Billie JD

bat caves

2009-11-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

KAP BAMBINO FOREVER

spooky

2009-11-04T03:42:00.000-08:00

I'm a serious writer

2009-11-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

Did I mention

2009-10-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Meduse?

I think its going to be a huge look this winter...

Maybe I'll rock this for Halloween

YOUTH CULTURE

2009-10-19T04:10:00.000-07:00

My favourite photo ever

Fingers, pulses and loops..

2009-09-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

HEY GUYS!

Do you think I'm full of hate or just honest? I heard that ROMANCE played a show the other day - how is this band getting gigs? I'm also seeing GIRLS getting 9/10 reviews left, right and centre - people are really going crazy for some less than mediocre shit now.

I'm often pigeon holed as a mean for mean's sake writer, which I am to a certain extent, but I think ultimately the majority of new music I'm hearing recently just isn't cutting it. Our standards are really fucking low, especially in this city. Basically if you make sure the name of your band is written in capital letters, then you're sure to drum up a lot of attention. Anyway, I'm starting a weekly post on the NME Radar blog in order to try and prove myself wrong, lets see how that goes..

On a lighter note, here's a video of me and Jamie Taete combing through Henry Holland's trash pre-fashion week. I sent him a message asking if I could be his muse, but he ignored me.

and some mixed snaps from fashion week.. enjoy

Next week Paris.

L for Loser

2009-09-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Next I'll get H for hepatitis

Sashay. Shante.

2009-09-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

Click to read more:

--

Fashion week is an overrated pile of crap, I'm not going to lie.

Here are some pictures from the O Children single launch. The O Children album is one of the best things I have heard all year, and apparently the best stuff is yet to come. I want a cover of a Girls Aloud song.

The end of that night got messy, there was dancing to She Wolf and literal kicking of ass

I was going to join in but I don't think I have the right hair colour.

A dazed encounter with Graham Coxon..

I love this photo:

After fashion week I'm returning to a heavy dance training program that me and Kylie started the other week. We're doing a blog series about our attempts to reinact this routine - why do I keep humiliating myself for Vice?

Here's a teaser

PHASHON!

Standing in the way of a troll

2009-09-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

I'm opening a restaurant with Nathan Gossip.

you stole my preciousness! my sweetness has been stolen by yr disgusting hot rod!

birthdaysex

2009-09-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

Fashion Week already. This year is flying by. Reading / Leeds festivities..

Who's the first person I bump into at Reading?

Niyi, holding a packet of Rowntrees Randoms, how appt.

This is Niyi telling the checkout woman off because she hadn't heard his single 'Poached Eggs'.

Virgins..

Me and Capper hung with Black Lips, ate a lot of fruit..

Next day off to Leeds in Virgins' bus.. where the walls echo quotes from The Patriot and the deleted scenes of 40 Year Old Virgin

Peaches tried out a new look at Leeds, I think it works. She also lost both her legs in a car accident

Wade was also trend-setting in these thigh-high socks with a fetching LIPS print

The Horrors..

The Horrific..

Black Lips had a crazy stage invasion at Leeds, security started bullying Cole

I think Nick and Ian are discussing how hard being in a band is here.

Went to go and see my big bros The Invisible

LOVE U

G'BYE LEEDS

Interviews are coming shortly...

Charlie Le Mindu did my hair for Super Super's Channel 4 thing, its pretty funny. Actually its very funny.

To those of you braving LFW good luck .. I have to go get accredited in exactly 9 hours. Ahhhh

eat you up

2009-09-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

Tas thew Ed Banger a 6 1/2 birthday aaaaaaages ago, here are some long overdue photos that I took pre-waking up face down on the pavement:

TAS LOVES ELECTRO

Pedro causing some serious fire hazards

It wasn't me

R.I.P yardy shoes

This is Kyle Ross, my favourite photographer

And Jane from Because. Why so grumpy, Jane?

SebastiAn's good side:

I think this is Pedro telling people to play nice

By Gaspard's expression I'm pretty sure this is post realization that he'd just spent £50 on a gram of horse tranquilizer. I don't know how he DJ'd... or why I'm still alive. Lick them lips, everything will be okay.

Next post is Reading and Leeds and some interviews with bands about drugs. Wow, this blog is becoming so drugs-centric.

