I bought a Bronica ETRsi camera when I was younger, and sold it a year later because I never really got on with it. This multiple exposure was the only thing I ever shot with it that was any good. The unfortunate thing about it is that there is a shot of a really nice old World War 2 vet mixed in there, and it kind of looks like he is on fire, which was certainly not my intention!

stuff

Album: Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances
A bit like Los Campesinos doing Dropkick Murphys, with a bit of Tokyo Police Club thrown in, instead of hiring a lead singer, this band seem to have tape recorded the sound of a prisoner reciting the lyrics to a pop song whilst being horribly tortured. I cant see anything wrong with this.

Single: The Enemy - No Time For Tears
In fact, I think the above recording technique should be directly applied to The Enemy, except not recorded. This song starts off reasonably enough, to me the vocal is pretty much an attempt at Joe Strummer, which isn't a bad thing. Then the music kicks in. I imagine the band think they are an epic cross between the Clash, The Jam, and the Happy Mondays, with the chants and soul singing. Unfortunately they end up being a horrible amalgamation of U2 and Status Quo. The lyrics veer from laughably earnest calls to "get out the city" to bland Kate Nash type 'everyday' observations. Horrible.

Film: A Boy and His Dog (1975)
I watched this old sci fi film the other day, and really enjoyed it. From what I could make out, a civilisation destroying event has happened, and the cities of the world are buried under a thick layer of sand. The survivors live and look a lot like the people of Mad Max 3, and we follow the fortunes of a boy who can telepathically communicate with his dog. Brilliantly his dog is a lot more intelligent than he is, and helps him navigate this dangerous place. I wont go on anymore about it, but not only is it fun and interesting, but handles some quite controversial subjects. The last quarter of the film is a bit disappointing, but there is a dark twist right at the end that's really great.

Song: The Horrors: Sea Within a Sea
Anathema to anyone who didnt like skinny jeans and creative pretension in 2007, The Horrors were loved or hated. I think that a lot of people still wont be able to see past their ghost train looks, but this song has a new direction whilst keeping everything that was good about the band. Its not as hard edged and violent as the previous album was, but keeps the dark side beautifully intact. I cant wait for the new album, this is one of the best things I have heard in ages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lD5cE6Bwc

The Rakes - Klang!

The new Rakes album; Klang! is out, and is well worth checking out. I'm still not sure whether it quite matches up to their first album, or perhaps even their severely underrated second, but i'm liking it more with every listen. Part of me wishes though that they had let Paul Epworth, the man behind their first album, produce the record. While I loved the sound of producer Chris Zanes Les Savy Fav albums, I really miss the stripped down, punchy sound Epworth brought to The Rakes. But while Alan Donohoes lyrics have gotten a bit lost in the mix, eight of the ten songs on there are brilliant, as you would expect from the band behind Retreat, 22 Grand Job, and All Too Human.

This is my favourite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXO3WqPR7F0

Overall i'm just pleased they havent gone the route of another band who's debut was brilliantly helmed by Epworth. Bloc Party have, save for a few songs, gone tragically down hill since 2005 and while its fine to say that (unlike the Rakes) they have tried to push their sound in drastically different directions, their latest album is all a bit gutless and dull.

The fact that its actually also partly produced by Epworth makes me think I should just be pleased The Rakes have put out another strong, if not classic album.

Mono Gig

Magazines like Guitar Player monthly and Total Guitar have always puzzled me a bit. In a way you could possibly equate their fetishising of guitars with the way people buy Car Monthly and Max Power, but really is a Band or an artist not the car, and the guitar just a small part of a greater whole? Are there magazines like Tyre Enthusiast? Brake Light Specialist? Classic Hub Cap Buyer?

Perhaps I'm just being narrow minded. Last night I was faced with a whole room of the type of people who buy these magazines, as I went to a Mono gig, a japanese post-rock band. I had gone to watch them at Scala in the hope that they would be a kind of new version of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the legendary Canadian band, who no longer tour, or make albums.

Their music is a mixture of amazing percussion, with a lot of intricate and powerful guitar work from their three guitarists, building to crashing crescendos, and no vocalist in sight. Its the kind of majestic thing you could score a film with, or as Sigur Ros music has done in the past, a BBC Nature Documentary series. The only problem with this type of music and its drawn out atmospheric nature is that in performance, it needs to be supplemented by either a wealth of different instrumentation, a top notch light show, or hugely charismatic performers with real stage presence. Not two comatose guitarists sitting on stools and a third, female guitarist drugglily swaying along.

The people who had crowded to the front of the stage (an hour an half before anything even started) seemed to absolutely love watching the top strumming action that was happening before them, and were gasping in awe at the classiest fingering since Lady Chatterleys Lover (sorry I couldn’t resist.)

