Professionalism: Isaac Howlett

Isaac Howlett is SUPERSWEET's loyal writer since our analogue days, he had a long chain of gigs before Christmas to review: Datarock, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Modest Mouse, A Place to Bury Strangers and the Raveonettes. Not a bad job after all, is it?

But we only started to notice his Facebook where he was posting things pre- and post-gigs. Here's some example...

Isaac Howlett has just left for Shepherd's Bush Empire to see the mighty Modest Mouse. He's called Isaac too.
December 14 at 7:17pm

Isaac Howlett Preparing 2get my ears torn off by A Place To Bury Strangers @ Camden Barfly 4 Supersweet.org
December 15 at 10:10pm via Text Message

Isaac Howlett Loudest band in NYC destroy Camden.
December 16 at 4:23am

And don't these pictures by Elinor Jones confirm things?
But dear folks, that's not all...

Isaac Howlett Possibly the hottest woman ever to play guitar.
December 18 at 9:28pm via Text Message

Isaac Howlett Her from Raveonettes, not me! I take 2nd place.
December 18 at 9:29pm via Text Message
But like all great fairy tales, it has a happy ending for all!

Isaac Howlett has finished all his SUPERSWEET reviews, time to go Christmas shopping!
December 22 at 1:48pm

Newsletter: 23 December 2009

Cynical Tube Graffiti

Sorry Muse!

Once and a while, some clever person gets their permanent marker of choice and chooses not to inscribe a bursting phallus on poor Megan Fox's face, but instead tickle the corner of your mouth into an incredible smirk.

At the Tube near SS HQ, I've come across New Moon hysteria, from the Jacob posters scrawled with No. 1 under their unsuspecting hairline, while Robert Pattison cries behind his vacant eyes as "2" sears his rather pasty forehead.

But low and behold, I achieved my heartiest laugh yet, due to the scribblings on a MUSE The Resistance poster. Q Magazine, you really walked into that one with your sad, overstated remark. I mean come on, "Best Act In The World Today"?!

Q Magazine - "The Worst Magazine In The World"

BRITTANY MURPHY IN SHOWER-SHOCK DRUGS DEATH

We only resorted to the above hackneyed headline in a bid to get your attention. The rest of this article is quality, trust us.

Clueless - the ultimate coming-of-age chronicle of the 90s. With pierced tongue set firmly in Beverly Hills' cheek, you quickly learned if you were a betty or a barny, how not to eat, how not to dress (if you understood the irony) and used your imitation pager to write shit like 'toe-up' and 'couch commando'.

The plot's based on Jane Austen's Emma about a spoilt young rich girl who match-makes everyone but herself, and in the end realises she better hook up with Mr. Enviro-friendly Barney-Rubble step-bro over there before she becomes a last-season spinster.

Brittany Murphy played Thai, the cute poodle-haired new girl at school who's adopted by Cher and Dionne (That's Dionne to you) who give her a much needed make-over. No one wanted to look like Thai, but our point is that Brit played the part with such aplomb that every one of us grunge-heads with a candle to Friends still plugged up our dungaree-clad arses, actually wanted to change with her, swap our fleeces for furs, wear knee-high socks with college loafers and turn our life around for the better. A decade on... Clueless still speaks to the retard in all of us, proving that style can be bought and love found with a French kiss and a girlie-gay giggle.

Brittany Murphy helped teach us how to grow. Thank you Brit. And farewell.

School of Seven Bells' Unfinished Business

Right, 2009 is about to end and I personally don't like to leave things hanging and unfinished. What I'm about to finish is other people's business with me. I love SVIIB dearly, but guys, you suck...

Easy question: give us 2 music videos that you like and a short explanation why. Alley was the only one that got back to me, like... 6 months ago!

So this is too unofficial and unfinished to go in the website now, without further delays, here's the half-arsed team effort by School of Seven Bells and their cool video, 'My Cabal'.

Aljandra Deheza (vocals, guitar): 'My Cabal' was one of the first SVIIB songs ever to be imagined, conjured, carved out of churning moment in time. It's written as an exchange of letters between two characters - Cabal and Camarilla. The song is excavated artifacts from a tumultuous love affair between two symbiotic facets of one personality. We had gotten a ton of submissions for the video, but David Mullet's was the only one that addressed the idea of different perspectives as part of one entity. His partner pretty much invented this crazy stitching technique, that makes it look like the video was recorded in a single long shot, but in reality, they took video from a bunch of different angles and fused them together. Our friend Choltida let us borrow a bunch of wicked pieces from the SUPERSWEET Shop for the shoot. Thank yooouuuuuu, Choltida!!!! We shot on one of our only days off in a 71 date tour. Love love how it turned out. Now, if we could only convince them to shoot a whole tour...........

Fever Ray: When I Grow Up

Alejandra: Watching this video is such a deliciously jarring experience. What an amazing piece of art - EVERYTHING about it- the beautiful future primitive alien of a girl, the colors and the immediate grip of the scenery, THE SONG!! Karin Dreijer Andersson could make a mob of angry bees fly in formation, whilst caring a sleeping baby, with her voice if she wanted. It's that commanding.

Telepathe: So Fine

Alejandra: Two things here. The colors and the dance sequence. Wait,and Melissa and Busy. That's four. One of the things that I love about this video, is how each item in the shot, no matter how seemingly mundane (eggs,milk, half eaten fruit......) wears its colors so vibrantly. She's just making food, but it looks like a party. I love that whole idea of ritual/routine = ceremony/celebration. Then, the girls bust out into a dance routine. Why isn't there more of these things in videos? They make me so happy.



