Following the design exhibition we organised back in September, we thought to capitalise on the global art pack descending upon Brussels for the annual art orgy that is Art Brussels by putting together yet another show, with photography as central premise.

Presenting the works of five of the magazine’s photographers (Ulrike Biets, Sébastien Bonin, Kris De Smedt, Sarah Eechaut and Sarah Michielsen), the exhibition will showcase original works, created especially for the purpose of the exhibition along one single theme: Skin.

‘Skin, the exhibition’ opens on Thursday 22nd April and runs until 2nd May.

‘Skin, the party’ on Saturday 24th April. (Invitation only)

Check back in with us over the next couple of days for more information and venue confirmation.

Related posts:

1. Waiting for The Skin Issue
2. Follow the Guide – The Video
3. The unprintables

Copyright StefanoArchettiRexUSA

Skin and ska: The Specials

Nothing says ‘original skin’ more than The Specials. The brainchild of keyboardist Jerry Dammers, The Specials epitomised England’s ska revival movement of the late 70’s-early 80’s more than any other band, with tracks like ‘Too much too young’, ‘Gangsters’ and ‘Dog town’ echoing the decade’s many woes. Enjoying somewhat of a renewed interest in their career, the band recently made the cover of NME, whilst it also is scheduled to play in London at the end of the month. Here are some tit-bits of very special Specials love.

Skin and style: Skinheads

No subculture is complete without its own style, and skinheads had theirs locked down. From the obvious (Ben Sherman shirt, bomber jacket and Doc Martens) to the studied (the coulour of everything from your shoe lace to your shoe stitch) and more subtle (the size of your crop), the attention to detail prevalent in their aesthetic might confuse more than one as to the movement’s working class origins. Captured in Nick Knight’s monumental social documentary ‘Skinhead’ (buy it here), celebrated in many a Shane Meadows‘ pictures (specially so in ‘This is England‘) and the source of inspiration for Raf Simons‘ collection for Fred Perry (another skinhead style staple), skinheads’ legacy is nowhere more evident than in the world of fashion.

The cover to photographer Nick Knight's infamous book, Skinhead

Stills from Shane Meadows' 'This is England'

'This is England' lead character Shawn

Essential viewing and Wikipidia knowledge for those who want more:

Skinhead attitude – documentary by Swiss Daniel Schweizer (buy it here)

American hardcore – documentary on the US hardcore scene: Bad Brains, Blag Flag, Minor Threat and the likes (buy it here)

About 2Tone Records

About skinheads

About straight edge

About Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice

Related posts:

1. Waiting for The Skin Issue
2. A Strange Arrangement by Mayer Hawthorne
3. 10 years of Showstudio – The party

To put it in the words of the game’s creator: “…The game is to be played as often as you can, in order to be prepared for any kind of disaster. The game is to be played with anything you can lay your hands on as a pawn. You just have to feel that this button or sipping top or whatever you use has the potential to represent you and save the earth. Best played with two or three survivors. You’re free to decide what to do with them when you reach the centre square and win the game.”

Monopoly it ain’t. Then again they say love is the new green…

Illustrations Félicie Haymoz, photography Aggloweb

A pawn of choice

The domino was covered in shiny tacky stickers. When it fell on the "I love you" sticker, she had to kiss all of us. Love conquers all... yet she sort of lost the game.

That's my blue bird of paradise car! I came second, thanks to its powerfull non-toxic engine.

The five of us were full of Christmas cake and eager to win the race...

The winner of the game, the Red Horse gave a vigorous speech about how wooden toys would overcome and save the earth.

This is a good demonstration of how to hide under the table when you cross the TWISTER path on number 36. Also, you'll need a huge stack of chocolates to eat when arriving in the Swiss Shelter.

