The Korean border is a blockade. Over fifty years ago, a line in the sand – now a heavily fenced sea-to-sea stand off – was drawn, instantaneously splitting families in half and tearing a once powerfully united country into two. At the time, North Korea was the marginally richer half of the country, a trend that continued for several years, with the democratic South’s poverty at the time comparable to some of the poorest countries in Africa. Now South Korea’s capital Seoul is not all that different to Tokyo, a glittering neon jungle that’s home to some of the world’s foremost technological companies and littered with big name chain stores. Just 50 miles North, over the 38^th parallel, aid agencies estimate several million people recently starved.  With the two countries seemingly ever closer to coming to blows over the past few years, only a few thousand people have ever escaped from the North, and opted – by choice – to settle in the South. Still fewer are prepared to risk their newfound status in order to tell us about it. On the condition of anonymity, however, we did find one…

Lee (name changed at the request of the interviewee) lived in North Korea until the age of nine, and – after escaping the country with her mother via China – now studies in South Korea, attending a major university. She’s one of around 20,000 North Korean refugees currently claiming residence in the South, as well as being one of a impressively small number of people who can claim genuine life experience both sides of the border, especially once the very elderly ‘North Koreans’ (who, obviously, never lived under the current North Korean regime) have been eliminated. Lee lives a life of not insubstantial prejudice, with the tag ‘North Korean’ forever following her around the South, and has since returned to her homeland – by way of bribery at the northern border with China – a number of times. For this act of governmental insubordination, she could be shot on arrival, though the tendency of the local force is to overlook this is far as possible. When Lee sporadically arrives home, she brings with her news of a world that’s often utterly incomprehensible to those she left behind.

Lee grew up as the daughter of a doctor, getting along fairly well north of the border until ‘96/ ’97, when she reports ‘I knew we were going through a rough time. I saw classmates gradually stop coming to school. I heard that some left the country, and others couldn’t come to school because they were starving. The teachers stopped coming, too, and so the school faded away’. Lee’s referring, of course, to the mid 90s famine which – with Kim Jong Il focusing all his funds on nuclear development – left many ordinary people starving. ‘They stopped giving us food rations, and people were not used to the hunger and did not have the means to survive. People were literally passing out in the streets, but I was young, and I just thought that was life’.

Lee saw North Korea’s social disparity – presumably with the exception of the leadership – as being far less than that found in the South. ‘When I was young, economic disparity in North Korea was basically those families that had the next meal and those that didn’t. Now it is between those select few who get to go abroad and have foreign currency, and those who don’t have anything’. Life in North Korea was notoriously sheltered, of course. Lee remarks that her history books were ‘so distorted they sounded like legends, like prophecies from the bible. People don’t believe them anymore, but they used to. The books are still written that way, though.’

North Korean defectors face a number of issues living in the South. Lee arrived via a period in China, and experienced South Koreans animosity towards her immediately on arriving at the airport. Asked why she has come to the South, Lee’s mother told officials ‘we want to have a good life’, to which the immigration staff sarcastically replied ‘good luck’, and Lee’s been wary ever since. ‘South Koreans assume people from poorer countries are not well educated’, she argues. ‘Some South Koreans assume we’re naïve and good-natured. The older generation don’t like us because of communism, while the younger people did not grow up with a specific ideology, but see us as foreigners from a poor country, who don’t have much’.

Perhaps the biggest issue Lee has to face on an everyday basis is what she describes as South Korean ‘indifference’, though she does lay the blame at the door of North Korean refugees to some extent, too. ‘There are only a limited number of people who take the time to spread the word about North Korea. If all the defectors worked together to activity endorse/ promote, wouldn’t that draw attention?’ Another, slightly surprising issue for Lee has been language. ‘Korean spoken in South Korea is non-pure Korean, with Konglish (Korean incorporation of English) and what not. For six months I toiled’.

South Korea, of course, runs at a manic pace of life compared to the North, and even Lee’s buffer time in China hadn’t prepared her entirely for what was to come. ‘If you miss a day on the Internet in South Korea you feel like you’re behind on trends. South Korean students talk about sitcoms all the time, and I find them rather silly. I didn’t use to worry about getting a job, but now I feel really pressured and so I cave in and start looking for one. Also, watching the news is hard for me.  Everything is bad news. Subconsciously it stresses me out’.

