats reach euphoric ambience at times. However not all Ellie’s songs are quite so electronically based, she shares the same charming acoustic vulnerability and flicker of folk music as Laura Marling. Her Anglo-Welsh accent blesses the chords she strikes with unaffected, intelligent mind-full lyrics, honestly and purely. Recent collaborations with the likes of Frankmusik and Starsmith are signs of an electronic persuasion.

She may have grown up amongst sheep and farms in the hills of Powys, Wales but Ellie was born and bred in Hereford up until the age of five. Her innate desire to play music was never encouraged but once she picked up her sisters discarded guitar there was no stopping her, “Literally for a whole year I played the same chords over and over again, I just found it fascinating this one tune. That’s kind of how it all started”.

Ellie was more inspired by gospel music than her mother’s choice of tunes “really really bad dance music” and the likes of Bjork. “I don’t actually listen to that many female artists. It’s not a jealousy thing, I just find male singers more appealing. I don’t have any female heroes or anything.”

With a barrage of colourful synth darlings breaking the scene, it’s a mean feat to stand out from the crowd. So how does Ellie set herself apart from the leading tastemakers and the constant comparisons to Laura Marling?

“I think I’m just unaffected in a way, it’s not like I’d love to be like [Laura Marling]. I don’t look up to artists. I just keep my distance from MySpace and things like that. I just don’t let things affect me; I try not to get involved in industry. I think that it’s really important for artists to do that because you can get eaten up by the demons of what you should be doing and what you should be listening to. When I find music I tend to stick to it, like recently Bon Iver just blew my mind, a really underrated album. When I first heard it I was like; damn!”

Her track ‘Starry Eyed’ was produced by the Frankmusik-affiliated ‘Starsmith’, a name becoming more prominent from re-working artist tracks from Katy Perry to Digitalism, not to mention the birth of his own makings. He’s also an artist Ellie feels comfortable

around and has a good time with.

“I really enjoyed ‘Starry Eyed’, we’ve got this gospelly sample, and it’s really epic. It’s just fun coming out with any ideas, just stupid and filthy. It’s about sex and drugs and having a good time. I was like singing ‘random stuff ’ and he was like ‘that sounds awesome’ and it became a line in the song.”

After hearing remixing creator of high energy neon beats, bopping out of the best tracks and allround whizz-kid Frankmusik’s old version of ‘3 Little Words’, Ellie thought he may have just the right energy to bring to one of her own tracks, ‘Wish I Stayed’.

“I wrote a few songs acoustically and I had this one I’d saved, recorded as acoustic with a friend so early on. I was like; it needs something else and my friend was playing the old version of 3 Little Words, before it had the makeover, and I thought God that sounds quite cool! I messaged him, said I have this song and what do you think, you fancy working with it and he was like yeah, send me the parts. I didn’t have them so he said come round and we hung out for a week and made a couple of tracks.”

Rumour surrounds a collaboration with Burial, Britain’s top notch Dubstep producer and a nominee for the 2008 Mercury Prize. “We’ve done some stuff; the thing with him is we’re really good friends and he’s really secretive, that’s just the person he is and why he was anonymous before the Mercury Awards. We just connected on a musical level, as soon as I heard his stuff, I was like wow.”

That said Ellie likes to keep a sense of mystery around her own work.

“I don’t write blogs. When I say it now is sounds contrived but I like mystery about who I am and what I’m doing, who I’m working with. I wouldn’t want to say it unless something’s come of it. If people like me, they will go out and find my sound. I’m not one to get a new song and be like ‘oh my God get it out to all the bloggers’. I’m not like a blog whore, hahahahaha!”

Approached by labels from all over, Ellie wanted to catch some more time for musical development and to explore avenues of her never ending talent.

However, deeper into 2009 tables are about to turn.

“I think I’m ready this year, I feel ready, I really want to just come out and release something, I don’t know when or what but it would be nice to gage more of a reaction than just MySpace and get out there a bit more.” • myspace.com/elliegoulding Words: Connie Hart Photo: Michael Robert Williams

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GIVE IT SOME SOLE! Wallabee’s just about worn through? Converse about to kick it? Then try these on for size...

Pointer barajas tan leather, £80

boys

Feiyue, www.feiyueshoes.com £47

Claudius mens black canvas, £100

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Gravis lowdown hc shoes, £45 liberty

Diet Butcher Slim Skin Hi Top Sneaker, £395

Feiyue, www.feiyueshoes.com £47

Pointer tamzig (grey rope print) £45

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darker my love LA’S BEST KEPT SECRET Words: connie hart - photo: michael robert williams

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ungry for solid walls of roaring sound, droning with psychedelic atmospherics, Darker My Love are a potent Rock n Roll cocktail. With the release of their album 2 and a tour of Europe alongside New York power trio A Place to Bury Strangers, taking in the ‘greenery’ of Amsterdam and disrupting The Red Light District (“I was trying to take photos discreetly,” confessed Will), their visceral energy is infecting more and more of these shores.

Their first self titled debut back in 2006 was a murkier production oozing with promise more than solid artistry. Yet, every passionate raw delicacy has been effectively enhanced and clarified in their new logically named album ‘2’ set to be released in the UK come June (Dangerbird Records/produced by Dave Cooley – Silversun Pickups, J Dilla).

‘All the Hurry and Wait’ shimmers similarly to the raw orchestral ambience heard in The Verves Urban Hymns; while ‘Two Ways Out’ rumbles with a drowsy likeness to Supergrass’s ‘Alright’.

“It’s about the fragility of life in a positive way” explains Rob (of the latter). The inspiration for this song however, was not so positive. After getting a cut whilst touring with The Fall he started to go downhill leading an urgent visit to the doctors. “I was misdiagnosed and became really sick.” Ringworm was out of the question and a 105 degree fever later Rob thankfully got better and a Darker My Love track was

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born “It’s also looking at a life and death situation, and actually I’m kinda lucky to be outta that”.

Each distortion and motorized undercurrent finely administered by Tim Presley (Lead guitar/Vocals) Rob Barbato (Bass/Vocals) Jared Everett (Rhythm Guitar) Will Canzoneri (Organ/clavinet) and Andy Granelli (Drums), mixes up like an underground party attended by the younger Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and My Bloody Valentine. Drinks are served by The Charlatans who are trying to avoid what appears to be Oasis roaming around starting on everyone. Sonic Youth are revving up in the car park monging out with a spliff. When it comes to texture, there’s certainly no short fall.

Darker My Love’s stage presence is restrained, no hurry are they to certify any act of stage swaggering or topless debauchery. It goes no further that stonerrocking with minimal movement apart from when a blocking rocking all round drop hits its moment, and knees jolt midway to the stage scorched floor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, for sure, it makes you appreciate their sound more.

Tim and Rob both one-time British Fall members, Andy (a former Distiller) with Tim also once punking it out in The Nerve Agents, the more tune-based approach of Darker My Love could be seen by some to be a more mature front. “Fuck no!” replies Tim “I tried starting a mosh pit last night when The Dead Kennedys came on, in fact I was slamming it and no-one was into it, so yeah, I’ve grown up.” Will

on the other hand has a more classical approach and a penchant for jazz,“I’ve also played in some powerpop orientated bands”. Rob says his main position was playing in “bedroom bands” moving onto Darker My Love after meeting with Tim. Jared played in old Boston garage band The Lyres. Being musicians at their current level is something they all dreamed of.

“Wayne’s World” answers Tim. “Yeah definitely Wayne’s World” harmonised Rob and Will when asked which film the band would be most suited to as a soundtrack “Not necessarily just the music, but also our personalities” adds Rob. How would they sum up those personalities? “Wayne and Garth…Party time” says Will. “Most excellence” adds Tim “Schwing” laughs Rob. As stoked by Oasis as 99.9% of musicians and males alike, Tim (who’s also an incredible artist producing all of the bands visual pieces from posters to record sleeves) can’t get over the impact the Brit pop legends have on part of society. “This Oasis song came on, and people went to their fucking knees like they had just

scored a goal or won a million dollars, almost crying… it’s like it was a national anthem!” However much of an Oasis fan I am, I was still unsure whether or not to be embarrassed by this.

Shoe gazed, draped in soul and uniformed with even more airy abstracted vocals than Thom Yorke can get his chords tuned to, Darker My Love are quite possibly one of music’s underrated treasures.

Every fundamental quality that rock requires, this band inevitably has an installation of those proven parts and formulas. However, outside the box their musicality and talent makes them utterly listenable, like meeting up with an old friend. To set up a love shack in between your ears and rent out your mind for the entire duration of both live set and the collection of hazy psych-rock, flying with wings of psychedelic blues and big, harmonic rock album 2 proves that these guys aim to not be neglected. . • MYSPACE.COM/DARKERMYLOVE TRACK: TWO WAYS OUT

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Iveta- Necklace: Architectural Hors d’ oeuvres Skirt: Couture Clubbing Boots: Atsuko Kudo Sam- Jacket: Topshop Shoes: BSA

architectual footwear.

Photographer: Nick I D Masters (www.nickidm.com) Stylist: Kate Kearney Hair and Make Up: Evie Stoddart Stylist Assisstant: Rosie Williams 23

Sam- Shoe: Red by Wolves Necklace: www.talullahtu. co.uk 24

Iveta- Hooded Top: Molessa Knickers: Atsuko Kudo Shoes: Topshop Boutique Ring: Architectural Hors d’ oeuvres

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Iveta- Dress: Urban Outfitters Shoes: Irregular Choice Ring: Michele Dore Sam- Trousers: Dimitri Stavrou Shoes: Fly London Hat: J Smith Esq 27

Sam- Jacket: Dimitri Stavrou Boxers: Atsuko Kudo Socks: American Apparel Shoes: Vagabond

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Iveta- Headpiece: J Smith Esq Shoes: Red by Wolves Ring: Michele Dore

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12 dirty bullets bang bang rock & roll

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2 Dirty Bullets are four west London lads, including two rather volatile brothers, who make shouty indie-rock about stabbings, brothels and bent coppers. The lyrics may well be as dark as a Marilyn Manson’s wardrobe, but this band’s riffridden, perfectly crafted tunes have all the markings of something that’s going to be huge.

FMS caught up with Jamie, the lead singer and elder of the band’s two Jamieson brothers before their gig with The Dead Kids at Camden’s KOKO. Set to be on stage in less than an hour, Jamie says that he and his brother Josh, the band’s bassist, have only just started speaking again after a good few days of feuding. So, is this a regular occurrence and should we perhaps expect Gallagher-esque antics and on-stage fights?

“The Gallagher’s, they probably get on alright now, they’ve got separate houses. But we share a bedroom, we’re in a band, he supports Chelsea, I support QPR... you couldn’t get two more opposites, y’know?” And apparently it was their differing football allegiances that sparked off this week’s spat; Chelsea’s rather dramatic exit from the Champions League, a gutted fan and a less than sensitive brother.

But it certainly doesn’t seem to affect the music, and after a fair few line-up changes including their exguitarist leaving to join fellow Harrow-based outfit The Rogues.

12 Dirty Bullets are as tight a band as you’re ever likely to see. Even though new guitarist Michael Smith (who looks a bit like Carl Barât but plays way better) joined a couple of months ago and drummer, Laurence Rushworth, was roped in recently when their previous tub-thumper quit the band three days before a gig, they have the slickness of a band that’s done this for years. Crucially, they manage to pull off this tightness without sacrificing any of the rawness or urgency. And there’s plenty.

They’ve previously been described as an antidote to saccharine ‘touchy feely indie’. Jamie explains: “I just find it so throwaway. I mean, I can’t even really name names ‘cos they’re so throwaway the names don’t even stick in my head.” He pauses and then comes back

with “Scouting for Girls. I hate them with a passion.

Oh, and another band I think is fucking shocking is the Hoosiers, they are fucking terrible. I was at The Isle of Wight Festival and it was them boys, The Hoosiers, followed by the other lot – Scouting for Girls, back to back. I have never seen two bands so shocking in my entire life.” He goes on, “It’s the lyrics. A lot of time, a lot of my effort goes into it and it does kind of offend me when I hear shit like that on the radio.”

Their new single, Downsides of Making a Living (taken from the album of the same name, out on 15 June) is about the realities of working a job you hate but have no control over. It focuses in on the perils of women working in strip bars, of seedy hands on desperate thighs. Touchy-feely indie it certainly is not.

But does music have to be this dark?

“No, not at all! I’m a big fan of things like MGMT...I just like things where I feel people have put the effort in, or they’re doing it for the right reasons. I’m a big fan of hip-hop, Old Skool stuff. I’m a massive fan of Tupac, Mob Deep, WuTang Clan...when it was raw. I just like anyone who’s got something to say.”

One thing people will say, is that 12 Dirty Bullets, with their razor-sharp riffs and seamy scenarios bear more than a passing resemblance to Arctic Monkeys.

Would they be comfortable with that comparison?

“Yeah – it’s happened before. I think it’s definitely a compliment, Alex Turner is a fantastic songwriter.”

Another thing they have in common with the Oasis and Primal Scream old guard is a seemingly universal appeal. Their fans seem to consist of artschool trendies and Ben Sherman-clad baldies in equal measure, probably due to the fact that they are both cool and accessible without trying to be either.

