Jennifer Herrema fashion story for LA Times




Denim and rock 'n' roll go hand in hand, so it makes sense that indie rock goddess Jennifer Herrema would eventually come out with her own jeans collection, a series of patched-up, skinny-fit, shred-to-hell designs that blend two unlikely extremes: high-fashion and "hesher" culture (hesher being a slang term for music fans of the raggedy-haired, headbanger variety). Think Brigitte Bardot meets cult film "Heavy Metal Parking Lot," and you get the picture.
Six feet tall, with heavy blond bangs, Mick Jagger pout and more often than not a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, Herrema is a Nico for our times, an underground rock icon blessed with supermodel stats. Her look is consistent with her lifestyle — 24/7 rock 'n' roll, on and off the stage. On the L.A. music scene she's known for her distinctive style: custom deconstructed denim, which she stitches with strips of leather and fabric and whatever else catches her eye, worn with oversized Ralph Lauren plaid shirts, cowboy boots and dip-dyed foxtails that trail behind her, attached to her belt loops.
It's no surprise she's been approached in the past to affix her name to a brand. But not until self-styled "outlaw" surf skate brand Volcom came calling last year, looking for help amping up its women's division, did she take the plunge. For Volcom, the launch of Herrema's jeans this year marks the company's first time entering into a design collaboration with a musician. And the new line, released as part of Volcom's Road Tested collection, exudes the unique blend of influences that shaped Herrema, frontwoman for the band RTX.
Growing up in West Virginia, she counted as her style icons Suzi Quatro, the Runaways, Girlschool, Stevie Nicks, Marianne Faithfull, she says. On the guy side, she was inspired by Rod Stewart, Wino, Ronnie Van Zant, early Alice Cooper's Ozzy Osbourne. And "of course, Keith Richards. I've always been a tomboy, and my personal style has always reflected that — jeans, tees, boots — utilitarian, but worn with a feminine sensibility," she says. "Growing up as a kid, most of my friends were boys and they always got to wear the cool [stuff], so I appropriated that 'look' but made it my own by altering fits." Even before she knew how to sew, Herrema was customizing her clothes using rubber bands and string.
She came of age at Bad Brains, Mötley Crüe, Metallica and Megadeth shows before joining the rock 'n' roll circus herself at age 16, as half of seminal '90s rock band Royal Trux. At the height of Royal Trux's fame, Herrema was photographed by Steven Meisel for a Calvin Klein ad campaign — she's always been adept at making a white T-shirt and jeans look glamorous. After Royal Trux dissolved in 2000, Herrema moved to Huntington Beach, close to Volcom headquarters, where her present-day RTX bandmate Kurt Midness works for Volcom's record label. Living by the beach, Herrema surfs, makes music, makes collage art and produces bands in her studio while acting as Volcom's de facto women's-wear muse.
As far as Volcom is concerned, theirs is the perfect marriage. "Given her story, she was the perfect symbol for our rock 'n' roll-inspired jeans line," says Ethan Anderson, Volcom's senior vice president and creative director. "She has pedigree and authenticity ... and that's important to me."
Along with the Volcom design team, Herrema started out by creating 13 one-of-a kind prototypes made from reshaped Volcom jeans and patches from Herrema's extensive archive of denim patches. These jeans are not for sale, Anderson says, but "were purely crafted to express denim-rock-avant-garde at its finest."
But there are three styles the general public can get their hands on right now: the Dep relaxed-fit jean, Dep relaxed-fit short and the limited-edition 2x4 unisex fit with foxtail (one of Herrema's trademark looks). "The 2x4 fit [jeans] are truly unisex," Herrema says, "as they are based on one of Volcom's dudes' skate denim designs. But all of them could be unisex for dudes who love the super-skinny fits."
A bunch of Herrema's rock friends are wearing her designs, including model-actress Lizzy Jagger and Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT.
The Dep jeans and Dep shorts sold out almost immediately after launching in June and are on their second production run. Expect new designs for the fall, holiday and spring seasons — think custom-patched gray denim with black leather patches and studs, black denim skinny lace-up slingshot jeans, dip-dyed faded denim cut-offs, a flannel button-down shirt with shredded denim elbow patches and other essentials for the stylish hesherette.
"Jennifer embodies rock and roll," Anderson says. "Her style oozes it. She's effortlessly radical. Trash-glam. Heavy-duty. She has tremendous presence and personality that says much more style-wise than just the clothes she wears …. and I think that inspires people."


(Published August 2010)
Read the story at LA Times.com here.

My interview with Ice T about Sundance, in Variety


With a roster of films exploring Latin hip-hop, hipster electro indie, gangsta rap, '70s folk, anti-apartheid protest songs and gypsy flamenco, Park City is a sonic smorgasbord this year, not to mention a live entertainment line-up that reads like a mini Coachella-in-the-snow: David Gray, Jenny O, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, Fitz and the Tantrums, electronica hero Flying Lotus, folk legend Donovan and original gangsta Ice T. "I wanted to take people back to the roots of rap music," says Ice T, who is expected to perform in support of his documentary "Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap," an examination of the true craft of MCing. The film follows Ice T as he grills 52 fellow hip-hop icons, including Melle Mel, Chuck D, Eminem and Kanye West, in an attempt to define rap's true essence in an age ridden by the post-bling blues. Ice T purposely focused on established rappers as opposed to younger artists, feeling that the younger generation could benefit from a reminder of their roots.

"The Comedy," about a group of disenchanted Brooklyn hipsters, features LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy in a dramatic role (coincidentally, the Sundance doc "Shut Up and Play the Hits" follows Murphy for 48 hours, documenting his band's final performance), as well as Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Adult Swim's "Tim and Eric Awesome Show," and Gregg Turkington, aka surreal singer Neil Hamburger.

