#i think it would depend on how she and john are doing as solo artists and how desperate she feels

[myplasticadversary]

So I've been thinking about 1974 in my Plastic Ono Band universe, and I think what I've settled on is John and Yoko still separate and she puts out Approximately Infinite Universe and meanwhile John is antsy about recommitting to Paul without her but manages to get talked into briefly joining Wings to play lead guitar for recording Band On The Run, long as he can bring his girlfriend May. #9 Dream replaces Mamunia (which is released as a B-side to Helen Wheels) and Let Me Roll It breaks out into the Beef Jerky jam as an outro.

But I've been trying to decide, if John is on the album does that mean he goes with them to Lagos or does he wait till they come back for overdubs? I feel like with all the crazy shit that happened on that trip like the robbery and Paul's heart attack and getting antagonized by Fela Kuti (who had a point let's be real) John would believe that's all somehow due to his presence being a curse despite it having nothing to do with him and afterward be even more compelled to self-isolate, that is if he would decide to go in the first place.

[clgzb]

CL: IN THE NAME OF LOVE

If K-POP royalty were a thing, CL would be queen and reign supreme. Speaking to The WOW, the former idol turned independent artist muses over her most recent album ALPHA, her favourite vintage coat and her approach to self-care.

PHOTOGRAPHER: MAX PAPENDIECK

STYLIST: CECE LIU

INTERVIEWER: JIANMING XU

CL, née Lee Chae-rin has had a whirlwind of a career. After being catapulted into unconscionable fame at only 17 years old, assuming the role as leader of the girl group 2NE1, her life has been anything but ordinary since. Now a solo artist, who is returning to the stage, she’s starting a new chapter and her first solo album ALPHA is just the start.  

After almost three years devoid of energetic and chaotic crowds, live performances can be healing to the soul. Knowing her adoration for performing, whether she’s an independent artist or not, nothing else matters to CL once she’s on stage igniting a crowd. Labels, titles, and her own situation don’t come into play, it’s simply about reconnecting to the energy and frequency she feels her best at. And two years later, she’s ready to release all that suppressed energy. “For me, [I feel most beautiful] when I’m on stage performing, that’s why I love doing it. I always say I love dancing and I love performing on stage. I love the rehearsals too, but to get to the point where you feel comfortable with your movement and you finally are on stage and you perform, like, that’s when I feel like I’m meditating, almost. I think that’s how I feel because that’s where I feel the most beautiful and confident.”

There’s a running theme of fighting throughout CL’s most recent album, ALPHA. The first full-length solo album she’s released since her debut, it’s no wonder that she described herself as being in “Alpha Mode” during the making of this album. Listening to a Mike Tyson podcast interview during the making of the album, the South Korean singer derived inspiration and affirmation from the boxer’s outlook. “I was listening to Mike Tyson’s interview for a podcast, and he said something about how ‘love is respect’, because in the name of love people sometimes do crazy things – in a negative way, or it comes out in negative forms – but with respect it doesn’t. I agree with that. I think for me, love is being fearless  and brave.”

This fearlessness and fight centered around the desire to be independent. ALPHA is a representation of CL’s time where she comes into her own, “I just felt like it was time for me to be me, and I wanted to be independent and to be able to do, and learn, and grow by myself and with my team.”  ALPHA is her equivalent of graduating from school. She had learned a lot from the K-Pop system, but the manufacturing and the co-dependency of it all was something she was ready to detach from. When we think of K-Pop, we all have a specific idea of the music, the look, and the music video motifs; but the artists that are produced and involved are so much more multi-faceted and complex. This was CL’s time to be independent, discover and develop parts of herself she had been unable to. At the time of this interview, her favourite song of the album was Spicy, but she admits herself that this answer may change the next time you ask her this question.

Spicy, the opening track of ALPHA, has all the elements of a quintessential CL song: the references to her pride in her heritage, the ever-building tension, and the repeated mantra of “energy, power, chemistry” that so perfectly encapsulates this highly anticipated track. Beginning with the voice of  John Malkovich, CL’s self-described mentor whom she met whilst filming Mile 22, there is a playfulness about the song. She’s not holding back and her music reflects this. It hails a new era for CL. 

This new chapter for the superstar hasn’t been without struggle. We must give mention to the song Wish You Were Here, dedicated to her late mother and “anyone that misses a loved one”. Released on the former idol’s 30th birthday, it pays homage to her mother as she reminisces their fond memories together. A relaxed vibe with melancholic lyrics, it’s a step away from the vibrant dynamism CL is typically known for. A song for the soul, it reflects her procession of grief and it’s her way of honoring one of the most important people in her life. “The hardest lesson is that everything is a lesson. You’ve got to look at it like you’ve got to learn from it to grow out of it. Sometimes it can be tough and you’re like ‘what the fuck’, but you’ve got to understand that everything is a lesson. Oh wow! I miss my mum,” CL lamented.

   “‘Love is respect’, because in the name of love people sometimes do crazy things – in a negative way, or it comes out in negative forms – but with respect it doesn’t. I agree with that.  I think for me, love is being fearless and brave.”

For CL, love is dependent on your attitude towards life. Having been in the industry for so long, from the Kpop complex to going solo, she knows just how fluid and dynamic life truly is. She also knows just how draining and potentially dangerous life can be. “For me, how you love others is how you love yourself. Going through a lot of changes in the past couple of years, I had to make sure I check on myself. To give yourself that respect and for others alike. Not giving up on love, I think, is important. It changes every time because what you go through in life changes, you know?” CL sagely comments. Metamorphism and evolution have been ongoing themes throughout her life – perhaps this is why she is  so wise. CL’s reverence for her culture and her roots is reflected in her artistry and her performances. Her recent performance at 88Rising’s Head in the Clouds was a perfect example of this. 88Rising’s support of CL’s career and her independent work, and their goal of promoting Asian artists is what she loves about them. A collaboration that seeks to empower one another is art to her. This sentiment was effortlessly communicated through her appearance at the Met Gala last year. Donning an Alexander Wang design marrying traditional Korean silhouettes with the all-American classic of denim, she was one of the first female Kpop artists to attend the affair.

We’re often taught to separate the artist from the art, but how can we when context is so important? The person who creates the art has a story to tell, an emotion to evoke and an identity to protect. CL’s ethos echoes this. Being an idol to many Asians, both within Asia and the diaspora, there can sometimes be a divide that needs to be handled with care. Through CL’s lens, it isn’t and shouldn’t be this way. Whilst it’s challenging and exciting to work in new territories, simply put: her art is her and her work is her work. They shouldn’t be separated based on geography. “Exploring new places and traveling  and learning new cultures is something I'm used to, it’s how I was raised, you know I went to an international school, I'm used to that, so I love doing that. It’s a different culture, but if you have music you connect to and a message that everyone connects to, like where you are doesn’t matter; there’s always someone that you can relate to and people that want to be understood and I'm very happy and grateful that I can represent that,” she preaches.

The music and talent industry revolves around exposure: the act of showing yourself, sharing your life, your light, your gift. It’s all-consuming and in no way a regular job. CL knows this well and she recognizes it. She practices self care and self-love by making sure she has time for herself. As she reminds us, the love you have for others reflects the love you have for yourself. In the same way she shows up for others, she makes sure she does the same for herself. “I love spending time by myself, and I make sure to do that. I’m just around people all the time, you know?” She doesn’t have to do anything in particular, and the activity changes each time: sometimes it’s a bath, sometimes it’s a walk, sometimes it’s a solo coffee date, but one thing that doesn’t change is the fact she does it daily. It’s a time with no phones, no external connection, no outside influence. This is for her.

The time that CL keeps for herself is something she’s incredibly grateful for. When questioned about something that she’s proud of, she chuckled……

This cover story and a longer version interview will be published in our The WOW N° 6

buy the issue [here]

Talent: CL

Photographer: BRYAN HUYNH @ SOCIETY MGMT

Stylist :CECE LIU

Hair: NATHANIEL DEZAN @ OPUS BEAUTY using ORIBE

Make-up: SANG JEON

Nails: COCA MICHELLE @ RARE CREATIVES

Casting Director: ANGELIKI SOFRONAS

CGI Artist: RODOLFO HERNANDEZ

Production: PREISS CREATIVE

Photography Assistant: CEM ENGIN & LIAM ANNIS

Digitech: CHRIS WHITAKER

Retoucher: HAMZAH AMI

Styling Assistant: ARIELLE ONCOEUR

INTERVIEW: ROBYN  NGAN

[jostenneil]

who are your dream writers and artists for your favorite female characters?

ok so when i first read this last night i thought you were asking who my fave writers and artists are for each girlie but then i realized you’re probably asking like. who i would want to write and do art for them that hasn’t already, SO 

talia - i would really love to see mindy newell write her. she is one of the few writers i’ve seen who is able to splendidly capture the fine balance between self-righteousness and compassion embodied by vigilantism in gotham, and that combined with how she writes her female characters as simultaneously very independent yet emotionally vulnerable is something that i think would reflect so wonderfully on a talia story. for art, i don’t think there’s a talia i love more than matt haley’s from that one elseworlds story where she married clark, and i wish we could see him paint her again! you could actually tell she was non-white and her features weren’t pulling from orientalist stereotypes either, it was a dream. and tbh speaking of elseworld’s it’s a shame that was the only time john francis moore ever wrote her bc he captured her characterization SO well despite it being, well, an elseworld’s story lmao, so i would love to see him write her in canon continuity. i also would love to see salvador larocca paint her, i love his silhouettes and the way he draws hair is divine (his art of linda in the flash terminal velocity arc is a great example, the cover page of flash (1987) #100 comes to mind), and if we could combine that magic with jerry bingham’s styling of her, oh wow. it would be truly phenomenal 

linda - i honestly am completely satisfied with mark waid as a writer for her. messner-loebs was responsible for introducing her as a character, but i think most people would agree it’s waid who made her integral to the flash fam and defined her agency and importance within the mythos. i’m not unsatisfied with her stories being tied to the flash fam bc it’s very much a testament to just how impt and resourceful a character she is that so many people within the family trust and depend on her. but if we were to see a solo story with her pursued, maybe one where she’s acting as point person for the family in the long term while wally is gone, i would love to see greg rucka get his hands on her. for art, as i said earlier, salvador larocca’s version of her is absolutely divine, and then i would also love to see travis moore paint her more! the flash fam is so rarely graced with pleasing art and everything he draws is so beautiful (as can be seen by my icon lol) 

selina - the things i would do to get mindy newell back on a selina story consistently my god. . . i really don’t think anyone has been able to do justice to the potential nuance there is in selina’s character outside of newell. maybe the only person who comes close for me is john francis moore. he only got to write two issues at the end of selina’s volume two run, lamentably! but they were lovely and the first instance of selina’s origins with newell being brought back into continuity so i appreciate that there are still a few people left who value what maggie can truly mean to selina as a foil and as someone who also operates within a protective “mask” but to different ends. i don’t think brubaker or ram v rly get that (albeit i’ll cut ram some slack bc he has to work with what brubaker did to maggie in the first place). for art i would LOOOOVE to see shawn martinbrough get his hands on her, his noir style is perfectly suited to her as a character. even better if he tried to tackle staz johnson’s catwoman costume, that’s one of my favorite looks for her (even if it was largely impractical. shhh) 

[libramooon]

thank you for the tag @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant ! 🥰

MUSIC

fave genre? classic rock / pop / folk / older country (60s & 70s)

fave artist? Dolly Parton

fave song? Key to Life on Earth by Declan McKenna

most listened song recently? Roddy by Djo

song currently stuck in your head? the Jeff Bezos song by Bo Burnham

5 fave lyrics?

"I was your starry eyed lover and the one that you saw. I was your hurricane rider and the one that you'd call. We were just two moonshiners on the cusp of a breath. And I've been burning for you baby since the moment I left." [Paul by Big Thief]

"There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away. They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets." [Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen]

"I am relieved that I'd left my room tidy. They'll think of me kindly when they come for my things." [Last Words of a Shooting Star by Mitski]

"And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back so shake him off" [Shake It Out by Florence + the Machine]

"Maybe I'm too emotional but your apathy's like a wound in salt." [good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo]

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie | loud or silent volume I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset| riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on

BOOKS

fav book genre? horror / thriller / mystery

fav writer? Stephen King / Ania Ahlborn

fav book? 11/22/63 by Stephen King

fav book series? The Maze Runner series

comfort book? The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

perfect book to read on a rainy day? ???

fave characters? Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon, Beverly Marsh from IT, Frannie Goldsmith from The Stand, Sadie Dunhill from 11/22/63, Carrie White from Carrie, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series, Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games trilogy, Sodapop Curtis from The Outsiders, and Newt from The Maze Runner series.

5 quotes from your fave books that you know by heart?

"No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart." [IT by Stephen King]

"Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters." [IT by Stephen King]

"It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maye the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset." [The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton]

"I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how 'gallant' it is from a man to 'shed his blood for his country,' and 'to give his life's blood as a sacrifice,' and so on. The words seemed so ridiculous. Only the flies benefited." [With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge]

This quote from IT is way too long but I used it in this gif set.

hardcover or paperback | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending first (<< who on earth does that lol) | reliable or unreliable narrator | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary | rereading (depends on the book) or reading just once

TV AND MOVIES

fave tv/movie genre? horror / mystery / sci-fi / comedy / coming of age

fave movie? The Lost Boys

comfort movie(s)? The Lost Boys, The Goonies, The Breakfast Club, Dirty Dancing, Back to the Future, IT (2017 & 2019), Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The 'Burbs, Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti, Hocus Pocus, School of Rock

fave tv show? Supernatural, Stranger Things, Band of Brothers, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Barry, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story

most rewatched tv show? Supernatural

5 fave characters? Steve Harrington, Dean Winchester, Beth Greene, John Milner, and Allison Reynolds

tv shows or movies | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on (depends!) or off | rewatching or watching just once

Tagging (absolutely no pressure at all): @punkgeekcryptid @dearscone @s-ara-bel @genes-heffron @bowtiescarves @achillesmercury1996 @a-beautiful-struggle-of-life @pleasedontlookatmeokay @billhaders + anyone who sees this and would like to do this :)

[amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines]

Interests Tag

Thank you for tagging me @thornyrose463

Music

Favourite genre?

Pop! Maybe a little bit of indie, but like indie pop! 

Fave artist?

Oh God, I have too many to chose from. I’m usually really good with having just one favourite thing but with stuff like this I’m useless. Right now I’d say it was Orla Gartland

Fave song?

Again, I’m terrible at this. I would say right now it’s a tie Zombie! by Orla Gartland, Games by Tessa Violet and Psycho by Maisie Peters 

Most listened to song?

Ever? Who knows, probably something by Taylor Swift. 