Blog Hiatus

2009-09-04T07:57:00.001-07:00

is almost over.

I've been busy trying to find somewhere to live and building a pile of cameras to get processed.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

2009-07-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

Me and Jamie covered Rankin Live a while ago. You can read our piece on the life altering experience below

The exhibition starts tomorrow at the Truman Brewery.

Here are a coupla radar pieces I did for NME magazine. I don't have a scanner, nor do I know how to reverse images on a mac, so just work with the fragments ..

Mike Bones... Katie Stelmanis...

Well, wow:

Datarock niplets

These are from an acoustic session a few weeks ago, it sounded really bizarre

I'm still ill. All I've done all day is fax some photos of my insides to my GP. Help me, help me, I need a remedy

cough sniff

2009-07-25T02:50:00.000-07:00

I'm super ill.

I think someone has to examine my asshole on Monday.

The Pagan and the Doll

2009-07-08T04:49:00.000-07:00

Strong look. I interviewed The Soundtrack of our Lives:

I also caught up with a sucky band from San Fran recently called GIRLS. They were saying things like, 'my guitar is out of tune because of the heat from the spotlight' during their sound check. Here they are in a sex shop:

And here's our interview:

Go buy the new Kap Bambino album. Its called Blacklist.
These are from the launch party:

Do you like my ring?

I gots no lips

#WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

Everyday I'm bombin'

2009-06-25T08:02:00.001-07:00

not

Lights Out

2009-05-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here's my interview with The Virgins THE WAY IT HAPPENED

One of the first memories that Donald Cumming and Nick Zarin Ackerman have of hanging out together is watching an Italian porno together at Donald's apartment.

Donald: It was by Mario Salieri. He makes films about nuns, this one was called Monica Roccaforte - she has sex with all the priests in her convent. Its really good.
Nick: I found my old mobile phone the other day, the one i used when I first met Don. 'Monica Roccaforte', is the first item in my notes section.

The Virgins met through friends in New York City, and formed when lead singer Donald Cumming produced a demo and decided he wanted to make a band.

'That was before the war', Nick explains. 'We were all, 'lets make a band', then the war went and happened, so, y'know, everything shifted gears.'

Wade: Iraq's freedom? Whatever.

Nick: All the guitar factories started making guns... there was a period where we mostly played with copper instruments. We lived through that. Then the war ended, so that was, what, sixty years ago? Joking. I'm actually thirty-two though.

Surprisingly, the band have never been questioned about their 'first time', so revelled in recounting the uncomfortable details.

Donald: I was listening to The War Report by Capone-N-Noreaga. She made the first move, 'cause I was too shy. I basically went home with this girl who was A LOT older than me, and we sort of just sat around in her living room not doing anything till I fell asleep. I woke up, and it was getting light. She just said to me, 'Dude, do you want this to happen or not?' She knew I was a virgin, so she pretty much took the driving seat.

Nick: I had a girlfriend who was in the grade below me at school, who didn't want to lose her virginity too early. She was fifteen when we started dating, and I had to wait a year before having sex with her.

Bit of an anti climax?

Nick: Yeah, mainly because I had never taken the initiative to fuck around with a condom before to see what its like. I had to put on more than one, for just one sex time.

Wade: Well... I was watching the Michael Jackson exposé. You know that thing where that guy asked him all those questions and they find out all this crazy shit? Bit of a mood killer. We were also in her basement that was her younger brothers playroom, filled with loads of kids' toys. It kind of fucked with my life, the fact I was looking at Michael Jackson when I lost my virginity.

One of Nick's main motivations for becoming a musician was what sounds like an NYC equivalent of All Age Concerts... only held at high schools.

Nick: They were held in the gyms. It was bands from a few different schools all on the same bill, then the pupils from all of them would come and smoke cigarettes and drink beer. It really made me want to be in a band. I went to see that when I was turning thirteen, and you know, becoming angry. Seeing older guys and girls walking around with their boobs hangin' out was crazy exciting.

Donald, however, spent more of his teenagehood making novelty horror videos to David Bowie songs.