‘Are you sorry you came?’ snarl the final words of Downsides of Making a Living. If the front rows, who’ve jumped up and down and sung along to every track are anything to go by then the answer is a resounding no. And if you do find yourself at a 12 Dirty Bullets gig and are sorry you came, just go watch the Hoosiers.

Myspace.com/12dirtybullets

Stylist: Mollie Griffiths Groomer: Evie Stoddart using MAC and Elemis

Words: gemma hughes - photo: michael robert williams

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European lust

Stylist: Mollie Griffiths Groomer: Evie Stoddart using MAC and Elemis

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hink of Spanish music and the flamenco or Spanish guitar comes to mind. Well shake that off because you won’t catch Barcelona born Josep Xorto (lead guitar & vocals), Aurau Oliols (drums) and Mikel Mestres (guitar & bass) dressed in polka-dot dresses with castanets, dancing to the mellow acoustic guitar tones and stamping their feet.

Obsessed with dreams, fantasy, space and time; European Lust is like orbiting earth at bedtime with The Libertines while floating by The Cribs wrapped in slippery silk sheets. Pillowed by bouncy, expressive guitar hooks and patrolling drums, the rebel has been reversed, touched up with cosmic seduction and spaced out by rhythm.

Each European Lust song kicks in at a slightly different angle, from cosmic hippy, aired out with guitar riffs to jive-like toe tappers. Ryan Jarman natured vocals are accented expressively with front man Jo’s own brand of Mediterranean sultriness.

Singing songs of sex, lust, let downs, and reminders of what we are - just human. Jo doesn’t deny his air of egocentrisms and certainly isn’t averse to anything provocative, easily portrayed when seen on stage with his seductive performances.

“I am very interested in stars, planets and satellites; also cosmic dust, whatever comes from outside, and is big. I like saying ‘don’t worry; we’ll always have Saturn’s rings. I guess the space itself, being so big, no walls, no limits it’s that big it’s not even big...infinite even, bigger than anything, like egocentrism.”

A sensitive soul is Jo, and he doesn’t deny the fact. He’s no rebel and is simply quite scared, bringing forth the melancholic mood that often breaks into his output “Every feeling really affects my music, my vision, the chords I use, and the melodies I get; it’s all about the state of your mind.”

Stages are not compulsory to entertain, serenading at house parties and getting people involved is always a big return, “At a house in Barcelona, lots of people were dancing in front of me and at some point all around me.”

Jo explains some of his lyrics. “Kiss - it’s a song about a bitter drunk, I used to go out with a girl that worked at Jaguar Shoes and she was telling me she was going to call the guy next door to kick me out. I was there, stuck, not having slept for two days, demanding a kiss and a comeback, which never ever worked.”

Another track, ‘Big house’ has a galactic military

intro provided by the interesting drum sequencing.

The ‘ahhh ah ahh’ in the background render almost a tag sarcastic when coupled with the lyrics “I’m gonna buy new shoes and a big house, with a million chairs for us to sit down. I’m gonna get a car, a brand new life, perhaps a tie and you could be my wife, and we’ll have some kids and we’ll act as clowns, we’re out of a job, we’ll buy a new house...’ dipping into the dimea-dozen lifestyle as opposed to those of creative rock n rollers.

Meeting one another either at a gig “About five years ago, Jo and I met at the Apollo when we were both trying to hit on the same girl...and you now see where that has landed us...playing together and neither one of us got the girl!” says Mikel; or as kids in Barcelona “I met Miki 10 years ago, we used to do skateboard together” laughed Aurau “and since then we’ve been playing together in various projects”. One by one each member of European Lust travelled to London to experience one of the world’s music capitals, to travel and have the general freedom of life.

“When you’ve got everything in your hometown you can sometimes get a little stuck and bored.” says Jo. With a father who was a drummer in the 70’s with an extensive collection of LPs, Aurau’s ears were softened to all the greats “Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Kinks...” Starting out playing the violin aged just three, then moving onto the piano, Aurnau finally found his match “I discovered my real passion, which is the drums.” Influenced as a drummer by Mitch Mitchell from Jimi Hendrix Experience “...who died last November by the way” Aurau looks forward to getting the ball rolling in the UK. Mikel started playing music when handed a guitar by his eldest brother. “Then I started listening to Django Reinhart. I also discovered alcohol and The Ramones...not to mention John Schofield.”

“I want to record some more tracks with an acoustic drum kit, bass moog, modular or arturia, a farfisa and drowned vocals, no guitars. Also to get a 7 inch record out... that would make me so happy.”Jo tells when asked what’s next for the band. “Trimph!!!!” adds Mikel who does nothing more than study guitar and chase girls “and I wish I could write songs like Jo and scratch away my cares...what more can you ask from life?” • myspace.com/europeanlust Words: Connie Hart Photo: Michael Robert Williams

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speech debelle debelle.

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debelle debelleof ofthe theball ball Words: andrew future & richard chesterman - photo: michael robert williams

T

he minute you hear ‘The Key’ it’s clear that Speech Debelle is the best thing to hit British hip hop in years. It’s emotionally moving music that mixes live instrumentation, driving pop melodies and truly heart-tugging narratives. A jazzy-pop feast that sounds as fresh as the Roots first did.Andrew Future chats to Speech Debelle about her wonderful debut album Speech Therapy.

Kanye West’s stupid fucking glasses. 50 Cent’s limousines. Eminem snorting Neurofen off his mum.

This is the laughing stock hip hop has been reduced to. Until now, Britain has been unable to turn it around, despite aborted attempts by the Unsung Heroes, Mark B and the Nextmen. Welcome then, to Corryne Elliot, AKA Speech Debelle.

Growing up in a Jamaican home in Crystal Palace, south London, Debelle had a fairly comfortable middle-class upbringing before rows with her mum drove her into a world of hostels and heartbreak aged 19. “There was only enough room for one woman in that house,” says the 26-year-old who wrote poetry at school and had eight step-brothers and sisters who lived with the father she rarely saw.

“People write about what they know,” says Debelle, adjusting her sunglasses and staring at the tattoo on her wrist. “And this is it for me. I don’t know anything about expensive jewellery. When I got signed, I was given a voice. People say hip-hop is this, hip-hop is that.

Whatever. I’m going to talk about what resonates with me and I don’t care if people don’t get or like it.”

Her subject matter – break-ups, family, money problems - is always digested into such a fluid set of rhymes that you can’t help but be drawn in. The acoustic hooks of ‘Go Then, Bye’, (about getting vexed over an ex’s texts with Facebook blocks thrown in for free) could verge into dangerous Lily Allen territory were it not for the song’s wondrous depth. But despite Lily being synonymous will all things ‘Lundun’, Debelle’s immense warmth and intelligence carries the vocal alongside the wonderful musicianship, no matter what colloquialisms she throws at the mic.

‘The Key’ is even better, dropping a pay load of pop perfection within the opening 15 seconds care of some magical oboe melodies. ‘Your need for attention makes you attract the beef ’, she raps in tellingly autobiographical hindsight before a clarinet joins the party for what deserves to be a true breakthrough hit.

In person, Debelle isn’t quite as bolshy as she probably was back in her teenage years. She’s direct,

sometimes defensive, but always considered, with a brisk, booming laugh and an engaging sense of warmth which is what drives her music. She’s more Miss Elliott than Sugarbabe, needless to say.

The beauty of Speech Therapy is the oft-wavering vocals, when emotion breaks through the subject matter to take hold of the performance. It’s the bits where the space between the instruments is so dense that you feel Debelle’s voice about to crack at any moment.

Take album opener and first single ‘Searching’, a crushing lament to being alone and hungry, played out over a minimalist, brushed drum-beat, double bass and sequins of guitar. The grimy realism and crushing beauty leaves it somewhere between Tricky and PJ Harvey. The lyrics go: “2am in my hostel bed/ My eyes them red, my belly ain’t fed/ I got butter but I ain’t got bread/ and I’m smoking on my last cigarette”.

Written from the ground up (lyrics first, music later), the album defies the current norm of finding a catchy loop and repeating it indefinitely. “Initially I just wrote songs and half way through I thought that there was a conceptual foundation underneath.”

Listening to things like Pink Floyd and Minnie Riperton, (the seventies singer-songwriter best known for her five-and-a-half octave vocal range), convinced Debelle to create the album as a chapter in her life. “It was literally a series of speech therapy sessions.”

Overseen by Roots Manuva producer, Wayne Lotek, and Big Dada founder Will Ashon, the live backing tracks sound spectacular. Lush, acoustic guitars jazz over strings and woodwind, with some of the most tasteful hip-hop drumming since ?uestlove played drums with the Roots.

“You can’t just put a loop under something with mood changes in the lyrics,” Debelle rightfully declares.

“I wanted to do a hip-hop version of Tracy Chapman. I want people to know that this isn’t just fast food. Like when you go to a nice restaurant, good musicians have sat down and tried to really create something to stay in people’s memories.”

“I have to say,” she says, “that I’m glad that some of the content makes people feel uneasy, because I don’t think that a lot of people necessarily get a chance to say what they’re really feeling.” But despite the unease, the sentiment is uplifting and listening to Speech Therapy feels you with a rare sense of optimism about the future of British rap. “I’m not going to waste this opportunity I’ve got,” Debelle adds. Glad to hear it.

Speech Therapy is out now on Big Dada Myspace.com/speechdebellemusic

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e h t d n u e o h r t a d n arourld n i d 0 l 8 o n w i d l r wo teps. s 8s0 teps.

Where to go for...Bespoke shoes

Jodie Ball racks up one hell of an imaginary carbon footprint as she takes a hop, skip and a jump around the globe to bring you the hottest shoe shopping destinations this side of the galaxy.

La Manual Alpargatera

C/Avinyó 7, Barri Gòtic, Barcelona The ultimate summer shoe, these cheap handmade espadrilles have graced the feet of everyone from Jack Nicholson to Pope John Paul II. We bow down in awe.

Andrew McDonald

58 William Street, Paddington, Sydney If you have a spare £1k, McDonald’s custom-made shoes are for you. If not, his more reasonably priced ready-to-wear designs will still keep you one step ahead.

The Old Curiosity Shop

13-14 Portsmouth St, London If mass-market shoes make you a sheep, what about Daita Kimura’s hog toe shoes? Housed in London’s oldest shop, these handmade avant-garde shoes are phantasmagorical. Don’t follow the flock.

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Hunt down...secret sneaker stores

Bodega Store

Where to Find...the best discounts Moda

45 Rue Saint-Placide, Paris Who doesn’t want Chloé, Viktor & Rolf and Marc Jacobs heels at 50-60% off? ‘Nuff said.

El Outlet Le Shoe

Rambla de Catalunya 77, Barcelona This is the sneaky outlet store of the designer shoe emporium, Le Shoe. All the big international names can be found at both locations, but why pay full price?

Bicester Village

6 Clearway Street, Boston Nestled between the shelves of an unassuming convenience store is a hidden door way that leads to a mahogany-panelled wonder room, full of limited edition and heritage sneakers. Abracadabra!

Abakus Takeout

227 North 10th Street, Philadelphia Cleverly disguised as a Chinese takea way (complete with online menu), Abakus is a new streetwea r speakeasy that displays T-shirts in takeaway boxes and sneakers on plates.

Time to dine, sneaker freaks.

Under Ground

4-32-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Tokyo is a mecca for rare kicks and limited edition collaborations but make sure you don’t miss Under Ground, which as its name suggests is sneakily located at basement level.

50 Pingle Drive, Bicester Under an hours train ride from London, Bicester Village is a veritable feast of discounted delicacies. For shoes, gals should check out Bally and Jimmy Choo while the guys hot-foot it to Church’s and Vans.

Rummage for...vintage footwear From Around The World

209 West 38th Street, New York ence library, this Originally set up as a working refer by appointment ly strict vintage accessories haven is disappointed. be ’t won you and nce only. Book in adva

Herman Brown

151 West Port, Edinburgh ’s selection of We hear that owner Anna Nicholson your self down get so ” s, cake hot like vintage shoes “sell there and watch you don’t get burnt.

Stella Dallas

285 North 6th Street, Brooklyn New York, head While making like Frank Sinatra in a great selection for klyn Broo in s Dalla Stella over to the news... ading spre of men’s vintage shoes. Start

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Must see...shoe emporiums Galeria Melissa

ins, São Paulo Rua Oscar Freire 827, Jard itect Muti Randolph, this arch n zilia Bra by ed sign De st-see if only for the venue plastic shoe plaza is a mu the awesome electronic d (Randolph also designe is The expansive exterior music mecca D-Edge). s. nth mo e thre ry eve sts redecorated by arti

th 10022-SHOE at Saks Fif k

Avenue

611 Fifth Avenue, New Yor th level of the famous Located on the eigh 00sq ft shoe floor houses 10,0 department store, this is so large it has its ver y 100,000 pair s of shoes and heaven. e sho , rally own postcode. Lite

H-N-L-R

levard, Los Angeles 474 North Robertson Bou st Sunset Boulevard We on re sto er While its sist ry H-N-L-R ecoluxu new specialises in shoes, the its solar-panelled for vote concept boutique gets our tainable carrier sus and s eipt rec ss building, paperle black. new the ly bags. Green is most definite

Revel in...Ultimate luxury Browns Shoes

59 Brook Street, London h of London’s über The new dedicated footwear branc from Alessandro boutique Browns, stocks UK exclusives Nicholas Kirkwood.