Unusually, the film -- with a "small pressing, '70s sort of folk component" to the soundtrack, according to director Rick Alverson -- was financed by an indie record label, JagJaguwar. The label has released music by alt darlings Bon Iver, Okkerville River, Black Mountain and Dinosaur Jr., and its owners exec-produced and financed Alverson's past two films. "It's an interesting partnership, for them to get into the film business," says Alverson, whose own bands, Drunk and Spokane, released albums through JagJaguwar between 1996 and 2007. "It's kind of unprecedented for an indie label to be funding films, isn't it?"

Other easy-on-the-ear offerings include the as-yet-untitled Paul Simon project from Joe Berlinger ("Some Kind of Monster"), which follows Simon to post-apartheid South Africa, reuniting him with his "Graceland" collaborators, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 25 years on. (Paul Simon will be at the fest.)

Also exploring South African apartheid -- by way of Detroit -- is Malik Bendjelloul's "Searching for Sugar Man," about mysterious 1970s rock figure Sixto Rodriguez. He disappeared from the public eye in 1981, and was presumed dead by many of his fans, only to become adopted as a folk hero of Dylan-esque proportions in apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, thanks to his anti-establishment anthems.

"His cassettes and bootlegs were spreading around liberal youth throughout the '80s," says Bendjelloul, "and he became literally bigger than the Rolling Stones in Cape Town, even though he had never performed there."

A compilation of Rodriguez's songs, "At His Best," went platinum in South Africa, and Bendjelloul was amazed to find that "for many South African music fans, there was no difference between Rodriguez and Bob Dylan. In fact many people I spoke to consider Rodriguez's music to be better than (Dylan's 1966 classic LP) 'Blonde on Blonde.'"

Rachel Leah Jones' "Gypsy Davy" profiles David Serva, the legendary flamenco guitarist based in Andalusia -- who happens to be American. Since first landing on Spanish shores in 1959, Serva has so fully assimilated in the closed, magical world of gypsy flamenco, many of his Andalusian contemporaries are unaware of his white Alabama lineage, or that he is the son of a Berkeley professor.

Playing in the U.S. dramatic competition is the hip-hop drama "Filly Brown," about a tough female MC (Gina Rodriguez), and starring Lou Diamond Phillips. There's also "I Am Not a Hipster," an art-and-music-informed feature geared toward the 20-something vinyl junkie with a shoegaze band, featuring a soundtrack by melancholy indie rockers, the Canines.

On the live music side, the Sundance ASCAP Music Cafe will feature performances by artists looking to strengthen their ties to film and television, including LA electronica godfather Flying Lotus (distant relative of John Coltrane), singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson (whose songs you've heard on almost every primetime television show in America), Jenny O, Natasha Bedingfield, English singer-songwriter David Gray and James McCartney, progeny of Sir Paul and the late Linda McCartney.

Donovan, the legendary folk pop troubadour, is the big guest at BMI's Music Showcase on Jan. 25; Fitz and the Tantrums are playing the SPIN party, and word on the street is that LCD Soundsystem is DJing the Chase Sapphire party.

Read the article in Variety, here.

Sarah Michelle Gellar for BULLETT magazine


Leaning against the hood of a parked 1963 Camaro in front of a bedraggled motel on Sunset Boulevard, Sarah Michelle Gellar shakes the can of beer she’s been holding, releasing an explosive spray of suds that form foamy puddles on the sidewalk beneath her high-rise heels. She giggles, obviously enjoying her brief moment of rebellion, even if it is for the sake of the accompanying photos. All legs in a short skirt, she mock-defiantly purses her glossy lips, channeling Alabama Whitman, the feisty call girl brought to life by Patricia Arquette in the 1993 crime caper, True Romance. Off camera, the 34-year-old actor no longer indulges in such childish defiance; her alcohol consumption rarely exceeds a recreational glass of wine.

A few hours later, Gellar, who currently stars as a drug addicted ex-stripper hiding from the mob (by impersonating her twin sister) on the CW’s hit series Ringer, has changed back into her everyday clothes: jeans and an AlexanderMcQueen silk scarf. “What did you do to yourself?” she asks, the register of her voice rising to a maternal squeal as she gestures toward a nasty red wound on my forearm. Before going into the embarrassing details—which, among other things, involve at least one vodka drink too many—I cover the burn with my good arm, as if to shield the sore from her inevitable judgment.

After all, Gellar, who bagged a Daytime Emmy for her starring role on All My Children before she could legally enter a dance club, has always had her shit together. She’s never been photographed, legs akimbo, getting out of a limo, and she’s never stumbled out of the Chateau Marmont and into the driver’s seat. There are even websites that host heated debates over whether or not she’s ever taken a drag from a cigarette. “Do you believe everything you read?” she asks at the mention of her assumed purity, her maternal tone giving way to incredulity.“I’ve definitely smoked cigarettes, and I’ve partied plenty.I just got it out of my system early. I was lucky enough to have had my experiences when I was younger—and out of the public eye.”

Read the full interview here.