There you have it. Now I can end this year in peace!

Hand Me My Oscar: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Yes, (hold the applause) yours truly, is to appear as a spikey haired punk groupie, looking rather drugged up in a scene for the upcoming biopic of Ian Dury, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll coming out this January 8th.

Granted my acting consisted of sitting on a couch for five hours, refusing the fake weed rolly's because I would only embarrass myself with my squinted eyes-mouth-I-don't-smoke look and gawking at Andy Serkis unprofessionally hoping he would splutter out "Gollum, Gollum". And the highlight of this experience? A definite flirty compliment from the supporting actor: "You had really pretty hair before...now you look like you've stuck your finger in a socket" What. A. Charmer.

So if you see a really narky punk girl shouting at the said support actor for standing in front of a viewing of Spartacus, please feel free to boo and hiss.

Win Pains of Being Pure of Heart and Animal Collective EPs

Oi! Christmas slackers! We're giving away two brilliant EPs here by musical geniuses Animal Collective and Pains of Being Pure of Heart. And you're ... what ... sitting on your numb arse? Complaining about your face freeze? Enough. Enter this competition, win the CDs and enjoy listening to life for about an hour. Ho ho hoe.

Christmas My Ass Spirit

Am I too unreligious to not get excited about Christmas? I've always been taught that there's no meaning in all the holidays any more and they're now just commercial tools... And look now who's releasing Christmas singles...
All the cool respectable peeps. But who's going to win? We quite like the Pink Eye pose though...
But we think this single below wins, it's awfully disgusting!
The Pity Party | Chris My Ass by choltida

Cake Attack

Last month was all about the going-outs. So, this month, I have contemplating some "going-ins". Wait, it's nothing naughty -just me popping into some rather private venues. My first stop? The kitchen of one budding cake queen Olivia Quarshie!!

Who is Olivia? Just like us, Olivia has the (day) job that pays the rent, but at night, instead of watching TV and throwing popcorn at Jedward, she marches toward the oven and bakes these delightful little cupcakes. When you taste one, you can feel the absolute mouth-watering power that momentarily stops all the greatest miseries in the world!

Ok .. I was exaggerating a bit. I'm just trying to say Olivia's cakes are divine and visually they're real show-stoppers.
It's pretty, classy, delicious, very hygienic from the look of her kitchen ... basically everything I would ask for in a cake. I have requested some Christmas-y ones, and here they are.
I admit I had eaten too many of the cakes before realising I was yet to snatch a picture of the full box >.<

So, where to get them cakes? Not from a store, supermarket or restaurant? Olivia runs her made-to-order BigCakeLittleCake service from home. At the moment, she hasn't got a website yet. But, do go to the BigCakeLittleCake page on Facebook, which I have just become a very, very BIG fan :-D

Newsletter: 9 December 2009

Ooooh look who's our first entrant!

SUPERSWEET Stilettos, Jenny Roberts, LCF.

Watch as we upload all entrants to our voting page. Vote for the ones you love, your own piece or someone else's. Or if you want to enter before the deadline, Sun 20th, then get your creative skates on and learn how to enter here.

Letter of the day...

William W: Do you do business with American Apparel at all?
SS: No, unfortunately.
William W: Unfortunately? No, if you did I was going to tell you to pass along the information that I know about Dov Charney's Jewish organized crime background, I was going to tell my PI buddies in Los Angeles all about it, and that the game was over.

I'm not lying or joking either.

You might be one of the few fashion magazines to survive!

Bing! BinG! Bing!

Press Day

The sunshine seemed to have lost all of its warming power. Panting frost, I rushed through many alleys of this un-awakened media-hangout district to meet with Choltida. Yes, yes, who else would possess this supernatural power to levitate me out of bed at 7.30? Today, we were to go for a Press Day organised by Agentur V. This PR agent represents quirky (Super)sweetheart brands from the Continent: Henrik Vibskov, Mykita, Vibe Harsløf, and Minimarket, to name a few.

At the PR's temporary office, after a casual greeting with the peeps, I leapt towards this eye-catching piece.

A unisex Henril Vibskov knitwear, a cross-breed between a jumper and a poncho. You can feel the luxury of the wool by touching it. Serious! Unfortunately, in front of the PR people, my ANTM magic pose wore off.

Right next to the Vibskov rail is Minimarket. There's this jauntily black-and-orange coat. Please don't say it looks like a Halloween pumpkin. It's so cool and neatly tailored >.<
And, this pair of plastic ballerina shoes that close like an oversized cockle. Kinda cute, I'd say, though not cute enough to tempt me into cross-dressing :-P

Some other eye-candy pieces are by Weekday in collaboration with Stine Goya. Check out this pastel pink dress with exaggerated pockets and motorcycle-jacket-like zipper trimming. It's a mild update of what Weekday does for their A/W 2009.
I think the dress will go so well with this pair of Opening Ceremony boots

And look at thess lovely 3-tone trousers designed by Stine Goya, too.

On the way out, I couldn't stop drooling over these playful Vibe Harsløf earrings and necklaces. They're part of Vibe Harsløf's Classic collection.


Choltida likes them so much she cried "Meoowwwwwww". Oops! I shouldn't have been telling anybody that.

Looking at all this stuff, it must be so hard to be a girl.