Dell’Acqua, Rupert Sanderson and a martini bar, Want more? In-house pedicures and coming soon.

On Pedder

t, Central, Hong Wheelock House, 20 Pedder Stree Kong ium accessories, Asia’s number one source for prem this impressive from g missin are s name er design no to resemble ed design was ip flagsh ous gorge rosta. The a ruby take We’ll s. jewel with filled a treasure chest Louboutin please.

Church’s Shoes

201 Regent Street, London h heritage, each The epitome of aristocratic Englis of production. stages 250 gh throu goes shoe Church’s h. wealt the smell ly You can literal

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Fancy Something...A Bit Different Dog

B1 Trinity Building, 3-23-3 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Totally avant-garde and more than a little wacky, Dog offers hybrid shoes made from customised vintage finds.

You’re more likely to buy as art than footwear, but you will buy nonetheless.

Iris

28, Rue de Grenelle, Paris Iris is the retail outlet for the Italian factory that produces shoes for the likes of Chloé, Marc Jacobs and John Galliano. Iris boutiques then get the first pick of each collection, the styles of which becoming Iris exclusives.

Amazing.

Dave’s Quality Meat

7 East 3rd Street, New York Designed to look like a butcher’s shop complete with glass meat counter, plastic sausages and vacuum-packed T-shirts; this store is a hub for sneaker heads, selling highly sought after streetwear.

LONDON HOT PICKS… DON’T MISS

TN_29

29 Marylebone Lane, London Quir ky designs from award-win ning Canadian designer Tracey Neuls and an unpr etentious shop provides a haven for those wishing to break away from the chain-store brands dominatin g the West End.

Black Truffle

52 Warren St, London Owned by shoe designer Melissa Need ham, Black Truffle is an absolute gem of a store, cater ing for guys and girls with stock from alternative designer labels such as Chie Mihara and F-Troupe.

Blondie

114-118 Commercial Street, London If new just wont do, then try Blondie – the smar ter sister store of vintage mega bazaar Abso lute Vintage.

With a great selection of second-han d shoes in relatively good nick, Blondie’s well-edite d offer says “pah” to retro 80s flotsam.

WIN IT. FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE truly is the gift that just keeps on giving. If the all-singing, all dancing new mega issue, free CD and two relaunch parties weren’t enough, we also bring you our first ever readers competition.

FMS have teamed up with hot new shoe designer Charlene Beckett of Deeasjer Design.After graduating from the prestigious Cordwainers at London College of Fashion, Beckett set up shop in the Florentina Clothing Village in the heart of the city’s East End – one of the few places left in the capital specialising in handmade shoes.

Sourcing the best leathers from Italy, Beckett insists on using ethical methods to create her designs.“There are environmental benefits to all our shoes as they are handmade in the UK,” she says referring to her small team of local artisans.

Deeasjer shoes are one of a kind, tailored to meet the wishes of her valued customers.“I’m a people person,” she says.“I love meeting with the customer and building a relationship. I love making individual shoes and the challenge of being able to bring the customers vision alive.”

And thanks to FMS, that customer could be you.

We are offering one lucky reader the chance to win a custom-made pair of Deeasjer shoes, worth £500!

Beckett will design a bespoke pair of shoes according to the individual winners’ style. Heel height, colours and materials will all be up for discussion in the design consultation before the final fitting. Beckett will then beaver away until Cinderella gets her perfect slipper.

To win, all you need to do is creatively complete these two sentences: I think I should win the Deeasjer shoes because…

Reading Fashion.Music.Style makes me wanna…

Email your name, contact telephone number and answers to win@fashionmusicstyle.com

COMPETITION ENDS AUGUST 30.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS * The closing date is 30th August 2009. * To enter either competition you must be a UK resident and 14 years and over. * Winners under the age of 18 must get permission from their parent/guardian and be accompanied by that parent/ guardian where appropriate. * Only one entry per person. * Winners of the competition will be notified by email or telephone, with names published on the website. * Winners must comply with the terms and conditions of Deeasjer Design. * The prize is one pair of shoes only and no expenses may be claimed for travel or accommodation. * Winners may be required to partake in post-promotional activity. * No part of a prize can be exchanged for cash or any other prize. Non-transferable. * If an advertised prize becomes unavailable, we reserve the right to offer an alternative prize of equal or greater value. * Incorrectly completed entries will be disqualified. * FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE Limited reserves the right to amend these rules at any time.

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ou est le e e l l t t s s e e oouu swimming g g n n i i m m m m i i wPOOL ssw hello buoys

Words: stuart gadd - photo: michael robert williams

Stylist: Mollie Griffiths Groomer: Evie Stoddart using MAC

W

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ith their dirty hot bed of squelching synths and pounding beats currently searing dance floors across north London, the curiously named Ou Est Le Swimming Pool float somewhere between Pet Shop Boys, Human League, Run DMC, Ultravox and Duran Duran.

And if the name suggests that they don’t know where they’re going, then support from the likes of Radio 1’s Annie Mac surely proves that they’re heading in the right direction for stardom.

Allegedly mistaken for a boy band by an EMI executive on account of their glossy image, OELSP insist there’s nothing contrived about what they do. Unlike many current groups of an electro pop persuasion, Ou Est record all their songs using live keyboards, they’re not just pressing the programme button. Andele Peligroso Pericosima, one of the group’s two singers, claiming that “this is more honest, it’s just how we do things”.

The trio met early last year in a house share in Camden. Where Andele and fellow member Fernando found a mutual love for what he describes as “bad assed disco music” played on vintage drum machines.

Completing the trio, Affa became involved throwing in more synth-based expertise.

Having studied with Fernando, Affa’s musical background had been in the grime scene. “He came round to this really big party we had and would MC on a few tracks we had. It just evolved into this really quickly,” Fernando explains.

The twin vocals of Andele and Affa are a key to OELSM’s sound along with Affa’s MC past. The manner in which the two exchange shouty vocals

over clattering beat boxes raises the odd Beastie Boys comparison as well as more typical electronic bands.

On current single ‘Dance The Way I Feel’, the antique beat box sound brings an old school hip hop influence to the fore, as droning keys buzz in menacing Depeche Mode kind of way. ‘Jackson’s Last Stand’ in chugs over a melancholic minor chord melee of bass synths while ‘The Alphabet Song’ is a more straight forward hip hop track. ‘These New Knights’ meanwhile is a lighter more disco-based affair recalling Italian electro pioneer Giorgio Moroder.

“We write everything in minor chords,” Andele explains, adding that the Pet Shop Boys associations don’t faze them much. They claim that up until four months ago they hadn’t really listened to such music.

Any accusations of eighties revivalism can probably be traced to the group’s love of the “grittier, more ballsy sound” purveyed by the post-punk crowd.

According to Andele, the trio are very much focused on their live offering. “We want people to just have a shit load of fun and not think about it,” he says.

“Live, people are just there to dance, and they’re just carried along with the music,” Fernando adds. “But when you’re at home, or on the tube, and you listen to it you might find some real depth there, a sadness to some of it, emotion.”

With a debut LP arriving later this year, OELSP aren’t shy of pinning their pop ambitions to the mast.

“We don’t mind being compared to boy bands if it means we sell shit loads of records,” Andele says.

They’ll need to shower themselves off a bit first then.

MYSPACE.COM/OUESTLESWIMMINGPOOL

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Checking in with...

sha la las Words: STUART GADD - photo: WANTED

FMS catches up with Sha La Las before they return to the UK to promote their new single and first release from second album, ‘White Fever’; thus marking a new collaboration with producer Paul Schroeder (Stone Roses, The Verve, The Others…) and follow-up to the Danish band’s smash 2008 debut, ‘Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers We Are Sha La Las’.

Sha La Las latest paean to the joys and pains of nihilistic drinking may be entitled ‘Ode to Nothing’ but in fact it’s a veritable hymn to summertime. Slightly more muscular than of old, it opens with a knowing nod to the snarling riff of rock ‘n’ roll classic ‘Summertime Blues’ before dissolving into a heat haze of sunny guitars, handclaps and a sublime chorus.

“We dance and sing and laugh and drink, and sail off into the night”, Lasse sings.We can only concur, Mr Storm.

FMS:- Your new single ‘Ode to Nothing’ is a brazen blast of pop. What does sophomore album ‘White Fever’ sound like?

SLL:- “I think it sounds like us stepping up, and finally doing what we’ve always known we’re capable of. We’ve always been pop first and foremost, still are, just a great bit more hateful and straight to the point these days.”

FMS:- The new track on MySpace, ‘Your Love is a Riot,Your Sex is a Deathwish’, suggests a new found musical swagger.

Do you think this true?

SLL:- “Don’t know about swagger, it’s more flawed, confused, painful and pissed off. It’s a confidence thing y’know. Pain is

44

the only thing in this world you can trust. Once you’ve joined sides with pain you can never be beaten. So maybe that’s the swagger you can hear, the swagger of self-mutilating invincibility?!”

FMS:- There is perhaps a rockabilly element to that song.

Have your listening tastes changed?

SLL:- “Rockabilly has been there all along I think, as a part of that whole roots side of our shit. You’ve got to tear up the world by the roots y’know? We still listen to all sorts of things; but we’ve got no heroes at the moment, just things we want to dissolve, like for instance the righteousness of taste, tradition and morality in all its forms…”

FMS:- Paul Schroeder also produced the Stone Roses second LP, which took five years to make. Any jokes in the studio about difficult second album syndrome?

SLL:- “Not really, but we made a pact to have it done by the end of the summer, so no five year plan there. Jeez, I can’t even comprehend the idea of tomorrow…”

FMS:- Sounds like you’re having a breeze anyway. What’s playing the two FMS parties going to be like?

SLL:- “There’s free booze, great line-ups, it’s London and Birmingham….plus we’ve got a whole bunch of new hard hitting tunes we can’t wait to share. So what’s not to love?”

Myspace.com/shalalas Track: Ode To Nothing

GIVE IT SOME SOLE! It’s the age-old dilemma, flats or heels. Here’s how to solve it: buy both, decide later.

Caecilla black veg tanned leather, £100 Terra Planaw

GIRLS

High heel gladiator sandals, £25 Linzishoes.com

Feud, £95 Office. co.uk

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Pointer Footwear Seeker IV Unisex, £38

Pointer judy red or navy, £50

Feud, £100 Office. co.uk

Pointer nita navy walk, £50

19 47

G...

IN ODUC INTR

FIV-E UN NED SIG

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the jesse rose trip Words: CONNIE HART - photo: michael robert williams

M

anchester songstress Jessie Rose has the kind of voice that could leap straight off the pages of history and onto the Jools Holland Show. With her four piece band, the Jessie Rose Trip are an angel-faced blue explosion who have already won a recording trip to LA care of XFM with a heap of exposure at influential music showcases like In The City. Rather than go solo, Rose, a classically trained pianist wanted a more bandbased approach. The result is a brilliant combination of influences and a big theatrical sound.

With influences stemming from classic soul and Motown, and touching on old school jazz and blues, Rose describes the writing process as a pretty smooth affair. “I love how easily the songs come together,” she says. “I’ll introduce a new song to the band and sometimes it’ll take just a few minutes for everyone to have their parts together. It’s amazing.”

For any singer-songwriter, getting the complete package together – both visually and musically – is always hard. But Rose quickly assembled a gang of spot-on musicians, with the result being bags of great responses and trips to the USA and Europe.“Of course it’s been completely knackering,” she says. “But you feel on a high the whole time.We supported the Noisettes in Lille and the reception was unbelievable.”

Debut single ‘Forever in a Day’ is a wonderfully magnetic slice of summer dresses, four-to-the-floor beats and reggae free styling. It’s the kind of tropical soundtrack you’d expect to see on a car ad stuffed

with models with shiny smiles. “It’s definitely a summer track,” says Jessie. “The lyrics are about someone close to me who recently went through a difficult time with her boyfriend. Finding their love was being pulled apart from being away from each other for so long.

It goes as deep as that really. I didn’t want to spoil the summery feel by being too depressing.”

With the likes of Amy, Adele and Duffy all racking up massive record sales in recent years; Jessie’s amazing voice is likely to be music to the ears of embattled record execs. Although she attended theatre school since the age of 3, she was always pretty shy. “I always avoided doing any solos in shows,” she admits. “It wasn’t until I was about 15 that I decided to write riffs and sing.”

With her obvious penchant for jazz and soul singers, Jessie still didn’t start singing properly until she was at college. “I had the chance to perform with bands and experiment with my voice. My mum always said I could sing, but I just didn’t really believe her.”

Jessie’s strong fashion sense and eclectic taste in clothes shines as brightly as her music. Unfazed by people thinking she looks ridiculous, she shops mainly across charity and vintage shops. “Of course you can find some stunning bits and bobs on the high street too,” she says, looking like a walking wardrobe somewhere between Billie Holiday and Audrey Hepburn. She won’t be vintage shopping for long. • Myspace.com/thejessierosetrip

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44 12 50

LLIITTTTLLE E BBO OO OTTSS WORDS: ANDR EW FUTURE PHOTOS: MICH

AEL ROBERT WI

LLIAMS

V

ictoria Heske th, Blackpool’s pint-sized bleach blonde pop idol, hit th e Brits and topped the BB C’s Sound of 2009 chart before people had heard a wo the hype machi rd, setting ne into overdr ive. Now with LP Hands com debut plete, how does the Sylvia Plath Caligula-refere and ncing Little Bo ots compare likes of Kylie an to the d Lily? She disc usses ambition her vitamin addi and ction, telling An drew Future w like being the po hat it’s p Obama.

she over sees a harem of assista nts busily fondlin dresses into pla g her ce for our phot o shoot. It’s all with the precisi handled on of a space shuttle launch fir st glance, you’d and on be forgiven for th blonde was all vocoders and sto inking the ice cool ny calculations.

