Tagged: music

The Shape of Punk to Come


Pretty in punk. The punk playlist (one that would make Fat Mike spin in his oversized grave. If he’s dead yet…). ‘Add a touch of punk chic with blah blah blah’. I see it so often, it’s a wonder that the misappropriation and misdefining of the words punk, grunge and emo can even fill me with rage anymore. But, somehow, they do.Once upon a time, punk meant something. No, I don’t mean the sort of pseudo anarchistic bullshit put out by bands like The Sex Pistols (created by manager Malcolm McLaren with the sole intention of creating controversy, with Johnny Rotten leaving the band when he discovered that the band was as big a manufactured fraud as Leona Lewis), which is about as well thought out and meaningful as someone buying a V For Vendetta mask and deciding they’re a member of Anonymous.

Punk was never (just) about making a scene. The motivations behind punk vary from making a statement about gender (c.f. the asexual antics of Joan Jett, who refused to let the fact that she was female define her musical identity) to defying social conventions – here I’m thinking of the cathartic lyrics of Minor Threat and the birth of the straight edge movement. The medium of punk and screamo music may be distorted guitars and tight black clothes, but they are never the message.


From about 2000 onwards, all of that passion and meaning started being stripped away. When Versace released their collection inspired by Fight Club, they took something visceral and counter cultural and turned it into something devoid of substance. While I wouldn’t particularly recommend starting up a fight club or burning a lye kiss onto your hand (both of which men did in droves did after Fight Club was released) I will forever have more respect for those who did that than industry airheads who thought sewing razorblades into a shirt made ‘like, such a statement.’

While there’s something brash and Fight Club-esque about brands like The Ragged Priest (who, admittedly, I kinda like) buying up vintage denim, tie-bleaching it, putting some spikes on it and ripping out the labels, only to export it back to mainstream stores with a hugely inflated price tag, I hate the way it commodifies the DIY ethos of punk and skramz. Almost as much as I hate girls who wear Ramones t-shirts and don’t know any of their songs besides Blitzkrieg Bop.


A couple of years back, Vice published a piece about leather jackets. The piece really resonated with me because of the way each jacket seemed to tell a story, which is (to me) what fashion is all about. Yes, Jeremy Scott’s winged Adidas shoes are pretty out there, but I like them because they remind me of Hermes (that’s the winged messenger god, not the brand). They send an implicit message about the desire to reach new heights, and delivering divine messages. Yes, if I ever manage to scrimp together the cash to buy a pair, I’ll probably joke that they make me feel like a 21st century Hermes with a blog.

The current trend of buying studded…well, everything, completely undermines the impetus behind it. Manufactured studs, spikes and acid washes that come as standard are truly style without substance. And that’s not punk.

The Case of the Cardinals Cap.

Well, hello. Hopefully you still recognise me, I know it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those people egotistical to apologise for not having blogged recently because, let’s face it…I’m sure you’ve survived without me.

Shockingly, this week I’m going to be doing a bit of philosophising (though it’s definitely going to be like…philosophy lite) rather than being all snarky. Or at least, I’m going to try. A realisation hit me this week, and that realisation was just how heavily my fashion sense (vom at that phrase, makes me sound like I think I’m Spider-Man, except…fashion-y) relies on what I’m reading, watching on TV or listening to. Before I get too much into it, I thought a few examples would probably help.

Pic credit to the lovely Kylie @ Memoir Mode

After my trip to the Louboutin retrospective at the Design Museum I found myself lusting after shoes like these Nelly spike heels. Sadly, they don’t do them in my size…But my new obsession went far beyond an interest in these seemingly Rollerboy influenced shoes, I started noticing the prevalance of spikes and studs everywhere. I’m not going to use the words ‘punk chic’, because aside from being a complete oxymoron the very phrase makes me want to vomit on a Dwarves record. The Ragged Priest, for example, have a ton of spiked denim jackets and stuff in Topman that I’d never really noticed until after my visit to the Design Museum. All of a sudden, I found myself wanting everything they do.

Example number two. After reading the sublime The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, my love for baseball was rekindled. I’ve recently spent some time in diners nursing a drink and watching ball games (I’ve also clearly been reading too much Bukowski), and the little number pictured above also made its way into my wardrobe. Despite having rarely seen the St Louis Cardinals play, the novel lent them a mythic quality that stuck with me long after reading it. While I was buying the cap I wondered whether or not purchasing (what amounted to) a replica of Henry Skrimshander’s cap was ridiculous, I ended up deciding that it was no different to buying any other movie or TV merchandise. I also thought ‘whatever, I already know I’m ridiculous.’

If you don’t know who the dude is above I’m not angry, but I am disappointed. As well as making lovely jangly acoustic music as City and Colour, Dallas Green (yes, he does have the coolest name ever) also helped to completely reform the post-hardcore scene in the early 2000s as a member of Alexisonfire, one of the most diverse, technical and intense bands to come out of the last century. Shamefully, I’d sort of forgotten about them (or rather iTunes shuffle had, since that’s pretty much exclusively how I listen to music) until pretty recently and I now have them on repeat almost constantly. It’s no secret that DG is one of my idols, and I recently picked up the shirt-jacket pictured on the right above fully aware that it was ‘very Dallas’. But here’s where things get interesting – at the time I bought my St Louis Cardinals cap, it hadn’t registered that Young Cardinals is the name of one of Alexisonfire’s albums. Hmm.

