WATUP

Katia has contributed to several publications around the world including NME, The Guardian, Vice, Channel 4, SOMA magazine, Super Super, Notion, POP and countless others. Aside from journalism, Katia also does gig and event photography. For further information you can contact her via email on katiagan@hotmail.com or tweet @katiaganfield

I HAVE NOW MOVED TOOOO....

TUMBLR

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IS MY MUM CRAZY?

A month ago my mum came back from a night out a completely different person. She was convinced she understood everything she previously questioned about life and suddenly decided to become all ‘spiritual’ and ‘spread the love and laughter’ overnight. Now to those of you who don’t know my mum, she spends, or at least used to, the majority of her time watching pointless Russian talk shows, drinking cheap red wine that colors her teeth a transparent black, and crying or yelling (it’s often hard to distinguish between the two). The only difference now is minus the drinking, and preaching to her friends over the phone in advert breaks. Some people call it a mid-life crisis and others call it clinical depression…I just wanted to interview her about it..

I WILL BE TAKING A BREAK FROM THIS BLOG. (for a while)

Here's all relevant information for now.
My twitter's pretty much bang on it too:

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katia@brownbear.tv

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I WENT TO THE WORST HOUSE PARTY EVER

(Published on viceland.com)

Below is the Facebook status of Florida teen Tyler Hadley, inviting people to a party at his house. A couple of hours before posting this status, Tyler allegedly bludgeoned his parents to death with a hammer. During the party, their corpses were locked up in the master bedroom.

BTW: HMU means “hit me up”. Jeez Grandad.

As you can see from his Facebook, the party was such a success that Tyler was planning to have another one for Monday night, (perhaps he didn’t want to be alone in his house with the decomposing bodies of his mother and father). Fortunately the police, acting on an anonymous tip-off, arrested him before he could hold Worst Party Ever Part II.

Unsurprisingly this noxious combination of parties, guilt and horror spoke to us. So yesterday we got in touch with a few of Tyler’s friends. Understandably, most of the ones who attended the party didn’t want to speak to us about it. A close friend of his who wasn’t at the party told us that, though Tyler had had troubles recently, nobody saw this coming: “He was a funny guy. Always cracking jokes, never showed any signs of distress. He started smoking pot and drinking. Once he started doing that, he started cutting class. Then he dropped out altogether. He’s been in rehab for it. Nothing major, just a few hours a day on weekdays. This is all a total surprise though. I think maybe he wasn’t trying to kill them, just injure them. I’m hoping I can go see him soon.”

That’s a good friend, I’m not sure I’d want to go and visit someone who had just smashed two people’s heads in. I think it’d be too awkward. In the end we did manage to speak to one guy who was at the party, understandably he didn’t want to give his name.

VICE: Hey man, thanks for talking to us.Anonymous Party Guy: No problems.

So how long did the party last? When I first read about it, I figured the papers had exaggerated and people had only been there for a little bit.
Well, I got there at like, 10:30, but I only stayed for like, 30 minutes. I hear it lasted until about 4.00 or 5.00 in the morning.

Was it a good party? 
It was crazy, a bunch of people.

What type of music was playing?
The music was mostly rap played off of YouTube.

Maybe it’s a stupid question, but what were people doing? Just drinking and doing drugs and dancing?
Just beer from what I could see. People were playing beer pong too. And yeah, I’m sure there was drugs.

What kind of drugs? A newspaper is saying today that Tyler went mad after taking three ecstasy pills.
I’m guessing weed. I didn’t physically see any drugs, though.

What kind of crowd was it?
Just regular people for this city. I guess you could call them just middle class? Not really anybody special there. Just a bunch of high school kids. There weren’t like, any thugs or gangs and shit like that.

Was Tyler a good mate of yours?
I don’t know him that well. He’s a friend of a friend of a friend, really.

So how did you end up at the party?
I got texts from a lot of my friends with the address to the party, so I figured I would check it out and drove there.

Did you see Tyler there?
Yeah, he was acting weird. Kinda fidgety.

What was he doing?
Well, most people were partying inside the house, but he was outside most of the time, sitting on the bed of a truck. He was always quiet so I wasn’t thrown off by that, but he looked kind of nervous.