Song currently stuck in your head:

Montero by Lil Nas X

5 fave lyrics:

1:  every time she mentions your name, she says it like a prayer (more like you: orla gartland)

2: the millisecond that you're away i get the loneliest feeling (give me a try: the wombats)

3: the darkest night never felt so bright with you by my side (outer space/carry on: 5sos)

4: and i'll be okay, admiring from afar, cause even when she's next to me, we could not be more far apart (she: dodie)

5:  it's you, you're the one that makes me feel right (me & you together song: the 1975)

Radio or your own playlist?

Own Playlist, who still listens to the radio nowadays? 

Solo artists or bands?

Solo Artists, only because I think I like more solo artists than bands. 

Pop or indie?

Pop! 

Louder or silenter volume?

Louder!!

Slow or fast songs?

Fast!!!

Music video or lyrics video?

Music Videos! I have been obsessed with music videos since I was a kid, the only think I used to watch when I was younger was the music video channels! 

Speakers or headset?

Headsets, I like to listen to music when I’m bored, and when I’m bored it’s because there’s something rubbish on the TV that somebody else is watching. 

Riding a bus in silence or while listening to music?

Always while listening to music! 

Driving in silence or with the radio on?

With the radio on, driving in silence is boringgggggg

Books

Fave book genre?

YA Fiction, or anything gay

Fave writer?

I don’t think I have one tbh

Fave book series?

I don’t really have a favourite book series, maybe the Tracy Beaker series because they are great. 

Perfect book to ready on a rainy day?

Looking For Alaska by John Green 

Fave book characters?

I can’t think of any right now so I’m gonna say Tracy Beaker because she is a queen

5 quotes you know by heart

I honestly don’t read enough to have any quotes memorised

Hardcover or paperback?

Paperback

Buy or rent?

Buy

Standalone novels or book series?

Standalone, I don’t have the concentration for a series

Ebook or physical copy?

Physical Copy

Reading at night or during the day?

At night/evening time 

Reading at home or in nature?

At home, there’s bugs in nature and not the nice kind. 

Listening to music while reading or reading in silence?

Honestly, it depends on how I’m feeling. Sometimes I can read while listening to music and others I can’t. 

Reading in order or reading the ending first?

In order, who reads the end first? 

Reliable or unreliable narrator?

Reliable

Realism or fantasy?

Realism, I’m not really a big fan of fantasy books

One or multiple POVS?

One, I don’t have the braincells to keep up with more than one POV

Judging by the covers or by the summary?

By the covers! If a book has a pretty cover you can bet I’m gonna pick it up, but then I’ll read the back and decide on whether I like it.

Re-reading or reading just once?

I usually read books just once unless I really, really like it

TV and Movies

Fave TV/movie genre?

Sitcom/Comedy

Fave movie?

Mamma Mia/The Goonies

Movie you watch every year?

I always watch the Cornetto Trilogy at least once a year, and on Christmas Eve I watch The Greatest Department Store In The World

Comfort movie?

Mamma Mia 

Fave TV show?

Stranger Things

Comfort TV show?

How I Met Your Mother/Brooklyn Nine Nine

Most rewatched TV show?

How I Met Your Mother/Brooklyn Nine Nine

5 fave characters?

1. Steve Harrington

2. Robin Buckley 

3. Villanelle

4. Malcolm Bright

5. Joyce Byers

TV shows or movies?

TV Shows! 

Short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more)?

Full seasons, duh

One episode a week or binging?

Binging

One season or multiple seasons?

Multiple Seasons

One part or saga?

One Part

Half hour or one hour long episodes?

I know this is unpopular but I prefer half hour episodes

Subtitles on or off?

Off

Rewatching or watching just once?

Rewatching. I rewatch more shows than I watch new ones 

Downloads or watches online?

Watching Online

Tagging: @statticscribbles and @wayward-river because again, I’m nosy! And anybody else that wants to do it! 

[fpinterviews]

Alex Prager

FP: Your career began at a very early age, and you’ve achieved much success in such a short time. How did you get involved in photography?

AP: Actually, I didn't get my first camera until I was 20. Before that, the thought of photography hadn't even crossed my mind past taking below-average snapshots on trips I took. I came back to Los Angeles after living in Florida and Switzerland off and on for 4 years, and when I finally settled in with a job and an apartment, I realized that I had no idea what I was doing with my future, and that kind of excited me. I was at a point where I had to make up my mind about what I was going to focus on as an adult. It was exciting because I was starting from nothing, therefore every career in the world was an option. All I had to do was get the education for whatever I decided I wanted to be. I started going to a lot of art shows. I already knew I wanted to be some kind of an artist, I just didn't know what medium I wanted to work in. I went to these shows alone because I didn't want anyone around swaying my opinion. Anyway, a couple weeks went by of going to museum and gallery shows, and then one day I ended up at the Getty where William Eggleston happened to have a show up. The moment I saw his work I knew that I wanted to be a photographer. I looked at every picture over and over for hours and when I was finished I bought his book. A week later, I had everything I needed to become a professional photographer. After that, I read every book I could find that had anything to do with photography. I made a little darkroom in my bathroom and I was in there every night till 3 in the morning processing my film and enlarging the pictures I had taken. After I got home from work, I used to go around my apartment building photographing still objects like a washing machine or a door, and then I'd go right into my darkroom and make an enlargement of the picture. When it was dry I'd go back to the thing I had taken a picture of and I'd tape my picture right on top of it. It would look kind of surreal. I guess those were my first art shows. Sometimes, when I'd go back to look at it, the picture would be gone and I'd imagine that someone had seen it taped up there and liked it enough to take it home with them.

FP: You’ve published an amazing book called "The Book Of Disquiet: The Seven Deadly Sins,” a collaborative piece with artist Mercedes Helenwein. In it, your work has a surreal through-the-looking-glass quality, reflecting both the glamorous and the perverse. How did the book come to be?

AP: Well, Mercedes and I had just finished a show called 'America Motel' that involved us taking 2 trips across the country. She wrote, I took pictures and our friend Beth Riesgraf documented the trips with her Super 8. The show was great. With the help of our friend, Jason Lee, we rented out an entire motel in downtown Los Angeles and basically turned it into an installation. My photographs were hung on the walls of each room like motel art, Mercedes' book was on the night stands in place of the Bible, and Beth's film was being played on each television. It was awesome. After this, Mercedes and I decided we wanted to do another project together, but this time she was going to do drawings. We had both been really affected by the people we met while driving through Middle America, and coming back to Los Angeles was such a dramatic shift in culture that we both, in our own ways, came to conclusion that our next show should be based on The Seven Deadly Sins. It just seemed like the obvious choice. I thought it would be really cool to do a book of our pictures in the style of a cardboard children's book because The Seven Deadly Sins theme was already really dark I thought it would lighten things up a little by adding some humor.

FP: Diane Arbus once remarked that “a photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” That seems to be fitting for your work. Do you have an intention in mind before you shoot and then stage things or is it more of an organic process once you start?

AP: I guess it's a little bit of both. Although I don't entirely agree with Diane Arbus. On their own photographs are more like incomplete stories, and the missing chapters are filled in differently by each person who looks at it. In other words, a piece of art is only done once it has an audience to communicate to. Everyone has their own experiences, their own story, and when they look at a picture, they're probably going to somehow relate it to something they've already seen or experienced. Since we all have different pasts, I like to think that no two people can see a picture the same way. As far as how I make the photograph, I always have some kind of idea of what I'm going to shoot beforehand. How general or specific it is doesn't really matter because once I start, I try not to think at all.

FP: Who are your primary influences?

AP: William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Loretta Lux, Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Brassai, Annie Leibovitz, Guy Bourdin. Painters are John Currin, Egon Schiele, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bruegel, Gustav Klimt, Lucian Freud, Balthus. Filmmakers include Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Peter Greenaway, Federico Fellini, Victor Fleming. Musicians include Bob Dylan, Joy Division, The Beatles, The Pixies,  Spoon, The Kinks, Bjork, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Elliott Smith, The Smiths, etc.

FP: Can you talk a bit about your technique and how you use high-gloss plexiglass?

AP: I like the saturation that you get by face-mounting color photographs to plexi-glas, but I don't always use this process. For my next series, I'm mounting the pictures to Sintra Board from behind so nothing will touch the front of them.

FP: Where do you find your models? Are they friends?

AP: It depends. Sometimes a friend will work out perfectly for a shot I had in mind, other times I'll see someone on the street or in a magazine and I'll get in touch with them and ask if they'll pose for me. Another place that can be good for finding models is modeling agencies! What!? I know, weird...

FP: Since your sister is featured in this issue as well (painter Vanessa Prager), I assume you come from a very creative family…

AP: Hmm.. 'Creative family' implies that they we grew up in a family of artists, which we did not, but our parents, and grandmother (who helped raise us), are definitely the opposite of Middle Class in the way of thinking. They're creative in the sense of the freedom they gave us. They always left it up to us to decide what our goals were going to be, and no matter how far-fetched they were they'd back us up 100%. One day when I was 15, I told my parents I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, and literally the next day they had bought me a guitar and had lessons lined up for me whenever I was ready to start taking them. When I was 14 I had the opportunity to work at a knife shop in Switzerland for 4 months with my best friend who was also 14, and they let me go not only that year, but every year after that until I didn't feel like going anymore. I don't think many parents would let their kids have this much self-determinism at such a young age. I'm sure this influenced my sister and I to becoming artists.

FP: What advice would you give for anyone young trying to break into the business?

AP: Some of the best advice I ever got when I first started was from a painter friend of mine, Bryten Goss, he told me not to talk to any photographers for 1 full year and during that year to always have my camera on me, take as many pictures as possible and find other photographers and artists I like and study their work. That first year is really important because you're so new at it that you can be misguided and influenced really easily, so trusting yourself to be able to learn what you need to know on your own enough to start getting pictures you can be proud of is important.

FP: In what direction do you see your work heading currently? And where can we next see your work?

AP: For the past year or so, I've been working on a series of pictures called 'POLYESTER' and I'll be exhibiting these in my first ever solo show in April at the Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. With this show, I wanted there to be a staged, retro quality to the images while keeping them modern. Almost like the people in my pictures are kind of bad actors dressed up and playing roles from movies in the 60's.

[funknrolll]

Focusing on Prince and the song Avalanche: Lesson learned or....??

Hi my music lovers, today we are celebrating the birthday of the undisputed music legend and virtuoso: Prince Rogers Nelson. Since all that is happening these days, I wanted to offer you guys the chance to reflect on these crucial issues. Therefore I chose to focus only on one song in Prince's vault: Avalanche. In my opinion, this piece is quite relevant to what is happening these days. I really hope I do Prince justice. I hope we can learn something from this article and the lesson Prince taught us. Should there be anything, I missed do not think twice to let me know or contact me. Enjoy the article.

In 2002, Prince released One Nite Alone (Solo Piano and Voice by Prince). As the title suggests, the only accompaniment in this album is the piano. Today I want to offer you the chance to reflect on the song Avalanche. Avalanche. The message delivered with this song is compelling, and the lyrics were magistrally written. Moreover, as many people know, Prince was an avid reader and an extremely educated person who had a vast knowledge not only about music but also about history, in this case. Indeed, with these words, the Artist is referring to some historical events to create one of the most MONUMENTAL protests songs in music history. Before I explain this total MASTERPIECE, I need to mention some crucial points. I will never stress enough about this. We all know that Prince was a black man. However, the fact that he, in some interviews, said things like "I was brought up in a black and white world. Black and white, night and day, rich and poor. I always said that one day I was going to play all kinds of music and not be judged for the color of my skin, but the quality of my work" or quoting his song Controversy "I wish there was no black or white" etcetera... It does not mean he was not conscious and aware or proud of being black. This does not mean that he was not aware of what black people had and still have to endure and go through. Indeed, Prince was extremely knowledgeable of everything that I mentioned, and he was proud of being black, and this is something significantly present in his music, in his sense of style, in his words, lyrics, music videos, concerts, and movies. I'm making this point because I have overheard too many people accusing Prince of not embracing his blackness or even being biracial as the new york times erroneously claimed. None of these things are true. I also heard that the Artist was not aware of what black people had and still are going through and that his music was not "politicized enough." This is another big fat lie. This song is proof. Therefore, before writing and describing this MONUMENTAL song, I thought I needed to re-emphasize this significant point. By the way, Prince's mother was NOT Italian. She was a beautiful black woman. Furthermore, as already mentioned, Artist had extensive historical knowledge and was also conscious and aware of how black people have always been exploited and treated. Moreover, Prince was accustomed to speaking his mind and saying what he meant, and just by reading the superlative and poignant lyrics, we could see that the Artist was quite straight-forwarded in writing this piece. Indeed:

He was not or never had been in favor

 Of setting are people free

 If it wasn't for the thirteenth Amendment

 We woulda been born in slavery

 He was not or never had been in favor

 Of letting us vote, so you see...

 Abraham Lincoln was a racist who said

 "You cannot escape from history "Like the snow comin' down the mountain

 That landed on Wounded Knee

 Nobody wants to take the weight 

 The responsibilityHear the joyous sound of freedom

 The Harlem Renaissance

 Hear Duke Ellington and his band

 Kick another jungle jam

 Ooh, do you wanna dance?

 Who's that lurking in the shadows?

 Mr. John Hammond with his pen in hand...

 Sayin' "Sign you're kingdom over to me

 And be known throughout the land!"

 But, you ain't got no money, you ain't got no cash

 So you sign yo name, and he claims innocence

 Just like every snowflake in an avalanche...Like the snow comin' down the mountain

 That landed on Wounded Knee

 Nobody wants to take the weight 

 The responsibility 

This masterpiece begins with a quote taken from the 4th Lincoln-Douglas debate held in Charleston, South Carolina, on September 18, 1858. Lincoln opened his discussion with these words: 

"While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the (slur)  and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me, I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something regarding it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of (slur), nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And since they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man is in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

This was just the beginning of the speech Lincoln gave, and the words bolded are the exact beginning of the song by Prince (disclaimer: I replaced the racial slurs with this (slur) since I do not want any slurs on my platform). Moreover, as we can see in this song, the Artist was calling out the former President Abraham Lincoln for being racist. As you can see from this speech, HE REALLY WAS A RACIST. Moving on with the speech, Lincoln also said that he was not against slavery, and therefore he did not want to abolish it. Additionally, Prince mentioned the thirteenth Amendment. Before I report the Amendment, I believe it is important to contextualize it. What I am about to write will show one more time that Lincoln was a stone-cold racist, unlike many people were taught in schools. So, during the Civil War, the South USA (which economy was unfortunately still based on slaves working in plantations), wanted to keep a balance of free and slave states to maintain its political power in Congress. Southern slaveholders feared the loss of control for many reasons, including a rational fear that if Northern abolitionists had eventually swayed their representatives to vote to abolish slavery, the South wouldn't have had the votes to stop it. So, on September 22, 1862, President Lincoln warned the Confederate states that if they did not rejoin the Union before January 1, 1863, he would free their slaves. If they had timely surrendered, he would not have issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Therefore, on January 1, 1963, Lincoln "proclaimed" the "end of slavery." Bear in mind that this was as much an act of political/military strategy rather than moral courage.

Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation freed only slaves held in the eleven Confederate states that had seceded, and only in the portion of those states not already under Union control. Slavery was left untouched in the loyal border states. The Proclamation also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon the Union (United States) military victory.  The actual abolition of slavery was achieved when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. The first section of the Amendment declares, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.". In addition to everything mentioned, the second segment of the speech I bolded is about the right to vote. Eventually, the Artist ends these verses accusing Lincoln of being racist, saying that it is not possible to escape from history. I must say that Lincoln really was A RACIST, and we have always been taught history the wrong way. I also must say that despite the abolition of slavery, black people were never really free, for racism was and still is one of the biggest plagues not just in the USA but all over the world and what we have seen until now is the proof.

Moreover, in the next verses, the Artist mentioned the Harlem Renaissance. For those who do not know that was, I will give a quick explanation of it. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, literary, and intellectual movement that fostered a new black cultural identity. This movement flourished in Harlem, New York, after World War I and ended around 1935 during the Great Depression. The movement raised significant issues affecting the lives of African Americans through various forms of literature, art, music, drama, painting, sculpture, movies, and protests. Voices of demonstration and ideological promotion of civil rights for African Americans inspired and created institutions and leaders who served as mentors to aspiring writers. The Harlem Renaissance arose from a generation that had lived through the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. Sometimes the parents or grandparents of those who lived during that historical period were slaves. Many people who lived in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the Great Migration. They moved out of the South into the black neighborhoods of the North and Midwest of the USA. African Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South. Others were people of African descent from racially stratified communities in the Caribbean who came to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting, most of them were their convergence in Harlem, New York City. Furthermore, Harlem was the center of a musical evolution that uncovered amazing talents and created a unique sound that had yet to be paralleled. Jazz was the newest sound, and it attracted both blacks and whites to go to nightclubs like the Savoy Ballroom to hear artists like Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis. Jazz was a result of the Harlem Renaissance, which originated from the musical minds of extraordinarily talented African American people. The genre includes traits that survived from West African American music, black folk music forms developed in the New World. In his song, Prince was indeed referring to jazz music and one of its most relevant and most brilliant artists: Sir. Duke Ellington. In the next lines, we see the Artist mentioning John Hammond. Hammond was a white talent scout, record producer, and music critic. This is another excellent example of how history has been distorted. Indeed, if you look upon the net, you will find that this man fought against segregation and racism. However, if you read Frank Kokofsky's book, John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s, you will learn the truth about the political economy of white domination over black music. In particular, Kokofsky focuses on the relationship between John Hammond, Columbia Records, and the Artist Bessie Smith. Indeed, as Kokofsky writes:

"The first and most important point to emphasize is that, as author Chris Albertson reveals in his biography of Bessie Smith, Hammond signed the singer to a series of contracts with Columbia Records that gave her a small, fixed fee for each performance she recorded and no royalties. Such contracts were apparently standard practice with the executive, for Billie Holiday unequivocally stated in her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues: 'Later on John Hammond paired me up with Teddy Wilson and his band for another record session. This time I got thirty bucks for making half a dozen sides.' When she protested about this arrangement, it was, according to her, a Columbia executive named Bernie Hanighen – and not John Hammond – 'who really went to bat for me' and 'almost lost his job at Columbia fighting for me.'" 

Hear the joyous sound of freedom

The Harlem Renaissance

Hear Duke Ellington and his band

kick another jungle jam

Ooh, do u wanna dance?

Who's that lurking in the shadows?

Mr. John Hammond with his pen in hand...

sayin' "Sign ur kingdom over 2 me

and b known throughout the land!"

But, u ain't got no money, U ain't got no cash,

So u sign yo name and he claims innocence

just like every snowflake in an avalanche. 

This situation is quite familiar, isn't it? Perhaps Prince had heard or read about this, and therefore he decided to add this fact to this masterpiece.

 Last but not least, another relevant part of this song is the chorus. Indeed, with this brilliantly written chorus, Prince is referring to the massacre of Wounded Knee, where more than 350 Native-American were killed. Indeed, On the morning of December 29, 1890, Chief Spotted Elk (Big Foot), leader of a group of some 350 Minneconjou Sioux, sat in a makeshift camp along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. The group was surrounded by U.S. troops sent to arrest him and disarm his followers. The atmosphere was tense since an order to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation just 14 days earlier had resulted in his murder, prompting Big Foot to lead his people to the Pine Ridge Agency for a safe haven. Alerted to the band's Ghost Dance activities, General Nelson Miles commanded Major Samuel Whiteside and the Seventh Cavalry to apprehend Big Foot and his followers, and the regiment intercepted them on December 28, leading them to the edge of the creek. While confiscating their weapons, a shot pierced the brisk morning air. Within seconds the charged atmosphere erupted as the Indian men rushed to retrieve their seized rifles, and troopers began to fire volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From a hill above, a Hotchkiss machine gun raked the tipis, gun smoke filled the air, and men, women, and children ran for a ravine near the camp, only to be cut down in the crossfire.

More than 200 Lakota laid dead or dying in the aftermath, as well as at least 20 soldiers. Although the story of the Wounded Knee Massacre is well-known, its causes and effects are still an enigma 125 years later. For 19th century Americans, it represented the end of Indian resistance and the conquest of the West. For Native-American, it represented the utter disregard of the U.S. toward its treaty responsibilities, its duplicity, and its cruelty toward Native people. In the 20th century and beyond, Wounded Knee continued to fuel controversy and debate. Notably, what is particularly controversial was and is the impetus and intent of the government that day, the role of the military, and the conflicting ways the tragedy is remembered today. Indeed, from this story, we can see how Prince gave his listener another example of how racism was a persistent plague.

Like the snow comin' down the mountain

that landed on Wounded Knee

Nobody wants 2 take the weight-

The responsibility

Moreover, as I said, the Artist with this MAGISTRALLY written lyrics educates his listener on how racism has always been a persistent, prominent, outraging, and horrifying plague that is still going on today. In addition to that, we can notice Prince's deep and broad historical knowledge, which is something incredibly fascinating and mesmerizing. Moreover, the arrangement of this song, the instrumental and the vocal delivery is among the finest and most poignant he has ever done. Indeed, the Artist with this masterpiece delivers an extraordinarily intimate and intense but yet POWERFUL performance. In my opinion, even though the only instrument played is the piano, its arrangement is outstandingly complex. The blues genre the Artist opted for, also could not have been more following the whole meaning and purpose of the song. Furthermore, the Artist's incredibly broad vocal techniques are perfectly accompanying the meaningful message of the song. Prince, with his ability to shift from a beautiful falsetto to an extremely low chest voice to eventually change to a powerful head voice during the last chorus, is putting into sounds magistrally and vividly a poignant lesson we are still struggling to learn.

Thank you for your attention.💜 Peace. G💜

[anotherkindofmindpod]

I have now gone through all your podcasts. I'm so grateful for your perspectives! Question: We know John obsessed about Paul throughout the 70's, he was remorseful and apologized in some of his song lyrics, Linda said Paul "was desperate to write with John again", they had planned to do a reunion concert in England according to something John wrote in a document, etc. So WHY do you think the Beatles didn't reform as early as the mid- 70's, particularly after the exit of Allen Klein?

Ahh, that’s a million dollar question!  We think John and Paul were probably the ones who wanted a reunion the most, but nevertheless they likely both had major reservations. 

From our POV, Paul had the least to gain from a Beatles reunion in the mid 70s.  Wings was a roaring success by that point.  Paul had finally managed to establish an identity outside of the Beatles and, for the first time post-Beatles, was enjoying both commercial and critical success simultaneously.  George and Ringo OTOH weren’t doing great (after each had experienced much success in the early 70s).  John was coming off a pair of successful solo albums (and a #1 with Elton John) but by 1975 he was coming up dry and making an oldies album to fulfill his contract.  Paul was in a very strong position by 75-76.  

This is just our take, but we believe that while John and Paul were both tempted to revive Lennon/McCartney, we’re skeptical that either was really into the idea of a re-formed Beatles.  We think they were excited but nervous to work together again and would’ve ultimately used George and Ringo as buffers (this is not to denigrate George or Ringo, this is just our impression of how John and Paul thought).   Predictably enough, we don’t think George was EVER enthusiastic about a Beatles reunion.  Maybe if the other three applied enough peer pressure he wouldn’t want to be left out, but we don’t think he was ever eager to work with Paul again. It’s totally reasonable that Harrison would be wary of a Beatles reunion where he would get wedged between Paul and John yet again.  

It’s no secret that the major rift was between John and Paul; they were the only pair of Beatles who never again worked together after the break-up.  In 1975 John admitted (rather poignantly) that he and Paul “had a harder time” coping with their rift than any of the others did. 

We believe that Paul “desperately” wanted to work together with John because (a) he desperately wanted to repair his relationship with John throughout the 70s, and (b) he genuinely enjoyed writing with him, although AGAIN, to be clear, Paul did great in the 70s, never had a dry spell, and didn’t need John to succeed, artistically or commercially.  A reunion with John would have also surely taken some air out of the How Do You Sleep debacle. While we doubt this was the primary reason Paul wanted to reconcile, we imagine it was a factor.  And if John was truly sorry for HDYS, this would’ve been a great way for him to demonstrate it.  Publicly.

In the 70s, John made several references to Paul’s “energy” and we definitely think John missed the charge he got from Paul.  However, we believe John ultimately carried too much emotional baggage about Paul for a light-hearted reunion.  Primary amongst his reservations might be jealousy over Paul’s success and insecurity about his self-conscious “need” for Paul.  But surely there were other reservations, not the least of which was their continued business/legal battles, resentment over reaction to each others’ wives, internal fights within the band, etc. And of course, since Paul was infamously awarded the dishonor of John’s Ultimate Hurter, surely that was always looming in John’s mind as well.  How would Paul hurt him again?  Would Paul’s unique brand of insensitivity be more painful a second time around?  

Yoko is often blamed for the fizzling of reunion plans in the mid-70s, and we agree she was probably a major contributing factor.  May Pang confirms that after visiting the Dakota at a critical moment just before heading to New Orleans in early ‘75, John’s attitude towards collaborating with Paul abruptly changed from excited to sour.  There is no doubt that Yoko was against John getting back together with Paul, likely for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps most critically because it was a threat to her creative reputation; if John and Paul reunited, it might be interpreted as a creative failure of JohnandYoko and  the primacy and superiority of Lennon/McCartney, and there is no way she wanted that to happen. Yoko had invested a great deal of time and energy in creating and maintaining the Ballad of John and Yoko and wasn’t about to let that unravel. We also suspect she probably did not want John to get too under Paul's spell again as that would diminish her power over him. There are accounts of her maneuvering behind the scenes to make sure this didn’t happen, so clearly she saw their reunion as a threat to her position with John. 

Ultimately, however, we suspect it all boiled down to the same conundrum John faced in the late 60s: He could either commit to Yoko and permanently let go of Paul, or permanently break up with Yoko and commit to a professional partnership with Paul.  The problem with the latter option was that a strictly-professional partnership might not only be painfully incomplete on an emotional level for John (after having been Paul’s sole creative partner and surrogate spouse in the 60s)... but of course now Paul had his own band, three kids and a wife. John wouldn’t just be back where he left off in ‘68, he would be a much lower priority to Paul than he had been in ‘68 which put him in an even worse position.  Therefore the emotional risk appears to have been too great for John. 

All evidence points to the fact that Paul’s desire in the 70s was to maintain a friendship with John and explore rekindling their songwriting partnership.  He seems to have had fewer reservations or concerns about doing so —  perhaps because he had a functional band at the time, so was not dependent on this happening. It seems that he simply loved working with John and would have liked to have done it again as a way to reconnect, heal and spark the old magic. But he also required flexibility to perform with his band and focus on his family.  

We are less convinced that John was willing or capable to view their partnership as something casual or flexible, with no strings attached.  It was John himself who used the analogy of “one night stands” with Elton and Bowie as opposed to his marriage with Paul.  This isn’t to say we think Paul loved John less or cared about their partnership less.  It’s clear that no one has ever replaced Lennon as a complete collaborative partner to Paul (despite Paul’s demonstrated ability to collaborate with many, many artists in many different capacities) and Paul himself has said as much.  As always, we just think they had different personalities and different needs that were fairly consistent over time: Paul desired freedom and flexibility while John desired security and total commitment.

The only powers John did seem to retain were the power to seemingly “reject” Paul and/or deliberately hurt his feelings and to humiliate him in public.  John flexed both these powers periodically until he died, presumably to make himself feel better in his weaker moments or because of residual resentments towards Paul (over any number of things).  

TL;DR: Paul was open but too independent, John was open but too emotionally conflicted, George may or may not have been open but resented them both too much.

[ezrasarm]

Oh man it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Thanks for tagging me @moonlight-prose!

Nickname: I go by Moose on here but Snache is one I’ve had from family for as long as I can remember. Otherwise I just get lame shortenings of my name a lot 😂

Pronouns: she/her

Star sign: Sagittarius (I never know how to spell that)

Height: 5′7

Time currently: 7:44am it’s coffee time babyyyyy

Birthday: December 20th

Favorite groups/bands: Too many to choose from!!! Pearl Jam, Temple of The Dog, Mad Season, The Frames, CCR, The Band, Steppenwolf, CSNY, The Walkmen, anything with Jack White in it because hes in a lot of great bands, Cream, The Decemberists, Death Cab For Cutie, Fleetwood Mac and many more that I’m missing

Favorite solo artist: Mick Flannery, Hozier, David Keenan, Glen Hansard, Eddie Berman, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Rodríguez, Father John Misty, Laura Marling, Joni Mitchell, Lisa Hannigan, god I know I’m missing so many amazing ones too

Song stuck in my head: Boys in the Better Land - Fontains D.C.

Last movie you watched: Oh god I don’t even know. I was watching snippets of Prospect for my infographic but I think the last one I watched all the way through might have been Unbreakable

Last show you binged: Star Wars Rebels because I’m addicted to Star Wars content apparently 😂

When you created your blog: My original one? I think it was 2015 but I didn’t really use it that much until 2016 and this one was exactly one year ago tomorrow! Spooky timing there!

