I do bands too.

So, remember a while ago, I mentioned that I was doing a test with a band? Well, I realised that I never posted the results and as I'm embarking on another test shoot this weekend, I thought it was about time to share the results of my previous efforts. Working with bands is a pretty different but equally fun ball game, as is men's fashion, something that I am still only an amateur explorer of. So, without further ado, I present to you Rochelle: The Test.









Photographer: Caroline Leeming
Makeup: Ruth Brophy
Hair: Lynda Darragh

This is just a small selection of the shots from the day, if for any reason you'd like to see some more or throw me some work, drop me a line. In the meantime, check out the people you've been ogling: Rochelle.

Hey, Fatty! Day Four (as told on Day Five)

Apologies for the lack of posting last night, by the time I got home I was far too exhausted and drunk to write anything vaguely coherent. Without further ado, I present yesterday's food:

Breakfast/Mid-morning snack - grapes and 5 slices of mozzarella
Lunch - Half of a beetroot salad, 1 small fillet of mackerel with lemon
Afternoon snack - handful of organic walnuts
Dinner - 7 slices chorizo, 3 tbsp light coleslaw

Admittedly, dinner wasn't really dinner as I was at the Converse Music party where I consumed four vodka and orange drinks so I didn't eat until about 10:30pm, which isn't good so I kept my portion small. I'd also like to point out that I detest vodka but since it was either that or beer at the shindig, it seemed like the lesser of two evils. I know that I shouldn't drink if I really want to lose weight but believe me when I say that to get through that party, I needed a few drinks.

Anyway, it's Friday night and I'm heading out for a few drinks after a long day and an even longer week. Check back later for what I ate today. I bet you can't wait, right?

Colorize me

At long last, the story of last Thursday night, accompanied by photos from my iPhone. Let's read on, shall we? We hit the Ray-Ban Colorize launch party at Ultra Lounge at Selfridges and what a night it was - greeted at the doors with free-flowing mojitos and beer, we knew we were in for a good evening, short as it would be. This was further added to by the giant bowls of jelly beans dotted strategically around the room, yum.

The event itself was to launch the new Ray-Ban Colorize Kit(available exclusively at Selfridges) which allows you to customise your pair by drawing on the arms and frames. It was also a preview of an exhibition of Fender guitars that have been customised by 10 artists that will be auctioned in aide of Oxfam later in the year.



Apart from Jelly Bellies and free booze, they also had areas where you could try on different Wayfarers and get your polaroid taken, cool wall prints, plus Esser and DJ sets from Mystery Jets and Lou & Nova for music-slash-entertainment.



What they didn't tell you about was the small area tucked in a corner where you could go and test out the Colorize Kit on your own pair of Ray-Bans. Word began to spread through the crowd that this area existed and once it was out, people started flocking like bees to honey. Unfortunately, the free pairs ran out quickly, sending those trolling for freebies scrambling at a display unit that was purely for trying on (but not manned). Don't you know that in these hard times, fashionistas will fight for free sunnies? We witnessed one girl having a pair of aviators prised out of her hands after she'd already drawn on them. Ouch.

Ambling back into the room, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Esser were actually pretty good. Often at these kind of thing, you get bands playing who are achingly cool but also painfully shit. We even had a little boogie.



I'm even debating checking them out again, which doesn't happen often. While we were bopping along, we noticed various highly recognisable faces in the crowd, including the following: Jo Wood, Alexa Chung, Nick Grimshaw and drumroll please, Amy Winehouse, fresh from the Caribbean. I know that you've probably skimmed through the above to get to the photos so I'll just get on with posting these:


Alexa Chung, who spent the evening being pretty low key and watching Esser.



Above: Amy Winehouse, sucking her thumb, after she had run around, leaping (literally) on Wood, Grimshaw and a variety of other people in the crowd. She did look far healthier in the flesh, with a slight tan and fuller figure but she is clearly as mad as a box of frogs.

Having casually stalked Wino, we got bored and decided to play with some sunnies at one of the trying-on points. My partner in crime took the following photo of me trying on aviators:



You got a Polaroid snapped (which you were encouraged to write something witty on) wearing a pair for their wall:



Opposite that wall, they had another featuring lots of photos of presumably famous people wearing Ray-Bans:



Having wandered around for a while, we had to leave to hit another meeting and thus missed a certain 'face' so desperate for some free Ray-Bans that she started clambering up to help herself to a fistful of sunnies at a five finger discount. One of the chandeliers, pre-mugging:



However, it was once we'd left (sans goodie bag-boo!) that things started to get very interesting indeed. Lurking by the loos, waiting for my friend, I couldn't help noticing a familiar beehive floating around the Cath Kidston section of the Lower Ground Floor, picking up pretty much everything like a floral-obsessed klepto. I'm not sure if the woman marching Amy Winehouse back to her minders in this photo is the staff member for CK, a random member of the public or one of her own team:



FYI: Amy is absolutely miniscule. I'm small myself but she's teeny tiny, even with the beehive. As we left Selfridges a short while later, the girls walking out of the door in front of us got a serious case of papping. I'm sure that there are several photos lurking on WENN of me looking slightly confused - if only I knew who it was.

