The Cockettes Paper Doll Book, 1971
Just a bit of a mega thing one of my favourite London bookshops is doing in the run up to Christmas – they have decided to post a selection of their favourite books on their Facebook and website. From an eclectic mix of recent publications, perennial Donlon Books favourites and other harder to find titles. Basically its a joyous way of seeing some lovely hand picked publications, take a flick then head into store and pick them up. They start with a high bar – The 1971 gay classic ‘The Cockettes Paper Doll Book’ with Art work by John Flowers and photography by Clay Geerdes its a personal favourite pop memoir of the gay and trans scene of 70′s San Francisco.
Clash Double Issue Sepcial: Bobby Womack x King Krule
Ok, So as the autumn start to approach earlier this year we started to roll around the idea of doing essentially an ‘annual’ of an issue, 2 months combined into one, but double the thickness, with duel covers, one being our ‘Artist / Album of 2012′ and the other being our ‘Artist to watch in 2013′ – ‘Experience vs. Youth’ was the loosely coined term. We then spent the next few months building a mega double issue (a rounded view of music, from Mykki Blanco to Bryan Ferry, johnny Marr to Pure Love, Senegalese political rap to 2012 being the year of Homo hip hop), duel paper stocks, duel cover shoots, double sized fashion sections, double the amount of stories, not to mention office fights over the order in which our top 40 should run – we’re VERY pleased with the results as a truly rounded vision of music in 2012, with our number one artist being the legend that is Bobby Womack, a man who blew me away with his warm heart, words and mind blowing stories, reminiscing on everything from being on the road in the 60′s to his close friendship with Jimi Hendrix – truly inspired. Plus the fact that he travels with a Barack Obama official look alike is simply one of the best things I’ve ever seen. On top of that, for a Creative Director to be told by an Artist and living legend: “you tell me how you want this to look and I’ll do it, I can tell you get me and I trust your vision…” is, as I’m sure you can imagine VERY rare.
Our Artist to watch for 2013 is the amazing sounding (and looking) King Krule, formally Zoo Kid. The Elusive young artist is set to explode in 2013 and after a lot of searching we finally tied him down for his first EVER photoshoot (other than being shot going onto and coming of of stage, he has refused everything upto this point) – I can be hope we did him justice in a mixture of Ralph, BBC, Supreme and Raf Archives, we think, he looks pretty damn cool.
Both covers were shot by amazing young photographer Rory Van Millingen, who I have been working with and championing for the last year. I would like to think this is something we are really able to do at the magazine – find amazing young talent and give them the exposure they truly deserve as hard working young image shapers of the future.
COVER 1.
Clash Magazine x Bobby Womack
Creative Direction Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio
Photography by Rory Van Millingen
Fashion by Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio
In the same year he face death head-on, the sixty-year soul veteran Bobby Womack returned to the fray with his most experimental album yet. Clash met the living legend to discuss innovation, cancer and Sam Cooke, plus we speak to the architects of his renaissance, Damon Albarn and Richard Russell.
COVER 2.
Clash Magazine x King Krule
Creative Direction Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio
Photography by Rory Van Millingen
Fashion by Jayson Hindley
Finally pinning down the elusive, almost-uncategorisable young talent – who’s as likely to be at a Rinse FM bass gig as he is alone on stage baring his bruised heart – Clash presents the royal choice of next year’s emerging artists: eighteen-year-old enigma, King Krule.
Clash Issue 81, January/February 2012
Out Friday 6th December 2012
Pin-Up Magazine
I just wanted a bit of a moment to coo over Pin Up. A magazine I found in its first issue in NYC early in 2007, its just one of those ones that breaks all the rules, in all the right ways. The first 4/5 issues were one of those things that I loved having to look SO hard to find it, then in the last few years its everywhere, but for me, as with alot of magazines, with greater sales and exposure comes a slightly more commercial slant, so its those early issues I truly treasure the most, back when it was balls out to set a new tone and do something that had never been done before. Dont get me wrong, I still love it, and I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t. check out the latest and earlier issues, here:
http://pinupmagazine.org/
oh, and this is the official ‘About’ for the magazine:
PIN–UP is a magazine that captures an architectural spirit, rather than focusing on technical details of design, by featuring interviews with architects, designers, and artists, and presenting work as an informal work in progress – a fun assembly of ideas, stories and conversations, all paired with cutting-edge photography and artwork. Both raw and glossy, the magazine is a nimble mix of genres and themes, finding inspiration in the high and the low by casting a refreshingly playful eye on rare architectural gems, amazing interiors, smart design, and that fascinating area where those areas connect with contemporary art. In short, PIN–UP is pure architectural entertainment!
The Weeknd Private LDN Show
Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to a private show for the Weeknd in west London while he was in town doing bits of promo for Radio1 and Jools Holland. The show was pretty intimate, with about 300 guests, ranging from press to ‘mega fans’ who had entered a lottery on the Weeknd website. It was an amazing set, super chilled, pared down, and man, that voice… like butter.
NAS X CLASH MAGAZINE
At the end of the summer I got a pretty mind blowing email offering me the Hip Hop legend Nas for a cover shoot for Clash (you may have seen my backstage preview pictures back in August), I couldn’t have been any happier – although we cover and have covered some of the greatest young hip hop talent out there – from A$AP to Iggy, I still felt, for my own musical tastes, I was missing ‘a legend’, well, here he is – Nasir Jones. Shot in August when he was in town for a few gigs, he was everything I expected him to be – Cool, calm, almost understated – arriving in a an Ad Lee, with only his manager and one bodyguard (understated minus the outrageous yellow gold, white gold and diamond encrusted Rolex on his wrist, and the continual texts from Kelis throughout the day), stereotypically NY on arrival – slightly guarded and aware, but when he realised all we wanted to do was create amazing imagery of him, he relaxed into his persona of one of the greatest living hip hop artists alive.
The cover is also our very first Augmented reality cover (meaning the real covers will actually ‘come to life’ when a certain App camera is pointed at it – its amazing). That AR element will be released when the issue itself releases on Friday – but I will post separately about how the Augmented Reality process has literally blown my mind / the potential for the future of editorial and new media design.
Creative Direction Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio
Photography by Hayley Louisa Brown
Fashion by Charlie Casely-Hayford
‘FROM ‘LIFE’S A BITCH’ TO ‘LIFE IS GOOD’, NAS’ EIGHTEEN-YEAR CAREER HAS COME FULL CIRCLE AND NEW YORK’S POSTER BOY FOR HIP-HOP CONTINUES TO MAKE HISTORY AS HE TALKS TO CLASH ABOUT HIS HOME TOWN, HIS HERITAGE, AND THE PASSIONS THAT CONTINUE TO DRIVE HIM.’
Clash Issue 80, December 2012
Out Friday 5th November 2012
Halloween 2012
I dont really know what to say about me and halloween, since the age of about 10, I was totally obsessed by it, it probably had something to do with the fact that for one night, you could be whatever you wanted it to be and blame it on ‘All Hallows’ and for a weird ass kid growing up in the Northern country side, believe me, it was a night to look forward to. Ever since then, there has just been something very special for it in my heart, plus the fact that it falls a few days after my birthday means I can always justify spending the weekend partying my ass off. This year was no exception, Friday night with all my boiz hipster skeletons all over Dalston. And Saturday night, well, in the fashion world, in East London, there’s nothing else to do other than ‘Tinaz’ at Metropolis – The RADDEST Halloween party. This year was no exception, with the theme being ‘Stars In Their Creepy Eyes’, and jeez, did everyone go for it – From Die Antwoord to Annie Lennox, Rita Ora to Xtina, Janet Jackson to Bjork, Elton John to Anastasia and my own look, Madonna Frozen – It was an incredible night, with some incredible looks. See just a sample of my disposables from the night below…
My Week With Rocky
This weekend I was uploading 6 months worth of iPhone pictures to my Mac when I stubbled across a block of photos from a very bizarre week I spent with A$AP Rocky when he was in the UK earlier this year. His management are really down with what we’re doing at the magazine, so were very keen for us to shoot him for a cover (which we did with amazing photographic Artist Matthew Stone – I’m sure you’ll have seen the 5million+ retumbled images across the internet / bootleg Tshirts of the prints knocking around ebay), then obviously throughout his week here he did various gigs / interviews etc, which I was pretty lucky to kind of just be around for, I dunno, I think its quite a nice set of images, of someone who’s really mixing up the game, and over all of someone who’s just a really cool guy. There’s only a few years between us, and we’re into pretty similar shit, so we got on pretty well, from knocking back whiskey and Nandos together to him playing samples of the new album, chatting about old music / new music, his hair (he has quite a thing for it), his favourite brands, new and established (it seems he’s got quite a thing for Shaun Samson’s stuff – full look shot for the magazine) and even chats about how him and Lana are chatting about swapping up houses with each other cos he loves the vibe of the UK so much, right down to me ripping him for having Clear nail varnish put on for our cover shoot, LOL. I hope you enjoy a few of the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking / experiencing them…
Talc Magazine
I’ve been allowed to do a bit of a rad preview here, basically one of my best mates is the HELLA talented Art Director behind young British Design Agency ‘Vince & Son’ and for the last few months he has been building the concept of a new soft core ‘porn’ magazine ‘Talc’, all I can say is this – its genius, as is he. Talc features some amazing young contributors from super talented photogs to rad young artists alongside an awesome witty and sharp editorial line.
Over brunch a few weekends ago, he asked me if I’d be interested in concepting a shoot and doing something for it, of course I obliged and within 72 hours we were shooting the most amazing ‘History of Rolex’ story with one of my favourite young photogs at the minute Rory van Millingen. thats kinda all I can say for now, other than dropping the branding, and a backstage shot from the shoot I Art Directed for the first issue. I’ll leave the rest to him for when it releases next month, but remember this, you heard it here first…
The XX for Clash Magazine
Firstly, and apology for being crap and not posting on here for the last month – Fashion week and then a few fantastic new projects kind of got in the way of my social networking / online presence – more to be revealed in the next month or so.
OK, onto the fun bit – The exclusive release of the new Clash cover with the amazing return of the XX, we shot them last month just before the band disappeared on promo to the US, it was a fantastic day, and the band were super pleased with our weird, slightly off beat imagery – we decided a band like the XX can’t be shot like most cover stars ‘straight up, clean head shots with eyes to camera’ – its just not an honest representation of who the band are, and doesn’t in the slightest represent the quiet power they hold within their genre.
The cover and AMazing internal story (I will will release more of them once the issue releases on Friday) was shot by young London based photography Devin Blair, who is creating quite a stir with his slightly voyeuristic, powerful yet evocative imagery – a perfect visual match to Romy, Oliver and Jamie’s beautiful sound.
Clash Magazine Creative Direction: Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio
Photography: Devin Blair
Styling: John Colver
Issue hits shelves this Friday, the 5th of October.
IGGY AZALEA X CLASH MAGAZINE
Its time for my monthly Clash magazine exclusive for the Breaks, which hits shelves later this week…
The new issue is the second biannual special issue of 2012, timed to coincide with the international Fashion Weeks and is once again another perfect marriage of music and fashion.
Possessing both the face of an angel and the mouth of a sailor, Clash’s latest cover artist Iggy Azalea is a walking hip-hop paradox. The rising star is something of an anomaly – Fleeing her homeland of Australia to live out the American dream, the feisty artist claims A$AP Rocky and TI as ‘close friends’. Clash look past the peroxide ponytail and finds out what Iggy really thinks about her on-mic persona, womens role in Hip-Hop and her lack of interest over the enduring war of with words with her (almost) namesake and starlet competition, Azealia Banks.
Clash took time out with Iggy in New York releasing the brilliant talent that is photographer Arno Frugier (W magazine, Interview, i-D, Vogue Homme Japan, Vogue Paris) to capture Iggy as she has never been seen before…
Clash Magazine Creative Direction: Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio
Photography: Arno Frugier
Styling: Delphine Danhier
Issue hits shelves this Friday, the 7th of September.