Golden Globes party report for New York Magazine




9:47 p.m. At the Weinstein after-party, Jason Statham and his willowy model-actress girlfriend Rosie Huntington-Whiteley swoosh into the lobby. Jason’s brow is furrowed, Rosie’s red lips are traffic-stopping. But no one is paying much attention ...
9:48 p.m ... until Leonardo DiCaprio rolls in with a small entourage and the lobby erupts into frantic cries of “Leo! Leo!” He’s smiling despite losing out to George Clooney in the Best Actor category.
10 p.m. Back at the HBO party, Jesse Tyler Ferguson told us he had a good time at the show "because Sofia was passing around a flask of tequila." (Does Pepsi know?)
10:03 p.m. P. Diddy and his entourage cause a Red Sea–like parting as they weave their way toward the Weinstein party's back tent. Diddy crashes into Paris and Nicky Hilton, whose great-grandfather Conrad built the hotel they are partying in. Paris and Diddy embrace warmly, prompting a flurry of iPhone camera flashes.
10:10 p.m. Once rumored couple Diddy and Cameron Diaz chat up Lawrence Bender and Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein looks positively giddy. Are those Meryl Streep's glasses in his pocket, or is he just happy she won?
10:17 p.m. “I want Kelsey to say hi to Harvey,” we overhear a Kelsey Grammer employee say. Seconds later, a bearded Grammer emerges in front of Weinstein.
10:25 p.m. Rob Lowe is feeding ravenously while seated at a table in the back tent. He pauses for breath and drapes an arm affectionately around his wife, makeup artist Sheryl Berkoff.
10:52 p.m. A long-haired Gerard Butler has been standing all night, knee-deep in women. He doesn’t seem to mind. He poses for a photo holding a sign that says “Gerard Butler” in front of his face — in case the girls need some reminding? “I could do this all day,” he announces.
10:54 p.m. A less frown-y Jason Statham gets his groove on, hopping around to the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me.” He’s trying to get his girlfriend Rosie off the couch. “Come on, darling, won’t you dance?” But she's too engrossed in conversation with Weinstein’s wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman.
10:58 p.m. Lindsay Lohan and stylist Rachel Zoe collide in the back tent and embrace lovingly. “How are you, sweetie?” Zoe asks.
11:11 p.m. Weinstein and his wife look like they’re about to leave. But not before Weinstein — who's hugged a lot of people tonight, including Jason Statham — goes in for one more embrace, this time with Jessica Alba. No hard feelings about Machete, then!
11:15 p.m. We're surprised to see Aziz Ansari at the HBO party, since he didn’t attend the ceremony itself. “I was home illegally downloading Homeland," he tells us. "I hear it’s so good and I don’t have Showtime.”
11:36 p.m. Back at Weinstein's bash, Kim Kardashian is standing alone looking seriously bummed. Maybe now is a good time for her to find Paris Hilton and stage a reconciliation? Better yet, go home — and good night!


You can also read this at New York Magazine's website, here.

Adanowsky for LA Weekly


Like a latter-day Serge Gainsbourg, the singer Adanowsky emanates cosmic sensuality, leaving a trail of fluttery-eyed females in his musky, potent wake. Such was the case as he glided through Harvard and Stone last week, all furrowed brow and crumpled shirt, looking like a broken-hearted mariachi without a guitar. (He also performs in L.A. tonight and tomorrow; details at the bottom of the post.)
Adanowsky, whose real name is Adan Jodorowsky, was in town from Mexico City to perform songs from his latest album, Amador -- Spanish for 'lover.' It's a collection of croony folk ballads designed to inspire long afternoons in bed and prolonged eye contact.

Amador is second in a series of four records, geared at exploring "the corporeal, the emotional, the sexual and the intellectual" in that order, he tells us, sitting in the cramped smoking area behind Harvard and Stone. "It's the earth, water, fire and air." Each album sees Adanowsky adopt an entirely new character and this persona, the Amador, is quite simply "obsessed with love," Jodorowsky continues.

"He is spiritual, though, which is a transition from the first record, The Idol, in which the character was suffering a lot. The Amador is sick of the darkness, and moving into a place of peace."

Adanowsky wrote the record after a gnarly break-up with his girlfriend of four years. Rather than drown in his sorrows, he visited a mystic up in a mountain in Mexico, and underwent a psychedelic healing experience that could have been straight out of his father's film epic, The Holy Mountain.

Indeed, his dad is cult movie director Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Salvador Dali of 20th century cinema, and one of the leading figures in avant garde cinema. His film El Topo become the first midnight cult film, resulting in John Lennon giving him $1million to make The Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky's failed attempt to make the film Dune -- before the project was handed to David Lynch -- is considered among the greatest films never made.

"I decided to go to the mountain because the healer told me I had a closed heart," says Adan, in his honey-accented English. "He started to do magic on me--without drugs--and after five days of healing I went back to Mexico City, almost dying. I went to the shower and I was lying on the floor; I crawled to my bed and looked up at the ceiling and I felt my chest opening. And suddenly I felt alright, like I am going to start a new life."


Read the rest here

I am LA correspondent for Monocle magazine's new radio station, M24



Tyler Brulé, founder of Wallpaper and Monocle magazines, just launched M24, Monocle's new radio station. “Why radio?," he says. "It’s still, after almost a century of regular broadcasts, the most intimate medium in an ever expanding buffet of choice. Would you prefer to be seated at a cosy table with four dazzling hosts with the best tips and tales or in a crowded room full of shouty people? I know what our readers would prefer?”
M24 has invited me to be their "Woman in LA", and I'll be phoning in my reports on what's happening in the City of Angels twice a month.



A GWAR IS Born: GWAR's official biography in the can


I spent two years working with the wonderful Bob Gorman of GWAR, finally putting down on paper the weird, brutal tale behind the weirdest, brutalest band in heavy metal. Last month, the completed manuscript, titled 'A GWAR Is Born' was delivered...one of my proudest moments. Now we've just got to wait for publication. Expect hundreds of amazing archival images.

