GUM Spring - Summer 2011

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sweetening up your Spring.

*music / art / fashion / features / politics

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CONTENTS

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features 10 politics 15 art 21 fashion 31 music

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CREDITS

Editor (Contents) Rena Niamh Smith Editor (Design and Layout) Jessie Rodger Features Editor Rena Niamh Smith Art Editor Jessie Rodger Politics Editors James Foley and Judy Barrett Fashion Editor Rena Niamh Smith Music Editor (Print) Yasmin Ali Music Editor (Online) Dave Hunter Photo Editor: Sean Anderson Layout Assistant Shaun Murphy Writers Natalie Dewison, Adam Leel, Sean McGugan, CP, Megan Donald, Helen Tweedie, Helen Weir, Ginger Clark, Jonathan Casey, Mairi Hamilton, Morven Clements, Keiran Taylor, Max Horberry, Dave Hunter, Kirsten Stewart, Luca Guariento, Laura McLean, Ina Andersson, Georgia Pink Photographers Henar Gomez, Jessie Rodger, Rena Niamh Smith, Ina Nederdal, Sean Anderson, Ina Andersson, Ania Mroczkowska, Jamina Davidson, Georgia Pink, Paul Whyte, LGDG, Hugo Glendinning Illustrators Jamina Davidson, Ina Andersson, Joseph Bucklow, Jessie Rodger, Yasmin Ali Special thanks Bo Kawczynska, Artur Dziewisz, Kaeleigh Wallace, Angela Koorbanally, Caroline Cruikshank, Alan Moore @ ten30, Silvia Pellegrino @ Chouchou, Rebecca Torres and Becky White @ Torres, Aimee and Gemma Beattie @ Mee Mee Couture, Peigi Morrison, Rob Eagle @ Martin Creed Studio, Holly Warrender, Gavin Reynolds, Luke Winter, Ginger Clark Website Sean Anderson, Greta Fedaraviciute

© GUM 2010. Glasgow University Magazine, John MacIntyre Building, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ Cover Image: Photography by Ina Nederdal, turn to page 18 to see more of her work.

Photography (top - bottom): Georgia Pink, Paul Whyte, Ina Andersson, Ania Mroczkowska & www.urbanears.com

EDITOR'S LETTER

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Editor’s letter In Spring/Summer 2011, GUM brings you a fresh perspective on colour, as the dark days of winter linger over our lives.

Natalie Dewison and Sean McGugan address some full-blooded Technicolour cultural issues of our era – the adulation of celebrities and re-thinking the politics of gay identity respectively. Their intellectual approach to a current issue makes for some stimulating reading.

From fruity floral fragrances to a neon bright photoshoot, the fashion pages speak for themselves. Interviews, that most colourful kind of journalism, feature heavily this issue; GUM talks to artist Martin Creed, designer Rebecca Torres and singer-songwriter Jo Mango.

These long months before post-exam relief can be hard, and if you’re already planning your summer frolics, take a look at Ina Andersson’s memoirs of Iceland to inspire those clicks on the Easyjet page. While CP keeps it glitteringly exclusive as always, Adam recounts a purse-happy way to travel by goodwill in the 21st century. Meanwhile, in our rather international Politics section, some hotbeds of resistance abroad as well as at home are given the GUM perspective.

All this and more to brighten your day - we wish you happy reading. What’s more, applications are open for you to be editor at GUM. Send a CV and covering letter to our email: gum@src.gla.ac.uk.

GUM: You are what you read.

-The Editors

CONTRIBUTORS

Adam Leel Writer Wannabe Superpower: Hindsight

Jamina Davidson Photographer Wannabe Superpower: Time Travel

Ina Andersson Illustrator/Contributor Wannabe Superpower: Teleporting

Photography: Image 1 - Adam Leel, Image 2 - Jamina Davidson, Image 3 - Ina Andersson

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AGENDA

features

Text: Rena Niamh Smith Silvia Pellegrino’s Bold Souls pop-up events are fast becoming the go-to spot for Glasgow’s fashion scene; local designers sell their one-off pieces at discount prices while hair stylists, make-up artists and manicurists will all give you the star treatment for free after a minimal entrance charge. With photographers snapping away and, as at the last one in Sub Club, model scouts keeping a beady eye out, it’s a shopping experience the A-list way. Sat 5th March, time & place TBC – follow Bold Souls on Facebook for more info.

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With the Scottish Opera’s Under-26 £10 Ticket Deal, there’s no excuse for missing out on high-brow cultural action. This season, they perform Verdi’s Rigoletto, a tale of passion and intrigue. Rigoletto (Eddie Wade) is jester to a rich and dissolute Duke.

When he is cursed, it is his daughter Gilda who suffers. Throw on your glad-rags for a glitzy night out you can follow with cocktails or champagne!

Wed 11th - Sat21st May at Theatre Royal, 282 Hope Street, Glasgow. U26 £10 tickets must be booked by phone or in person.

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The former RSA headquarters have been beautifully restored and are now home to the five-star Blythswood Square Hotel. The Rally Bar plays on the building’s racing heritage, named after the first Monte Carlo race which departed from the Square in 1955, and has been restored to its original wood paneled look. Check it out for a retroglam pint, or visit Glasgow’s first luxury spa, whose treatments use organic raw materials sourced in Scotland. Who said going green had to be dull? Blythswood Square Hotel, 11 Blythswood Square, Glasgow

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Angela Koorbanally makes seriously cool headgear under the name Fair Feathered Friend – check out her work at the centre of our accessories shoot on page 21. Inspired by Aztecs, Incas and Native Americans, her madeto-order pieces are tailored to your choice of jewels, colours and breed of bird that come in a range of sizes. Perfect for standing out from the crowd at this summer’s festivals, graduation ball or Death Disco, you may well be wearing a different style of headdress to them all. Available to order via fairfeatheredfriend@ gmail.com or see Facebook.

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The music events at the Arches fund its primary use as an arts venue. Part of the New Territories Festival held in venues across the city, Cinematic Space shows works by international performance artists making their UK debut using nought but projector and screen. Attend just one or make an evening of all three to expand that mind of yours. £2/3 for individual shows, from 7pm on Thurs 10th March at the Arches, 253 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

If you fancy a spiritual-cultural-political experience beyond gap yah travel, check out the left-wing political festival in London, Marxism 2011. It addresses the momentous issue of how Western governments deal with the economic crisis. Speakers include notaries such as Tony Benn, Terry Eagleton and Nina Power. Reduced rate for students, free accommodation and subsidized travel to and from the Big Smoke are provided. £25 for 5 days, Thurs 30th June – Mon 4th July, see www.marxismfestival.org.uk or phone 0207 819 1190 for more info.

Subcity gets funky fresh again, this time to celebrate their Sweet Sixteen with virginal grace. Here is their verse: “Although the years may pass by unseen / It’s only once in a lifetime a station turns 16 / There’ll be music and fun, and people to meet / At a party we know you’ll think is sweet / To have a guest like you would be a delight / So please come and join us for a magical night.” Amen to that. £6/8 adv, £10 door, 11pm – 3am, Saturday 5th March at the Arches, as before.

Ever fancied belting out tunes somewhere other than the bath? The Arches’ Community Choir offers just that - forget the usual hymnals, there are no sopranos singing ‘All things Bright and Beautiful’.

Instead, the repertoire leans towards the likes of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs & The Gossip.

Or there is the underground venue’s Songwriting Club for those of you who feel a bit more Lennon/McCartney about music.

Led by songwriter Matt Regan, it covers the bases of music theory and composition. For more info, contact lucy@thearches.co.uk Photography: Georgia Pink

THE OPIUM OF THE MASSES Natalie Dewison explores how theories of post-modernism can explain our addiction to celebrity lives.

The Independent called on Dom Joly to promote its latest production, the ‘I’ newspaper, bragging that there is “no celeb gossip nonsense …just intelligent stuff I want to read”. Celebrity culture leaks into every crevice of our lives – magazines, newspapers, radio, the news, TV, internet – the list goes on. Psychologists have identified a condition: ‘celebrity worship syndrome’. They reckon a low level simply involves reading about celebrities.

Surely the ma jority of the nation are mild sufferers?

Recognizing the drastic changes in our society over recent years, new theorists emerging in the sixties argued that we have left ‘modernity’ behind us and entered a period called ‘post-modernity’. With religion and science continuously discredited and questioned, we are hurtling towards the consumer culture in search of meaning. We are more geographically mobile and so communities, once integrated and sociable, now tend to have fluid populations and relationships have become non-committal or distanced.

Due to the loss of traditional social ties, lives in the postmodern world are increasingly individualistic. Whereas in ‘modernity’, people partook of communal events and exercised traditional relationships, in post-modernity we are more likely to be single and live away from home. This combined with the growth of technology and media, has meant we spend leisure time alone, with TV or Internet for entertainment.

We now have an all-access pass to the lives of celebrities and knowing them feels almost personal. During Cheryl Cole’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, she cried to the gawping nation as you would to a close friend.

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With celebrity obsessions replacing the close friendships people once had in their community lives, perhaps it does, for viewers, represent just that. Furthermore, celebrities now act as a hyper-real friend-in-common, the discussion of which is replacing the discussion of well-known members of the community in previous years, providing an informal universal language, a postmodernist discourse.

According to post-modernists, our lives were once structured for us and we now no longer live by the confines of religion, class and local community. The expansion of the consumer industry means we can choose what we do and wear as never before, but our obsession with celebrities would appear to suggest we still need guidance. Rihanna gets snapped sporting cropped hair – cue millions of girls braving the cut. People mimic the lives of their idols, more than identifying with celebrities.

Forget ‘if they do it, I can do it’, today’s more worrying mantra seems to be ‘if they do it, I should do it’.

Of course, there was fanaticism for film and music stars in earlier years - beatlemania encouraging my dad to purchase flares is a tragic example. Celebrities of previous eras tended to be treated with a level of respect and the public could not be the proverbial fly on the wall as is the case today. What’s more, this conformist behaviour mirrors that of those following strict religion; celebrities are figures of public worship, perhaps filling the psychological gaping void left by the Enlightenment.

Yet religious figures were not living people and were unlikely to be criticised, whereas in the celebrity cult, critique is central to the culture.

Post-modernists argue that with the evaporation of social guidance once provided by religion, family, class and community life, value is being Article continued overleaf

Collage: Jamina Davidson

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placed on the image, though image consciousness catalyses anxiety. The expectation that celebrities should be inspirationally faultless coincides with their weaknesses being jumped upon and used to numb nagging insecurities; if they are spotted with a blemish it will be circled and magnified to fill an entire magazine page.

This is the paradox of the hyper-reality of post-modernity; increased identification with celebrities is teamed with the ability to detach from them for the purposes of scrutinization.

