Youth Really Killed It

The only thing worse than receiving cold emails from a music PR companies is when your mediocre band friends ask you to review their less than inspiring music. It's the worst. Not only do they assume that you owe them a favour for simply being their friend but usually you have to act like it's actually half decent as to not hurt their tender musician feelings. Following my last attempt at a music review, Carlos Montero from the indie band Youth Killed It challenged me to "review and trash our album pls xo", so let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks I'm going to go easy on their tunes just because I know them because unfortunately I'm not that kind of person.

UPDATE: I've actually been asked to take this down by the band as they don't want any industry people to see my scathing remarks. Unfortunately that's not how reviews work. 

Why this London based band has a Google image from another city is beyond reason. As the cliché always warned us, to judge by the cover would be anyone's mistake, yet as every writer and graphic designer will know that this is exactly the point of both titles and album artwork. 'Modern Bollotics' is neither an Anarchy In The UK politically charged resistance as you'd initially assume, in fact there's little to no mention of really anything substantial, nor is it a Modern Life Is Rubbish style brit-rock take on current affairs. Despite confusingly sounding partially pop punk, it is still very much an indie take of a bland and laddish British lifestyle, with visuals that are on par with the sort of mixtapes that desperate underground artists try to peddle you down Camden high street.

On clicking play, you're presented with an immediate full body cringe thanks to a 9-second skit of a young lad trying to mimic a phone call from an overbearing manager but not quite getting it. Surely someone could've asked a parent or guardian for help, perhaps nipping down the local to ask one of of the old boys to lend a hand in exchange for a pint.

Unfortunately the actual music isn't much of a remedy to this bad start and heavily feels more like a ploy for recognition than a showcase of actual passion and talent. Self absorbed repetitions of their own band name are essentially the audio equivalent of watching a male pigeon swelling it's neck to impress (in which case, perhaps this would be a stronger album cover). "Bad decisions when I was just a teenager" and self proclaimed bad looks are seemingly all to blame for their non-existent immediate success, not their lack of effort. This theory becomes vividly obvious if you watch any one of their music videos, which for some reason all comprise of the boys standing around in a single room.

The obvious overriding theme throughout is their general lack of effort. Most worryingly for the ladies, vocalist Jack Murphy mentions wooing a girl with his cheese on toast in Lads In Love whilst perpetuating the 'cool girl' myth by bragging that she likes action movies and watching football. It's literally every girl's nightmare and is only worsened with the following track that his GCSE results spell F.U.D.G.E. Sounds like a real catch.

Although their apathy is consistent, it's most prevalent in the tenth track I Ain't Ready For It, which is essentially the anthem for every middle aged person that assumes millennials are lazy good-for-nothings. They can't deal with growing up, or even washing up, because they're not ready for it. Leaving your mess for someone else to tidy up is a pretty entitled thing to do and makes for dull listening. Perhaps if these disinterested man children tried a little harder to work on the tunes instead of their attitude, they would go a lot further.

At least a little bit of musical variation would be welcomed as the tracks all merge into one non-distinct insignificant puddle. If it wasn't for their tenuous YouTube connections, it's doubtful that they'd have any plays at all.

Leave Clay In The Ground

After receiving so many awful music PR emails from companies I've never worked with, I thought I'd resurrect my old blog in order to do something about it. Having your email address so visible in your Twitter bio is probably not such a good idea after all and here I was thinking it would lead to either worthwhile business opportunities or the occasional rando message from a pervert, yet here I am, inundated with a trash pile full of unlistenable tracks. I thought it'd be best to share these wonders with the web instead of suffering in silence alone at my desk.

Eleven days ago, a cold email with the subject "Clay release brand new anthem 'Saint'" dropped into my inbox and after quickly convincing myself that I was having heart palpitations from drinking far too much coffee in a short space of time, considered that the biblical sounding message from the unknown could actually be a helping hand from the heavens. What came through my speakers, however, was surely the reason why the music industry has gone to absolute hell.  

Realistically, I could've guessed Clay would be terrible by the combination of this promo photo and the fact they were boasting "in store playlist support from Topman, Topshop, H&M and Burton". Of course the four horsemen of the apocalypse manufacture the background noise of generic high street stores, none of these inoffensively styled bringers of sonic death can even look us in the eye. Their vibe is exactly how you'd imagine, upbeat and uninteresting, like The 1975 but with more autotune and none of the money thrown at it. How they have a record deal is beyond comprehension, presumably one of their parents have a few mates in the BBC that they bribe to include their songs onto the Radio 1 playlists.

How they're aiming to "re-invent the modern perception of a band" (their words, not mine) I don't know. A musical four piece comprising of presumably straight, white dudes with a catalogue edgy hair cuts, newly fresh leather jackets and lyrics about "holding me closer" doesn't exactly scream reinvention. A combination has been around since The Beatles isn't either a reinvention or modern. I'd be more impressed if the email was straight up honest and described them simply as a "classic band stereotype" but at least they provided me with a cheap laugh and a stitch. 