Jesus. Did any of his friends seem to have any idea of what was going on?
Not at all.

Some news reports are saying that there were rumours at the party that Tyler had killed his parents, but everybody just assumed it was a joke.
Not that I heard. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were all just drinking and having fun.

How do you feel about what happened?
Obviously it really creeps me out. I was in the house while there were two dead bodies not 100ft from me.

Yeah, that’s pretty horrible. When did you first hear about his parents? Did you believe it?
The very next morning. And no, I was in total disbelief. I never thought something like that would ever happen.

This is a bit of a lame thing to ask, but what do you think made Tyler do what he did?
I have no idea what made him do what he did. I don’t think anyone does.

No. OK, thanks for talking to me. Good luck with it all.

So there you have it. Tyler allegedly killed both his parents with a hammer so he could have some people over to play beer pong and listen to rap videos on YouTube. Why did no one tell him that’s what college is for? Kids these days, they all wanna grow up too fast.

Lady Gaga accused of stealing Japan earthquake charity money

(Taken from NME.com)

Lady Gaga is being sued after being accused of pocketing the cash from sales of charity wristbands.

The star has been served with a federal class action lawsuit by a Detroit legal network who claim that she profited from the sale of her 'We Pray For Japan' wristbands, which were on sale through her official website for $5 with the claim "all proceeds go directly to Japan relief efforts".

Lady Gaga announced the sale of the wristbands within hours of the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11 and she even headlined the MTV Video Music Aid Japan concert at the Makuhari Messe Arena near Tokyo on Saturday (June 25).

However, the lawsuit claims that Lady Gaga kept part of the $5 that every customer paid for a wristband and also inflated postage costs so she could pocket more. She then even counted the money she allegedly pocketed in her donation figures, artificially inflating the numbers, in order to make more money, the suit charged.

The suit claims that Gaga's deceptive advertising and personal profits from the wristbands violates federal racketeering laws and also a number of consumer protection laws.

Lady Gaga is yet to answer the lawsuit.

FAMILY

The band, ‘Family’, are a nuisance to search on Google, with family holidays and children’s toys showing up in the search results instead. Indeed, they’re a tight knit family and they couldn’t give a flying fuck about showing up on Google or having any involvement with the presumptuous media that aptly attempts to put all types of music in a box. They simply love making music, it’s that simple...and that’s all they want you to listen to – not journalists making up opinions for you to follow. It must be said though, they’re great (and it won’t be much of a challenge for you to reach that conclusion on your own terms.)

This is what they say:

‘GOD SPOKE TO MICHAEL
AND MICHAEL WEPT
BUT RIGHTEOUS PPL FLOURISH LIKE PALM TREES
AND GROW TALL LIKE CEDARS OF LEBANON
SO HAVE FAITH
THE KIDS ARE COMING’

Their mellow guitars fit the strung out, catchy vocals perfectly and supported Wu Lyf on their recent tour. So far, they’ve released one homemade video to ‘Barbie Girls’ (see below) where you see Barbies fucking – and for some strange reason it fits perfectly. Maybe next time you’re getting frisky under the covers, switch this track on and see where it leads.

Summary: Real music made by people who love it.
For Fans of: Happy Mondays, Wu Lyf, Health
Listen to: Barbie Girls, Arjun

http://famy.us
http://phoneboothyouth.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Family/148719931815786

CHRIS HOLMES INTERVIEW

From the amazing documentary: Decline Of Western Civilisation which you can watch here: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=3FW4AZFL

A M A Z I N G .

Listen to the track below whilst looking at the GIF.
Maybe it's just me, but it's fucking brilliant.

Gota get thru this by †een wi†ch

The 1-2-3-4 Festival

The 1-2-3-4 Festival
9 July, Shoreditch Park, London

Fans of music and counting numbers sequentially will be greatly warmed by the news that Noisey, VICE’s new-music-loving younger brother site, is hosting the biggest stage at this year’s 1-2-3-4 Festival.

The 1-2-3-4 takes place in Shoreditch Park, east London, on Saturday the 9th of July. The Black Lips, The Raveonettes and Lydia Lunch are among those who’ll be appearing in front of a big flag with Noisey written on it, while Becoming Real, Christian AIDS, Damo Suzuki, Echo Lake, Rainbow Arabia, The Proper Ornaments and a bunch of other people will be playing at other places across the site.