Last thing I googled: Jaig Eyes

Other blogs: I have a fair few. My main is @just—a—snail, I have an old Pearl Jam fan account called @pearljamstuff which I haven’t been very active on lately, I have a semi-abandoned studyblr @mokastudies that I pop up on every once in a while when I decide I want to attempt being aesthetic™️ and this one for all things Star Wars and Pedro Pascal related

Why I chose my url: I found the idea of Ezra’s sentient arm off voyaging the world and blogging its life story funny so I rolled with it 😂

Do you get asks: Sometimes! And I love them but I’m afraid I’m slipping behind on replies cause I’ve been tangled up in school work and when it gets full (which in my book is anything more than five asks) I get freaked out and avoid it. It has nothing to do with you guys I’m just irrationally afraid of it at the moment

How many people you are following: almost 400 😂 because all of my very random interests in side blogs are connected to one main it’s a little messy and I’ve gotta clean it out cause it’s no longer a representation of my interests

How many followers: 1,200 👀 i don’t understand it either

Average hours of sleep: My cat ensures that I have a very consistent sleep schedule. I’ve gotta be up between 6:30 or 7 otherwise he thinks he’s gonna starve to death. I’d say it’s usually between 6-8 depending on how late I stay up scrollin’

Lucky number: I have no idea but when I thought about it the number 7 just popped up in my head so I’m gonna roll with it

Currently wearing: Sweat pants and a hoodie cause I just rolled out of bed

Dream job: People keep asking me this and I don’t know. Anything in a creative field sounds good to me. I think it would be very groovy to write screenplays though

Dream trip: A road trip around the ring road in Iceland or a tour through Ireland and the UK because I have a lot of friends over there that I miss dearly

Favorite food: Does coffee count? I have no idea, I just generally enjoy most food. Any kind of pie, a good Thai green curry, anything I can top with cilantro and lime—this all sounds simultaneously very vague and specific. The short answer is give me food and I’ll be happy.

Favorite song: I can not for the life of me try to answer this question but at the moment I’m really into a cover of Dear Prudence by Jerry Garcia

Top 3 fictional worlds to live in: I love this question! Star Wars, Prospect, Asgard but not even like the marvel comics one like the crazy one from actual Norse mythology cause shit gets wild in there

Tagging (but hey, no pressure): @ghostlyshadow @kiss-evans @alwaysbethewest @rebelhan @clone-rambles

[thefakejeffreyazoff]

‘He’s our Satan’: Mega music manager Irving Azoff, still feared, still fighting

(x)PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. —  

This is not Irving Azoff’s house. Irving and his wife Shelli own houses all over, from Beverly Hills to Cabo San Lucas, but right now in the last week of October it’s too cold at the ranch in Idaho and too hot at the spread in La Quinta, so he’s renting this place — a modest midcentury six-bedroom that sold for $5 million back in 2016.

From the front door you can see all the way out, to where Arrowhead Point juts like the tail of a comma into the calm afternoon waters of Carmel Bay. More importantly, the house is literally across the street from the Pebble Beach Golf Links, where Azoff likes to play with his college buddy John Baruck, who started out in the music business around the same time Azoff did, in the late ’60s, and just retired after managing Journey through 20 years and two or three lead singers, depending how you count.

(Via LA Times) 

Azoff is 72, and this weekend he’ll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside Bruce Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau. Beatles manager Brian Epstein and Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham are already in, but Azoff and Landau are the first living managers thus honored. Azoff is not only alive — he’s still managing. As a partner in Full Stop Management — alongside Jeffrey Azoff, his oldest son and the third of his four children — he steers the careers of clients like the Eagles, Steely Dan, Bon Jovi and comedian Chelsea Handler, and consults when needed on the business of Harry Styles, Lizzo, John Mayer, Roddy Ricch, Anderson .Paak and Maroon 5. Azoff has Zoom calls at 7, 8 and 9 tomorrow morning, and only after that will he squeeze in a round.

The work never stops when you view the job the way Azoff does, as falling somewhere between consigliere and concierge. “My calls can be everything from ‘My knee buckled, I need a doctor’ to ‘My kid’s in jail,’” Azoff says. “I mean, you have no idea. The ‘My kid’s in jail’ one was a funny one, because the artist then said to me, ‘Y’know, I’ve thought about this. Maybe we should leave him there for a while.’”

Golf entered Azoff’s life the way a lot of things have — via the Eagles, whom Azoff has managed since the early ’70s. Specifically, Azoff took up golf in the company of the late Glenn Frey, the jockiest Eagle, the one the other Eagles used to call “Sportacus.” By the time the Eagles returned to the road in the ’90s they’d left their debauched ’70s lifestyles largely behind, but Azoff and Frey got hooked on the little white ball.

“Frey would insist on booking the tour around where he wanted to play golf,” Azoff says. “We made Henley crazy. Henley would call me in my room and he’d go, ‘Why the f— are we in a hotel in Hilton Head North Carolina and starting a tour in Charlotte? Is this a f— golf tour?’”

Trailed by Larry Solters, the Eagles’ preternaturally dour minister of information, Azoff makes his way down the hill from the house for dinner at the golf club’s restaurant. He’s only 5 feet, 3 inches, a diminutive Sydney Pollack in jeans and a zip-up sweater. In photos from the ’70s — when he was considerably less professorial in comportment, a hipster exec with a spring-loaded middle finger — he sports a beard and a helmet of curly hair and mischievous eyes behind his shades, and looks a little like a Muppet who might scream at Kermit over Dr. Teeth’s appearance fee.

His father was a pharmacist and his mother was a bookkeeper. He grew up in Danville, Ill., booked his first shows in high school to pay for college, dropped out of college to run a small Midwestern concert-booking empire and manage local acts such as folk singer Dan Fogelberg and heartland rock band REO Speedwagon. Los Angeles soon beckoned. He met the Eagles while working for David Geffen and Elliot Roberts’ management company and followed the band out the door when they left the Geffen fold; they became the cornerstone of his empire. “I got my swagger from Glenn Frey and Don Henley,” he says. “No doubt about it.”

Azoff never took to pot or coke. The Eagles lived life in the fast lane; he was the designated driver. “Artists,” he once observed, “like knowing the guy flying the plane is sober.” This didn’t stop him from trashing his share of hotel rooms, frequently with guitarist Joe Walsh — whose solo career Azoff shepherded before Walsh joined the Eagles, and who was very much not sober at this time — as an accomplice.

“This was a different age,” Walsh says of his time as the band’s premier lodging-deconstructionist. “We could do anything we wanted, so we did. And Irving’s role was to keep us out of prison, basically.” He recalls a pleasant evening in Chicago in the company of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, which culminated in Walsh laying waste to a suite at the Astor Towers hotel that turned out to be the owner’s private apartment. “We had to check out with a lawyer and a construction foreman,” Walsh remembers. “But Irving took care of it. Without Irving, I’d still be in Chicago.”

Azoff became even more infamous for the pit bull brio he brought to business negotiations on behalf of the Eagles and others, including Stevie Nicks and Boz Scaggs. He didn’t seem to care if people liked him, and his artists loved him for that. Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker said they’d hired Azoff because he “impressed us with his taste for the jugular … and his bizarre spirit.” Jimmy Buffett’s wife grabbed him outside a show at Madison Square Garden, pushed him into the back of a limo and said, You have to manage Jimmy, although Buffett already had a manager at the time.

His outsized reputation as an advocate not just willing but eager to scorch earth on behalf of his clients became an advertisement for his services, a phenomenon that continues to this day. In August 2018, Azoff’s then-client Travis Scott released “Astroworld,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and occupied that slot again the following week, causing Nicki Minaj’s album “Queen” to debut at No. 2. On her Beats One show “Queen Radio,” Minaj accused Scott of gaming Billboard’s chart methodology to keep her out of the top slot and singled his manager out by name: “C—sucker of the Day award,” she said, “goes to Irving Azoff.” Azoff says he reacted as only Azoff would: “I said, ‘I’m really unhappy about that. I want to be c—sucker of the year.’” In 2019, Minaj hired Azoff as her new manager.

Most of the best things anyone’s ever said about Azoff are statements a man of less-bizarre spirit would take as an insult. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Eagles in 1998, Don Henley stood onstage and said of Azoff, “He may be Satan, but he’s our Satan.”

An N95-masked Azoff takes a seat on a patio with a view of hallowed ground — the first hole of the Pebble Beach course, a dogleg-right par 4 with a priceless view of the bay. He cheerfully admits that he and his partners at Full Stop are “obviously, as a management business, kind of losing our ass” this year due to COVID-19. In another reality, the Eagles would have played Wembley Stadium in August before heading off to Australia or the Far East. Styles would have just finished 34 dates in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. As it stands Azoff is hearing encouraging things about treatments and vaccines and new testing machines, and is reasonably confident that technology will soon make it possible for certified-COVID-free fans to again enjoy carefree evenings of live music together; he doesn’t expect much to happen in the meantime.

“What are you gonna do,” Azoff says, “take an act that used to sell 15,000 seats and tell them to play to 4,000 in the [same] arena? The vibe would be horrible, and production costs will stay the same.”

He knows of at least six companies trying to monetize new concert-esque experiences — pay-per-view shows from houses and soundstages, drive-in events and so on. But he’s not convinced anybody wants to sit in their parked car to watch a band play. More to the point, he’s not convinced it’s rock ’n’ roll.

“Fallon and Kimmel, all these virtual performances — people are sick of that,” he says. “Your production values from home aren’t that good. And they’re destroying the mystique. I mean, Justin Bieber jumping around on ‘Saturday Night Live’ the other night without a band, and then he had Chance the Rapper come out? It made him look to me, mortal. I didn’t feel any magic. So we’ve kinda been turning that stuff down to just wait it out.”

In the meantime, he says, Full Stop is picking up new clients during the pandemic. Artists with time on their hands, he believes, “have taken a hard look at their careers— so we’ve grown. No revenues,” he adds with a chuckle, “but people are saying, ‘We need you, we need to plan our lives.’”

“IN HIGH SCHOOL,” Jeffrey Azoff says, “I wanted to be a professional golfer, which has obviously eluded me.” He never expected to take up his father’s profession. “But my dad has always loved his job so much. There’s no way that doesn’t rub off on you.”

The younger Azoff got his first industry job at 21, as a “glorified intern” working for Maroon 5’s then-manager Jordan Feldstein. After a week of filing and fetching coffee, he called his father and complained that he was bored. According to Jeffrey, Irving responded, “Listen carefully, because I’m going to say this one time. You have a phone and you have my last name. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not my son.”

“Direct quote,” Jeffrey says. “It’s one of my favorite things he’s ever said to me. And it’s the spirit of the music business, by the way. There are no rules to this. Just figure it out.”

Over dinner I keep asking Irving how he got the temerity, as a kid barely out of college, to plunge into the shark-infested waters of the ‘70s record industry in Los Angeles. He just shrugs.

“I never felt the music business was that competitive,” he says. “It’s just not that f—ing hard. I don’t think there’s that many smart people in our business.”

It’s been written, I say, that once you landed in California and sized up the competition, you called John Baruck back in Illinois and said —

“We can take this town,” Azoff says, finishing the sentence. “Where’d you get that? John told that story to [Apple senior vice president] Eddy Cue on the golf course three days ago. It’s true. I called John up and said, ‘OK, get your ass out here. We can take this town.’”

In the ensuing years, Azoff has occupied nearly every high-level position the music industry has to offer, surfing waves of industry consolidation. He’s been the president of a major label, MCA; the CEO of Ticketmaster; and executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the behemoth formed from Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation. In 2013 he and Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO and New York Knicks owner James Dolan formed a partnership, Azoff MSG Entertainment; Azoff ran the Forum in Inglewood for Dolan after MSG purchased it in 2012.

Earlier this year Dolan sold the Forum for $400 million to former Microsoft CEO and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who’s since announced plans to build a new stadium on a site just one mile away. Despite the apocalyptic parking scenario that looms for the area — two stadiums and a concert arena on a one-mile stretch of South Prairie Boulevard — Azoff is confident that the Forum will live on as a live-music venue. “People are going, ‘They’re going to tear it down’ — they’re not going to tear it down,” Azoff says. “It’s going to be in great hands. I have many of the artists we represent booked in the Forum, waiting for the restart based on COVID.”

The holdings of the Azoff Co. — formed when Dolan sold his interest in Azoff MSG back to Azoff two years ago — include Full Stop, the performance-rights organization Global Music Rights and the Oak View Group, which is developing arenas in Seattle and Belmont, N.Y., and a 15,000-seat venue on the University of Texas campus in Austin. Azoff describes himself as increasingly focused on “diversification, and building assets for the family that aren’t just dependent on commissions, shall we say.”

But as both a manager and a co-founder of a lobbying group, the Music Artists Coalition, he’s also devoting more time and energy to a broad range of artists’-rights issues, from health insurance to royalty rates to copyright reversion to this year’s Assembly Bill 5, which threatened musicians’ independent-contractor status until it was amended in September. (“That was us,” Azoff says, somewhat grandly. “I got to the governor, the governor signed it — Newsom was great on it.”) He describes his advocacy for artists — even those he doesn’t manage — as a “war on all fronts,” and estimates there are 21 major issues on which “we’ve sort of appointed ourselves as guardians.”

He does not continue to manage artists because he needs the money, he says. (As the singer-songwriter and Azoff client J.D. Souther famously put it, “Irving’s 15% of everybody turned out to be more than everyone’s 85% of themselves.”) Everything he’s doing now — building clout through the Azoff Co., even accepting the Hall of Fame honor — is ultimately about positioning himself to better fight these fights. “I’d rather work on [these things] than anything else,” he says. “But if I didn’t have the power base in the management business, I couldn’t be effective.”

The recorded music industry, having fully transitioned to a digital-first business, is once again making money hand over fist, he points out, but even less of that money is trickling down to artists. That imbalance long predates Big Tech’s involvement in the field, but the failure of music-driven tech companies to properly compensate musicians is clearly the largest burr under Azoff’s saddle.

“These people, when they start out — whether it’s Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, whatever — they resist paying for music until you go beat the f— out of them. And then of course, none of them pay fair market value and they get away with it. Your company’s worth $30 billion and you can’t spend 20 grand for a song that becomes a phenomenon on your channel? Even when they pay, artists don’t get enough. Writers don’t get enough. Music, as a commodity, is more important than it’s ever been, and more unfairly monetized for the creators. And that’s what creates an opportunity for people like me.”

AZOFF’S FIRM NO longer handles Travis Scott, by the way. “Travis is unmanageable,” Azoff says, nonchalantly and without rancor. “We’re involved in his touring as an advisor to Live Nation, but he’s calling his own shots these days.”

I ask if, in the age of the viral hit and the bedroom producer, he finds himself running into more artists who assume they don’t need a manager. Ehh, Azoff says, like it’s always been that way. “There’s a lot of headstrong artists,” he says. “I haven’t seen one that’s better off without a manager than with,” he says, and laughs a little Dennis the Menace laugh.

We’re back at the house. Azoff takes a seat on the living-room couch; Larry Solters sits across from him, his back to the sea. Azoff recalls another big client. Declines to name him. Says he was never happy, even after Azoff and his people got him everything on his wish list. “He hit me with a couple bad emails. Just really disrespectful s—. I sent him an email back that said, ‘Lucky for me, you need me more than I need you. Goodbye.’”