Now, as lame as it is, I'm going to retire even though it's Friday night and I should - according to British tradition - be having the time of my life being sick in an alley somewhere. Next time - Quiksilver for Women's gig-slash-launch party and the bad things I did at the Burberry Sample Sale.

Farewell, old friend.

So, tonight we say goodbye to a part of British music history as Astoria plays host to it's last ever gig before being bulldozed to make way for Cross Rail, a new rail line that will allow people to get from Essex to Maidenhead a little faster.

I feel a particular sadness in that as a teenager growing up in London, Astoria and Mean Fiddler were an intergral part of my social life. Whether it was going to gigs or blagging our ways past the bouncers at Club X on weekends, I spent a many a night at the great venue. It is even the place where I got my first ever concussion at a Less Than Jake gig sometime around 2001; I got clocked on the back of my head by a full can of beer that had been lobbed from the seating area during a bottle fight.

And I know that they're building a new music venue to replace it but the new venue will be around 6000 capacity whereas the entire point of the Astoria was that it was a relatively intimate venue of 1600-2000 where you could go and see small bands and big bands alike. And I'm sure that the new venue will have state of the art facilities and loos that actually lock but it won't have the spirit of this rickety old place.

And so it is with heavy heart that I bid you adieu, fair Astoria. May you rock on in peace.

AWOL, again.

I'm really annoyed. A while ago, my silver sandals disappeared two weeks after I had re-discovered them and put them in a supposedly safe place. This week, it's the turn of my yellow sunglasses. We're all heading off to Truck Fest* and they're key to my well being.

They're a rare breed in that they don't squeeze my head and give me brain ache when I wear them for too long, unlike the majority of my other sunglasses. They are awesome 80s style plastic aviators and I know I could go buy another pair somewhere like Topshop but it won't be the same and I know that the second I do, the AWOL ones will appear.

I am therefore determined to hunt through every handbag that I've worn in the last two months in order to find them. I will not give up, as I have had to do with the sandals. I will find this missing piece from the puzzle of my wardrobe, even if it takes the rest of the week.

Speaking of festival related activities, I was really impressed when I nipped into the big Tesco near Ikea (where I'd been to buy a crate of delicious Kopparberg) and found myself walking out with a new sleeping bag, inflatable camping mattress and a bubble gun amongst other purchases, all for £30. I was tempted to buy a new tent but common sense won out on that one. At least this year we won't have giant boulders digging into our spines.

*NB: truck fest has nothing to do with trucks, cars or any other vehicular activity.

Twenty eight three days later

So, it's been three weeks since I last posted, the night before I started my new job. I hate to gush but for pretty much all of it, I love it. I'm sorry, I realise that my happiness is probably incredibly boring to the rest of the world so console yourselves that the accounts department at my new employer is crap. I've been driving myself even deeper into debt than my soon-to-be-forcefully-reduced overdraft allows until they finally pay me. It's weird to think that I'm actually getting paid an actual wage rather than expenses or at best, minimum wage. Except, it still hasn't happened so I guess technically I'm still working for free.

I've been forced to studiously avoid all shops and when I wore evil shoes to work the other day, I was in the horrible position of not being able to afford some cheap replacements on my lunch break and had to suffer painful painful shoes all day. I never thought Birkenstocks could drive me to rage but apparently it's possible. Let's just say I won't be wearing those any time soon again.

But if painful shoes is the worst to happen to me this week, I'd like to think it's been a good one. In other news, I went to see John Mayer last week at Brixton Academy. Never have I witness a more placid crowd, all politely sipping Cider, swaying gently and recording the entire thing on their mobiles. As I was too. And as soon as I find all of the appropriate cables, I too will be boring you with the out of focus footage.

Ooh you lucky people, so much to look forward to!

...And where are my white towels?

Those of you who've hung around long enough may remember that back in August, I won the chance to be Capital's Culture Vulture for a day. It's a daily prize for listeners, all you do is fill out a form on the website, point and click. Producers pick someone and that person makes a fool of themselves in two or three voxpops but gets a night out to something cool in return. Done deal.

