Summertime...



Rainbow at Field Day



Budapest

 



Black Lake- Black Lake- Black Lake

 

Trophy Wife, Standon Calling.

Artist Studio, Hackney Wick. 



Little Boots DJ Set, Standon Calling.



Really Hot Guy, Field Day.



No-one Predicted a Riot

It seems wrong to continue without making some mention of the fact that last week a huge, fuck off riot hit London and other cities across England.

On a personal level, it was really upsetting to see so many local businesses being hit in an already poor area like Hackney and to hear about residents being terrorised in the streets and on London Fields. A friend of mine living at the heart of it was effectively barricaded inside her home for two days. St Josephs Hospice- based on Mare Street where the trouble began- actually had bricks thrown over the walls. As if stopping people from visiting their dying relatives inside wasn’t bad enough.

Hackney was lucky though when set against the chilling levels to which violence escalated elsewhere. In Croydon a young man was shot in the head whilst in his car. Three men were deliberately mowed down in the street in Birmingham. And a 16 year old boy has just been arrested on suspicion of beating a pensioner to death in Ealing.

It makes me really sad that there are apparently so many horrendous people living in my city and my country. But the sheer numbers of people involved is scary in itself- and with it, the suggestion that this comes back to some fundamentals in human nature.

Psychological studies have found again and again that we are all capable of getting caught up in mob mentality and that ordinary people are capable of partaking in unthinkable atrocities. (Nazi Germany being the prime example of this.)

Whilst I am not excusing the behaviour of rioters, you also have to accept that poverty has always been a massive factor in criminality. And without coming over all Miliband, the crumbling of ethics in this country is and always has radiated from the top down.

The sad thing is that this entire incident is already being harnessed by right wing forces as a justification for further curtailing our civil liberties and scapegoating vulnerable groups. Seems like British politics is gearing up for a big 80s revival.

To help support some of the local groups and businesses who have been affected by the riots in Hackney and elsewhere, please see the links below:

http://riotscleanup.wordpress.com/
http://www.helpsilva.com/

FIELD DAY

No matter how big it gets Field Day will NEVER sell out by investing in a decent sound system. This would suggest that it was actually a music festival rather than a celebration of fake vintage fashion, delusory middle-class arrogance, being hammered by 11am and not changing your clothes until bedtime on Sunday.

Rather than boring you all with a photo of the instantly-forgettable Wild Beasts who headlined, a selection of people wearing ironic, Hitler Youth wigs, or a group of girls sitting in a line pissing on the ground, here is a shot from The Wicker Man.

YOUR OTHER LOVER



Left to Right: Si (Bass) and Ben (Guitars) in London Fields

Playing together as a four-piece since October last year, Your Other Lover have already recorded with David Burn from Detroit Social Club and caught the attention of BBC Introducing, Amazing Radio and MySpace.

The band are: Dan (vocals), Ben (guitars), Si (bass) and Keiran (drums). They describe their style in terms of ‘noise pop. A lot of Harsh, distorted sounds.  What we want to do is find something really simple- whether it's one riff or something kind of surf pop sounding. Then we put it into a completely different bracket and move it into this 80s noise sound... hopefully managing to collaborate the two.'

There have been comparisons with both Interpol and Joy Division. As the band point out, a major factor in this is the fact that Dan’s voice is naturally 'low and baritone'- the echoes of Interpol's lead singer Paul Banks are particularly striking.

Vocals aside, Your Other Lover's music is intoxicating and multi-layered; carrying subtle resonances of these and other iconic groups, whilst at the same time sounding wholly distinct from all of them.

Songs like 'Wolves' have a heavy and psychodellic feel; not least due to the shamanic quality of the lyrics.

‘Dan writes lot of lyrics about death but he always tries to give it an expression of hope or having something more behind it.’ Ben explains. 'He reads a lot of books about Native American history and he's really interested in how the body works with drugs. He writes a lot about the state of your mind when you're dreaming. The Doors kind of thing. ' 

Your Other Lover Playing Live in May: Photo taken by Claudio Sampietro

In amidst the darkness are more playful elements; with catchy, uptempo guitar
riffs somewhere between 80s post-punk and Springsteen. For Si, this is a natural end product of the band's influences: 'We like a lot of music from very simple pop songs to heavy rock stuff. We draw influences from everything we listen to and if we can bring those two sounds together that's great.'

Your Other Lover have recently recorded a double A-side, produced by David Burn, which is due to be released in September. They plan to release their first EP in December. When it comes to signing with a record label though, they are holding out for the right opportunity.

'Being signed doesn’t mean anything unless it meets with the band’s aspirations. In terms of getting it out to as many people as possible, having someone to promote it would be great but we’ll only do it if it’s on our terms. We want a label that actually likes what we do.'

Your Other Lover will releasing a double A side single (produced by David Burn) on 1st September. A follow up EP is planned for December.
  
For further information you can visit:

http://myspace.com/yourotherlover

http://facebook.com/yourotherlover

http://soundcloud.com/yourotherlover

Art is Short for Artist...

So I was at an East London gallery the other Thursday looking for free alcohol, when I came across a really interesting exhibition. The basic idea was giving every day objects deeper significance and it was all going well. It was warm, personal, quirky... And then you came to around the fourth or fifth piece- which was a receipt.


The artist's explanation was as follows: ‘I go to hardware shops and sometimes I wonder what other people buy there. So I dug this receipt out of the bin just outside.’ We are talking about a space the size of a broom cupboard and this artist still felt the need to come up with filler pieces. Worst of all- it was First Thursday the gallery charged money for drinks.