LA Occult for LA Weekly




The full moon was in Aquarius and Mercury in retrograde as members of L.A.'s cosmic mafia -- a fashionable collection of white witches, black wizards, Crowleyites, healers, shamans, alchemists, magicians, cult members, Aquarians, Santeria priestesses, bohemian artists, mystically-minded musicians, pagans and acid hipsters -- gathered at Cinefamily on Saturday for a crash course on witches, and why we love to hate on them.
The night was sold out, which was no surprise -- magic and occultism are alive and well in Los Angeles, and in the popular culture in general. Black mass images, upside-down crucifixes and pagan imagery have infiltrated fashion magazines everywhere, not to mention musicians' minds -- take witchhouse artists Salem, demon rappers Odd Future and even Lady Gaga, all of whom have been borrowing from the grand library of the occult.
Jodi Wille, the brains behind book publisher Process Media (along with Adam Parfrey), co-organized the event with Maja D'Aoust, otherwise known as the White Witch of Los Angeles. Wille emphasized that the face of this occult movement is more white magic than dark, less goat sacrifices and more herbal tea; it's about sustainable living, psychedelic music and avant garde art. As such, it's a movement that is very at home in Los Angeles, a natural hub for the kind of supernatural hippie who likes to embrace magic.
And indeed it was a chic, well-attired crowd that had gathered to learn about the poor old Witch, one of the most demonized archetypes of all time. D'Aoust, who holds her monthly "Maja's Magic School" metaphysical lectures at Annie Besant Lodge in Hollywood, explained to the audience why witches have so often been scapegoated and abused by patriarchal society.
Basically, "they were freaked out by our periods!" That's right, witches, priestesses and female healers have been despised because not only could they bleed for five days and not die (which makes a lot of us witches, I guess), but also because they are vestiges of matriarchal culture, and connected to nature in a way that men cannot understand. "They had really strong relationships with nature and the earth and other realms. When monotheistic patriarchal culture came along, all that was squashed out."
Not all dudes are frightened of witches, however. Take author and magician Brian Butler, aka "Black Magic Brian," who introduced a newly-restored 16mm clip of Curtis Harrrington's film "Wormwood Star", featuring the art of 1940s occult icon Marjorie Cameron, an intoxicatingly witchy redhead who famously robbed Anais Nin of the lead role in Kenneth Anger's "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome," thanks to her imposingly magical presence. Cameron destroyed all of the paintings seen in "Wormwood Star" while living with her second husband Sherif Kimmil (thought to be the inspiration for the R. P. McMurphy character in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). She did this because, as any witch artist worth her salt knows, her paintings were talismans, too dangerous to remain on this earth.
In the audience was Djin Aquarian, member of legendary Los Angeles mystical tribe, the Source family, and guitar player for the group's band, YaHoWha 13. He was fresh from rocking Hollywood strip bar Cheetah's the night before, alongside members of space rock band Spindrift (the combination of psychedelic hippie jams and confused tittie dancers will never be forgotten by anyone who was there...but that's another story). Djin, along with the rest of the Cinefamily audience, watched never-before-seen archival footage of Source family members performing two unique white magic rituals -- the sacred herb ritual (basically, a super rad way to wake-and-bake), and the Star Exercise. (The footage will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the Source family, being co-directed by Jodi Wille and Maria Demopoulos.)
And still, there was more witchiness to be had. Contemporary witch Sera Timms, alluring singer for stoner/doom band Black Math Horseman, introduced a music video she directed for the band Isis. There were clips from 1922 Danish film Haxan, featuring eerie imaginings of the Inquisition and witch burnings, plus Maya Deren's film of a bona fide chicken and goat voodoo sacrifice in Haiti. Even after the slide shows and film clips had been shown, there was still more magic -- out back, on the patio of the movie theatre, a white wizard and a Santeria priestess dispensed healing, gifts and magical advice to a by-now fully energized and inspired audience.
D'Aoust and Wille, who live in the same apartment building in Glendale, had been planning the evening for some time. One witchy conversation led to another, and they realized they both wanted to raise awareness of the true significance of witches in western culture. "Understanding the power of the witch is understanding the power within yourself to make magic happen," explains Wille. She and D'Aoust will be back with another event in the fall, about "demon possession and radical healing," featuring a shamanic healer, a kabbalist and an acupuncturist who deals with entity removal...the magic, it appears, has just begun.

Read the story at LA Weekly.com here.

Udo Kier for Dazed and Confused


Udo Kier is the German actor whose piercing stare and decadent persona has made him the muse of some of the leading arthouse film directors of our time – Fassbinder, Lars von Trier (he has appeared in all but two of von Trier’s films), Gus Van Sant, Dario Argento and Guy Maddin have all used him as the go-to guy for something dark and different. The first to spot his unique talents was Warhol, however. His smouldering physical presence may have been what initially caught the eye of Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey (Trash), who cast a 21-year-old Kier as the lead in Warhol’s Frankenstein and Dracula movies after meeting him on a plane, but it was Kier’s versatility, and his appreciation for both high and lowbrow, that earned him lifelong cult status.

You may not think you know his work, but chances are you’ve seen him as a vaudevillian gay man in My Own Private Idaho, a vampire overlord in Blade, a creepy doctor in Dancing In The Dark, a camp baddie in Barb Wire, or a debonaire mystic in Madonna’s video “Deeper and Deeper” (he was also featured in her erotic photo book Sex). In the last year alone, he has shot seven films, including von Trier’s Melancholia, Guy Maddin’s Keyhole and the upcoming Iron Sky, in which he plays “a Nazi leader who lives on the moon…” 



Udo Kier is the German actor whose piercing stare and decadent persona has made him the muse of some of the leading arthouse film directors of our time – Fassbinder, Lars von Trier (he has appeared in all but two of von Trier’s films), Gus Van Sant, Dario Argento and Guy Maddin have all used him as the go-to guy for something dark and different. The first to spot his unique talents was Warhol, however. His smouldering physical presence may have been what initially caught the eye of Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey (Trash), who cast a 21-year-old Kier as the lead in Warhol’s Frankenstein and Dracula movies after meeting him on a plane, but it was Kier’s versatility, and his appreciation for both high and lowbrow, that earned him lifelong cult status.