He will confirm having resigned the accounts of noted divas Mariah Carey and Axl Rose. Reports that he once attempted to manage Kanye West have been greatly exaggerated, he says, although they’ve spoken about business. “Robert [Kardashian] was a good friend of mine. The kids all went to school together,” Azoff says. “What I always said to Kanye was, you’re unmanageable, but we can give you advice.

“A lot of people could have made a dynasty on the people we used to manage,” Azoff says, “let alone the ones we kept.”

But he still works with many artists who joined him in the ’70s — with Henley, with Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and with Joe Walsh. Walsh has been sober for more than 25 years; it was Azoff, along with Henley and Frey, who talked him into rehab before the Eagles’ 1994 reunion tour. “Irving never passed judgment on me,” Walsh says. “And from that meeting on, he made sure I had what I needed to stay sober.” If he hadn’t, Walsh says, there’s no chance we’d be having this conversation. “All the guys I ran with are dead. Keith Moon’s dead. John Entwistle’s dead. Everybody’s dead, and I’m here. That’s profound to me.”

The first client Azoff lost was Minnie Riperton — in 1979, to breast cancer when she was only 31. Then Warren Zevon, to cancer, in 2003. Fogelberg, to cancer, four years later.

“And then Glenn,” says Azoff, referring to the Eagles co-founder who died in 2016. “I miss Glenn a lot. And now Eddie.”

Van Halen, that is. I ask Azoff if he can tell me a story that sums up what kind of guy Eddie Van Halen was; he tells me a beautiful one, then says he’d prefer not to see it in print. It makes perfect Azoffian sense — profane trash talk on the record, tenderness on background.

I ask if he’s been moved to contemplate his own mortality, as his boomer-aged clients approach an actuarial event horizon. Of course the answer turns out to involve keeping pace with an Eagle.

“Henley and I are having a race,” he says. “Neither one of us has given in. Neither one of us is going to retire.”

Henley was born in July 1947; Azoff came along that December. Does Don plan to keep going, I ask, until the wheels fall off?

“I don’t know,” Azoff says.

Do you ever talk about it?

“Yeah! He’ll call me up and he’ll go, ‘I really feel s— today.’ And I say, ‘Well, you should, Grandpa. You’re an old man. You ready to throw in the towel? Nope? OK.’”

Azoff says, “I contend that what keeps us all young is staying in the business. I’ve had more people tell me, ‘My father, he quit working, and then his health started failing,’ and all that. Every single — I mean, every single rock star I know is basically doing it to try and stay young. And I think it works. I really think it works.

“I have this friend,” Azoff says. “Calls me once a week, he’s sending me tapes, it’s his next big record. Paul Anka! He’s 80 years old. OK? And my other friend, Frankie Valli …”

“Do you know how old Frankie Valli is?” Solters says. “Eighty-six. And he still performs.”

“Not during COVID,” Azoff says. “I told the motherf—, ‘You’re not going out.’”

[purplesurveys]

1111

Something a little bit random and silly for my 1111th, just because.

survey by joybucket

List three things you love that start with each letter.

A: Art and most forms of it; anchovies, in most cases; and Angela.

B: Burgers, Beyoncé, and buffets.

E: Escargot, the name Eloise, and elephants.

F: FISH, Friends, and some folk indie.

S: Sleeping, signing off work at the end of my shift, and all kinds of seafood.

T: I’m obsessed with tteokbokki; trying out new food; and table tennis.

Q: I like the quiet time I occasionally give myself; quail eggs, especially in the form of kwek-kwek; and quattro formaggi pizza.

R: Rainbows, the rain, and riding planes.

O: Old movies, the ocean, and Okinawa milk tea.

List a phrase including an adjective, noun, and verb for each letter. Examples: "angry artist anticipating", "rude rascals running", "dirty dogs dancing", or "empty elephants eloping." Have fun!

A: Adorable animals appearing.

F: Fabulous fingers frolicking.

C; Chummy classmates cooking.

S: Suspicious self salivating.

R: Rambunctious raccoon running.

T: Tired turnip tumbling.

Q; Questioning quail quipping.

J: Joyful joggers jamming.

I: Inquisitive igloos imagining.

L: Luxurious lemonade luminescing.

Z: Zesty zebras zoning out.

E: Ethereal eagles embracing.

List three different occupations starting with each letter.

O: Orthodontist, oceanographer, opthalmologist.

E: Engineer, equestrienne, elementary school teacher.

F: Firefighter, flight attendant, farmer.

S: Scientist, singer, seamstress.

T: Talent agent, tricycle driver, tennis player.

I: Illustrator, inspector, IT technician.

E: Economist, editor, electrician.

L: Lawyer, librarian, lifeguard.

A: Accountant, actor, architect.

Y: Yoga instructor, youth pastor, yogurt maker?? if that counts, lol. Otherwise I got nothing else.

List three adjectives that begin with each letter.

A: Affable, abrupt, adequate.

B: Broken, blunt, bleary.

C: Crazy, clear, clingy.

D: Daunting, delirious, dark.

E: Existential, enraged, exemplary.

F: Fantastic, far-flung, flavorful.

G: Ghastly, gentle, gigantic.

H: Harrowing, healthy, hopeful.

I: Intelligent, identical, impervious.

J: Jovial, jaded, joyous.

List three nouns that being with each letter.

K: Kangaroo, keychain, kiwi.

L: Lemonade the album, lemon the fruit, and Liz Lemon.

M: Mall, maple syrup, and mop.

N: Nightingale, nest, napkin.

O: Ogre, olive, orange.

P: Piano, panini, and pizza.

Q: Queen, quill, quilt.

List three verbs that begin with each letter.

R: Running, raking, reliving.

S: Singing, sailing, surfing.

T: Tricking, tossing, teeming.

U: Understanding, urging, unwrapping.

V: Villifying, venerating, vaccinating - get vaccinated, folks.

W: Wandering, washing, wriggling.

X: I don’t know if there are any and I can’t bother to look it up.

Y: Yawning, yelling, yearning.

Z: Zipping, ziplining, zapping.

List three...

girl's names you love: Olivia, Mia, Emma.

boy’s names you love: Mason, Jacob, Lucas.

girl’s names you dislike: Karen, and our local versions of Karen, Marites and Marivic.

boy’s names you dislike: Chad, times three.

things you hate about summer things you hate about winter things you hate about spring things you hate about fall things you love about spring things you love about winter things you love about fall things you love about summer Crossing these out because my Southeast Asian ass can’t relate, but if you do decide to take this survey feel free to un-strikethrough them!

things you miss from your past: Having more freedom to make mistakes; not having to worry about the future; and friends I’ve since lost.

people who have really hurt you in the past: Gabie, my mom, Marielle.

names of people you have had crushes on: Gabie, Andi from 5th grade...and that’s it, really.

names of people you have gone on a date with: Only Gabie. And I guess maybe Mike? Since he asked me to go with him to his ball as his date.

places you've been and would love to go again: Sagada, Jeju, Bali.

places you want to visit before you die: Morocco, Spain, Thailand.

items on your bucket list: See Times Square, live in a condo, plan a solo trip.

health conditions you have: Scoliosis, lactose intolerance, and very possible depression.

health conditions you've had in the past but don't anymore: Dehydration, UTI, and some kind of weird low-platelet-count thing that was just that, and never diagnosed as anything.

things you are allergic to: Possibly some types of grass, and maybe face masks. Idk how to confirm it really; I just know my skin gets irritated around them sometimes.

youtube channels you love to watch: Good Mythical Morning; the KBS YouTube channel mainly for clips of Return of Superman and 2 Days 1 Night; and Binging With Babish.

favorite drinks: Water, coffee, Long Island Iced Tea.

favorite foods: Sushi, chicken wings, pizza.

favorite desserts: Cheesecake, MACARONS, cupcakes.

favorite holidays: The only one I care for and get super excited about is my birthday, if that counts. Christmas is fine, but I only get the excitement for it on the actual day itself.

favorite colors: Pastel pink, white, maroon.

people you would like to meet: Ysa and Bea, my teammates at work. I’ve met them only once before, and I wish we can be allowed to report to the workplace physically soon so that I get to see them more often and strengthen my relationship (both working and personal) with them. I’d also love to be able to chat and chill with Hayley Williams even for just 30 seconds.

people you want to meet in Heaven: I don’t believe in that, but I’d love to have met my great-grandfather on my maternal grandfather’s side. Also, Audrey Hepburn and Princess Diana.

good names for a dog or cat: Depends on their personality.

reasons why you get up each morning and keep on living: Because I’ve been able to see myself get better, and why stop all the progress?; because I’d want to be able see if the future will get better; and because I’m afraid of what will happen to/who will look out for my dogs if I’m suddenly gone.

For each name, think of three people you know with that name, and list their occupations.

Amanda: I only know one Amanda, and she’s a friend of my ex’s younger sister. She’s only in senior year of high school. I know an Amandine which is close enough I suppose?? and she’s a dentistry student.

Sarah: She’s a media contact and I’m constantly in touch with; she’s the editor-in-chief of a local magazine. I think she’s the only Sarah I know.

Ashley: Also a media contact. I’m not sure about her title, though.

Beth: @bionic-beth is a teacher! :) But I don’t know any Beths in real life, I think.

Katie: Well I know Kate, and I’ll sometimes playfully call her Katie. She works in a government agency and she’s one of their PR people. The HR person who recruited me to come work at my current employer is a Kate, but I have never and have no plans to call her Katie.

Matt: That’s too foreign-sounding a name where I live.

Emily: Don’t know any Emilys, either.

Chris: Media contacts. They run blogs or news sites of their own.

Mike/Michael: The one Mike I know is currently a med student. Not sure if he’s working on the side - I think he is, since I saw him post about a job update on his Facebook a few months ago; but I can no longer remember what he does, or if he’s still doing it.

Jessica: I went to high school with a girl named Jessica but I don’t follow her on social media, so I have no clue what she’s up to now.

Becca/Bekah: Rita’s sister is a Becca. I think she is currently a grad student.

For each name, think of three people you know, and list one adjective to describe each person. (Skip if you don't know anyone with that name.)

Laura

Michelle: Hilarious.

Victoria: Strong.

Tessa: Friendly.

John

Claire: Influential; motherly.

Briana/Brianna: Bitch.

Vanessa

Brittany/Britney, etc.

Allison/Allie/Ally, etc: Kind. 

Olivia

Jordan

Jo/Joe: Ambitious; pretty.

Corey/Kori

Sophie: Sweet; quiet.

Mitch/Mitchell: Tall.

Madison/Maddie/Maddi

Out of all the people you know or have met, list three...

redheads: Yeah, you’re not going to find them in most of Asia. West Asia and some parts of East Asia, probably, but definitely not for the rest.

tall people: Jo, Chesca, and Shaun.

people with really curly hair: I know Kleo has naturally curly hair from her Aeta roots, but it’s been straightened for a very long time now. I think Chesca also has curly hair, albeit slightly. There is also Liana.

sets of twins: My sister had two sets of twins in her high school batch, but I can no longer remember their names. I also had an English class with a pair of twins named Ardy and Thirdy.

of the cutest babies you've seen on social media: My workmate’s baby. My friend Jar has a super squishy niece/nephew pair of twins as well.

people you miss: Angela, Kate, my grandpa.

people with beautiful eyes: I can only think of my ex.

people with nice hair: God I have not been around people for so long, I can barely think of anyone for this.

people who are the same height as you: Aya, Hannah, Tina.

own one of the same clothing items as you: Angela since we went to the same high school and have several of the same school shirts; Laurice since we share a college org and we have our own trademark polo shirt; and my brother and I have our own pairs of Nike Cortez shoes.

make you laugh: Andi, Hans, and this girl I had a couple of history classes with, Rose.

List three celebrities who...

are the same height as you: Lady Gaga and AJ Lee are the only ones who are coming to mind. I wouldn’t call AJ a celebrity though.

have the same hair color as you: Mila Kunis, Kelly Rowland, Dita Von Teese.

look like you: Only based on comments I’ve gotten in the past and not because I necessarily claim these for myself, Lucy Hale, Anna Akana, and Kakie.

List three....

adjectives to describe you: Timid, stubborn, sensitive.

academic courses you enjoyed: Philippine social history, international relations, anthropology.

words you always forget how to spell: Rhythm, committee, accommodate.

things you wish you were better at: Singing, dancing, drawing.

things you are really good at: Writing, reading people, and knowing the best things to order at most restaurants hahahah.

jobs you'd like to have: Ideally, a lawyer or doctor. But realistically, I’d love to have a leadership position in the PR sphere.

jobs you've considered having: ^ Again, lawyer and doctor. Also a journalist or news anchor, back when I still thought I was passionate about journalism.

jobs you'd hate: Journalist, an LTO clerk, an assistant to an asshole celebrity.

things you miss: Being a student, many parts of the past, and deceased family members.

names your mom considered when naming you: Ariel, Kathleen, Katrina.

things people call you: Robyn, Byn, Bynbyn.

*Bonus*: what is your name? (first and middle)? I always feel like just sharing Robyn.

[cultofbeatles]

HI! Could you tell me what John Lennon was like as a person? (I recently got into his solo stuff and was just wondering) (also love your blog

that’s a difficult question that has a lot to unload. but the answer can be boiled down to “well it depends on who you ask.” i never met john lennon so i can not give you a perfect answer. but then again, even if i met him there’s a lot of circumstances that come with that. was he in a bad mood when i met him? was he on drugs? was he young or was he older? was i close to him or just a stranger in passing? all those questions and more come into playing when you meet someone and trying to decide if that’s how they really are as a person. 

what we know about john is that he had a rough childhood. his father was never around, had to live with his aunt, only got to see his birth mom for a little bit (so much so that john didn't really think of her as a mom), his uncle died when he was young, and then his mother died as well. his aunt mimi meant well but she never gave him really any emotional support or affection. and i think that affected him tbh. his teachers had no faith in him expect for maybe an art teacher. he was really into art and was creative. he was really kind of alone for a while. he had some anger issues and problems with communicating/confrontations. he ended up meeting cynthia and they dated then got married. i believe that it was her who showed john what true love and affection from someone feels like. he met paul, he met george, he met ringo, and then the beatles years started. he was kind of a lazy person and not very into working like paul was. if it wasn't for paul the beatles wouldn't of gotten as much done as they did. but he was very sensitive and easily hurt. he was upset bc he thought paul only ever wanted to be around him just to write music. easily hurt but would never admit it. and was always bitter and cold to whoever hurt his feelings. kind of being impulsive in what he says or does. that’s why he always contradicted himself. i think him leaving the beatles was an impulsive move tbh. he always spoke his opinions and didn't care what others thought. very insecure and hated himself. he’s admitted he didn't like his voice on any of the beatles tracks. he was known to be “funny” and able to lighten the mood. in my opinion i think he was very open minded. he had a close relationship with their manager brian who was gay, and he was very curious about sexuality. there’s an interview he does with george where george is talking about david bowie and elton john and saying they “look silly and stupid” and john says “i think they're great.” i think he had good intentions but had a hard time getting to those intentions. I often think about the letter he sent cynthia once about how much he loved julian and wanted to be a better father and have a good connection with him.. etc. i don't think he was evil or vicious or mean spirited. he was working on changing himself for the better. 

paul mccartney talks very highly of john. in fact, there’s an interview where the host asked paul what john was like and paul said he was “beautiful.” in a most recent interview he said he still has dreams about john and that they're good dreams. in any circumstance he always defends john. ringo and george would also talk highly of john. it seemed like all the beatles were close to john. george martin talked highly of john and his work before. yoko ono and cynthia both continue(d) to talk highly of john. cynthia always had so much love for him. sean ono lennon talks highly of his dad. julian not so much, but i do think there’s love there for him. there’s quite a few fans who said that john was very nice to them and was calm and easy to talk to. he was friends with a lot of other big artists and they all seemed to like him a lot. 

i think anyone who had a bad interaction with john likely met him during the beatles years when he was at his worst state of mind. as he got older he evened out more. i hope this answered your question somehow.