But despite sin ging about Py thagoras in ro stomper ‘Mathe botic matics’, inspired I really wanna se

by Sylvia Plath’s Love is a Paralla ll loads of reco poem x (“... yet love/ kn rds.” There. She Game over, turn ows not of deat said it. calculus abov the cameras of h nor e/ the simple su f, we can go ho hang on a seco m of hear t plu me. But the only real nd, because alt s hear t”), calculation behin hough those tw words (‘sell’ an d Little Boots co o filthy the desire to d ‘records’) ha ncerns create great po ve long been th of any ‘serious p tunes that H e bane possessed fro ’ musicians, Vict esketh m oria Hesketh, an ea styled Nor ther rly ag e. the selfn Kylie is as se Twenty year s rious as it gets. ago, aged five, while Beyoncé’s At least mum to bu she convinced still heaving her y her a piano. H her ar se around magaz covers looking aving mastered ine to practice piano worr yingly like it (“I used Sacha Baron Co ever y day, I wa new character, hen’s the young sta s so hard core Br uno, that is. rlet ploughed th ”) With a cr ystal rough a variety punk and indie stare that could of jazz, projects, playin thousand paces, sn ap bo g Norah Jones ys at a in Leeds re Hesketh sits be staurants for m covers hind her immac styled hair adm oney while do ulately studies at un iring the newly ing culture ive rs fin ity ished bowling . and restaurant H er big br ea lanes through endin k ultimately ca where we’re sa g up in indie als me t. It couldn’t be ‘pop’ if New Ki o-rans Dead D more “I wanted to ds On The Bloc isco. make music so k came in and milkshakes for us ba dly m to ad , ” ok ever y oppo . Peering out th e she says. “I jus rtunity that cam rough oil slick ey t e to me.” eliner, During a visit to LA with the old band, she Lily Allen’s prod met ucer Greg Kurs tin, penning a which would track soon set the music industry While ‘Stuck O alight. n Repeat’, with its demonically bleak,

45 13 51

“It’s not abou famous or eart being loads of mone ning I just want to y... loads of peop reach AND connect.” le 46 18 14 52

Stylist: Rebekah Roy Styling assistant: Rosie Bee Williams Make-up: Adam Burrell using MAC

robot-Kylie vers e and euphoric, shimmering drop chor us, caught out the ears of infl uential industry it was a series types, of YouTube po stings showing covering ever yt Hesketh hing from MGM T and George M to Madonna an ichael d Alphabeat fro m her bedroo endeared her to m that the masses.

Bundled in amon g boxes full of between futuris keys and twitchin tic synths in a g scabby old t-shir jeans, she occa t and sionally returns to a standard uprig piano, accompa nied by her brot ht her. The interne capture the sh t clips get you so far, arp and determ especially when ined personality doesn’t always your that will doubtlessly be make it throug h on the reco expecting Coldp record label by its nature, rd . Pop, on their investm lay-level return is clinical. Not ent. “It’s a bit s expressionless, connection of se pressurised bu but the can it be a ba eing layer s of lo t how d th ing op ?” s your eyes is ve as H se es m ke ble th d ad th be m ing fo its. “The worst ry different to re would be no on the gleaming, pa e talking about album Hesketh ckaged feedback and to you, no positive has just presen ns of te d da us ys wi of Far from being th. f. I’d find it hard getting so much just another po if I wasn’t positive feedbac p puppet, Heske could quite cle k.”

But with no re ar ly find her wa th cord out until y round a piano a microKorg now, isn’t that without chipp and mainly to hype? “I’ down ing her nail po m sure they’ll needing to call be a backlash,” lish or admits, dodging up Mar k Rons she th e question, “and on for moral su The online video ppor t. out, people will once the album s also provided say ‘Oh, she’s re ’s the same open demystification ally pop’, but an -house who’s been follo of music afforde yone wing me will kn d by Pop Idol, which Hesketh ow ou th from at I’ve always se t to make a big was ejected fro t pop record. An m after three ro aged 16. She cr yone who says unds, sold will have miss ied, of cour se, I’ve ed the point. Al but it could ha worse. She could l ve it’l ac l be hie m en ean is that I’ve ved my goals. ’ve won.

“It’s not abou “My friend desc t being famou ribed me as the s or earning of money,” she Barack Obama loads music. ‘I heard yo contests, in th of u’re saving mus at slanted, dism Nor thern tone ic’, she said. I wa issive ‘Oh My God’.” , as if deciding s like between two shoes she does pairs of With pink hair n’t particular ly and big trouser want. “I just wa reach loads of s, Hesketh cove nt to Green Day and people and co red Blink 182 song nn ect. And if my are good enou s as a 16-yearsongs college, befriendin gh I should be old at g both the go able to do that want people to ths and the gr . I just kids, going “a bit hear my music unge crazy”. Before and react to it. what drives me. that, she was That’s into music and ” more bo oks, describing With her dad (“ herself as ‘a dw at school. “I wa he’s tone deaf ”) eeb’ s always the go fan and her mum a staunch Beatles got to od gir l but ever (“she’s amazing have a stage. I wa yone’s , she paid for all lessons and su sn ’t th at m ad really, I just used ppor ted me all my to wear ridiculous clothes.” the way”) mor Barbra Streisa e into nd that she pe Despite shoppin rhaps cares to g mainly at air admit, it was lef ports as she sk now around the globe t to modern po ips on promotiona p to shape the Victoria’s ears. l duties, Heske young still has rather gr th and fashion am “My defining re bitions. “I’d love giant space age cords were Kylie some dress with a sil ’s fir st album, Bl third album, Pa ve r ca on lig pe, perhaps with hts and midi pa die’s rallel Lines, alo nels so I could ng with All Sa Natalie Imbr ug play music with ints’ and stage.” lia’s debut reco it on rds. I even lik Saints’ come ba ed All Like in that cla ck song but yo u could just tell ssic Kylie video hated each othe they all My Place’ you to ‘Put Your self r.” mean? “The on In While Hands is e where she str the space shuttle thankfully free ips in ?

Ye s!” from the tantru sh pouts and knife e lau gh s.

“It D ’s totally amazing oes she get tota -edge egotism ms, lly naked?” I sh . that doomed Al Hesketh’s debu rug the faux am l Saints, shrug of someo t has a smatte nesia ne who grew up ring of snappy that glimmer watching Kylie tunes less each year. with the same wear wonderful Orb pop spar kle th it-esq “I think she did at br ,” Hesketh reca of mediocrity. Th iefly lifted the London gir ls lls, her eyes light out up as she continu e same sugar-r ing es: “My favourit ush the former producer injecte e old track wa Blur ‘Confide In Me’. I d into Madonna s was obsessed ’s Ray of Light (w single-handedly with that. I hate hich Manic Street Prea resurrected he the r career) is pres cher s though correct all thro ent and produced Kylie [who wrote an ughout the twelv ’s sadly doomed d e songs. It’s just good pop mus ‘indie’ period] bloody my only problem ic. that’s .”

But of cour se hype and sycoph antic reviews on ly

47 19 15 53

collections have Although Manics str uck a chor d with striking se ba ductive young ssi st N ick y Wire has bo a commendably and celebs over th asted practicall exuberant affair e last three ye y walking out with outfits over year s, he does ar s, the door s of the departmen now look like heavyweight a cross betwee t stores like Har Izzard and John n Ed ve y die Prescott. Thankfu Nichols and Lib “To put it sim er ty. lly then, it’s eig legends like Elt ply, I’m a gir l, hties Hesketh on John, Bowie, I love dressing adds with a sedu Kate Bush and Lauper who rig up,” ctive grin, eyein Cindy the mor htly inspire Hes g up one of e elaborate ou keth in the fas stakes. “All the tfi ts of hion the day. visuals are so But while she’s important. X-fac tells us it’s all keen ‘being a about the voca tor Hesketh do gir l’ one thing ls but it’s not. es n’t a tiny party,” sh want to be is ‘a It’s such just e declares. “The gir l behind a pia didn’t wanna ge chor us, the song no. “I performance, th t lum ped in with Ka , the Tori Am e ar twor k, the te Nash and os, there’s just photos, the vid – how you co something reall eos it, even th me across – it’s y gross about ough I love Tori all connected. extension of th Amos. I do lov It’s an sounds e music.” e mixing real with synths – th As well as ob ere are great te vious name-ch But I think we’ll xt ures there. ecks like McQ and Marc Jacob ge t more pianos ueen on my ne s, Hesketh is als and guitars invol xt record.” o a big fan of of the UK’s mos ved some t up and coming “I’ve been liste new designers, twin sisters Felde ning to a lot of like it down r Felder and th m usic and breakin over the last co e award-winning London creativ g uple of year s,” east e, Geoffrey Fin she admits, ch. His Antipod ium

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“The three minu in typically clinic te song is a ve al fashion. “I jus and that’s why ry powerful sp t like walking ar sometimes thou ace it’s so challengin ound concur gh. I guess there g to create,” H s. “That one have been a lot esketh changes in my song can take of big somew life, like moving you back to here, make you to Lo to record, and cr y, remind you I just like watchin ndon, going to LA me it’s of a time. For just about getti g people on th little things. Hum ng a reaction ou e bus, an behaviour ca t of people.”

A musical reac n inspire you a But without th tion that is. The lot.” e machines of fir st rule of po a str ict ‘no cour se, how wo dr ugs’ policy, at we know abou p is t Little Boots? uld concerne least where th “I think I’d still e media is d. “I don’t do dr just that I’d find exist, it’s the ug s different ways of bu t I’d still hang ou boys from MGM doing things,” H says “In today’s t with T.They are quite esketh on a climate you ca hot. I’d maybe go vitamin binge,” n’t ignore YouT Facebook. Ever sh e jokes, referrin ube or diet yone uses it. I g to her health in response to wrote a colum Sunday Times las all the air trave n in the Lit t week. I came l. If anything th tle Boots is sure to the conclusio you don’t have en, ly de sti n that Wine ned to not be to do this to be the new Amy house, at least. an ar tist; it’s jus way it is. If Bowi But let’s hope sh t the sell ou e was a new ar e’s ever y bit th t nonetheless. • tist now he’d be on it using ever e right ything going.”

Of cour se Bowi Ha e’s nd s big is ou gest trick was innovation and his musical Myspace.c t now on 679/Atlantic Records ability to turn a om/littlebootsm normal pop so a timeless, mus usic ng into ical master class.

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willand the people shiny happy people

Words: gemma hughes - photo: michael robert williams

Stylist: Rebekah Roy Styling assistant: Rosie Bee Williams Make-up: Adam Burrell using MAC

B

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righton-based popsters Will And The People are taking audiences around the UK by storm, their infectious happy tunes making even the moodiest East-London hipster tap their vintage-clad foot. This month sees the fourpiece release their hotly-tipped, ska-infused single ‘Knocking’.

The music industry (present company excluded, of course...) doesn’t usually like things that don’t fit neatly into easily labelled boxes, yet they do seem to like Will And The People, a sunny, mish-mash of influences summed up perfectly by their keyboard player, Noddy, as “chaotic”.

Lead Vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Will Rendle explains that even he has trouble classifying their music; “Chaotic’s right, but I have been struggling with this recently. We do have some slightly leftfield influences like ska and reggae, but in a kind of commercial light.

It’s heading towards mainstream, but without being too conventional and I think the result is a sound that goes up and down a lot. Each song’s a journey, not just a typical three-minute pop song.”

In recent times ‘pop’ seems to have become a dirty word, but certainly not where Will And The People are concerned. They rate Lady Ga Ga and the Spice Girls alongside Stevie Wonder, The Police, MGMT and Bob Dylan. Where they’re concerned, it’s all about the songs; “I don’t give a shit who plays it. I don’t care whether it’s cool, If it’s a good tune, it’s a good tune”.

So what song does Will wish was his?

“Yesterday by the Beatles, I have this romantic thing about acoustic guitars. I write all my songs on acoustic guitar first, and if they sound good like that, then they’ll definitely sound good with a band. It’s such a great representation of how a good a song really is.”

Their recently released debut single Knocking certainly seems to pass Will’s ‘stripped down’ test; it’s less frantic and slower than most of their other tracks and has an almost eerie quality, reminiscent of GhostTown era Specials.

About a year ago, Will moved from Brighton to London, with the sole aim of promoting the band further and wooing record labels. It worked; the band are now signed to RCA, have an album due out later this year (produced by John Douglas of Kylie & Andre 3000 fame) and are playing festivals-a-plenty this summer. But now the move has been made from chilled out Brighton to the big bad city, will the music lose its oh-so-sunny vibe? Perhaps we should expect more paranoid tracks like Knocking...