You may not think you know his work, but chances are you’ve seen him as a vaudevillian gay man in My Own Private Idaho, a vampire overlord in Blade, a creepy doctor in Dancing In The Dark, a camp baddie in Barb Wire, or a debonaire mystic in Madonna’s video “Deeper and Deeper” (he was also featured in her erotic photo book Sex). In the last year alone, he has shot seven films, including von Trier’s Melancholia, Guy Maddin’s Keyhole and the upcoming Iron Sky, in which he plays “a Nazi leader who lives on the moon…” 


Dazed & Confused: What’s your favourite thing about being an actor?
Udo Kier: The attention. Wouldn’t you love it?


D&C: You have an appreciation for both high art and lowbrow. How do you decide what projects you want to do?
Udo Kier:I’m not very career-driven, never was. I met Paul Morrissey on an airplane. I met Fassbinder in 
a bar when he was 15 and I was 16. Gus van Sant I met at the Berlin film festival, and he came up to me. He had a little film in the festival called Mala Noche that he had made for $20,000. He said: ‘You are one of my favourite actors. I’m doing My Own Private Idaho with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. You should be in it!’  Then I started working with Gus. I owe Gus my social security number – he sponsored my US visa! Anyway, I’m very grateful to him. After the premiere of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues [also by Gus Van Sant] 
I stayed with a girlfriend in Los Angeles and she said, ‘Why don’t you stay here? Why don’t you get a little car and little apartment for $400 a month and just try it?’ I said, ‘No.’ Of course, after three glasses of red wine, I said, ‘Not a bad idea…’  That was 21 years ago.


D&C: Tell me about ‘Sitting On A Bullet’ – the song you perform in My Own Private Idaho while shining a lamp under your face…
Udo Kier: I always wanted to make music but I cannot play any instrument. I told Gus about the time I was performing in Moscow at the Olympic stadium and they forgot to give me a microphone. I had three songs and I didn’t know what to do. I was in front of 20,000 people. So, I just performed with the flashlamp under my face. Gus said to me on the day, ‘Why don’t you sing to the boys like you did in Moscow? We cannot use a flashlamp because it’s like Dennis Hopper in The Railroad.’ He said I should use a very big living room lamp instead. I said: ‘I cannot dance with that big lamp!’ But of course, I did.


D&C: Tell us how you met Madonna...
Udo Kier: I was in New York and my agent said, ‘There’s something secret going on… Steven Meisel, the photographer, wants to see you, he is doing a book – it has to do with Madonna, we don’t know exactly what it is.’ Then I went there. There were bodyguards – you can always tell because their suits are too tight. There was a woman sitting there with no make-up – Madonna. I didn’t recognise her right away.  She said, ‘I liked you in My Own Private Idaho, and then we started talking a little bit. I understood very quickly what she wanted – she wanted me to play her decadent husband. So we did that and then I came back to Los Angeles and her manager called and said: ‘Are you ready for hardcore sex?’ I wanted to see how far I could go and, well, you’ve seen the pictures. 


D&C: Then you did her video for ‘Deeper And Deeper’?
Udo Kier: I was in Los Angeles and Debbie Mazar, who is a good friend and an actress, called me. She said Madonna is doing ‘Deeper and Deeper’ and we would like that you be part of it, and I said okay. I play her nightlife guru.


D&C: That sounds like a fun night. What was the most fun day of your life?
Udo Kier: Fun? Well, I know the day I was born was the most important day, not because my mother gave life to me, but how dramatic the story was. I was one hour old and the nurse was collecting all the babies – the newborns – from their mothers and cleaning them. My mother said: ‘Could I hold him a little bit longer?’ and the nurse said yes. Then the wall of the hospital collapsed over her – the building had been bombed. My mother was lucky because her bed was in a corner, so it was architecturally protected. She held me with one arm and with the other she made a hole in the rubble until they freed her, with me. I was two hours old. That is how I was born. 


D&C: Indeed, very dramatic. Where did you meet Fassbinder?
Udo Kier: In a working-class bar in Cologne. There were truck drivers and secretaries and the first transvestites and people working on the street – a real bar. It was called Bar Leni. But we never talked about film. We were teenagers. Later, when I went to England, I saw a magazine and there was a double page spread about Fassbinder. I said, ‘I know him!’ Then, of course, I worked with him many times.


D&C: When did you first start moving in glamorous circles?
Udo Kier: Not until I moved to London. When I was in Germany I worked as a clerk and in a Ford car factory. But then I was 21 and I was sitting in a club in London, before I had done anything with film. The waiter came to me and said, ‘Mr Visconti would like to invite you for a glass of champagne’, Luchino Visconti (iconic Italian director). I didn’t know who he was, so I said, ‘Tell the gentleman to come himself.’ Visconti came and said, ‘I have a friend you should meet.’ I went over to the table. It was Rudolf Nureyev, the ballet dancer. 
I noticed how he always framed his conversation around his legs: ‘My legs are tired…’ He had the most famous legs in the world! After that, I made the Warhol movies, and that’s when the glamour really started.


D&C: How did you come to be in Warhol’s Dracula and Frankenstein movies?
Udo Kier: I was in an airplane flying from Rome to Munich and there was a man sitting next to me. He said, ‘What do you do?’ and I said, ‘I’m an actor’. I hadn’t even finished the word ‘actor’ and I already had a photo of myself under his nose. He said, ‘Give me your number,’ and wrote my telephone number on the last page of his American passport. He said his name was Paul Morrissey and he worked with Andy Warhol. Then I got a call a couple weeks later and he said, ‘Well, I am doing a little film…’ I asked, ‘What do I play?’ He said, ‘Frankenstein.’ 