Lee risks being shot as a traitor every time she tries to return to North Korea, but despite the issues, she does get news through her North Korean contacts regularly, on top of her own trips. Things are very different from the days of famine now: ‘these days, many North Koreans talk secretly to people in China to learn Chinese. They also learn to type in school, on a limited number of computers with no Internet access’.

Perhaps due in part to her reception in the South, Lee recently wrote a poignant essay summarizing her role in South Korea as that of ‘an exchange student’. ‘It is based on the belief that I will return to North Korea to live in the future’, Lee argues. ‘It is obvious that I love North Korea more than I love South Korea. That is why I continue to educate myself on North Korea and collect information on North Korea here. I hope to play a role in North Korea’s economic and social reform’.

North Korea’s economic and social reform… isn’t it a bit early for that? ‘Frankly speaking, the North Korean regime can’t survive in the modern world. Countries are opening their doors, but North Korea’s doors remain closed. Also, Kim Jong Il is not going to live forever, so a change is going to come. People think of reunification as the two governments coming together, but for me reunification is when Koreans from both sides of the peninsula can travel to and fro without constraints. I think it’s possible. People want political assimilation. The political aspects of reunification will be an arduous task, but I don’t think that’s impossible either.’

‘People talk about a lot about how South Korea’s GDP will drop by 50%. However the money that South Korea spends on its military — most of which is for protection against North Korea — can be invested into her economy. This is not a task that can be accomplished in a decade or two but in the long run, it is definitely possible. I believe it will be an opportunity to revive traditional Korean culture, the language, for one. There are differences that will be a challenge. Confucianism is so deeply rooted in South Korean society as opposed to China or North Korea that are influenced by socialism. Women and men play the same role in the workforce in North Korea. In that sense, North Koreans are more forward.’

Lee has views on Communism that  - should she choose to be more vocal about them – would go down extremely badly (perhaps even leading to arrest) in the South. Asked to describe what communism means to her, Lee replies ‘Utopia. I’m not a philosopher, but from what we know of human nature, communism cannot be achieved. Perhaps, as Marx said, if socialism came after capitalism and all the countries were wealthy, then maybe…’

The key factor in change when Kim Jong Il passes away, of course, may revolve around how much North Koreans actually want it. Lee’s response is unequivocal: ‘ North Koreans definition of change may not be quite the same as in the South, but North Koreans do know that a change ought to come. They do want it.’ People like Lee, isolated from their homeland, will no doubt be pivotal when that day arrives.

As published in AU Magazine, May 2010

The ‘Thieves have been working so hard, in fact, that when State took the chance to catch up with them, we found the three-piece glued to their instruments in their Temple Bar practice room on St Patrick’s day, ignoring the mayhem unfolding all around them and preparing for their biggest date so far. Sleep Thieves headline slot at Whelan’s this coming Wednesday will be something of a breakthrough for the band, marking their arrival amongst the upper echelon of local acts. Singer Sorcha jokes ‘we might play to an empty room’, a concern that seems only half tongue-in-cheek. Given the series of stunning performance the trio have reeled out upstairs in the same venue, though, there’s little doubt they’ll perform. Much as they did in interview, taking each question and running with it until we had an entire lengthy story on the band themselves, the Dublin music scene and making it on your own to recount to you. Here are the (heavily edited) highlights:

According to your MySpace page, you all met through a newspaper ad. Did you not know each other at all before that?

No, we didn’t. Obviously we romanticized that, at least the bit about the tea. It was an ad on the Thumped music message board, when Butterfly Explosion had just broken up. They’ll be copies of the original ads on the bootleg series (laughs). It just worked, we had lots of songs straight away. Things had never worked like that before, where a full song just clicked straight away and we thought it could be something. The first songs that we wrote are the ones that we put on the EP. There was no pain or blood in it. We didn’t have rehearsal rooms so we just took turns going to each other’s houses. It was weird, because we didn’t know each other, yet that helped. Lyrically, it made us comfortable that we didn’t have any judgment, we didn’t know anything about each other’s lives. We could just try anything and see what happened. We were able to be both supportive and honest. We became friends really quickly and we actually had a lot of fun. We had this mad set up with keyboards just on the couch and stuff. That’s where a lot of the swapping instruments came from.