“Nah,” says Will, grinning, “I’m moving back!” “I’ve been here a year, I’m bored and I’m going home. I really don’t think, in a year, I’ve written more than a couple of words...maybe one chorus, but the inspiration’s definitely not flowing, I’m going home. I need to go home.”

“The inspiration, it’s all about the sea isn’t it?” offers John Tilley, the band’s bassist who, like the other members, never left Brighton.

“Yes and the skimming of stones. Not enough of that in London.”

At the time of writing WATP are about to head off on a UK arena tour with Girls Aloud. There is some disagreement in the band as to who is the best ‘Girl Aloud’, but everyone is agreed that it’s gonna be awesome, if not a little bit scary as Will explains.

“I think if you can get people on your side in that situation, you’re there. You’re laughing. But it’s huge for us. We recently supported The Script and that was a massive jump for us. Going from places like the Water Rats, where we’ve played for the past two years to venues with a 3000 capacity - it’s such a jump. And now we’re jumping again, I have no idea what to expect.”

Expect to be hearing this band on the radio for years to come.

‘Knocking’ is out now. myspace.com/willandthepeople

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Stylist: Rebekah Roy Styling assistant: Rosie Bee Williams Make-up: Adam Burrell using MAC

jon lawrence.

URBAN POTTERY Jon Lawrence is a 27 year-old ceramic sculptor from Leeds. He eats croissants for breakfast and owns only two pairs of jeans.

FMS: Usually when you think of ceramics you think of granny’s Royal Doulton figurines or ugly bowls spun by burlap-wearing hippies. But sneakers and ghetto-blasters are pretty cool - do you think your work opens the world of ceramics to a whole new generation?

JL: The ceramic scene is saturated with similar looking work and I think that these are something fresh and unique. If you Google ceramic trainers you won’t find any but mine.

FMS: Why sneakers?

JL: Everybody knows how collectable sneaks can be.

I’ve taken some of the most well known shoes and produced them in a more decorative manner.

I’m currently working on a range of 10 smaller sneakers in original colour ways, exact replicas of the old skool originals such as the Puma Roma and the Nike Cortez.

FMS: Why do you choose to work with ceramics?

JL: Porcelain is like a luxury version of concrete. I like to think that the pieces I make will long out live me and one day become curious antiques.

Buy Jon’s ceramic kicks at www.jon-lawrence. co.uk or www.soleheaven.com or check out more of his work at the RBSA exhibition - Urbanicity, in Birmingham which runs from 14 September – 6 November 2009.

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sneakart.

STICKY KICKS Sneakart is run by Zoe and Ollie Gilbertson. Their special sneakskin™ stickers instantly update tired old trainers. It’s the new recycling, don’t you know.

FMS: What’s the best thing about your concept?

ZG: It’s really addictive and the great thing is you can easily remove the film and start again when you want a fresh look.

FMS: How creative do you need to be to use sneakart?

ZG: You can set your own level. People can choose from hundreds of designs available online while super creative types can upload their own designs. We want to promote artists and designers from around the world and give them a place to showcase their work.

FMS: Can Sneakart promote individuality by putting custom design in the hands of the masses?

ZG: Essentially we want to give those who want a unique look, an easy way to do it. We’re not replacing the works of art that someone may pay a customiser for – but most people don’t wear those shoes because they’re too special. With sneakskin™ people can customise their shoes for fun and wear them.

Visit www.sneakart.com to buy ready-made sneakskin™ patterns or upload your own artwork where you can either keep your design private or make it public and earn generous royalties on every sale you make.

WORDS: JODIE BALL

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WIN IT.

Calling all customisers, graffiti artists, doodlers and daydreamers. This is your chance to design your own creps courtesy of FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE and our good pals over at Sneakart.

In our first ever reader competition we invite anyone and everyone – regardless of artistic ability, to try their hand at customising their own kicks.Whether you’re an illustrator looking to break into the professional design arena or just a dab hand with a paintbrush, send us your stuff.We’ll then put our heads together with the Sneakart peeps to choose three winning designs which will be put into production.

Whoever wins first prize will see their Sneaksin™ design turned into a pair of bespoke kicks while two runners up will be sent two sheets of their own design Sneaksin™ to dress up their own footwear.All three winning designs will then be sold via the Sneakart website where the individual artists will earn 10% of all the sales of their artwork.

Submitting your masterpiece couldn’t be easier.You can create the artwork with any digital software or even old skool pen and paper if you like, as long as it measures 290mm x 220mm in landscape orientation. Scan in or save your design as a JPEG file of 300dpi and email it to us at win@fashionmusicstyle.com before 30th August 2009.

Don’t forget to include your full name, shoe size and contact telephone number.

For inspiration, design tutorials and sneaker templates, check out www.sneakart.com.

COMPETITION ENDS AUGUST 30.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS * The closing date is 30th August 2009. * To enter either competition you must be a UK resident and 14 years and over. * Winners under the age of 18 must get permission from their parent/guardian and be accompanied by that parent/ guardian where appropriate. * Only one entry per person. * Winners of the competition will be notified by e-mail or telephone, with names published on the website. * Winners must comply with the terms and conditions of Sneakart. * First prize is a pair of sneakers featuring the winning design on Sneakskin™. * Shoe size will be requested on notification of winning first prize. * Two runners up will receive two copies of their designs on Sneaksin™ only. * Winners may be required to partake in post-promotional activity. * No part of a prize can be exchanged for cash or any other prize. Non-transferable. * If an advertised prize becomes unavailable, we reserve the right to offer an alternative prize of equal or greater value. * Incorrectly completed entries will be disqualified. * FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE Limited reserves the right to amend these rules at any time.

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Is it daunting playing to your own compared to the chaos of Babyshambles gigs?

Yes it’s daunting but my crowds are much calmer and I like to think they sometimes listen.

The music is a little more folky then punk so it’s a different experience than the shambles. It’s great to punk out with shambles but equally great to play a little softer.

What’s inspired you over the years?

I’m really into melody and the more simplistic approach to song writing. Most of my stuff is written on guitar by me so it’s all normally chord-based and as my guitar playing is rudimentary at best the harmonies are basic at best.

Growing up I was a huge fan of the bit hitters of Britpop and the classic 60’s cannon. I also have an unhealthy love of pop, and a leaning towards the Jazztastic.

ROSES KINGS

CASTLES

TAKING A BREAK FROM THE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL RASCALS Words: connie hart - photo: michael robert williams

A

dam Ficek is a busy man. When not beating drums for Babyshambles or lending support to Mr. Doherty’s solo tour, he’s fast becoming a successful one-man-band in his own right.

Our favorite tunesmith might fool you with sweet folk spruced up with melodically aligned pop tones and an enchanting singing voice, but the beauty also lies in his universally appealing lyrics and honest melancholy. FMS catches up with Adam the moment he finds time between the Shambles and charming cities, villages and towns all over Europe with his very own creation, Roses King Castles.

Myspace.com/roseskingscastles Track: Sparkling Bootz

You come across as very approachable to your fan base.

How important is this aspect to you and the furtherance of RKC? I think it’s a must; I like to think of my arena as a community.

Well, in the sense that I want to involve my fan base with my creative process.

What has been your biggest musical challenge so far?

Writing songs that sound good.

Who is seducing your ear drums at the moment?

Ex Lovers, Camera Obscura, Pocket books…

Is the answer blowing in the wind, or do you have to work your god damn socks off?

It’s very hard, I do most of the grind myself. I do have the support and help of a group of fellas (360 degrees music) who help out with the tougher stuff, but all the foot work is mine. It’s so hard to find a manager that is as creative as me and that I can trust. So until then it’s all me. I don’t want an admin assistant. I want a Loog Oldham.

What things really annoy you?

The injustice of the music industry, the cut throat nature of many involved. It’s not easy, there are some diamonds in the rough but you have to do a lot of digging, as I said I found 360. It’s like a game of chess, always be prepared for the next move...

How is the RKC itinerary looking for the woods of 2009, any festivals?

Gigs, festivals and an album out in November, It was going to be an EP but I think it’ll be an album again.Time will tell…

If you just dance, will it be ok?

No, it will be until you stop dancing, but then you’ll find you’re fucked. Dance near mirrors so you can see who’s dancing near you…just in case.

When will we be seeing a clothing line and a Roses Kings Castles Finest Fragrance? (Ha) Next month.

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. y t r a p bloc

Words: andrew future

G

ritty social commentary, genre crushing musicianship and a direct, confused and fiercely defensive front man are the hallmarks of what make Bloc Party great.

While Kele Okereke spent three albums worrying too much to enjoy fronting one of Britain’s biggest bands, he’s now given up refusing to have fun, he tells Andrew Future in New York.

Like all great singers, the beauty of contradiction shines brightly in the eyes of Okereke. It’s closely followed by the ability to sell millions of records and still worry about life, of course, but Okereke’s position as heir-apparent to the king of whinge - Morrissey - could be about to shift if today’s green shoots of positivity are anything to go by.

“Yesterday was the first day it felt like spring,” he says wearily. “Lots of people still care about us, we’ve

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played a lot of places and it’s still exciting,” he adds, as if surprised. Why do they care? Well because, like the Smiths in their heyday, three albums in, Bloc Party are still making incredibly exciting music. Yet still he wants to settle in Sydney, or maybe Toronto, and leave behind London, Converse trainers and newspapers with Jade Goodie on.

Last year’s Intimacy, rush-released on an unsuspecting fan base days after completion to preempt leaks, was a masterpiece. A confrontational and confessional dose of beat-driven rock, it remains a truly progressive album that highlighted the embarrassing gulf between Bloc Party and underperforming peers like Razorlight and Kaiser Chiefs.

“Our music is more suited to applying lip-gloss, shoe-horning yourself into a well-worn pair of Dorothy Perkins leggings, and piling into the back of

a minibus bound for Leicester Square with a crate of Barcardi Breezer,” Okereke declared last year.

Nothing’s changed at all. As he said, it’s still “a prelude to the whole sorry ritual of finding yourself someone to get into a hot sticky mess with.” It is indeed a very Moz-like turn of phrase.

And of late, it seems that Okereke’s craving the ‘sticky mess’ himself, particularly with marriage and babies starting to crop up amid the Bloc Party troupe.

“Things have changed,” he admits. “And although this is a fantastic job, I’d just like to feel more fulfilled. I wanna carry on doing this but not at the expense of being a human being. I want to be just doing things like starting a family and being in love.”

It’s a statement that underpins a lot of his recent songs and interviews. “I speak about ‘feelings’ more and more these days. Now that we’re in a touring band, the relationships we have with people are our lifelines – they’re the most important things we have.”

He laments feeling like a tourist whether in England or abroad, yet there appears to be little love lost between Okereke and London. “Whenever we fly back there’s always a twinge of sadness ‘cos I don’t really like living in London, although I like to see friends.

I get really depressed seeing newspapers at the airport with all the trivial shit going on. I’m thankful that my job involves seeing all the other ways of living.”

His use of the word ‘job’ is deliberate of course.

“There are moments I don’t wanna be doing it,” he explains. “I just wanna be at home in bed sometimes. I think it’s important to see it as a job, because that way you can make time to have a life.”

How do you do that when music is so clearly your life though? “I tell myself I’m not gonna play guitar or think about songs. We have periods now where we ask not to be contacted about band stuff. For the first two years we did everything we could but by the end of the second campaign we were so burned out. I think that’s why we released the record how we did.

“It can feel so dehumanising having your whole year mapped out ahead of you. We were keen to just put the record out when we’d finished it without any promo.”

While Okereke isn’t sure if this approach “completely worked”, it was clearly important to him to reclaim some spontaneity and indeed some of the excitement that always used to accompany a new album’s release back in his own school days.

“I think it’s all to do with the way that music’s disseminated now through the internet,” he says.“If you want a record now you can have it months before it’s released, so the cultural impact of everyone listening to it at the same time has been lost. I remember queuing up to buy Be Here Now, but subsequent generations

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don’t know any better. It’s a romantic idea that we’re still trying to strive for.”

Thankfully, critical recognition isn’t something they have had to strive for, with million-selling albums complemented with awards and ‘cool lists’.

“It’s such a laughable statement,” he says, “the concept of ‘cool’ is so ridiculous. There are some people that are cool, but the reasons why certain people would say I was a cool person aren’t reasons why I would class myself as such. I don’t do that at all.

It’s flattering, but that’s not a thought I subscribe to very often.”

Surely his part-time home of Shoreditch, east London, offers a fashionable respite from the touring world? “It’s funny, over the last few years I’ve just got sick to death of seeing kids walking around looking like they’re in The Horrors,” he declares. “I’m a fan of theirs and I like their look, but I hate the way everyone’s wearing sensible shoes and skinny trousers.

“Dourness is something that’s descended upon east London. Everyone dresses like a Charles Dickens character. It was the only good thing about nu–rave – that people were wearing lots of colours.”

Okereke’s penchant for garish reactionary colours is thankfully the nearest Bloc Party will get to nu-rave, of course. “I’m not sure if electronic music is the future

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of Bloc Party but it’s certainly something I’d like to explore because it’s such a liberated way of working,” he says. “I’ve always been obsessed with sounds and textures and rhythms, far more than playing the guitar.

