FOR THE REST OF US
£2 ISS 32/JAN
/ ABOUT
A magazine about trends, style, opinion, music, art, fashion, film, events, pubs, clubs and restaurants, along with a few abstract articles and everything else in between that we feel bears relevance to our current day to day living in this brilliant capital - London ~ Jack Loves You More
FROM JACK
2009- to quote Twinkle and Tinsel’s recent show- ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ Last year was a hard one for many. Every letter of the celebrity alphabet took a hit, the recession claimed our jobs and our spending power, more troops were lost in Iraq, it seemed the year had been under some bad stars or planetary eclipse- if you believe in such things. Jack battled on through it’s own fair share of knocks, as did the team. But, like the troupers we are, we took each knock on the chin, then asked for another and powered on to the end of 09 which thankfully was not completely devoid of highlights. On the positive side we came back into A4 print, an event punctuated by what many described as a New York squat party. We managed to avoid a night in A&E after that pesky port-a-loo door incident. John and Laura joined the team, James left it - sort of. We had a brilliant exhibition full of our photographers and contributing artists, recorded our own Christmas song, made a lot of new friends including one who insisted on bringing us cooked pumpkin & chicken and one who liked to talk about transvestites. And lastly but by no means least, we welcomed Josh Spero as Contributing Features Editor and Aradia Crockett as Contributing Fashion Editor. So onto this year where we will be reaching even more of you thanks to your stockist suggestions. A full list of stockists can be found on the website www. whosjack.org (which has had its own revamp) or in our back pages. We have good feelings about 2010. Happy New Year from all of us at Jack. Lu x
/ TEAM JACK CONTRIBUTORS
Jack Walker
Josh Spero
Alan Mcgee
We can’t quite remember where or how we spotted Jack (twitter?) but we’re glad we did. He has already done us an amazing logo for a project year to be announced and a double page spread layout in this issue that’s hard to top. Worth keeping an eye on. See his excellent work on page 12. www.pandamilk.com
Josh has been a good friend of Jack’s for what must be three years now. He has gone to the pastures of luxury magazines now but comes back to our pages to be our Contributing Features Editor. This issue Josh asks some pretty appropriate questions to our Political Parties.
Creator of Creation Records, Death Disco, Alan Mcgee is the only man to go to for music predictions. After a spell guest editing our blog and being featured in our Runners to Riches regular as ‘Music Mogul’ Alan is back to grace our pages with his thoughts on the ones to watch for 2010. All bands mentioned can be looked up in detail on www.toocooltodie.com
Pandamilk
Senior Editor, Spears
Music Mogul
// ISSUE 32 . JANUARY . 2010 \\
5. Jack Loves : Elliott Rooney.
6. Josh Weller :
Laura talks to Josh about Paloma Faith, Joss Stone’s vomit and being an unexpected icon in France.
FEATURES / REGULARS
54.Capital Cocktails :
Bourne and Hollingsworth and building your own bar.
56. Leila Likes : Hangover cures
58. Dance From the Ashes : 11. Men’s Fashion :
Simon says maybe it’s time for an apology?
12.Party Talk :
Josh on the general election. Who’s fighting our corner?
16. Fashion :
‘Get the London Look’
Neda takes a look at what the 90s has left us.
62. Kid British
James has a chat to the boys about their new collaborations.
64. Bucky LItch :
Boys will be boys.
65. Review One Liners :
22. Pick of The Month :
Out with the new, in with the old.
What you should be buying, downloading and binning.
24. What can we expect from 2010? :
65. Baked Beans and Champagne :
25. Music : Alan Mcgee tells us who to watch out for in 2010. 27. Fashion: Leila gathers together her pick of designers. 29. Beauty: Laura looks at enhancements 30. Art: Ruthie’s pick of upcoming talent.
33. Photo Story:
London under construction by Barry Macdonald
42. Supper Clubs :
Candidate : 60 x 80 the ‘queer eye for the straight guy [and gay guy]’ travel guide.
66. NY Year Resolutions :
A look at Benrik’s ‘This Book Will Change Your Life’
68. Photo Story :
My Lodz Paradox by Victor Frankowski
76. Diary of Arthur Cadaver :
Segmented novel from Marco Casadei
79. Jack Drinks : Zaloufs
Benrik has sparked a trend and now they are everywhere.
80. I Love You For Loving Me :
45. My 2-4-1 Pound Life :
81. Jack Sleeps :
Lucy takes a dabble into the ‘cool’.
46. Fashion :
Men Outdoors, wrap up warm.
‘Nothings tastes as good as skinny feels’
Hotel Rafayal
82. Scene Stealer : Get Tested launch
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SH*T OF THE MONTH
We thought about making this a special edition Sh*t of the Month and doing a year end round up. Then we realised that was far too self indulgent, not to mention it would take up too many pages. We’re not a grumpy bunch, honest it’s just some people/things/ situations are, to put it bluntly, unavoidably sh*t. For a start, the people who took over the downstairs of our office and decided that, throughout the set up (two days) of their event it was necessary to test the PA system everyday. This resulted in a lot of spilt coffee, unheard phone conversations and stamping on the floor. Camden thieves are another sh*tty experience. Poor Laura got her purse pick pocketed between M&S and the office on her lunch break after having the additional knock of being banned from M&S freebie chocolate giveaways because she ‘comes every day and has had enough’. The London Overground is another perpetrator that has caused us many a woe towards the end of 09 as, unlike the tube whoever looks after the Overground trains had not been listening to any severe weather warnings. Obviously the powers that be were content with the decision to do nothing in preparation and just hope that it worked come heavy snow fall - it didn’t. John, I’m sorry, but your going in here too. John likes to tell us he knows short cuts, usually when it’s snowing and when we are late - enough said. Obviously Robert Patterson has to go in Sh*t of the Month for not being our communal boyfriend along with the woman that mans the phone at Dominos - you can’t charge us more than the amounts on your website. And finally- spew on the street, ladies of the night who don’t want to be interviewed and banging your knee on a Pizza Express table (it’s like the all powerful Domino, god of pizza was getting his own back). Bye Bye 09.
Editor/Creative Director : Lu Orcheston-Findlay : louise@whos-jack.co.uk // Advertising Who’s Jack Magazine print/online/This is Jack TV : John Parkes : john@whos-jack.co.uk // Contributing Features Editor : Josh Spero : jpspero@yahoo.com Contributing Fashion Editor : Aradia Crockett : aradia.crockett@googlemail.com Music : James Lynch : james@whos-jack.co.uk // Pick Of : Lu Orcheston-Findlay : louise@whos-jack.co.uk // Laura Hills : laura@whos-jack.co.uk Fashion Comment : Leila Dante Hartley : leila@whos-jack.co.uk // Editorial Intern : Laura Hills : laura@whos-jack.co.uk Jack Stylists : Lu Orcheston-Findlay : louise@whos-jack.co.uk // Aartthie Mahakuperan : Arti@whos-jack.co.uk // General Comment : Adam Roan Henderson : adam@whos-jack.co.uk // Photography : Barry Macdonald : www.barrymacdonald.co.uk : info@barrymacdonald.co.uk // Kristoffer Myhre : www.krismyhre.com // Stuart Leech : www.music-photos.co.uk // lu-xx.com // Eddie Jacob : www.eddiejacob.co.uk // Victor Frankowski : vicfrankowski@gmail.com // Joanna Marach www.joanna-marach.com //Andrea Bono Tempo // Tom Mattey //Daniela Heinrich // Sarah Cresswell // Contributing writers : Marco Casadei // Jason Gregory // Ruthie Holloway // Lucy Hancock // Jo Hunt // Jeremy Williams // Mark Williams // Harry Amos // Philippa Abbott // Erin Daniel Mckee // James Lynch // Laura Hills // Jessica Ainlay // Doireann Ronayne // Neda Shadanlou www. neda-shadanlou.blogspot.com // Alan Mcgee : www.toocooltodie.com // Contributing Stylists : Beata Hadas : www.hadasbeata.pl // Aradia Crockett : www.fashionstylists.co.uk Illustrations : James Lightfoot // Elliot Rooney : www.elliottrooney.com // Jack Walker : www.pandamilk.com //Jaki Jo : www.jakijo.com Models : Charlotte : Model Plus // Barefaced Theatre Group Hair & Make up : Joanna Bernacka-Pettit // Cover Image : Sarah Cresswell Want to see your work in Jack? Contributions : contributions.jack@googlemail.com Thanks to : Barefaced Theatre Group // Camden Town Unlimited // Who’s Jack Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part with out the permission of Who’s Jack. The opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily the opinions of Who’s Jack. Who’s Jack Ltd can not be held responsible for any breach of copyright arising from any material supplied. Who’s Jack, 93 Barker Drive, Camden, London, NW1 0JG
JACK
LOVES
ELLIOTT ROONEY
Elliott has been illustrating pieces for us for some time now and we are thoroughly honoured to have his work in our pages. He recently took part in our exhibition where his prints went like hotcakes, if anyone’s storming into 2010 it’s Elliott. We wish him the best of luck and hope to see more of his pieces on our pages soon! www.elliottrooney.com
Josh Weller, 23
, is a man who isn’t
afraid of admitting who he is and what he’s trying to achieve. Unlike many others Josh happily admits he’s here to make good ‘pop’ music. A title others tend to shy away from.
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words: Laura Hills images : Stuart Leech
The unintentional hair style icon (he’s recently cut most of it off, bored of the attention it was receiving) is in the process of recording demos and working on an album. Who’s Jack caught up with him to talk getting signed, his performing BFF Paloma Faith, Joss Stone’s vomit and being an unexpected icon in France. “I don’t know why but ever since I was born music’s always been my thing. Growing up I listened to a lot of glam rock and pop because that’s what my parents listened to. I didn’t listen to jazz so much, that was music I kind of found on my own when I got older. I learnt lots of instruments growing up but I was never particularly good at any of them,” remembers Josh. It seems quite impressive then, that Josh plays almost every instrument on his records only recruiting other band members when he performs live. “I started playing the drums when I was about nine and then I had piano lessons for a bit but I didn’t enjoy that very much so I turned to the drums which, to me made a lot more sense. I think because they were loud. When I was about 14 I started playing the guitar. I’m not a very good pianist or guitar soloist so I tend to get people in to do those bits for me on tour.” Josh hasn’t always flown solo and was in bands up until the age of 18. Nor has he always been a strictly ‘pop’ man having previously been in punk bands. It was only when he moved to London two years ago that Josh decided to go it alone. “It makes much more sense for me to be by myself, I don’t really want to be in a band because I’m a bit of a control freak. I like being in charge of everything but on the down side, there’s no one else to blame if I mess up.”
Josh has become somewhat of a performing side kick to the now chart topping, ginger ball of energy that is Paloma Faith. Josh has just finished touring around the UK and France with her and has also recorded several songs with Paloma including their Christmas song last year entitled, It’s Christmas And I Hate You, as well as several other covers. “I met her through Chilli from
The Noisettes in a hotel in Liverpool Street. I remember they were both dressed up as Tim Burton type, burlesque dancers and I looked at Paloma and thought she was amazing. I became friends with her guitarist and through that I became friends with Paloma. She’s a crazy girl. I got asked to do a Christmas album last year and I ended up doing three songs which
were all quite orchestrated so I wanted to duet with someone. I tried a few people who couldn’t do it and then I asked Paloma and she said yes and we ended up writing a Christmas song about a couple that hated each other. I actually wrote a song for her album, although it didn’t actually make it on but, eh, what can you do?,” laughs Josh. It’s not just Paloma Faith who’s felt the charms of this slightly awkward, yet unbelievably polite, charming singer. The list of people Josh has played with over the past few years is endless. Most notably Patrick Wolf, Little Boots, The Noisettes and The Maccabees. “I loved touring with the Maccabees,” says Josh. “I also played with Florence And The Machine who was f**king amazing. I wasn’t sure what to expect from her because normally when people hit the big time from the indie circuit they can become a bit overrated but she was incredible. I literally walked away from watching her perform with my mouth open. She’s just got ‘it.’ Whatever ‘it’ is.” At the moment Josh is in the process of recording demos and getting signed and he’s the first to admit that his career has been a slow builder, often playing gigs he didn’t really want to play (he once performed in a Starbucks at 9am on a Saturday and didn’t even get offered a free coffee) and putting in the hours in the recording studio. “I’m in the process of being signed at the moment so I’m writing lots and recording demos in time for me to start my album in the next month or so. Hopefully I’ll go on to do a tour but I’m really nervous about that as I’ve never
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‘Paloma Faith, Joss Stone’s vomit and an unexpected icon in France.’
headlined anything before. I still don’t think I’m big enough to front a tour all on my own so maybe I’ll do some more supporting tours and then see what happens. My career has definitely taken it’s time to kick off, I’m not one of those people who stuff happens to over night, I’ve always had to work hard at it. A lot of people start bands and are snapped up straight away but for me it’s definitely been a DIY thing.” Josh’s big break finally came when a friend brought a lawyer along to one of his shows who instantly fell in love with Josh’s music and made it his own personal mission to tell everyone he knew about Josh Weller. “He told record labels and publishers about me. It’s a funny thing, you spend ages trying to get noticed and nothing happens so you kind of give up and then it happens. It’s a bit like when you’re looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend, the moment you stop looking for one, one comes along. Getting signed is no different to that in my opinion. I’ve only just started to get attention from labels,” says Josh who is then quick to back track in a way that shows he’s constantly worried about either jinxing himself or coming across as too arrogant, “I’m under no illusions though, I haven’t even made an album. It could all still go wrong.” Josh Weller’s music is mainly observation stuff, his earlier music could have lead him towards being categorised as a kind of male Kate Nash,
however this seems to be something he’s pushing away from a bit. “My songs used to be about other people but more recently they’ve become a lot more personal and more about me. I like to think my songs are good quirky pop songs. My newest stuff is inspired by 80’s pop rock. I never know what inspires my music. All I know is I want to make decent pop records. Right now I’m just winging it and hoping it works.” Josh’s fans come in many different forms and amongst them is fashion photographer Rankin who asked Josh to appear in his recently released ‘Destroy’ book, where artists (of which Josh was the only one unsigned) were asked to take a picture of themselves and make it represent them more. “They sent me examples of what other people had done, Jarvis Cocker painted his, Joss stone put vomit on hers, which says a lot about what she thinks about her music, but I had no idea what to do so I wrote him a letter of apology on the picture explaining why I couldn’t do it. A few people at the book launch were like, ‘Oh my God it’s amazing, I really get what you’re trying to say here.’ It’s kind of ironic as I had no idea what I was doing. Joss Stone was at the launch of the book and the whole way through my set she was just chatting away which I found pretty rude,” remembers Josh, although I get the impression he’s
never truly angry with anyone. He’s far too relaxed about absolutely everything including the fact he’s become some what of an unexpected icon in France following a performance with the French Pop Idol winner. He went on to sell out a show in just ten minutes over there, a mean feat for someone who wasn’t even signed, although when I put this to Josh he shies away from the flattery simply saying, “Yeah, that was weird.” In his song Circus, Josh likens himself to life’s ‘freaks and midgets’. This in itself goes some way to showing, perhaps, how Josh sees himself. Until recently his hair stood on end, several inches tall (think Marge Simpson) but he cut it off as he was bored of being asked about it in interviews. He is rarely seen without a bow tie and some sort of retro tweed suit and slightly-too-short trousers with brightly coloured socks, not a style everyone can pull off. “I’m not into fashion at all,” says Josh, “but I do like to look good. I love old school jazz singers like Chet Baker and comedians like Woody Allen and I guess I take inspiration from them. I’ve never wanted to conform and dress like other people, although it does bother me when sometimes the way I look is the only thing people are interested in.” Trust us Josh, that is definitely not all people are interested in and the sooner you start believing that the better.