They are real people and inanimate figures according to what the public requires of them at any given time. For all the parallels with religion, an accompanying set of morals is missing.

When people lived more communal lives, such behaviour would have us labelled as gossips; secularization has meant people are less afraid of the redemptive consequences of their actions.

This attack on their privacy cannot be worth the compensatory pay packet. The catalogue of A-listers experiencing catastrophic breakdowns is ever growing, from Elvis Presley to Lindsay Lohan. After her very public meltdown in 2006, Britney Spears said tearfully in an interview, “you have to realize we’re just people, we just need privacy and we need our respect …these are things you need as a human”. But after this show of weakness, the public turned to other figures of fame and largely disregarded her attempt to cling on to her career. The pace of the celebrity cult is unforgiving.

The tragic irony of the cult of the celebrity means the consuming society are entertained before the celebrity burns out, left with collagenfilled fish lips, disregarded albums and spiralling addictions. In a fragmented world of choice, the post-modern condition has become one of flux, yet if we rested for a moment, we would recognize the meaninglessness of contemporary culture.

Society is becoming reliant upon famous figures for the plethora of social functions they provide.

Max Clifford, renowned for negotiating malicious kiss-and-tell stories, unashamedly argued, “it’s big business and it works for the media, so… as long as the public want to read about celebrities the media will continue to produce stories”.

Can we blame the paparazzi for fallen figures of fame? The celebrity is needed in an individualised world for guidance, identification, entertainment and a mode of sociability, filling the void between modernity and post-modernity. The fame cycle, from figurative demi-god to disposed chewing gum packet, makes them martyrs of the postmodern condition.

GENDER AGENDA Sean McGugan asks what’s to love about camp identity and examines David Walliams’s talentless complicity in the drama.

As we are all aware, thanks to the pain and suffering that our once-pubescent selves have taught us, growing up throughout our teenage years and trying to create an identity is hard.

Realising your homosexuality in the 80s and 90s was tougher than society gives us credit for. There was little reference to what gay was beyond Graham Norton, and my memory struggles to recollect any lesbian idols.

As someone who has always viewed himself as too alternative for the gays yet too gay for the alternatives, obtaining a solid identity was difficult. I find I perform one self for one group and a different self for another. Perhaps this is the done thing for homosexuals and we are too used to the act; maybe it’s easier for us to play a character. Is camp an identity we created for ourselves or was it created for us?

We all know the deal with camp. It shocks no more and has become a parody of its former self. Susan Sontag describes this in her essay Notes on Camp: “In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp.

Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.” Sontag argues that true camp does not simply “camp it up” but has a failure of seriousness. As we idly use it now, this definition of true camp has become archaic within popular culture to define a male who is stereotypically gay.

This is summed up in David Walliams’s acting talent. Both Little Britain and Come Fly with Me are known for their shocking portrayal of ethnic and sexual minorities. The camp act seems to be the epitome of Walliams’s natural endowment. Although he wears a lot of dresses and limp wrists in his shows, he continues this false persona in public. Countless interviews see him continuously making camp gestures, noises and tonguein-cheek jokes involving inserting one thing into another.

Camp being a lazy definition of a gay male makes it a lazy character to play. Instead of making fun of racism and homophobia, that Walliams continues to play on the camp character outwith these shows reinforces the stereotype and opens our eyes to how talentless he is. What young gay men really don’t need are heterosexual males shouting “THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD ACT”.

Camp does not equal gay and gay does not equal camp.

Young gay teens need to know that gay is simply a part of our identity and not the identity itself. They must decide for themselves whether there are enough alternative gay voices out there and choose the way they act and speak. Call me a bitter old queen, but the nation’s love affair with camp has surely had its day.

SECRET GLASGOW

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Café et tout cela True, Starbucks’ hold on Glasgow is of any global city, but there are plenty of independent coffee shops and places to taste home-baking, that won’t leave you feeling like one of capitalism’s caffeine-fuelled henchmen.

Shopping and warm sweet treats go hand in hand, especially in hidden corners of our city. Yasmin Ali introduces some of the lesser known vintage markets and cafés for a truly unique experience.

Vintage Markets Vintage has been in vogue for some time now and there are now several reputable outlets to feed your retro addiction. Here’s a run-down of a few of the best that are grouped as markets or parades of shops: 1. Granny Would Be Proud – Free fortnightly vintage and craft market Hillhead Bookclub. Browse handmade and antique wonders at miniscule prices owing to the marketplace set-up before grabbing a Strawberry Vodka Mojito in the heart of student Glasgow.

2. Made in The Shade – Supermercado are Made in the Shade’s weekend markets at the Barras, which are currently on hold. They are still selling from their Maisonette in de Courcy’s Arcade, Cresswell Lane.

3. Ruthven Lane is another lane of vintage treasures, including the friendly but lesser-known Circa Vintage.

With not one but two boutiques stuffed with treasures dating back to the twenties, this is no second-hand ripoff, with cheap-as-chino prices to match.

4. Trongate – Behind the Tron, you’ll find Tatty Bon which has a dedicated following. There is also a shop round the corner on King St, just called The City with some great finds, most reasonably priced.

1. Artisan Roast, Gibson Street – They have the science of coffee down to an art here. They grind it themselves, straight from the bean. You’ll struggle to go back to instant. Laid-back atmosphere and friendly staff. If you’re feeling peckish, the ginger squares are a work of culinary art.

2. Tchai Ovna, Otago Lane - acclaimed teahouse next to second-hand book nirvana Voltaire & Rousseau; the two go together perfectly, like, well, tea and books. You can get any kind of tea here you like, and there are events like live music and readings most nights. Just don’t mention the ‘C’ word… (coffee).

3. An Clachan, Kelvingrove Park [Royal Terrace entrance] – A wee gem of a café, tucked away at one of the park’s few entrances, in presumably an old gatekeeper’s house. Unassuming, unpretentious and reasonably-priced. High tea at £6 per person is highly recommended.

4. Tinderbox, Ingram St – It’s a chain that doesn’t feel like a chain and this is the nicest branch. The interior has had money thrown at it, with classy finishes and a polished concrete worktop on the bar. Maybe that’s why their coffees are so pricey? Well, it’s worth a visit, and the Italian sodas are a good choice for something unique that won’t break the bank.

Best of Both Worlds Eatiboutique - Finnieston is definitely up-and-coming, and one of its newest arrivals is eatiboutique. The concept is very simple – yummy food, good coffee to go or to sit at the front of the shop, alongside the deli counter and shelves. You are also free to browse the vintage treasures to the rear of the shop in this relaxed hybrid store.

Photography: Sean Anderson

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In the perennial student quest for fun on a budget, Adam Leel recounts a travel adventure that cost little more than some steely nerves and a bit of imagination.

Last summer I spent a month travelling around Europe on a budget even a hobo would scoff at. I was never concerned about my dwindling cash level and felt, so long as I had my body, then I still had something to sell. I did fleetingly entertain the idea of flogging an out-ofdate condom as an antique should needs persist, but the market for dusty johnnies just wasn’t that great at the time. Instead, I looked at this couch-surfing malarkey that everyone was fondling their fondant over.

From what I’d heard, I had to contact a prospective host at a desired location and send a request to stay on their couch. Given that it shared significant parallels with hitchhiking, I felt there was the all-too-present danger of being imprisoned and kept as a gimp - how else are they recruited? My worries were quelled when I learned users have references from past hosts/surfers about their experience/ordeal: “Betty was a most gracious and friendly host and it was great to meet her 100 cats.”

My first couch-surfing was experience was ‘interesting,’ in the same way that sleeping naked first time is interesting; uncomfortable at first but ultimately liberating and usually better with a friend, also naked. My fears soon subsided when all the rest of my hosts turned out to be lovely, gracious people. I found that when someone offers to host, they were also prepared to show me around, teach me about their culture and, as I found out at in one city, massage my sore spots.

I got the impression that couch-surfing is more than just a free alternative to hostels and the like; it’s about benevolence and a sense of community which transcends a single gesture of goodwill. You’re not just giving that guy on Great Western Road a quid, you’re also taking him to the bus stop and making sure he gets on his way, even if he was going to spend it on cider.

There are inevitably those that make you question the front door policy.

One host, named Massimo Bellemo, only accepts male couchsurfers who can prove themselves worthy by partaking in filmed wrestling exhibitions. This frankly dubious behaviour has elevated Massimo to legendary status among couch-surfers, despite outside objections that he’d normally have to become a P.E. teacher to conduct himself in such a way. My only dodgy incident was when an amicable German gentleman told me that if I were gay he would spank me raw. All I could think to do was compliment him on his excellent grasp of English and then ask him to remove his firm grasp of my arse.

On that note, I’ll confess that I never managed to sell my condom. I eventually gave in to curiosity and opened it and to be honest, it looked more like an Iggy Pop finger puppet than a condom.

That aside, if you take anything from this then I hope it’s to try couch-surfing for yourself, perhaps even this summer.

Instead of a package holiday in Ibiza, choose a rash-free jaunt around Eastern Europe. Instead of foam in your eyes, choose foam on your crepe. Instead of a drunken punch-up, choose a wrestling photo-shoot with Massimo.

Photography: Henar Gomez

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POSTCARDS FROM PARIS From her year abroad in Paris, Georgia Pink brings us an insider’s snapshot of the French capital. This issue it’s all about the Marais district.

If you happen to be in Paris and want to pick up a spot of vintage attire, eat an obscene amount of scrumptious fare or rub shoulders with quite possibly the best dressed creatures on earth, the Marais is your best bet.

It really is the beating heart of Old Paris and a far cry from what you’d expect from its rather unsightly name, meaning ‘swamp’ in French - the area used to be a muddy wasteland before becoming the hub it is today.

Whilst right on the contemporary pulse in terms of shops, restaurants and bars, The Marais is also oozing with history. Many sumptuous residences remain today, th marking the area’s affluent heyday in the 17 century.

The entire district is also now completely protected

by French heritage law and it’s thanks to this that the narrow streets, large overhanging lamps and old shopfronts retain their historic and typically Parisian allure.

Situated to the east of central Paris on the right bank of the river, the Marais represents the Old Jewish quarter of Paris. The Jewish community still have a strong presence here with Jewish bakeries and shops on every corner, which gives this whole area of Paris a unique buzz. Because of its many attractions, like most of the loveliest parts of Paris, you may also find

yourself rubbing shoulders rather closely with the hoards of tourists who swarm there each weekend.

But, if you have the persistence to seek out the nooks and crannies that others pass by, don your trendiest garments and you are in for a real treat.

What not to miss: The main drag is the Rue de Rosiers where I usually begin the day by getting my falafel at L’As du Falafel (in fact I usually get several as it’s so darn good). If you’re feeling flush head to Le Loir dans la Théière Tea Room for a very large slab of patisserie or grab a tin of fancy herbal tea at the renowned Mariage Frères tea shop on Rue de Bourg Tibourg to take home.