To add to the general sense of bonhomie, Noisey have decided to give it large, and are offering EXCLUSIVE NOISEY TICKETS. This means that they are cheaper for you to buy, so get yours.

For more information on the festival, visit the official 1-2-3-4 site.

A Belated ' This Week's New Music'

(written for sweetandsound.co.uk)

S.C.U.M. – ‘Summon The Sound’ (Grimes Remix)

What originally sounded like a pretty demented and depressing song, just got a whole lot darker by the cleverly manipulative Grimes remix. Echoes of sighs fighting against intense drums and synths burrows its way deeper into your demented psyche till all you’re left with is this ravishing hole of loneliness. Intense, right…

Inc. – ‘Swear’

This track is something that should be embedded into your morning routine. It’s a feel good song, 80′s disco beats mimicking the soft bass and Michael Jackson like vocals: ‘Cross your heart and hope to die’. Don’t know quite what they’re getting at here, but perhaps the intended promise you’ll be in a good mood after listening to this.

g

Danny Brown ft Danny! –  ’Theme Music To A Killing Spree’

You can never go wrong with a good dose of Hip Hop. Everyone’s sick of Odd Future now, or either dangerously obsessed with them and walking around the streets convinced they’re conversing with the bad ass ’Goblin’. Trumpets fill the pauses between lyrics and would definitely make any killing spree (to some extent) enjoyable…

Lunice ft. Young L – ‘Hip Pop’

Since his appearance at Boiler Room last month, Lunice has been getting a lot more recognition down in the UK. Southern Hospitatlity and LuckyMe (who are due to release the One Hunned EP) have organised a collaboration between him and Young L for this bass relaxed, hip hop tune. Before we know it, he’ll be up on event line ups all around town. Time to get accustomed to his face and be in the know.

Designer: Jess Eaton

Although it's certainly no longer winter, and there's no need to carry around fur coats for warmth, designer Jess Eaton's collection is something that shouldn't be put to the side. For her Roadkill Couture collection, she uses the remains of animals that died of natural causes and features bizarre accessories such as a necklace made from the skulls of 12 dead pheasants a bolero jacked made from the furs of 50 white rats eaten by her friend’s reptile, and a hat made from four magpie wings, but the designer claims she’s not out to shock the world...


She's incredibly hands on with her work, skinning the animals herself, but her seven year old son Norton doesn't seem too happy with the smell and flesh-eating bugs occupying their home.  The great thing is however, to make her collection was probably completely free.  She hopes her collection to inspire people to think about where their food comes from and how much we waste, essentially all about the true nature of sustainability. Pretty well thought out, right?

BECKS FUSION UPDATE

DON'T CALL ME URBAN: BOOK LAUNCH TONIGHT

The opening of the exhibition of Simon Wheatley’s book, that analyses the culture of London’s underground music and the contextual social conditions over the last decade, will be accompanied by a series of musical performances by artists who have made their mark on the genre of grime as it has evolved during this time into the UK’s most distinctive ‘urban’ art form.

‘DON’T CALL ME URBAN! The Time of Grime’ is a photographic record compiled over a twelve-year period, focussing on the youth of London’s inner-city at a vital time, taking as its prism the genre of grime – the most significant and controversial musical expression to emerge from the UK since punk.

To celebrate the book release, we’re throwing a little grime showcase with some names you might know…

Performers:

GODS GIFT
JAMMER
CHRONIK
JENDOR
NO LAY
LIONESS
LADY SHOCKA
JUNIOR VILLAIN
TOMBOY & NYJA
LITTLE RASCALS

DJs:

DJ MAGIC
DJ SPOOKY
DJ COMPLEX & SKEAMER

The event is FREE ENTRY FOR ALL, so please come down! It takes place on Thursday the 2nd of June, between 8 and 12pm at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA

Supported by:

Joseph ‘JP’ Patterson
Hyperfrank
RWD Magazine
MTV: The Wrap Up
PXL Clothing

Konono No 1 confirm a headline slot for The Big Chill plus Smoove & Turrell also join the bill‏

CHECK OUT

my tumblr :
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MONCLER GAMME ROUGE AW11

If I had a lot of money, this is definately who I'd spend it on:

MOS DEF LIVE AT XOYO

Mos Def. Hip Hop legend. Enough said.