The Culture Vulture that I won was slightly different in not only did I win tickets to Metro Weekender, in addition I won a list of other cool stuff too. That was two months ago. On Thursday, the final bits of a hastily cobbled together prize were finally sent over. Now, I know I may sound like a spoiled bitch but all is not quite as it should be with my prize. I humiliated myself to a drive time audience and I feel that somehow, I've been slightly robbed under the trade descriptions act - not to mention the fact that I had to chase them endlessly after being told that my prize would arrive within a week. I was meant to win a duplicate of The Streets rider:

-Bottle of Vodka
-Bottle of Jack Daniels
-Crate of Beer (presumably Carlsberg, who sponsored the event)
-Swatch watches (note plural)
-Video game
-Wrangler wear
-White towels

What I actually got:
-Bottle of Vodka
-Bottle of Jack Daniels
-12 cans of Fosters (now forgive me but I always assumed a crate is 24 cans, no? I personally didn't care but the boyfriend was a tad disappointed)
-Fifa 08 and some other game (both for XBox360, which I do not own, ergo useless and soon to be ebayed or the such like and put towards the Wii fund)
-Novelty gold Swatch watch (singular, truly hideous. Will also go the way of video games)
-Pair of Wrangler jeans (not a pair I would've picked but not bad)

I also personally delighted in the fact that they'd clearly asked the work experience to bag it up and hadn't bothered to take it out of the Tesco carrier bags. In all fairness, whilst it has been delayed and delayed, they threw in a bunch of Rumble Strips stuff which was blatantly in someone's desk pile but at least it's the thought that counts.

I'll even forgive the lack of white towels.

Incidental art

I meant to blog when I got back from Truck Fest but exhaustion, another gig and several other factors conspired against me. For once, the gig we went to last night was not one of my boyfriend's work related ones that I often end up at but rather one that I instigated and insisted on going to. It was Reykavik Nights, a bi-monthly Icelandic music night at the Luminaire. I went along primarily to check out Hafdis Huld, a singer-songwriter who was headlining. I wasn't really all that into the first two bands, the Motion Boys and another one whose name I've already forgotten. Shows how much I liked them, right?

Unfortunately, I didn't really get any good photos as there was a really really tall guy right at the front of the crowd, directly in front of me who kept leaning down to talk to his girlfriend and thereby blocked my view from every angle. Clearly, he chose to ignore the signs stencilled across the walls of the venue, like this one:



I love a good sign or scribbling in an unexpected place and the loos at the Luminaire are a veritable gold mine of interesting graffiti. The first time I went, I didn't take my bag so I couldn't take any photos but I went back later after a hefty dose of dutch courage, which believe me you need if you want to take photos in a public toilet and ignore the weird looks from other people.

Anyway, onto a couple of my favourites from the night. Unfortunately, some are a bit blurry as I was drunk and trying not to use flash in order to avoid any extra attention.


I love this one, it reminded me of Post Secret but obviously without the postcard element.







Those were all the ones I could take photos of in the safe confines of the cubicle. There were so many more that I noticed but couldn't take photos of for fear of being labelled a weirdo. I did, however, get plenty of photos at Truck - which I will post, along with anecdotes, next time.

Culture Vulture (of the radio kind)

So, last Thursday I spent the morning debating with my boyfriend about whether or not to go to Get Loaded, part of the weekend festival Metro Weekender on Clapham Common. We'd been the previous year and had a great time, so we thought we might go again but steeper ticket prices had meant that we were still unsure. I was listening to the radio and pondering on whether my overdraft would stretch far enough when the DJ announced that they had 2 VIP tickets for the Get Loaded day for that day's Culture Vulture prize. Feeling flippant, I filled in the form on their website and figured that would be the last of it until I paid the extortionately inflated ticket prices that evening on Ticketmaster. A few minutes later, my mobile rang with a strange number. Answering it, I was more than surprised to find myself speaking to the producer of the show. I was on the short list. I let myself get a bit excited but again figured that was that. Twenty minutes later my mobile rang and it was Lucio, the DJ from the show, telling me that I'd won. I must've sounded like an ungrateful bitch as I didn't scream the place down as people usually do when in truth I was just really, really shocked. Suffice to say (despite a mix up with our wristbands and drinks tokens), we had a wicked time. So now, I'll bore you with some photos:

I got some videos too, including The Automatic covering Gold Digger:


I've just realised that all of my video files are pretty huge and it would take an age to upload them all onto here so I'll post them once I've uploaded them onto good old youtube.

Anyhow, a good time was had by all and by the time I got round to doing my last voxpop of the day, I was well and truly gone. I sounded like a complete pillock when they played them back on the radio on Tuesday but I'll be honest, I'll sacrifice 30 seconds of dignity for free tickets next year quite happily.

...And then, the rain came

and Truck got cancelled. Well, postponed.

Either way, BOOOOOOO.

A Fortnight in Pictures

So, I've been away a while - I've surrendered my laptop to the boyfriend and temporarily taken in my mother's Mac while the spare room is redecorated. As such, I've been forced to befriend the Mac, previously my nemisis. I am a Windows sucker and no matter how many more people tell me Macs are better, I will not surrender my right for my computer to crash whenever it feels like it. However, I must admit that when forced to confront my hatred, I found that it subsided somewhat - provided I have a mouse with a right click, the Mac is not quite so evil as I would believe it to be and I must admit, I looks lovely perched on my newly clean desk. Unfortunately, I still can't get to grips with the weird keyboard but it's a case of one step at a time. Anyway, on with what the title says, a fortnight in photos with a little commentary, since otherwise the photos would look even weirder.

One of the most important moments in the last two weeks has been the epic cleaning of the desk. Since I moved home last year, my desk has becoming a dumping ground for all of the papers I mean to file, half-full mugs and trinkets from my handbag. That was, until the Mac came to stay. Determined that once and for all I would be able to see the actual surface of my desk, I spent a Sunday afternoon clearing, chucking and decluttering to the delight of my mother, who's watched the mountain grow in despair.

Here's the end result:



While it's still pretty chaotic, at least it's now contained chaos.

Last Monday, I went to watch The Sound Ex at Metros. Although they were first band on, we stayed for the other bands. The final band of the night contained a dude who dressed up in a floral sprig dress (how Pete Doherty) and some fairy lights, who plugged himself in for the last song and got much wooping from me - although I must point out that this was after several drinks, which will usually make me woop with little persuasion.



On Saturday, we went out to meet some friends for drinks and the star attraction once more occurred towards the end of the night after several drinks when we noticed a Stag Beetle under our table. We city folk were fascinated by this giant beast of an insect, whereas the boyfriend - raised in the country - raised an eyebrow at our intense (and admittedly drunken) interest in the 'little' creature crawling under our chairs. I say 'little' because this thing was HUGE and had pincers as long as my thumb, capable of grabbing the chair leg:




Shortly after, the Beetle was forced onto an ashtray and adopted by another drunken man at another table, keen on grossing out his girlfriend. I hope she forgives us.

EU burglary

I am most disappointed with Eurovision this year. It is one of my guilty pleasures - watching truly awful music on an EU level. Each country trying to outdo the previous with alternating tacky and supposedly meaningful power ballads.

Watching the semi-finals (too many countries these days) the other night, my boyfriend and I played the '3-words-or-less or bastard-love-child-of' game for each country's contribution. And then came Belgium and my heart was won; this was what Eurovision was all about:



Unfortunately, Belgium were robbed of one of the 10 spots in the finals tonight. Instead, Serbia won with a bunch of overweight plum-dyed-hair women singing pop opera, one of the most disturbing music hybrids. I refuse to post the video and endorse this monstrosity. Belgium was robbed I tell you, ROBBED!

Camden Crawl, part iii : Aha!

Part 3 makes its' way onto youtube:

Camden Crawl, part ii

So, I promised you videos and (since the last two days have been of the relatively mediocre variety), I bring you videos of YourCodeNameIs:Milo. Enjoy.






For some reason, youtube won't acknowledge the third video, so I'll have to post it another time. For those who care to know, my hearing is still fuzzy.

Camden Crawl(ing home)

Another weekend, another imbalance in the ears. Friday night, all very last minute, I ended up at the Camden Crawl after work. Having absolutely no idea who was playing and where, I was at the mercy of my boyfriend. We ended up in the Oh! Bar to watch Flood of Red, YourCodeNameis:Milo and Biffy Clyro. Unfortunately, Biffy didn't end up going on until sometime around 1am, by which point we'd left, feet notwithstanding standing with no moving in the very rammed venue. Anyway, on with the pictures. First up, Flood of Red (again). Please note the man in the front row who apparently wants to be Russell Brand - not only is he sporting RB's trademark backcombed hairdo, he was squeezed into skinny jeans, cravat and waistcoat. Anyway, photos:







Russell-Brand-man left after FOR, which was a shame. I swear I've seen him at other FOR gigs, although the over-familiarity could've just been caused by his hair. With him gone, it was YourCodeNameIs:Milo's turn to entertain me and entertain me, they did. Anyone who isn't entertained by a man playing guitar whilst wearing a pantomimie horse's head should question what truly does entertain them:







I'll post videos eventually, once I've regained the hearing in my ears.

Rawk.

Since I'm pretty tired and can't imagine I'll be up to writing a long entry, I'll say that I've been busy, which is kind of true. Friday night we went to see Flood of Red, Kids in Glass Houses and The Blackout. In my bright rainbow dress and yellow shoes, I stood out in the mainly emo crowd like a great big beacon of clownishness. So now, to some pictures:







Random dude's really cool hair


The crowd, all of whom were at least half a decade younger than me. There were also 3 teenage girls, no older than 13, who were sharing one pair of sunglasses, taking it in turns to wear them in this dark, dark venue. Very cool.




Sunday, we went to a pub by the river because like all English people, we have to make the most of the sun, when it so rarely appears. By make the most of, I mean binge drink, get sunburnt and maybe a touch of sunstroke too. This also means that most of my photos from then are bizarre, over-exposed images of my friends' drunken gurning. But there was a funny boat/car thing that a guy kept whizzing around in on the river so when I download more photos from my camera, I'll post them, along with the coolest lift in the world.

I bet you're intrigued now.

A little bit more of Unemployment day 6 (as told on day 9)

One of the downsides of free time is the eventual boredom that creeps up. I have now taken to spacing out activities in order to make the days pass. Today, I cleaned, tomorrow I'm going on a hunt for shoes for a friend at Primark and then Friday will be assigned to taking the dogs to the groomer's. Oh, what a fun packed life I lead. In amongst the random surfing today, I uploaded another bit of video from Saturday:



If you have any suggestions as to what I could do in London that's fun and doesn't involve spending lots of money, I'd love to hear them. Soon, I'll be reduced to organising my sock draw and noone needs that kind of obsessive compulsive level of order in their lives.

Unemployment Night 6 (as told on Day 7), Part ii

As promised, the EA Sports chant video from last night:

Unemployment Night 6 (as told on Day 7)

So, as I mentioned in my earlier post, last night we went to see Yourcodenameis:milo and Enter Shikari at the Hammersmith Palais. It was all a bit last minute as to whether we'd actually go or not but it all came true sometime around 5:30pm and we got some speed and socks on and off we trundled.

First up were Yourcodenameis:milo, who in all honesty I personally preferred. Don't get me wrong, Enter Shikari do a good stage show but in terms of taste, Milo are definitely more my thing. It always takes me a while to get into the swing of things with my new camera and unfortunately, these were the first and only photos I got of them.




During their set, a very large and sweaty death pit opened up, full of 14 year old boys with their shirts off and glowsticks everywhere trying to beat the hell out of each other - all in the name of Monday morning at school when everyone asks why they have a black eye and they can smoothly say This thing? Oh, from the death pit on Saturday night. Security started shining torches on them as they counted down to the charge, meaning that it caught everyone's attention just in time for the mass collision of limbs in the middle, kindly spotlighted by the men in neon coats for our gory enjoyment, a nice prelude to the main act.

As I've mentioned before, Enter Shikari is not straight off something that I would listen to when I'm dossing around. Clearly my taste varied from the 13-16 year olds that made up the majority of the crowd (and made me feel very old) but I'll give them this; they do a brilliant stage show. I must also award them kudos for picking up on the fact that everyone likes stuff that glows in the dark, particularly if they're a 15 year old stoner. No doubt they have made a small fortune from their flashy ring things that they used to sell (do they still sell these?) and that the crowds love. From the side balcony, where I moved to for the main show, the crowd was a mass of flashing dots of light and millions of tiny flashing ring lights.

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling and start the show and tell. [click images for bigger versions]
















At the aftershow later, I was shoving my lollipop in my drink and accidentally let go:



Thankfully, the lollipop was eventually recovered and eaten.

Also at the aftershow, we were talking to the bassist from Milo when I happened to notice someone wandering in with sunglasses perched on his head in the very smoky and dark venue. Being me, I couldn't help but remark about it, something along the lines of "Who's the dude wearing sunglasses? Indoors? At night?" to which my male companions smirked and informed me that the gent whose style I'd called into question was Rou, Enter Shikari's lead singer. Whoops. Naturally, my male companions decided that this was funny enough to warrant dragging Rou over and repeating what I had said. I sincerely hope he saw the funny side.

You can't take me anywhere these days, I just can't be trusted.

Finally, two clips from the show itself, I will in due course also find and post the 'EA sports' chant clip from last night.





Now, back to my regular Sunday activities of loafing, reading the papers and eating. I have to make the most of it as I found out that my planned two month sabbatical has now been shortened to a mere three weeks until I'm back in the cupboard, so that's not much freedom left. Not at all.