For a spot of vintage, top of my list is Vintage Désir on Rue de Rosiers where, if you are prepared for a bit of push and shove amongst the piles of eccentric garments, you can be sure to pick up a bargain (and I mean a real bargain for less that 10euros, not a Parisian bargain that empties your bank account). For a bit of outdoor people-watching head to the beautiful and very symmetrical Place des Vosges, once home to Victor Hugo and a great place to share a warm baguette on a park bench.

Photography: Georgia Pink Illustration: Jessie Rodger

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politics STUDENT PROTESTS IN PICTURES

Snapshots of the recent student protests by Paul Whyte.

Clockwise from above: Policemen in George Square, Glasgow University occupation at Gilmore Hill and anti-cuts protest on Buchanan Street.

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STORM IN A TEA CUP

The American Tea Party are a force to be reckoned with. Max Horberry examines the monster in a clown’s costume.

remarked, “We gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”

But don’t get the wrong impression, they are certainly not to be underestimated.

British pundits have a hard time understanding the Tea Party. We have certainly lived (and are living) through conservative times, but we are unfamiliar with the radical right-wing politics to which America has become accustomed. The Tea Party’s eccentricities and gaffeprone public appearances make it easy to dismiss, but comedy can obscure the appeal of right-wing politics to many ordinary Americans.

Pre-election polls showed they had more success than President Obama at the ballot box, and a post-election survey by Gallup showed the Tea Party virtually neck-and-neck with Obama in terms of voter opinion on who should influence government policy.

The Tea Party began in 2009 not as a party, but as an antigovernment, grass-roots political movement. It played a crucial role in mobilizing support for the Republican Party’s successful bid to seize control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. It focused public anger on Obama’s ‘socialist’ presidency. Despite being a leaderless movement, Sarah Palin is undoubtedly the campaign’s figurehead.

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The Party has become notorious for a succession of unwittingly hilarious blunders. In late November, Palin

This prompted Melissa Harris-Perry of New York’s The Nation to observe that underestimating Palin and the Tea Party would be “a mistake of epic proportions.”

And she is right. Palin uses Twitter, Facebook, and reality television to project and control her image: she is truly a product of the modern media age. She is adept at crafting policy statements in 140 characters.

The Tea Party’s radical conservatism clearly resonates with American sentiments and passions. Is the Tea Party something we should make fun of? No. Is it something we should take seriously? Yes. Whether or not anyone wants to face it, the Tea Party and Sarah Palin are here to stay.

QUOTE UNQUOTE Judy Barrett chooses her favourite political quips each issue

“And you have the right to free speech as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it” – The Clash

“Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied” – Otto Von Bismark

“Equality is the prime rib of America, but because I am gay, I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat my country has to offer” – Lady Gaga

“Dear chief secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards - and good luck! Liam” – Liam Byrne, ex-Chief Secretary to the Treasury

“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after revolution” – Hannah Arendt

“The Labour Party’s election manifesto is the longest suicide note in history” – Greg Knight

“Blessed are the young, for they will inherit the national debt” – President Hoover

“They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan” – Sarah Palin

“Liberal: power worshipper without power” – George Orwell

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INFORMATION OVERLOAD

The internet is supposedly revolutionizing.

James Foley wonders if this obscures the fight itself, and if social networking sites could be used as powerfully by police as they are by protesters.

Seemingly it is only cave dwellers who deny the maxim that technology is the enemy of tyrants. If you believe what you hear, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Walkman. There would be no Tiananmen Square without the fax machine. Camcorders, camera-phones, and Youtube are putting an end to police violence. And, lest we forget, the French Revolution and the birth of liberal democracy are both unthinkable without the printing press.

As if to prove once and for all that the medium is the message, we now have a series of youth revolts notionally organised on Twitter. The Green Revolution in Iran, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, and the... well, the Millbank thing. It’s not a revolution yet, but by crikey, that thin line of fat cops looked damn near petrified. So did Aaron Porter.

In this flurry of excitement for New Youth, all sorts of utopian flights of fancy can be asserted in the face of factual evidence. Thus, the Washington Post pronounced the “Twitter Revolution” in Iran following the 2009 riots, when only 20,000 Iranians had Twitter accounts in a nation of 75 million.

Pundits are dusting off one of their favourite themes: the technological impossibility of dictatorships.

The accelerated pace of globalisation and online communication, we are solemnly informed, is incompatible with closed societies. The internet, as an open gateway to free communication, is the sworn enemy of the autocratic despot and the tyrannical tyrant.

These techno-utopian clichés are rapidly becoming barriers to understanding social change. While the media fixated on Tunisian youth’s employment of Youtube, mobile phones, and social networking to overthrow the hated regime of Ben Ali, they missed the rioters’ actual concerns: unemployment, corruption, and food prices.

The uprising’s slogans united young and old and recalled the motifs of the 93-year old Russian Revolution. But these inconvenient elements of continuity were safely ignored in favour of toe-curling techno platitudes.

There is a worrying ideological trend here. The metabolism between Washington and the Middle Eastern dictators has been central to globalisation since the Second World War. Tunisian despot Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was the Middle East’s most dutiful disciple of the American way. Under his leadership, Tunisia made its big bucks by selling itself as an exotic and safe location for middle-aged Western tourists. Ben Ali was a fixture of the Washington road to modernisation.

But if you listen to the media, it is the novelties of Western youth culture and technology that toppled the dictatorship.

Thus, the Tunisian revolt against the inequities of global capitalism appears as its opposite: finally, Arab youth are embracing globalization! One wonders why they didn’t think of it before, when they were crawling on their hands and knees to service obese American tourists.

Call it iconoclasm, but I doubt that Twitter, Youtube or even Wikileaks will fundamentally undermine dictatorships, corruption, and oppression. These are tools that may be used in the interests of subversion. But they do not provide absolute advantages to the oppressed or even to the cause of free speech.

Repressive states and big corporations have much greater resources than the rest of us. With enough time and money, they will find ways to adapt subversive technologies into harmless consumer fads or even means of surveillance. While you can plan a riot on Facebook, your boss can also check up on your nights out and your political activities. State and police agencies monitor internet usage to identify potential subversives. By storing so much private data, the internet can act as a formidable agent of police power.

Of course, the internet also allows temporary advantages to fast moving, underground movements. It is also a convenient tool for building the infrastructure of aboveboard, established campaigns and political organisations.

But despite the spread of social media, internet use remains an isolated, anti-social activity that breeds the lowest and most regressive fantasies. Pornography, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia are rife. The highest achievements of human civilisation are drowned in the icy water of Facebook tributes to Zig and Zag and Noel’s House Party.

Photography: Sean Anderson

The Information Society is, to put it mildly, a two-way street, and technology is no royal road to liberation.

Camcorders, cassettes, or social networking are tools that can be used to undermine the rich and powerful; they are also means of surveillance, propaganda, and advertising.

It is more accurate to say that every new communications technology creates a new battleground for ideas. But the terms of battle are the same as they always were: work, wages, and democracy. Information technologies are at best only a means to organise mass actions that hit the enemy’s forces: strikes, riots, and protests.

At the beginning of February, this has been demonstrated in practice. Fearful of mass protests, Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak hurriedly shut down all internet services as the Tunisian wave hit Cairo. But it didn’t stop dissidence.

Protestors poured onto the streets, making instant friends and allies with neighbours, and brought the country to a standstill with a week of mass protests.

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These peaceful demonstrations exposed the brittleness of dictatorship. At this revolutionary moment, the virtual world ceased and the real global village came to Cairo.

There are many challenges ahead. Protestors in Cairo, Tunis, and Sana’a are learning that once the euphoria passes, you can only build a permanent revolution if you possess a plan for a superior social organisation.

Whether you sell a newspaper or update a Twitter feed, revolutionists must be ideologists and architects of a better way of living.

As someone once said, what separates the worst of architects from the best of bees is that an architect raises a building in their imagination before they erect it in reality. Theory, planning, and meticulous preparation make the difference between a revolt that clears out a dictator, but preserves the old order, and the construction of a genuinely new blueprint for democracy.

THE SINGAPORE OF AFRICA Kieran Taylor profiles Rwanda and the man behind its sudden turnaround from the scene of atrocity to emerging economic power.

Few would have predicted that Rwanda would emerge as Africa’s fastest developing country after the genocide of 1993. The war-torn republic in East-Central Africa lacks the economic advantages of its continental rivals: it does not have Nigeria’s natural resources, nor does it have South Africa’s international investment. It certainly doesn’t have Egypt’s agricultural growth.

However, Rwanda has achieved rapid growth and development in the last decade, and this is not merely a product of Western guilt. It is thus with some justification that its tourist website proclaims: ‘Welcome to Rwanda: Discover a New African Dawn’.

Rwanda’s growth stems from political stability, symbolised by the rule of ex-rebel commander, His Excellency President Paul Kagame. To his supporters, Kagame has led the country out of the dark years and into a “golden age” of prosperity.

Undoubtedly, Kagame has helped lead the country out of its “year zero”. His authoritative, yet ethical style has drawn many admirers: as a member of the Tutsi minority in a nation with an 85 percent Hutu ma jority, he commands an overwhelming share of the vote.

However, Kagame has emerged in a continent plagued by personality cults. Kenyatta, Mobutu, and Banda, to name a few, were glorified as the founding fathers of postcolonial states, but they ruled despotically and crushed dissent with an iron fist.

Kagame’s approach to reconciliation and ‘genocide ideology’ has been criticised. Reporting and criticism of the genocide is not forbidden; but politicising ethnicity is.

Kagame’s popularity does not lie in tribal loyalties. The source of his hegemony is a common desire for progress in Rwanda. Nationalism has supplanted tribal division.

Western-style fragmented parties and coalitions do not appear in Rwanda, and the opposition is weak and demoralised.

Sourcing Rwanda’s economic upswing also proves troublesome: Rwanda does not produce profitable cash crops, so one cannot point to the price of foodstuffs like coffee, tea, or bananas. Dark rumours have emerged that Western mining interests are exploiting the civil war in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to strip the country bare, illicitly transporting resources through Rwanda with the consent of Kagame loyalists.

The power struggle in DRC has been dubbed Africa’s World War. UN peacekeepers have failed to prevent mass rapes, kidnappings and genocides which have arguably rivalled the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. Whilst Kagame’s Rwanda has emerged from the chaos of the past, DRC has descended into what would appear a far darker future.

Even after 17 years at the forefront of Rwandan politics, Kagame has shown no signs of stepping down. Western observers have expressed their wish that his career will not resemble that of another African leader who initially met with great praise, Robert Mugabe. For the time being, it seems that Rwanda’s electorate have realised the simplest way to emerge from their violent and fragmented past is through unity.