[stillellensibley]

Looking at the history of emptiness in modern art I am often reminded of Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Zeno imagined a race, in which Achilles would generously grant the tortoise a head start of say 100 metres, and each would move at a steady, unchanging speed. His conclusion was that Achilles would never be able to catch up with the tortoise, because every time he came close, the tortoise would have had time to move a little further, so that the distance between them would endlessly decrease to a few yards, a few metres, one metre, 0.1 metre, 0.01 metre, etc. In the same way, every time the audience of modern and contemporary art is led to believe that the avant-garde reduction of the artwork to a minimal, barely perceptible form can go no further, along comes another artist who creates another even more minimal, even less perceptible, artwork.

Thus, it seemed that the history of modern art had reached its zero point when Marcel Duchamp presented a glass pharmacy phial filled with Paris air to an American collector in 1919, or when Kazimir Malevich painted his White on White composition in 1918, and two years later filled a room with, as one person noted, empty canvases ‘devoid of colour, form and texture’ on the occasion of his first solo exhibition in Moscow. Yet in a 1968 article, critics Lucy Lippard and John Chandler could only observe that ‘the artist… has continued to make something of “nought” 50 years after Malevich’s White on White seemed to have defined nought for once and for all. We still do not know how much less ‘nothing’ can be.’ Thirty-five years later, Gabriel Orozco’s sole contribution to the Aperto exhibition at the 1993 Venice Biennale consisted of an empty shoe box, eight years before Martin Creed notoriously won the Turner Prize partly for his installation Work No. 227: The lights going on and off at regular intervals. Nearly ten noughty years down the line, and shortly after a museum survey entitled Voids: a Retrospective presented visitors with nine perfectly empty rooms, we are still none the wiser about ‘how much less “nothing” can be’.

Year after year, decade after decade, however, one thing doesn’t seem to change: if we haven’t walked through, on, or past the artwork without noticing it, our reactions to this kind of barely perceptible, almost nothing, practice will predictably range from puzzlement and laughter to anger and indignation. Even before Malevich’s 1920 exhibition, a French cartoonist had imagined in 1912 that the empty canvas would be the next avant-garde prank visited on its baffled public. In the caption, the artist presenting his blank canvas explains in a pun on the then-current Futurist movement: ‘It’s the most futurist picture of all – so far it is only signed, and I’ll never paint it.’ As the emptiness and reduction of blank canvases, of white or black monochromes and of Duchampian readymades were extended to silent concerts and empty galleries in the second half of the twentieth century, the question remained: are all these forms of emptiness so many variations on the same provocative joke?

The first documented entirely empty exhibition, Yves Klein’s The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State Into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility – better known as The Void – at the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris in 1958, certainly had all the trappings of an elaborate PR stunt. Not only did Klein empty the exhibition space and paint the remaining walls and cases white, he also posted two Republican Guards in full uniform at the entrance of the gallery, served blue cocktails especially ordered from the famous brasserie La Coupole and had even planned to light up the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde with his brand of International Klein Blue. While the last event was cancelled at the last minute, an estimated 3,000 visitors did show up on the night of the opening, filling the streets around the gallery as they waited to enter the exhibition space through blue curtains, one small group at a time. The crowd was finally dispersed by the police called in by disgruntled visitors who had felt swindled after paying their entrance fee to be shown an empty gallery. In some ways, the succès à scandale of The Void has obscured Klein’s very idiosyncratic brand of showmanship and mysticism. His interest in the immaterial was genuine, inspired by his exploration of monochrome painting and his belief, influenced by Rosicrucianism, that humans must strive to liberate themselves from flesh and matter.

If some artists since Klein have embraced such spiritual readings of the void, a more general preoccupation with the invisible seems to account for many empty exhibitions in the past 50 years or so. Maria Eichhorn, a German artist whose early work includes white texts written on white walls, speaks for many artists when she explains: “There is such a fixation in our Western culture on the visible, which explains why we think that… a room is empty… because there is nothing visible. But I’ve never thought that an empty room is empty.” In the late 1960s Robert Barry had already pointed to the imperceptible forces that literally surround us by introducing radio waves as well as magnetic currents into the gallery space. American artist Maria Nordman has tried to focus viewers’ attention on the light falling through an empty gallery’s windows at different moments of the day and of the year. More prosaically, other artists have invited visitors simply to contemplate the architecture of the gallery. Arriving in 1993 at the Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, originally a house designed by Mies van der Rohe, British artist Bethan Huws felt she could not add anything to the beauty of the modernist building. Instead, she distributed a poem to visitors and let them admire the gallery for itself.

In the 1970s American artist Michael Asher pioneered strategies through which to reveal the architectural structure of the gallery. At the Clare Copley Gallery in 1975, for example, he simply removed the wall separating the empty exhibition space from the art dealer’s office. By opening up this space, the artist was not only inviting visitors to consider its architectural features: he also reminded them of the Business transactions taking place behind the walls of commercial galleries. After Asher, other artists have explored the invisible networks of art business and institutional presentations that frame the art we view. Maria Eichhorn used the budget allocated to her show at the Kunsthalle Bern to tackle the institution’s debts and fund much-needed refurbishments of the building (Money at the Kunsthalle Bern 2001), while in their 2005 Supershow – More than a Show, the collective Superflex used theirs to give each visitor two Swiss Francs instead of asking them to pay an entrance fee to see empty spaces adorned only by texts stating the physical properties of each room (surface, wall colour, maximum number of visitors, etc). Museum surveillance is alluded to in Roman Ondák’s 2006 More Silent than Ever, which warns visitors that hidden listening devices are installed in the room.

Presented with invisible elements such as Ondák’s listening devices or Barry’s magnetic fields, we are left wondering whether to believe the artists’ claims since, after all, there is no adequate way to confirm them. We come to realise that our relation to the work is predicated on knowledge, presuppositions and some form of trust in the authority of artists and art institutions. British artist Ceal Floyer traces her interest in minimal displays back to her experience as a gallery invigilator while she was an art student. ‘I watched a lot of art being seen. And a lot of art being not seen,’ she remembers. ‘That was a training in itself. I discovered that presumption is a medium in its own right.’ As with Creed’s The lights going on and off , Floyer’s plastic buckets and black rubbish bags casually sitting in the gallery certainly reveal to us our prejudices and expectations as to what art is or should be. Gabriel Orozco says he actively seeks to disappoint his viewers. Is my irritation at being presented with an empty shoe box or lights going and off ultimately good for me?

The veiled hostility directed by the artist at the viewer situates such attitudes in the context of more radical declarations against art and its institutions. When presenting her empty exhibition at the Lorence-Monk Gallery in New York in 1990, American artist Laurie Parsons went so far as to refuse to include her name on the invitation to the opening and to remove all reference to the show from her CV. Four years later, she ceased to produce works altogether, thus following a line of artists before her who deliberately decided, as part of their practice, to give up, or take a break from, the profession. From this perspective, the empty gallery is less an artwork than a gesture – of provocation, dissent and critique. As Brian O’Doherty has shown in his well-known study of the modern “white cube” gallery, such a gesture ‘depends for its effect on the context of ideas it changes and joins’. For the gesture to succeed, its timing, place and audience have to be just right. Sometimes it can be understood only retrospectively, as it becomes historicised.

It would be unfair, however, to reduce all explorations of emptiness, nothingness and the invisible to the rhetoric of the gesture. To return to Orozco’s Empty Shoe Box: when it was first shown in 1993, it certainly poked fun at the Venice Biennale’s frenzy of publicity and consumption, but it also served as a memorable image of the container or vessel that is a leitmotif in the artist’s work. ‘I am interested in the idea of making myself – as an artist and an individual – above all a receptacle,’ stated Orozco. Playing with contrasts between empty and full, his work as a whole exemplifies a sensitivity to reciprocal spatial relations. In a notebook, he compares discarded pieces of chewing gum on a pavement with the stones placed on a board in the Asian strategy game of Go. Like Empty Shoe Box, the Go stones and the spat-out blobs of gum occupy and cut out space, demarcating a territory according to very specific patterns of chance and intention.

Many artists have similarly been interested in the space between objects. Both the Belgian Joëlle Tuerlinckx and the Brazilian Fernanda Gomes often present arrangements of small, discrete everyday objects scattered around otherwise vacant gallery spaces. Tuerlinckx describes the exhibition space as ‘a kind of parcel, a packet of air’ that she is invited to open and explore through her work; Gomes says she never comes to the gallery with a pre-defined plan. In these installations, the empty gallery becomes a blank page to be inscribed (as in Tuerlinckx’s spatial drawings), or the pregnant void that surrounds objects in paintings such as Giorgio Morandi’s (in Gomes’s three-dimensional still-lifes).

Painting is also a surprising reference for the performances staged by Marie Cool/Fabio Balducci, during which Cool stands in an empty room as she enacts a series of repetitive, extremely precise gestures using flimsy everyday materials such as paper, tape, or thread. The French- Italian duo has claimed that the image of a figure hovering in an undefined yet meaningful space was inspired by early Renaissance religious painting such as Simone Martini’s Annunciations. The empty gallery as a stage for action has also been effectively used by Martin Creed, when he asked runners to sprint down the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, one by one at regular intervals, in 2008, or by British-German artist Tino Sehgal, who in 2010 choreographed two continuous scenarios, involving three actors, in the spiral rotunda at the New York Guggenheim Museum.

Placed in vast expanses of void, both bodies and objects appear more vulnerable. On the one hand, such installations provide an alternative to the spectacular displays encouraged by increasingly large-scale museum and gallery spaces. By celebrating the commonplace, the barely noticed, as well as frailty and precariousness, artists thus seem to be actively resisting the pressure to create ever-bigger, glossier, more awe-inspiring works. On the other hand, however, such minimal mises en scène can create new forms of spectacle – as when Maurizio Cattelan places his miniature self-portrait, a resin figurine hanging from a clothing rack, in a corner of the empty gallery in order to emphasise his apparent failure to take on the revolutionary role of 1970s artists such as Joseph Beuys (to make the point, the Cattelan mini-me is clad in Beuys’s signature felt suit).

While such formal devices are often little more than simple gimmicks, works that effectively stage their own weakness and vulnerability can raise questions about the institutional and social conditions that guarantee their existence as art. In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, a naked emperor is persuaded by his tailors that his fine clothes are visible only to intelligent people; his subjects, afraid like him to admit that they cannot see them, applaud his outfit until a small child in the crowd finally blurts out the truth – ‘But he’s got nothing on!’ Though above all a cautionary tale against the deceptive powers of flattery, vanity and sycophantism, the story also provides an image of the willing suspension of disbelief required by most forms of art. After all, the artist’s deception, like the cheating tailors’, could never work without our participation. In his 2002 work Lament of the Images, Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar mobilises this kind of community of believers by presenting us with two dark, apparently empty rooms. In the first, we come across three small backlit text panels relating real stories about invisible or impossible images, such as the fact that the United States Defence Department purchased the rights to all available satellite images of Afghanistan during the 2001 air strikes so that the global media could not publish them. The second room houses a single, brightly lit, empty screen. Blinded by its light, we are reminded of our own blind spots – our complicity in the invisibility of certain images and in the existence of many an emperor’s new clothes.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Pearl Charles Interview: A Portal to Yourself

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Like looking into its title object, Pearl Charles’ new album Magic Mirror follows external observations to internal reflection, the journey from feeling the sparkling lights of a city to instead finding something within yourself. Out Friday via Kanine Records, the album has an arc that follows a similar move in Charles’ life, from Los Angeles where she was born to the desert of Joshua Tree. Don’t let the sparkling piano lines of opener “Only For Tonight” fool you--at its heart, Magic Mirror is very much a spacious and cosmically insular album, exploring the infinity of intrinsic motivations buoyed by artistic influences and inspirations. Throughout, Charles doesn’t pretend to know the answers but poses important questions nonetheless: Is having a creative identity really you, or just a persona? Who remembers us after we leave the earthly realm? Is love truly the end-all powerful entity we think it to be? Notably, she stylistically harks back to other pop singers and songwriters who have wondered the same things, from the longing nostalgia of ABBA to the breezy psychedelia of Todd Rundgren. 

Last month, I spoke to Charles over the phone from her new home in Landers where she and hey boyfriend and bandmate Michael Rault have just moved and are starting to build up into a studio. We talked about the different genres Magic Mirror encapsulates, the role weed and psychedelics play in Charles’ creative process, and why she doesn’t sleep on planes. Read the interview, edited for length and clarity, below.

Since I Left You: What about Magic Mirror is unique to you as compared to anything else you’ve released?

Pearl Charles: I think there are a couple specific points that are different. One, I used my band that I use on the road on this record. There were some members of my road band on the last record, but I used a lot of session musicians. I used some session musicians here, too, but overall, I feel like this band was my band for the last record’s tour cycle. We toured really hard on that last record. They really got to know me, and we got to work on the songs before we made a bunch of different demos and practice them live. We got to workshop them and figured out how they worked best. I also got to play them the type of music I love, and we really got to know each other, musically and as friends. Those guys really got me, and this record is very personal. Having those people who spent time with the material also spend time with me really comes across in the record. I feel like we achieved that.

SILY: It’s really stylistically diverse. Did you know going into the writing process the different aesthetics you wanted to explore, or did they come naturally?

PC: A little bit of both. Some of the songs were written really organically, and I didn’t know how they’d end up sounding. But I wrote a few songs with the producer [Lewis Pesacov], and at that point in the cycle, we already had a style that was emerging and revealing itself. So then we could ask, “What don’t we have that we can include, and what’s the theme, so that we can figure out what’s already there and how we can expand on that?” It’s diverse, but it’s music I love. I have diverse taste, and the music reflected that.

SILY: You’ve mentioned ABBA as an influence on the opening track “Only For Tonight”, and I definitely heard that as soon as it started. It’s a pretty bold move for an opening track!

PC: That was the first song we sat down to record, besides “Sweet Sunshine Wine” which was recorded separately to be released as a single last year, which we included on this record because it never got a vinyl release. You start thinking about the record sequence in your mind in the order of when you recorded things. And then you go back and kind of lose that order, a little bit. But since we started with it, it felt like such a big opener. And the story of the record is chronological: It starts out with that side of the story. It made sense to open up with going out on the town and having one-night stands, which turns into the reflection that comes later in the album and the following processes that occur.

SILY: The chronology stands out for sure. For instance, it’s immediately apparent that “Don’t Feel Like Myself” answers the questions and builds off the themes from “Imposter”. Were you trying to have the songs converse with each other?

PC: Not necessarily intentionally from when I was writing them, but I think they do that naturally because that’s what was going on with me in this process. It’s all tied together with my emotions. I’m very autobiographical in my writing, so the songs are definitely about what I’m experiencing. Another thing different from this record to the last record is that while the last record had a little introspection, it was more about what was happening to me in the external world. This album, I kind of focused more about how I was feeling about the things that were happening [in] me.

SILY: “Imposter” poses a key question that seems to be posed throughout the record, one about fostering a creative identity. Do you feel like you’ve done that on Magic Mirror just by presenting your different artistic inspirations?

PC: Yeah! I think so. I think it’s a lifelong pursuit of questioning the self, and the album is one step of that journey, but it is reflective of all of the things I was feeling at the time and the music I was listening to and what I was inspired by and continue to be inspired by, whether that’s music, spirituality, or literature.

SILY: So “Imposter” was written on mushrooms, and the title track has a weed reference. There’s also the line on the title track, “I keep trippin’ into you.” Am I reading into it or is that a double meaning, too?

PC: It’s totally a double meaning. They’re there throughout, and even on my last record, Sleepless Dreamer. That title means a lot of different things. [laughs] Also on “Only For Tonight”, the line “Sparkle fading, strung out on the town / Thought we were falling, we were just coming down.” Yes. You’re not mistaken. Those are all thinly veiled drug references. I mean, hey, I’m a rock ‘n’ roller. What can I say? [laughs] I definitely am a stoner. I smoke a lot of weed and I love psychedelics. They can be so inspiring and therapeutic and good for creativity. And for self-reflection. That’s really what I’m about. That’s why I love writing songs. It’s a great tool for that if you want to use it that way.

SILY: When writing “Slipping Away”, you were high in a different way, on a plane! When you fly, do you tend to reflect? You don’t just fall asleep on the plane?

PC: In this world, there’s so much distraction. Being on the plane, I suppose you can get internet now if you pay for it, and you can choose to be connected, but it’s one of the last experiences where you can disconnect and go into your thoughts without tons of distractions. I also think a lot when I’m driving, and I know I’m actually the one driving the car and have to be focused on that, but it gives me a good opportunity to clear my head. I’m not looking at my phone, and I think that’s so crucial. Patti Smith said something about living in New York and taking the subway, and in that time, she would come up with a lot of her ideas because she’d let her mind wander. We live in a world where letting our mind wander is kind of a rarity. We’ve allowed ourselves to constantly fill the void because looking into the void can be scary. But that’s where the creativity is. It’s a beautiful thing even though it’s overwhelming.

SILY: When you find yourself looking into the void, do you ever have anything on in the background, like music?

PC: It depends. I’m a huge music freak. But if I’m writing, I need to be in my own zone. If I’m sitting back and reflecting, I love listening to music. It’s so emotional for me and can bring up and create all sorts of feelings.

SILY: The back half of the record seems to have a lot of unique arrangements and instrumentation. You mentioned “All The Way” is inspired by Todd Rundgren. The guitars really reminded me of George Harrison. Are you a big Beatles fan?

PC: I’m a super huge solo Beatles fan. I love The Beatles, too, but Wings is one of my favorite bands ever, and I love the George solo stuff. And I love the John solo stuff! And you know what? I even love Ringo’s solo stuff. Sue me, what can I say! I love the Traveling Wilburys, I love it all. I love 70′s sounds, styles, and instrumentation. I also think Todd Rundgren kind of reminds me of Carole King.

SILY: “Take Your Time” seems to be the most vocal-forward track on the record. How do you approach your voice in the mix of these songs in terms of how up front you want it to be?

PC: That’s a really hard decision. I feel like it’s a fine line whether you want to be a part of the band or whether you want to sit up front. I don’t really love to cloak my voice in reverb, because my voice and what I’m saying is the focal point of the songs. But it’s definitely a balance, and it’s more modern to put it more forward.

SILY: I think I can tell why you wanted to close the record with “As Long As You’re Mine”. On the surface, you might read the lyrical formula [“[insert world problem] doesn’t matter as long as you’re mine”] as apathetic, but looking closer, it comes across as “It doesn’t matter” not because these things don’t affect people with varying degrees of severity, but because the power of friendship and love can overcome. Can you talk about that theme and how you’ve come to terms with it?

PC: I wrote that song pre-pandemic, so there was no predicting how much worse things were gonna get. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek. Despite the fact that there are hard times now and in the future. Hopefully there’s some hope and positivity coming forward. “Times are gonna be tough, but we can get through it together,” is the point, but coming at it with a little bit of...what’s the word I’m looking for?

SILY: Facetiousness?

PC: Yeah, exactly. I wrote the song with my producer, who said, “Write a positive song!” and that’s what I came up with. My manager, I remember when we wrote it, I remember there was a fire happening, before all the fires this year, and he was like, “I don’t know, is this gonna offend people?” The whole thing has the potential to offend people if they’re gonna be offended by it, but it’s half a joke and half serious. It’s pointing out the fact that there are a lot of problems in the world that can be fixed, not to make light of them.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

PC: I knew I wanted my friend Dana Trippe to do it. Sydney Costley did the hair and makeup. I found an image I really loved but didn’t know how to get in touch with the artist or license it for the cover. I told Dana the inspiration, that it was a portal with an archway where the outside was a blue sky and clouds and the inside a night sky with a shooting star. The album name came to me in a dream. I led it lead me where it wanted to go. The idea of a magic mirror as a portal to one’s self, through self-reflection or with psychedelics. It really made sense to me, and the image spoke to me, so we went for something cloud-oriented.

SILY: You’ve done some livestreams. How did you adapt these songs to a live performance?

PC: It’s been really hard because of COVID to balance when is safe to play music with people and when isn’t. We all wear masks except for me. It’s hard to translate the album because it’s a layered record. I really like this version of it because we're still able to have a 5-piece band with pedal steel, electric guitar, neon acoustic guitar, and bass and drums. The one thing we’re missing is keys, and the record is a keys-heavy record, but it’s fun to do this cosmic country version of the band that sounds like the Dead. It feels really good to play that rootsy, dirt in your veins kind of stuff in the desert.

SILY: The pedal steel for sure stood out to me on the record because it was juxtaposed with keys in a way you normally don’t hear them together.

PC: I love including it whenever I can. Michael [Rault], my boyfriend, plays guitar, and Catfish [Connor Gallaher], plays steel, including on the record. They’re both great at what they do. Getting to see them is a pleasure.

SILY: Have you thought about doing any socially distant live shows?

PC: I feel a little weird about ticket prices. Music should be accessible, and not only for the people that can afford a private show. It’s a weird time, for sure. I miss playing live and playing new music for people.

SILY: What else is next for you?

PC: I’m gonna do a side project band with my boyfriend, and because the record was finished pre-pandemic, I had the whole pandemic to write a bunch of new material. I’m ready to go with new songs, so hopefully they’ll be coming shortly thereafter.

SILY: What have you been listening to, watching, and reading lately?

PC: I’ve been listening to a lot of Mixcloud playlists. We finally got HBO Max, and it seems like they have a lot of really good content, like true crime, the Heaven’s Gate documentary about that cult. I’m really into cults. I love to go to the library and just returned Journey To The East by Herman Hesse, a book about Fleetwood Mac, which goes through all eras of the band, before Rumours, the Peter Green era, the Bob Welch era. There are so many different incarnations, and they’re all amazing. Fleetwood Mac is one of the best bands of all time, and I like to read rock books. Just keepin’ busy.

[teamkimsoekjinforever]

11 Questions

I was tagged by the dope af @karenpaage - thanks so much!

Rule 1: Post the rules. Rule 2: Answer the questions the person who tagged you asked, and write 11 new ones. Rule 3: Tag 11 people.

Your Questions

1.  What’s your favorite random fact that you know? Can be any subject you want, just teach me something new! 

Damn, I carry around so many it’s difficult to decide! Ummm, the name Wendy was created for the book Peter Pan. 

Fun fact you probs know but I like people who aren’t readers/lit nerds to know - The Three Brothers Story from HP7 was fucking ripped straight out of The Canterbury tales. It pisses me off to no end.

2.  If you could sit down and have lunch with one fictional character, who would it be and what would you want to talk about? 

Literally the most difficult questions! Probably someone like Elizabeth Bennett because we would have SO MUCH fun just being dicks to stupid guys. Jo from Little Women would definitely have to be with us though... so I’m gonna need like a fancy luncheon party. 

OR Vanessa from Atlanta. She is amazing - so gorgeous and strong and ok with not knowing how everything is gonna turn out and I want to be her best friend.

3.  Above question continued: same scenario, but with one real-life figure, living or dead. Who’d it be? 

Taika Waititi or John Boyega. No explanations needed.

4.  What’s your comfort piece of media? Can be a song, a movie, a show - something that brings you peace and/or that you go back to often. 

Doctor Who is the most comforting show to me, it seriously saved me from my depression countless times and I wouldn’t be alive today without it.

Sing Street is another, the music is just so amazing and it makes me cry in happy ways. Plus it’s my boyfriend’s favorite movie so I always think of the fun we have watching together.

5.  Favorite trope (either in fanfic or in actual writing/film)? 

I don’t read fanfic, otherwise this would be a way more fun answer, so I’d have to say the ‘meddling relative’/’misunderstood situation’. This seems lame but after reading Jane Austin it’s just so much fun! When I really fell in love with these tropes was reading/watching Atonement. What Briony does has such a horrible impact that I am so fascinated by the psychology behind it.

6.  Do you collect anything? If so, tell me about it! 

I collect books, vinyl albums, bluray steelbooks, and comics/graphic novels. I’ve also accumulated a lot of giant pandas over my lifetime because I love them.

7.  What’s one thing you love that people wouldn’t expect you to love? 

Newer pop music. I’ve always been such a music snob (media snob in general) so when I started college in 2011, One Direction just popped onto the US scene and people were astounded that I loved them. Sometimes I just want some fun junk in my earholes.

8.  What’s something you’d love to do but seems kind of ridiculous/out of your realm of possibility at the moment? 

TRAVEL! I am dying to go out of the country! I’d have to get a passport but I would love to see my friend in Sheffield and also go to Wales. I actually have a great job now and no longer living paycheck to paycheck but the fucking rona hit just when I got the job so I’m stuck in Kansas for now.

9.  If you could go on a dream vacation - all expenses paid, wherever you want  - where would you go? 

Tokyo. It is where my boyfriend and I talk about going the most. They have all our anime and cats and mountains, what else do I need!?

10. What’s your favorite/preferred streaming service? 

Hulu cos they got pretty much everything I need. However, HBO Max and Disney + are rising up as they add more content.

11.  Villains or heroes?

This is kind of a cop out, I’m so sorry, but it really depends. I LOVE an anti-hero but I would die for Spider-man (in any universe). Mostly, if it’s superheroes or sci-fi I love the heroes but in other films and books I usually love the villians - whether they are true villains or just assholes - people seem to give more thought to their characters so I always want more. Plus, I always feel I see my own thoughts/feelings paralleled in them.

My questions:

1. Have you ever broken any bones? If so how many and how?

2. What is your favorite cartoon? It can be current or from childhood.

3. If you could live in any fictional world what would it be and why?

4. What is your favorite snack?

5. If you could spend a day with ONE band member/solo artist, living or dead, who would it be?

6. Share your heritage! Do you have any favorite traditions or customs? I’d love to learn!

7. What ‘extreme’ activity would you do if you were given the opportunity?

8. Who are your favorite social activists? Current or dead, it doesn’t matter!

9. What is your favorite article of clothing? Why do you love it?

10. Do you have any unique hobbies? (anything but reading and movies/tv lol)

11. What is your dream job?

I don’t think I know 11 peeps but I’ll tag @kaybakat @blossoming--flower @cryyptic-darling @bradschemicalromance

[hlupdate]

A hand­shake can quell polit­i­cal unrest and sti­fle impend­ing war. It can, with a bit of spit, val­i­date a gentleman’s agree­ment, end a years-long roman­tic rela­tion­ship or send a young heart rac­ing. But it all depends on the two par­ties involved.

Daisy, 21, felt a seis­mic jolt when Har­ry Styles, 25, wear­ing a striped jumper and rings on three of his five fin­gers, clutched her hand two days after this year’s Met Gala in New York, when she served him gela­to at the shop where she worked.

“He decid­ed on a small mint choco­late gela­to and I made his and the one for his friend and I said, ​‘Can I just say I absolute­ly loved your Met Gala look’ and he said ​‘Thank you very much! What’s your name?’ And I said, ​‘Daisy’ AND HE FUCK­ING EXTEND­ED HISHAND AND REACHED TO SHAKE MY HAND AND I ACTU­AL­LY FUCK­INGSHOOK HIS HAND WHAT THE FUCK,” she wrote on Insta­gram after The Shak­en­ing. ​“Like I didn’t even say any­thing to gas him up besides ​‘I loved your met gala look’ and his fine ass went and shook my hand! WHAT A BEAU­TI­FUL FUCK­ING HUMAN BEINGTHAT HE IS GOD BLESS HIM AND I HOPE HW [sic] LIVES FOREVER.”

For Har­ry Styles, a hand­shake can be a roman­tic ges­ture, con­jur­ing a potent rev­er­ence in its recip­i­ent, like the time he met Gucci’s cre­ative direc­tor Alessan­dro Michele. ​“He was as attrac­tive as James Dean and as per­sua­sive as Gre­ta Gar­bo. He was like a Luchi­no Vis­con­ti char­ac­ter, like an Apol­lo: at the same time sexy as a woman, as a kid, as a man,” Michele told me, has­ten­ing to add: ​“Of course, Har­ry is not aware of this.”

No, Styles has no idea the pow­er he wields. In per­son, he’s tow­er­ing, like some­one who is not that much taller but whose rep­u­ta­tion adds four inch­es. Styles has a seda­tive bari­tone, spo­ken in a rum­my north­ern Eng­lish accent, that tum­bles out so slow­ly you for­get the name of your first born, a swag­ger that has been nursed and per­fect­ed in myth­i­cal places with names like Pais­ley Park, or Abbey Road, or Grace­land. Makes com­plete sense that he would be up for the role of Elvis Pres­ley in Baz Luhrmann’s upcom­ing biopic. He was primed, nay, born to shake his hips, all but one but­ton on his shirt cling­ing for dear life around his tor­so. Then the part was award­ed to anoth­er actor, Austin Butler.