D&C: And how did the role in Dracula come up?
Udo Kier: The last day of shooting Frankenstein I was in the canteen, dressed as Frankenstein, thinking that everything was over – I’d had my three weeks of fame. I had a little bottle of wine for lunch. Paul Morrissey came in and said, ‘Well, I guess we have a German Dracula.’ I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘You! But you have to lose at least 10lbs.’ I didn’t eat any more. I just had salad leaves and water.  That’s why I was in a wheelchair for so many of my scenes – I had no power to stand up any more. It’s not only Robert de Niro who prepares himself in this way.


D&C: You’ve been in every single Lars von Trier film, aside from the ones shot in Danish. How did that relationship begin?
Udo Kier: I made a short film that went into competition at the Mannerheim Film Festival in Germany – a very intellectual festival. My short film went in against Lars von Trier’s Elements Of Crime. I knew I wanted to meet whoever made that short film. I expected him to be someone like Kubrick – shy, in a bad mood, dressed in black. But there came a young boy, and we were talking about Fassbinder and Tarkovsky. A few weeks later he called and asked me to be in his film Medea. 


D&C: Has time ever slowed down or sped up for you?
Udo Kier: If I was to write an article about myself, the headline would be Time Is The Sin. Time is the real sin. I am 21 years in America. I mean 21 years. That’s definitely a quarter or your life – I’m already here, and I’ve been years in Paris and years in Rome, and now I’m living 21 years here and I think it’s going to be the stage where this is where I am going to stay. When you get older time moves faster – much faster. Now I am 66. That’s why I like it here in Palm Springs. Everyone is older than me. When I go to a restaurant everyone says, ‘Young man, can you pass the salt?’



You can also read the interview at Dazed&Confused website, here.

My Short Story "The Audition" In New British Fiction Anthology



I'm very proud to say my short story, "The Audition", was published in "All The King's Horses", a super cool new anthology of fiction and poetry written by established and emerging writers.
Other authors include Johnny Thunders biographer Nina Antonia, actress Sadie Frost, and singer Lucie Barat (Carl Barat's sister!)
Read it for free here (my story starts on page 16). Or buy it here if you want the real book sitting on an actual shelf in your house.

Adventures With Romeo


Romeo is my dog, and as you can see, he happens to be in a wheelchair. His heroes are Charlie Sheen and Larry Flynt (another player in a wheelchair), and he has a real eye for the ladies. What do you expect--his name is Romeo, after all.

He has his own blog, Adventures With Romeo, which you can check out here.

Jamie Reid interview in Juxtapoz magazine



Artist, punk, druid, and nature-lover Jamie Reid has been planting dissent since 1975, when he gave the Queen of England swastika eyes and wrote “Never Mind The Bollocks” in cut-out lettering that continues to be appropriated by t-shirt bootleggers the world over.
Born in 1947, Liverpool-based Reid has always been inspired by two things: the anarcho-Dadaist ideas of the Situationist movement, and the magickal utopianism of his Great Uncle, George Watson MacGregor Reid, a turn-of-the-century socialist reformer and Chief Druid of the British Isles. This might explain why his work has evolved from socio-political protest art to the predominantly Gaian, shamanistic work he creates today. Either way, whether he’s creating abstract paintings inspired by Druidic ritual, or angry collages that say “Fuck Forever”, Jamie Reid’s art urges you to open your eyes. A timeless message, if ever there was one.