SIMON SAYS It was interesting at the end of the last year to watch as new trousers shapes began to emerge in the style pages of various fashion magazines. After the seemingly insuperable dominance of the skinny silhouette, men are now, if anything, being challenged to do the complete opposite. Formal trousers, for example, can be slouchy or even rolled up and worn without socks, while the carrot-fit shape is slowly transforming itself into this season’s skinny. But by far and the most unexpected and, indeed, exigent is the return of trousers cut high on the waist. After all, who can forget the rough time Simon Cowell gave this shape when he regularly belted his bootcuts around his larynx? It was only after years of media scrutiny that the
Jason Gregory
FASHION FOR THE BOYS
X Factor mogul finally looked at a picture of himself and admitted: “Christ, I look ridiculous.” But even that wasn’t enough to taint the look’s status with the masses. On Facebook, for instance, a well-supported group is calling on the government to make wearing a pair “a recognised and punishable offence”. The offender, they claim, is simply “doing a Cowell”. The members of ‘All Men Wearing High Waisted Trousers - Seek Medical Attention Immediately’ should, however, cast their minds back to a time before talent shows - or simply go and buy a Mad Men box set. After all, it’s 1960s tailoring a razor sharp cut and period details, fit enough for the boardroom - that categorises the majority of high-waist trousers that have made it from the catwalk to the High Street this season. Both Mjolk and Carolyn Massey’s autumn-winter collections evoke the spirit of Don Draper, albeit in Massey’s case with a slightly narrower militant silhouette. And that’s something that’s also evident in Haversack’s line, which is based on blocks and patterns from traditional military uniforms. It’s perhaps no surprise, therefore, that a pair of high-waist trousers work best when coupled with a tucked-in granddad or a smart dress shirt and jacket, although there are more casual options to be found. Of course, it remains to be seen how many of us myself included - will take the plunge into a pair this season. For many the looming memory of Simon Cowell may prove just too much. But with fashion’s current feeling of détente towards anything other than skinny, it’s at least worth a try.
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Layout and design : Pandamilk
s you will soon be aware (if you’re not already), there has to be a general election this year. (Unless Gordon Brown goes mad and refuses to leave Parliament, cowering on the front bench and going, “They’re all out to get me.”) As you may have also noticed, for the first time in a good number of years, it is very much up for grabs. The Tories are threatening a major comeback under David Cameron, while Gordon Brown may still be able to rally the Labour troops, and if – as some suspect – no party wins an overall majority and there’s a hung parliament, the Lib Dems under Nick Clegg may play kingmaker. So every vote counts more now than for the past decade. That’s why Who’s Jack, at the beginning of the election year, talked to (or tried to talk to) the three main political parties to hear what they had to say to you, our readers, about the issues which concern you and how they might react to them in government. I say ‘tried to’ because I approached all three parties on the same day, sent their press office an email with all the same questions, gave them all the same deadline and then followed up with all three. The only party who thought you were worth talking to were the Conservatives: they got their answers back very quickly. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t vote Labour or Lib Dem just because they haven’t participated in this survey, but a) they’re not telling you their views, so you can’t make a balanced judgement; and b) they apparently don’t care enough to reply. Draw your own conclusions. So here are the Conservative Party’s answers to Jack’s questions. As for Labour and the Lib Dems, who knows? The final thing I would add is that make sure you do vote: it’s not just your right, it’s your duty, and if you don’t vote now, you can’t complain later on.
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Crime
Jobs and Education Q: I have been looking for a job without success since I left university last June. How will your party: a) help me find a job; and b) help me if I can’t? Will you be creating training/mentoring schemes for the young or increasing jobseekers’ allowance? A: Conservatives will give more help to young unemployed people. At the moment young people have to wait until they have been unemployed for up to a year before they receive proper specialist support to help them find work. We think that’s too long, so we will guarantee all young people personalised support to find work after a maximum of six months unemployment. We will also create hundreds of thousands of new apprenticeships and training places to help young people get the skills they need to get into work, as well as new support for young people who want to set up their own businesses. As well as providing more help to the unemployed we need to get the economy growing again to ensure there are jobs out there for everyone. Crucial to this is banks beginning to lend again. For nearly a year, we have been calling for a National Loan Guarantee Scheme to underwrite bank lending to businesses, to save businesses and protect jobs. And we think that instead of paying out significant cash bonuses, retail banks should be rebuilding their balance sheets so they can start lending to businesses again. To encourage new businesses and entrepreneurs we will abolish tax on the jobs created by new businesses in the first two years of a Conservative Government. Any new business started in the first two years of a Conservative Government will pay no Employer National Insurance on the first ten employees it hires during its first year. Q: I am trying to start my own music/ fashion business but have little business or financial experience: how will you help me? A: The Conservatives believe Britain has some incredibly talented people and, as part of our plan to tackle Labour’s jobs crisis and get Britain working, we aim to create a new
generation of self-employed entrepreneurs. We are very keen to help those who want to start music or fashion businesses. Britain arguably has the best music business in the world and certainly one of the world’s best fashion industries – this year’s London Fashion Week provided a tremendous showcase for the creativity of our people and their potential for the future. We will support business start-ups, including new franchised businesses. Our Work for Yourself programme would build a network of business mentors from industries like music and fashion to support those who need help with advice about the basics. We would also offer substantial loans to would-be entrepreneurs. We will also work with specialist organizations that already have a proven track record in this area, like the Prince’s Trust and the Bright Ideas Trust, to offer the best support.
Q: I have to work evenings to pay for my degree and it’s taking too much time away from my studies: will you reduce tuition fees? A: We have to be honest about the fact that, given the dire state of the public finances, a full state subsidy for higher education is simply not an option. But we have to ensure that no one who could gain from university is put off by the prospect of debt, that part-time students get decent support, and that those who cannot afford to pay are given as much help as possible. We believe that the level of tuition fees should not be decided by politicians making promises they can’t keep, but on the basis of expert advice from people who really understand the system. An independent review of the tuition fees system is the right way to address these issues, and we are glad that the Government has finally agreed to hold one. Now that the review has started, it would be wrong to pre-judge it, but we hope that a fairer deal for part-time students forms a significant part of its conclusions.
Q: I was the victim of a mugging at knifepoint last week: how are you going to make the streets safer? A: The first thing we need to do is cut police paperwork, so that we can get more police officers back on to our streets fighting crime. We would also give police greater powers to stop and search people for weapons. We have to send a clear message that carrying a knife on our streets is completely inexcusable. That’s why we think that anyone found guilty of carrying a knife should expect to go to jail, not just get a slap on the wrist. We also have to look at why people commit crime, and tackle issues such as drug addiction and poor education. Daily Life Q: I hear that you’re thinking of charging 50p per unit of alcohol, which is going to make an evening out really expensive: are you actually going to do this? A: Some health professionals have called for a minimum price per unit of alcohol, to discourage people from binge-drinking. However, this is not Conservative Party policy as we do not think that a minimum price for alcohol would be the right approach. Instead, we would increase taxes on the particular drinks that help cause disorder and public health problems, such as alcopops and super-strength cider. This way, we do not hit the vast majority of law-abiding, responsible drinkers. Q: I need to get broadband coverage but I can’t yet: what will you do to expand this? A: We are equally committed to the Government’s idea of providing universal broadband coverage of 2 Mbps by 2012 and support the idea of using surplus from the Digital Switchover fund to pay for this where necessary. Q: I’ve heard that people who illegally download files will be cut off from the internet: are you proposing this?
A: We have not ruled out the temporary suspension of internet access for serial serious offenders. We do, however, think the Government ought to be doing more to tackle this problem in other areas. For example there ought to be more of an emphasis put on education and the encouragement of new commercial models which reduce internet piracy. Q: Are you going to waste more of my taxes on the Olympics? A: We are committed to working within
the budget set by the current Government on the Olympics. We have no plans to spend any additional funds on the Games.
Politics Q: I’m very disillusioned after the MPs’ expenses scandal: why should I vote at all? A: To give people hope for the future,
the country needs to change direction, and the best way to influence that is to vote. Conservatives have bold plans to deal with the big problems the country faces. To deal with Labour’s jobs crisis we have published our detailed plan to Get Britain Working. Labour are now the party of unemployment – we are the party of new jobs and new opportunities. Unlike Gordon Brown, we won’t duck them and treat the British people like fools.
Q: How are you going to stop such scandals in the future? A: Conservatives have accepted in full, Sir Christopher Kelly’s report into reforming the expenses system. It is important we say that, from now on, Members of Parliament should not vote on their own pay, expenses, pensions, terms of service, resettlement or expenses packages. This is an essential part of restoring faith in Parliament and politics. However, there was not one mention of expenses or the Kelly report in the Queen’s Speech. People simply won’t understand why, instead of the measures in the Queen’s Speech – most
of which won’t become law by the next election – the Government won’t implement these vital measures that, with our help, could become law by the next election.
Environment and Transport Q: I’d like to cycle to work every day, but I don’t think it’s safe and there aren’t always cycle routes. How will you change this? A: A Conservative Government will be committed to encouraging more cycling. Therefore we have announced that we will review the way our highways are managed so that the concerns of cyclists are given a higher priority. Conservative local administrations, such as Boris in London, have already shown that an innovative approach to cycling – such as better cycle lanes, better junction design and cycling super highways – can do a lot to encourage people to cycle, and we will support further innovations, such as cyclist turn left on red. We will also give local authorities the power to take a fresh look at road safety in their area, without having to rely so heavily on fixed speed cameras – to ensure that the best possible schemes are promoted to make our roads as safe as possible for pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers alike. Q: The Tube and buses are so
expensive: will you bring prices down or introduce some sort of young persons’ discount scheme?
A: This is an issue for City Hall. International Q: I’d like the government to support fair trade schemes to help Africa: how are you going to help the developing world?
A: The Conservative Party has pledged, by 2013, to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income as aid. But Britain’s generosity must be combined with a tough new approach to getting value for money from our aid. We need to make sure every penny does the most good possible. That’s why a Conservative Government will: • •
• • • •
•
Set up an Independent Aid Watchdog to scrutinise the impact and outcomes of British aid. Move towards Results-Based Aid, where money is handed to governments only once development results have been achieved - rather than giving all the money up front based on promises that it will be spent well. Focus our aid on the countries where it will make the biggest difference. Spend £500 million a year to save lives by tackling malaria. Empower people in poor countries by giving them more control over how aid is spent. Strengthen public support for aid by giving British people a vote 15 over where and how some of their aid is spent. Re-emphasise wealth creation through business development and trade.
Q: I am opposed to the war in Afghanistan and don’t think our troops should be there: will you pull them out? A: Our troops are there to protect our national security. Our aim is to be able to leave behind a stable enough Afghanistan, able to maintain its own internal and external security, free from external interference. That’s why we need to train up the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police; the faster they can take over responsibility for Afghan security, the faster our troops can come home. If we leave too early, and we fail, we send a signal to jihadists worldwide that we don’t have the moral resolve to see our mission through, and that could cause potentially fatal damage to Nato, which is the cornerstone of this country’s defence.
GET THE LOND LOO
T E DON OK... 17
photographer - Joanna Marach | hair & makeup - Joanna Bernacka-Pettit | styling- Beata Hadas | model- Charlotte/ Model Plus
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Uggs. Yes they’ve been around for a very long time now, and yes some of you hate them. But I don’t care what anyone says, in this weather you can’t deny the appeal. Maybe Uggs should have the Marmite tagline? Those who love them will never not have a pair and those that hate them just haven’t tried a pair on yet. www.uggaustralia.com
Frances-rose-is, is- a great label that centers around silver tie pins like the ones above, and a hand crafted, great selection of short, skinny and cross over ties. Prices start around £45.00. www.frances-rose-is.com
Phillips Massager - This sensual Massager’s rippled tip adds a new dimension of stimulation to your touch, and an extra erotic charge from the vibrating sensations. Perfect for seeing out the rest of the winters nights. www.shop.philips.co.uk £49.99
Lumix DMC GF1 There are a few mini SLRs on the market at the moment, great when you don’t want to carry a big camera case around. Or if you want to be like Kevin Spacey. www.jessops.com £549
Hip Flasks. We’re all skint so why not revert back to early teenage years and put your tipple in one of these, and then in your pants or bra to avoid embarrassment at the door.* Urban Outfitters hip flask. www.urbanoutfitters.co.uk £12.00
Bourjois smoky eyes- a great look to cover up those late, New Year nights. Available at boots £6.49. www.bourjois.co.uk
Olympus Pen This slick little player has an excellent lens and fits easily in the pocket alongside your hip flask full of illegal alcohol (see above). Thanks to Kevin Spacey for bringing it to our attention. www.jessops.com £569
Soda Stream is back. This magical kitchen appliance re-emerged at the end of last year. We have one in the office. The drinks aren’t amazing but finally being aloud to put the bubbles in, could be, for some, a life long ambition. www.sodastream.co.uk £59.98
Reebok Pump Twilight Zone If your bank balance has survived the festive period we suggest starting the new year with these. www.Reebok.com/Store £90.00
JACK’S PICK OF THE MONTH IT’S A NEW YEAR SO WHY NOT BRING BACK SOME OLD FAVOURITES. WE HAVE CLASSIC TRAINERS, ALTS TO GLOBAL HYPER COLOUR T-SHIRTS AND MONEY SAVING TIPS. *Jack doesn’t suggest you actually do this as effectively ripping off rip off bars is wrong. Name Frames Choose your letters and your pictures to make a word of your choice. Plenty of room here for creativity! We have one hanging on our office wall and it’s a sight to behold. www.nameframeseurope.com from £119
ABODE AROMA
Reebok Classic Etched Junior Bring back the Reebok Classic from a time when trainers were just as affordable as plimpsols. This old fave of chavs the world over should be reclaimed as they are a bargain and, we think, pretty cool. www.sportsdirect.com £21.99
Leading Australian brand, Abode Aroma makes high quality aromatic diffusers, which are perfect for gifts… or as a self indulgent treat to create a sumptuous signature fragrance to set the mood for forthcoming Valentine’s Day celebrations or to give your flat a treat after Christmas partying. There are thirteen fragrances including Pink Grapefruit - with its lively fragrance of fresh pink grapefruit, touched with wild rose, making a sparkling blend of citrus and floral notes - and Black Bamboo with Verbena – a modern scent with black bamboo shoots and white flowers, with the heady experience of sandalwood, patchouli and vanilla. A much better choice than the quick to burn scented candle, Abode Aroma’s fragrances certainly stand the test of time. Abode Aroma diffusers are also completely recycle-able, so a far cry beyond the plastic packaging of some other room fragrances. You can find Abode Aroma in exclusive retailers, including Liberty and GeneralTrading, leading independent department stores such as Fenwick and Bentalls, and local boutique independent retailers throughout the UK.
Christopher Kane, Atomic T Christopher Kane has teamed up with US store, Opening Ceremony to bring us these atomic bomb T-shirts. They remind us a bit of Hyper Colour T’s only along with the obvious benefit of being far cooler, these ones won’t show up your sweaty armpits. Christopher’s collections are at www.Topshop.com/ChristopherKane also. www.openingceremony.us £185
For full details of UK stockists call 01829 730028, or for online stockists visit www.acassa.co.uk or www.amara.co.uk Abode Aroma 200ml Aromatic Diffusers : £25.00 rrp.and Abode aromatic hand-poured 35 hour candle : £12.00 - £15.00.
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REAL ESTATE
20 09 was a tough year for many. It seems fair to say everyone had their own share of misfortunes, as mentioned in our editors letter, for the most part 2009 was pretty bleak. But now 09 is done and we are looking forward, expectant and excited at 2010, the tenties maybe? Or the teenies, who knows but what we do know is that you have a load to look forward to already and the following pages are our round up of just that. Alan Mcgee takes us through his predictions on the music scene for 2010, Leila has gathered together the designers ready to break through the glass ceiling and into our wardrobes. Laura takes a look at what we can expect from the beauty world and our Baked Beans and Champagne columnist, Ruthie takes us through who’s gearing up to smash the London art scene post 09. If you are reading this thinking you should be in our ones to watch then let us know : press@whos-jack.co.uk.
PEARL HARBOR
MUSIC
RAS G
WORDS : ALAN MCGEE
THE VORTEX
YOUNG PRISMS
Alan Mcgee had a brilliant spell editing our blog earlier this year and gave us a run down of new acts to look out for. Now he returns to grace our pages with his ideas on what’s coming in 2010. All the bands below can also be looked up on www.toocooltodie.com, a site that if you have any amount of nonce you will keep an eye on throughout 2010. And with no further ado- here they are. Agile Beast: Agile Beast blew me away when we had them down for a gig at Greasy Lips (at Brixton Jamm). The purpose of the club is to highlight new British musical talent. Agile Beast was nothing less than intensity itself. The energy was reminiscent of the early Arctic Monkeys when they hit the pop scene (and indeed the band named themselves after the Arctic Monkeys sloganeering). When an unknown band to get hundreds of people moving to their original songs on a night out you know you are onto something good. They have taken the hip hop of the Streets and Jamie T and re-contextualised it for the electric guitar generation, somehow transforming themselves into the Happy Mondays. www.myspace.com/agilebeastmusic Real Estate: This shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. The New Jersey band have been releasing side projects over the past year, whether it be the pop drone bliss
TORO Y MOI
of Ducktails or the Neil Young stomps of Alex Bleeker and the Freaks. What Real Estate have shown the internet is that - you needn’t worry about timing. And indeed, their amazing EP ‘Reality’, is coming out just weeks after their debut, and another Real Estate off shoot ‘Alex Bleeker and the Freaks’ came out just a week after their debut. It’s lo-fi pop but instead of the sunshine punk of the 2009 crew (Wavves, etc) Real Estate’s starting point is the classic rock influences of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Neil Young. It’s a cool thing. Also check out the genius of Kurt Vile and Woods. www.myspace.com/realestate John Carpenter: John Carpenter is another NJ native relocated to LA, his music is nothing less than an honest-to-goodness-shiver-through-the-spine, akin to hearing Roy Orbison or Echo and the Bunnymen for the first time. Though not all is doom’n’gloom, John Carpenter maintains an eerie sense of drama throughout his songs that make you unable to resist the narratives and he wraps it up in high octane post-punk coolness. www.myspace.com/johnnycarpenter Pearl Harbor: This LA sister duo (and hey! one of them is like fifteen!) have hit the Hollywood pop scene, and are off!
Their ghostly harmonies are almost Nicoesque on the new and haunting ‘California Shakedown’. Pearl Harbor are also secret record geeks as evidenced by their cover of San Fran’s private press weirdo Leland’s I’ve Got Some Happiness. Their grooves are very ‘Desert FM’ where a loner plays nothing but the rarest private press records they can find. Worried it is all doom’n’gloom? Fear not! LUV Goon is a sparkling and crystalline pop song. And what’s it about? Love and longing in the middle of a huge teenage pot party. Amazing. www.myspace.com/pearlescentharbour Toro Y Moi: Toro is from the same home grown scene as Washed Out. He is releasing one of two albums, the first of which ‘Causers of This’ is again, like Washed Out, it walks a fine line between hip hop, r’n’b’ and drone-pop. ‘Causers of This’ represents this particular version of pop as still having and possessing an unpredictable creative force. The 25 first shot out of the canon ‘Causers of This’ suggests a paring down of ambition in favour of coherence and unity. Toro Y Moi is at the heart of the dark beast, having a love of pop music alongside the avant guard, and that delicate balance makes it intriguing, but ultimately a fun listen. www.myspace.com/toroymoi The Vortex: Anybody who has seen the Manchester cyclone of the Vortex in live-and-technicolor action will understand why I have been tipping them for a while. The Vortex are epic in their nefarious live acts of rock’n’roll egregiousness.
THE GRANTS
WASHED OUT
THE VORTEX SOPHIE HULME
JOHN CARPENTER
AGILE BEAST
Peter Hook (New Order) has praised their anthemic skills and yes, Bonehead (Oasis) officially became their guitarist earlier in the year. How cool? In Manchester, rock’n’roll is all about the myth making, and with Bonehead joining the Vortex, they are set to achieve and reach the epic madness of their peers. www.myspace.com/thevortexmanchester Young Prisms: This is one of the most pleasantly surprising guitar pop bands of the year. For me, they are reminiscent of the Monkees and early Dandy Warhols. The lite psych pop songs that they portray on vinyl give way to a groove wherein lies the dark heart of the beating beast. It conjures up more styles than a switch of the AM/FM dial in a Ford Mustang on a vanishing point trip to nowhere: psychedelic jams, drones, and 60s acid pop. Really looking forward to their new sessions which are going to be produced by Woods. www.myspace.com/youngprisms The Grants: The Grants make epic rock songs. To see the Grants in a live setting is a truly outstanding and transcendental thing. They are playing stadium sized songs in small clubs. Why haven’t major labels picked up their essential genius? The Grants pick up on similar House of Love vibes and are caught in a similar status of British guitar rock. They capture the rainy council house poetry of the Smiths, the northern appeal of
Stone Roses, and the wall of sound employed by Phil Spector. It’s quiet. It’s subtle. But these are northern anthems. If you ignore the power of Chris Grant as a songwriter, then, you are wrong. Very wrong. www.myspace.com/thegrantsrock Ras G and The African Space Programme: Ras G has come out of the LA Club Scene, with not a money on the profits of beat making, but the beats themselves. Some people say they push music forward, and some people just do. Flying Lotus may have gotten on the media radar, but he knows a good thing when he hears it, and has been repping Ras G. This isn’t ‘dubstep’. Entering into the world of Ras G is special (like hearing Harry Mudie for the first time). Under the influence of Sun Ra’s musical philosophy, and the strange and enduring wisdom of King Tubby, his music is one of the brightest things out there at the moment. www.myspace.com/rasg Washed Out: Washed Out is the one man project of Ernest Greene. More of a producer than a songwriter, the productions aren’t post-Timbaland or high paced club tracks. The song writing is of a different calibre, shot into space and brought back down again Washed Out is bringing something new to music. It has the stoned and sun-kissed catharsis of a great Beach Boys track, a hazy rural psychedelia feel, and some cool electronic beats that culminate into both making music that exists in some transitory sunny alien world. www.myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods
GEMMA SLACK
JW ANDERSON
JAMES LONG
Jack’s Leila brings you her thoughts on the future of British fashion. She has kept her eye firmly on emerging and re-emerging trends over 2009. Wearing and chatting about the taboos of double denim and puffa jackets are just a couple of the trends she has endured to bring you the reaction and opinion from the fashion front line. Jack asked for some of her designers to watch and so here are the womenswear, menswear and accessory designers to keep your eye on in 2010.
LF MARKEY
DE SIGN ERS
LF Markey: www.lfmarkey.com LF Markey’s spring summer collection uses an unlikely combination of sporting motifs and fairy tale princesses. T-shirts extend into voluminous ball-gowns gym shorts and gym shorts made from duchess silk are finished with golden toggles. The collection conforms to Markey’s signature look of understated luxury with a playful but bold use of form and colour. She currently has a diffusion line available at ASOS under the name Louise 27 Markey.
MFP
Sophie Hulme: www.sophiehulme.com Sophie only left Kingston University last year but after the success of her graduate collection she set up her own label. Sophie uses masculine tailoring masculine tailoring and hard detailing to give feminine pieces a new toughness but still uses sequins, polka dots and charm prints. The clothes are carefully laser cut and finished giving a sense of luxury and every garment comes with a charm designed specifically for each collection, a key for spring summer.
words : Leila Dante Hartley
leather & suede Gemma Slack: www.gemmaslack.com
HOLLY RUSSELL
HOLLY FULTON
Gemma’s spring summer collection fuses leather and suede with aluminium and steel inspired by fetishised super heroines and metal girls. Each garment is revealing and empowering; for women that generate their power through style. The collection is designed for the unashamedly sexual and powerful woman; liberated by leather bikinis and metal panels.
wearability JW Anderson: www.j-w-anderson.com
James Long: www.jameslonguk.com
For his second season with
70s New York MAN, Jonathon Anderson continues his process of taking symbols of masculinity from around the world to reinterpret them as contemporary, progressive menswear and accessories. Spring summer sees basketball uniforms, 70s New York street culture and tribal warriors influencing the slim, graphic, proportional style of the collection, drawing attention to the athletic physique. JW Anderson also draws in feminine elements including dress-like tops and trousers in luxurious double woven silk. Accessories are based directly on Maasai war decorations. B Store: www.bstorelondon.com
vibrant use of colour
Holly Fulton: www.hollyfulton.com
human hair Holly’s vision for spring summer is
B Store originated in 2001 as a shoe brand with a shop on Conduit Street. In 2006 a unisex clothing line was launched with a larger site on Saville Road, where B Store still remains. In February 2008 the clothing line reached London Fashion Week where it was met with praise. As well as their own brand of smart casual, well cut separates, B Store also support young menswear designers, taking on two or three graduates each season. Carolyn Massey: www.carolynmassey.com Inspired by a visit to the Kent headland, ‘The Boys of Dungeness’, Carolyn’s spring summer collection, looks towards the outdoors with practical trousers, shorts, jumpers and overcoats. The models each wore a sunburn on the catwalk, in keeping with the idea of the true British summer. Accessories featured heavily on with leather multi-purpose utility rucksacks and trinkets traditionally used by the German Army.
MFP
The spring summer collection ‘Acid Army’ deals with restriction and protection in James’ recognisable aesthetic with progressive silhouettes. Both hard wearing and luxurious, matt and sheer fabrics are used with foil reflecting light and netting to create layers of texture. Inspired by Andy Warhol’s 1987 ‘Oxidation’ work the fabrics appear rusty and tarnished. Cottons and drills are bleached, tie-dyed and foiled to create a corroded or oxidised effect.
perfectly encapsulated in Eduardo Paolozzi’s ‘Wittgenstein in New York’ with its vibrant use of colour and homage to Art Deco architecture. Silhouettes are simple yet sharp with robotic influences and Pop Art skyscrapers that have been abstracted and translated into bold hand drawn prints with embellishment in perspex, Swarovski crystal and metal. Monochrome is set against flashes of acid yellow, bright turquoise and or orange.
Formichetti. ‘Animals & Minerals’ is inspired by textures, colours and patterns from real life and also uses materials not commonly found in clothing, like the beautiful beetle wings and human hair. Holly is currently working for Gareth Pugh but hopes to set up her own label once she understands how a business functions after a masters degree. MariaFrancescaPepe: www.kabiri.co.uk/MariaFrancescaPepe Launched in 2008, MariaFrancescaPepe merges ornament and wearability in her designs. Her spring summer collection is inspired by water, with silky wave like fabrics and swimming pool colours. Ruffled fins adorn dresses along with swimming cap style hats and metal cuffs. The collection also includes slender jackets, skinny jacquard trousers, pencil dresses and flat boots with toe caps. Her jewellery collection uses motifs from the sea like the fish hook pendent and tube necklaces with a diamond-encrusted effect. Also look out for her bolt rings.
utility rucksacks
Holly Russell: www.ftape.com/media/?p=2730 Holly won the ‘Best of Manchester Fashion Award 2009’ and since then her graduate collection has been featured in Vogue, Dazed & Confused and even worn by Alice Dellal, Paloma Faith and Lady Gaga, styled by Nicola
HOLLY RUSSELL
CAROLYN MASSEY
MFP
B STORE
Joan Rivers once said ‘I wish I had a twin, so I could know what I’d look like without plastic surgery.’ We don’t have to look too far anymore to find someone who has had some sort of ‘work’ done and changing the way we look is only getting easier. If 2009 is anything to go by, the need, desire and want for plastic surgery is going no where. 2009 was the year of lunch time boob jobs, frozen faces with thanks to Botox and an 82% increase in men going under the knife. Beauty trends and predictions are estimating that beauty procedures in 2010 are set to get more extreme. Here, Who’s Jack looks at the future face of beauty and what’s to come in the next year… The Rise Of Injectables:
It only takes one glance at celebrities such as Kerry Katona (who last year, while live on MTV, had a boob reduction, liposuction, scar removal and £15,000 worth of other surgical procedures just to put all the weight back on six months later) to see that up until now, cosmetic surgery has been invasive, expensive and normally requiring at least one over night stay in hospital. However, this year it looks like it might be the year of somewhat less complicated beauty treatments. According to the Cosmetic Surgery Products Forecasts for 2010 the best opportunities are expected in non-surgical procedures such as injections, dermal resurfacing (a laser treatment) and microdermabrasion (which can be done at home). Meaning that the highest percent of procedures carried out this year won’t actually include any nasty operations. Injectable procedures such as collagen injections and Botox are expected to increase in sales by 15%, the fastest growth of any other treatment. So expect trout pouts and faces with the inability to frown galore throughout the coming year.
Stem Cell Boob Jobs:
The end of last year saw the first ever stem cell boob job being carried out in the UK. Doing away with the need for implants a stem cell boob job involves fat and stem cells being taken from else where on the body and injected into the breasts for a permanent size increase. Up until now the nearest thing the UK had to non-invasive breast augmentation was Marcolane, which involves temporary filler being injected into the breasts, but this needs to be topped up every year at a cost of £1000 each time. The Stem Cell Enriched Breast Augmentation is the first time stem cells have been used purely for cosmetic surgery. It’s safe, effective and works out a lot cheaper in the long run. What’s more, it only needs to be done once, unlike other similar treatments. It’s a very natural, organic way of improving the shape and size of the breasts. And while we’re on the
words : Laura Hills subject of boobs, it’s also expected that 2010 will see the reintroduction of silicone-gel filled breast implants (which were taken off the market in 1992 for being too ‘risky’) to the USA market which will shortly be making its move back to the UK too, meaning the opportunity for cosmetically enhanced boobs are pretty much endless throughout 2010.