Was being in your old bands and important part of your progress?

In terms of contacts and knowhow, definitely. It’s a lot about knowing how to conduct yourself, and what needs to be done when. Contacting people, booking gigs, knowing how to put out an EP or a single… it’s almost easier when you first form a band, as you can say ‘this is my new band’ and people check you out, and know who you are from before. But we’re finding it harder now to do the press stuff. You don’t want to have to spend hours on the Internet every night emailing people, you just want them to hear your music. We really believe in this band, and we really want people to hear it, but actually getting out there is really hard. We don’t like approaching our friends and saying ‘can you do this for us’, either. When it was just a contact name on the end of an email it was a lot easier, but it has to be done. You have to be a musician and a businessman. The days of playing gig after gig and hoping Mr. big from Sony’s in the crowd and will come by afterwards and offer you a contract are gone. There are a million roads, and fitting it all in to actually being creative is difficult, making things like the video, and a regular stream of new tracks…

Was that video shot at two in the morning or something? There are amazingly few people in it…

Actually that’s about one o’ clock on a Saturday night. Derek couldn’t make it to the second shoot, as he got stuck working at the rugby, and there were supposed to be all these people helping out, but they didn’t turn up either. So it ended up being Wayne’s girlfriend doing the makeup, and Killian the director. But we didn’t want one of those story-based videos, as after you’ve seen them once you know what happens, and you just don’t go back to them. As a first video, it’s a good introduction to what we are. There are a lot of outtakes that are quite funny.

It’s been quite a while since the EP ‘It Was Only A Satellite’ was released. What’s changed since then?

The EP was quite lo-fi. We didn’t think it was at the time, but if we were making an album it would be much more in your face. We’ve got louder and a little bit dancier. We don’t really allow ourselves to stop writing in a certain vein, so if it’s going to be rocky or going to be dancey, we just go along with that. But maybe we’ve got a little bit more confident in our vocals. A lot of the time people will write a whole new song of music and the vocals will just be sat on top of it. We’re trying to get the vocals a bit more intricate. We did that more at the beginning. With songs like ‘Exit’, we messed around with a lot of vocoder, that’s something we’re trying to get back into. Another thing with the new stuff is it’s a little bit barer, there aren’t so many different layers, it’s just the instruments you see on stage. If anything it’s a little more energetic for that.

Is it easier to play live?

It is easier to play live. But the thing with a young band is if someone sees you today and sees you again in a month’s time and you play all the same songs… you can get away with that if you’re a big band playing the hits, but as a new band you have to keep adding to the set. We’re trying to think more about the live show. Having keyboards is like a barrier. We’re not one of those bands that can move freely, and to make it feel live and exciting we have to think about improving the lighting and visuals. It doesn’t work for Whelan’s, but we’re trying to be a bit more focused on how it will feel live. We might have a bit more of a party vibe to the lighting. We want to be a pop band, in the sense that the music’s upbeat and dancey. It’s not going to be throwaway, but enjoyable. There are a lot of bands that are all about creating one big atmosphere. We’re more about having songs that you can go away and listen to separately and still enjoy.

What do you think of the Dublin music scene right now?

Well obviously we don’t want to criticize anyone because they’re our contemporaries, but we genuinely think it’s great. There’s so much choice. Ten years ago you were a singer songwriter or you were nothing. That was it. Now we have all these young promoters – club AC30, Clockwork Apple, Yours Truly, Hefty Horse – there’s a lot of space for different types of bands. Even five or six years ago it was really hard to get a gig. It’s really positive. Take Cast Of Cheers. They just came out of nowhere. They’re a great example of what the Richter Collective do for Irish music. We’d love to be working with other Irish bands. We have loads of connections in a way, but we’d love to do something experimental and electronic. We’re at a small loss as to how that actually works. But people are so supportive of each other these days, we had so much help from total strangers when we launched the EP.

What does the future hold for you guys, in terms of albums etc?