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“HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME” Judy Barrett asks whether Cameron and Clegg will be as lucky as the Cuban president, and receive future vindication for their actions in the present.

These are the words of Fidel Castro in 1953. The soonto-be president of Cuba was referring to his role in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, a fortress of Batista’s dictatorship. In the end, Castro’s actions were absolved, and he became a beloved and respected leader in Cuba, where he is considered a hero who overthrew a tyrant. His decisive actions made him an icon of world politics. But how will today’s global leaders fare when their actions – however controversial – must speak for themselves in the fullness of time?

Even in a 21st century democracy like Britain, we find political leaders who stake everything on ruthless willpower. Will history ever absolve the actions of Blair, Cameron and Clegg? Unlike Castro, the decisions of these leaders fall short of causing a revolution; nevertheless, each has made an impact on politics today in a way which will shape our perception of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties forever.

Ousting eighteen years of Tory rule, Tony Blair liked to portray himself as “a pretty straight kind of a guy,” and initially the public loved him for it. Both Cameron and Clegg have portrayed themselves in a similar fashion, adopting campaign styles reminiscent of Blair’s. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and clearly Blair’s is a formula that works.

However, the Labour landslide that made him Prime Minister in 1997 has all but faded from our collective memories. The main factors in Labour’s precipitous decline have arguably been products of Blair’s decision making. Unfulfilled promises on taxation, failure to tackle referendums, and our international reputation as America’s lapdog in war have all impacted greatly on the Labour Party’s standing.

One feels there was little Gordon Brown could have done to resurrect trust amongst the public again.

Who will we remember: the Blair who brought an economic boom, or the Prime Minister who sent our troops abroad a record number of times and presided over economic decline? In my opinion, any slim hope Blair has of absolution rests on long-term peace in Afghanistan and finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (since Blair’s government cannot save the economy now). He will then be remembered as a man of international foresight with the integrity to stick to his guns. For now, he is condemned to the list of leaders that betrayed the British public.

As the leaders of the first coalition government since the Second World War, Cameron and Clegg are already pushed into the spotlight of history. Immediately they have taken drastic action, and for the most part the British public has been horrified by the planned reforms. Despite Liberal Democrats promises, taxes have increased, and Clegg has notoriously betrayed his pre-election pledge to resist any rise in university tuition fees. Meanwhile, Cameron’s cuts are making headlines as the welfare state is “trimmed of its fat”.

For the coalition, the future is all they have to lean upon in order to stay in power. Are strong-arm tactics and ruthless decision-making truly democratic? It would appear as if citizens are losing power with this Castro-like resolution. Although Britain is famous for its temperate political climate, without a doubt, the boat has been rocked and students have led the way to show that it is our duty to protest – that actions that defy the popular will are not to be endured.

Will the social reforms of the coalition leave us emptyhanded like Blair did? I cannot help but hope that Clegg and Cameron will be worthy of absolution one day, and that these days of increasing poverty and hardship in the UK will be brought to an end.

Photography: Jessie Rodger

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art INA NEDERDAL Featured on the cover of this issue, Ina Nederdal is a Swedish photographer based in Glasgow.

Ina studies sociology and anthropology full-time at Glasgow University, a surprise given the quality of her photography. Her work lies somewhere between art, landscape and fashion photography. She likes to be part of all the processes when shooting and manages to retain a clear and original style in each image. The results are beautiful.

Ina has taken photos ever since she was a kid, but it was in 2005 when she got her first digital camera that it became a more serious hobby.

She’s not clear of what lies in the future, but she knows photography will be involved somehow.

Ina’s advice for anyone out there wanting to shoot is simple “it doesn’t matter if you have a really good camera, it’s the pictures that matter so just take a lot of pictures.”

Ina is always on the look out for models to photograph, if you’re interested get in touch through her blog. www.inanederdal.com

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THE CREED DOES MATTER Jessie Rodger gains an incite into the creative workings of Glaswegian artist Martin Creed, bypassing cats, mothers and other scary things along the way.

Sitting in my bedroom in Glasgow, the rain is chucking all its got at the rattling windows and I’m on hold to a synthesized version of The Entertainer. An Italian voice cuts through the tinny phone tone. It’s not the Scottish lilt I’d expected to hear but it’s a reminder that I’m conducting an interview from Glasgow to Sicily - not your average interview, but the artist i’m interviewing isn’t your average artist. Martin Creed first hit the headlines in 2001 when awarded the often controversial Turner Prize. From then on he’s pushed art inside and out of the conventional box, teasing the boundaries between text, aesthetics, sound and reality to form his own space in the art landscape today.

For those of you that don’t know Creed’s work, check it out, even if just online - I guarantee it will make an impact on you. Creed’s paired back Turner Prize winning work The Lights Going On and Off features a room in which the lights went on and off, to which a fair few would react with the exclamation ‘that is not art’. Perhaps not. Perhaps yes.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. What is important is that Creed’s work manages to connect with you directly whilst centring on a pure concept, no mean feat whatever you think. Is this a fair assessment of his work? Creed concurs “I’d be happy with that. I want to try to be clear and obvious, whatever you might think of what it is, to try and make everything plain. Like these things I’ve been working on recently, it’s important to me that what’s on the painting is visible and that there are not really any layers one on top of the other: things are next to each other, so you can see them.”

Sound intriguing? It really is. His work ranges from great neon text-based sculptures to music, Blu-Tack, balloons and everything in between. You may well be familiar with his installation Work No. 975 Everything is Going to be Alright, recently emblazoned across the façade of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.

It is intimidating interviewing Martin, he’s an artist I’ve respected for a long time, and I have no idea what to expect from talking to him. But the voice that picks up the phone is warm and familiar and this sets the tone for the rest of the interview. He hasn’t lost any of his Scottish accent and it’s easy to forget we’re at a distance of hundreds of miles.At

Image Credits: Martin Creed ‘Mothers’, Hauser & Wirth London, Savile Row, 21 January – 5 March 2011. © Martin Creed. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

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Image Credits: Martin Creed ‘Mothers’, Hauser & Wirth London, Savile Row, 21 January – 5 March 2011. © Martin Creed. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

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the time of our interview Martin is in transit to his house in Italy, where he goes to work or take time out from his daily life in the UK. It’s a far cry from Lenzie, where Martin was brought up from the age of 3 until he left for art school. He says he has only one memory from life before Lenzie- he and his brother throwing a cat out of the bungalow window to see if it landed on its feet. I suggest it seems an early age to be throwing cats out of windows and he replies that perhaps it’s not a real memory. Perhaps not, but just so the cat lovers among you can sleep easy, the cat survived to tell the tale.

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He laughs as he responds “Aye there was aye, I think there’s plenty of ideas behind a lot of things, but I don’t think the ideas are necessarily communicated in the works. I don’t think communication works very directly, it’s just the idea is often linked to things and the work, and what people get out of the work is a whole other matter.”

Could he outline the creative process he goes through when working towards a new piece? After a measured pause, he replies “Em, aye, that’s really hard to describe, I don’t know exactly how things happen, things just come up I suppose and I just try to remain open-minded. I think I try to analyse a situation and try to treat myself as if I am this sort of being, alive, as if you’re studying a plant to see what it does. To try and analyse myself a bit and do things treating myself as this weird thing that has weird thoughts and feelings. I try and do things that make me feel better in one way or another, that’s what I feel like I’m trying to do the whole time.”

A later memory Creed mentions will be familiar to most of us. He recalls going out underage in Glasgow to a club near Glasgow School of Art (I wonder if the Garage was around then...). He didn’t go to GSA though, as his Dad taught there, an apparent no-go for the artist. Instead he headed down south to The Slade School of Fine Art in London. Slade clearly made a positive impact on Creed “I liked the Slade, the people were very helpful to me, I feel like I got a lot of help from them because people thought that I was quite timid or shy, so I think they gave It’s refreshing to hear such an open account of the creative me a bit of confidence... I think confidence is a funny thing process behind artwork. In asking about you know, because it might be helpful if you this there’s a fear of breaking the magic want to step out and do things in front of of the final work but Creed has said a lot, people let’s say, but I also think confidence without saying too much. This is something is a form of stupidity because confidence “I do things treating he also achieves in his artwork, making his involves being sure of oneself and I think it’s myself as this pieces accessible without going too far, stupid to be sure of yourself.” weird thing that leaving space for you to introduce your I ask if you can be confident in not being has weird thoughts own subjective ideas. sure of yourself and Martin replies that that’s and feelings.” exactly how he would hope to be.

Creed has accomplished a great deal as an artist, with successful exhibitions from Fast forward to the present day and Martin New York to Italy and a considerable musical presence Creed has just opened an exhibition entitled Mothers at established. With so much achieved up until now, what’s Hauser & Wirth, London, Savile Row which runs until 3rd next for Martin Creed?

March. The focal point of the exhibition is a huge rotating “I’d like to work more freely, so that would involve getting neon sign that spells out ‘MOTHERS’ (pictured to the left). involved in unknown things. I think I try to control things a It is a ma jestic work that fills the exhibition space. Martin lot, I don’t wanna make just controlled work, you can kill describes it as “quite scary”. I ask, tongue-in-cheek, if it’s things if you try to control them. Since the world feels very inspired by his own mother, he laughs uncontrollable I’d like to make work like that but that’s “Well I’ve got to know lots of mothers, I think mothers much scarier, because out of control situations are scary. are really important and that probably the relationship So maybe I would hope that I can make more scary work, between a mother and a child is the most powerful and work that is scary to me that is, for the reason that most most difficult relationship. As an example of a relationship things that are scary are the important things. It’s the between two people it is also like the ultimate relationship things that aren’t scary that you don’t really care about, because one comes out of the other so they actually are you know?” the same thing for a while.”

I first came across the work of Martin Creed in 2008. While waiting in the hall of the Tate Britain, someone ran full pelt past me, I remember my Dad commenting that they must have been desperate for their lunch, not unlike ourselves at the time. Then another ran past half a minute later, and another... We soon realised a lot more was going on than first met the eye. We were in fact witness to Work No. 850, which consisted of a succession of people sprinting in running gear as fast as they could across the gallery hall at half a minute intervals. It was captivating, it was alive and it made a much greater impact than any of the paintings we’d seen in the preceding exhibition.I want to find out if there was a specific idea behind the piece.

Creed offers advice to any ambitious artists hoping to tread a similar path to his own “Do what you’re scared of, is my advice.

And be nice as well.”

When I ask if he thinks that’s how he got where he is today, he responds with his familiar laugh “ I don’t know! But this teacher said to me at art school, make it bigger, this guy used to say it to everyone actually. I think that’s good advice whatever you are doing.”