What kind of household did you grow up in, Jamie?
From an early age, I was dragged off on demonstrations. Both my parents were in involved in CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). And my brother was involved in (WHICH ORGANIZATION?). The first one I remember going on was one of the CND Aldermaston marches in the 1950s. I thought it was great! I never realized adults could have that much fun. That’s the thing—I’ve always wanted my political work to have a sense of fun.  I think it makes the message stronger. So much of politics is devoid of any sense of humor at all. Likewise with so much of Christian and Islamic religion. I did a show in 1990 in Tokyo, and remember talking to the some young monks at a Shinto temple. We were talking about the Bible, and one of the monks said “The Bible? No good jokes in the Bible!”
You met Malcolm McLaren in the 1960s, at art school in Croydon. McLaren would eventually bring you on board to work with the Sex Pistols. Do you remember the first time you met him, and how the conversation went down?
Not really. I have very blurred memories of that time. Of course, we really got along well, and we became both very involved with the student politics of the time. We immersed ourselves in a student occupation at Croydon College. And we were aware of political uprisings in other countries, the Vietnam anti-war movement and particularly of what was going on in Paris. There was something powerful in the ether in those times.
I heard you and Malcolm traveled to Paris together for the 1968 student riots, but missed them.
We didn’t make it to Paris. That is a myth.
Either way, you and McLaren were both heavily influenced by the Situationist movement that was flourishing there. Tell me how Situationist philosophy would influence your work as an artist.
One of the things with my early graphics was to demystify Situationist messages—so much Situationist text was long-winded and hard to get your head around. I felt like you could say the same things, but with much more punch, if you said them visually and with a sense of humor. So I started the Suburban Press, and we would make stickers, pamphlets and posters that reflected Situationist ideas. Like our “This Week Only This Store Welcomes Shoplifters” stickers that we put up in shops, and “Closing down sales, due to lack of raw material” CHECK THIS, which we stuck up in department stores. It was all about just having a go, and putting ideas in to practical practice. Plus it was enjoyable. So enjoyable.
What’s your take on psychogeography, another big part of Situationist philosophy?
I don’t really know what it means. It’s involved with energy lines. Basically it’s the antithesis of modern planning. The Situationist idea is based on just wandering around and walking to discover things about the environment. Not going to do a job, or going to school or working, or having that kind of structure.
How did Malcolm come to involve you with the Pistols?
 It was a weird one. I was living with some friends in the Isle of Lewis (in the Outer Hebrides, small islands north of Scotland) that had a croft (a small farm). It was completely different to life in London and I ended up there for over a year. Then Malcolm got in touch, saying he had formed this band in London, and would I be interested in working on it. So I moved back and worked with the Pistols. It was my way of being able to put across ideas that I cared about. A lot of the stuff we did ended up being banned—which was great of course, because it ended up on the front page of newspapers everywhere. And I liked it because it wasn’t elitist – our stuff could get through to working class kids; it wasn’t in a gallery, it was being fly-pestered all over the country.
Many of the graphics you used for the Pistols artwork, you had designed years earlier in your work with the Suburban Press.
Yes, like the “Nowhere Buses”. They originally came from LA, actually.  An activist group in LA had sent us a timetable that looked like the bus company’s timetable, except the buses were not going anywhere. And I reused it. The shoplifting stickers I had made; they inspired the look of the “Never Mind The Bollocks” album cover, lots of fluorescent, retail colors designed for a quick sale. Reusing that stuff just epitomized the spirit of the time, for me.
When you came up with the “God Save The Queen” graphic, did you have any inkling how iconic it would become?
No. I had no idea. You’re too busy getting on with things. Once one thing’s done, you’re on to the next thing.
Comparisons between you and Banksy have been made a plenty—what do you think about that?
Banksy comes from a different time and different age. Before he was well known, we actually did an exhibition together at the Arches in Glasgow. I believe the posters for it are worth a fortune on Ebay.
How much has the gallery system been part of your world?
It hasn’t, really. In the early days, there’s no way we could have done what we did in the confines of a museum or art gallery, anyway. It’s never really been part of my world, until recently I suppose. The Tate Modern got around to buying some stuff, as did the V&A (Victoria and Albert museum). But you know, it all just boils down to people knowing what “art” is, and thinking for themselves. We have had so much damage done by the “Brit Art” movement—the whole thing was spawned by Saatchi and Saatchi (advertising agency), who were the people involved in getting Margaret Thatcher into power. Brit Art, to me, is like nouveau cuisine—a lot of money for fucking nothing. I think better art is done in times of recession than in times of prosperity, any way. In this country far more seems to get done than when people have fuck all.
Have you been to Art Basel?
No, I haven’t been to Basel. A lot of the work I have done in the last few years was done with the Aquarian gallery, with this guy Steve Lowe. It is now called 113. He has put on some of great exhibitions, with Billy Childish and others—but none of the shows we have done there have gotten attention from the mainstream art circuit. In this country, the critics are all friends with the artists. Critics wont go to new galleries, and the whole thing is so corrupt and so negative. I’m not depressed about it at all--I just choose to do things my own way.
The Eight-fold Year is your latest project, in which you upload a new painting, photograph and piece of writing to www.eightfoldyear.org each day for a year.  It’s totally different to your work with the Pistols and Suburban Press, and has a much more Gaian, shamanistic type of message.
My work has always been on two fronts – the much more spiritual, esoteric work, and the political work, even though people see the two as being diverse. The Eight-fold Year is based on seasons, and the critical times of the seasons, like the equinoxes and solstices. If you have a garden or allotment, you’re already working to that pattern. This project links in with my background, because my family were political activists who were also involved with a druid order for three generations, starting with my Great Uncle George Watson Macgregor-Reid.
Yes – I’ve heard about your Great Uncle. He started out as a union activist working with dock workers in Boston and New York, and once ran for Parliament as one of the first Labour Party candidates. Then he met Madame Blavatsky  (founder of Theosophy), returned to England and befriended members of the Golden Dawn (a 19th century magical order whose members included Aleister Crowley and WB Yeats) and became a swami-type figure. Then he was made the chief Druid of the British Isles and led Druidic ceremonial rites at Stonehenge.  You’ve often cited him as a huge inspiration.
Everything in my life has dovetailed from him. He died before I was born, but I grew up with a knowledge of the tradition of druidism and how, in his case, it was linked with the birth of socialism. If there’s one thing I’ve always been aware of it’s that if you need political change, you also need spiritual change. Look at the history of the Labor party and socialist tradition—it stems back to spiritual visionaries and philosophers like William Blake and Tom Paine. Sadly, today politics is mainly about commerce.
Your Great Uncle was active during the turn of the 20th century, a time of huge political and spiritual evolution.
Yes, there was an incredible sense of New Age and enlightenment—and then the First World War happened.  It was like a massive fucking ritualistic suicide. People look back on the Incas and the Druids and say “they must be terrible, they practiced ritualistic suicide”. But modern society happily kills people in the millions for power, greed and control. Poor soldiers. It breaks my heart.  
What do you think about Wikileaks, and cyber terrorist groups like Anonymous, who are protesting corporate and government corruption in a whole new way?
Physical protest is more restricted and oppressed than it used to be. So yes, in this day and age, and with the options available, cyber attacking is an effective way people can fight back. With most Western politics there's the veneer you see, and then there’s the corruption and secrecy behind it all. It’s interesting, the way that terrorism is being used to inhibit any means of protest, and keep people under control. 
What are your thoughts on computers? Obviously there were no laptops, and no internet when you started working as an artist and activist.
I often collaborate with a Russian laser artist called Alexei Blinov. He told me he had a couple of friends who were top-end hackers, who became disillusioned. They had decided that the microchip was an alien invention designed to get us so utterly dependent on computers that once they were taken away, the whole planet would be thrown into complete chaos. So yeah - personally, I m quite wary of computers. Mostly I use them for communication and some graphics. But I have a suspicion surrounding them. If computer systems broke down, all means of public transport would fail, communications would fail. We’re not prepared for those kinds of scenarios.
Our reliance on computers, modern farming, fossil fuels etc—its much less scary if you know at least how to grow your own food and generate your own energy.
I couldn’t agree more. I evenly split my time between painting and gardening nowadays. I do that every day. I have a garden and an allotment, and there's nothing like growing your own stuff. You don’t need massive amounts of space. You can do it.
What kind of politically driven art do you create today?
The Tory government has just announced that they are going to sell off British forest and woodlands to private companies, and I wanted to do a graphic about it. The Tory party logo is a tree, so I have used their logo being cut down with a sword saying “Tory Cuts”. Something like that. They are cutting libraries and child benefits too. They’re cutting everything.
What does the future hold for Jamie Reid?
Who knows. Survival. Birth of new paintings. Planting things.
How’s your allotment?