“[Elvis] was such an icon for me grow­ing up,” Styles tells me. ​“There was some­thing almost sacred about him, almost like I didn’t want to touch him. Then I end­ed up get­ting into [his life] a bit and I wasn’t dis­ap­point­ed,” he adds of his ini­tial research and prepa­ra­tions to play The King. He seems relaxed about los­ing the part to But­ler. ​“I feel like if I’m not the right per­son for the thing, then it’s best for both of us that I don’t do it, you know?”

Styles released his self-titled debut solo album in May 2017. The boy­band grad was clear­ly unin­ter­est­ed in hol­low­ing out the charts with more for­mu­la­ic meme pop. Instead, to the sur­prise of many, he dug his heels into retro-fetishist West Coast ​’70s rock. Some of the One Direc­tion fan-hordes might have been con­fused, but no mat­ter: Har­ry Styles sold one mil­lion copies.

Despite its com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess, he didn’t tour the album right away. He want­ed to act in the Christo­pher Nolan film Dunkirk. To his cred­it, his por­tray­al of a British sol­dier cow­er­ing in a moored boat on the French beach­es as the Nazis advanced wasn’t skew­ered in the press like the movie debuts of, say, Madon­na or Justin Tim­ber­lake. Per­haps he was fol­low­ing advice giv­en by Elton John, who had urged him to diver­si­fy. ​“He was bril­liant in Dunkirk, which took a lot of peo­ple by sur­prise,” John writes in an email. ​“I love how he takes chances and risks.” Act­ing, unlike music, is a release for Styles; it’s the one time he can be not himself.

“Why do I want to act? It’s so dif­fer­ent to music for me,” he says, sud­den­ly ani­mat­ed. ​“They’re almost oppo­site for me. Music, you try and put so much of your­self into it; act­ing, you’re try­ing to total­ly dis­ap­pear in who­ev­er you’re being.”

Fol­low­ing the news that he missed out on Pres­ley, his name was float­ed for the role of Prince Eric in Disney’s live-action remake of The Lit­tle Mer­maid. How­ev­er, fans will have to wait a bit longer to see Styles on the big screen as that idea, too, has sunk. He won’t be The King or the Prince. ​“It was dis­cussed,” he acknow­ledges before swift­ly chang­ing the sub­ject. ​“I want to put music out and focus on that for a while. But every­one involved in it was amaz­ing, so I think it’s going to be great. I’ll enjoy watch­ing it, I’m sure.”

The new album is wrapped and the sin­gle is decid­ed upon. ​“It’s not like his last album,” his friend, rock ​‘n’ roll leg­end Ste­vie Nicks, told me recent­ly over the phone. ​“It’s not like any­thing One Direc­tion ever did. It’s pure Har­ry, as Har­ry would say. He’s made a very dif­fer­ent record and it’s spectacular.”

Beyond that, Styles is keep­ing his cards close to his chest as to his next musi­cal move. How­ev­er, the air is thick with rumours that his main wing­man for HS2 is Kid Har­poon, aka Tom Hull, who co-wrote debut album track Sweet Crea­ture. No less an author­i­ty than Liam Gal­lagher told us that both big band escapees were in the same stu­dio – RAK in north-west Lon­don – at the same time mak­ing their sec­ond solo albums. Styles played him a cou­ple of tracks, ​“and I tell you what, they’re good,” Gal­lagher enthused. ​“A bit like that Bon Iver. Is that his name?”

Har­ry Styles met Nicks at a Fleet­wood Mac con­cert in Los Ange­les in April 2015. Some­thing about him felt authen­tic to the leg­endary front­woman: ground­ed, like she’d known him for­ev­er, blessed with a win­ning moon­shot grin. A month lat­er, they met back­stage at anoth­er Mac gig, this time at the O2 in Lon­don. Styles brought a car­rot cake for Nicks’ birth­day, her name piped in icing on top. By her own admis­sion, Nicks doesn’t even cel­e­brate birth­days, so this was a sur­prise. ​“He was per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for me actu­al­ly hav­ing to cel­e­brate my birth­day, which was very sweet,” she says.

Styles’ rela­tion­ship with Nicks is hard to define. Induct­ing her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York as a solo artist ear­li­er this year, his speech hymned her as a ​“mag­i­cal gyp­sy god­moth­er who occu­pies the in-between”. She’s called him her ​“lovechild” with Mick Fleet­wood and the ​“son I nev­er had”. Both have moved past the pre­lim­i­nary chat acknowl­edg­ing each other’s unquan­tifi­able tal­ents and smooth­ly accel­er­at­ed towards play­ful cut-and-thrust ban­ter of a witch mom and her naughty child.

They per­form togeth­er – he sings The Chainand Stop Drag­gin’ My Heart Around; she sings the one alleged­ly writ­ten about Tay­lor Swift, Two Ghosts. One of those per­for­mances was at the Guc­ci Cruise after­par­ty in Rome in May, for ​“a lot of mon­ey”, Nicks tells me, in a ​“big kind of cas­tle place”. She has become his de fac­to men­tor – one phone call is all it takes to reach the Queen of Rock’n’Roll for advice on sequenc­ing (“She is real­ly good at track list­ing,” Styles admits) or just to hear each other’s voic­es… because, well, wouldn’t you?

Fol­low­ing anoth­er Fleet­wood Mac con­cert, at London’s Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, in June, Nicks met Styles for a late (Indi­an) din­ner. He then invit­ed her back to his semi-detached Geor­gian man­sion in north Lon­don for a lis­ten­ing par­ty at mid­night. The album – HS2or what­ev­er it’ll be called – was fin­ished. Nicks, her assis­tant Karen, her make-up artist and her friends Jess and Mary crammed onto Styles’ liv­ing-room couch. They lis­tened to it once through in silence like a ​“bunch of edu­cat­ed monks or some­thing in this dark room”. Then once again, 15 or 16 tracks, this time each of his guests offer­ing live feed­back. It wrapped at 5am, just as the sun was bleed­ing through the curtains.

Even for a pop star of Styles’ stature, press­ing ​“play” on a deeply per­son­al work for your hero to digest, watch­ing her face react in real time to your new music, must be… what?

“It’s a dou­ble-edged thing,” he replies. ​“You’re always ner­vous when you are play­ing peo­ple music for the first time. You’ve heard it so much by this point, you for­get that peo­ple haven’t heard it before. It’s hard to not feel like you’ve done what you’ve set out to do. You are hap­py with some­thing and then some­one who you respect so much and look up to is, like: ​‘I real­ly like this.’ It feels like a large stamp [of approval]. It’s a big step towards feel­ing very com­fort­able with what­ev­er else hap­pens to it.”

Wad­ing through Styles’ back­ground info is exhaust­ing, since he was spanked by fame in the social media era where every god­dam blink of a kohl-rimmed eye has been doc­u­ment­ed from six angles. (And yes, he does some­times wear guyliner.)

Deep breath: born in Red­ditch, Worces­ter­shire, to par­ents Des and Anne, who divorced when he was sev­en. Grew up in Holmes Chapel in Cheshire with his sis­ter Gem­ma, mum and step­dad Robin Twist. Rode hors­es at a near­by sta­ble for free (“I was a bad rid­er, but I was a rid­er”). Stopped rid­ing, ​“got into dif­fer­ent stuff”. Formed a band, White Eski­mo, with school­mates. Aged 16, tried out for the 2010 run of The X Fac­torwith a stir­ring but aver­age ren­di­tion of Ste­vie Wonder’s Isn’t She Love­ly. Cut from the show and put into a boy band with four oth­ers, Louis Tom­lin­son, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, and called One Direc­tion. Became inter­na­tion­al­ly famous, toured the globe. Zayn quit to go solo. Toured some more. Dat­ed but maybe didn’t date Car­o­line Flack, Rita Ora and Tay­lor Swift – whom he report­ed­ly dumped in the British Vir­gin Islands. (This rela­tion­ship, if noth­ing else, yield­ed an icon­ic, can­did shot of Swift look­ing deject­ed, being motored back to shore on the back of a boat called the Fly­ing Ray.) One Direc­tion dis­cussed dis­band­ing in 2014, actu­al­ly dis­solved in 2015. They remain friend­ly, and Styles offi­cial­ly went solo in 2016.

It’s been two years since his epony­mous debut and lead sin­gle, Sign of the Times, shocked the world and Elton John with its swag­ger­ing, soft rock sound. ​“It came out of left field and I loved it,” John says.

After 89 are­na-packed shows across five con­ti­nents grossed him, the label, whomev­er, over $61 mil­lion, Styles had all but dis­ap­peared. He has emerged only inter­mit­tent­ly for pub­lic-fac­ing events – a Guc­ci after­par­ty per­for­mance here, a Met Gala co-chair­ing there. He relo­cat­ed from Los Ange­les back to Lon­don, sell­ing his Hol­ly­wood Hills house for $6mil­lion and ship­ping his Jaguar E-type across the Atlantic so he could take joyrides on the M25.

“I’m not over LA,” he insists when I ask about the move. ​“My rela­tion­ship with LAchanged a lot. What I want­ed from LA changed.”

A great escape, he would agree, is some­times nec­es­sary. He was in Tokyo for most of Jan­u­ary, hav­ing near­ly fin­ished his album. ​“I need­ed time to get out of that album frame-of-mind of: ​‘Is it fin­ished? Where am I at? What’s hap­pen­ing?’ I real­ly need­ed that time away from every­one. I was kind of just in Tokyo by myself.” His sab­bat­i­cal most­ly involved read­ing Haru­ki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle, singing Nir­vana at karaoke, writ­ing alone in his hotel room, lis­ten­ing to music and eaves­drop­ping on strangers in alien con­ver­sa­tion. ​“It was just a pos­i­tive time for my head and I think that impact­ed the album in a big way.”

Dur­ing this break he watched a lot of films, read a lot of books. Some­times he texts these rec­om­men­da­tions to his pal Michele at Guc­ci. He told Michele to watch the Ali Mac­graw film, Love Sto­ry. ​“We text what friends text about. He is the same [as me] in terms of he lives in his own world and he does his own thing. I love dress­ing up and he loves dress­ing up.”

Because he loves dress­ing up, Michele chose Styles to be the face of three Guc­ci Tai­lor­ing cam­paigns and of its new gen­der­less fra­grance, Mémoire d’une Odeur.

“The moment I met him, I imme­di­ate­ly under­stood there was some­thing strong around him,” Michele tells me. ​“I realised he was much more than a young singer. He was a young man, dressed in a thought­ful way, with uncombed hair and a beau­ti­ful voice. I thought he gath­ered with­in him­self the fem­i­nine and the masculine.”

Fash­ion, for Styles, is a play­ground. Some­thing he doesn’t take too seri­ous­ly. A cou­ple of years ago Har­ry Lam­bert, his styl­ist since 2015, acquired for him a pair of pink metal­lic Saint Lau­rent boots that he has nev­er been pho­tographed wear­ing. They are exceed­ing­ly rare – few pairs exist. Styles wears them ​“to get milk”. They are, in his words, ​“super-fun”. He’s not sure, but he has, ball­park, 50 pairs of shoes, as well as full clos­ets in at least three post­codes. He set­tles on an out­fit fair­ly quick­ly, maybe changes his T-shirt once before head­ing out, but most­ly knows what he likes.

What he may not ful­ly com­pre­hend is that sim­ply by being pho­tographed in a gar­ment he can spur the career of a design­er, as he has with Har­ris Reed, Palo­mo Spain, Charles Jef­frey, Alled-Martínez and a new favourite, Bode. Styles wore a SS16 Guc­ci flo­ral suit to the 2015 Amer­i­can Music Awards. When he was asked who made his suit on the red car­pet, Guc­ci began trend­ing world­wide on Twitter.

“It was one of the first times a male wore Alessandro’s run­way designs and, at the time, men were not tak­ing too many red car­pet risks,” says Lam­bert. ​“Who knows if it influ­enced oth­ers, but it was a spe­cial moment. Plus, it was fun see­ing the fans dress up in suits to come see Harry’s shows.”

Yet tra­di­tion­al gen­der codes of dress still have the minds of mid­dle Amer­i­ca in a choke­hold. Men can’t wear women’s clothes, say the online whingers, who have labelled him ​“trag­ic”, ​“a clown” and a Bowie wannabe. Styles doesn’t care. ​“What’s fem­i­nine and what’s mas­cu­line, what men are wear­ing and what women are wear­ing – it’s like there are no lines any more.”

Elton John agrees: ​“It worked for Marc Bolan, Bowie and Mick. Har­ry has the same qualities.”

Then there is the ques­tion of Styles’ sex­u­al­i­ty, some­thing he has admit­ted­ly ​“nev­er real­ly start­ed to label”, which will plague him until he does. Per­haps it’s part of his allure. He’s bran­dished a pride flag that read ​“Make Amer­i­ca Gay Again” on stage, and plant­ed a stake some­where left of cen­tre on sexuality’s rain­bow spectrum.

“In the posi­tion that he’s in, he can’t real­ly say a lot, but he chose a queer girl band to open for him and I think that speaks vol­umes,” Josette Maskin of the queer band MUNA told The Face ear­li­er this year.

“I get a lot of…” Styles trails off, wheels turn­ing on how he can dis­cuss sex­u­al­i­ty with­out real­ly answer­ing. ​“I’m not always super-out­spo­ken. But I think it’s very clear from choic­es that I make that I feel a cer­tain way about lots of things. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess I’m not…” He paus­es again, piv­ots. ​“I want every­one to feel wel­come at shows and online. They want to be loved and equal, you know? I’m nev­er unsup­port­ed, so it feels weird for me to over­think it for some­one else.”

Sex­u­al­i­ty aside, he must acknowl­edge that he has sex appeal. ​“The word ​‘sexy’ sounds so strange com­ing out of my mouth. So I would say that that’s prob­a­bly why I would not con­sid­er myself sexy.”

Har­ry Styles has emerged ful­ly-formed, an anachro­nis­tic rock star, vague in sen­si­bil­i­ty but des­tined to impress with a dis­arm­ing smile and a warm but firm handshake.

I recite to him a quote from Chrissie Hyn­de of The Pre­tenders about her time atop rock’s throne: ​“I nev­er got into this for the mon­ey or because I want­ed to join in the super­star sex around the swim­ming pools. I did it because the offer of a record con­tract came along and it seemed like it might be more fun than being a wait­ress. Now, I’m not so sure.”

Styles – who worked in a bak­ery in a small north­ern town some time before play­ing to 40,000 scream­ing fans in South Amer­i­can are­nas – must have wit­nessed some shit, been invit­ed to a few pool­side sex par­ties, in his time.

“I’ve seen a cou­ple of things,” he nods in agree­ment. ​“But I’m still young. I feel like there’s still stuff to see.”