In a country that voted for Brexit, it's no wonder that the music scene is rife with meaningless drivel that's neither stylish or substantial but please leave Clay in the ground and stop sending me these terribly mediocre songs. 

If you so wish, you can listen to the track for yourself over on Spotify. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. 

Look At This Photograph

It's been a long long while (nearly two years?!) since anything that resembles a favourites list has been uploaded so I thought that it's about time for another. You would've thought my tastes would have changed a bit since the last one but it appears I'm still riding the brightly coloured and borderline y2k vibes.

Anna Dobos

'Wetware' by Anna Dobos, 2014

Although shot fairly recently - you can tell this photo series is obviously heavily influenced by the y2k futurism aesthetic by the style of eyewear, wet look hair and highlighting and the metallic blue tones. The yellow hair wefts have me itching to go down the afro hair shop to buy myself some extensions.

UNIF Kit Dress

The new UNIF kit dresses are nothing short of a surfer babe's wet dream. Unfortunately for me the last and only package I ever ordered from them got lost in the post and never arrived so I daren't try again, fingers crossed for it making an appearance on ASOS sometime soon. Variations on the site include one in blue and another in yellow.

Carly Rae Summers' Shoot Set

Pornography isn't usually my source of inspiration but this great set with the model pink flamingos, gaudy forest backdrop and the is totally doing it for me. It's taking a lot of willpower not to spend all my money fake grass carpet to cover my bedroom floor right now.

Coco Layne

If you're bored of your mates' awful Facebook statuses of chicken nugget dinners then you'll probably feel a bit more refreshed after feasting your eyes on Coco Layne's phantasmagorical food photography. That is unless you never want to see another food pic ever again, in which case I am sorry but your friends need to learn a recipe or two.

David LaChapelle

My forever favourite <3

Von Dutch

My ultimate find on Depop was this amazing Von Dutch patchwork jacket and after haggling the price down some lucky fucker swooped in and bought it before me. Hopefully I can bag myself something similar soon before I end up getting one of those ridic trucker caps. 

Parker Day

Another case of the backdrops and bright colours. Each of Parker Day's stills are a portrait of a different eccentric character and going through their Instagram makes me want to crack out the dress up box and spend hours doing my makeup. Be sure to check out their latest foot series 'Footwear For Foot Fetishists' on Polyester.

Tayler Smith

Look at this majestic canine friend, look how happy it is, if we lived in an equally magical maybe my face would be plastered with a grin that wide too. All of their photography is an absolute treat but Tayler Smith's meticulously curated feed for Othen is worth more than all the Instagram goals combined.

MTV's LiLi

Back in the 2000s, vivacious virtual VJs and 3D rendered cyberbabes were all over everything. In a collaboration with Sony Ericsson, MTV Asia launched the interactive cybernaut LiLi at the start of the new millennium. Viewers could call in and talk to their host in real time and have her take their music video requests. Have a look at the rest of the LiLi stuff over on Behance.

Molly Soda at Annka Kultys

Here are a few pics from net artist Molly Soda's debut exhibition at the Annka Kultys gallery in Bethnal Green that I recently visited on my last trip back down to London. 

Climbing the stairs into the space, you could hear audio of the artist crying and it was almost as though she was trapped inside this pink bubble. Walking round the room was a lot like being in a dystopian fiction where the protagonist has had multiple experiences trapped inside a container and you're going through their memory library trying to understand their life.

One video saw Molly trawling through a pile of roses, continuing the "he loves me, he loves me not" rhyme with phrases that presumably relate to a past relationship of hers. Another - the one with the sobbing - played from a seemingly broken monitor screen. There were also various lip sync videos scattered around on iPhones and iPads.

The gallery owner mentioned to me that each piece was priced according to the amount of views the particular moving image had amounted online and that they came on their own memory stick hand decorated with plastic gemstones by the artist herself. Unfortunately it's no longer open to the public, however you can watch all the videos featured here on Molly's YouTube channel. 

I need more plants and beanbags in my house.

Lol it me

The Worst Gift Ever

Another Christmas has passed and insatiable children from all over the world will be sobbing into their stockings after their godforsaken parents have forgotten to get them the new edition Call of Duty, Animal Crossing or whatever the latest game is. Once upon a time I was that hopeful kid, the one who desperately wanted to spend all their home time as an animated bandicoot in a race car or as an Italian plumber... in a slightly different race car. 

One day my elders returned home from Makro with a non-descript plastic bag containing the game that could potentially change my life. This bag that contained the object that would define how I would waste the rest of my foreseeable weekend life. This would be the game. This day could change everything.