Related posts:

1. The unprintables – The shelf
2. The unprintables – The Bling Showstoppers
3. Days before The Morning After Issue

The article's first spread

The article's second spread

The article's final spread

Ming's February edition's cover

Related posts:

1. Brussels given the Wallpaper* treatment
2. Launch of Unit Editions’ first book, Studio Culture
3. Anima Eterna catalogue by Undercast

First off, the shots we ran with in our Morning After edition…

Day one...

Day 3...

Day 12...

Day 20...

Then two behind-the-scenes ones:

What Sarah – who shot the series – had to say: “Excited Mimi followed me every morning when I climbed into the attic to photograph the rotting breakfast. After I took the last picture, someone was only too happy to gobble up the decayed food.”

Related posts:

1. Days before The Morning After Issue
2. We’re going to party like…
3. The unprintables – The Word On

1. LOCAL RUDE BOYS NEEDED – Our March edition’s Fashion Special will capture the flamboyant and fickle world of rudeboy fashion. Sheep-skinned leather coats, Adidas tracksuit bottoms, white sox, Sebago’s and Louis Vuitton slinger-bags. Not to poke fun at, but rather, to immortalise. Know a bad boy with a blingy sense of (street) fashion? Have a penchant for mixing sportswear with luxury brands (think Scappa and D&G)? Want to give your neighbourhood thug some love? Email n.lewis@thewordmagazine.be with some pictures. Budgets are inexistent, but we have a load of perfumes (Giorgio Armani, Kenzo and Burberry) to giveaway to those of you who can help. The shoot takes place this Thursday morning, in Brussels.

2. SOMEONE WITH A CAR – The latest issue still needs to make it over to Leuven. Approximately 25 points need to be served, which should take you a maximum of 4 hours (it’s a small town, and they’re mostly in the center). The job pays 60 euros. Interested? Email n.lewis@thewordmagazine.be now. The Leuven round needs to be done this week.

3. CALL TO ALL DJs – Some of you might have heard that we’re organising a photography exhibition in April (more info soon to follow), during artbrussels. As such, we’ll also be throwing a party on 24th April 2010, which is the closing weekend of artbrussels. Thus, our call to all DJs to send us examples of their tastes in the shape of a 1/2 hour mix. Those DJs we fall for will be invited to play our party. Mixes should be sent to n.lewis@thewordmagazine.be before Sunday 14th February 2010.

4. INTERN NEEDED – As part of the photography exhibition we’re organising in April, we’re looking for an art history/curating/events student to intern with us on a full-time basis from 15th February to 30th April. Your responsibilities will vary: everything from liasing with our many sponsors to driving the communications push and assisting the curator in implementing her artistic direction. Applications (CV + covering letter) should be sent to h.judah@thewordmagazine.be before Friday 12th February 2010.

5. SOME MORE MORNING AFTER POSTS – We still owe you at least three posts following January’s Morning After Issue: a round-up of some of our favourite Sunday morning tracks, a test (together with Alex from on-point) of some legal drug that’s been worrying members of parliament from Berlin to Barcelona and back, and an illustrated game (and visually-enacted rule book) created by Felicie. They’re there, ready to be published, we just need to bring a couple of finishing touches to them (been a while since we last skinned up) and then we’re a go. Look out for them this week and during the course of next week.

6. CONCERT TICKETS TO WIN -  We still have a pair of tickets to the Menahan Street Band playing Het Depot on 13th February 2010. First reader to email wewrite@thewordmagazine.be with Menahan Street Band specified in the title box will be on the concert’s guest list.

7. TWITTER FOLLOWING – We know Belgium’s been slow on the Twitter uptake, so we wanted to do our part. As well as ourselves (@NicholasTheWord), here are a couple of local cats worth following: @karenVG83 (for fashion and geekiness), @on_point (for culture, music and video), @plmd (mainly for graphic design and some laughter), @Kunstart (for local culture updates), @Knotoryus (for music and culture) and @LaidBackRadio (also for music and culture as well as the best online radio online). For the novices out there, trend a topic by adding a hashtag (#) in front of it. Ours, for example, is #thewordmagazine (add it in all tweets concerning the magazine). @on-point’s hashtag of choice is #imjustsaying (one we plan on pushing too). We’re just saying (Belgian) people, get with it and follow.