I was lucky to get up close and personal with him on stage (see below). His performance was truly amazing with his enchanting feet gestures and facial expressions - and of course not forgetting the music... He even somehow managed to make 'sweat breaks' cool by prancing around the stage, saxophones in the background, and chanting 'sweat break ...yeah' in that husky voice of his.

This was all organised courtesy of Ben Sherman for the launch of his Very Important Plectrums - plectrums signed by famous people and then auctioned off for charity. Everyone was there that night, from people at Clash Magazine to Jameela Jamil (T4 presenter), and what an amazing night it was.

Just check it out below

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: PURE X - YOU'RE IN IT NOW

pure x - you're in it now from Scott Gelber on Vimeo.

Interview with Hounds Of Hate

(for super super)

 

Interview with Christian Aids

(for Super Super)

Interview with Prizes

(for Super Super)

“It’s about time we started to make a living”: I meet Rival Schools

Rival Schools are an exemplary show of how music matures and intensifies with age. Despite music critics yearning for the previous ‘post hardcore rock’ album from almost a decade ago, Pedals is just as good, if not better than the classic United By Fate. We caught up with their guitarist, Ian Love and bassist Cache Tolman to talk about the long break between albums, their kids and nudist art parties.

How’s this year been for you, together with the reception of the new album?
Ian: It’s been good; the shows have all been good. We made the album over the course of 4 or 5 months, in little chunks. It took 18 months from when we actually recorded it to when it came out. But people seem to be happy with it.

Pedals sounds a lot softer compared to the previous album. Was this intentional?
Ian: I don’t know… our sound develops. We didn’t really think about it too much it just came out; we have to make a softer record. It’s this age and it’s just the way it goes.

So how would you say you’ve changed in the past decade?
Ian: Of course we’ve changed…
Cache: I hope so.
Ian: Cache had a daughter when we were playing before but now all four of us have children. We’ve all done a lot of music stuff over the years and Sam had a sex change…that changes things a little bit…you know?

Is it hard managing the band with kids and do you hope to inspire them to play music?
Ian: I think we’re all pretty respectful of what each other can and can’t do. My daughter has a drum set, guitar and violin but I don’t push it, she’s just naturally gravitated towards that…probably because I have a recording studio in my house.

Do you think the music business is a place you’d want your kids to end up in?
Ian: No. It’s constantly changing and definitely over saturated. At the moment it’s all really bizarre – bands aren’t really selling records that much anymore and there are all these weird ways of making a living out of being a musician like television and stuff. 10 years ago you would’ve gone this is fucking stupid… Then again, it’s about time we started to make a living.

There have been a couple rumours floating around that you reformed for the sake of having more cash in the bank. What do you think of this?
Ian: We never really deformed and there was always conversation about it. I’d say that rumour’s really funny, we don’t have that much money and it’s not what we’re really looking for.

You’ve toured with The Gaslight Anthem and The Offspring . Did you get up to anything at the after parties or have any tales to tell?
Cache: Not really. If we did we couldn’t tell you. Well…I went to one the other night in Copenhagen, a nude art party with artists and performers. It was really packed and late at night, and I had this feeling I just wanted to head back to the bus and hang out with my friends.

Did you end up going nude?
Cache: No, they put it on that way though. When they did, I just ran home.

So back to Pedals, what’s the story behind the name and artwork?
Ian: Walter came up with the title. The artwork came from Walter’s friend (Alex). It looks like flower petals but he didn’t want to call it that because it was a little too feminine, and then he thought Pedals. It sounded similar and had a meaning too – like stuff about guitar effect pedals, movement, and action. So that was that

What made you feel like you had to go through a label to get your music out there again? Why didn’t you just opt to do it all DIY?
Ian: Labels weren’t coming to us…we talked about it. I don’t think any of us have it together enough to do it. It’s a cool thing to do, but if you don’t know how to do it and fail…it’s not so cool. We thought about many ways of releasing it and we were going to sign to this one label and there was a few months of getting it worked out then last minute it didn’t happen, so we had to start over again. There was a moment where we were like shit; we’re not going to release this record – which is very possible in this day and age. It blows me away we even got a deal with the label because we never really sold that many records.
Cache: We probably got signed on our good looks.