The most progressive music right now is electronic music, pop music. That’s the music that speaks to me when I’m out dancing and experiencing life. It’s hard because we’re a guitar band and have all this baggage of people wanting to hear guitar songs.”

As you’d expect, Okereke thinks that “most new bands are shit”, although he does like Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ new album. “It’s probably the only new record I’m excited by,” he says.

“When I was a teenager I desperately wanted to be in a band and now I’m here I’d much rather be anonymous and part of the machine again,” he stutters, in a rant that trails off into a Chris Martin number of “I don’t know what I’m saying, I should probably just stop.”

Of course things have changed massively for Bloc Party, and with the hard work behind them, now is the time for them to fully enjoy things. “If we carry on it will be at a slightly more relaxed pace,” Kele reflects. “I wish I’d enjoyed it more and that it hadn’t taken three records to get to the place I’m at now. But at least I’m there. It’s not all doom and gloom, don’t worry.” myspace.com/blocparty

mobius band

managing editors Words: andrew future

A

nyone missing MGMT may want to get out their crack pipe and chirp along to the latest Brooklyn sensation to hit the UK. Editors’ new best mates Mobius Band release their second album Heaven here after the Brit boys struck a deal with Mobius’s US record label. Its lush, electro-depth won’t change the way music is made but nevertheless it’s a consistent, intense record that definitely puts many lily livered London synth twits to shame.

Peter Sax, Noam Schatz, and Ben Sterling started Mobius Band four years ago in Shutesbury, Western Massachusetts. They went to college with MGMT, haunted the same rehearsal halls, enjoyed pop music and wished they’d been born in the 1920s or 1960s.

Mobius soon moved to Brooklyn which Sax describes as a ‘big shift’ even though he was born there. “For me it was coming home. I think New York’s the greatest city in the world, no offense. Well, some offense. Your city has stolen my girlfriend from me, so I’m somewhat bitter,” he says. “Oh, and in New York, no one takes buses. Buses are for suckers! New York is all about walking. Remember that when you come visiting.”

As a kid, Sax loved Pearl Jam and Nirvana. “Not

Candlebox though,” he adds. “I knew they were faking it. I really liked Brand Nubian at some point in high school, this sort of Afro-centric hip-hop thing. I also loved Phish, which is quite embarrassing now.

“I was into the Breeders ‘Last Splash’ a lot and this post-Pavement band called Archers of Loaf, very angsty and rocking. Eventually I got pretty deep into free jazz - Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, guys like that.”

They met Editors playing across a host of “hilarious real-deal Americana small towns that no one ever plays” teaching them about American fast food and how to shotgun beer. “I don’t think they knew Tom Petty,” Sax jokes.

He’s a big pop music fan – and that’s what’s at the very heart of Heaven. “I love ‘Single Ladies’, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, Phil Collins and the Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’. There is shitty pop music, but there is shitty everything, there always has been.

90% of everything is a waste of your time. The best pop songs are like a drug every time you hear them.

It’s like the first time every time. That’s where it’s at.”

Heaven is out now through Ghostly.

Myspace.com/mobiusband

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cup of knee hop girls shoes: tops ore boys shoes: b st : wedgewood cup and saucer in & marshall kl an fr : ts shor c ma : makeup

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bubble and cheek shoes: b store ve from hetty & da necklace: love l ar pe & bra: gilda de by niki magic pants: ma c ma : up ke ma

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bangers and tash shoes: roland cartier t shirt: i love london table cloth fabric: cloth house cutlery & plate: stylist’s own makeup: mac

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steak and hips set: toquade Bra and knicker ll margaret howe s: ck so h knee hig p ho shoes: tops makeup: mac

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shepherd’s eye Bodysuit: lascivious cake ring: www.elsiebelle.com shoes: emma cook for topshop makeup: mac

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fish and lips shoes: topshop tea Pot, cupcake and ice cream necklaces: www.azen di.com swimsuit: beyound ret ro newspaper: the telegr aph makeup: mac

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THE third man

H

ave I had my jumper on the wrong way around the whole time?” Max Rafferty exclaims startled. Obviously the recovery from a very heavy night/morning is taking its toll on the former Kooks bassist and frontman of new band, The Third Man. “It’s taken five years of pissing around to find each other” drummer Andrew Newton explains matterof-factly on The Third Man’s origin. Despite being still in their first six months of playing together, Max has known drummer Andrew, formerly of Cat the Dog, for six years, meeting when they were under the same management. Similarly guitarist Adam Stockdale was previously guitar technician for The Kooks.

But has it been a wasted six years and would it have been any different had they decided to collaborate earlier when their paths first crossed? “Well you’ve got to have something to write about, right? Andrew philosophises; “We’ve had so much good and bad shit over the time, it’s all interesting to use”.

Although still in their formative stages of writing and playing together, you could be fooled into thinking you were listening to the ramblings of a group going through the motions for the past twenty years, as it’s obvious that they have had their fair share of experiences both negative and positive which have shaped their strong views on the current industry.

Max is more than happy to vocalise his scepticism.

“Obviously we’ve all been there once before, and the only one thing you learn is that you want everything to be definitely right and then you’re happy with it.”

So what are the creative processes to make their music “right” this time? Max elucidates in a calculated fashion, “Whatever we need to do we’ll do, it’s just about getting the best set together and putting out the best records possible. We just want to get our own game right.”

It’s very easy to humour these aims of creativity as to be honest it’s nothing that any of us haven’t heard before and so how are they going to go about achieving this ‘game’? Andrew explains, “Keep it down south just bash gig, gig, gig and get really comfortable.

We’re so young as a band. That’s what you’ve gotta do, just get your feet on the stage and feel it as a unit, just tour the shit out of the south” This is all well and good as far as aims go and it’s obviously something they have deliberated; a lot. Max continues, “If you listen to something you want it to make you bleed out of your fucking eyes it’s so good, you don’t want to see some moving cabbage that is talking about a car driving down the road”

Whenever Max’s cynicism rises, Andrew’s romanticism counteracts it as he elaborates, “We want people to dream about it and just go, that was amazing. Like touching someone, not in the sense of ‘oh that light show was amazing but shit I totally understand where you’re coming from and I can relate that to my life” It’s clear that Max’s past interaction with the music industry has influenced his values within his new venture immensely, and has left him sceptical of the current music climate. It’s an almost impossible task to get him to cite any contemporary influences that excite him. He goes for Brighton peers The Maccabees, who are friends of the band and who they have recently been supporting on the Brighton stint of their UK tour. Andrew is consensual to Max’s views but justifies this by describing their recent live appearances with his own spin on it. “The crowd really interacted with the band in a really great way and that’s really inspirational”.

Get them onto music pre-1994 though and they’re on a roll. It seems that in their eyes the release of Nirvana’s Never Mind was consequently the last album to be released prior to an apocalypse of appealing music and within this hour there have been constant references to their influences that are firmly rooted with the likes of Neil Young, Hendrix and Zeppelin.

Having this wealth of experience within the industry there could be a very easy route to exposure for The Third Man as you only have to glance on the internet to find a wealth of fan sites deriving from their previous ventures. That’s why it’s so endearing that they are adamant on their intentions for starting over and working for what they reap.

This time around their idea of success and creative liberality lies firmly routed in maintaining an independent stance within their music and their ability to pursue this without the overpowering influence coming from where they are financed. Max makes it crystal clear in one last demonstration of the most surreal of hypothetical scenarios. “I’m not going to stand in Leicester Square in a pink Leotard with a fucking tambourine taped to my forehead. Or maybe I should?!” So despite all of the cynicism towards the industry it’s good to see that there is a sense of humour lurking within there somewhere. It does get you thinking though; it’d be a good sight to see. • MYSPACE.COM/ THETHIRDMANBANDUK

Stylist: Rebekah Roy Styling assistant: Rosie Bee Williams Make-up: Adam Burrell using MAC

WORDS: SARAH PENNY - photo: MICHAEL ROBERT WILLIAMS

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the lines

half a dream away

W

Words: gemma hughes - photo: michael robert williams

olverhampton isn’t known for its rich musical heritage but with the likes of Editors, the Twang and Enemy arriving care of the Midlands’ industrial wastelands in recent years,The Lines are in pretty good company. While many bands spend their whole lives trying to escape the shadows of cities like Birmingham, this lot seem to be doing a pretty good job already.

Like much of their sound, debut single ‘Domino Effect’ is a very fist-to-the-air nineties affair, bursting with soaring self-belief, if not bags of originality. “We’ll burn this town down like nobody else can,” sings Alex.

Someone should tell him Pyromania is soooo ’95.

Their new single, ‘Half Dreams’ is a more melancholy Verve-like affair than the groove ridden indie that’s earned them comparisons with the Stone Roses. However, it’s not that mellow; the funky bass

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can still be heard and when the jangly guitars finally kick in properly, it has the potential of a festival anthem of Embrace proportions. The lyrics seems to explore a theme close to the hearts of many a band on the rise – the desire to escape bleak post-industrial sprawl conflicting with the knowledge that that place made them what they are. It’s a toughie...

Some of its couplets may have a touch of A level poetry to them, but that’s the only criticism - it’s a good, well crafted song that would sound perfectly at home on mainstream radio or in any festival field you’d care to choose. The track finishes with the lines “I’ve been trying hard not to try”. If they can stick to this mantra, and carry on making the heartfelt music that seems to come naturally to them, they could do very well indeed.

Myspace.com/wearethelines

d n a s e o h s , x se l l o r ’ n rock ‘ e mofo

oto: th e ball - ph

di Words: jo

I

n the largest global study of sexual kinks ever undertaken, researchers from the University of Bologna showed that feet and more specifically shoes, were the biggest turn-ons for men and women…by a landslide.

But if 64 per cent of regular, red-blooded folk agree that a pair of killer heels is the ultimate in sex appeal, why then are footwear fetishes still so taboo?

The research,published inThe Journal of Sexual Medicine in February 2007, found that 47 per cent of respondents rated feet and toes as the most popular hot spots while 64 per cent said shoes and boots were top when it came to “objects associated with the body”.

Genitals came in at 4 per cent and lingerie at 9 per cent by the way, so there’s no point fobbing your partner off with a thong next Valentine’s Day. What they want are Louboutins, Choos or Blahniks, OK? The connection between foot and fetish has been well documented over the years, but podophilia (foot fetishism) has still become sensationalised. Participants are cast out into the fringes of society, left to roam seedy bars and clubs looking for like-minded souls in a sea of Perspex-heeled dominatrices.

Greg Sumner* is one such foot fan. Actually, Greg

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describes himself as a retifist AKA shoe fetishist. And we’re not talking about some shopping-obsessed male Imelda Marcos here, this guy seriously loves shoes.

“It’s not about feet. In fact feet do nothing for me at all,” says Greg. “I understand that some women have nicer feet than others but even the finest pair of feet in the world would fail to excite me at all by themselves.”

“I remember several times throughout my life thinking how ugly feet looked to be honest. I think part of the reason I wasn’t too keen was because of toes – especially when they’re all squeezed together, sticking up on top of each other. It’s not very elegant.”

“Back then I didn’t have a thing for shoes at all,” he continues. “It’s actually a relatively recent thing, from the last fours years or so. Initially I never gave them much thought and even now it’s really not about the feet at all.”

Greg is a 27 year-old IT worker from Manchester. He has three siblings, a girlfriend and a nice flat. He grew up in the countryside, comes from a stable home and enjoys drinking with his mates. Oh, and he likes to masturbate with women’s shoes.

“Initially it feels like I lead two different lives,” he confides.

“On the one side I’m this professional guy who has a good

I have noticed while some shoes have the heel height, they still don’t do anything for me. I think it’s about the angle that the shoe comes down from the heel and of course that’s determined by the size of the shoe - the bigger the size, the softer the angle. I prefer smaller sizes – a five or six seems to be the optimum, any smaller than that looks too steep and not very elegant.”

“Elegance and femininity” are crucial parts of Greg’s preferred aesthetics. “It’s about separating the women from the guys.“I used to wish I had been born a few generations ago when women actually used to behave like women – not that I’m sexist or anything,” he assures. “But there’s a difference with the way my mother was with my father and my girlfriends were with me.”

Before anyone can throw Sigmund Freud at Greg however, he adds: “I’ve read the theories that fetishes come from early memories and the idea that there are so many foot fetishes because as a kid that’s all you see of your mum, but I don’t feel it applies to me.”

Greg clarifies this with a childhood story about a time when he stole a pair of Greg is a 27 year-old IT worker stockings from a friend’s mum, explaining that while his own mother doesn’t wear anything from Manchester. He has three that suitably sparks his interest, his 11 year-old siblings, a girlfriend and a friend’s mum did. “She used to dress really nice flat. He grew up in the femininely and always took care of herself...I countryside, comes from a stable wouldn’t have wanted some of my own mothers’ or sisters’, that wouldn’t do anything home and enjoys drinking with for me but a friend’s mother, seemed OK.” his mates. Oh, and he likes to Greg can trace his fetishes – yes plural, masturbate with women’s shoes. he likes hosiery too – even further back into his childhood. “This goes back years to when I was four years old,” he explains.“I was sitting there. I didn’t last very long at all. It seemed that the girls on the mat in primary school when the teacher was reading there were…” he pauses, searching for diplomacy. “Their us a story.” characteristics weren’t exactly what I was looking for.

