Young, Asian Love

Remember what it was like to meet your true love on the internet? Remember that intense month of binary flirtation and realising that your soulmate was not on the screen but the other side of the world? You must remember that first meeting; those rose tinted nine days that made you abandon your previous life and chase the dream of hazy young love?
No? Well these two do, and they took a camera that also remembers. Some people get all the stories.

Yes, it's very 'Vice/American Apparel/I-could-use-my-camera-properly-if-I wanted', but it's also genuinely sweet and appropriate. See it, and read the story here.

Red Team Fight A Good Fight

Despite previous endeavour Cheenah being a London indie band at the height of the I'm-in-a-London-indie-band bandwagon, there was always something slightly different about them, not least their attitude to it. In other words they never took themselves too seriously, and they were actually pretty good.

So, Cheenah disband somewhat as a reaction to the scene, and head in a totally different direction with a slightly different line-up, as Red Team.

So as the scene seems to be featuring a larger turn-out of electronic based bands, Red Team's sound is umm more electronic and tightly programmed. Except again, they're comparitively very good. I managed to see their first gig at The Monarch in Camden, and it was pretty special; a mass of electronics and effects used carefully, and to great effect; a wall of sound in the best possible way. (Standout track is the somewhat ethereal Absinthe).

Think Foals, Battles, Holy Fuck, DJ Shadow, Death in Vegas and some friends playing soggy biscuit... Catch the biscuit live as soon as you can, no-one wants to be last.

Merkley Shot 111 Naked Girls

I'm such a sucker for symmetry, today I fell into a semi-concious state of hypnosis on the tube when I realised they're symmetrical to the edge of your peripheral vision if you sit in the right seat.

Anyway, I've long been a fan of Merkley; a character who deserves a whole article for his various outputs rather than a measley blog post, but such is suchness. He takes brilliants almost-symetric portraits of friends and any girls who will get their clothes in a suitable environment, and he's just released a book documenting his glass-eye conquests.

Tar Magazine Premiere Issue

There is something unintentionally ironic about new magazine Tar running an article on overcrowding in its premiere issue. If there is one thing not needed at the moment, it's another magazine that promises a new wave, and burns itself out within a few issues.

Good thing Tar, despite its borderline cringeworthy mission statement ('tar' is an anagram of art, the distillation of organic matter, sticky stuff we pave roads and secure roots with - a foundation) has a few signs of longevity.

There seems to be a reputable publishing company at work behind it, and the inclusion of higher profile features, such as the main spotlight and interview with Benicio Del Toro gives it a certain seal of quality and scope.

That said, I hope that much like bed-fellow Tank, Tar manages to maintain quality of content, and hasn't peaked straight out the gate by using too much of its target content straight away, which reads like a dream list. However, given that it's a bi-annual we can hope this isn't the case.

Features include:

Matthew Barney, David Cronenberg, Andreas Gursky, Ryan McGinley, Terry Richardson, Naomi Wolf.

Offworld Bootleg In Youtube Widescreen (UNKLE - When Things Explode)

So it seems Youtube, famed for its viewing experience of watching something through a muddy veil has stepped up its game. Slightly.

Videos are now available in widescreen, and slightly higher quality. While this is good news, it's also somewhat frustrating when you have previous videos in widescreen that are stuck in the old format. Well, last night was tough, real tears of blood were shed in restless waking moments while I thought about all those lost ratings and views.

Here, for your masochistic viewing pleasure is the first in my Offworld Bootleg series, a new form of pirate music video made from bits of feature films, now in full YT widescreen. A divx is also available for download here (right click and save as).

(Please click here for more information on this project, and here for more music/film information)

Ballroom Voguing Beneath Wall Street

Todays image is taken from an article the 'New York Times' ran on the predominantly gay subculture of underground ballroom dancing with an acrobatic twist.

Otherwise known as 'voguing', it features teams with names such as 'House of Ninja'

Here

Princess Leia Is Old And Has A Sense Of Humour And Some Stories

Carrie Fisher, better known as Jabba The Hut's metal clad bit on the side has posted some choice segments from her autobiography on the Daily Mail website; that bastion of hip, relevant comedy and culture.

Here

It turns out she's pretty sharp on it, and makes self-depreciating light of some pretty unusual situations. Some choice selections below:


"Mike died in a plane crash in 1958, when I was two, and my dad flew to Elizabeth's side, making his way slowly to her front."

"You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously... At a certain point in my early 20s, my mother started to worry about my obviously ever-increasing drug ingestion. So she ended up doing what any concerned parent would do. She called Cary Grant."

"When I spoke about my mental illness publicly, I won great acclaim. I waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything (OK, fine, not acting, but what about a tiny little award for writing? Nope), I now get awards for being mentally ill."

"I weighed about 105lb at the time but carried about 50 of those in my face... So you know what a good idea would be? Give me a hairstyle that further widens my already wide face."