Donald: When I was fourteen my mom made us move to Florida and I was hugely upset by it. But when I got there, I found some of the weirdest and best people I've ever met in my life. I had two best friends at my school; one was a guy who grew up in Compton but was transported to Florida, and the other came from a family of body builders. The three of us would hang out all the time, cutting up the murder scenes from horror movies then putting them to funny songs. We smoked a lot of pot...

The Virgins are currently touring Europe, before a five week run in America in May.

THE VIRGINS TOP 5 WEBSITES

1. www.fmylife.com

2. www.garfieldminusgarfield.net

3. www.5ives.com

4. www.tvwade.com

5. www.scanwich.com

Here is my interview with The Virgins courtesy of Platform, with a super cool euphomism for sex and not much else.

Kap Bambino filmed their video for Dead Lazers the other week, it summoned loads of French head-band lovers

Orion and I wondering why more people weren't rocking the bed-head look

We were shooting until 6am and all the sleep deprivation really got me in the mood to climb Mulan style

Here it is

Click this picture of me and Mike Bones experimenting with role reversal to read our interview for Vice:

adieu

Half Full Glass of Wine

2009-04-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

This is Tame Impala at the park, frogs EVERYWHERE

meow

On the way to my favourite café

Heaven

'WTF IS SHE WEARING?!'

Back at The Lexington...

Pip was there, spreading Modular love

My Jester hat did the rounds that night

I turn into a toad prostitute at midnight

Click here for Tame Impala interview

Kap Bambino album is about the same length as their live set, but still GOOD

Mindless Self Indulgence

2009-03-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

Do you like my outfit? Its vintage. Me and my friend Fraz did one night in Paris. So over London, theriously.

Victor threw another underage party with Uffie

Everyone was all, 'I am so psyched to watch someone speak three songs over a backing track' :

And I was all, 'I'm so above this, sigh' :

Air DJing

D:

We moved onto the Jeremy Scott after party at Le Regine. Paris' Fashion Week seems a lot more fun than London's.

Fraz abandoned me to pap Kanye 'Desperate Dan' West

Cow pie munchin' douchebag.

eat

sleep

gurn

eat gurn

Home of the Brave

2009-03-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

Click to read Black Lips interview:

Bloop:

Some deep chats with Afrika Bambaataa:

This is a teaser for a photo set of The Virgins being awkward in a lift. Here we are being awkward on a roof.

French Invasion

2009-02-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

The boys from Paris came to DJ the Platform party

SUP WITH MY EYES

HAHA

I interviewed Black Lips

I covered some of London Fashion Week for Vice, click below to read my parties round-up

And here for my half-written William Tempest piece

Funny story (not really): A while ago I was asked to go and interview the cast of Skins before series 3. I ended up signing someone's titties and and convincing the lead male that, 'bi-gay' was a sexuality. So, unfortunately, Channel 4 insisted we completely neuter the video, so now its thoroughly unfunny and dull. Enjoy:

horny horne

2009-02-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

Click to read my interview with Mathew Horne

'Internet vitriol and me'

2009-02-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

- The name of my new book, hitting shelves Summer 2010.

Click to read my OMG CRINGE Vice blog

All the dudes at Vice look like something from the Don'ts section

2009-02-03T13:03:00.001-08:00

Click to read

dollop

2009-01-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

A while ago the company I work for moved from a warm basement in Old Street to a warehouse on Kingsland road. The woman who owns it cancelled the party license because someone stole her dildo.

We're slowly making our new offices less povo. When we first got chucked from the Vice it was fingerless gloves and hot water bottles all round. Kinda bummed out about having to work next door to Peruvian artists instead of funny Canadians, and I still have to sit under a drip but we're making progress;

Decoration; look at the way we brightened up the door with some colourful band posters.
Please note the heater box which we use as a doorstop, and the cup towards the bottom-left of the photo which catches water from the cieling.

Innovation; We used a piece of plastic to funnel the water into the pipe thing so that it drips in the hallway as opposed to our office.

Conservation; This plant is from Ikea. Its dying because it misses being surrounded by cool bros. I'm going to buy some office sea-monkeys though - space efficient and low maintenance.

Masturbation; FRONT is our new coffee table magazine of choice. The nudity in Vice is too artistic, just get to the point.

We're still deciding whether or not to have a graffiti mural on our 'accent wall' or to cover it in novelty internet pics.