Do what you’re scared of, be nice and make it bigger.

We could all benefit from taking Martin Creed’s advice.

Martin’s current exhibition Mothers runs at Hauser & Wirth, London, Savile Row until 5th March.

LAND OF ICE 18

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Ina Andersson delves into the barren landscapes of Iceland to find there is much more to the country than first meets the eye.

It is January. The temperature has not been above zero for months and we are surrounded by a rocky, barren landscape. There are no houses, no trees and as far as I can see on the lonely road that disappears into the horizon there is not a single car. No, we are not on a Siberian expedition. We have just stepped outside Keflavik airport near capital Reykjavik in southern Iceland and my first thought is “why?” Why would people decide to make their home in a place that officially consists of more than 60 % volcanic wasteland, is mostly inhabitable and has a constant risk of earthquakes? Magnus Magnusson, the famous Icelandic BBC personality is known to have stated that the everyday hazards of living in Iceland indeed has made its people think hard about the nature and the purpose of humanity. Coping with the elements has been a challenge that has brought the Icelanders a great sense of achievement and they sure know how to turn natural disasters into a profit. Following last year’s volcanic eruption on the impossible-to-pronounce Eyjafjalla joekull tourists can now buy bottled up volcanic ash as a souvenir.

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Their own culture is very important to the Icelanders and the country also has a rich music scene. And when you can sing in a language that literally sounds like poetry it is easy to understand why. The band that has embraced the importance of language the most is perhaps Icelandic band Sigur Ros. Inspired by their native tongue, their lyrics are made up of what the singer himself describes as “a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music”.

Something else that has been part of Icelandic culture is superstition. There are countless old myths and it is not hard to see how farmers in old Iceland felt the need to explain the strangeness of the nature surrounding them.

Even though Iceland today is highly developed, new roads need to be carefully laid out so that their routes do not disturb the elves.

If you thought Iceland stops after sunset (which by the way happens around 3pm this time of year) – then think again. When you’re tired of hot springs and waterfalls you can hit town in Reykjavik, claimed to be nightlife capital of the north. “Well, the party doesn’t really start until two”. We have decided to ask a local where it is good to go out, but all we get is a strange look.

What are we doing out so early?

It is half past eleven, Friday night, and in Reykjavik that is apparently considered daytime drinking. Not “New roads need to many are out yet, but we decide A cold wind sweeps in over the city be carefully laid out to head to a nearby bar for some of Reykjavik, but in true Icelandic so that their routes do people watching. The Friday night spirit we decide to brave nature and not disturb the elves” crowd in Reykjavik is fashionable and head straight into the wild. “What edgy, much like the clubs where they do you do when you get lost in a spend their night. But after having forest in Iceland? Answer: you stand listened to Shakira’s Waka Waka World Cup anthem up”. Our tour guide breaks the ice (no pun intended) three times in a row at the same bar, I do start to wonder with the best Icelandic jokes he knows. There used to if summer of 2010 just took a little longer to reach these be trees here, he goes on to tell us as our bus takes us Northern latitudes. Stepping outside at half past two in further and further from the capital. “But the Vikings cut the morning, it seems that Reykjavik if anywhere should them all down, to make ships”. Trees or no trees, there be the setting for the next Twilight-movie. Everything are still some unique and fascinating things about the here changes at night. The same streets that were Icelandic nature. Situated literally where the Earth splits empty in the daytime are now full of people just coming in two, it is possible to take a walk down a deep ravine out and going places, still looking pretty and respectfully on a road that cuts right between the tectonic plates. sober. And it turns out, everywhere is a nightclub after Nowhere else in the world is the split so visible. Iceland is 2am in Reykjavik – the picturesque little café where we also home to Europe’s largest waterfall, Gullfoss, where had lunch earlier in the day has turned into a late night legend has it a treasure is hidden in the caves behind disco and what we thought was a cupboard in the corner the water. Another must-see wonder of nature is the hot has been transformed into a DJ-booth. “When you don’t springs and the geysirs. But beware, fall in and you get get sunrise until 11 in the morning, there is just no point boiled alive! It is also extremely difficult to get non-blurry getting up early” a girl to me tells me when I enquire picture of the geysirs – boiling water suddenly bursting about the Icelanders late night habits. “It is part of our out of the ground 30 meters in the air above your head culture and with all the bars open late, no one is left out can really make you jump. in the cold”.

The financial crisis that hit Iceland a couple of years Iceland is a country of constant motion. If it’s not the ago changed things and more people have since turned ground that stirs, it’s the people and the vibrant culture to work in tourism. Our guide jokes about how the bus that flourish, being cutting-edge and strongly traditional driver can do the counting to make sure everyone is back at the same time. Iceland is like nowhere else and feels on the bus, “after all, he used to be an accountant – I was more alive than ever – which is quite a statement for always in sales”. Despite the crisis different businesses an island with an average of 3 inhabitants per square are still flourishing in Iceland. On Reykjavik’s main kilometre. It turns out that there is a lot more than shopping street Laugavegur we find several Icelandic first meets the eye on this little, big island in the great designer shops, homey little cafés and not a single high Atlantic. street chain.

Photography: Ina Andersson

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CECIL THE SHEEP Each Issue Joseph Bucklow brings us an anecdote from the life of Cecil, the sheep that will never quite fit in.

Cecil - Early Years.

Although Cecil’s spelling and grammar was below the expected standard for his age, his ideas proved to be dangerously advanced. The archaic institute that was blessed with his forward-thinking mind scolded his supposed deviance. The powers-that-be branded his early creative writing work ‘intoxicating’ and ‘incendiary’.

Cecil left with one ‘O-Level’ in art and design and a certificate in basic IT competence.

Illustration and Text: Joseph Bucklow

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Return to nature with the thrill of the hunt; pheasants, foxes and ponies provide inspiration to some fabulously kooky jewellery. Match with Arran knits, furs and tweed for a killer eccentric British look.

To see the full accessories shoot, visit gumagazine.wordpress.com Clockwise from top-left: Stag Necklace (£30, Ying Lin Jewellery), Mounted Horse Head (£65, Ying Lin Jewellery), Storybook Necklace (£100, Oui! Designs), Horse Ring, (£65, Ying Lin Jewellery), Love Birds Ring (£65, Ying Lin Jewellery), Dog Earrings, (£15, Ying Lin Jewellery), Emma Franklin Pheasant/Gun Cufflinks (£189, Brazen Studios), “Wee Hours” Bracelet (£69, Brazen Studios) Fox Brooch, (£10, Ying Lin Jewellery), Aztec Pheasant Crown (£50, Fair Feathered Friend), Mr Foxy Ring (£65, Ying Lin Jewellery), Storybook Necklace Locket (as before).

Brazen Studios, 58 Albion St, Merchant City, Glasgow Ying Lin Jewellery, @ www.yinglinjewellery.com and Granny Would Be Proud Vintage Fair Oui! Designs, @ www.ouidesigns.com, Brazen Studios, Granny Would Be Proud Vintage Fair and Bold Souls Fair Feathered Friend, see Agenda for stockist info.

Photography: Jamina Davidson Words and Styling: Rena Niamh Smith

TORRES TALE 22

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League 4 Dress (£115, Torres). Photography and styling credits as main fashion shoot. For more info see www.torresincolour.com

Helen Tweedie and Helen Weir met rising superstar designer Rebecca Torres to discuss Spandex, Superwoman and styling celebrities.

Before we had witnessed the work of Rebecca Torres, the thought of wearing Lycra would have sent us running. Lycra as daywear? Even more terrifying. But when Torres enters a cosy West End cafe at 10am, a vision of electric Lycra, she looks fantastic.

Torres’ creations are no gym shorts, people, but a selection of chic and versatile dresses that give a playful and defiant nod to your inner superhero. The thick panelling works to embrace the feminine form and leaves the wearer extremely comfortable. The simplicity of her designs means you can take it from day to night, from casual coffee with friends to a trendy club. Torres has changed what was once a feared fabric to the material of female empowerment. Think superwoman on the cover of Vogue.

The first question that had to be asked was obviously, why Spandex? “It was a complete fluke. It was never my intention to use Lycra. I wanted to make a tight fitting tube dress and stumbled upon it. I like how the fabric fits to the womanly figure, enhancing the female form. Lycra is amazing, it looks different on every shape.” A refreshing aspect of Torres’ label is that she does not use the conventional size zero models you would expect. “They look better on a shapely

figure. It is very important my models have boobs and a bum,” she laughs.

Having the talent to completely reverse the reputation of the fabric has not gone unnoticed. In 2008, at the age of 23, she was shortlisted for the Creative 30 award, she has styled for Róisín Murphy and, in 2010 she starred in Camera Obscura’s music video for French Navy. Although she kickstarted her career in London, working with Nova Dando after graduating in 2007, she has remained loyal to Glasgow. She graduated from Cardonald College with an HND in Fashion and Manufacturing and then from Glasgow Caledonian University with a BA in fashion and business. “Glasgow is a very creative and cultured city and over the last five or six years it has come a very long way in fashion and style. The people here are very aware of how they look and are willing to be daring.”

Her attentiveness to affordability makes her open to the stylish yet thrifty student market. Her dresses are all reasonably priced from £65 to £150. “My Grandma told me no matter how little money you have, you can always look good. Also I price my clothes fairly, so it depends a lot on the cost of the fabric.” She claims that her proudest moments are not in dressing celebrities, but spotting a complete stranger in one of her garments on a night out. “As a new designer there is no point in making clothes if they are not accessible, and a lot of my range does appeal to the younger market.”

Although sticking to her winning formula of bright panels in stretchy fabric, Torres’ collections have matured greatly over the last four years. While her earlier collections comprised shorter dresses in exciting colours, her latest collection has an air of sophistication. ‘League of Electric’ shows off long sleek dresses with dramatic sweeps of fabric, and sheer chiffon contrasting with the thick, masking quality of Lycra. “I feel like the market for my clothing is growing,” she says. “It’s opening up to both older and younger women.” When asked what inspired her ultra-modern yet classically chic collection, she replies, “I have most probably been influenced through my secret fascination for sci-fi. Lycra is very much a superhero fabric, and I’m interested in the genre’s bright costumes and powerful female figures.” And what of the bright colours?

“I don’t analyse them much, just mix and match until I find what looks good. I prefer to be impulsive in selecting. Colour, however, is incredibly important to my designs; I like them to be visually interesting and attention-grabbing. I want my clothing to appeal to strong, independent women who like to express this through fashion.”

For a designer so talented, is Torres wasted focusing on the female evening wear market? We asked of plans to expand to menswear. “Maybe not Lycra! But I’d like to try male tailoring using the same technique of panelling and bright colour. I’d quite like to focus on jackets and maybe experiment with leather.” Any set plans for the near future? “I’m doing a couple of projects next year that I’m really excited about. There is a possibility of a collaboration but I’m keeping tight-lipped for now!”