Well, you have to constantly put new things out to keep people interested. It’s a scary thing when you’re looking to make an album, to have the confidence to go away and know that when people come back they’ll want to hear it. You have to get the balance between writing an album that people want to hear and keeping people’s attention in the meantime. It’s a weird time for electronic bands, too. We started in 2008 and in about January last year all these electronic bands turned up with women fronting them. It’s great, but especially the English press is already getting sick of them. If you’re good enough, though, it doesn’t matter. Like Cast Of Cheers. This interview might turn into the Cast Of Cheers fanpage…

Are you tempted to follow their ‘free download’ model?

There are a lot of advantages. Our first EP wasn’t free, but within two weeks it was on every file-sharing site. For Cast Of Cheers, people went to see them play live and then came back and typed them into Google and found they could download an entire album for free. Downloading is stealing, but it’s also promotional, and you have to look at it that way. The MySpace thing is a bit false, though. If you have an office job, you can just let your songs play all day every day, keep refreshing, and you can have 100,000 plays in a year, and you create an illusion that you’re massive. Last.fm’s good as a barometer. It shows particular people listening to the tracks, and we have no idea where they hear of us from. We really would consider putting the album up for free, but maybe sell it too, with amazing artwork or some extras or something, to persuade people to still buy it. It seems a shame to focus too much on digital. My dad gave me his record collection, I don’t want to be handing down my external hard drive!

Were you tempted to go to SXSW?

Our drummer was invited at the last minute, and Sorcha went with Butterfly Explosion a few years ago. If we had an album to promote, we’d love to go. Our drummer didn’t get to either; remember to renew your passport if you might get to play a gig in Texas!

Is the Whelan’s gig something of a landmark for Sleep Thieves?

Yeah it kind of is. We originally booked upstairs, but we decided to step it up. There’s a sense of security upstairs, we’ve done loads of gigs up there and it’s great. If you have thirty people up there dancing, that’s a great gig. But stepping onto Whelan’s stage to headline, if you look down and there’s tumbleweed blowing across, that is horrible. We’re hoping that people will turn up, every so often even great bands play to very few people in there. We’re just hoping it’s not one of those nights. Even if it is like that, the people who come deserve a good show. We’ll be going for it regardless.

Sleep Thieves play their first ever Whelan’s main room headline show on the 24^th of March 2010.

As published in State Magazine, March 2010. Click here to view original.

Rob Cavazos is an actor, and he’s up for a bit of fun. Not an actor in the 19^th century, ‘politer word for a prostitute’ sense, you understand, but a genuine, stage-front, inspiring-speech, standing ovation kind of actor, who’s every day life is about learning lines, perfecting accents and wowing audiences. Every creative profession, of course, has its odder moments in the early stages. For musicians, there’s that awkward early gig in front of a crowd of leaky post-menopausal pensioners at a pub in a far off town. For writer’s, there are the awkward grammar errors that creep into print and somehow stick out next to your name on Google search for the next six months. And for actors – good actors, of course, but ones who are yet to get their Hollywood debut – there are forgotten lines, appearances as the back end of a horse in the Eastbourne City Hall community theatre production of Alice In Wonderland, and becoming the depressingly recognizable face of an unfeasibly humanized product on a local billboard campaign. It’s not the easiest of lifestyles, but occasionally – just occasionally – something comes along that makes it all worthwhile.

For Rob, a typical gig might involve playing the Fool in King Lear, shining as a fascist in a BBC Radio production with a title about making people smile (the natural reaction of the public to fascism, of course), or hopping across the stage at the Old Vic in a play produced in just 24 hours. One day, though, Rob decided to apply for a new position, a role as ‘Wilderness Man’. It certainly wasn’t his first casting session, but while Rob usually auditions for a role, being Wilderness Man is more of a calling. Rob’s recruitment came through a lucky glance at a campaign to find somebody to participate in a viral advertising campaign, with his fluency in three languages and outgoing personality helping him nail down the job. On paper, the role was simple: to sit next to a phone box for as long as possible, and answer the phone to whoever happened to call. Rob had become the newest and perhaps most short-term employee of Skype, and – in line with his exotic new title – would be spending the best part of advent sat in backcountry Spain and living in a tent.

