Let me see you 1,2 SWEAT

Does fashion matter to a mashup master who ends up naked by the end of his set? Yes indeed, says Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk. Here’s a guy who has to tape down his equipment to prevent it being smashed by hoards of fans storming the stage; a man who strips down to his white cotton underpants that end up sweat-soaked and see-through by the time he’s finished playing.

“When you grace the stage, even if you’re not in costume, you still are in costume; you know people are looking at you. These days what I wear is a bit more focused on functionality because I lose so much of my clothes – I can’t really afford to buy a new outfit for every night.

“Me and my girlfriend really love sweat pants and sweat outfits – we wear sweats all the time. There’s a store called Gabriel Brothers in Pennsylvania (Gillis is from Pittsburgh) that sells factory-manufactured sweat clothing that is really unbelievable. I go there and buy lots of sweats and stuff for the shows because I just want it to be disposable. Not to hype them up too much but I do like sweats.”

Girl Talk’s Night Ripper album from 2006 samples a brow-mopping 218 tracks over 40 minutes, from James Taylor to Ciara, Salt-N-Pepa to Nirvana.

“Everything I do now is a reaction to whatever I used to be into. I was brought up listening to a lot of soft rock so I still have a nostalgic connection to that. When I was in grade school I loved rap music, I was all about getting Jordans – that was my shit. Then when I got into Nirvana, that was like a rejection of all that and I tried to dress as idiotic as possible. So in middle school I used to make a lot of my own clothes with sparkle paint and shit. I looked like a homeless person.

“I got into nerd-style fashion in high school and I had bigger glasses and Velcro shoes. At some point I started to dress the way I wanted to – more comfortably – that’s where I am now, like I want to look like I’m in Soundgarden or something.

“Steve & Barry’s is one of my favourite stores in the US – it sells crazy cheap stuff. The shoes I wear every night are by this American basketball player Stephon Marbury for Steve & Barry’s. Shoe-wise I only wear Steve & Barry’s; clothes-wise I only wear Gabriel Brothers.”

Perhaps there should be some sort of sponsorship involved?

“I know! A lot of people think I wear American Apparel but I’m more dedicated to Gabriel Brothers – it’s all about Hanes there.”

Right then: a sponsorship deal from Hanes and perhaps some new underwear. Please?

Girl Talk
myspace.com/girltalkmusic

Say YEA!

It feels like we’re selling tickets to a high-school disco. Yeasayer front man Chris Keating is drinking a can of Coca-Cola as we sit at a cherry-red table at the ICA’s theatre entrance. There are no tickets on sale tonight, though – it’s the Brooklyn band’s third sold-out London gig in the past week. Then they’re back to the US to spread psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll enlightenment to the good folk at South by Southwest.

“I don’t normally wear psychedelic clothes,” says Keating when I ask him the band’s recent appearance on The Late Show with Conan O’Brien. They performed ‘2080’, the first single off their debut album, All Hour Cymbals, an hypnotic blend of rock, synths and samplers that sounds like it’s been whipped up over a desert or some remote wilderness and hurled forth unto mankind. The uplifting single, and the band’s galloping performance of it matched their boldly-patterned ensembles designed by Caitlin Mociun, a Brooklyn designer and friend of Keating’s from his design school days.

“Fashion has always been linked with pop music,” says Keating. “We’re not hugely into fashion but I don’t think we in any way try to avoid it either. To me, the most interesting fashion is urban fashion and street wear – kinda like what Kanye West and Spankrock are doing – hip hop fashion, which is really cool and candy-coloured with weird patterns – I like that shit. Month to month, year to year, it’s really different and much more interesting than what’s happening on the catwalks.

“I have a lot of friends who are designers and I have a friend who does windows and store design for Bergdorf Goodman. He gave me a Jill Sander jacket once, and a Balenciaga jacket. It’s nice to have nice things. I don’t really wear them when we play. Maybe I will when we do our next album.”