“Over the course of a few minutes I had shuffled from “Even the way they dressed – yeah, they had the shoes the middle of the mat to just in front of her so that I could and the boots but they also had the little leather or PVC bra take a closer look at her legs. I can’t remember whether and shorts, and I don’t think that’s what I was looking for. I there was a sexual thing about it at the time, but I reached much prefer a professional type of girl, who dresses smart out and touched her leg. She looked down and asked what I and then just happens to wear this sort of thing.” was doing. She had a smile on her face so I know she wasn’t By “this sort of thing,” Greg means heels. He’s quite angry but the memory ends there.” specific about what works and what doesn’t work. “The Greg likes to revisit this memory and the one that kicktype of footwear that does it for me is very specific in shape. started his retifism (in a nutshell – an older woman stood in You can have two pairs of shoes side by side, from the same a bakery wearing vertiginous boots) when indulging in a little designer, and one pair is just a pair of shoes while the other late-night “self gratification”. is something that excites me.”

You could say he has a rather active sex-drive, which “The heel has to be at least four inches, but no more perhaps led him to explore his curious sexual nature further than six – more than that and it starts to look uncomfortable. than most. “I do need to do stuff – one way or another – There are websites for people into footwear and there are several times a day,” he says. these ballet slippers which are upright but with a heel that As for techniques? You’ll have to work that one out for must be seven or eight inches high and that does nothing for yourselves, but perhaps there’s never been a better reason me. It’s not a case of the higher the heel the better. for popping into that shoe sale on the way home. After all, “There has to be a certain shape to it as well because research shows 64% of us have already indulged. • * some names have been changed

IMAGE: LIMITED EDITION PRINT BY THE MOFO - FEATURED IN LITTLE BLACK BOOK 1 – A COLLECTION OF INTIMATE PHOTOGRAPHS - AVAILABLE FROM BLURB.COM/MY/BOOK/DETAIL/570955 THE-MOFO.CO.UK

group of friends, goes out on the weekend or on trips with my girlfriend. I do all these normal things but then when I’m alone and I get the urge, there’s all this other stuff as well.”

Greg blows the lid off fetishism with his willingness to talk about his sexual interests. He also completely normalises it.

The closed and often dark world of adult fetishism seems a million miles off when he talks about his deeply private activities.

“My fetishes have never had a part to play in choosing a girlfriend,” he says, adding that he enjoys a regular sex-life within his relationship. “After finishing with my last girlfriend I did wonder if that would be a logical way to approach it next time – to find somebody that already had the interest and work backwards; rather than to start dating somebody, go for meals and invest time dating, only to risk throwing it all away by springing this on them saying ‘is this OK?’ “I tried to get into that circle where people were into [fetishism] and I went to a couple of alternative clubs in Manchester but I actually felt quite uncomfortable

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camp it up!

Calling all glampers. Even if that elusive VIP pass escapes you again this year, there’s no need to look like you’re slumming it with the rest of the mudcrusted plebs with our selection of festival finery

Festival nellie red mcmarten tartan, £65 Dr Mar tens

WornB y Mens Te , e £ 38 w ww.worn

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Eurohike Solar Shower,

WORDS BY JODIE BALL

£9.99 www.millets.co.uk

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Kissing Rabbits Sleeping Bag, Anorak £45

Kissing Stags Toiletry Bag, Anorak £17.50

Cag in

a

bag, £25 CathK www. idston .com

Hunter Festival 2009 Tall, £145

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absent elk Words: andrew future & richard chesterman - photo: michael robert williams

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ew indie children on the block Absent Elk are a union between an acoustically inclined front man Kjetil Morland from Norway and a band of merry men from the south coast. Old school friends Ross Martin (guitar, keyboards), Mike Hillman (guitar), Ric Wilson (drums) and James Penhallow (bass), hail from Shoreham. After a couple of years of gigging where they could and chucking demos around, they were picked up by the team responsible for the Hoosiers and offered up to Sony.

“We reckon the Girls Aloud cover we stuck on YouTube probably paid dividends as well,” says Morland. We sense you might be right boys.

Musical influences range from the Beatles to Dire Straits, but to anyone listening it sounds like a rather inoffensive mix of Starsailor and Kent, a rather splendid Norwegian band from the late nineties. “Anything with a melody, regardless of what form it comes in is what we’re into,” adds Martin.

Lyrically, the usual stimulus is given as the thematic backdrop (“Personal experience, girls”) while the album, due out in August, is being overseen by Jamiroquai’s keyboard player turned producer, Toby

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Smith. What influence he might have on the band’s traditional indie values we shall have to see, although the boys add that “he’s really been on the same wavelength, and we haven’t changed the album much from the demos.” So no funk, big hats and midnight bust-ups with paparazzi on the cards then? Shame.

Their debut single ‘Sun and Water,’ is a typically dramatic, unrelenting heart-on-sleeve affair that will no doubt unite the Hoosiers haters in acts of mass defiance. It’s actually a rather enjoyable 6/8 epic punctuated with dynamic hump back bridges throughout, but despite not being bad, it’s not exactly doing anything Embrace didn’t do a decade ago.

Remember Embrace? All things considered. ‘That’s All’ starts very pleasantly before tripping over itself and landing in the ditch of rim-shot overdose. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Having said this, Kjetil has a strong, evocative voice, and the general instrumentation from the band is a mark or two above what could ordinarily be expected from your standard indie-pop outfit. There’s potential here. Keep your ears open for the album when it comes out. It may well be worth a listen. • Myspace.com/absentelk

Stylist: Rebekah Roy Styling assistant: Rosie Bee Williams Make-up: Adam Burrell using MAC

Are they the Hoosiers in disguise?

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shooting bands all star lanes

urely handling large balls has never been as appealing as when socialising within the Brick Lane venue of All Star Lanes? Housed at the Old Truman Brewery, the stylish ten pin bowling alley has fused big ball action, American cocktails, pitchers, beers and ales with delicious food and great music.

Fronted by an all-day diner, the back of the building opens out tardis-like with another floor and mezzanine that forms the heart of the building. With sleek bar and cool seventies style circular seating I picture Al Pacino sprawled in a booth. “I’m Tony Montana! You fuck with me, you fuckin’ with the best!” Scarface definitely had balls and ASL has plenty to go with the six lanes to the right of the 20ft copper bar.

“You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough?” Err, no Tony we’re just here to shoot the bands.

Okay, forget all that. While shooting three bands and cover artist, Little Boots, all in one day may have been

a tough call there was no problem being behind schedule for those waiting. FMS had the run of the entire venue for the best part of a day and The Third Man certainly made the most of it. Bowling shoes were soon discarded (not cool) with one member running onto the lanes in nothing but socks and underwear mid-change…no complaints here.

Meanwhile the Private Room upstairs was reserved for our shoot with Little Boots.The penthouse bowling suite with white padded walls (think 1980’s playroom rather than insane asylum) has three lanes, its very own cocktail bar and open kitchen with bespoke food offer - perfect for hiring out purely for brushing up on your bowling skills then…or a party maybe.

Get down there and start shooting, because in the words of Tony Montana - “The only thing in this world that gives orders...is balls.”

WORDS: SARAH HARDY (& TONY MONTANA) ALLSTARLANES.CO.UK

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t e e r st FEET

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CREDITS: PHOTOS - David Reffell & Jodie Ball Pete, 29, digital editor - (brown deck shoes on steps) Helen, 21, model - (tattooed foot in sandals) Fumi, 27, beauty journalist - (tall strappy sandals) James, 27, store manager - (red and navy deck shoes) Angela, 19, recruitment consultant (heart sandals) Emma, 28, school teacher - (green beaded loafers) Vikki, 23, publishing assistant - (multi-buckled heels)

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bobby long

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WORDS: STUART GADD - photo: MICHAEL ROBERT WILLIAMS

Stylist: Mollie Griffiths Groomer: Evie Stoddart using MAC and Elemis

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e’re in the presence of the biggest unsigned recording artist in America.

Meet Bobby Long, a man who’s already sold out LA’s prestigious Whisky A Go Go in advance, before having any music available to buy. And most things about Bobby Long turn perceived expectations on their head.

Logic would tell you that he must be the latest US RnB star, but in fact he’s home grown and while this emerging star’s story is a very modern one paradoxically his music is as old as the hills; because Bobby Long is an acoustic singer-songwriter, whose music is steeped in folk, blues and country.

The incongruity of this doesn’t stop him from being positively mobbed by girls after his latest UK gig. And this interview is interrupted twice because of fans leaving and for reminders of phone interviews from the States he has to do later.

That success appears to be a done deal is due to one of his songs, ‘Let Me Sign’, being chosen for teenage vampire flick ‘Twilight’, where it’s sung by the male lead.

But if this kind of film isn’t your bag don’t let it put you off, because Bobby Long’s songs deserve to be listened to outside of the ‘Twilight’ zone. He isn’t some tailor made product. Yes he writes intimate songs wreathed in images of loss and heartbreak, qualities guaranteed to go straight to young girls hearts like an adrenalin shot. But his connection to the film is a coincidence, because there’s a depth to his tuneful acoustic laments which suggests he can transcend the film’s short term phenomena. Songs like ‘Left to Lie’ bring traditional blues and folk narratives sparklingly to life, with the aid of some ace finger picking.

And despite what he calls the film’s “happy accident”, he’s no stranger to hard gigging either, as he explains.

“Before the ‘Twilight’ film came out I was playing London four nights a week, just trying to get an education in it. I’ve played at every open mic going, many times playing with just me and the sound guy there. I’m quite glad the way it’s worked out because it’s important to know how to work a crowd and know what it’s like to play in front of nobody, because otherwise you’re never truly going to appreciate it.”

He’s excited to be touring America but playing in Nashville and LA, places where many of his favourite musicians have hailed from, he talks of the importance of putting on “a solid show”. You get the sense of someone who’s worked hard to learn his craft.

So what’s he like, Bobby Long? With the song in ‘Twilight’ you’d imagine him to be brooding, perhaps

a little vampiric. In fact, he’s a very down to earth guy, although admitting to being “quite shy” at school. He played sports but describes that he “knew everybody in a loose way but wasn’t really best friends with anybody. I was never really associated with one group and, in terms of birthday parties, I was always on the outside of being invited because nobody quite knew who I was”.

So likely no bitter Byronic wannabe but probably quite sensitive.

It was at school in Calne, Withshire, having moved from Wigan at the age of four, where Bobby first started playing guitar, aged sixteen. He inherited a taste for folk and blues from his father, being exposed early to Bob Dylan’s music and also that of Delta blues illuminati such as Missisippi John Hurt. Bobby learnt his one finger picked guitar style from his father. And, to belie its moody treatment by lead actor Rob Pattinson it the film, his most famous song, ’Let Me Sign’, came from these origins. The original version was almost a gospel song, quite “hand clappy”, as Bobby recalls.

When, at sixteen, an uncle first played him Elliot Smith his education had become complete. It was a revelation and the tragic singer-songwriter became a big influence on his blend of different musical styles.

There is a lot of the imagery of death around his songs but this Bobby ascribes to using death as “a vehicle for writing about something else. I mean many people go through their lives without having any love but everyone’s going to die”.

But any other comparison with Elliot Smith is misplaced. “Bobby Long does not want to die,” he says “you can print that as your headline!”

But Bobby is quite happy to play the troubadour role, as long as it means he’s busy.

“I want to be shaking from tiredness. I’m only happy when I’m busy’, he says, before adding, “I like the idea of the troubadour thing, I like being on my own, writing and playing on my own”.

Perhaps it’s this solitary instinct which the film’s makers located, but it’s also the singer-songwriter’s first instinct and it’s here the obvious empathy in his songs comes from.

His debut LP will be a solo record but after this he has a more electric guitar based, Nashville sounding record planned, after another of his idols, country star Gram Parsons.

Watch this space. • MYSPACE.COM/MUSICBOBBYLONG

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albums and more With four studio n can aim a harpoo remixes than you hy has established gun at, Andy Cart e eering force at th himself as a pion . ic us ern dance m forefront of mod e proponent of on He’s also an avid vourite leaf-based of the nation’s fa a Chesterman has pastimes. Richard r Scruff. cup of tea with M

TEA, NO CHASER WORDS: RICHARD

CHESTERMAN

a PG Tips hevelled, sipping on studio ooking suitably dis est lat ff’s ru sugar, Sc with a splash, no lectic, cheeky ec the s ain int ma offering Ninja Tuna . Animal ry genre imaginable rip-ride through eve musical his of nt come a staple eleme 1997. in references have be ck ba t bu de d self-title w things and personality, since his having fun, trying ne “It’s more about me zzl al pu e, you just er. Like a big music fitting them togeth thought of people the ed. I don’t like know when it’s finish ce of ‘me’. Having table with the essen who get too comfor ng thi me so to create said that, if you try done before, it that’s never been rk. That’s not how probably won’t wo ” . ws good music gro n of genre and Critical of the notio genre thing ole wh the d fin style (“I d his ear ate ltiv cu uff quite odd”) Scr eighties the in io listening to pirate rad radio of t ven ad the long before esn’t do “It as. nd pluggers and PR age it gets me “If s. say he ” is, it at matter wh y it.” excited, then I’ll pla iting process for wr the ly, ilar Sim ually organic. “It’s eq is ial his own mater until something d about dicking aroun

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ur phone ing something on yo “I compare it to film do that, n’t uld wo u it on TV. Yo come ws and then showing co the slag off MP3s until would you? I could d with the ine mb Co se. rpo ve a pu home, but they ser to the masses de music accessible internet, they’ve ma sound quality n’t care about the and most people do ver really anyway.” ckpor t, Scr uff has ne Born and raised in Sto and New on nd Lo like “I .