BE AU TY
An Apple A Day Keeps The Surgeon Away:
The Who’s Jack award for strangest beauty trend emerging in 2010 goes to the Uttwiler Spätlauber anti-aging apple which also promises to stimulate hair growth. Jennifer Lopez and Michelle Obama are just two of the growing celebrity following the almost extinct type of apple, which grows in a remote part of Switzaland, already has. If only Granny Smiths had the same power.
DIY Beauty:
It looks like 2010 will be seeing far more readily available beauty treatments, doing away with the need for a visit to Harley Street and, instead, putting the power back into our own hands. Literally. Slendertone, which recently launched at Harrods gained a waiting list of over 2,000 women in its first week of release alone. Slendertone targets the facial muscles to tackle anti-aging. It promises to restore the youthful shape of the face by toning and lifting muscles naturally. Better yet Slendertone can be purchased for a bargain £300 and taken home to use time after time,
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doing away with the need for nasty chemical peels and painful face lifts. Genius. There are many, many products being released throughout the coming year which will allow us to simply nip home and carry out treatments on ourselves which were once only available via an appointment with an expert and at great expense.
The Gold Treatment:
Another treatment set to lift off in 2010 is the Chrysotherapy Facial, aka a facial using 24ct gold leaf. John Tsagaris recently launched the treatment at his Energy Bodies centre on Wheatley Street in Central London. The facial involves a gold-leaf mask being massaged into the skin using acupressure to penetrate the pores. LED light therapy is then used to stimulate the skin. The treatment
A A R R
TT Ruthie has been highlighting many an artistic soul in her column, Baked Beans and Champagne throughout the past year. This issue she gathers together her predictions for art in the capital in 2010.
words: Ruthie Holloway
Beautiful Crime
Art and creative agency Beautiful Crime is a rare find in terms of its concept and rapid success. They have taken urban and street art to new levels since 2006 when they first started selling overwhelming amounts of street artist Adam Neate’s work (see image below logo). Preempting that the street art market was going to become overwhelmingly saturated, founders Adam Martin and Liam West (Westie) turned what was originally an online gallery selling street art originals into a fully fledged art agency. Beautiful Crime, representing the likes of Goldie, Pure Evil and Herakut amongst others, is now working on big guerrilla marketing campaigns such as pop-up shows and ‘live spray’ campaigns. A huge scale collaboration with Armani in August last year, saw a live spray event where the Regent Street store windows were sprayed with their latest ad campaign by artists Fin DAC, Fark FK, Snik and Nine-O. For the future they are working on live sprays at summer festivals, pioneering new ways of
promises to leave us looking as though we’ve had something ‘done’ without the cosmetic procedure price tag (a 90 minute session costs £350). The Men: Rhinoplasty will remain one of the most popular procedures for men opting for a bit of work, closely followed by eyelid surgery, liposuction and hair transplantation so it won’t be just the girls who will be looking after their looks in 2010 and come 2011 who knows where we’ll all be. Probably with most households owning their own plastic surgery tables and with dear old Joan Collins having more people than ever before joining her ‘I wonder what I’d look like had I never gone under the knife’ club.
taking Art out of the confines of the gallery space and unleashing it into unexplored territory both geographically and conceptually. Beautiful Crime recently joined the Daylight group to link up with creative event specialists, ‘Death by Daylight’. The most recent collaboration being with Eddie Lock which saw the opening of a hugely successful show, The Lock Up in central London. “We’re working closely with established and emerging artists’, says Westie, ‘and the art, ideas, and events are getting bigger and better as we go.” 2010 is set to be their best and biggest year yet, having been approached by numerous companies who have seen the Armani campaign. Go and see: Armani V’s Beautiful Crime at YouTube.com. Also see Beautiful Crime’s website for details about the upcoming Crime Scene show this year. www.beautifulcrime.com Contact: you@beautifulcrime.com Image: (C) Adam Neate, courtesy of Beautiful Crime
Art Mosh Art Mosh has landed in the art world with a big bang, fusing art and music together. Its innovative pop-up shows take place in major cities across the world, bringing together young and emerging artists from all over the world. Art Mosh has ditched the traditional gallery, preferring unconventional venues and providing innovative ways of viewing. Merging the mediums of painting, photography, street art, sculpture and more with contemporary music and DJ sets, Art Mosh is paving the way for the ‘art experience’. It is supported by internationally renowned brand Nixon, in partnership with Wallpaper* and Nissan, and curated by Paddy Barstow of dynamic events and marketing agency, Six 18. Art Mosh has already travelled to Ireland, the UK and the USA. Last November saw it touch down in Paris, where Nightmares on Wax took to the decks whilst exhibiting were the likes of Bom K, Faith 47, Pam Glew Axel Pauporte, Alexander James, Benedict Redgrove, artists from the Bose Collins agency, DMV CREW
collective, and Yoskay Yamamoto. Also take a look at exhibiting Parisian artist Bom. K (image under Art Mosh Logo). His street art has taken him from tagging on the streets of Les Banlieues to galleries in London, France and Belgium. He has published a book HB Black Trace’ (2007), and is now at the top of his game in the French graffiti scene. It’s worth having a look at Art Mosh’s website as it shows not only the artists involved but also offers tracks from all the acts that take part in their live shows. By immersing its audiences in such a
York scene. His work offers intimate perspectives of such icons as The Velvet Underground and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the inhabitants from Warhol’s legendary Factory, such as Salvador Dali, Bob Dylan and Edie Sedgwick. This retrospective brings Finkelstein’s work from the last five decades together in an inspiring collection whilst also giving an insight into the character of the man himself. What’s refreshing about this insightful collection is the part of his work that Finkelstein has dedicated to the civil rights and anti-war protests of mid-Sixties
nie Wood, they are no strangers to working with icons of popular culture within the celebrity arena. Scream, in its newly renovated space on Bruton Street, has recently collaborated with Symbolic Collection, who have been collecting artwork by icons of popular culture for over 25 years. This collaboration has seen the gallery show works by big stars such as Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ronnie Wood, Kurt Cobain, Joni Mitchell, R. Crumb, Grace Slick, David Bowie, and Dennis Hopper, revealing to its visitors previously hidden dimensions of the artists’
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way, and on a global scale, I imagine we will definitely be hearing a lot more about Art Mosh this year. www.artmosh.com Image: (C) Bom.K, courtesy of Art Mosh. com
Idea Generation Part of mega arts, cultural and entertainment agency Idea Generation, set up by Hector Proud, the Idea Generation Gallery has held some impressive shows in the past year in their expansive space in East London, Chance Street. Launched in April 2008, an eclectic portfolio of projects has included a collection of photos from Hammar films, aptly timed for Hallowe’en, as well The Woodstock Experience, a collection of photographs from the infamous festival, at which the limited edition books even included a vintage Woodstock ticket. Next on their walls will be a collection of photographs which celebrates the life and work of Nat Finkelstein, who is a renowned photojournalist, political activist, fugitive and veteran of the 1960’s New
America. In contrast, and a far cry from the fame laden Factory, the pictures Finkelstein took as a political activist, captured the spirit of a generation that desperately wanted to make a difference. For those who experienced it, and those (like me) who can only imagine it, this exhibition is a revealingly true and stark insight into the Sixties. As Finkelstein says, ’When all is said and done, when everything is gone, the photograph is what’s going to remain. The photographer is the producer of history.’ Nat Finkelstein: From One Extreme to the Other from 20th Jan – 14th February 2010. Idea Generation Gallery , 11 Chance Street, E 2 7JB. info@ideageneration.co.uk Images: (C) Nat Finkelstein, Courtesy of Idea Generation Gallery
Scream Scream was set up by Tyrone and Jamie Wood to unearth the artistic talent of some of the biggest names in music and popular culture today. Both the sons of Rolling Stone Ron-
characters via their Art. Jamie Wood comments: ‘These pieces [from Symbolic Collection] not only represent fantastic examples of artistic talent but also give the owner a chance to own a piece of art with historical significance, giving a rare insight into the abilities and emotions of the icons of our time.’ The gallery has previously shown a collection of Paul McCartney’s drawings when he was at the Liverpool Institute, Rasta Jimi Hendrix paintings by singer and songwriter Grace Slick as well as multiple sketches and poems by Joni Mitchell to name but a few. This coming year will see some exciting projects to come, which Scream, together with Symbolic Collection will be doing with some big “popular culture” icons this year. R Crumb Uncovered, featuring work by one of the best-known artists of the underground comics movement. The extended exhibition runs until February. Scream 34 Bruton St, W1J 6QX Contact: 020 7493 7388 or info@screamlondon. com Image: (C) R.Crumb, courtesy of Symbolic Collection
Roadworks and building sites, tubes shut on weekends - London is on full construction mode gearing up for the 2012 Olympics. Most of the time you won’t even register the sheer amount of work taking place all around you – it’s just part of London’s scenery. But some sites do make you pause, a huge building with its guts ripped out or an empty void of space on a busy high street. Some of these sites have been abandoned because of the recession. Others are steaming ahead, like the vast chasm in London Bridge – the Shard – promising to be London’s tallest building when complete. Here are some of the temporary landmarks that have caught our eye:
London under construction
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images : Barry Macdonald words : Phillipa Abbott
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Supper clubs in full swing in the Big Smoke
words by Jessica Ainlay | images Daniela Heinrich
YOU’RE COLD, RAIN HAS BEEN BLEATING DOWN FOR MONTHS, AND A THIN LAYER OF ICY EXOSKELETON HAS PERMANENTLY FORMED ON YOUR SKIN. ANGEL SAYS STAY IN, DEVIL SCREAMS GO OUT. PLUS, YOU’RE HUNGRY. RECONCILE YOUR INNER ANGEL-DEMON CONFLICT BY HEADING TO A SUPPER CLUB, LONDON’S LATEST FOOD PHENOMENON, WHERE YOU DINE OUT, IN THE COMFORT OF A STRANGER’S WARM COSY LIVING ROOM.
The supper club concept was london’s wunderkind trend of 2009, and 2010 will see the experience cemented into the anti-restaurant scene to stay. In a roundabout way, we owe it all to the book by Benrik called This Book Will Change Your Life. Self help books make empty promises, but for musician Horton Jupiter, creator of the first-ever supper club in the UK, Benrik’s annual diary held up to its life-altering promise. Each year, the diary offers 365 days’ worth of daily tips, some are quirky, some subversive, and some, downright silly. But when Horton read the suggestion on Day 162: Open a home restaurant, he decided he was a good enough cook and had the space to do just that. This is how Horton’s The Secret Ingredient became the first supper club in the UK. The first Wednesday evening Horton served his vegetarian Japanese-fusion to 6 friends, who, on the second Wednesday brought 10 friends and then friends of friends. By the third Wednesday, the Guardian had caught wind of the Newington Green supper club and their visit and subsequent article transformed the guerrilla or anti-restaurant movement in the Big Smoke resulting in several other supper clubs opening within the first few months of 2009. An early The Secret Ingredient guest was foodie blogger and acquaintance of Horton’s, MsMarmiteLover. Her own supper club, The Underground Restaurant, opened shortly after her visit in Kilburn, north London. This proved that supper clubs were not just a fad-friendly East London phenomenon. As a pescatarian, MsMarmiteLover focuses on meat-free dining, and runs theme nights (Halloween, Elvis’ Birthday) and collaborates often with chefs and foodie specialists. Further south, two of the top talked-about supper clubs are based in Brixton. The Saltoun Supper Club is run by food photographer, ex-Les Trois
Garcons manager and proud moustache-wearer Arno Maasdrop. From the minute I walked through Arno’s door, it was clear that this supper club struck just the right balance of dinner party and art installation. The food at Arno’s is fancy but unpretentious. Of the four courses, the Mushroom & Chilli Gnocchi melted in my mouth the most, but the surprise of homemade Petit Fours were clearly above and beyond what I could have expected in what was just a living room, after all. Or is it? With woven Latin American baskets lining the back wall, and subtle yet super creative decor, the SSC engages all five of your senses, to be sure, and the living room is more like an interactive foodie/art exhibit. A quick nip to the loo plunged me into a second exhibit. Light dimmed, a radio sits on the lit mannequin woman’s torso, a 50s voice reporting, Betty Paige postcards tucked into the mirror. We were encouraged to head upstairs mid-meal for a fag and a mingle, which got the 4 tables of 16 intermixing and enjoying exhibition space number three: The minimalist bedroom with a desk, a couch, a bed, and an entire back wall stacked with literally hundreds of books almost entirely related to the World Wars, Socialism, Communism, and Democracy. The entire meal was a non-stop experience, and I felt free to take part or relax to which ever degree I wanted. Much of the time, I watched Arno’s cooking skills in the open kitchen most of the time, excited about my front row seat of such an excellent chef. Five minutes down the street is The Salad Club, run by foodie friend duo Rosie French and Ellie Grace. The Salad Club is an entirely different experience, despite the shared postcode. Ellie’s bright white living room hosts a non-vegetarian Salad Club which developed from the girls getting together after the gym to make all they could garner the strength for: Salads.
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(created by Stevie Parle and Joseph Trivelli). They spent December working with Rosie Lovell of Rosie’s Bakery in Brixton and are collaborating with Shoreditch furniture designers Bell & Keegan, transforming their shop space into dinner party space every three months or so. There are other, perhaps bigger plans, “but that’s pretty much under wraps at the moment,” says Ellie. Hm...very, very interesting indeed. Watch this space. Of course, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, supper clubs are springing up left and right throughout London. Phlight is a genius art installation by creator Simon Tyszko, who inserted a full scale section of an aeroplane wing into his Fulham council flat. In addition to hosting exhibit visitors, Simon started running exclusive supper art clubs for 12 late last year. Literally one street over from the Secret Ingredient, the Civet Cat Club has also joined the supper club craze. Surely not all future supper club owners would have have read Benrik’s book looking to change their lives. But hey, it’s January, what was your New Year’s Resolution again? How big is your living room? Can you cook? You might just consider joining the club.
The night I ate here, we had homemade yellow dhal, bulgar wheat salad, handcrafted hummus and naan breads. The experience had a definite amateur feel about it, but that was the whole point of their club – they love to cook, and were happy to host dinner for strangers, who are always extremely pleased. Both the Saltoun Supper Club and the Salad Club were booked two months in advance on the nights of my visit. Initially, I assumed supper clubs were just a quick way to earn some cash and avoid taxes. After all, supper clubs only take donations, which is the loophole that allows them to exist as dinner parties rather than registered restaurants. Each and every supper club was started for different reasons, but none was due to a cash incentive, and for some, breaking even was initially the only financial goal. For Arno of the Saltoun Supper Club, it was more about creating a space for high quality cooking in a more intimate sphere, for Rosie and Ellie it was a natural progression of their own personal salad nights. For Horton, The Secret Ingredient was explicitly started as a way to do something different with his life. “For me,” explains Horton, “it is about meeting people, and people meeting other people. What started as a gathering of friends has exploded into an opportunity for me to generate a good amount of income doing something I absolutely love.” He has forged friendships, gone out dancing and partying with others. A massive Lionel Ritchie fan, he once discovered that he was serving Lionel’s PR guru, who scored him front row tickets to a Lionel Ritchie gig a few months later. For the Salad Club girls, 2009 was about upping their culinary game, as well as about growing up. Rather than suffering from hangovers from one too many at the pub the night before, the girls needed to be sourcing their ingredients and preparing the menu for the next night’s supper club. “We’ve both got day jobs and boyfriends, too,” explains Ellie. Day jobs? Horton kindly explains that day jobs are not his thing. “I’m work-shy,” he says. Not that he is lazy, he continues. As we speak on the phone back in November, Horton makes clear that while he loves the social nature of the supper club, he loves working for himself the most. All the media attention can’t hurt either. The supper club trend of 2009 saw many supper clubs heavily covered in the national and international press, from German breakfast shows, French fashion TV, to British national press. On the night I was at Arno’s, we were seated with a journalist and photographer from a top Hong Kong travel & leisure mag.