After seeing Lycra in its new-and-improved Torres form, we’ve most definitely been converted. Plus, who can resist the idea of hitting Glasgow’s night scene dressed as fashion-forward inter-galactic spacewomen? Getting ready will never be the same again.

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RETURN TO FORM 2011 sees the return of trousers as sex symbol in sartorial terms. Megan Donald and Rena Niamh Smith explore the transition between noughties addictions and the dawn of a new age.

For almost a decade something with dangerous powers has been lurking in our wardrobes. On a daily basis we are cosmically pulled towards this staple, its tight, narrow legs promising us a world of choice; I am talking, of course, about the skinny jean. For the small price of extreme ankle constriction, they declare with confidence: “wear me, for I am the most adaptable piece of clothing in the past ten years. My reign remains unchallenged!”

The creation took hold in the early 2000s as an antithesis to the nineties baggy combat look. Championed by Kate Moss and troops of heroin-chic indie boys, skinny jeans began as a symbol of sexed-up rebellion. Through high street adaptations, however, the true versatility of the skinny jean was soon realised. Their ubiquity has led to a perennial silhouette created out of an 80s aesthetic of cigarette-like legs and fluid, relaxed shapes on top.

Skinny jeans represent the trouser at its most minimal and allows for flexibility and experimentation through other pieces of clothing. It is for this reason that we have become so receptive and refuse to let them go.

Change is on the horizon! With ten years of restrictive pain behind us, 2011 is set to become the Year of the Trouser. Trousers as daywear have been revolutionized as the thrilling statement piece, not just background to a more interesting top half. As trousers-as-eveningwear prove, the most important point is that the new trouser is simply not a dress. Skimpy body-con frocks now seem too obvious when a pair of elegant trousers worn after dark exude a much subtler and gently seductive glamour.

Irish fashion designer Helen McAlinden believes that the trouser’s revival is down to the wider 70s comeback on the catwalks. For Spring/Summer 2011, designers such as Phoebe Philo at Céline showed trousers with a pulledin waist and a billowing, parachute leg while, similarly, Marc Jacobs used a high waist to elongate legs and create stream-lined, effortless grace. This shape was iconic of the seventies trouser suits made famous by adverts such as Revlon’s “Charlie” perfume.

“Before the 1970s, no one wore trouser suits to work,” McAlinden says. “It would have been avant-garde for a woman to wear trousers on anything except a Saturday; they were part of the liberated, trendy working woman’s wardrobe”. It is perhaps this easy, breezy glamour that designers are chasing just now. Gucci’s satin taperedleg jumpsuits in eye-pooping colours whisper sexy, luxurious allure.

“It will take at least two years for this to hit the mainstream”, believes McAlinden. “Many women, including myself, have only just got used to wearing dresses every day.” The market in which McAlinden’s own label sold an abundance of trouser suits has dried up recently, but she believes it will pick up again. “Fashion is always about action and reaction; what goes around comes around.

But people won’t be running around in high waist wide leg pants this summer; it will take Topshop to do them in a diluted form or some celeb to wear them for them to get really popular”.

With the skinny-legged silhouette surely exhausted, wearing trousers opens up a whole new exploration of femininity for both day and night and the delightful swish of looser shapes should charm us away from the skinny jean as default option. Even if the masses don’t take to them, at least you would know where to start if you want to be ahead of the curve.

Photography: Les Garcons de Glasgow

STYLE BLIND

Morven Clements flings some rotten tomatoes at the unthinking village idiots who still think Uggs and Juicy Couture constitute good taste.

The Fashion Victim, a prominent figure in contemporary Glaswegian society. I pose the question, where does the master fashion criminal get her inspiration from? By master criminal I mean the not-so-masterful originator behind such concepts as the diamanté encrustation of, well, everything and anything they can get their fakenailed hands on.

Offensive items of attire plague people on a daily basis - take the UGG boot. Never in the UGG boot’s existence has it seen a catwalk or graced the feet or a style guru such Japan’s Vogue Editor Anna Dello Russo or Daphne Guinness. Its arrival into popular culture can in fact be attributed to Pamela Anderson, the original sinner! But it’s not only down to imitation of celebs that the UGG has its ubiquitous place upon the feet of the masses, it’s down to what the UGG represents.

They’re expensive, they were once exclusive.

To own them was never a style statement but a fashion statement, and this is where the Fashion Victim gets it wrong. A Fashion Victim falls prey to the misguided ‘fashion statements’ of pop culture, like body-con, (which unfortunately looks good on about 1% of the population yet cocoons a far larger, larger percentage). UGGs were not inspired by catwalks and designers but by what pop culture has everyone wearing.

It’s a desire to be generic, the exact opposite of the high fashion ethos. It’s a real shame that the all-practical legging digressed into an all-revealing Lycra dress!

Next is the ‘All-Weather-Wearer’, jacketless on a December night, borderline insane but certainly achieving optimum exposure of one’s sequins. The ‘All-Weather-Wearer’ can also be spotted at frosty times of the year sporting various hues of orange, aka ma jor faux-pas. Indeed, the list goes on.

Fashion Victim-hood is easily avoided and most people succeed in doing so. The solution must be logic and I think I’ve grasped it – it all lies in elegance, and elegance stems from this: be comfortable in what you wear and wear it for your benefit and yours alone. Dress so you feel good. If you feel good you will look good. Style over fashion. Simples. On a final note, two less philosophical rules: firstly, wear heels you don’t totter/stumble about in and secondly, when dressing, bear weather in mind: it’s Glasgow, so nice warm jackets at the ready.

DIGITAL DIVA

Ginger Clark snapshots the best of the online fashion updates on this side of the Atlantic and t’other NEW YORK: www.jakandjil.com/blog Strictly speaking Tommy Ton comes from Toronto and not from NY, yet his blog Jak & Jil is too good to pass by. His posts consist of beautiful photographs of people & fashion shows, of close-ups on accessories and particularly of shoes. This blog draws attention to the details and moments of fashion which would otherwise go unnoticed.

PARIS: www.garancedore.fr Quintessential parisienne Garance Doré shares her witty thoughts on anything ranging from manicures to the interesting people she meets. Laced with a mix of photos and her illustrations, her blog, which lets us into her life, will definitely raise a smile.

MILAN: www.annadellorusso.com AdR is an opportunity to get a glimpse at Anna dello Russo, what she likes and what inspires her. A huge personality of the fashion world who has worked for various Vogues & is known for her extravagant clothes, her blog is a compilation of all sorts of images, videos and thoughts.

GLASGOW: www.kingdomofstyle.typepad.co.uk The Kingdom of Style is the kingdom of Queen Michelle & Queen Marie. On a similar level as the well-known Style Bubble, the Queens present us with posts on what has caught their eye in the fashion world. This blog not only stands out for its theme, but also for Queen Michelle’s penchant for punk styles, and Queen Marie’s contributions about irresistible snippets.

Photography: Rena Niamh Smith

PAINSTAKING PROCESS

The whopping price-tags and endless discussion of haute couture fashion perplexes many. Jonathan Casey meets an industry insider who describes an art form worth ever penny and column inch.

Chado Ralph Rucci is one of America’s most respected fashion houses, an internationally renowned brand synonymous with superior quality, elegance and pure luxury. One of few American labels outside Paris dedicated to haute couture, each design is skilfully made by hand under the creative direction of sole designer Ralph Rucci. Drawing inspiration from the delicate rituals of Chado, an ancient Japanese tea ceremony, Rucci ensures his designs are made with precise craftsmanship and keen attention to detail.

Ralph Rucci’s designs are celebrated by some of fashion’s most influential names including former American Vogue editor-at-large, André Leon Talley and Harper’s Bazaar editor, Glenda Bailey, and a favourite with Hollywood’s leading ladies Gwyneth Paltrow, Amanda Seyfried and British top model, Lily Donaldson.

Justin Stutzman is a young designer, who through his passion for design and raw talent, went from a smalltown business ma jor to key member of the Chado creative team, working closely with Rucci on a daily basis, creating mock designs, altering garments, purchasing fabrics and ultimately helping to bring the designer’s sketches and ideas to life.

then begins to work with the highly trained pattern makers.” According to Justin, this is one of the most challenging parts of the design process, where sketches are developed and Mr Rucci begins to create mock design pieces. After all crucial design details are finalized, these mock pieces are taken back by the pattern-maker to the work room “to make alterations to the pattern and the original garment will then be cut and its plan for construction finalized.”

Justin offers an insight into the illusive world of haute couture and how these celebrated pieces are painstakingly made. “Once all the fabrics have been chosen and ordered, Mr Rucci starts preparing himself by organizing his fabric and mood boards. Naturally, he is always “fashion is a searching for inspiration but during this world of endless time his search becomes a little more possibilities and focused and intense.” extremes” The next stage in the design process involves key input from Larisa Ryzova, head of the Rucci art department. “This is where the Chado techniques, which many people recognize the label for, are developed”. In this department the designer begins to sketch designs, brainstorming different ideas to gain a sense of the possibilities of the fabric. Justin explains, “once Ralph has decided on a design, he

This design process takes incredible amounts of skill and dedication. Justin explains, “what I love about being in the work room and helping produce the clothing is you always learn something new… when I came to Chado I knew a good deal about well-made clothing because it consumed my thoughts for a long time, but when I got the privilege of working on a Chado garment I saw things I never understood and of course was blown away by techniques I could never imagine.” Though the sweatshop realities at the lower-end of the industry are well publicised, it seems fashion is, as ever, a world of endless possibilities and extremes.

Photography: Courtesy of Chado Ralph Rucci

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BRIGHT FLURO NIGHTS Subvert the Spring/Summer 2011 trend for acid brights in nighttime glamour – think shimmer, shadow and contrasts on black.

GUM presents a cut of Glasgow design talent in dark, sportif mode.

League 7 Dress, (£95, Rebecca Torres), // Watch (£12, New Look) // Shoes (£24.99, New Look)

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Fake fur vest (£62, Chouchou) // One-ofa-kind Lurex Mini-Dress (£56, Chouchou) // Wedge Boots (£24.99, New Look)

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Last Tango Bolero (£120, ten30) // Fuschia Boobtube [worn as skirt] (£35, Chouchou) // Lace tights [worn as top] (£12, House of Holland) // Sneaker Boots (£35, New Look)

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Royal Purple Velour Dress with Gold Sequin Cowl Detail (£55, Mee Mee Couture) // Wedge Boots (£24.99, New Look) Rebecca Torres: We Love To Boogie, 100 Byres Road, Glasgow and www. torresincolour.com Chouchou: Welcome Home, 19 Keith Street, Glasgow, c h ou c h ou cou t u re.co m and www.etsy.com/shop/ CHOUCHOUCOUTURE ten30: Room 2, First Floor, 1129 Argyle Street, Glasgow and www.ten30.co.uk Mee Mee Couture: MeeMee Couture Studio, Boutique 36, Main Street, Kilwinning and www.meemeecouture.co.uk

Photography and editing: Ania Mroczkowska Photography assistant: Artur Dziewisz Styling: Rena Niamh Smith and Silvia Pellegrino Hair and Makeup: Kaeleigh Wallace Model: Bo Kawczynska @ Colours Agency Art direction: Rena Niamh Smith and Silvia Pellegrino Styling Assistant: Ginger Clark and Caroline Cruikshank Shot on location @ the Arches, Glasgow. Special thanks to Angela Koorbanally and the Arches staff for generous hospitality and support.