After opening with their latest single, Ashes in the Snow, which is genuinely brilliant and exhilarating, everything kind of took on a formulaic tone, and while good, wasn’t enough to really enliven the mood too much. On the plus side, their drummer was probably worth the price of admission, if only he wasn’t resigned to sitting at the back of the stage, whilst his less active band mates were pushed to the front. I guess Total Guitar has higher sales figures than Drum World.

Topshop In-house Mag shoots

Here's the layouts of the two shoots I did for Nicoles Topshop mag. The theme of the latest edition is New York, in celebration of the New York branch of Topshop opening. I based the look of the first shoot (Night Hawks) on the work of painter Edward Hopper, I wanted to get a cinematic 40s/50s type look, without resorting to the cliched black and white noir look of gangster/detective films. Hoppers paintings of night time in the city have a really distinct atmosphere and a certain palette of colour I wanted to bring to these images.

Many thanks to all the people who sent me New York images for the projections I did in the second shoot (The Calm and the Chaos), it was much appreciated. My Mums and Kambi's were the ones that got used in the final images.

Trumpet

I'm still persisting with Lost. Watching it recently has been like trying to untangle a ball of string or some small twisted chains. Not neccesarily mentally taxing, sometimes slightly irratating, sometimes rewarding, but with the overriding feeling that you could be doing something better with your time.

I havent been bothered to research the plot in depth (although you can online, to mind crunching detail), but with names like Farraday, John Locke, Hume etc the writers seem to be linking the characters with famous philisophical and scientific figures from history, in what I imagine they think is some kind of impressively deep, multi layered comment on science and faith. In reality previous series sometimes felt like an A-level piece of creative writing, with the writer poring over a thesaurus and encyclopedia ramming stuff in.

The ramming seems to have slowed down though recently, and there has been a gradual unravelling of some of the (semi) puzzling plotlines from the series, and while this is satisfying in a sense, it seems to be revealing more mysticism and faith than it does science, which is such a cop-out. If there is a 'some questions science just cant answer' type conclusion I will shit.

If Lost is the fancy-dan, alice band wearing, tackle avoiding, creative midfielder of the popular sci-fi drama series world, then Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the journey man utility midfielder, chugging along, never too ambitious, but always dependable. A bit like a Danny Murphy to Losts Luka Modric.

Sometimes it flirts with interesting ideas; humans educating artificial AI, humans feeling lust for robots, dealing with a future you know you can't avert, etc. However, just as its about to really get interesting, it pulls away to more traditional 'Terminator incessantly chasing people down corridors' scene, or a 'Two Terminators smashing each other about a bit' scene. Luckily these kind of scenes are always accompanied by the brilliant theme music from the films, which essentially sounds like a Terminator making slow, painful love to a trumpet.

Top 5 New York Bands

This is a small piece I wrote for Nicoles Topshop thing -

A Place to Bury Strangers
If you're going to a A Place To Bury Strangers gig, its probably worth taking ear plugs. Not in a bad way, but just so your ears are suitably protected enough so that the next time you go to a gig they are actually working. Their extremely loud sound gives nods to The Jesus and Mary Chain and XTRMNTR era Primal Scream, with layers of guitar fuzz and feedback, and a dark, nihilistic atmosphere.

Yeasayer
Remember those student musicians who used to sit underneath the trees outside their University Halls, strumming a guitar, reeking of incense and talking about how much they love Fela Kuti maaaan. They wish they could be even a tenth as inspired as the eclectic, multicultural sound of Yeasayer. The chants and rich instrumentation of their album All Hour Cymbals build a really amazing atmosphere without ever resorting to cheap grandiose melodrama.

Les Savy Fav
Having kicked about for over a decade, Les Savy Fav arent a new band, or even a massively successful one, but are very much worthy of your attention. Their style seems to shift dramatically with every track, sometimes sharp, dreamy indie pop, sometimes blisteringly hard rock, perhaps due Tim Harringtons superb if slightly crazed stage persona. Imagine a toughened up 70s era Elton John who started life as a beer swilling lumberjack, and you're probably not that close.

Amazing Baby
If there was one song from the current New York indie scene that you simple must go out of your way to listen to, it would be Amazing Baby’s ‘Supreme Being’. Woozy, ethereal, and electrifying all at the same time, it really is a great way to spend four minutes. The bands other work seems to jump between sounding like either MGMT’s dropout buddies (which they are), or Vampire Weekend doing T.Rex, which when you think about it, could never be a bad thing.