The Secret Ingredient : Stoke Newington Facebook: The Secret Ingredient Book: thesecretingredienthq@googlemail.com Donations: From £15
The trend has resonance world-wide, and while some casually shun the limelight, others display their media coverage proudly as anyone who checks out the press sections of MsMarmiteLovers blog can see. Understandably none of the supper club hosts would like this ride to come to an end, and most have worked constructively on their home restaurant projects to ensure their continued success in 2010. The Secret Ingredient has undergone some changes for the coming year. Horton will be hosting dinners once a week on Wednesdays, but is ditching his two-sitting a night concept for one longer sitting, with fewer people to stay longer and much more food. He is also opening up to host private parties on other nights of the week, including large groups and birthday parties. The Salad Club is looking to become the first supper club to release itself from its roots and shift into a portable restaurant a la Moveable Kitchen
The Underground Restaurant : Kilburn marmitelover.blogspot.com Book: www.wegottickets.com reservations from £25 corking fee (£10) applies The Salad Club : Brixton saladclub.wordpress.com Book: welovesaladclub@googlemail.com Donation: £25 The Saltoun Supper Club : Brixton www.eatwithyoureyes.net Book: eatwithyoureyes@gmail.com Donations: from £25 Phlight : Fulham www.phlight.org Book: Supperclub@phlight.org Donations from £25 The Civet Cat Club : Stoke Newington thecivetcatclub.wordpress.com Book: civetcatclub@gmail.com Suggested contribution from £30
My two-for-six-pound life By Lucy Anne Hancock
Drugs. All the cool kids are doing them. I am not very cool at drugs. I am not even very cool at drinking. Where others open their eyes to find themselves with carpet patterns on their faces and sick in their hair, I routinely wake up in bed with a stinking hangover, my matching flannel pyjamas on back to front, a cold cup of tea by my bedside, a very serious documentary on iplayer and all my washing hung in strange formation around my room. I will be the first to put my hands up and admit that Margaret is really very bad at taking drugs. Margaret always thinks weed is a good idea after two bottles of wine, but after approximately three tokes of a joint, she always realises it was not. The last time she had this problem her friend suggested she have a cookie to calm her down. Usually there is nothing quite like a chocolate based treat to settle her nerves, but on this occasion, overcome by the feeling she was going to die (and that the cookie was going to be the instrument of her death) she began choking on it. She ran out of the room to make a ‘phone call’ and wild eyed, sprayed chocolatey crumbs all over her friend’s carpet. For the next 5 hours, she lay in the dark on her leather sofa trying to shake off the feeling of impending doom whilst contemplating whether the cars revving outside were coming for her. To add to this, if there was an archetype that did not need cocaine it is certainly Margaret and her friends. Often described by people as ‘chatty’, confident and decidedly ‘shrill’ Margaret and Co. are not the kind of people you would care to share a carriage with on a train journey. They spent a 45 minute tube ride loudly discussing their aspirations with vociferous conviction (given their bulls**t content) whilst happily ignoring the gritted teeth and rolling eyes of their reluctant voyeurs. Ketamine left Margaret immobilised at the bottom of a staircase for half an hour. On pills she freaked everyone out apart from herself, and the truth unlocking properties of MDMA caused her to look a 6ft4 transvestite in the eye and call them ‘unconvincing’, which was met with a fair amount of hostility. All in all she concluded she wasn’t really cool enough , or good enough at pretending to be cool for a full time social career in drugs. So I went to a party the other night pretty much alone. I bumped into a few people I knew, but on the whole I was going solo. Having realised I was pretty much the only girl that had gone with the theme and donned an enormous black moustache, I polished off the booze I had brought in double quick time mostly by substituting conversations for drinking. Alas! Yet AGAIN I conveniently forgot that Margaret is bad at drugs and hopped aboard the Meph train. It turns out that Mephadrone, the drug of the moment is the most frustrating drug in the world. It seems to leave your acute sense of self awareness in tact, whilst at the same time rendering you void of the physical ability to do anything about it. It was on this particular evening I decided to go extremely public with my problem of inebriated domesticity. I remember overhearing someone saying ‘Who is that girl?’ and someone else replying ‘I don’t know but she’s cleaning, just leave her.’ I began cleaning at midnight. I stopped cleaning at 11.30am. Residents of the house were showered and dressed making breakfast, while I, strange girl with the moustache, was washing up their Weetabix bowls fully aware they just wanted me to go home. I spent most of the evening ordering people, many of whom lived there, out of the kitchen so I could mop the floor, then complaining and rolling my eyes like a tired housewife when they came back into the kitchen and made footprints on my handiwork. I restacked the crockery in the kitchen cupboards and arranged strangers’ possessions I had found in size order. I ignored my fellow partygoers requests to ‘chill out’ and stop cleaning. One of whom described it as ‘unnerving.’ Much as I knew I was crashing through the barriers of social normality my Mephahead would not allow me to leave, insisting I stay with all the straggling after party nutters. Mephadrone seems to have become the alcopop of the drug world at the moment, with the most hilariously unlikely people poking it up their noses. I was at yet another stonkingly embarrassing party last week where the whole affair got a little out of hand. Someone had carefully painted a neon sign to the ‘rave cave’ and the heralded drum n bass Dj was down there hammering out Pendulum’s greatest hits. There was a conspiratorial atmosphere that I didn’t really understand. It was only when big groups of posh boys were breaking off from the party that someone explained to me that the host’s big brother had ordered them Mephadrone off the internet and they were deliberately unsubtly ‘sneaking’ off to rack up big lines of it. I looked around at the glow sticks on the wall and the full moon themed decorations and quickly realised that they had well and truly geared up for a night of middle class, legal drug taking. It turns out though that they hadn’t realised quite the strength of the stuff and ended up waving goodbye to the sober and slightly disturbed half of their party. I can’t help but think it might just be better if we all give up trying to have fun the cool way and invest our time in a few wholesome board games. It might stop strangers from wincing at us in the streets. Oh no? Just me then.
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OUTDOORS images : Sarah Cresswell | styling : Aradia Crockett | stockists page 81
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As Esquire’s 1950s Handbook for Hosts puts it: ‘of the hundreds of bars and cocktails out there, only a handful really merit encores and re-pours’. Over the next few months Jack will seek out that handful. For our Hit List, we’ll be exploring bars across the London, avoiding hotels with great drinks but bankrupting prices or those cheap ‘happy hour’ places that essentially serve overpriced WKDs.
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Fun is fun but so are funds The cocktail must be under £10. No amount of interior design, shaker theatrics, poncy peanuts or pretty rainbows in glasses warrants £15. Va va voom! Cocktail bars should be va va voom glamour!
Diiiveeeersiiity We like rum.You might not. Each cocktail list needs a wide selection of drinks. Access all areas No part of London is off limits. Got a suggestion you’d like us to try? Email us. One martini, two martini, three martini, floor! With our martini glass system we’ll rate bars on the following: bar, crowd, cocktail list, one cocktail, food and location. The more glasses the merrier and at the end of the year (or when we get bored/suffer liver failure) we’ll tally up the glasses and crown one bar top of the Hit List.
N W O T T U BO A L R I G A LS BY ttey
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Jack’s Hit List There’s got to be rules – these are ours.
t: s i L t h i t H r e o w Th s g n olli H & e n r u Bo It’s January. Woe. The fun bit of winter is over, now it’s just sludge. We’re fat and skint. Nobody’s drinking and everyone is eating steamed food. It’s time to get out the house and have some fun, but where (it’s so cold, you know?). Will Bourne & Hollingsworth do the trick? It’s less of a well kept secret these days - the press have been raving about their Prohibition nights – but we thought we’d check it out for you. The Bar is tiny!! Omigod it’s a midget bar. They say it’s like being in a sitting room, we say more like a cellar, but nice. Not Fritzl. It’s a little bit Berlin with some traditional English touches (floral wallpaper, chintz). There are tables round the edges but not many, so extra space for busy nights. The actual bar is just as minute but also has lovely cocktail glasses, teapots and tins for those who like that kind of thing (us!). The acoustics are a pain. A shame because they’ve really got the cosy, cosy thing going on. Score: 3 martini glasses The Crowd? Well for a bar that’s getting a reputation for its Prohibition and Blitz events, it’s no surprise the crowd like to
dress vintage. Depending on the night, you may encounter 20s flappers, 30s glamazons or 40s make-do-and-menders. But it’s friendly - it doesn’t feel like competition by decade. Also, on school nights, the crowd is mainly young people having fun, in jeans and stuff. We are intrigued by their upcoming Belle Epoque do. In their words - the bar will be transformed into a ‘green-tinged Montmartre salon’ celebrating ‘everything bohemian, debauched and artistic’ – so loads of absinthe then! Score: 4 martini glasses We love the cocktail list, not least because it’s kind of origami and folds in on itself! A good mix of classics like French 75s. B&H originals include a teatime range of cocktails served in dainty tea cups. But we’ve got to knock a glass off for size. Yes, good things come in small packages but not £8 cocktails. For £8 we want BIG cocktails, BIG TASTY ALCOHOLIC cocktails, not dainty thimbles that are gone before you know it. (We are British, we binge drink) Score: 3 martini glasses The best cocktail is the Gin Fizz. This isn’t one of the teacup cocktails but my, was it tasty! We ordered it towards the end of the night, when cocktail time was ending and we didn’t want it to, so we picked a long’un to last.
Not overly sweet - refreshing with a kick - like ‘adult’ lemonade. Frankly you could drink six. You’d be drunk, but it would be a doddle. Score: 5 martini glasses There is no food menu but, all teatime cocktails are served with mini finger sandwiches, biscuits and pastries, like English afternoon tea. More marmite on toast than Sketch afternoon tea, but pleasing nonetheless. Score: 3 martini glasses Above all the bar is in Fitzrovia! How 30s does that sound?! Where is this Fitzrovia? Is it real? Yes. Fitzrovia is roughly where Bloomsbury meets Goodge Street via Oxford Street if you follow. It’s quite hard to find, given that it’s a cellar, and it’s on one of those weird streets that should really be two streets. And add to that London street numbering. Really, there is no consistency, sometimes odds on one side, sometimes not. If you manage to find it however, it’s a treat. Score: 4 martini glasses Bourne & Hollingsworth total score: 22/30 28 Rathbone Place, W1 0207 636 8228 Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road www.bourneandhollingsworth.com
BUILD A BAR
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Here’s How
Is a Gin Fizz a Tom Collins? Well, Sort of. A Tom Collins traditionally uses Old Tom Gin (sweeter than your London dry gin). Fizzes became popular in the 19th Century when soda water became widely available and a whole family of Collins’ was born - John Collins (Holland gin), Charlie Collins (Rum) or just Collins (whiskey). We were going to ask B&H for their recipe but once again, that pesky Esquire 1950s Handbook for Hosts stole our hearts: Ingredients: One Lemon I jigger of London gin Powdered sugar Soda water Angostura bitters Glassware: Collins/Highball Instructions: ‘Squeeze the juice of a lemon in a tall glass, add a heaped teaspoon of sugar, a generous jigger of London gin, plenty of cracked ice, and fill with soda water. It is well to stir before each gulp, as that keeps the sugar mixed and the drink effervescing. Variation: add several lusty shots of Angostura bitters.’
Ok we’re sticking with the January theme, aka, no money, no life, no soul, gloom, gloom, gloom. You need to be prepared. You must be strong and resist depression. The best way to do this is with small, achievable missions. And what better way to get back to a fun happy place than by creating the very environment for fun happy times… in your house! That’s right – build your very own cocktail bar. Just think! Like that game where you’re on the sofa and can’t be arsed to go to move so you start imaging your perfect sofa - the one which brings everything to you. Before you know it, your sofa has a beach attached and so on. Just think what you could do with a bar – flamingos for sure... Ok steady on, one thing at a time, small achievable missions and all that. Let’s start with the basics: What you need – paraphernalia You don’t actually need a bar, surfaces are fine and we should all have those. For those of you fond of hammers and nails there are websites out there showing you how to literally ‘build’ your home bar. You need a cocktail shaker – vital. Essential. Number one on the list. Ok it’s number two on this list but you know what we mean. Sounds simple! No. Cocktail shakers can be so ugly! And so expensive! But don’t worry, Habitat stock Art Deco classics as do the rather super vintage cocktail making websites listed at the end of this piece, where you can probably find everything else on this list. Just make sure you buy one with a strainer or you’ll have to get one seperately. A jigger measure – don’t listen to the fools who tell you to just use the cap of the shaker. My god, have I made some vile drinks that way! A jigger is the way to go. Glassware - This is the best bit. Cocktail glasses are so pretty! But of course you can get your manly options too... Here you can express your personality. You can go modern or vintage, second hand or Selfridges, eclectic or matching – but make sure you get: • Cocktail glasses, such as martini glasses. They can be slightly curvy or that classic triangle. Be sure to get solid stems so your hand temperature doesn’t affect the drink. • Highball/Collins glasses - yes that just means straightforward up and down glasses but isn’t highball a good name! And who wouldn’t love a friendly glass called Collin. Hi Collin. • Tumblers, those Old-fashioned glasses that manly men drink Whiskey from. See... we told you. You want a heavy bottom here. knock yourself out on design and style, but for classicists, bare in mind our Guide for Hosts: “Never one to put a horse blanket on a beautiful girl, Esky puts thumbs down on coloured glasses
which disguise the good looks of the drink itself.” Quite. Umm... what else - ok ice is essential, yet also, tricky. Some cocktails call for chunky ice, some for the crushed variety. We’ve all seen those amazing fridges that give you the option of both. But do we have ‘em? Thought so. So… A sturdy bag and a wooden mallet for ice bashing! No lie! That’s what all the cocktail guides say. Next up- a muddler. A kind of wooden pestle for mashing sugar and fruit, for things like Mojitos or Caphrinias. That’s right, take it all out on the sugar– see better already– go January! Stirrers, for ummm stirring. They need to be long (sorry stirrers are not exciting, not like muddlers). Booze! We’re not going to go into too much detail here because that’s a whole other ‘Here’s How’. Mainly think Vodka, 55 Whisky, Rum and Gin, that covers most bases. And darling! Shouldn’t every bar have at least one bottle of Champagne?! A few more to go, let’s rattle them off Mixers. Soft drinks, tonic, Angostura bitters, soda. DONE! Your five a day including oranges, limes and lemons plus knife for cutting. Sugar. Superfine, powdered and lump. Maraschino cherries– they rock– get some (supermarket). Finally… it may be all cocktails cocktails but don’t forget your trusty friend the bottle opener! Every bar needs one. Not least if your cocktails are pants and you end up on beer/wine. And that’s that! Now you can sit pretty till we show you what to do with it all in next month’s Here’s How: to make classic cocktails (see you later detox). Related websites: Build your own bar www.bar-gear.com www.barplan.com Vintage cocktail kits www.thejazzage.com www.atlantaantiquegallery.com www.vintageswank.com www.mygrannysatticantiques.com www.mildreds-antiques.com www.cocktailshaker.com
: s e k i L Leila
Hangover Remedies for the New Year We’ve all tried tricks to curing a hangover; eating a banana before bed, a pint of water and pain killers in the morning, a greasy fry up, and we all know that they don’t work. So I’ve found you twelve fail safe products to alleviate a hangover, or at least disguise it.