For more info on Ania’s work, see www. aniamroczkowskaphotography.com

THE BEAUTY PAGE 30

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Spring/Summer calls for a spritz of something seductive and not much else. Mairi Hamilton reviews the best summer scents for guys and girls.

Women Boss by Hugo Boss Sunset, £34.99 for 50ml.

A fresh and fruity fragrance, Boss Sunset has tropical warmth and captures the beauty of sunset. Both cheerful and cheeky, its deep intensity makes it ideal to be worn even after sunset. Although not iconic, Boss Sunset is pleasant, clean and effortless – just the thing for fun, easy-going women.

RATING   

Dolce & Gabbana Rose The One, £52 for 50ml.

On first encounter, Rose The One is flirty and alluring yet embodies an understated elegance.

Ideal gift for a sister, mother or grandmother, as it is so ethereal it epitomises timeless femininity and is complementary to every woman. This floral fragrance may become your sensual memoir of those special summer moments with The One you love.

RATING    

Men David Beckham Intimately Yours, £20 for 30ml Like its famed creator, this scent is contemporary, charismatic and oozes a softer masculinity. It’s perfect for modern, metrosexual men seeking a fragrance that is oriental and distinguished.

Beckham’s is so discreet it is wearable for any occasion, whether intimate or not.

RATING   

Dolce & Gabbana The One Gentleman, £42 for 50ml The tantalising balance of musk and freshness is classy and luxurious; the harmony of pepper and vanilla surprisingly creates an inviting, sultry effect. The Italian designer duo has developed one of their best male fragrances yet – a fragrance capable of gifting any man with gentlemanly grace.

RATING     Illustration: Ina Andersson

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music 31

SUPERSONIC Yasmin Ali and Ian McKnight review the latest music technology.

URBANEARS - PLATTAN HEADPHONES About: Scandinavian specialist headphones company.

RANGE: Urbanears Plattan Cost: £60.00 RRP Where to buy: www.urbanears.com, Urban Outfitters, COS, online retail Value for money: 3/5These headphones are beautiful, but parting with over £50 is painful.

Urbanears Medis & Tanto are cheaper ranges.

Sound Quality: 4/5 Nice bass sound, isolation.

Aesthetics: 5/5 Nice matte colour finish, leatherette ear cushioning.

Extras: 5/5 No need for a headphone splitter with the nifty extra earport on the side.

Best Bits: Every colourway imaginable.

Non-plusses: Bit pricey.

OVERALL: 4/5 In the end, the sheer array of colours wowed us, along with the very good all-round technical performance.

WOWEE ONE - CLASSIC PORTABLE SPEAKER About: Scottish company, pioneering a new kind of portable speaker.

RANGE: WoweeONE portable speaker Cost: £50.00 RRP Where to buy: www.woweeone.com Value for money: 5/5 Innovation doesn’t usually come so cheap.

Sound Quality: 5/5 For the size of the unit and the sound produced, it should be a 6 Aesthetics: 3/5 It looks fine, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

Extras: 4/5 Charges off your computer with associated cables.

Best Bits: The best thing since sliced bread?

It converts ANY flat surface into a speaker.

Non-plusses: Pouch is nothing to write home about, but that’s all we could really fault it on.

OVERALL: 4/5 Time to wake the neighbours, all you need for a party fits in your pocket.

Enter promo code bigbass to secure a discounted price of £35 for a Wowee One Classic through www.woweeone.com

ABLETON // NOVATION LAUNCHPAD About: Novation produces Ableton software + kit for DJ’s and VJ’s.

RANGE: A Novation launchpad, to be used with Ableton Live computer software Cost: £150.00 RRP Where to buy: Rubadub Value for money: 4/5 An asset to any Live set, this offers alot of buttons for a little mulah.

Sound Quality: 4/5 Whilst the unit produces no audio itself, the interface with Ableton is highly responsive and is auto configured on connection.

Aesthetics: 5/5 A responsive, sturdy interface with bright LEDs offering feedback in the darkest of gigs Extras: 4/5 Novation’s Automap, Ableton Live (Lite) and nice L bend USB lead, but no sleeve to protect it ‘on the road’ Best Bits: A well thought out interface, brings fun and dynamic control into Ableton Live.

Non-plusses: The lack of protective sleeve or gig bag as standard.

OVERALL: 5/5 Lightweight and compact, astounding level of control - everything that Ableton Live needed but your QWERTY keyboard couldn’t do.

AUDIO CHI - W-SERIES HEADPHONES About: Glasgow-based headphones company RANGE: Audio Chi W-Series Cost: £49.99 RRP Where to buy: www.audiochi.com, online retailers, Dixons Tax-free and Harvey Nichols.

Value for money: 5/5 Retailed much higher at earlier stage in production.

Sound Quality: 4.5/5 Really good bass.

Aesthetics: 4/5 Likeable design, quilted leather-effect headband and ear cushions.

Extras: 3/5 Cord detachable & replaceable separately; free satin pouch Best Bits: Not just pretty to look at- technically robust & good performance Non-plusses: Most colourways appeal more to girls.

OVERALL: 4/5 The bassline packs a punch, but the general feel is feminine in finish.

High quality at an affordable pricepoint.

Photography (from top): www.urbanears.com, www.audiochi.com

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TIDES OF TIME f\a

Dave Hunter, Kirsten Stewart, Luca Guariento and Laura McLean gave four perspectives on the changing face of the modern music industry.

Generation YouTube Never mind radio, the golden era of MTV wouldn’t last forever. Launched in the US, in the summer of ‘81, MTV was born to the ironic fanfare of its first clip: Video Killed the Radio Star. In the early eighties, TV was starting to replace that once indispensible household appliance of the radio. It was almost two decades later before a new incredible media change was brought into widespread use. Today, the Internet brings us light-years away from that MTV era and its reliance on traditional channels.

We make our own TV schedules on a whim. A click on YouTube can satisfy that urge to recall the track from the other night in an instant, complete with several versions of the video and remixes. Live streaming platforms such Spotify and Lastfm allow users to listen to complete albums on their computer, and come with ‘lite’ or free subscription options, alongside paid plans. Together with YouTube and iTunes, these new media platforms are killing of the idea of MTV’s “traditional” video. Robbie Williams’s 2009 album Reality Killed the Videostar may point to the use of the Internet.

The use of the Internet was at first limited by the technologies and the prices. In coming years, connection prices decreased, bandwidth and downloading capabilities increased and the capacity of storage of our hard disks grew exponentially. All these refinements resulted in the Internet being as universal as the television set today.

These technological advances are not beyond reproach or abuse. Broadband advances in particular have enabled use peer-to-peer and torrents technologies, which are popular to both legal and illegal music sharers.

One platform, Limewire, faced closure last year due to music piracy. Another famous case was Napster, which had to re-launch for the same reasons. Apple and iTunes bear the polite notice ‘Please do not steal music’. Yet, just as in the days when people could swap homemade mix-tapes, it is as easy to trade USB sticks containing hundreds of songs. The media format has changed, but human nature is the same which ambivalent qualities of sharing and stealing blurred into one. (LG)

Unquiet Youth Ma jor record labels Sony and Universal recently announced they will be making singles available for sale on the same day they are released to radio stations.

This supersedes the previous arrangement traditionally promoting a single through weeks of radio play. The new ‘on air = on sale’ policy is a result of research which found that demand for singles peaks two weeks before the singles actually go on sale, and a further measure against music piracy. Instant releases are aimed at getting fans who are downloading music illegally prior to release date to spend their money on the real deal instead.

Youthful impatience is cited as the main driver behind the change. Universal’s UK CEO, David Joseph, issued the following statement to account for the change in policy: “we live in an immediate world, [where] ‘wait’ is not a word in the vocabulary of the current generation”.

New protocol represents is a big shift from established music industry practice, but it is certainly not the first time the music industry has suffered a shake-up.

Music is constantly changing with the times; whether changing music tastes, formats or musical platforms, including live streaming. Recent research from the BRMI [British Recorded Music Industry] showed that YouTube is more popular than legal downloads. More and more underground bands are making it big on the music scene and getting ma jor radio play on stations such as Radio One. (KS)

music 33 Never judge an album by its cover

The vintage appeal of vinyl In the days where digital downloading threatens to render the CD obsolete, there is a surprising resurgence in erstwhile outmoded music format vinyl. Figures released earlier this month have shown that while sales of CDs have fallen for the sixth consecutive year, singles downloaded digitally have increased but the largest area of growth has been the 14% increase in vinyl sales.

Unsurprisingly, the best-selling artists in vinyl format are releases and re-issues of classic rock and indie bands.

In 2010, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, originally released in 1969, sold the most copies closely followed by the likes Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan, as well as newer bands such as Arcade Fire. Shopping giant Amazon UK’s site now stocks more than a quarter of a million vinyl albums to meet the ever-increasing demand. The nostalgia attached to the process of selecting and setting up a vinyl from a carefully built up collection before playing is said to offer an actual listening experience which the ease of the CD and the instantly available MP3 can never replicate.

On a more technical side, music enthusiasts stress that as a result of the translation process into a digital format, required in both CD and digital download production, the sound quality of the recording is inferior to that of the vinyl. Vinyl formats are said to record exactly how the musician plays, retaining richness in tone lost in digital copies. This means is doubtful that the CD will ever acquire the same level of nostalgia as vinyl.

The change in media poses a threat that album artwork won’t be as important as in the pre-download era. There is no doubt that the digital age has signalled a change in emphasis of how we listen to and collect music.

Arguably, this change can be seen as extended to album artwork and reflected in its promotion. The once humble square design CD cover is now omnipresent all over cyberspace as a band’s icon on the internet, visible across many platforms and sites. iTunes and Spotify are among the most widely-used applications to listen and search for music. Both iTunes and Spotify storefronts’ display artists’ entire back catalogues in terms of original artwork in their database systems. In some respects, this makes the CD artwork, the artist’s calling card.