By the time their next album comes along, Yeasayer tickets will be hard to come by so keep an eye out in advance – there won’t be any on sale at on the door.

Yeasayer
myspace.com/yeasayer

Boning up on fashion

Super action heroes these days are armour-plated or latex-bound. Ebony Bones is different. With her outlandish outfits and iridescent makeup, the singer is more like a cartoon character with magical powers, cutting frenetic shapes at raucous live shows while belting out songs like “Don’t Fart on My Heart”. But like an action figure, Ms Bones has a mission: to teach people how to break their fashion mold.

“I call my outfits ‘cartoon couture’. I make my music myself and I make my outfits myself. I want to show people that you don’t have to be dictated to by the man and you can be your own hero.

“I’m fiercely opposed to the way that women, especially in London, are obsessed with relying on what they read in magazines and the stuff that is fed to them as ‘fashion’ and what they must be wearing. It would be better to spend your time customizing your own stuff and showing your own individuality. People are scared to step out of their own circumference.”

Ebony Bones has been compared to Karen O, but unlike the Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ lead lady, Bones does not have a Christian Joy designing her wild costumes. Well, not as such: “My favourite thing to wear is some jewellery that my 10-year-old niece made out of Lego; it’s just so cute and amazing.

“Fashion and music have always gone hand in hand and I wear costumes to fit in with my show.”Think massive beads and chain necklaces, coloured wigs, masks and comically-feminine, puff-ball dresses; Bones uses both fashion and music as ways to fight against conformity:

“A lot of my music comes from frustration – London is such an amazing melting pot of ethnicities but growing up I rarely found artists stepping out of their environments and doing something really different in terms of music; a lot of people are still stuck within boundaries of music genres.”

So who are Ebony Bones’ music heroes right now?

“I’m loving Holy Fuck – their track Royal Gregory is amazing. I love Santogold, and these Italian DJs called Crookers. I also have a number of David Hasselhoff CDs.”

Spoken like a true action hero. Knight Rider, eat your heart out.

myspace.com/ebonybones

LONDON FASHION WEEK 

A Dedicated Follower..?

Is fashion a follower? What comes first – the threads, or the beats? Was it spandex before Ziggy Stardust? Dog collars before the Sex Pistols? Did Banarama turn us onto bubble skirts or did the Hacienda splatter fluorescent colours on more than just glow-sticks? Text by Emma Potter.

The music that designers choose for their catwalk shows is more than just a beat for models to keep in time to as they sashay down the runway. So what did the tunes chosen for the Autumn/Winter 2008 London Fashion Week catwalks have to say about the designers? What were the designers trying to say with the sound they chose to frame their collection?

Paul Costelloe’s runway show began with Bowie’s evocative “We Could Be Heroes”. There was no spandex in sight but Costelloe made it clear that even though he is one of the more senior designers, age doesn’t have to date you. Like Bowie, the collection was innovative as well as timeless. Caroline Charles also showed that old-fashioned is not necessarily unfashionable as a live, four-piece jazz band accompanied her collection of 1920s to 1940s-inspired suits, gowns and dresses.

Rodnik’s show kept it real in a different style, with a grungy live rock performance by The Rodnik Band. Modernist made their statement with blaring, screeching sounds, making no bones about the fact that their occult-inspired outfits were intended to make an impact.

Ann Sofie Back for Topshop went for sensationalist sound with computerised tweaks and bleeps overlaying rock’n’roll and pop tracks, reflecting the invasion of digital media in modern pop-culture. English Eccentrics transported onlookers into their surrealist world with a mish-mash of musical sounds spliced with the atmospheric ticking of clocks, slamming of doors and whispering narratives.

While fashion designers often follow music to inspire their work, they also use it to accentuate their style and give their catwalk shows an edge. In doing so, they may even uncover the next ‘it’ band or breathe new life into an old classic, thereby driving the music movement.

Check out what some of our favourite designers chose as the soundtracks to their shows. Images by Stephen Coppin.