V Water, GLOW A pomegranate and blueberry drink that contains Vitamins C and E, Selenium and Zinc that renew skin and act against ageing free radicals. Ideal for getting the life back into your skin post-party season. For stockists call 08000321767.
Oskia Eye Wonder This super-hydrating eye serum increases radiance and reduces puffiness using thirteen natural and youth-boosting ingredients. Available exclusively at Liberty. www.liberty.co.uk.
DIBI Intense Rehydration Serum Contains Hydrafil from the Nigerian Bambara Nut plant, which stimulates the internal production of a self-hydrating protein. This serum mildly exfoliates and moisturises to reveal smoother, brighter skin after a big night out. www.dibiuk.com.
Aromatherapy Associates Overnight Repair Mask Uses ingredients including strawberry seeds to rejuvenate the skin. www.aromatherapyassociates.com.
RMK Recovery Gel Apply this before bed time and you’ll wake up a fully hydrated face. Pair this with RMK Liquid Concealer with brush applicator and at least you’ll look amazing on the outside. Available at Selfridges. www.rmkrmk.com.
Purity Cosmetics Mineral Foundation choose the closest colour to blend in with your skin tone, covering flawlessly without feeling heavy, hiding a multitude of hangover sins. www.puritycosmetics.co.uk.
Weleda Sea Buckthorn Elixer Juice from Sea Buckthorn berries that contain Vitamins A, C and E. The ultimate boost for the body in the morning. www.weleda.co.uk.
MAC Care Blend Essential Oils Available in sweet orange and lavender or grapefruit and chamomile these oils are gentle and healing on the skin, they can be used alongside or under makeup to energise. www.maccosmetics.co.uk.
Pharmaton Capsules A one-a-day vitamin supplement with Ginseng which is clinically proven to relieve tiredness, and improve mental and physical performance; just what you need to get through January. www.pharmaton.co.uk.
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Urban Decay 24/7 Concealer Pencil Precision application and easy blending to cover all morning-after blemishes. Available from Boots, House of Fraser and Debenhams nationwide. www.urbandecay.com
Dr. Brandt Anti-Oxident Water Booster In either blueberry or green apple flavour the drops are the ultimate skinny girls’ hangover cure being sugar and calorie free. Available at Space NK. www.spacenk.com.
Matis Radiance Revealing Serum An instant pick-me-up in a bottle. The serum exfoliates to erase all signs of fatigue. www.matis-uk.com
Many people think of the mid-90s as the domain of guitar angst filled Britpop, I was certainly there swaying around to Nirvana and the Eels. However during exactly the same period; drugs, house music and nightclubs were big business. They were widely assumed to have changed British youth’s leisure habits forever. Which is crazy considering that by 2004 the Brit Awards axed the award for Best Dance Act, and replaced it with a new Best Live Act category. “The Brits committee decided that Dance music is no longer where it’s happening in music,” offered a spokesman. “That scene is returning to its underground roots. The award was no longer right for a mass television audience.”
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words : Neda Shadanlou images : Eddie Jacob
Let’s zoom back to 8 years earlier, not only was dance music in the
popular culture, but the UK was at the forefront. Much of the centerpiece of the scene was around ‘Madchester’, which was a term frequently used for the huge house music scene in the North of England. The success of the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester was world renowned, it was repeatedly voted the best club in the world in the 90s by Newsweek magazine. And as a culture, the vast extent of dance is apparent in that a conservative estimate for people taking ecstasy on the weekend would be half a million. Virtually every town, however small had it’s own house or techno night. Even places like Stamford had a techno club, the little place that is now only associated with stone houses and being the beautiful setting for the film Pride and Prejudice. So what happened? Has it really all fallen apart? Have we put our glow sticks and smiley faces aside for good? Well, in that respect, I hope so, yes. Though if I sit here and think about how dance music descended from disco and simply blended soul and funk into the mix, at the same time as being underpinned by a repetitive beat - then how on earth can it not live on! Of course, no one can deny that the genre has jumped into bed with a few other partners since the 90s, had a threesome, produced a deformed six legged offspring or two, and inevitably come back to life. I caught up with a couple of young, up and coming talents to get an understanding of the impending dance comeback. The first is a smoking, sultry half Iranian alternative electropop goddess. She has a fetish for hiphop and her favourite quote is ‘Can’t get me on da phone then send a bitch a kite’- Lil Kim. She has a beautiful sensual voice and is at the start of her career, which is shining bright.
me feel and was great for times of angst, but the 90s dance made me move, it made me smile. I have a real fondness for the 90s, it was an interesting time for kids growing up. There was a real sense of empowerment. MTV became a real driving force in getting music out to those who wanted to listen, along with that came all the reality TV shows from the states like The Real World and Road Rules. Things like that were refreshing and fun, as you got a real chance to see how people actually acted and behaved before it became so glamorous and cheesy to be on reality television. Q. How has dance music changed in the last decade? A. 90s style dance was happy synth pop, with even happier lyrics about parties and fun. I think that there is still a real element of that now in dance music, but it’s a little more serious and in parts, risque. If you look at people like David Guetta, he is dance through and through although many would argue he is electro. But if you look at his music it retains all of the good things about 90s dance, along with all the innovative things about modern dance music, like better programming and more interesting sounds. Q. You have a big gay following. Why is there such a strong gay following for certain branches of dance? A. Gay people are fun. And dance music is fun. They just make sense really. The gay community is about living your life. Going out and enjoying yourself, a real sense of carpe-diem. Although I would definitely segregate gay women and men on this one. Gay men seem to like dance music a lot more than gay women. In my opinion it may just be the energy involved. Lesbians generally like indie music which tends to be a bit more low key (maybe why I have a lesbian following) and gay men just love to go out, run around all night dancing like it’s their last night on earth. I don’t blame them. Lesbians need to branch out a bit.
Neda meets Sarah Nagshineh Q. How do you define your style of music? A. It’s always hard as an artist to sit down and go, right, what am I? I draw so many influences from different genres, but I guess if you had to put a label on it, I would say something along the lines of synth pop. But my sound changes all the time. I love dubstep and hip hop, but never steer too far from electropop, so I would say my music is somewhere in the middle.
The second artist (pictured) in this article is from the flip side of the coin, a house guru who set up his own Music label in his 20s. A-Jam, aka Anthony McGinley is the new kid on the block. He is a DJ and producer making some serious waves. He currently has productions played and supported by the who’s who of dance including Axwell, Eric Morillo, Laidback Luke, David Tort and Chris Lake. He is also working with mind blowing songwriters such as TJ cases.
Q. What and who was great about the 90s music scene for you? A. The 90s were a mixbag for me. On one hand I adored the grunge scene with the likes of The breeders and Nirvana, but on the other hand, I couldn’t help but love people like the Real McCoy, and Aqua. Grunge made
With the first original A-Jam release ‘You Lift Me Up hitting number 3 on traxsource and number 6 in the Ibiza hype chart this September. Which is not bad considering there was no official promotional campaign. I caught up with him to see how the dance
music scene was doing on his side of the fence. Q. If you released your tracks 10 years ago would it have made a difference? A. Well, there would certainly be more money in the sales, but that’s obviously something that has affected everyone. If you’re already established then you have the ability to command high fee’s and releasing tracks just keeps your name up there. Either way this is my passion and it’s worth doing for that reason alone!! Q. What, and who was great the best thing about the 90s dance scene for you? A. I really loved the music around that time, people like S-Express, Robin S, Nightcrawlers, Blackbox, Snap!, Urban Cookie Collective. They’re all great for that period, and people still sample some of them now. Q. Is there a place for 90s dance music now? A. There’s more variety now, genres aren’t so set in stone. Though I think a great song is a great song regardless of time, but production style has changed a lot, you’d need to give the production a face lift for it to really work in today’s clubs. Steve Angello & Laidback Luke’s remix of Robin S is a good example, that track crossed over to everyone. So many producers seem to be rehashing songs from the past which shows there is a big gap in the market for original, quality songs. That’s why I’m really excited to be working with one of the best songwriters in the world, TJ Cases! Q. There are so many avenues, house, hard house, electro, dub step, garage, drum & bass, pop, do they all come under the category of dance music for you? A. Yeah, they’re all dance, although I’m not sure how many people would be heading from a Gina G gig to see Skream or Grooverider smash the club though! Q. How do you define your style of music? A. We always start with original quality vocals, at the moment we’re putting that over big room house with some tech and tribal elements. Q. Would people be jumping around popping pills and going for hours on your style of music or are those days gone? A. People can dance to our music in any state! I’m not giving dance music a wide birth with talent like this on the horizon. Even though it may be the 6 legged offspring of the original 90s scene, the deformities just make it all the better! www.myspace.com/ajamuk www.myspace.com/sarahnag
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THEY ARE KID BRITISH. THEY ARE ALSO KNOWN AS SIMEON MCLEAN, SEAN MBAYA, JAMES MAYER AND ADIO MARCHANT. THEY ARE FOUR MANCHESTER LADS WHO HAVE STEADILY BEEN BUILDING THEMSELVES QUITE A REPUTATION AS INDIE SKA-POP REVIVALISTS WITH A STRONG LINE IN WITTY LYRICS AND GOOD-TIME-HAD-BY-ALL GIGS. EVEN BEFORE RELEASING THEIR DEBUT ALBUM, “IT WAS THIS OR FOOTBALL” THE BAND HAD PLAYED GLASTONBURY AND SUPPORTED THE SPECIALS ON TOUR. AFTER THE ALBUM, THEIR MADNESS SAMPLING SINGLE, “OUR HOUSE IS DADLESS” FOUND IT’S WAY INTO THE UK TOP 100 AND KID BRITISH HAVE SINCE BEEN STEADILY BOLSTERING THEIR REPUTATION IN PREPARATION FOR RELEASING THEIR NEW ALBUM THIS YEAR. I CAUGHT UP WITH THEM IN THE CAPITAL TO FIND OUT WHAT ELSE THEY WERE ABOUT…
KID BRITISH words: James Lynch
WJ: How
did you guys get together as a band? KB: To cut a long story short, there was James, Simeon and Adio and we made music naturally together as friends, which was garage music at the time, in 2003-2004. Then we moved into Hip-Hop. We kept it to ourselves and then Sean grabbed one of our CDs on the Manchester circuit. We met up with him and he started producing for us, but still separately. Sean was Kid British as a producer and we were Action Manky as a group. It took our manager Dave actually to say that, “What Sean is doing on his own and what you’re doing as a three, it’s pretty similar so if you tried it together as a four it would probably be even better.” We were kind of reluctant to do it at first, it was our little three so we were all a bit edgy about it. But then we made the step to come together and moulded him (Sean) into the man he is today! WJ: Were you happy keeping Sean’s solo name? KB: Yeah. Well, it was Kid British and The Action Manky but promoters around Manchester just couldn’t be bothered paying for the extra letters, so we just shortened it down to Kid British. It actually makes more sense and it’s a bit of a statement within itself. WJ: So when you’re not being Kid British do you hang out together as mates? KB: It’s more like we’re brothers ‘cos some of us have been together since we were ten years old. We lived in the same Uni house, we’ve been together with Sean for the past four or five years. It’s got to that point where you’re in each others faces so much that it’s bound to end with an argument but because you’re so tight you know you can argue and then see the person the next day or the day after and you know that it will be alright. Because we’re friends we can argue, you can’t argue with people that you don’t really know because they’ll just think that you’re a bit of a kn*b. These situations are rare when you are put with people you trust. It’s like a brotherhood. We’re not fazed to tell someone straight away when they are doing something wrong and that’s the best environment to be in. If you’re in an environment where you can’t say anything it only builds up and then just becomes something bigger than what it was. We’re just happy to be working in this kind of environment. Sometimes you forget how privileged you are to be working with your friends, people that you actually like. WJ: How do you guys work together? KB: It’s changed a bit now. The initial process was that someone would come to the studio with an idea and we’d all build on it and build the music around that idea. There’s never one track where
everyone doesn’t get to have a little say. Everyone gets to have their say on the track in one way or another. Or there’s been times when Sean’s had a bit of music and he’s just needed a melody or an idea. It’s not necessarily always all four of us. It’s just a big mish-mash. That’s what makes it work. Sometimes when we’re all sat in the studio as a four it’s actually pretty hard because everyone’s trying to put their bit on it. We actually get more done when it’s in bits and bobs. We’ve been writing some new songs recently but it’s just nice to get back in the studio and get some fresh ideas out. WJ: What about when you perform live? KB: We have a live band when we perform. There’s seven of us when it’s live. It’s more exciting. It would be odd if it was just us. That’s what we’re about: being a live band. We are still growing as well because we only really started playing with live musicians about a year and a half ago so a lot of people might think that we’ve been doing this for a while but we came from Hip-Hop where you just throw a CD on and rap over the top of it. We are definitely still growing in the live aspect of things. Each time is different, it’s still fun and we’re just loving it. Yeah, we are still growing. We’ve gone from garage and hip-hop to being Pop but on one or two tracks we’re rapping so we are still, as a group, learning how to sing. We are like babies. So hopefully in years to come we will just keep getting better. WJ: Do you work as well or are you in Kid British full time now? KB: Yeah this is it. We have had the privilege to leave work and make this what we do full time. It was a weird period for us; we had labels knocking at the door and we were saying to our manager, “Can I leave our jobs yet?” And he was like; “Give it another three weeks.” It was the frustration of wanting to get out there. That’s the only thing you think, don’t give up on your dream because it can happen. People that are doing the same now, wanting to leave work for full time music have just got to keep on bashing because hopefully you’ll kick the door down in the end. It’s good having parents that are very supportive. All our Mums are great! Especially Sean’s! It’s a great advantage to have brilliant parents. WJ: The music that you currently make seems to take influences from ska and two tone, is this a conscious effort on your part? KB: It was more like a natural progression. The music that we were makingfirst of all had more of a hip-hop like style; but when Sean came in we got more instruments involved and added a live feel into it. Also because our topics are more of a general social commentary, that’s obviously what a lot of two tone music is about too. We really
didn’t know too much about The Specials and artists like that until people started saying that we kind of looked like them. Then we paid them a lot more attention and we started to realise that a couple of things that we do were kind of similar, so that’s how that came about really. Someone brought a Madness CD into the studio and we loved what they were talking about and their energy. Sean was wicked at sampling vocals so we thought, “Why don’t we use this ‘Our House’ sample but put our lyrics to it?” So that’s where more the ska stuff came from. That was our first ska tune but we didn’t know what it was at the time. We’re kind of fun. We talk real issues but in a positive way and that’s why a lot of people compare us to The Specials but it’s more Madness; on-stage it’s definitely more Madness. WJ: Do you try to draw your song writing inspiration from real life as much as possible then? KB: A lot of it comes from just general things that happen to us or are happening around us and we feel that we can easily make into a theme. They’re the best ideas. All the ideas that we have come from the same place, something will have happened to one of us and we put a melody to it. No one’s unique. Not many people are unique in a way that if something’s happened to you in your life then there’s guaranteed to be a few other people who have experienced the same thing. So whatever you talk about there’s someone for who it is going to hit home for as well. It’s background as well, like coming from the same places it will be easier to relate to what we are saying. WJ: With your similarities in sound with the two tone and ska music of the 60s and 70s, do you find that you get older fans coming to your shows? KB: Yeah. They seem to be the more dedicated people, up in Glasgow there’s a woman who’s not missed any of our tours. We’ve done about four and she’s been at each one, its hilarious. You see the dedication of someone who’s in their forties and it’s actually more surreal then when you get a 13 or 14-yearold loving your music. WJ: The 2nd half of the album is out this year, what can we expect? KB: It’s mainly a lot of new material. The stuff on the album now was made such a long time ago that anything from now on is going to be progression. To us they’re like two, three years old. We are just hoping to get a lot of people hearing our stuff and knowing where we are coming from. The fans are still waiting for it but we have heard it like a thousand times over. Anything that we write now we kind of get excited about but we have to take a step back and think that we’ve already got material that hasn’t been heard yet so we’ll keep that on the back burner.