Obviously… and what are your favourite lyrics from the album?
Cache: “Do the right thing and the right thing counts.” I think about that a lot because there are a lot of times in your life where you’re at the crossroads and you’ve got to make a choice: one decision might be easier but not so right, but the other might be harder, but the right thing to do. You’ve got to choose the right thing.

You apparently did the right thing by changing the name of your single, ‘Sophia Lauren’, really last minute. Why was that?
Ian: Yeah – for legal reasons. The day we were shooting the video, the director decided to put titles on cards in the video itself. Later that day, our label called us and said, “oh by the way you have to change the name of the titles. You don’t want to get sued.” There wasn’t anyone in particular wanting to sue us at the time but they had bad experiences in the past with Outkast and ’Rosa Parks’. Ultimately they won the law suit but got sued $20 million and we didn’t see the point of going through that.

That’s a lot of money… Any last words?
Ian: We’ve got a tour coming up this month in the USA and are playing two weeks of UK festivals in August.
Cache: Trail of Dead rule.

Barbara Panther - Barbara Panther

“Listen to the beat of the mother land. Take your head out of the sand” opens Rwandan born Barbara Panther’s new album, encouraging her growing cult of listeners of “brothers” to ‘Rise Up’. What goes on in the background sounds like an irritating concoction of robots letting out wind– hopefully not something she hopes to be representative of her roots, if that’s even possible… Despite that, the catchy chorus somehow reinvents the song completely (probably due to the robots dissapearing) and the rattling of chains being thrown at a radiator slashes through any initial doubtful thoughts.

A dangerously close parallel to Björk follows through with ’Moonlight People’, a track much talked about by various online critics. The only real difference between the artists is the catchy pop hook that’s (just about) distinguishable, from amid whistles and European accents. Nonetheless, such a comparison is most certainly meant as a compliment and when simply focussing on her mixing pot of genres and sounds (ripped off from Crystal Fighters), Panther leaves you purring with joy.

Behind the intensity of her songs, lurks a subtle humour through the means of experimental effects and in turn gives her this unexplainable ‘freshness’ – which the music industry laps up in an instant. This success was partly due to her collaboration with electronic producer, Matt Herbert, who originally was asked to mix the album by her record label, City Slang. The moulding of minds between these two genius musical prodigies (or perhaps just Matt’s) resulted in a ridiculous yet wonderful mix of music, which Panther calls “modern electronic baroque music”.

‘Voodoo’ and ‘Empire’ are amongst the best tracks from the album, boasting mechanical aggression that intoxicates you with a diversity of sounds from the whole width of the experimental spectrum. ‘Voodoo’’s sound has a tribal quality to it, with strong, meaningful lyrics: “Every night I pray like a bitch / That one day the poor will eat the rich / And I don’t care if that makes me a wa-wa-wa-wa-witch.” A resounding bass makes the words preached all that more alluring, saucepan-like drums advancing this inspiring revolution as one’s heart begins pumping with adrenalin at the thought. Empire sees haunting lyrics sectioned over DnB: “What would Jesus do? He’d do exactly the same! Your empire is falling”. The layering of drum and bass with robotic prods and sharp synths really isn’t something that should work together, but the fascinating thing about it, is it does (god knows how).

As the album comes to a close, moods and sounds once again get stirred up with ‘Dizzy’. “Each move turns me on” accompanies gasps not far off something you’d hear in soft porn and switches the previously created ominous atmosphere. This more ambient and uplifting track keeps you clung to your earphones in anticipation of what’s to follow. The penultimate track finishes this journey as the listener ‘Ride[s] To The Source” and another entirely magical dimension where once and for all we can relax after this too-exciting/experimental-for-you-own-good album. This paradoxical package of despair and excitement, good and evil, concern and freeness is inspiring, but something advisable to be taken in small doses. All I know, is that tonight I’m going to be dreaming some very strange dreams…

(written for thelineofbestfit.com)

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