Of course, you don’t get money for nothing these days, and there was always going to be a few less enticing twists to the demands placed on the Wilderness Man. Firstly, the number for the phone box he camped next to was to be placed prominently online, and become the heart of a clever advertising campaign for Skype’s online telephone service. Secondly, the website would be running a live feed of Rob twenty four hours a day, transmitting whatever he happened to be up to (or whoever he happened to be talking too, more often than not), and preventing our intrepid explorer from ever escaping the overbearing eye of ‘big brother’ in the form of a 24-hour international selection of bored web surfers. Thirdly, while Rob was inevitably going to miss the occasional call due to being, well, on a call, he had to answer every dialling tone that came through, a feat that made his chances of sustained sleep fairly similar to those of an agitated troubadour the night before the running of the bulls. No doubt he still hears that funky Spanish ring in his sleep.

The idea – fronted by online marketing stars ‘The Viral Factory’ – was inspired by the once notorious Mojave Phone, a booth that stood fifteen miles from the nearest road in a Californian national park before being removed in 2000. The Mojave Phone was once the temporary home of an international traveller, who believed he was instructed by the Holy Spirit to answer the calls of anyone who might choose – after a few beers, no doubt – to dial it up. He spent just over a month camping next to the booth and answering calls from international mystery men, including odd repeat calls from a man who identified himself as Sergeant Zeno from the Pentagon, and talked only about ‘national security’. When the anonymous, connection-obsessed traveller finally moved on, the phone became a quirky tourist attraction, with people from all over the world dialing up just to see if anyone might answer, and playful hikers making their way to Mojave to take photos and make an outgoing call as proof. In a BBC report in the late 90s, the Mojave Phone was described by a roaming reporter as ‘seemingly arbitrary in existence, and overshadowed by risking life and limb to travel to the middle of the desert and answer it. The thing rang non-stop with people calling from all over earth. I answered a few calls, and the callers were genuinely delighted someone was there to pick up the phone’. In 2006 director John Putch even wrote the movie ‘Mojave Phone Box’, a film about mysterious strangers crossing paths in front of the quirky desert ‘attraction’.

The Mojave Phone itself, though, has been gone a decade now, and instead Rob was instructed to bed down in a remote spot in south Spain. We can’t tell you exactly where it is, mainly because Rob’s most specific idea of the location was ‘up in the hills about two hours North of Malaga’ (The Viral Factory escorted him to the site under cover of darkness). For those with an equally odd an adventurous bent, though, Cavazos does suggest it might be possible to track down his secret location: ‘Very few people (not including myself) actually know where that phone is. Maybe someone will go seek it out and start a new sort of experiment – the quest for Rob’s phone has a nice ring to it’. If you’re so inclined, on arrival you will find a long list of countries, each accompanied by a tally, and a lone phone box branded in indelible pen: ‘The Wilderness Phone’. It marks the small corner of Spain this particular actor knows like the back of his hand.

Once he got into the experiment, and the calls started flooding in, Rob’s callers included a whole host of bizarre pranksters. In amongst pizza orders from Germany and ‘the police’ from elsewhere in Spain, Rob fielded a call from himself: ‘These guys teamed up, recorded four of their conversations with me and made up a soundboard from all of my responses. When I answered, I had a really surreal conversation with myself. It’s the single strangest, most flattering thing anyone has ever done for me’. Most of the conversations were more run of the mill, but did include callers from 82 countries (Iraq, Zimbabwe and Pakistan all popped up along the way, as did a French Territory, while Germany, Spain and the UK provided most of the callers). Ironically, Rob hates talking on the phone, telling us that ‘the only time I spend any length of time on the phone is when talking to my parents. I usually keep phone calls brief, I run out of things to say’.

It wasn’t the phone calls, though, that proved the most stressful aspect of the experiment. Even an average of 18 hours a day spent talking to random strangers can’t compare to the stress caused by spending your entire life in front of a camera. Rob’s already appeared in productions by Channel 4, but brief stints in front a lens playing someone else is an entirely different proposition to 240 hours of live solo webcasting, during which you can only be yourself. On the ground, Rob described himself as ‘oscillating between completely forgetting about the camera and shamelessly playing to it. Half the time I would ignore it, then I’d suddenly remember there were unfathomable amounts of people out there watching me at any given moment, and so I’d overcompensate by jumping on the couch or something. I felt they might get bored, otherwise.’