And that’s our Monday morning bit of news. A lovely week to all of you…

Related posts:

1. Days before The Morning After Issue
2. Skin to us…
3. The unprintables – The Word On

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art direction Melisande McBurnie, Defacto model Lalita Davis

The shot we ran with

For Amazon links:

Design Revolution (Thames & Hudson), Remake it Home (Thames & Hudson), Birth of the Cool (Prestel Publishing), Like Lipstick Traces (Dokument Press), Men in the Cities (Schirmer/Mosel), 60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future (Thames & Hudson), Tatoo Book (Maurizio Carraini)

Tryouts

And more tryouts

Related posts:

1. The unprintables – The Shelf
2. The unprintables – Your days are numbered
3. The unprintables – The Bling Showstoppers

Musical creativity and drug addiction are dark but inevitable bedfellows, but the skewed stimulation of getting fucked-up long-term tends to end in either death or dry out. So what happens to twisted talents when they try to go straight?

Writer Randa Wazen, Illustrations Bruce Tsai, Video research Maren Spriewald

Intoxication; my inspiration

Alongside love and death, drugs have inspired some of modern music’s greatest moments. The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting for my Man depicts a situation anyone who’s ever dealt with a punctuality challenged dealer is well familiar with, and the subject of Heroin speaks for itself. Lou Reed, who penned both tracks, is now clean and writes albums about morality whilst former bandmate John Cale admits that cocaine and alcohol disrupted his work and he lost his sense of humour. Nowadays, the sixty-seven year old has kicked drugs and booze completely and works out in the gym. Some of the 1960s most iconic anthems pay tribute to psychedelic substances, from Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, through the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to Jimmy’ Hendrix’s timeless guitar classic Purple Haze. Syd Barrett paid tribute to Albert Hofmann, who was the first to synthesize LSD in Pink Floyd’s Bike – a reference to the chemist’s ride back home after having ingested the substance for the first time as he was tripping without knowing it. Spiritualized’s frontman Jason Pierce never made his drug habit a secret; a disc by his former band Spacemen 3 was titled Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To, and a special edition of Spiritualized’s 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space was packaged to resemble a prescription pills box, complete with dosage indications.

The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting for my Man:

The Velvet Underground’s Heroin:

Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit:

The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:

Jimmy’ Hendrix’s Purple Haze:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pink Floyd’s Bike:

Get clean, get rich

Sobering up has helped some bands make the leap from cult cool to stadium rock star status. Indie darlings Kings of Leon had been around for a decade before finding a massive mainstream following a few years ago. The Followill tribe, composed of brothers Caleb, Nathan, Jared and cousin Matthew, confessed to a heavy cocaine addiction – to the point where some of them wore lipstick in an attempt to cover it up. They kicked their habit, then recorded their third album Because of the Times with a new polished sound that had mass appeal. The following record Only by the Night was a worldwide hit (their tunes were on such heavy rotation last year that if we hear Sex on Fire one more time, our heads might explode).

Under The Bridge, The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ most famous single, was an account of Anthony Kiedis’ drug days that started when he was barely 12. Kiedis cleaned up just in time for the album Californication, which also saw the return of John Frusciante – finally free from a lengthy heroin addiction that had him inches away from his deathbed. The album marked a clear shift in the band’s musical style and was their most commercially successful to date. Courtney Love’s tabloid fame almost eclipsed the three critically acclaimed albums she released with her band Hole. Her first solo album came out while she was still undergoing rehab and was a major flop. Back in 2005, during 3 months in a lock down rehabilitation clinic, she wrote 8 songs later christened ‘The Rehab Tapes’. Re-recorded with various celebrity friends the album, now titled Nobody’s Daughter, has been mooted for release since 2007 but due to various technical problems looks likely only to appear this year. Several autobiographical tracks like How Dirty Girls Get Clean and The Depths of My Despair were leaked to considerable enthusiasm, and it still looks like this could be Love’s best shot at reclaiming her reputation.

Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under The Bridge:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Macrobiotic shhhhhtimulation

Eighties synthpop duo Soft Cell came back in 2002 after an 18-year hiatus with the album Cruelty without Beauty. Marc Almond and David Ball’s earlier albums seemed directly influenced by the drugs they were taking at the time. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was their MDMA album, The Art of Falling Apart was drenched in an acid vibe and This Last Night in Sodom can qualify as their amphetamine masterpiece. When asked what his drug of choice for the fourth opus was, Almond simply replied “Evian water and macrobiotic food”. Initially terrified of losing his creativity without being under the influence, the singer considers his sober years to be the most fruitful period of his life. After a lifetime spent exploring the limits of his own sanity (including phases of such darkness that he burnt down his own recoding studio) the godfather of dub, Lee “Scratch” Perry, recently quit weed at the age of 70. He explained in an interview that he wanted to find out if “it was the smoke making the music or Lee Perry making the music. I found out it was me and that I don’t need to smoke.”

Trent Reznor suffered from serious writer’s block while battling a drug and alcohol addiction following his second album, ominously titled The Downward Spiral. Trent went to rehab, felt super, and shared it with the whole world on With Teeth. Mind altering substances were always a major no-no for Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye. He famously sang “I’ve got better things to do than sit around and fuck my head, hang out with the living dead” in Minor Threat’s 1981 song Straight Edge. The song spawned the movement of the same name whose enthusiasts believe in a life of abstinence and sobriety.

Minor Threat’s Straight Edge:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye on documentary American Hardcore:

All creativity aside, drugs can seriously mess up another key factor: technique. Slash of Guns n Roses confessed that he’s one hell of a better guitar player since he’s been sober. Some assets on the other hand can never be retrieved. Take Whitney Houston, whose addiction to cocaine and marijuana saw her fade away from the spotlight and caused irreversible damage to her vocal cords. Houston’s long awaited comeback album I Look to You just didn’t have that old Whitney sound.

Clean and a little too serene

While certain accounts of drug days and rehab can be very deep and moving, others just fall into cliché, such as ex-Suede frontman Brett Anderson’s eponymous post-rehab solo album. Iggy Pop, once famous for his onstage antics and lyrics about beating his brain with liquor and drugs, has now become a health freak, doing tai chi every morning and releasing soft-spoken jazz records. Mick Jagger, who gave up drinking, drugs and partying in the early 00’s, released his fourth solo effort Goddess in the Doorway in 2001. Despite critical praise, the audience did not seem too receptive; neither was fellow Rolling Stone Keith Richards, who dubbed it “Dogshit in the Doorway”.

Much has changed in the studio environment too. While some epic recording sessions in the sixties turned into drug and alcohol fuelled fests of chaos, these days they’re more likely to be dealt with in a fast, sterile, and business-like fashion. If the new modus operandi hasn’t affected the actual quality of the music, it sure has killed most of the juicy stories and legendary myths surrounding it. The rehab tendency has also affected the romanticized image of the tormented artist. For where there is addiction, there usually is pain and suffering – which when creatively expressed, has been the source for much art – something the audiences feed off voraciously. As Jagger wisely put it, “who wants to listen to a load of songs about `I’m rich and happy’”? But then again, who wants to see their idols die choking on their own vomit?

Related posts:

1. A Strange Arrangement by Mayer Hawthorne
2. Body Language Vol. 8 mixed by Modeselektor
3. Skin to us…

First off, the six photographs we ran with in The Morning After Issue. Then, the unprintable ones…

And now for those you weren’t supposed to see….

Related posts:

1. The unprintables – Your days are numbered
2. The unprintables – The Bling Showstoppers
3. The unprintables – The Shelf

Related posts:

1. Days before The Morning After Issue
2. Waiting for The Skin Issue
3. The morning after breakfast