Pink Floyd, Nirvana and The Beatles do not only represent great bands: they have the most iconic album covers of all time. This extends for the treatment of their back catalogue, not just one stand-out record.

Glasgow’s very own Primal Scream has an iconic album cover to Screamadelica that supports the legacy that can be created through having such a powerful cover. It was among ten album covers for ‘Classic Album Cover’ postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail in January 2010. The album itself won the inaugural Mercury Music Award in 1992 and the band have recently toured the th album for its 20 anniversary.

Local Glasgow-based band Washington Irving released their debut EP last year with Scottish-born artist Ryan Hays providing the artwork that fits perfectly with the identity of the band. Their manager Ben Soep jointly runs the independent label Instinctive Raccoon. Ben advocates the importance of album artwork in music today: “I’d say the artwork is as much the identity of the band, as the music is. It is the first thing you see, whether it be physically or online, and if it’s good, it could attract you to listen to the music.”

The novelty of walking into a record shop and picking out albums whole-heartedly based on their artwork may seem an extreme thesis of arguing the case for quality artwork. That said, it is important to note the contribution of album artwork to a band’s overall image.

Albums are judged by their covers just as often music is judged by its image. The technology is changing but the need for artwork remains. Most models of iPods and mp3 players are designed so you can scroll through the entire catalogue based on the album artwork, giving you your own pocket jukebox complete with cover art. Music artwork has faced a tough transitional stage since the advent and implementation of digital media; a strong case supports the use of artwork on media applications as a key way to represent a bands image. (DH)

Sales figures have shown the cheaper and more readily accessible digital downloads are proving immensely more popular, with 98% of singles sold in digital format.

If CD production is to continue to be a viable aspect of the music industry, the product must be of a significantly higher standard than currently offered. Extra tracks, limited edition album art work and bonus features will have to become a norm as well as improve to entice us to part with the extra cash and make the effort to go out and buy them. As consumers, we should welcome the process of diversification which the music industry is Washington Irving release their next single in April 2011; currently experiencing as they battle to keep us buying. touring nationwide this year.

(LM) Background Image: Jenny Soep, Music Illustrator www.jennysoep.blogspot.com contact - info@jennysoep.com

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MANGO’S MOTH AND MOON Yasmin Ali meets Glasgow singer-songwriter Jo Mango to talk about low-key venues, slowburning AGAs and being described as freak folk.

Jo Mango, better known as a singer than a Glasgow student, started her advanced study of music at Glasgow over a decade ago, which she now pursues at doctoral level, being in her final year of a PhD in musicology. She first matriculated (albeit under another name) over ten years ago, and having previously studied two Masterslevel degrees in music, she is a veteran of Glasgow University’s prestigious Music Department.

Jo played many gigs at local unplugged showcase Jim’s Bar before joining the Celtic Connections scene and touring nationally and internationally in showcases, festivals, headlining, and as support. Favourite venues at which Jo has played around Glasgow include Brel, where she had a former residency, and city centre favourites Stereo and the Arches. Among Jo’s gig history are also unusual venues like Kibble Palace at the Botanics, and the city’s oldest venue, Britannia Panoptican Hall in the Merchant City.

Jo says she prefers to be “a slow-burner” regarding recognition and the music scene (“you’re an AGA!” I tell her, met with a smile). In terms of stars, fittingly, that would make her a Black Sun, rather than a White Dwarf.

Jo could have taken that well-worn commercial Radio 2 route to fame trod by other female singer-songwriters like Katie Melua, Norah Jones, and more recently, Rumer.

Instead, she values longevity over hype which can pressurise artists into early retirement.

She cites local successful bands Belle & Sebastian and Snow Patrol as precedents for the slow-but-steady approach to musical notoriety. Like her heroine, American artist Vashti Bunyan, Jo Mango’s style is based on folk, but she describes it as “not quite anti-folk”, favouring terms like “freak folk” and “new weird Americana”. First and foremost, Jo describes her work as “female singersongwriter, it’s weird that that’s a genre but it is”. Her work is carefully crafted in terms of both melody and rhythm and has a clear lyrical lean.

Jo recently toured internationally, supporting Bunyan, whose career began in the sixties, though it was only recently that she achieved cult status internationally.

She became a gypsy, living in self-imposed exile for over twenty years, a lifestyle choice prompted by lack of interest in her debut record (only around a hundred and fifty copies shifted). In the nineties, she married and moved to less rural Edinburgh where she learned via the Internet that her album was changing hands for around a thousand pounds per copy, which prompted her to reconsider touring. Her roller-coaster ride to fame has now led her to sell-out shows with audiences that include Neil Young, Lou Reed and REM’s Michael Stipe, providing excellent exposure for Jo as her support.

What so many artists perceive as ‘that difficult second album’ treatment is the pressure surrounding the need to deliver a sequel as powerful and exciting as their successful debut. For Jo, she had set the bar high with her 2006 first album Paperclips and Sand, which she describes as an anthology of all her songs previously written, her “growing-up album”. If that is the case, then her art finds maturity in this year’s follow-up The Moth and The Moon, featuring the single of the same name, as well as The Black Sun.

Excerpts from ‘The Black Sun’, taken from the album ‘The Moth and The Moon’ (2011), courtesy of Jo Mango / lo-five records.

The Words Behind the Music Jo has many strings to her bow and is also passionate about teaching, including adult education classes in songwriting. She uses her interactive group songwriting classes as a springboard to impart some of her passion and wisdom on devising lyrics. Devising lyrics is an aspect which, she notes from experience, students tend to find most difficult when composing. Here, she explains some lyrics from her new song, The Black Sun. “In a dream last night I spoke in tongues Calling out (like I was Adam)…

“A muster, a murder, a murmur A muster, a murder, a murmur A crow, a stork, a starling”…

Great clouds of them filled the skies They fell through roofs and into pies”

“This is the ‘dream sequence’ out of ‘The Black Sun’. The whole song is about the nature of language, and how much I love it, but at the same time I find it a bit torturous and problematic. Foucault, when he was describing that, said there was a “black sun” at the heart of language - we think it illuminates but really it darkens and there is death there. “The Black Sun” is also the name they give massive flocks or ‘murmurations’ of starlings that blot out the sky at dusk.

I combined these images together to make this dark and slightly surreal song.

I’m also fond of this lyric because I have always loved the vast array of collective nouns the English language has to describe groups of animals, so I was glad to get a few of them in a song too.”

‘The Black Sun’ is available on a special pressing of double-etched vinyl as a double A-side 10” single with limited-edition print and digital download, available online from lofive records.

Photography: courtesy of Jo Mango and Lo-five Records Bird artwork: adapted by Yasmin Ali from Jo Mango’s album artwork

VIP AT UNI

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Scandinavian socialite and it-girl CP resists the typical student experience and lives college life the glam way.

FRIDAY: A friend from my course, Alessandra, came back from watching the F1 races in Abu Dhabi and is dying to fill me in on all the deets! In an attempt to make our get-together a little more academic, we plan to go to an exhibition opening which one of our lovely lecturers is curating.

SATURDAY: It’s cold, damp and full of knifeOf course, there had to be another art gallery wielding teens: safe to say, it will take a lot more ‘do’ simultaneously opposite our venue and we than compulsory attendance to lure this Hot Mess initially end up in the wrong one! Only after the into Glasgow three times a week. My way of second glass of fizz we realize that the art on solving the problem? Join a brand spankin’ new the wall seems totally unfamiliar. Maybe after a spa! Yes a spa, not a gym. Forget the Stevenson few more glasses it might have... but anyway, we building; I don’t want to get athlete’s foot or run along across the road to the right venue, and wait around for the water-polo team to finish find ourselves fashionably late. Our lecturer is their antics before I can actually swim a lap or holding a talk and thankfully doesn’t notice us two. Paying for a membership where you lounge arriving at the back; thank God I’m wearing fur, around being pampered instead of shelling out it at least cushions some of the noise! After, we for pain, sweat and queuing is far more logical; meet up with our boys, who join us for dinner especially when the spa showed preferential and free cocktails at Voo treatment surtout pour moi Doo Rooms’ birthday party... by waiving my £500+ joining needless to say, our attempt fee – that helped, too. It’ll “Surely the Irish can’t at an academic encounter make that commute from afford to shop at Chanel was only partly a success!

Edinburgh that extra bit these days, right?” desirable when I know that I’ll SUNDAY: Any excuse to get a be clearing out my pores in a new pair of shoes, and this time it’s the snow. hammam after being stuck in tiny lecture theatre How can I let my taupe Bottega Veneta riding breathing the same air as hungover students. A boots get ravaged by ice and grit walking along dip in the jacuzzi, replenishing your vitamin D Byres Road!? Especially when I can buy weather in the Real Sunlight Room or a seaweed bath? friendly biker boots from... Chanel. Ever since If you can’t stay in Saint-Tropez forever (oh how I saw them at Papa Karl’s pop-up-store in the I miss it already!), why not bring Saint-Tropez to south of France I‘ve been thinking about them you? in the way you think about great sex you had with an ex, only this time I can make daydreams TUESDAY: The great thing about my part-time come true. I call the Chanel store in Manchester job is variety. Not only do I get a break from uni only to find out that they have sold out in the to get to style clients and see the latest runway UK! This cannot be! Refusing Mancunian defeat, collections before anyone else, I also get to plan I contact the Chanel store in Dublin. Surely events which includes casting, yes, male models. the Irish can’t afford to shop at Chanel these The Multree’s Walk event is due in a week’s time days, right? Surprisingly, they had sold out, but and assistant buyer Charisma and I are pressed located a pair in my size in Barcelona; they can for time to find some hunky male models to serve transfer them over for me and then ship them cocktails at our winter-themed event. “They’re to sunny Scotland A.S.A.P! I was elated that I gonna be wearing puffer jackets, so they have to had called Dublin and done my bit for the Irish be really beefed up in order for their physique to economy. Shame about Manchester - all of those shine through under all of that duck down”, says WAG’s must have softened those poor sales Charisma anxiously. We trail through the top assistant’s brains to mush. Not the customer modelling agencies’ portfolios to find a selection service a true VIP should be getting, but at least of buffed up Viking snow-gods, and manage to now I know to head over the sea if I want to narrow it down to five sculpted physiques. Seems be tended to properly. Providing the weather to be the best that Scotland has to offer – for doesn’t make it impossible until, what, April? moi, just another hard day at work...

Yours truly, C.P.

Collage/Photography: By the author

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BACK PAGE Have you got what it takes to be next Editor of GUM? Maybe you’re the perfect fit for Photo Editor?

Or want to be next Music Editor?

GUM is looking for new blood to take over the magazine next year.

Drop us an email with a CV and covering letter to: gum@src.gla.ac.uk and be the GUM team.

You are what you read. *glasgow university magazine / spring - summer 2011 / free