North moved far from the itely something lot, but there’s defin York and I travel a musical heritage Its le. op pe the It’s about Manchester. t want to run study who really jus attracts people to her study in rat u bands. Would yo club nights or start t’s normally tha nk thi I r? ste nche Peterborough or Ma a no-brainer.” lving musical s a vibrant and evo “Manchester still ha ds of club loa d an els lab 60 record scene with about n you get the d nres. Every now an nights across all ge makes you of d be kin uld t co tha “It y. ing ng new and excit s out,” he says, bluntl my back here.’ All yboard somethi that feels right come ybe I should watch a bass line on a ke t ma ou oi, i ng ‘O eri nk mm thi ha your toes. And accidentally a cymbal makes tives keep you on lar resonance that these fresh perspec ” . or even the particu lly dance up north er ber hammer.” the people actua sion? Is that anoth in a room with a rub influence from of about his tea obses at lot wh a So thought w we , t ah en “N ?

Scr uff dre rec ge his rita of he rt formed a large pa of Northern dance nk the umpteenth of sitting piece collaborations which being forced to dri of was always a case d it tea ago ins t rs tha would be yea n album. “Te on a night out, it should pull our meone, saying we y or alcoholic drink look past fizz hy W It . . ve ing ati en in the pub with so ern pp hing to have an alt ck, and it never ha res tra a ref it at all ite do d qu do an t we e d ou tim an fingers dio this ? It caught on ce I’d been in the stu the nation’s favourite t ge ” . to le ing had been so long sin cit op ex pe ys. It’s is oning around these the UK gigs these da of what Mr Scr uff that I just started ph is the ver y essence s thi e d u’r ” yo An g. vin ere mo wh y t the something r how you get to collaborations is tha out. It doesn’t matte r it’s the ab the he ing W g. tur “The beauty of the nin cap tai , up y is enter old friends catching going if the journe he plays at a club come across like ” his records, the set as. of nd on age n cti du tha r pro he er, tionwide drinking eth na tog rite moments rat um rew alb to years to put the ht or even his desire nig ng every area of old eri of “It took over three ne ds commitment to pio ndred tracks with loa his hu a re, er ltu ov cu many years ne do but I’ve en a laugh.” will be brewing for No rush and it’s be dern dance music mo y an up mates in that time. fill be using these to upts, to come.

But he’s unlikely to n one,” Scr uff interr ow n’t do “I . ce spa vacant iPod technical failings ficial ce.com/mrscruffof o a diatribe on the about to launch int s are cool Myspa P3 “M t. ma for sic rite mu of the public’s favou ur medium. If t ultimately an amate and convenient, bu irritate the PR buy the record or I like something, I’ll one.” until they send me

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d r a c poSt LES ◊ ◊ fROM LOS ANGE ORDS EN OF BINARY REC S G & KYLE PETERS : PHADER DESIGN WORDS: JOSH LEG ICS APH GR M .CO NATION UE XIN BINARY IMAGES: PIX ER OF LA BOUTIQ aR SHE LY NEE : GES BACKGROUND IMA

VEMENT S OF A NEW MO LA COMES NEW OF ES BY OR ED SH ER Y NE THE SUNN EAMWAVE, PIO sTRAIGHT FROM LOS ANGELES. DR DANCE OF TO S CK UB BA CL E E NC TH IN ROMA GOING DOWN GING SUN AND RD LABEL, IS BRIN SMILEY FACEs. D AN S THE BINARY RECO AT BE Y FT SYNTHS, HEAV MUSIC WITH SO

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of the Pacific, up rom the breaking waves hills and past the through the Hollywood apers, there’s the scr sky ’s wn grit of downto brewing in Los sound of a new movement ng and old you s oer ty-g Angeles. For years, par dance floor to get a ing find e ubl tro no have had youngsters across the US, down and dirty on. For ce music has become the but especially in LA, dan mainstream.

Paris, heavy, distorted The sounds coming from tclubs in Hollywood nigh lit n ‘banger s’, have kept neo llywood Boulevard at jumping. Walking down Ho mix of flannel clad hipable night reveals a remark evwearing scenesters. LA is ster s and neon Ray-Ban glamorous.

It’s be. uld wo it k thin erything you would ul plentiful as are the beautif It’s sunny. Palm trees are se the from ting ana em sic women. The heavy mu nt much of everything clubs does little to represe ugh, change is in the air. A tho ay that LA is about. Tod wave, pioneered by Binary new genre called Dream sun and romance back the record label, is bringing Angeles. to dance music here in Los label in ear ly 2008 ord rec a Binary formed as place within the dance and it has really found a ed and growing crowd icat ded scene in LA, with a

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of passionate music fans. We (Josh Legg and Kyle Petersen) founded the label as a place to bring local, Los Angeles based music producers together.

Despite dance music’s immense popularity in the city, there were few, if any, artists that fans could point to as a ‘local hero’. We wanted to give the city a place in which the best local artists could make great dance music, representing all that is Los Angeles. Our search yielded a roster of seven artists; Alfa, Fabian, Keenhouse, Lexicondon, NightWaves, Short Circuit, and The Kids Are Radioactive. Each represents a different side of the city. A cultural melting pot unlike anywhere else on earth, Binary’s roster is full of artists that pull from the huge amount of diversity within our city for inspiration.

We call this genre Dreamwave, and it’s this sound that has formed the framework for our burgeoning scene. Dreamwave is essentially synthesizer heavy dance music rooted in pop melodies and traditional song structures that reflect the abundance of youthful energy found within Los Angeles. Often the music conjures memories of neon drenched Miami, or sun soaked beaches in California. While much of the music can often easily be compared with the likes of Daft Punk, what sets Dreamwave artists apart is that they may produce like dance music producers, but they write songs just like great bands do.

In late 2008 Binary started throwing shows and the city has really taken notice and gotten behind what we’re doing. We’ve brought in international acts such as The Twelves, Anoraak, College, Miami Horror, Futurecop! and the Bag Raiders to headline our Binary Presents nights. A show is typically full of neon colours, soft synths, heavy beats, and a lot of people with smiles on their faces. Our entire aim is to bring people back to their childhood, to a time when emotions were stronger and new experiences were met with a sense of wide-eyed innocence. As we’ve found, there are lots of people that want to go out and dance to uplifting, mellow songs. The

crowd is definitely more eclectic than at your typical LA show. There are fans of heavy electro looking for a different brand of dance, and there are plenty of indie rock fans rolling out to get a taste of the new scene. It is diverse, friendly, and most of all free of the Hollywood bullshit that you get at many electro nights.

At first, we were definitely the only people throwing shows that weren’t DJ centric electro parties, but as 2009 moves along, we’re seeing a lot more love thrown around for Dreamwave artists. The sunny themes, palm trees, and beaches all completely lend themselves to this kind of music.

It comes as no surprise to us then that this music resonates so strongly with people as it utilizes everything that’s great about dance music, but does so in such a way as to make it much more accessible and emotionally engaging.

Binary has a lot planned for 2009. In July we will be releasing our first compilation record, Binary Presents: LA Lights, which features songs from each of the Binary artists. We’re excited to be throwing more shows and bringing this music we love to more people in LA. One of our biggest hopes though, is to get everyone over to Europe and bring some great music to some new ears!

TRACK: EVEN MONEY BY NIGHTWAVES

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It takes only the name to work out our content without science or equations, and at one glance absorbing the bright bold pink lettering should invoke the strategy that we don’t take things gravely. Its fashion, and music, with an extra loud drizzle of style.

What’s more, every single issue comes with a FREE CD to accompany our regular Five Unsigned feature, and we top it up with bonus tracks contributed by musicians profiled within our pages.

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BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH...

Photo: mIchael robert williams

Annie Mac - queen of Friday night airtime on Radio 1 where you’ll hear the slamming of her MEGA ‘Mash Ups’ - is the pied piper for new artists who would give their right ear to have her vivacious Irish accent introduce and nail one of their creations into the decks. She’s also a club DJ extraordinaire having just finished touring with yet another smashing ‘Annie Mac Presents…”The energetic crowds that jumped the stage included the likes of Rusko, Little Boots and Sinden to name but a few. Join her for the next installment at Creamfields where she’ll rule a tent with guests Toddla T, Fake blood and other dancefloor demolishers.

annie mac

How did the ‘Annie Mac Presents’ go?

It went brilliantly thanks. It ended with a big stage invasion in a warehouse in Birmingham.

The block rocking beats of summer 09 will be coming from whom?

All sorts - Ducksauce (collaboration between A Trak and Armand Van Helden have already made my biggest summer track in the form of aNYway) released this summer on Fools Gold.

Do you wake up every day in a daydream and is a heavy bass line your kinda silence?

I go to sleep every night with my ears ringing from loud music. I don’t have silence anymore, just a dull high pitched ringing sound. I think it’s a mild form of tinnitus.

Have you ever been in the quicksand whilst working?

Eeeeeeh no. I’ve been in a few sticky moments behind the decks with CDs stopping mid track.

Festival decks, which ones will you be behind?

Glastonbury, Bestival, Camp Bestival, Creamfields, Oxygen, Rockness How is your decision influenced when filtering music that you receive?

I keep what I like and throw the rest in the bin.

If you hadn’t been a DJ…where would the tale take us?

Probably would have got into acting…really wanted to be an actress.

Is honesty the best policy?

ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS When not being a key player in breaking new artists, what do you enjoy doing?

Reading, walking in the dark with my headphones on, watching Gossip Girl, drinking in old men’s pubs

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From left every row 1 & 2. Rogues - 3 & 5. Anna Calvi - 4 & 8. Princesses Des Pommes - 6. European Lust - 7 & 9. Bleech

issue 2 - party punk - soho Parties come and parties go but the main thing is that we party on. We returned to Punk once again to celebrate the launch of our second issue.

DJs, Princesses Des Pommes spun the tunes and the enigmatic Anna Calvi kicked off the live sets followed by young grunge band Bleech and the

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sultry European Lust. Last on the decks were the boys from Rogues who couldn’t quite help playing their recent single release ‘Not So Pretty’. Just the once mind. • Photos: Andreas Beltzer www.abcreate.co.uk

ASK THE DJs...

mes top

Des Pom incesses

Pr

ten...

S SONIG K TO POC U Y ER S CLOTHTO

It’s the morning after the night before. Isn’t it always?

The alarm bleeps its irritatingly chirpy tone signalling your tedious 7am start. Sleepwalking to the shower, you consider drowning your sorrows as you stand there with your mouth gasping at the droplets like a fish out of water.

Leaving a wet trail behind you as you head to the kitchen for that life-giving cup of tea, you consider the day ahead and the slim chance of finding some clothes to see you through the next 24hrs without screaming “I’m an alcoholic wreck, and these are the only clean clothes I could find”. Like yesterday.

Cue some good music to remind you that a wardrobe malfunction need not be an everyday occurrence.

Here, London DJ duo Princesses des Pommes mix a heady cocktail of indie tracks and cool pop with a splash of 80s retro and a chaser of downright dirty electro. The result? The top ten tunes to pick your clothes to…• To find out more about Princesses des Pommes next gigs or book them for a venue go to www.myspace.com/princessesdespommes Intro: Jodie Ball Illustration: Lucy Barker Playlist by Isabel Dexter & Aline Bentley AKA Princesses Des Pommes

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BECAUSE LIFE IS A DANCEFLOOR!

1. PULP - PINK GLOVES

“Wear your pink gloves, yeah they suit you ok.” A bit of fantasy...literally, a touch of burlesque sexiness, retro Mod-ness...

2. SUEDE - SHE’S IN FASHION

Ok, you might end up just picking your favourite old pair of Adidas...but then what’s better than classic Gazelle’s? Britpop comfort Lives Forever.

3. BLONDIE - ATOMIC

That jumper. It was acceptable in the 80s; even more so now.

4. BRMC - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCK ’N’ ROLL

Any outfit will do; as long as you wear your best leather jacket on top. Really, trust us.

5. WHATEVER SONG ROCKS YOUR WORLD...

Your choice; a good tune can only be good inspiration. For us this at this very moment it’s Passion Pit’s ‘Sleepyhead’ and the latest Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ‘Zero’ (oh that studded leather jacket of hers...).

6. vampire weekend - the soft pack

Yes, dig out those deck shoes and polo shirts, and roll up your beige trousers. While you’re at it, take a pair of 90s shades with you; Spring’s here plus it’s just so rock’n’roll.

7. beck - sex laws

Girls, boys, whatever. Boys: that pendant/necklace is alright.

Girls: these Brogues are alright.

8. brian jonestown massacre - sailor

Hello sailor, hello 50s. Blue stripes, anchors encore. They match your tattoos.

9. nancy sinatra - these boots are made forwalking

And look good. You can’t go wrong: biker’s, cowboys, pirates, anything goes.

10. plain white t's - hey, their delilah

Hey, there Delilah, plain white T’s are always a safe bet. The tops, not the band.