The fact that I chose to buy a baseball cap belonging to a team from somewhere I’ve never even been at the same time that I was getting back into Alexisonfire in a big way really suggests to me a subconscious inclination to tie as much of this stuff together as possible. I’ve always had a pretty versatile style (from scene kid to preppy Hamptons dude), and it’s always been very much dependent on my surroundings. However, the case of the Cardinals cap (which sounds like an episode of Scooby Doo) suggests to me that there’s something much deeper going on when people decide what clothing to wear.

In the past, it has generally been assumed that people dress as Goths, preps etc for one of two reasons – 1) to fit in with their peers or 2) to express themselves (c.f. parents reassuring themselves ‘it’s just a phase, they’ll grow out of it). If my hypothesis is correct, then neither of these statements alone are evidence enough for people dressing in a certain way. Rather, the very content of certain types of music, film and television shows has the power to influence actions. Potentially much, much more power than the advertisements that break them up. The insinuations that accompany this idea are pretty dangerous – if media has this power over people, does this mean that video games and rap music really are responsible for increases in high school violence and young men acting in a degrading way towards women. Was The Daily Mail right all along?

[P]REVIEW: Unicorn Kid – Pure Space

Firstly, apologies if you have me on Twitter or Facebook because I’ve been going on endlessly about this song. Secondly, I take back that apology because I can’t talk about this song enough. At a conservative estimate, I’ve already listened to it about fifty times this weekend.

With Pure Space, Unicorn Kid not only bucks his already pretty distinctive (tough enough to create as it is – there are only so many video game noises…) take on the chiptune genre by mixing in old school house piano riffs and steel drums. The song is a total chameleon – it comes across completely differently depending on whether you’re listening to it in a club environment, on a summer day at the beach or walking around a city at night. It is by turns cheerful, epic and haunting, and I’m totally at a loss as to how Unicorn Kid has accomplished it.

There is no other word for the video than sublime – it at once recalls the vague meandering style of Kids, The Fifth Element, Lost in Translation and (sigh, yes, I SUPPOSE) Skins, alluding to a a narrative that is never fleshed out. Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The Fader remarks that the video is ‘endlessly screenshotable’, which is completely true – the video encapsulates the nihilism and disenfranchisement of today’s youth better than a thousand Tumblr pages.

Most of all, the video kind of makes me jealous that I’m way too old to have weekends like this anymore. So for that, fuck you Unicorn Kid.

A Quest Called Tribes.

Note: Google spiders would probably prefer I called this article ‘tribes in fashion’ or ‘post tribalist style’ (apparently they don’t ‘get’ puns), so I hope you ’80s kids appreciate the reference.

fixie hipster tribe

We all know someone who looks like this, right? Yes, they might not have the beard, or the chest piece, but you know someone who is just like this person. And if the site I drew it from is correct (which it almost always is), they’re probably a fan of acts like Girl Talk, Ratatat, Animal Collective, Freelance Whales and Grizzly Bear. Two of which a female friend (and manifestation of the fixed gear hipster) literally recommended on her Twitter the other day.

This week I stumbled across an article in Shortlist’s fashion magazine for men, MODE, about tribes in fashion. The article sets the scene well (recounting Hooligans, mods, Teddy Boys etc), which is nice as I don’t have the energy to rehash all of that here. However, its slightly weak conclusion (namely that hipsters sampling various styles from different eras is just another form of tribalism) left me feeling that Robinson ended the piece where it should have just been beginning.

The MODE article neatly references Ted Polhemus, an anthropologist specialising in street style, who claims that ‘most of us are now both post-tribal and post-fashion. The name of the game is to do your own thing.’ I call bullshit. As Tyler Durden uttered in Fight Club, ’you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.’

uniqlo brian kanagaki
Brian Kanagaki

Although we are definitely not post-tribal, we do seem to have developed the ability to inhabit more than one tribe at once. Take me, for example – by day, I’m a preppy, fashion blogger type. By night, you’ll usually find me watching underground bands like Loma Prieta or Touche Amore screaming their way a set in some grim bar’s basement. You’d think that’s a combination that wouldn’t be too common, right? Well, it’s one I share with Brian Kanagaki, the bassist of Loma Prieta. And about twenty other guys at any one of their shows.

Brian Kanagaki Loma Prieta
Brian Kanagaki

So how, all of a sudden, are we able to switch between tribes so easily? I blame the internet. In ‘the old days’ if you wanted to become (or at least look like) a punk, you’d have to spend years buying Doc Martens, a denim jacket to safety pin patches to and all the vinyl The Misfits and The Ramones had put out. Everyone in your town would know you were a punk, and that was that.