We have just planted broad beans, onions, shallots and sweet peas. It’s such a great concept, the idea of allotments. They are so democratic! After the Second World War, there wasn’t enough food, so people were granted their own little bits of land to grow vegetables on. The whole concept was born out of crisis. So many good things are…

Steve Jones for the LA Weekly


I wrote this for the LA Weekly.

It was perfect weather for pirates on Sunday, a gray, shadowless and drizzly evening, as Cap'n Steve Jones barreled into the CBS Radio building in Culver City wearing a grimy sailor's cap.
Portly and formidable, he swept through the lobby like a latter-day Blackbeard, passing logos of the many radio stations housed in the same building — JACK FM, K-EARTH — and headed straight for the KROQ studio.

He sat in his chair and put on his headphones. It was October 17, his first night helming the KROQ galleon live on air, and pillaging conditions looked favorable.

His producer, First Mate Mark Sovel, aka "Mister Shovel," eyed the crow's nest — KROQ's two giant transmitters, known for beaming all manner of pop-metal treachery (Linkin Park, System of a Down) to the station's 2 million listeners. On this night, however, the skies belonged to Cap'n Jonesy, who had in mind something a little different for the landlubbers. A spot of Best Coast, Zola Jesus, 22-20s, new Klaxons or some Sufjan Stevens, perhaps?

Armed with the best of today's skinny-jean indies, Jones leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching the seconds count down to 7 p.m. He let out a soft burp — baaarp — and glanced at his co-conspirator. "You ready, Mister Shovel?"

Read the full story here.

MOCA Graffiti/Street Art show


As well as freelance writing, I work with Roger Gastman, one of America's leading graffiti experts. One of the projects we have been working on at the office is an upcoming show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA. Jeffrey Deitch tapped Roger to co-curate a major street art/graffiti show at the museum, along with Aaron Rose. I've been working on some outreach and press stuff for the show, and Zio Fulcher, my colleague and LA's leading female authority on graffiti, deserves major hugs for pretty much pulling it all together.
It's going to be the first major museum study of art on the streets and all I can say right now is...it's going to be BIG. And a game-changer...Deitch is calling street art/graffiti the most important art movement since Pop Art.
Mister Cartoon's bus (in the photo) will be part of the exhibit.

Read the LA Times story about it here.

Banksy




I wrote this for Variety

Despite a paper-thin marketing budget, a bare-bones website, and very little lag time between completion, its Sundance screening and April 16 release, "Exit Through the Gift Shop," the film by notoriously secretive street artist Banksy, has emerged as the top-grossing limited-release documentary so far this year with $2.4 million.

That's music to the ears of the handful of industry veterans brought on by "Exit's" producers to devise what was probably the most lo-fi marketing campaign of their careers.

"We didn't have the kind of advance time that one would ordinarily prefer to prepare the marketplace, to organize trailers and posters and materials and screenings -- the things one ordinarily does to create awareness," says marketing consultant Richard Abramowitz, who says that though the marketing budget was tiny, the film created substantial awareness and word of mouth beyond the limited arthouse audience.

The pic's minimalist one-screen website features a six-minute movie trailer, a list of screening dates and venues -- and that's it. There are no Facebook or Twitter widgets. No links. And unlike most indie film sites, visitors are not asked to leave their email addresses for later communication.

John Sloss, who was repping the pic at Sundance, decided to release it himself via his Producers Distribution Alliance label.

Sloss purposely relinquished control of the film's Web and social networking presence, allowing Banksy's fans to do the work for the marketers. And work they did, generating a wave of Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare activity about the movie -- data which the "Exit" team carefully monitored, and responded to, in real-time. A fan created a Foursquare badge which became a badge of honor for artsy filmgoers to unlock.

"If the film was sold out at 7 p.m. in a market, then we'd tweet, '7 p.m. is sold out -- 10 p.m. is available,'?" says Marc Schiller, founder of street art blog Wooster Collective and CEO of boutique media agency Electric Artists. Adds Sloss: "We know for a fact that the people who were coming opening weekend are not regular moviegoers. They don't read the newspapers or traditional movie advertising -- we were connecting with them online, from within their community."

Prior to release, at least two tastemaker screenings were held in every market, with "very specific" people invited from the creative community. Once the film opened, if a community said it wanted the film, the "Exit" team responded, allowing for quick shifts in the distribution pattern.

Since the April 16 opening of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, which widened eventually to 46 theaters, the energy has continued, with audiences gradually skewing older and more mainstream.

"There are two basic approaches to the distribution of a specialized movie," Sloss explains, "One, that there is a finite audience that is incrementally used up by doing pre-release screenings, or two, that there is a potentially infinite audience that is accessed and expanded by doing such screenings. We chose the latter approach and it worked."