THIS IS MJ GRIFFIN

Angel Soldier by Lee Yong Baek

2011-07-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

Amazing.

Hermès × Tokujin Yoshioka

2011-02-09T03:17:00.001-08:00

The new Hermes window display at House of Fraser might have been beautiful, but it wasn't as cool as this effort.

Kim Jong-il

2010-12-22T09:14:00.001-08:00

Interesting

SAD music

2010-12-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

Dark Ayes in VICE

2010-11-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

VICE Style has just posted a new shoot featuring Czech Republic brand Dark Ayes. Focusing on the Women's collection with accessories mostly from American Apparel and H and M, the photography (by Petr Pawlovski) is awesome. Check it out!

The Herald and Sunday Herald Fashion Show 2010

2010-11-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

Aloha, I am fresh back from working on last week's Herald and Sunday Herald Fashion Show held at Blytheswood Square and sponsored by House of Fraser. In charge of makeup was international artist Jamie Coombs while fashion editor Eva Arrighi was in charge of the outifts, which included the stunning Amanda Wakeley evening gown (see below) recently worn by Angelina Jolie. You can check out the video here.

Next week I'll be lending a hand at Celtic Football Club's charity fashion show so check back for highlights! You can find out more about the event here.

Interning

2010-10-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

Fresh back from interning with No.1 Magazine, you can look forward to an AMAZING Christmas Party theme photo shoot in their edition out on the 5th of November - expect lots of glitz and glamour shot at Glasgow's newly refurbished Corinthian which also recently played host to the launch of Buba which has a huge selection of beautifully embellished bags.

One of the bags featured at the Buba launch. Photo courtesy of The Corinthian Club Glasgow.

The Creators Project

2010-06-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

So around about 3 years ago I attended a college night at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The main event was a talk by Anthony McCall, the "reknowned" creator of his film 1973 film, Line Describing a Cone, a 30 minute piece during which, basically, a beam of light from a 16mm film projector draws a perfect circle on a distant screen. It's highly avant-garde and also pretty boring - you can see it for yourself here.

But it's the works of artists like Mira Calix (left)that really put McCall to shame. Now available on The Creators Project site, a space created by Intel andVice Magazine to showcase and celebrate creativity and culture in different mediums around the world, you can watch her taking about her work here. Her latest piece involved her working with Universal Artists and involves 8 motorised pendulums. Because they operate with some freewill, throughout the works' twenty minute cycle it changes slightly each time as the sounds are triggered by the pendulums, which in turn trigger the lights. It kind of touches on the idea of Aleatoric music, a concept first tried out in the 1930's Modernist movement.

Anyway, check out www.thecreatorsproject.com, there are lots of cool artists and plenty more to discover!

Scottish Fashion Awards 2010

2010-06-21T02:52:00.000-07:00

Ah, the glitz and the glamour of The Scottish Fashion Awards. The tartan carpet and the abundance of tartan trews let us know we have arrived, and we take a seat with a long view down the carpet.

Now in its fifth year, The Scottish Fashion Awards were founded in association with Vogue.com and sponsored by Swarovski. However, the class that these two elements suggest is not in evidence tonight at the Glasgow Science Centre where the event is being held. There are models in matching black dresses that, frankly, look a lot better than some of the guests. What I’m somewhat disappointed by is that some people here haven’t dressed to flatter their figure but seem to be, in the words of Gok, trying to be “bang on trend” instead.

There’s a terrible fringed dress with studding, and one designer who shall remain nameless appears with a partner whose dress has unzipped at the back – maybe it’s supposed to be like that?

Hilary Alexander, fashion director at the Daily Telegraph and a judge tonight, appears in a dress with puff ball layering and tribal gold jewellery – not to my taste but fierce nonetheless. She’s also carrying a leopard print evening bag which, unfortunately, doesn’t complete the look.

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Dolce and Gabanna model, David Gandy. But it’s early, and not many guests have arrived. Then suddenly we spot a Robert Pattinson-a-like in the crowd. I have to check with the press release and discover it’s Alex Gardner, a Scottish singer who has been nominated for the Scottish Icon Award. Who? None of the press seems to know who he is and he hovers about with his agent looking for an interview with...anyone I suppose, before wandering through to the bar.

More guests are beginning to arrive and I’m saddened by the number of women wearing beautiful dresses who accessorise with designer bags that do not go. Just because it’s Louis Vuitton, it doesn’t mean it looks good. Further proof that money can’t buy taste also comes in the form of a bag with diamonds encrusted in the shape of the Scottish saltire.

Eventually, in the midst of men who arrive in diamonte encrusted jeans and scuffed shoes, David Gandy appears. Sadly he is not wearing just his tightie whities but a beautifully cut black suit complete with grey silk handkerchief and silver tie clip. He is every inch the model and riding solo tonight, so there’s hope yet...

Presenter Jean Johansson appears in a beautiful yellow dress but the way she keeps tucking her hair behind her ears makes us think she’s not quite comfortable here. The same can’t be said of Taggart actor John Michie who arrives joking with his partner. He’s aged to the point that we fondly recall the days when we thought he was the “hot” one of the show.

Back to the fashion and tonight there is definitely a penchant for embellished leggings and sculptured heels. The leggings it seems are being worn in an attempt to look ‘trendy,’ giving the impression of shimmering tattoos, but are in fact hideous. The heels on the other hand are amazing, with clear plastic heels and quirky cut outs that look like terrifying to walk in.

Paoulo Nutini, later to be announced winner of Scottish Icon 2010, shows up looking suitably dishevelled and his partner Teri Brogan looks stunning in a red full length evening dress with a thick black leather belt. Then last but not least is Diana Vickers, the main performer at tonight’s event. She’s wearing a sheer shirt with a dress covered in tassels which look like they came off her grandmother’s curtains. And her shoes match.

Oh well. It’s been nice to be flies on the wall. We remove our numb bums from the seats we were rooted too and head back down the carpet. It’s the end of another bizarre night in the world of Scottish celebrity.

Anything But Clothes

2010-06-02T05:37:00.001-07:00

The theme of last Friday night in our flat was 'Anything But Clothes' and people got pretty creative. Sarah Jessica Parker inspired me with the ruffles on her Halston dress for her shoot in The Sunday Times Style Magazine, and so using some yellow dusters and disposable plastic gloves from the pound shop, I got to work!

I stitched the cloths together to make a square that was 3 dusters wide and 3 dusters long, to wrap round my body, then I fitted it at the back to make it a little more figure hugging. After that I sewed on the disposable gloves as ruffles using a simple running stitch.

After all the fuss last week about one-shouldered dresses I decided to give that a go too, so I used another dish cloth and sewed on a strap, added a turban and the look was complete.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre

2010-05-31T02:46:00.000-07:00

You can now read my review of the band's show O2 ABC at Is This Music?. Enjoy!

Noir! at Hawke and Hunter

2010-05-18T07:58:00.001-07:00

Backstage at the recently renovated Hawke and Hunter in Edinburgh, Anna Freemantle is having her legs wrapped in metres of shiny, black bondage tape. “I’m getting strapped in,” she laughs in her Dutch accent. Freemantle, a model by trade, and her husband Jonathon are the organisers of tonight’s event, Noir! which is based upon similar principles to that of Andy Warhol’s Factory; this is a night which aims to fuse together art, music and fashion, albeit with sponsorship from Red Bull and lots of booze.

I am in the models’ dressing room and Freemantle is, in a word, fierce. Tall with a sharp jaw line and a hair net covering her white-blonde hair, her eyes have been highlighted with fluorescent orange and electric blue shadow that makes her look almost tribal. She epitomises the style of the models showing off the collections at Noir! Fashion show, so much so that hanging around the walls of the catwalk in the room beneath us are huge posters painted by Jonathon, a South African artist, which depict her slick outline in stark black and white. “Have a look around,” she encourages.

I stay in the dressing room for now. Stylists buzz about Freemantle and models flit in and out as I am introduced to James Faulkner, the “rogue milliner” who will be showcasing his first collection of hat designs - made from road kill - tonight. He sweeps out of the adjacent toilet wearing a cape made from spun gold and trimmed with the soft white fur of an Arctic fox. The look is accessorised with a fox tail dangling from his belt (at least I hope that’s what it is), a top hat with pheasant feathers reaching out from its brim, and last but not least, a tie pin embellished with a stuffed humming bird, which I am assured is an antique. To say this man has a thing about taxidermy would be an understatement.

We share a clammy handshake and he twiddles nervously with a packet of cigarettes and a lighter as he talks about unveiling his designs to the public. The hats are laid out on a table together forming a rich mosaic of fur and feathers, the golden orange of cockerels and deep pheasant emeralds shining amongst the soft dark hides. I am strangely enchanted and reach out to touch some feathers. “My friend had sixty cockerels that needed culled so that’s where they came from,” Faulkner tells me. “People just show up at my door with dead things now but I have to be careful what I use.” He nips out for a cigarette just as a bewildered journalist enters the foray to speak to Freemantle, whose legs are now completely covered in bondage tape.

I leave them to walk down a stark, winding wooden staircase to the main room where tonight’s entertainment will be held. There are various musicians sound checking, the noise bouncing off the wooden floor and around the high vaulted ceiling. Introducing himself simply as ‘Tim’ one half of the duo Top Hat, who will be first to take to the stage tonight, greets me as he eyes up the surroundings with his girlfriend. He is tall and cuddly looking, and later he will be lost in a guitar trance on stage as the band’s singer Asta Petkunaite shakes her thang in red heels, the tiniest black sparkly hot pants and a bow tie. On either side of the catwalk/stage are eerie kinetic sculptures made with surgical masks and skeletal limbs created by artist Kevin Thornton. As their fingers begin to move in a ‘come hither’ motion, Tim frowns: “We have a skeleton to put on stage too. I don’t know if he’ll fit in with these guys…” Petkunaite’s mother appears and circles the room with the video camera (“I’m their biggest fan!” she gushes proudly) as Top Hat’s skeleton is wheeled out complete with tartan scarf and bottle of vino tucked into its pants. He fits in just fine.

On the projection screens around the hall I catch a glimpse of the video piece by Rachel Mclean, recent graduate of Edinburgh College of Art. Representing mutant glamour and deranged takes on Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga, it is, in a word, disturbing and also eerily reminiscent of the Pickle Surprise video that did the rounds on YouTube.

Next into the room is Marie-Jane Kelly, or M.J. as she is known, from Belinda Robertson, cashmere specialists. She is the picture of chic in a neat grey dress with opaques and black heels and is delighted to be involved with tonight’s Noir! “Anna modelled for us at a fashion show last year and we got on great and kept in touch. Noir! is a great club night for Edinburgh because there isn’t really anywhere to go that isn’t mobbed by hen and stag dos, and it gives us an opportunity to show our cashmere to a new audience; it may be one of the oldest materials in the world, but it doesn’t have to be for older people.” Indeed the stylist for tonight’s show, Ian Tod, has lined up the models’ rail with cashmere dresses and the Belinda Robertson cashmere pants with silk satin bows which are truly lust-worthy. “Everyone loves the cashmere pants,” M.J. tells me knowingly. (To see them for yourself visit here.)

Belinda Robertson’s Black Label collection is another popular choice for customers, with cashmere items made to order and customised as you see fit: “Swarovski diamonds, lace, you name it we can do it, and we’ll advise on what works best.” M.J., like designer Faulkner, is passionate about her product and it is a real treat to talk to people who are so excited by what they do. “I love cashmere,” she says. “I would never wear wool now. Wool? No chance!”

Our conversation is interrupted by a gaggle of teenage girls who are modelling for the show heading through the hall. One is wearing the smallest pair of denim shorts I have seen yet. “I know her parents,” M.J. says, “And I know they wouldn’t have let her leave the house like that.” Freemantle appears to discuss who’s wearing what. “I think it’s all sorted, but I’m not sure who’s going to close it [the show],” she ponders, then pauses before deciding, “Danni can close it in the G string. She won’t mind.” And with that she stalks of to talk to the models, MJ goes in search of a glass of wine to ease her nerves and I stare in wonderment at the creativity of the people around me as the doors prepare to open...

Visit the Noir! Blog.

Visit Hawke and Hunter.

Snood news...in Summer

2010-05-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

This is where my love affair with the snood (and Emma Watson) began; with her hands in the pockets of an effortlessly chic trench, tousled hair and a checked cashmere snood nestled around her neck like an effortless after thought, a last minute addition as she ran to the shoot, latte in hand.

Burberry's sales leaped by 10% following Watson’s A/W09 campaign and a positive slew of snoods appeared on the high street, but nothing that quite met our expectations. That’s just the problem with trends; you struggle to find the high street incarnation of what you lusted after at the season’s catwalk shows, and when you do find it, it’s not something you can justify with the ‘investment piece’ tag. I spent half an hour in front of a mirror in Gap fondling a soft, grey baby knit snood before deciding the wool would probably snag and I was therefore unwilling to spend so much money on it. Sadly, I returned it to its shelf, giving it one final farewell pat.

I’ve discovered that it’s not just me; there has now been a positive backlash against such luxury items. Following, dare I say it, The Recession, knitting has found a place in the heart of a new generation. Knitting and sewing groups like Stitch ‘n’ Bitch and websites like Ravelry.com, the Facebook of the knitting world, have made DIY clothing chic again. It is perhaps though not just the result of the economic climate but a response to today’s throwaway culture. More and more people are enrolling in evening dress-making classes at community colleges, and once they’ve got the basics the world’s their oyster. Who needs Topshop Unique when you can make your own one-of-a-kind dress? Similarly, you can knit something yourself that will last for years and actually keep you warm rather than lazily buying into the latest trends from Primark; they may be under a tenner, but they will be in a black bin bag on their way to a charity shop next season.

With that in mind, I jumped on the bandwagon and knitted my own dream snood. Now I know what you’re thinking: easier said than done. This is true, and I’ll admit that after ripping out my first attempt (the knit was so chunky that when I put it on it was slightly Burkha-esqu) I eventually found a ribbed pattern which was simple enough, knitted until it reached my desired length, stitched the two ends together and voila! A snood with the pattern, colour and thickness I wanted and all for the price of a few balls of wool. And after visiting sites like Ravelry I was delighted to find I wasn’t alone; there are thousands of people out there who have finally finished that piece they have spent hours lovingly creating, and are willing to share hints and tips with newbies like me. My next object of lust may prove a little more unrealistic: suede trousers by Maje for Fenwick. Wish me luck…

Fashion @ Sauchiehall Street

2010-04-28T11:34:00.001-07:00

Now I know what you're thinking: "Aw man, I JUST bought my nice new denim shirt from Primark/Zara/Levi/Gap/etc, and already the trend has filtered down to girls like this? Aw man." Yes, girls like this are ruining the denim shirt look for everyone, but no, you do not have to wear it like the girl on the right and you definitely don't have to dress like the girl on the left (more on her later). The time for boots and socks is over! You can still wear tights but some nice heels would've looked far better.

Now you, poor soul on the left, white boots...really? High waisted denim shorts would've been good, those ones are just slutty. As for lace tights, they need to be worn with an outfit that isn't quite so all over the place. Kudos to that pink bag though; when completing your mismatched look, what's better than a cheap neon pink plastic quilted bag?

How to Kill A Pussy Bow Blouse

2010-04-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so I got this blouse a while ago for £3 from Primark and I've never worn it because the pussy bow look wasn't really my bag. So, since it was only £3 I didn't really mind 'customising' it myself. All I did was...

Undo the bow, then mark with pins where I wanted to cut, as you can see above. After that I just stitched it up and voila!

Fashion @ Capitol, 19/4/2010

2010-04-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hmm, yeah, I like this look! Converse are a perennial favourite, they'll just never go out of fashion. As for the leggings, in the words of Paris, florals are hot right now and it takes a brave soul to wear them with a top that doesn't come below the crotch. All in all, a suitabley trendy ensemble topped off by hair that makes effort look effortless.

Glasgow Fashion @ Capitol, April 2010

2010-04-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

Ever wanted to know how to look like every other University student in Glasgow? Let's start from the top: You have to have REALLY long hair and keep brushing to minimum. A hoody with a leather jacket is essential for maintaining that 'indie cindie' vibe (which has, sadly, now reached Cascada generation of Glasgow, as we'll see in future posts). The floral skirt is pretty much on trend, but since we've had two days of sunshine this week it is now officially time to say goodbye to opaques and embrace bare legs. And while even I am a sucker for Ugg boots, there's something about them these days that just isn't so lust-worthy anymore, especially when it rains.

An interview with Hot Chip

2010-03-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

An oldie but a goodie.

HOT CHIP

Thursday, February 28
by Mairi Griffin

“LIES are always fun because we’re not very good liars. We may have already lied, or not. But you can probably tell that we haven’t.” Sitting across from me are Owen Clarke and Al Doyle, Hot Chip's guitar and synthesizer players. We are discussing the interview process, to which they have been repeatedly subjected since the release of their most commercially successful album to date, Made In The Dark.

Owen continues, saying, “It’s a bizarre thing. I would never normally talk about the same thing every day for like four days in a city to strangers.” Tonight, the city is Glasgow and tickets were in such high demand that the show was moved from its original sold-out venue at ABC to the Barrowlands.

The band’s electro and dance oriented music has only just begun to make a noticeable dent in the UK charts, and Made In The Dark is the first album they have recorded in a studio proper. Their previous major label albums were made in singer Joe Goddard’s bedroom, something of a contrast. Al jumps in before I can even ask about it. “Aspects of this album were recorded in the studio, and yes, it was the first time we went through the process.” I ask if he’s sick of being asked about it and both members laugh, breaking the noticeable tension that appeared when the subject was brought up. “Three of the songs weren’t made in the studio. You have to guess which ones they are.” Owen nods and adds, “Part of the game of the album.”

The band has been a major inspiration for emerging talent like Klaxons, Foals and The Whip. But whilst half of Made In The Dark is filled with fierce basslines and lyrics that are invading both indie and commercial clubs, the other is a slower more R&B influenced affair leading critics to draw comparisons with New Order and Timbaland. Al tells me, “Obviously a lot of us know their music and really like it, and you can’t really be in a band like ours without acknowledging debt to New Order but it’s not something we actually play that much.”

So what did they listen to whilst recording the album? Owen explains, “There’s five sets of ears, so that’s ten ears listening to different things.” This ranges from techno to “weird music from the north of England” to country and folk. Alexis Taylor, one of Hot Chip’s two singers, was reported to be “under the influence of Willie Nelson” during most of the album’s production. He even went as far as to reference him on one of the album’s stand-out tracks “Wrestlers”, a song which in itself shows the band’s eclectic influences, having also been inspired by R. Kelly’s “I’m A Flirt”. They admit modern R&B is a heavy influence in their music but Al tells me, “I don’t think people should find that weird. It’s something we’ve always worn on our sleeves really.” The genre was the starting point for many songs on Made In The Dark, from where they set out to see if, in their own words, they could “Pervert or unpervert it.”

Dance music is still where Hot Chip’s heart lies though. After the gig Alexis will be playing a DJ set at the Buff Club. The entire band regularly DJ, although Owen is, by his own accounts something of an enigma, saying, “I’m like the shadow of a ghost. In the dark.” Recently when in Australia Hot Chip were drafted in to DJ before a crowd of fifteen thousand people after Klaxons pulled out at the last minute.

They both laugh as Owen recalls, “The curtains came up and I was so embarrassed that I knelt down and pretended to look through records just to hide. Then I had to take my watch off half-way through because I kept looking to see how long we had until we finished.” Al fills me in on DJ etiquette. “It’s very bad form to look at your watch. It’s the worst thing to see somebody playing records and going ‘F***!’ We’ve got another half an hour!’” For them the DJ-ing experience is far more nerve-racking and definitely less enjoyable than performing live, where “You get to have fun with your friends rather than just sneak into clubs.”

The gig opens with the first single from Made In The Dark, “Shake a Fist”. I was told the set list would consist mostly of new material, with Owen admitting, “We’re trying to do some older ones but we’ve either forgotten how to do them or we never knew how to do them. That’s a bit of a challenge.”

But their second tune is “And I Was A Boy From School”. The crowd go mental as the band tease out the introduction for as long as possible before launching into one of their most famous singles.

“Hold On” from the new album is next up and a highlight of the night, and it is swiftly followed by “Over and Over”, the only other song played from their previous albums but the crowd don’t seem to care about the lack of older material because tonight Hot Chip really have put on a show.

Strobe lights are turned on for “Touch Too Much” and “Ready For the Floor”, both of which have the whole crowd dancing, and they don’t stop, not even through slower tracks like “Wrestlers” and “One Pure Thought”. The final song of the night is “Made In The Dark”, perhaps the slowest track the band have ever recorded and its performance is definitely required to calm down the audience before sending them back out to the cold, wet streets of Glasgow.

Earlier the band had talked about letting modern music mature. “Maybe people should do the same thing with Hot Chip, don’t buy it now, let it age,” Al suggests. Like a fine wine? Owen replies, “No, not fine.” He pauses. “It’s hard to tell.” Al concludes, “It could go wrong. It could turn to vinegar. Only time will tell.” From tonight’s performance it’s clear Hot Chip shouldn’t be left to age. See this band as soon as you can. They’re ready to consumed. Now.

Nicola Sturgeon MSP

2009-02-13T03:50:00.000-08:00

I am shown to the office of Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Health and Well-Being and Deputy First Minister, ten minutes after the time I was allocated. I am also told that instead of the half an hour I was promised, I will only be allowed to speak with her for fifteen minutes. When I catch sight of her there is a slight grimace on her face, as if this interview is the last thing she wants to do, but she isn’t aware that I’ve spotted her. I’m finally introduced, and as we shake hands she’s all smiles and niceties. So far I am not finding myself endeared to this woman.

When I enter her office, I can forgive her for cutting my time short. This is a place of stress and chaos. Folders and sheets of paper lie sprawled across a desk near the window. There are chairs placed randomly around the room. I wasn’t expecting framed photographs of Sturgeon and her partner, Peter Murrel, the SNP's Chief Executive, dotted all over the place, but there’s absolutely nothing personal about this work space. Sturgeon has rushed back from a morning at Glenrothes where a by-election is being fiercely contested. She shows no signs, however, of being flustered. Her strawberry blonde hair sits perfectly, framing her subtly made-up face. Her dark brown eyes only add to her confident aura. However, when I begin to ask questions she picks at the cuticles around her fingernails. It is a nervous habit which seems unusual for a woman who surely knows the party line off by heart – Sturgeon joined the Scottish Nationalist Party at the age of just sixteen.

“I had an English teacher who was a Labour counsellor and he knew I was interested in politics. He always assumed I would join the Labour party so I suppose there was a wee bit of rebelliousness there,” she says, before quickly adding, “I would have joined the SNP anyway but that’s maybe what spurred me on at that time.” Sturgeon’s political aspirations were further fuelled by an adolescence spent in her working-class hometown of Irvine in North Ayrshire. “Thatcher was in power. I thought what she was doing to Scotland was dreadful and I didn’t think Labour was providing much of an alternative. I believe Scotland should be independent. I suppose back then maybe it was more of a romantic notion rather than based on hard facts because at 16 you don’t know much about the economy and such like.” Romantic notion or not, Sturgeon went on to leave school and study law at the University of Glasgow where she joined the SNP student wing. “I was attracted to a career in politics,” she says, “But it was never a dead cert for me so I probably back then thought I was more likely to work as a lawyer than a politician.”

On graduating she worked as a solicitor in Drumchapel before becoming an MSP and standing as the SNP candidate for the Glasgow Shettleston constituency in 1992. She lost the seat, but the election is a notable point in Sturgeon’s career; she was the youngest Parliamentary candidate in Scotland at the time, and female to boot. It is at this point that I get a rare glimpse of what Nicola Sturgeon is like beyond her title of MSP; “God that’s nearly twenty odd years ago, that’s quite depressing actually,” she quips. Seizing on this moment of candidness between us, I ask her what it is like to be a young female in the male-dominated world of politics. From her well-rounded response I get the impression this is a question she is used to being asked, and we have fallen back into the strict relationship of journalist and politician. “It can be challenging at times to be female and to be relatively young. I suppose how I handle that is just to get on with it.” She tells me, “If you do your job well then people will respect you for it regardless of what age you are or what gender you are.”

Sturgeon sites the prominent SNP member Winnie Ewing as a major influence. “She is an example of somebody who was a woman in politics when it was completely male dominated and had to suffer a lot of abuse as a result of that,” Sturgeon tells me. Indeed many political commentators have suggested that it was Ewing’s victory in the 1967 Hamilton by-election that led to the then Labour Government establishing the Kilbrandon Commission to examine the possibility of a devolved Scottish assembly.

With Ewing having fought hard for her Parliamentary positions and acting as President of the SNP until 2005, does the Deputy First Minister not find it infuriating when people, especially women, do not make use of their democratic right to vote? “People should have the right to abstain but I do believe there should be an onus on people to actually participate in the election. I get kind of frustrated when people don’t vote, women in particular. People have struggled for the vote and for our generations to take it so lightly and to treat it so carelessly does annoy me.” This response comes rapidly, and Sturgeon is in full flow. She continues without pausing for breath, “We live in a democracy and I suppose one of the ironies of democracies is that it gives you the right not to vote if you don’t want to. Should there be compulsory voting? Personally I would probably be in favour of that as long as you had that right to abstain.”

Aware that my time is nearly up, I throw in a wild card and ask what would Nicola Sturgeon MSP like to be remembered for whenever she chooses to leave the political world. “That’s a hard question actually,” she ponders for a moment before responding. “I think probably as Health Minister the thing that I hope will be a lasting legacy, not for me but of the SNP government, will be the abolition of prescription charges, restoring the NHS to its founding principle.” This is what defines Sturgeon. She is not single-minded but instead always thinking in terms of the party that she has been a member of since her youth. She goes on to tell me, “If I never do anything else in politics I will always be intensely proud of what the SNP has achieved, not only winning the election and becoming the government, but showing that with a bit of ambition and vision and determination to get things done, governments can actually be popular.”

I’m soon ushered from the room. “That was relatively painless,” she tells me, shaking my hand. And with that, Nicola Sturgeon returns to another day in the chaos of her office.

It’s only when I get home and listen back to the interview that I realise I’ve been duped. Sturgeon has a way of either skirting around questions or making you feel foolish to the point of submission. I had asked about the SNP’s plans to raise the legal age to purchase alcohol which were proposed last year. I put forward Labour leader Ian Gray’s argument that it is hypocritical to allow people of 18 to vote but not buy alcohol. “I think to try and equate those two things is silly,” she says, “I don’t think its particularly useful to use simplistic arguments in that debate. I respect other peoples views on it but I do think we’ve got to have the debate in a slightly more mature level than some of the comments I’ve heard.” It’s responses such as these that seem to suggest an underlying smugness to the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Yet why should they be smug? Alex Salmond has been accused of complaining about the powers the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have rather than making use of the ones they do. Furthermore, the party has come under fire as many believe their election manifesto offered false promises to voters. Commentators have suggested that the party’s plan to scrap student loans in favour of grants is unrealistic and so I asked how close the party is to meeting this promise. “It was a huge first step to get rid of the graduate endowment,” she says proudly, “not just in principle because it restores the principal of free education. We’re about to consult on some of the other aspects we want to do including replacing loans with grants and getting rid of the debt burden…” Wait, wasn’t that what I just asked about? Too late, Sturgeon neatly brushed around the question and powered on to talk about the “hurdles to come” and how “determined” the SNP are. In short, I have been offered up a neat sound bite for my Dictaphone while my question remains unanswered.

And it’s these unanswered questions which leave me feeling disenchanted with the Scottish Nationalist Party. I get the feeling that to her I’m just a journalism student, a fifteen minute interview that she never has to think about again because I’m not important. But Nicola Sturgeon has just lost herself a vote. The onus is on people like me to participate in the political process, and I hope that the people like me won’t fall for the SNP when election time rolls around again.

The Dandy Warhols

2009-01-05T03:44:00.000-08:00

The Dandy Warhols are has-beens. Shot into the public eye when their single Bohemian Like You was used to soundtrack the launch of Vodafone’s mobile telephone brand worldwide, the band, from Portland, Oregon, became an overnight success after six years scrabbling for recognition. It didn’t last. They quickly signed a lucrative deal with a major label, but the lo-fi albums which followed weren’t what the public wanted. The Dandy Warhols were swiftly written off by the press and forgotten.

When I meet Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the band’s lead singer, in his freezing cold dressing room he tells me, “All the big commercial bazillion dollar music sites and press were just like ‘Those stoners, they f***ing suck! They could’ve been huge and they’ve f***ed it up getting stoned and name-checking their friends.’” But they didn’t f*** up. After 16 years performing together the band have just made the defining album of their career, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, and they are touring harder than ever. It shows on Taylor-Taylor’s face. His hair is cut short on one side, on the other side it straggles over his pierced ear. He wears a striped t-shirt and jeans which take ‘hobo chic’ to the extreme. He looks older than I thought he would, and in need of ten hours sleep. I immediately fancy him. This is because to be sitting in a room with Courtney Taylor-Taylor is to be basking in an aura of some kind of indefinable coolness.

He speaks in an American drawl that’s so slow I can’t quite tell whether he is pausing or has stopped talking altogether. We begin with the subject of the band’s recent creation of their own label, Beat The World Records. The Dandy Warhols were previously signed to Capitol Records and struggling with the company’s “man-child president” who assigned an A and R man insistent on producing the bands 2003 album Welcome To The Monkey House. The result was a slick, pop album which sits uncomfortably amongst the rest of their excellent but over-looked lo-fi back catalogue. Taylor-Taylor explains that the band were furious with the results of the commercial production; “It just about ruined us, you can just see our record sales dive a slow, slow nose dive.” He laughs as he tells me this, but there is still an underlying resentment. “We told Capitol ‘We’re not going to make another record, you’re just killing us.’ But we can’t not make music, that would be like saying ‘I’m not gonna drink beer, I’m not gonna party, I’m not gonna have any fun and f*** you.’” After bad-mouthing Capitol to any journalist who would listen they finally freed themselves from the company and Taylor-Taylor admits, “We were as prepared as any group of nine year olds possibly can be.” The resulting album, Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars, is a firmly un-commercial collection of strange, experimental songs that the singer is proud of. “We made the most amazing record of our career,” he smiles. “It was like the triple f***ing slam dunk right before the electricity goes out.”

The album was badly received by the press and the public, and then came Dig! a film which followed The Dandy Warhols and peers The Brian Jonestown Massacre just as they were on the brink of success. Director Ondi Timoner portrays the two bands as best friends torn apart by The Dandy Warhols overnight success with the single Bohemian Like You. I’m scared of asking about the film in case Taylor-Taylor clams up, and, initially, he does. “You know it really wasn’t actually much of a documentary. We did a lot of acting and a lot of set ups. I get asked questions and for a couple of years I tried to answer them and I ended up just making a f***ing idiot out of myself.” I ask tentatively if he still keeps in touch with Anton Newcombe, the eccentric lead singer and guitarist with The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The tension that has built up in the dressing room is somehow broken by this question and Taylor-Taylor begins to talk easily about his friend who is portrayed in Dig! as a violent egocentric. “I’ve never seen Anton get in a fight and I’ve known him for 15 years. The only thing weird between us is the f***ing movie and the press that came after it and the realisation of the mistake we had made. It really put a wedge between us,” he says. The film took its toll on both bands, the result ultimately being that both Taylor-Taylor and Newcombe became “Like pretty serious alcoholics during the last several years. Anton was not necessarily a happy drunk, he was an angry-pissed-off-at-everything-drunk. But he’s a happy drunk now, though we’ll see...”

He goes on to talk at length about Newcombe’s latest album and somehow we end up chatting for a very long time about pretty much everything. He talks about the 1930’s film star Marlene Deitrich who is “like the Humphrey Bogart of chicks,” and his obsession with the cycle of repetition in music from the 1500s which has seeped into his own records - “I mean Bohemian Like You is just constant repetition but the harmonies wander and come back. It’s like basically taking a rubber band and just stretching it one way and then another and then another…” He discusses alcohol and the brain chemistry researcher who told him about that every year scientists discover “good” things which alcohol does for the brain despite the fact that “It screws your liver and “you’ll look like f***ing Keith Richards, like a shrivelled apple.” He confides that with a hangover he looks “like Bill Clinton. I have a puffy, pie- face.” He talks about science fiction writers and his home, a recreation of a 400 year old French farmhouse. In short, he isn’t, unlike most artists, ceaselessly promoting the band’s tour and album. He is talking instead about the things he and The Dandy Warhols are interested in and trying to get you interested in them too.

This is what endears me to Courtney Taylor-Taylor, who doesn’t seem to have been scarred by his experiences with the fickle media who have in turns adored and berated The Dandy Warhols. He speaks to me at length and he’s relaxed. There is no A and R man to call time on our interview and I get the feeling that if I hadn’t had to leave he would have happily spoken to me until he was due on stage. As we part he tells me that at the moment he enjoys listening to the band’s musical peers, Blitzen Trapper; “I think it’s my favourite record in the world, aside from my own record.” This statement isn’t made with arrogance but with self-assurance. The Dandy Warhols are immensely proud of their music because that’s all they care about. Media training and the press’ perception mean nothing to them. “We never thought of that when we were kids,” he says. “We thought about chord changes and guitar sounds and what kinds of words and melodies pull our heart strings, and that’s about all we do.” It’s more than enough.