Now? I could finish work and set my laptop to download The Damned’s discography, get some studded DMs from Topman, order a bunch of patches for a vintage store denim jacket from eBay and be heading out to The Black Heart by 9pm. Instapunk. In the same way that people might present themselves differently on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, they often have a collection of interchangeable images of themselves that they project in different social situations.

dress like tyler the creator
Tyler, the Creator & OFWGKTA

As well as becoming more spasmodic and interchangeable, tribes in fashion are also becoming more metatextual and cyclical. Towards the end of the 20th century, rappers began to mix brands like Cartier, D&G, Ralph Lauren (traditionally the preserve of the white upper classes) with excessive bling like grills, bejewelled canes and pimp cups. In reaction to this, the white upper classes took a u-turn and began to dress in a style that seemed consciously ‘uncool’ – thick glasses, cardigans and deck shoes were once again en vogue c.f. The O.C‘s Seth Cohen wearing Original Penguin by Munsingwear, a brand formerly associated with ageing white dudes like Richard Nixon.

It took a very long time (well, as long as we’re not counting Erkel…and we’re not) for young African Americans to take on these trends, but it finally started to happen. The picture above of Tyler, the Creator and rap collective Odd Future (Wolf Gang Kill Them All) shows the way in which many young black teenagers have started to reappropriate the image of white, middle-class, often nerdy teenagers in their own way. Yup, so in the queue waiting for the new Supreme collection to drop, there will inevitably be a bunch of white guys trying to dress like black guys who are trying to dress like white guys. For more on Supreme and its phenomenal success, check this excellent article.

Stereotypes like this, that initially seem obscure and unique, are everywhere. Fashion bloggers with that Chanel quote about only being irreplacable if you’re unique (irony.) in their Twitter bio, who look coyly at the floor to their right and act surprised in every photo…even though they’re the ones who set the self timer. Screamo kids wearing wool hats and Jansport rucksacks at gigs, arms crossed and nodding their grudging appreciation at French post-hardcore bands. Tumblr kids with dip dyed pink hair and upside down crucifixes on their t-shirts who listen to The Cure and The Smiths (who they heard about from 500 Days of Summer) and obsess over manga. Gaggles of chino-clad fourteen year olds, with the strings of their American Apparel hoodies tied in a bow over a tribal print Topman t-shirt, who all hate One Direction. Despite looking just like them.

Catch you later, snowflakes.

Bloody Beetroots x Swatch x VICE


Lunchtime post, so it’ll have to be a quick one. I’m absolutely in love with this advert-cum-travel video-cum-music video collab between VICE Magazine, Swatch (click the link to attempt to win one) and The Bloody Beetroots featuring Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo having a non-holiday in Venice. Skrillex might be ‘the people’s favourite’ (further proof that people are morons) when it comes to electro/dubstep/whatever, but he’s never made me want to buy a watch. Check it.

After Hours Athletes


I hate the word ‘athlete’, not as much as I hate people who pronounce it ‘atherleet’, but still quite a bit.  It conjures up two images in my head – the first is one of those anorexic looking Kenyan runners pronouncing words wrongly (which in turns carries its own connotations of trying not to laugh at the breakfast table because your stepdad is a politically correct wanker and he’ll call you a racist) and the second is some ginger twat from public school who looks like an over inflated Prince Harry, wears deck shoes even when it’s snowing and starts most of his sentences with a laugh that sounds like a frog coughing up blood.

Enter VICE and Puma to  shatter these stereotypes and bring sports back to quote unquote normal people like me, who only go to the gym to pick up women and even then would rather sit around writing articles for zines about how much of a dickhead Russell Brand is.  The dynamic duo are throwing two parties, one in London and one in Manchester, featuring a host of events like beer pong, cardioke (trying to do karaoke while on a cross trainer…maybe some steroid fuelled chavs will gatecrash and cross train themselves into oblivion while MCing to new monkey) and something to do with eating pizza without using your hands.  Obviously that’s the one I’m most excited about.  Of course, there’ll be so much hip facial hair that everyone in attendance’s faces will smell of pizza for days.


Puma and VICE are doing a bunch of other things with bands and stuff, one of them being Is Tropical, who are currently opening for Mystery Jets. Kind of a shame that means most of the punters will be queueing for £3.95 pints of Carling while Is Tropical are playing, since they’re better than Mystery Jets.  Expect to hear them on like…series 9 of Skins, since that’s how long it takes good music to filter through over there.  I guess this where I should talk about how Is Tropical fuse the artcore aesthetic of bands like The Antlers with the raw energy and ‘foot tappability’ (vom.) of The Drums, with an edge of the Klaxons but not new Klaxons stuff, their old stuff.  Just got a phonecall from NME, I start next month.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, parties. DJs. Fun. The possibility of free pizza. Booze. Girls.  You’d be a fool to miss it, a damn fool.  The London party goes down on 10th Nov and the Manchester party is on the 30th November.  More details on how to get tickets (free…) at http://viceland.com/afterhours/index.php