Iggy & Debbie - Red Hot

I've been listening to the RED HOT + BLUE album a lot lately, resurrected by my friend's iPod! I had forgotten all about it and shall buy it asap! This was one of the first ever for-charity compilation albums, put together by the Red Hot non-profit charity organization that was established in 1989 by a group of New York artists in response to the Aids crisis, particularly as the disease was running rampant within the creative community of artists and musicians. Red Hot founder John Carlin had "an improbable dream: to create an AIDS charity album with pop stars singing Cole Porter songs." Red Hot + Blue was released in 1990. John said "That CD was inspired by naivete and sheer will."
The album features amazing tracks by musical powerhouses such as Sinead O'Connor, David Byrne, Bono, Annie Lennox, Lisa Stansfied, Neneh Cherry, The Thompson Twins, Kd Lang, Tom Waits, Erasure and The Jungle Brothers and spawned music videos by esteemed Directors such as Johnathan Demme, Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders. The album went on to sold 1 Million worldwide and becoming the template for future charity projects. And since then, Red Hot have created 20 more compilation albums, raising over $10 Million for HIV and Aids.
The album is unfeasibly good! Buddies Debbie Harry & Iggy Pop's 'Well, did you evah!' is a particular favourite. I adore the video of Iggy and Debbie toomfooling around New York, particularly the opening scenes of them cruising purposefully through Soho like the King & Queen of New York - fabulous!
Behold the coolness that is Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop.

Dark Angel Patti Smith

I began reading this fantastic book a few weeks ago, Just Kids by Patti Smith which tracks her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, he of the scandalous R18 Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at Wellington’s City Gallery in the 90’s. Am halfway through and can’t get enough of her mellifluous tale of two boho kids with dreams of becoming famous artists, negotiating the streets of New York in the late 60’s living on little more than coffee, grilled cheese sandwiches and their passion for art. Often forgoing food for a new pencil or paint brush, the two collide in Tompkins Square Park 1967 and strike up an intense relationship.
Their era is that of the Beat poets, Vietnam and Bob Dylan. Andy Warhol rules the factory and Brian Jones has just been found dead. Downtown New York is a seething mass of burgeoning artists and musos, where the likes of Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Salvador Dali and Allen Ginsberg hold court at the Chelsea Hotel. Both have a voracious appetite for art and spend their days and nights sketching, painting, writing poetry and listening to their favourite albums such as Blonde on Blonde in the dilapidated dives that they frequent, decorating their salubrious surroundings in trinkets and curios they pick up on their travels through the streets of Brooklyn and Chelsea.

Patti Smith by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1973

You know how sometimes, when you hear a word or read about a certain person, you then often keep seeing that word or person everywhere?? I was playing on Polyvore the other day, inspired by this book, and decided to do a collage dedicated to the style of Patti Smith. So I thought for a minute about what clothes best suited this lanky, pale rock goddess and immediately thought Hedi Slimane for Dior and Ann Demeulemeester. Then subsequently I found out that Ann Demeulemeester is indeed Patti’s favourite designer!

Patti Smith style by LoulouBlue

Then, I was flicking through my latest Vogue magazine and the pages fell across a striking image that captured my attention – a black & white shot of a lanky Patti-esque rock chick, legs forever and a shock of black hair. And lo and behold, on reading the blurb at the beginning of the editorial , found out it was shot by Hedi Slimane who was channeling Patti Smith through singer Jamie Bochert – who was introduced by Bochert by... Ann Demeulemeester! So there you go. And Bochert’s makeup by Lauder’s Tom Pecheux, who I mentioned in my first October Blog.
Jamie Bochert by Hedi Slimane in Dark Angel, Vogue UK September 2010
Blondie was always my fave of the era, with her sassy punk bombshell looks & attitude, but I feel like I've missed something by not being aware of Patti Smith. Her writing, her music, her fashion sense and her art pique my interest and something resonates with me as I read her book. Patti sounds fascinating and I love the way she expresses herself. Her writing is very inspiring, so I am embarking on an exercise to find out more about Patti Smith - starting with pulling out my copy of Horses, then watching this documentary, Patti Smith - Dream of Life.

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RIP Malcolm, Godfather of Punk

1946 - 2010

Brody Dalle & Spinnerette

Can't stop listening to Aussie born, LA based Brody Dalle's band Spinnerette's debut, self titled. Brody looks like the love child of Joan Jett, Angelina Jolie & Beatrice Dalle (from one of my my fave movies, 'Betty Blue', whose name she took after divorcing her first husband Tim Armstrong from Rancid).
Desperate, howling, blood sweat & tears ROCK - scorching vocals, crunching guitars and a bunch of angst chucked into mix. Dalle's guttural, angst-drenched vocals are a mixture of razor sharp at the core & velvet on top, ripping right through you to your heart. Having had a baby in 2005 & finding love may have softened Brody, the vocals are far less abrasive & aggressive than her previous band The Distillers, her time in the band peppered with her volatile relationship & break up with Tim Armstrong. but still a good kick-arse rock album. She roars like a banshee, yet seems fragile underneath.
From RollingStone, March 2009:
"On her first album since the Distillers broke up in 2005, singer Brody Dalle returns with a new band, Spinnerette, and a new sound that's less straight-ahead punk than bruising, eccentric rock. Set for release this spring, Ghetto Love is also her first musical project since giving birth to a daughter. The album's overarching theme is difficult relationships, beginning with the gloomy, explosive "Cupid." ... Early results were revealed in January on a four-song EP (available here), including the title track's collision of melody and wild, frazzled guitar. "I couldn't imagine making a Distillers record right now. It's so far away," says Dalle, whose new recordings show the vocal influences of Blondie and Cibo Matto, with less rasp and more melody. "I'm more into the musicality of something now. I love writing songs ... I'm honing in and making it my craft and discovering new things."
All Babes are Wolves (of course) and Ghetto Love are faves. On the softer side, Impaler is a very cool catchy ditty she wrote with husband, Queens of the Stone Age fron tman Josh Homme.