Crystal Stilts
They are probably the least accessible of the bands mentioned here. Their singer cant sing. Their name is absolutely awful. Their sound isn’t even particularly original, and is heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground, Brianjonestown Massacre, and (again) The Jesus and Mary Chain. But somehow, Crystal Stilts really, really work. At the very least, you will never, ever hear their music scoring an advert for a crap hatchback.

Scientific Break Through

Stop Press! This morning it suddenly came to my attention that a rare, genius of a man has managed to bend and possibly break the laws of physics. Unbeknownst to many, he has created a device that allows him to travel through time. Unfortunately he seems to have decided that rather than using this huge scientific achievement to help humanity to reach a better existence and reverse its past mistakes, he is going to use it to peddle bland 2003 based rap music to us.

I just finished watching the video for Flo Ridas apparently number one song. Regardless of the paper thin wood that makes up the bottom of the originality barrel he has been scraping, my main problem with the whole affair are what he is visually presenting to us. The only thing that I can think of that would be more plain and pointless than the video would be if the company that makes Smiths Salt and Shake crisps decided to make a spin off snack sans the vital condiment, called Smiths Just Shake. Plus, what is he wearing? Big jeans and gaudily logoed t-shirts are a hip hop cliche regularly on show in this type of thing, but he looks like he's been dressed at Wellesbourne Market. Plus he's wearing a leather Gilet. I'm going to stop there, that is all that needs to be said.

Drawing

Nicole asked me if I could do some simple, quirky drawings for a project shes working on at the moment, and that they had to be New York themed. So I tried to draw the most unadulterated New York image I could think up. Ill give a print (not of this monstrosity) to the first person who can work out what it is depicting. Needless to say, she decided that my drawings wont be running in Topshop's inhouse magazine.

This is Simon, who likes to do these poses whilst I do test shots for lighting. I think its like some kind of brilliant Happy Mondays baggy dance, like something Bez might do at the start of a gig. I never really notice until I get home and have a look at my raw files.

Lauren

pic of my little sister at campion hills

Twilight: True Blood before its balls dropped.

I also got round to watching Twilight this weekend, a disaffected teen highschool vampire emo love story (phew). Having never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I can't state for a fact that all these themes have been covered already, but i'd be willing to bet a high collared wool coat and a set of pale but interesting good looks on it.

Visually its quite nice, all misty and sombre, and the styling tries to subvert the usual sartorial choices of modern vampire/teen films, but it never quite manages to tear itself away from that ubiquitous U.S look. The producers probably think the actors are all dressed like a dreamy version of Joy Division, but in fact they look more like My Chemical Romance doing a Gap Advert.

You could write the plot out on the back of a Fall Out Boy album before the film has even started, and rather than examining any of the few interesting ideas it throws up, it prefers to persist with dull flatulent 'girl in danger' plotlines.

The film is essentially a neutered version of True Blood, a series with gore, violence, lots of sex and style, and the pop sensibilities to make it fun. Like Twilight it is based on a popular modern vampire novel, except its set in the deep south, in a world where Vampires have 'come out of the closet' and live side by side with humans. It has the courage to explore ideas, never takes itself too seriously, and while it can sometimes get a bit schmaltzy, its well worth a watch. It also has the best title sequence ever - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z64wSWfoDQ8

The Fall

Do you remember watching the trailers for House of Flying Daggers, and Hero, and thinking "that looks amazing", and then realising that they were, in fact, absolute dogshit?

Well last night I watched a film that I would probably consider the joint most beautiful film I have ever watched, and it is genuinely entertaining and original, without ever taking itself too seriously, charges that certainly cant be leveled at the aforementioned. Its called The Fall, and is directed by Tarsem Singh, who was responsible for the Cell, and recently worked on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I'm not sure if its been out in Britain at the cinema, or even on DVD yet, I have never seen any trailers or promo for it before, but IMDB has it down as being out in 2006.

The intro scene is incredible, resembling the photography of O.Winston Link, and things just get more visually lavish from there. It does (very occasionally) look like a nineties building society advert, but in a good way. I won't bang on about the story too much, its nothing that will blow your mind, but it cracks along at a pace, and there are some really nice naturalistic bits of acting from the films leads, Lee Pace and the young Catinca Untaru. Overall, the film was extremely entertaining, and if you like the films of Wes Anderson, then this will be right up your alley.

New Adventures

New Adventures are a London based band I shot for a week or so ago. They needed some images for new promotional material, and wanted a look that fitted the faded grandeur of their sound. The shots below were taken in Annies Bar in Kentish town, and the second part of the shoot (which ill be featuring on my main site) were shot at Bush Hall in Shepherds Bush. For those shots the band donned a dorian gray/country gent type look, and we arranged for a dog to be bought to the shoot to create a pack of hounds lounging at the bands feet.