I peered into the shopper and my stomach dropped. A tantrum ensued. This is what was inside:

Before you accuse me of being an ungrateful brat, I need to you to realise just how fucking dreadful these supposed "games" really are. Aside from a few badly designed puzzle games and overly simple colouring pages at the end, there isn’t any actual gameplay which is really fucking pointless. 

If you were expecting to have a series of fun and vaguely challenging interactions instead of piddling half an hour of their life away on some piss poor animation you’d be one hundred percent guaranteed disappointed. No testing out your virtual skateboarding skills like in Tony Hawks Underground 2, no pretending to live an immensely exaggerated life of an adventurous ant like in the Bugs Life game, nothing. Chess would be more entertaining.

Dingo Pictures’ whole schtick is to essentially suck the life and soul from every Disney animation in order to trick unsuspecting parents into getting their kids what they assume to be genuine merchandise instead of the bargain bin monstrosities that they truly are. Obviously my edition of Nice Cats was a total rip off of the classic Aristocats film where a bunch of cats get abandoned by a bad guy so that he can reap the rewards of the fortune they inherit. The plot of the dupe cartoon is presumably something to do with a rich ladies kittens running away whilst they’re on holiday but to be honest it makes little to no sense so I can’t really be sure. 

One of the main kitten characters - Lucy - is voiced by a fairly terrible unnamed actress that features in pretty much every single one of Dingo Picture’s productions. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cheapskates got her to record lines for every single animation in one go purely to cut costs because I doubt she even rehearsed any of the lines. 

Characters are duplicated multiple times across many films and our young Lucy appears again in the unsurprisingly terrible Dalmatians 3. Aladdin was even re-used in his own imitation, poor guy. 

You could probably forgive the replications if it was animated well but even that falls further than short as some bodily movements don’t even make physical sense. In Animal Soccer World, a particularly questionable rip of multiple kids’ motion pictures, a team of wild cats are challenged by a group of dogs to a football match. Clearly this is a little farfetched as animals don’t tend to understand the rules of sport but even worse is the thought of all these animals running around on their hind legs. 

There’s a particularly jokes moment where the black panther character. Basic biology clearly doesn’t click well with Dingo because some herbivorous species in Dinosaur Adventure resort to cannibalism after an eruption leaves them without plants. Then again, there’s a T-Rex with a button nose and everything seems to be drawn in crayon so anything is possible.  

The script leaves a lot to be desired as most of it doesn’t make sense, if there were literally any good attributes of these films we’d probably put it down to bad translation seeing as they’e originally made in German but that’s probably not the case at all. Notable lines such as “your father the Black Panther is your father” and “can you image India?” will forever haunt my nightmares. 

My original copy of Nice Cats sits and gathers dust on the bookshelf in my living room, only ever being disturbed from it’s hiding place when nosy guests rifle through my belongings and wondering  “what the fuck is that?” after the awful kitten illustrations catch their eye. Hopefully now that writing this is over I can finally put Dingo Pictures to rest and the next time you get a fairly terrible gift, just be grateful that it wasn't this.

Trashy Ratkin

Wearing: Fluffy Bomber Jacket by Gemma Goldstone, Ugly Crop Top by Lazy Oaf, Dress by Textile Federation, Vintage Minnie Mouse Backpack, Plain Tattoo Choker Necklace, Nike Socks, Nike Air Force Ones.

All photos taken by Elisa Von Brockdorff.

 Makeup, styling and modelling by your old pal Hatti. 

Rummaging through your bins since 1992

LondonEdge Blogger Meet Up With Jawbreaker

Yours truly taking herself very seriously, as per.

Whilst everyone else on planet Earth spent Sunday nursing their hangover, a number of particularly dedicated bloggers headed to Kensington Olympia for the London Edge event to scour out items for future outfit posts, hang out and generally have a rad time. Upon arrival we were handed a massive bag of goodies and a glass of Prosecco so it was obvious that it would already be a great day. Surprisingly I wasn't yet tipsy in the photo above where I'm flailing about in my new Jawbreaker dress, just overly excited.

Being reunited with a bunch of cool cats* that I'd met at the last event back in September was really great and it was great fun going round together ogling at all the clothes on offer. My absolute favourite items included the Iron Fist Care Bear collection, everything the Yummy Gummy latex brand has ever made and one particular dress by House of Intelligence which at first appeared to be an allover print of space but was actually an image of cancer cells under a microscope.

Outfits suitable for a space empress.

Selfies with Sabrina, Isabella, Samantha, Susan and Kent from throughout the day and a customised Furby hat by Gobbolino UK

Iron Fist's sheer Care Bears shirt that I need in my wardrobe ASAP. 

Samantha and Isabella on the afterparty bus on it's way to Gem bar, unfortunately I have no pictures after this point due to free bar reasons.

*not actual cats