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WJ: It must be strange playing what are to you ‘old songs’? KB: Our fans can make it a new song. We can learn so much from the live aspect once it’s been played. There might be a song that we are bored of doing but we might all of a sudden go to a gig and say, “Right, this is the next track,” and everyone could go mad and it will have been revitalised. You put more energy into it. It’s like a new song again. WJ: What was it like appearing with the rest of Young Soul Rebels on the recent Warchild single? KB: The biggest thing for us is that we’re obviously from Manchester so all those acts all know each other already and have a rapport with each other. So for us to come down it is just as good to be amongst those artists and let them know about us as well. It was only people that we’ve seen on the festival circuit, like VV Brown, who knew us. It’s good doing it for charity as well for what it was. When we first started out we saw the videos about how the kids were being put in those sorts of situations so it’s just good being a part of that. It’s more than just the song. We weren’t too bothered about what song it was as long as it was something that could get the message out. We were just happy to be part of it. It was good performing at the MOBOs as well. We didn’t think we would ever be there. It’s not really our style of music. WJ: How did you get involved in the T-shirt design collaboration with River Island and the Princes Trust, Ts for the Trust? KB: Well, they were asking massive musicians to get involved and design some clothing and we got asked to do it. For us to see people like Kelly Rowland, Alesha Dixon and Pixie Lott doing it and then us getting asked, it was a big thing for us. It was just nice to go in and meet with the people that design the clothes for such a massive retail store and put your twist on it and have a t-shirt that is your own, its cool. We did one each. The strangest thing will be if people buy the tops and then come to our gigs wearing them. It’s just nice to be asked to do such a massive campaign. WJ: As well as the charity work we have already mentioned you also do a lot for the Love Music Hate Racism campaign. KB: With what was happening with the BNP and that in our area it just felt that it would be wrong if a band like us didn’t do anything. So we’ve been really heavily involved in it since. A lot of the younger generation will come on our social networks and actually say, “What is the BNP? I heard you say something about them at your gig.” It’s good that they’re asking that. ‘Cos we are making them aware of it before they even know about it. With that kind of politics kids could get involved without knowing what they are doing, so its good to get it into peoples heads.
BUCKY LITCH words : Jo Hunt
WJ: Do you feel that as a band you have a duty to speak out against racism? KB: It’s a natural thing. They’re certain things that we’ll say and do because in our eyes there’s a right and wrong. We’re just four normal guys from Manchester so if we see something as right and wrong then we are gonna say something about it. A lot of people hold the light and have the torch but are scared to say anything against organisations like the BNP. An all white band might think, “Oh I don’t wanna get involved in that.” but you’re only expressing what you believe in. You’re not putting on a front. So obviously we are going to keep going with it but it’s not in a forceful way. It’s not like, “Hey make sure you know about this.” We do it at gigs in a kind of way where people feel like they can get involved. They go away and they are aware and against the BNP and they want to start rebelling themselves. That’s the way you’ve gotta get it in the kids minds, start talking politics and they’ll shut off. The current album, “It Was This Or Football” and single “Our House Is Dadless” is out now on Mercury Records. www.iamkidbritish.com www.mercuryrecords.co.uk The Kid British-designed “Ts for The Trust” can be found at River Island, in store or online now. www.riverisland.com www.princes-trust.org.uk The Warchild single by Young Soul Rebels, “I’ve Got Soul” is out now on Universal Island Records. www.igotsoul.co.uk www.islandrecords.co.uk
To understand my surroundings I often pick up a newspaper, ask Korean people what they think about a current news story, or read from various history books about episodes in this country’s fascinating history. This is all well and good but nothing detracts from my own personal philosophy that if you want to uncover the true psyche of a nation, you need to get the nation good and drunk. That’s when you understand a modern society. This week I’m getting philosophical. I find myself in a drinking hole yet again; and it’s time to talk to the locals. This week I discovered Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher whose teachings have echoed throughout East Asia for 2,500 years. The etiquette, or politeness of the people here is overwhelming and never fails to amaze me. The reverence and esteem in which Korean people hold their elders - there is seemingly a separate language for older people which is very formal - is why you don’t get Korean teenagers getting Asbos and kicked out of school. To abide by Confucius’ teachings we must venerate a Golden Age. The wise man also promulgated the idea of the ‘perfect gentleman.’ We must also disdain material things, commerce and the remaking of nature. I think I am a Confucianist. This is why. I’m very polite. I always say please and thank you, and if someone offers me a drink I never turn it down. I often reject material things, especially if they are made of polyester, or wool as it is too itchy. I definitely hark back to a golden age occasionally as it was then I decided sovereign rings were not the way forward. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think about the perfect gentleman, though nowadays, rather than saint I’d prefer a little bit of sin, (though I hope that he reads The Guardian, please). I often get upset if I see another Starbucks, (I say “f**k capitalism” and tut profusely) and I really don’t like it when they ruin a nice parkland to build a block of flats. Confucius said that, “Men’s natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart” and I know that in my life I’ve met a handful of people whose kindness will stay with me forever. I wonder if Confucius believed in soul mates. I asked my Korean friend if he lived by this ideology still and he became distant, musing over the question, perhaps at this moment yearning for a simpler age untainted by elements of the modern world. He spoke of his deep and unfaltering love for his family and the respect he had for his elders. He told me he wanted a happy life, quintessentially simple and honorable. I asked him what kind of woman would be welcomed into this family, his own personal dynasty. The age old question. “What do you look for in a woman”, I enquired mystically. He took a glug of beer and set it down on the table. “Tits” he said. Somewhere, a bell chimed.
W S E I R E E V N N E LI BAKED BEANS
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BIN - bin it, it’s sh*t. BURN - bother to download it for a listen. BOOM! - of course, the highest rating. BIN N-Dubz Playing With Fire (Feat. Mr Hudson) There is nothing more awkward than your Dad desperately trying to ‘fit in’ when your mates come round, except of course if they start hanging out with him instead and he ends up bleaching his hair blonde and wearing all black with white shoes in music videos… then it’s time to think about moving out. w w w. n d u b z . com BURN Fyfe Dangerfield Fly Yellow Moon Not content with taking all the best syllables in the English language and turning them into the greatest name in the world, the lead singer of Guillemots is now busy creating all the most wonderful sounds that can be heard and then crafting them into a solo album. www.fyfedangerfield.com BOOM! Simian Mobile Disco Cruel Intentions (Joker Goon Remix) It’s a strange state of musical affairs when both Simian Mobile Disco and Beth Ditto, who lends vocals to this, trail far behind a bloke from Bristol with a drum machine but that’s exactly what’s happened, as this Joker remix of the uninspired original single is the best damn thing since sliced ham… www.simianmobiledisco.co.uk
Candidate: 60by80.com
& CHAMPAGNE words : Ruthie Holloway
Once upon a less world-wide-web friendly time, Lonely Planet books were the mother of all travel guides, remember that? Now, thanks to cyberspace we can get all our travel needs via our iphones. Recognising that most of the markets had been covered when it comes to travelling types - the rich, the poor backpacker, the hip, the adventurer and the gay traveller - the creators of 60by80.com, Michael Fuchs and Stoytcho Vlaykov decided that what was on offer for the gay community had not been fine-tuned enough. 60by80.com is an online travel guide that ‘really gets the modern gay man’ says Michael Fuchs. ‘Part of it has to do with how the attitude towards the gay community is changing. In most big cities, there’s been this revolution in the public perception of gay people. And rather than hiding in the gay ghettos, we’ve become more critical and more likely to dip and out of different scenes.’ Launched in November this year, 60by80.com is set to add a new dimension to the travel guide brigade. 60by80 offers its audience a “queer eye for the straight guy” perspective, without losing sight of its target audience, and without sacrificing its unique character. It offers some über-cool cities, bars, clubs, restaurants and shopping districts not usually covered by a lot of gay travel guides and some of the hidden gems it features show that they have really done their homework, sourcing new and upcoming events and places as yet undiscovered by the masses. That they ended up doing a travel guide isn’t so strange. Both Fuchs and Vlaykov had already extensively travelled by the time the idea for the website had been conceived and still are. Vlaykov is apparently ‘racking up enough frequent flyer miles to make a trolley dolly look idle’ whilst Fuchs grew up in Copenhagen, and now lives in Barcelona. So is this job a never-ending holiday? In true Baked Beans and Champagne probing style, I found out whether setting up 60by80.com was all sun and sandy beaches or if there were
any mighty storms along the way: What’s the best and worst thing about setting up a travel guide website? ‘In theory, it sounds terribly fabulous and glam: glitzy boutique hotels, fancy restaurants, hot bars, and interesting men. Who wouldn’t want to run a travel guide? Hello reality: it’s the writers who get to do all the exciting stuff, checking out the places and meeting the interesting people. And there you are: stuck with the techies past midnight, trying to figure out why the interactive maps suddenly aren’t very interactive at all! But apart from that we have a great time watching the website grow and slowly turn into something fantastic for its audience.’ What difficulties have there been? What have been the rewards/successes? ‘Surprisingly, the biggest obstacle was our tag line. We conceived the name, 60by80, as ‘queen sized travel’ [before ‘right-sized travel’ took its place] as 60 by 80 inches is the measure of a queensized bed. We thought it was clever with a playful twist, but then we ran it by a focus group of gay men; while some thought it was ingenious, an unexpectedly high number took offense by the “queen” bit. You’d think that we’d be rough-skinned enough to take a little self-deprecating humour, but no! On the other hand, we were expecting a bigger push back to the idea of a gay travel site from marketing departments, especially as we’ve mainly been pitching to the higher end of the brand hierarchy, but the response has been uniformly positive.‘ Bigger plans for the future? ‘World domination, of course. You should know by now that the gay agenda is to turn everybody gay, and then you’ll all be using 60by80.com! In the meantime, we’ll be adding lots more destinations, getting our iPhone application out there, as well as launching some interesting ground services, like airport meet & greeters who will give travellers the gay l ow-down on the city during the ride
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New Year’s Resolution: This Book Will Change Your Life
words : Jessica Ainlay images : Daniela Heinrich
Day 258: Invade people’s personal space today. Bethian McKinley and Berri George, Barefaced Theatre
Benrik : Ben Carey and Henrik Delehag are both Swedish authors and artists based in London who, as ‘Benrik’, share the goal of creating an alternative world view in order to infiltrate the state, the army, the media. Or, to help you change your life. Since 2004, almost 500,000 people have purchased copies of This Diary Will Change Your Life and followed the tasks, reporting back to its creators Benrik and other readers on www.benrik.co.uk. It’s cheeky, subversive and silly, but some of the activities offer a worthwhile way to change your life one day at a time. All photos are taken by Daniela Heinrich With thanks to the Barefaced Theatre Company who tried many of Benrik’s suggestions. www.barefacedtheatre.com
Day 181: Act like you’re worth millions today. Millionaire for a day! Maria Cassidy, Barefaced Theatre
Day 13: Pretend to be a Secret Agent. Edward Fisher, Barefaced Theatre
Day 91:
Day 50:
Use your TV Remote for evil purposes. Katie Warren and Maria Cassidy, Barefaced Theatre
Free Pet Day; put up a lost pet sign and see whether one turns up. Bethian McKinley, Barefaced Theatre
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Day 37: Claim to see the Virgin Mary in an everyday object. Maria Cassidy, Barefaced Theatre
Day 27: Today, write the opening sentence to your debut novel. Bethian McKinley, Barefaced Theatre
MY lodz paradox
I was born in Lodz in 1985 and lived a very happy childhood there till the age of 8, when my parents decided to immigrate to Australia. Since settling back in Europe I’ve visited Lodz several times a year and begun to re-kindle my family relationships. However, as much as I go back and as familiar as the city and its streets, markets, and people are, I feel an outsider to the city. Blending in, but not really belonging. Walking the streets and observing the people, I feel as if the sadness of the city engulfs my thoughts. This becomes almost a paradox because as much as I want to leave and become depressed by the city, it becomes a beautiful series of images. images : Victor Frankowski
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A segmented novel
By Marco Casadei Image by James Lightfoot 10th January La Pearle
The flight into Paris was dull and pointlessly long. I kicked myself for not taking the Eurostar to Gare Du Nord. Still, I met a charming girl on the plane who seemed keen to talk. “What happened to your face?” she enquired gently and playfully as we buckled up and started to move. She had a slight smile on her lips, I just couldn’t figure out wether it was intentional or not. “I fell off my bike ” I told her in a dead pan manner. “You should wear a helmet.” she said informatively yet still smiling like she knows something about me that maybe I don’t. “You might not be so lucky next time” I laugh, tell her I am just too vain and quickly asked the poorly dressed flight attendant if it was too early for a drink. “Not until we get in the air Sir” He said, hand limply patting the headrest in front of me before scooting off to antagonise people about belts. I glance at the book my new companion had turned upside down on her lap, The Outsiders by Camus. A freethinker. It turns out she is a philosophy graduate and I was quite happy to sit patiently and listen to her talk about existentialism, nihilism and Buddhism. I don’t normally listen so much, but if the occasion and person are right I can listen forever. Catherine was doing a whole lot more than talking; she’d even mapped out some kind of diagram showing how different schools of thought interacted with one another. She said she was going to become a lawyer. What a waste of a decent human being. I order us some plane alcohol; my parched mouth quickly finished the cold beer so I order a new round 3 more times. On touch down in Paris, we were both quite merry. I decided to throw all my plans out the window extended her an invite for another drink, which she seemed happy to accept. When we arrived in Central Paris, I tried to quash the annoying thought that I could have been here hours ago if I had caught the train with the idea that maybe I will just have some chimpanzee sex with this chick. I quickly check my reflection in a couple of shop windows and try to subtly make sure my face is as neat as possible. Despite the swelling, I don’t look too bad.
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We head to one of my favourite bars in the Marais district called la Pearle and we drink some cheap wine and exchange stories. I told her a few things I haven’t mentioned for quite some time and even told her I had been married though my wife and daughter were no longer on this planet. I spared her the details. I doubt there will ever be a right time to share this information with another. As the night wore on we began to talk so closely that her breath would gently graze my nose, I found my hand on her leg and I reached over and kissed her half way through another sentence. I think I should patent that as my signature move, I think it is the surprise that wins favour. We make out in the dark corner of La Pearle until closing and I even let someone take a picture, as it would last longer. If you were to see us from the outside in, you would be forgiven for confusing the whole place with the Nighthawks diner in Hopper’s painting. Except the lights are dimmer and we are just out of view. We take our coats and wander outside. She pulls out a packet of cigarettes and it is too much for me to refuse as we walk quietly, smoking in the low-slung lamp lights of the still Parisian Streets. I grab her and kiss her again, her mouth hot and wet, her tongue flicking mine and reaching as far as it will go. I push her against a wall and allow my fingers to pull her skirt up and find their way up her leg and into her panties. Her c**t is wet and when I slide my finger inside her she lets out a little moan that tells me I am on the right track. I flick away the cigarette in my hand, and she takes a final drag as I pull my c**k out of my pants, hold up her right leg and slide it in. It’s f**king hot. It feels f**king good. I look her in the eyes and we f**k like this, looking at each other until I fill her up. I leave it in there for a minute or so after as we kiss and I feel my heart beating hard. We smile at each other, an action that says so many things when words have long escaped us. We smoke another cigarette, walk and laugh until we get to her apartment and I wish her goodnight. I tell her I will see her tomorrow and thank her for being such great company. I think if I had asked I could of stayed but it felt better to end it this way. With one last kiss I walk towards my own place, a small apartment in Giraud and think about the vivid collision of events in my life. The lift up to the fifth floor is as rickety as they come and is big enough for 2 people maximum. The French ideals of Health and Safety are vastly different from our own and it is still possible to stop this lift mid floors and open the cage door should you wish. I like this functionality. I mean, just because you can, doesn’t mean you are going to lose your hand or whatever. F**k health and safety, it’s insulting. The apartment is cold with a smell of dust in the air. I decide to open the window irrespective of the cold as this kind of air is just going to annoy me. I want another cigarette. F**K. The window opens out onto the back of other apartments. I take in the quiet and look around the rooftops, thinking about musketeers and revolution. I love Paris. I strip down to my pants and put on my grandfathers dressing gown. I find an old cigar and a bottle of Balvenie and I sit with my feet poking into the night sky. This is the best day I have had for too long. I almost feel normal. Perhaps I can make everything right and killing this last man will be the last chapter of my book. I hear a scurrying to the right behind a bookcase. I smile bonsoir at my most dependable of friends and blow thick smoke into the sky. If it could be any more perfect there would be a moon. F**k it, it’s my diary… the moon is full, it’s as silver as a new ten pence piece and it’s shining just for me.
JACK DRINKS Zilouf’s, 270 Upper Street, London, N1words 2UQ | www.ziloufs.com : Doireann Ronayne
EAGER TO GET INTO THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY? NOT GOT THE MONEY FOR A FULL TIME UNPAID INTERNSHIP? HAVE YOU ALREADY DONE AN INTERNSHIP BUT ALL YOU GOT TO DO WAS ANSWER THE PHONE AND OPEN THE POST? JACK IN THE FIELD IS COMING, BECAUSE JACK LOVES YOU MORE.
Early next year Jack will be opening his doors for three people to come and work with us on a creative project. Watch the blog for how to be one of the chosen three and to find out more details.
Painted forest-green, Zilouf’s presents an unimposing exterior to passers-by on Islington’s Upper Street. I had been just once, sometime last February, to have dinner with a friend before she set off for Big Apple adventures. Fuelled by strawberry and blackcurrant cocktails and dozens of Gossip Girl inspired Upper East Side fantasies, I put myself in her shoes, pondering on how my life might unfold in New York. Yet there is something about a bar like Zilouf’s that renews your vigour for London. For just as the gleaming liquid swirls of a cocktail can reveal hidden depths, so the city has a knack for throwing up the unexpected, in my case throwing me a bone in the form of a political internship. On a Saturday in mid-November, Zilouf’s was the bar of choice for an Aussie girl celebrating three years of wacky and wonderful London. This time however, I’m not thinking of the glitter of New York or the gold beaches of Australia. I catch up with friends I haven’t seen in far too long and I’m introduced to girls I’ve been meaning to meet for ages. We shriek about red lipsticks, zip dresses and Kurt Geiger shoes with bows. The barman splashes red wine into glasses and we nip outside to a handy seating/smoking area with decent outdoor heaters. On the other side of the road envious smokers heaving onto the street are peering across at our amber-tipped cigarettes and our outdoor seats. It is the first Saturday night in a while that I haven’t been itching to leave for home, finding myself unable to endure outdoor cigarettes in gale-force winds, leery-drunk louts and insipid tunes.
In front of the bar, there is just enough room for the crowd to mingle and swill comfortably and the groups are not so separately distanced as to preclude conversation. This, in itself, should not be remarkable, but a break from the jostling elbows and brim-filled drinks that squeeze the thrill out of many other London bars was a very welcome respite. At regular prices, the cocktails are a few quid less pricey than most of the other good cocktail bars around town. At two-for-one until 8pm it’s a treat. 79 The music was old school. Jazz and soul heightening the ebb and flow of banter and chat on the vast and comfortable leather couches. The bartenders are far from ordinary. It’s clear that they have been formally trained; the measures are spot-on, the sweet-sour balance carefully struck. I kicked off my night with a Raspberry Mule. Behind the bar, the staff spun and shook, deftly flicking dark and light spirits into shiny glasses. Disappointingly, the champagne cocktails were less spectacular. As my Flirtini began to curdle on top in an unsavoury way, I resorted to stirring it vigorously before each sip. I caught up with an old house mate now living in Kent and chattering superfast, we made our way up to the bar. Catching my indecisiveness, the barman asked my favourite fruits and liquors. Moments later he placed a glass the colour of an autumn leaf, with rum and hints of vodka, apples and pears down in front of me. It proved to be the perfect ending to a week fraught with house-hunting disappointments and frayed nerves.
I LOVE YOU FOR LOVING ME
ERIN DANIEL MCKEE
image : Andrea Bono Tempo
“NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS”.
Poor the Moss.…Already a figure of ridicule and derision from the mainstream, her flippant quote has ruffled the feathers of some plump pontificates. This statement should not be attributed as original from the supermodel; actually it is a paraphrase from the rather unthreatening, old and accessible 1990’s UK diet and exercise queen, Rosemary Conley. Undoubtedly, Kate said this with sarcasm and irony. But hey folks, the girl doth speak the truff. Predictably the horizontally-challenged green-eyed monsters came out in force, decrying her words, and again accusing her of encouraging anorexia nervosa. Oh, go away fatties! Kate Moss no more encouraged an eating disorder than rotund ‘stars’ Kirsty Alley, Colleen No-
lan or Fern Britton, (aka Lady Gastro band) discussing diet techniques, encourages morbid obesity. As the international fashion weeks approach next month, we will again be subjected to unfortunate looking writers and TV presenters fanning the flames of the very boring ‘size zero’ debate. Anorexia and bulimia are serious things. Complex both physically and emotionally, these eating disorders cannot be promo’d like a Jimmy Choo platform. To think this, is to diminish the gravitas of the women and men that struggle with such body dysmorphic issues. It’s a cynical media invention. To state the obvious: ‘Thin is better’. Beauty makes your life easier and being rich is cool.
Oh and being intelligent is valued in some cultures. But really there ain’t no nobility in being clever and ugly. The fashion and beauty world is one which women and men spend vast amounts to be a part of. Fat people shell out hard earned cash on designer fragrances, nails and shoes. They can’t fit into a Narciso Rodriguez dress, so they buy the perfume instead. The catwalk shows, ads and red carpet pictures of models and celebrities present everyone with something to aspire to, and to escape with. If the imagery were of ‘real people’ the industry would die. Much like the criticism lobbed on Linda Evangelista in the 90’s, “ I wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000” and Leona Helmsley in the 80’s “ Only the little people pay taxes”, Kate was merely stating what we all wish we could say. Having spent much time with the ‘beautiful people’ it is all fantasy – but to criticise it seems like sour grapes, the one who wasn’t invited to the party. I, as well as most of my wonderful readers are not aesthetically perfect. I recognise this. But I will always live in the fantasy that someday I might be. Now lay off the Moss! Oh Father, You Perv: The Murphy Report. So now Who’s Jack, I’m gonna vent… ‘The church and police colluded to hide decades of child abuse by priests in Dublin, an investigation concluded.’ The New York Times ‘Outside the courthouse where a judge approved a $660 million settlement on Monday, sexual abuse victims shared feelings of betrayal.’ The New York Times Are these quotes about some strange cults? The Mormans or at least the Scientologists? No, they are referring to the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church. They have much in common with what we perceive the Scientology religion to be about. The secrecy, power, money, scandal and the avoidance of the truth. On 26th November 2009, the Murphy Report was published. The report consisted of three volumes and cost a total of £3.6 million. The investigating commission identified 320 abused people between 1975 and 2004, and 120 from May 2004. It named and stated that the four archbishops, who were serving during that time, covered up the truth and perpetuated the abuse of more children. One of the priests admitted to 100 counts of abuse. Another admitted to abusing people fortnightly for 25 years. A final died in 2002, professing that he had done nothing wrong. Along with clergy, the Gardaí were accused in the report of covering up the scandal. This was just in Ireland! Records can
Jack Sleeps The Hotel Rafayel, Battersea be found on-line, as to the numbers of victims and the Churches’ financial culpability, from every other country, except Italy, where the Vatican is immune from even investigation let alone publishing. According to NPR, “In the last decade, clerical abuse scandals involving Roman Catholic priests erupted in the United States and several European and Latin American countries. Yet in Italy — the bastion of Catholicism — the issue never came to the surface and never made headlines, as the Vatican’s clergy are immune. Now, as an adult, I can filter the religious bullsh*t: The homophobia, the misogyny, the sexual oppression and hypocrisy. But covered-up institutionalised, systematic child sex abuse. No way. F**k off. Recent films such as Doubt and The Magdalene Sisters (both based on truth) are stories from decades ago. This shocking stuff is still happening. Through the years the Church has been all too happy to point the wrinkly finger of judgment at various pop culture offences: certain popstars ‘immorality’ eg. Madonna, Hollywood starlets sex-lives eg. Elizabeth Taylor, and historically controversial films eg. ‘The Da Vinci Code’, and Spike Lee’s ‘Miracle at St. Anna’. Maybe instead they should come clean and weed out the paedos’ that the Church accommodates so well. Being the father of a 3yr old daughter, I would no sooner trust her with a priest or send her merrily to sunday school, than have Gary Glitter babysit. One From The Vault: Mummy Most Dear. Well it didn’t snow for the holidays in London again this year. However, a few years ago it was snowing on X-mas day in Courtney Love’s Lansborough Hotel suite, it was X-mas morning. The fabulous love was rather worse for wear on the day of the birth of Our Lord Cartier, and wasn’t feeling up to leaving her bedroom to open the staff wrapped crimbo prezzies with her daughter Frances Bean. Rather than miss out on the event completely she took part via intercom. For outside the master bedroom was the living room and sparkling tree with her daughter scanning the gifts. Santa Courtney could be heard shouting down the intercom: “Mummy’s here, now Frances open the big green one!” And on and on till all were revealed and Court could get back on the slopes.
S T O C K I S T S OUTDOOR PAGES PAGE 48 JUMPER BY GAP. SCARF BY GAP. PAGE 49 JUMPER BY BURBERRY. DEERSTALKER, VINTAGE. TEE SHIRT BY ACNE. CHINOS BY GAP. SHOES BY SUPERGA AT WWW.MY-WARDROBE.COM
Hotel Rafayel, on Battersea’s new Left Bank, is one of the world’s first ever ‘green’ hotels. The five star hotel opened only last month and is part of the pioneering Falcon Wharf Development. Rafayel is the first of a dynamic concept headed by developer Ike Latif, who aims to create a branded product that embraces technological advances yet is ecologically aware too. The hotel has many ‘green’ features including the latest global friendly LED lights and air-conditioning helping to save a massive 17kg of carbon emissions per room, reducing every guests carbon footprint. Perfect. Inside, the hotels 65 rooms are modern and sleek with bespoke furnishings running throughout them all. If that wasn’t enough for you the hotel also includes apartments, two restaurants, a bar, a lounge and a spa and 360 degree views over London from it’s roof terrace. As well as all this in the lobby sits the MyChelle’s Baketique. The bakery was opened by Michelle Husserl who is originally from New York who was apparently once dubbed the ‘Princess of Bakery’. It offers a variety of sweets, cupcakes and cakes perfect for a bit of afternoon tea. Also opening at Hotel Rafayel this month is the River Wellbeing spa. Created to inspire and guide you to complete physical and emotional health, the River Wellbeing Spa incorporates traditional and modern wellbeing techniques alongside exercise programmes and beauty grooming services. While staying there it’s worth trying out the Banyan Riverside restaurant which over looks the Thames. Serving Mediterranean and Indian food the restaurant also boasts a crystal bar and offers both casual and formal dining for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, a first in the Battersea area. To book your stay head to www. hotelrafayel.com rooms are varying themes and sizes including, Big (Mississippi), Bigger (Yangtze), Even Bigger (Amazon) and Biggest (Nile) and prices start at £250.
PAGE 50 CARDIGAN BY APC AT WWW.MY-WARDROBE.COM SHIRT BY ACNE. TROUSERS BY GAP. SOCKS BY PAUL SMITH. SHOE BY RUSSELL AND BROMLEY PAGE 51 & FRONT COVER CHECK SHIRT, SWEATSHIRT AND CHINOS BY GAP. BOOTS BY RUSSELL AND BROMLEY. PAGE 52 JUMPER, STRIPED TEE, DENIM JOGGERS BY ACNE. BOOTS BY RUSSELL AND BROMLEY PAGE 53 HOODIE BY GRP FIRENZE WWW.MY-WARDROBE.COM . BRETON TOP BY B STORE AT WWW.MY-WARDROBE.COM
81 FREE MAGAZINE STOCKISTS
Size? - (in London stores) : Carnaby Street, Soho, W1F 7DW 200 Portobello Road, Notting Hill, W11 1LB 37a Neal Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 9PR www.size.co.uk Beyond the Valley : 2 Newburgh Street, W1F 7RD www.beyondthevalley.com Number 22 22 Carnaby Street, London, W1 Paper Dress 114-116 Curtain Road, EC2A 3AY www.paperdressboutique.blogspot.com 55 DSL 10A Newburgh St London, W1F 7RN : www.55dsl. com Camden Blues Kitchen 111 - 113 Camden High Street, NW1 7JN www.theblueskitchen.com Old Queens Head 44 Essex Road, Islington, N1 8LN www.theoldqueenshead.com See an up to the minute list of stockists online, if you would like to stock Who’s jack contact: press@whos-jack.co.uk
SCENE STEALER
We went along to the Hepatitis C Trust Get Tested evening at The Paradise in Kensal Rise to watch the likes of Sadie Frost, Lisa Moorish, Ed Simmons and Boy George performing. They were all there to raise money and awareness for the Hepatitis C Get Tested campaign. For more information on Get Tested visit www.hepctrust.org. uk www.hepctrust.org. uk
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