As an actor, Rob was arguably better prepared for the on-camera experience than most, and certainly didn’t capitulate into Big Brother style ‘look at me’ behaviour under the limelight, but he does admit that preparation for this kind of life is all but impossible. With The Viral Factory taking care of the technical side of things – the webcam, secret location and hefty set up fees – Rob’s preparation was more mundane. ‘You undergo all the practical preparation you might do for any old camping trip: provisions, first aid, lots of clean socks, but I was completely unprepared for that kind of response. There’s no way I could have planned for that’.

The Phone Box Experiment’s website was a quirky and brief web phenomenon, featuring a TV trailer style clip of Rob’s more bizarre moments on the road phone, before feeding through to a live stream, usually featuring Rob leaning against the phone box and rambling away in either English, German or Spanish. In the trailer, his tramp-style cardboard box signs told readers from different countries of his intentions, and invited callers to harass him at any time of the day or night, while a graphic of a phone box – Skype’s clever viral advert – invited people from anywhere in the world to contact Rob in the cheapest possible way through their service. It was a sponsored, corporate trick that worked a treat: most visitors to the site believed the experiment was entirely of Rob’s making, and the Skype connection simply a method to encourage callers of getting in touch. Rob performed to the crowd, bloggers and social media spread the word, and Wilderness Man just kept on answering his anonymous phone calls.

When you’re doing something as patently bizarre as living life next to a phone box, you may as well collect some facts about it all along the way. While the obvious ones about phone calls (1,040 in total), time on the phone (120 and a half hours in total) and international attention during the stunt (radio interviews in four different countries, for example) make for impressive reading, it’s the odder stats that really stand out. Rob’s calculated, for example, that he ate a total of around 16,000 beans over the ten days (which makes you wonder why he bothered to bring a cool box), while – in a twist to bring in more callers (as if they were needed) – many of the assorted belongings that surrounded him on the live video feed were boxed up and posted around the world towards the end of his challenge stint.

On spotting a hidden sign in amongst Rob’s belongings on the live web feed, callers were invited to call and ask for any item on the screen as a gift, with Rob’s random assortment including a ten pin bowling set, oversized lounge lamp, leather couch, guitar, fairy lights that kept the phone glowing all night long, and even a football (we can only assume Rob’s supremely talented, as had he kicked the ball out of the frame at any stage, game over…). Amazingly, Rob’s post-challenge review video shows him walking away from the scene and returning to London with at least one entire set of clothes still intact.

With eighteen hours of phone calls to field a day – and the inevitable onslaught of online viewers determined to interrupt Rob the moment he chose to sit down for a meal, eying the live stream to log their call straight after the last caller or checking in with the Wilderness Man in the early hours after a swift few down the pub – it was exhaustion that eventually signaled the end of the project. Six hours sleep a day is not enough at the best of times, but when that’s the absolute maximum, and interruptions are unpredictable and constant, Rob found himself at the point of no return after ten days camped out. ‘It was physical exhaustion,’ Rob tells us, ‘it really takes it out of you’.

With his time playing to the camera and living by the call of a rural pay phone over, Rob is still haunted by his unusual experience: ‘after I left, I’d find myself having waking dreams in the middle of the night, where everything I did was still in the eye of an imaginary camera watching me. Sure, I could have kept going, but there’s no way I could have sustained my good mood indefinitely, and I felt it was best I left while people still had a good impression of me. I can be quite grumpy when I’m knackered!’ The Wilderness Man eventually – now a phone-a-phobe – recovered by retreating to his native Mexico for some downtime over Christmas, pretending the Internet doesn’t exist, and eating anything that isn’t beans.

In honour of Rob’s ten-day stay in the wilderness, AU writer James Hendicott will be undertaking a mini ‘Wilderness Man’ experience: ten hours camped next to a phone box in Dublin’s Phoenix Park on the 21^st of February, fielding calls from AU reader, (or anyone else who happens to get in touch). Keep an eye on the AU forum for info, and pick up next month’s issue for a full report.

As published in AU Magazine, February 2010

What we get is an immediately accessible, attitude-crammed effort that defies convention. Marina’s ballsy. Her vocals come straight out of left field, flitting between a typical female tone and lines that fly up an octave. In ‘Mowgli’s Road’, she drifts into what sounds like a sarcastic male voice, while the whole album’s layered with head-nodding, bouncy, chart-worthy electronica. Comparisons to Florence Welch are a little off the mark: while Florence is a delicate soul – something that’s reflected in her music – Marina is brash and outgoing. The Family Jewels is a real in-your-face album, opinionated, fast-paced and – aside from ‘I am not a robot’ – more of a musical sledgehammer than subtle heart wrencher, but it works.

Marina and the Diamonds is only Marina, and the inclusion of ‘the Diamonds’ – her nickname for her fans used with flippant regularity on her blog – gives an idea of the way Marina thinks: a few weeks before her debut album comes out, and she knows she’s a mere tip toe away from superstardom. There’s a self-assuredness that borders on arrogance creeping into many of her quirkier lyrics. The new single ‘Hollywood’ – inarguably the most chart ready track on the album – stops an inch short of comparing her own fame to that of Shakira and Catherine Zeta Jones.

It’s ‘Hollywood’, in fact, that’s got the ‘love her/ loath her’ debate going in State’s household. With a similar obnoxious edge to Beyonce’s infamous ‘if you like it than you should have put a ring on it’ lyric, it will either hit a big red ‘repel’ button or go straight in as your song of the year. As utterly insufferable as that particular line is, though, it will no doubt get her noticed. Besides, Marina’s lyrical poetry – in this case an ability to reach inside the public consciousness and put into words our simultaneous disdain and fixation with celebrity culture – hits home.

It’s not her only ‘I get ya’ moment, either. ‘Girls’ gets the fairer sex chuckling with lines like ‘Girls aren’t meant to fight dirty, never look a day past thirty’, while opener ‘Are You Satisfied’ is a musical, motivational kick up the ass, despite the fact Marina’s clearly applying it to herself more than her listeners. ‘Obsessions’ sees a warble of emotion cross the self-assured façade, as Marina muses on a fluctuating relationship.

‘Don’t do love, don’t do friends, I’m only after success… I’m becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy… I feel like I’m the worst, so I act like I’m the best’. The lyrics to ‘Oh No’ sum up Marina’s output. She’s arrogant, she’s self-absorbed, but she’s produced an album that’s as infectious as any we’ve heard in years, and just doesn’t let up. Every track is a potential hit. It’s electro, but done in a style that could simply be no one else. ‘I am not a robot’, as good as it is, is just another track. This album will divide (like ‘Hollywood’, you’ll either love it or despise it), but whichever way you fall, Marina’s produced something distinct, easy to relate to and amazingly assured. Believe the hype.

As published in State Magazine, January 2010 (click here to view original)

I DREAMED I WAS A FOOTSTEP IN THE TRAIL OF A MURDERER

SELF RELEASED

At various times, Hunter Gatherer’s latest manages to sound like air escaping from a tire, the backing track to ET and a Hoover trying to remove a particularly uncooperative piece of gum from a classroom carpet. In electro circles, though, there’s no doubt that it’s the overall effect that counts, and once all the beeps and tings are molded together, the Dublin native takes you on a near-spiritual journey. It’s a head-spinning whirl of vibes that in tracks like the haunting ‘Cloud’ and melancholy ‘Snow Globe’ feel like the world’s a kaleidoscope, and Hunter-Gatherer’s slowly churning the colors. Largely pedestrian but exceedingly heartfelt, this is the kind of album that’s whole is significantly more than its constituent parts, and while you might not want to listen to it every day, it’s a textbook soundtrack to all things wistful and scenic. James Hendicott

7/10

DOWNLOAD: SNOW-GLOBE, LEFT FOR DEAD, ATTICS.

FOR FANS OF: TANGERINE DREAM, THE KNIFE, (KID A ERA) RADIOHEAD.