And so it goes full circle… you come to a gallery and pretend that you're there for the art when you're actually there for the free drinks. The gallery pretends they want you to come in and look at the art but they are actually trying to trick you into paying for alcohol.


The Hunter becomes the Hunted.

CAMDEN CRAWL 2011



British Sea Power at Koko Sunday 1st May



Giant Straw Man was loving the attention a bit too much and had an eye for the ladies... kind of sinister in the way that clowns are.

The Longest Name in Electro Pop

Left to Right: Dan Robinski, Sydney Southam, Andrew Hoey, John Bolton

You And Others Around You have already built up a substantial following on the gig circuit of East London and Camden.

The music on their eponymous debut EP comprises haunting lyrics and complex melodies against an up tempo, electronic background to create a classic, post-punk sound.

The band are: Dan Robinski, lead singer and currently the main song writer; lead guitarist Andrew “Hoey” Hoey and drummer John Bolton who previously played together in Coventry band The Illchemists; and Sydney Southam on synth and backing vocals, also artist and blogger, who previously sang with electro rave band Private Lives.

NGID caught up with the band on the roof of a converted warehouse in Hackney Wick where they record and rehearse.   

NGID: What music has inspired you?

Hoey: More recently Taio Cruz. Think he’s got some big bangers. Past all sorts. I just listen to good songs- I listen to all kinds of music. But yeah- Taio Cruz- he’s the boy.

John: On a personal level, my friend Tom Sutch. On another level any pop music really. I don’t really have a record collection. I like music of any periods of time. I don’t have a very good memory for music but I like music.

Sydney: Motown, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Lauren Hill, Daft Punk, Cinematic Orchestra. I just saw Bonobo in Berlin and it was a-maz-ing. I mean- I have varied tastes.

Dan: Talking Heads. David Byrne for his facial expression. I’m heavily influenced by his stage performance. If you keep your eyes big it improves the quality of your voice. David Byrne does that really well because it doesn’t look or sound too forced. As soon as I realised there was a reason to have crazy eyes on stage I’ve tried to develop that.

NGID: Would you say you generally prefer older music?

Dan: No I like modern music. I like Nicki Minaj, she’s good. She’s really good at freestyling. I actually started out as a rapper and only began making pop music later. I think because I’d had a background in writing rap I found it a lot easier to say what I wanted and to make the rhymes maybe slightly more intricate. I think a lot of lyric writers don’t pay enough attention to the actual sounds that the words are making. It doesn’t have to rhyme the way a rap does but it’s important that you have assonance going on. You know- where a word sounds like another word. Like- ‘heart’ and ‘far’.

NGID: I’ve seen some really bad live hip hop-

Dan: I was all right actually. But I realised it just didn’t really ever feel quite real enough being a white, middle-class rapper. It’s not like you can’t be a rapper if you’re white and middle-class… but whereas your swagger’s got to be genuine, you can’t imitate the way other rappers sound. It’s quite difficult to come up with a slogan that’s not only genuine, it’s also good- you can end up sounding a bit gimmicky or just fake.

NGID: So now you tend to write about heartbreak…

Dan: Heartbreak, isolation, addiction... that’s about it really. It sounds happy though. Bit of a cliché- dark lyrical content with a happy soundtrack. It’s been done millions of times before. What’s more interesting is a band like Radiohead- early Radiohead-  where a lot of their lyrics are actually jokes. Apparently ‘Just’ is actually about w*nking. Like (sings) ‘You do it to yourself, you do and that’s what really hurts’- it sounds like it’s about self harm or suicide. I like the idea of writing a really depressing song about something that’s actually quite light-hearted. Maybe that’s what we should try next.

NGID: Would you agree there’s a strong 80s influence on YAOAY’s sound?

Dan: I think some of our music may sound a bit 80s because of the way the melodies are structured. In a lot of our songs, you have a lyric and then you have phrase of music with no singing. Then you have a lyric and a phrase of music so it’s like… de de de. Music. De de de. Music. This was a very popular style in the 80s.

John: And also the music on the EP was effectively a demo- it’s just Dan singing and playing on his own. With more people it’s taken on a new life.

Dan: When we play live it sounds very different to the demo because everyone’s got their own take on each bit of the song.

John: We’re also working on new material…

Dan: Yeah, we started writing together, which is exciting. We just wrote our first song which should be ready to be played live in about a month. Before that, I had written all the music and lyrics. With more people involved, I think you end up with a much fuller sound.

Hoey: I think if you have a creative input you have much more of a connection to what you’re playing.

NGID: How have you found the response to the band has been so far?

Dan: Very good. I got on Twitter last week- I’ve only just worked Twitter out- and we had 300 followers within a week. Which is pretty good, I think. Lots of people said ‘I really like your music’ which is encouraging. But right now all we have to offer is the EP, which as we’ve discussed I recorded on my own…

John: We don’t have a product to promote.

Dan: So the promotional side is fairly limited because there’s not too much point in selling it too heavily just because it’s not actually what we’re going to be selling if you see what I mean. It’s literally a demo. But still- the fact that people like that in its amateur-like state means that when we do have a professional EP or album, hopefully the response to that will be even bigger.

Photography by Elisabete Santos Rosa; http://cargocollective.com/elisabete

YAOAY's EP is currently available to purchase online. They are playing at The Garage on Thursday 28th April. For further details, you can visit their website: http://youandothersaroundyou.bandcamp.com/

You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter