Not on the Guest List

Party Till You Puke

A night out in Londontown

So at about half past ten, Flora and I headed down to a warehouse party in Hackney where four bands would be playing. When we got there a duo was already on - they were so good - though neither of us knew their name. They turned out to be Cuckoos Nest. So good! The first song we caught was vocalless, but then the girl component of the pair stepped up to the mic for the rest of their set which consisted of heavy distortion and drum beats.

After a brief intermission at the close of Cuckoos Nest's set came another band was maybe a bit too loud for my ears. No - I'm not old - just a bit way too close to the speakers for such punk shouts.

Then finally it was time for the unexpected (because I didn't previously know them) best set of the night by Graffiti Island!

If there is any way to steal the show, Graffiti Island have clearly been schooled in it! Yes - we're talking about monotone vocals about pet snakes and turtles over beats and basslines delivered with the best of "I don't care" stage presence - or rather off-stage presence as the lead singer spent most of the set wandering off into the audience to pet a girl's face for the lyric "pretty" and the like when not offering head massages to the drummer Cherise.

Their set was entirely too brief, but maybe that assisted in their lasting impression. They put me into fangirl mode - seriously hahahaha They remind me of so much, yet are so unique.

(are we looking at her YACHT shirt? Are we?)

"Wolf Guy" Graffiti Island MP3

Directly after Graffiti Island came the top-billed hardcore quartet Lovvers

I haven't been to a hardcore show for so long. It was funny cos I was staying with Dev (this show was during a day off from tour - we came back to London after the Bristol show before booking it to Manchester) and as I was leaving his flat Dev was like "Rory will probably be there" and he was. Test Icicles4EVA hahaha. I didn't even notice Rory was in my frame until I looked at the pics the next day:

It's rather funny how many TI related conversations I've had since being here. It appears they're still most people's favorite bands (including mine) even if they did pave the way for Hadouken!
Anyway, back to Lovvers - there was a lot of crashing and jumping and even a foray into crowdsurfing!

It was a lot of fun - I felt 15 for a second. The end of their set concluded the live portion of the evening.

Matt put together the night. He should guest star on the Dirty Projectors latest album:

The night was SO fun!!!!!!! I downed an entire bottle of tequila in the space of about 30 minutes so the latter part of my evening pretty much revolved around this post's title - I threw up 7 times - what a way to make an impression hahahahaha

I met Markland (on the right) who has an album out on Absolutely Kosher label home of Frog Eyes and Get Him, Eat Him of as Sleeping States. He was enjoyable. This summer he toured around the States for a good long time and actually spent a couple weeks in Portland only 3 blocks away from my sublet on 28th and Killingsworth! What, what! It was funny cos he was like - since I'm from Portland "Why are you here?" referencing the truth that Portland truly is Shangri-La.

(Cherise, Florence, ?)

I also talked to Cherise of Graffiti Island who made the mistake of instantly mentioning YACHT and then pause for it -- E*Rock. Me not drunk - I would've already been over-enthusiastic, but with the tequila I went a little lot E*Rock crazy hahaha. As I always say - way more people should know him. Did you know his Gossip video is currently in the Paris Museum of Modern Art alongside Andy Warhol? I am just so thrilled that in connection to Portland he was the second thing she mentioned. Rad!

I remember when no one had heard of Portland. A specific example - when I shot Test Icicles for German Vice and their album booklet in '05 and I was flying to Portland for 10 days a couple hours later. Dev asked where to in the US.
"Portland."
"Ohhh, that's cool too..." so half-heartedly you could imagine a 'I guess' at the end.
Now P-town is on the map.

So yeah - other than that I met a TON of awesome people and formed a band with two siblings.

I'm not a playa,

I just floss a lot

Let's link it up:
Graffiti Island myspazz
Lovvers myspazz
Cuckoos Nest myspazz
Sleeping States myspazz
Little Death myspazz (band of Canadian Nathan who was seemingly the only one to know the first band's name)

More photos here

Hmm... I'm on tour

(Dev in Dalston yesterday by me, but I'm too lazy to run it through photoshop to add the credit)

So yeah - I'll do more once the tour blog starts running on Urb.com. I was in London. Right now I'm in Exeter taking photos of Lightspeed Champion/Patrick Wolf tour, which is...
Even though I have NO money whatsoever (I brought an entire duffle bag full of food because I could only afford food in USD as opposed to pounds and it's all locked away in Dev's flat right now), I had to buy a 14.99 bottle of tequila today because alcohol is the only way I'm going to survive and Dev's rider is non-existent. They're still soundchecking right now even though doors were supposed to open an hour ago. Patrick's van broke down outside of Brighton today which partially caused the delay. A 150 pound cab ride later, he's here. I think Dev is too (his driver and I came separate from him), but I left for food and am now in the venue's cafe using wifi. Anyway - yeah more to come. All I can say is thank god for Meg and Akiko last night.

"Stay The Fuck Away From Me" Lightspeed Champion MP3

Help Nilina Not Die in the UK PRINT SALE!!!!

"Listen Up!" While it may be fruitless for me to post this here, I'm going to just in case. I'm about to go on tour in the UK to take photos - I leave on November 19th. I'm cash poor. Already was until my subletter pulled out last night. Desperate times call for quick fun in Quark Express to announce I'm having a print sale of all my music photos:

All details can be found here.
I have tons and tons and tons of photos of all your favorite bands (minus Wesley Willis :). Take a look at them on my flickr.

Thank you thank you thank you to anyone who buys anything- the support is greatly appreciated!!!!! I'll actually blog here and dedicate a blog post to you!

Paypal: NilinaM@netscape.net

He created disco and now glasses

Is it just me or does Calvin Harris remind you of a wannabe Liam Kyle Sullivan? Calvin Harris totally used Liam's "Muffins" as his muse for "Make Your Own Fly Eyes." Holding certain expressions in takes that last just that little bit longer than they should... The randomness... The fact that Calvin finds himself in a kitchen later on in his clip...

Spectacle school:

All I want for breakfast:

"This is the Industry" Calvin Harris MP3

Calvin Harris' Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/icreateddisco

OMG! SHOES!

Gimme Shoes!

PS: Calvin must have another channel, because how else would it be possible for him to have only viewed 425 videos! Seriously!?! My count is at 15,408.

Biffy Clyro came to town under an Umbrella

Biffy Clyro came to town... a really long time ago - in September. I saw them. When I worked at Blueridge off Byers Road in Glasgow at the end of 2004, we used to listen to them on repeat - only breaking for fellow new (or is that "nu"?) metal-ers YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO and My Chemical Romance. So it was mucho funny that there were some Glaswegians in the audience when they rolled through PDX supporting Editors. Talk about an odd match up.

The brothers Clyro roared through their set as two super charged fans giddily hung on every word. I wanted to take photos more of the dedicated fans than the band - not that what was happening onstage wasn't exciting - it was - and a bit ear-bleed inducing what with the high volume - though it wouldn't be Biffy without the loud sounds.

The Johnson twins no longer have that Diane Arbus almost-creepy vibe now that they have seriously different hair-cuts.

Twin one:

Twin two:

That said, I am a bit saddened. I think it made for better photos when they matched and vocalist Simon Neil was the odd one out.

So the Scots' first Portland appearance went down a storm and I finally got to catch them - it was pretty impossible when in Scotland as they're so beloved that tickets to their shows were nonexistent pretty much as soon as they were announced.
Anyway - as all were clearing out come the end of Editors set - the Glaswegian couple were still going strong - dancing in the middle of Berbati's shouting out the lyrics to Kings of Leon's "Four Kicks" that was playing overhead at the top of their lungs. Some great drunken fun on their hands.

Setlist:

"Umbrella" (Rihanna Cover) Biffy Clyro MP3

A few days ago Biffy opened for Datarock - yeah... Things didn't quite go as planned.

I'm a F-A-N of N-Y-P-C

A Friday ago I put on my best dress and shoes to go "Get Dancey" to New Young Pony Club. I was pretty much the opposite of this blog's title as Andy from the band sent me an unexpected message on myspace the day before the show.

They are sweethearts - I heart them for tracking me down/keeping track of me.
Due to rounding up balloons and taking a trip back home after doing so to collect my polaroid camera that'd I forgotten while walking out the door earlier I missed Reverse Dotty and the Candy Cane Shivs. They even went on late! It woulda been my first time seeing them since they opened for the Gossip in April.

Jaguar Love:

Who I did catch after meeting up with Brendan and his friend to take my remaining two glist spots and bumping into fellow shooters Chloe and then Renee - who came down all the way from Seattle was Jaguar Love - a brand new trio made up of two members from the just broken-up Blood Brothers and a former Pretty Girls Make Graves-er. It was their second show. You can definitely hear influences of their former bands in their sound.

There was definitely more room in the venue for more people, but the good thing about the attendance level was that there was room to dance - even in front. NYPC cofounder and guitarist Andy said it was the smallest crowd they've played to during their hastily booked and shortly announced North American invasion. Tahita and her semi-confrontational dance moves spent more of her time up against the railings of the stage interacting with the crowd/her fellow dancers.

New Young Pony Club's set went by SO fast!! So fast! It felt like it was a half hour, but it was a bit more than that - still they played all of their recorded output - including their "The Bomb" b-side cover of Squeeze "Take Me I'm Yours" and a cover of Techtronics' "Pump Up the Jams." Both videos are below. "The Get Go was their one song encore.

Crush LOU:

The reason the Teenagers' remix of "The Bomb" is titled so. Lovely Lou - gf of Jamie of Klaxons - the self-confessed 'monk lookalike'.

Tahita accepted multiple items from audience members - from a heart necklace to a cap that turned them from being New Young Pony Club into New Young Jeezy Club hahaha:

The night "Decend"ed into chaos towards the end when we tried to do some portraits featuring $15 worth of balloons I'd just purchased from the Dollar Scholar on Hawthorne (officially Portland's best dollar store).

It's funny that I'd write the word chaos too because to my knowledge that is a track of theirs that remains unreleased. When I first saw them at the Vibe bar on December 19th 2005 on Brick lane in London at an open mic night (fresh from an AMAZING weekend in Berlin) that was the only track that really stood out in the way the four tracks of theirs that had already been floating around - ie "Ice Cream," "The Get Go," "Tight Fit," and "Jerk Me" did. Part of me thinks it may have been adapted into "The Bomb" as the lyrics were a bit science-y - I think they even mentioned Einstein.

Anyway - yeah - um there was VERY little focus and I now understand why their publicity shots are oh so plain - I mean their songs are full of such imagery I was always like "there are so many photo concepts that can be drawn from them," but alas I don't think NYPC are capable of holding still long enough to be shot in any other get-up than in T-shirts against a wall sans any sorts of props or the like. That in itself is huge improvement already as they used to be "too shy" for photos and the only image that existed in relation to them was a graphic of female in riding gear when I first got into them mid-2005. They didn't have a myspace, only an obscure website that played "Jerk Me." They only released music on vinyl and rarely played live.
In the end of the year I formed a myspace group for them and a live photo of them escaped proving they truly did exist (really - people were beginning to wonder).

Here's the listing I wrote for them in the paper:
[AUDIO ICE CREAM] New Young Pony Club used to be so secretive you could’ve mistaken the band for a covert government operation rather than the electro quintet it truly is. With live performances few and far between, no photos (because the gang was “too shy”) and an addictive set of tunes, this pony tale had all the makings of a fantasy on track to outlive the myth of the unicorn. Thankfully, the London quintet has broken out of its stable and is now all about showmanship—visually embodied by the group’s frontwoman, Tahita Bulmer, who leads the dance party.

Andy quoted the government operation part later having read it the day prior while hanging out at Tube - glad he enjoyed it :)
Before disbanded for the evening on that Friday we discussed how we could inspire more activity in the myspace group. I went on a member adding spree the next day hahahaha
The ponies left cackling about a creepy party invite from a couple they'd just received and declined while I made my way to Storefront.

"Take Me, I'm Yours" New Young Pony Club MP3

More of my photos over at LocalCut

Here are some vids I shot:

"Pump Up the Jams"

"Take Me, I'm Yours"

Make new friends or keep the old:
http://myspace.com/newyoungponyclub

God - I miss blogging! I just can't be bothered lately. Well, I can over at LocalCut, but just not here. I'm gonna try to get that together seeing as I'm still paying the fees and all. I'm trying not to go the way of the Swish blog in terms of indefinite hiatus, but now I see that it can be all too easy. I miss being "Nilina Not on the Guest List" rather than just Nilina hahaha :)