Beastie Boys
No Sleep Since Brooklyn Originally published in the Stool Pigeon, photography by Spencer Murphy As Beastie Boys videos go, it’s an understated affair. Adams Yauch and Horovitz – MCA and Ad-Rock respectively – are seated in front of a large mixing desk. Yauch wears a red collared shirt and does most of the talking; a...
Female Bodybuilding
Girl Power Originally published in the Sunday Telegraph, photography by Spencer Murphy We’ve been speaking barely ten minutes when Sarah Bridges shifts her enormous upper body in the dollhouse dimensions of her chair and clocks a young man, kit bag in hand, framed in the doorway of the Dartford pub she runs with her husband...
Congregation
Congregation Originally published in Quart, photography by Edgar Martins I had no idea how they had arrived, or how long they had been there, but they ranged around that icy plain in pairs and small parties, the snow-shrouded mountains rising dramatically on all sides. Some carried drinks, though I saw no waiters in attendance; some...
Kode9 & The Spaceape
Operational Bass Originally published in the Stool Pigeon There’s an uneasy moment following my interview with Kode9 and the Spaceape when I realise I’ve left my dictaphone running on the mixing desk of the former’s south London studio. I return to his front door to find him standing there grinning, said apparatus in hand. “I...
Private Space Flight
Fly Me To The Moon Originally published in Little White Lies In June 2011 the Economist ran a headline that it claimed summed up a sense of international despair. ‘The End Of The Space Age’ was a withering obituary on what it saw as the mortified remains of space exploration: the space shuttle, which would...
Forced Marriage
Runaway Brides Originally published in the Sunday Telegraph, photography by Spencer Murphy It’s no accident that the Stonham women’s refuge in Slough is a non-descript house on a non-descript street. Even inside the untrained eye struggles to pick out the signs: a coin-operated washer-dryer in the laundry; an Islamic prayer finder pinned to the corkboard...
Book Review: Mark Kermode
The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex by Mark Kermode Originally published in the Navidson Record I once almost got into a punch-up at a press screening. I’d turned up less than a minute into the Mexican football comedy Rudo y Cursi and been pushed by a panicky usher into the diminutive theatre, which was...
Twin Peaks
Who Killed Twin Peaks? Originally published in Little White Lies For legions of Lynch fans worldwide, the events unravelling in the logging town of Twin Peaks are only ever partly as interesting as those reputed to have taken place behind the camera, most of which centre on the unconventional methods of the show’s renegade director....
Kuedo
Back To The Future Originally published in the Stool Pigeon There comes a point in any first airing of Kuedo’s debut Severant when the word ‘different’ becomes an inevitable descriptive crutch. Not different in the way you might condescendingly flatter your housemate’s curry omelettes, but different in the way literature students might refer to dislocated...
DJ Shadow: The Less You Know The Better
The Entertainer Originally published in the Stool Pigeon As first Glastonburys go, DJ Shadow’s appearance at Worthy Farm last month didn’t have the most auspicious build up. Not only was he performing at a John Peel stage ankle deep in the worst kind of slop – not only did his headline slot coincide with Friday...
Surfing In Bangladesh
Breaking Bangladesh Originally published in Huck At 4pm on my second day in Bangladesh I wake from a jet-lag slumber in a paint-peeling, fly-infested hotel room in Cox’s Bazar. I flip on export strength Indian MTV as I dress, marvelling at its garish adoption of western norms – the ads for skin-lightening creams, the reality...
Kiteboarding In Egypt
Riders On The Red Sea Originally published in Time Out There’s something appropriate about our kiteboarding instructor’s nickname being Goose. It’s more than a mere facial resemblance – his beady eyes and broom moustache certainly recall Maverick’s dapper but ultimately doomed wingman in Top Gun, but it’s the tongue-in-cheek way he runs his watersports centre...