CHRISTY AND EMILY

SUPERSTITION

BIG PRINT

Sitting staunchly on the fence between conventional classical piano and slowed-down psychedelic nu-folk, Brooklyn-based Christy & Emily’s second LP flits sporadically through the off-the-wall and the jarringly emotional. At times the pair wonders into Aqualung and Sigur Ros territory, an organic effect that’s spoilt somewhat by the 19^th century nursery rhyme vibe of tracks like ‘Nightingale’. ‘Golden Rings’ on the other hand is a swirly, lo-fi pop track, while delicate title track ‘Superstition’ tugs at the heartstrings and ‘Tidal Wave’ shows a more experimental side with pulsing drums and deeply layered Spanish vocals. Occasional oblique moments of genius and cleverly harmonized melodies, though, aren’t quite far enough from coffee table to pull this album through. James Hendicott

5/10

DOWNLOAD: GOLDEN RINGS

FOR FANS OF: AQUALUNG, WHITE MAGIC

THE RUBY SUNS

FIGHT SOFTLY

MEMPHIS

Fronted by Californian in exile Ryan McPhun (amazingly, that isn’t a stage name), Kiwi indie stars The Ruby Suns blend haunting, faded vocals with a spacey aural barrage of eclectic rhythms. The three-piece have a penchant for pace change, fluctuating between vaguely danceable beats in tracks like Two Humans and moments of profound, shoe-gazing near-silence in efforts like slow-builder Olympics On Pot. It’s a disparity that throws added weight behind the contrasting electronic melodrama; listening to the album in full makes potential singles such as Cranberry seem powerful and overstated by the chorus. Hints of eclectic trip-hop kings Massive Attack blend throughout with an intensely mellow indie edge, the result is a strange and intriguing cross between elevator music and trance-tinged indie. What have they been listening to?  James Hendicott

7/10

DOWNLOAD: MINGUS AND PIKE, TWO HUMANS.

FOR FANS OF: PANDA BEAR, THE CHILLED OUT CORNERS OF MOBY’S ‘PLAY’.

As published in AU Magazine, December 2009/ January 2010

The draw is made, the media have named the traditional ‘group of death’ (unlucky for some – I’m looking at you, Portugal) and the locals have had their first World Cup themed party. Football fans are already looking past the Winter Olympics, the end of the Premier League season and the possibility that by the time the World Cup comes around they could be two thirds of the way to having a baby (busy tonight? Yes, it really is that far off…), and getting hyped about an event that might – just might – be more popular than the Olympics. Brush off your national shirt, practice your skills and get ready to join the world in cheering whoever plays France, possible the least popular qualifier in history this time round. Here’s the lowdown and you very own ‘don’t hold us to this’ tips.

The Location: You just can’t argue with South Africa as a venue. 2010 will be the first World Cup to be held on the African continent, and just seeing the parties as the group stage draw was made was enough to convince most that it’s about time. They should, fingers crossed, have all the venues ready (unlike Angola for the up and coming African Cup Of Nations), and plenty of political commentators are already talking of how hosting such a mammoth sporting event could bring together a long-fractured country. Sadly, the home team are only a fraction above dire, and short of a dramatic improvement over the next six months, will probably be going home after the group stages. Should star players Steven Pienaar and Benni McCarthy somehow carry the home side through to the second round, we can expect the country to go insane. A repeat of the performance of unfancied hosts South Korea and Japan back in 2002, though, is at best improbable. Some of the other African sides are far more talented, and can also expect some frenzied local support: keep a particularly close eye on The Ivory Coast, Ghana and Cameroon. Of course, plenty of games will be played at ‘half way up a mountain’ height, which could turn things around completely.

The History: We all know the background of the World Cup: the traditional Brazilian tricks (and all those wins), Zinedine Zidane’s head butt against Italy in the final in 2006, England’s rivalry with Argentina dating back to that famous Diego Maradona handball and South Korea’s stunning run to the semis in 2002, when the streets of Seoul ran red. It’s the more bizarre history that really intrigues, though. Ukraine qualified for the first time in 2006, for example, and were motivated by a manager who promised to withdraw the team’s celibacy rules if they made the semi final. The team obviously worked that one out: the quicker way to get back to their other halves turned out to be getting knocked out early. In the case of Columbia, things became far more than just a game, when defender Andres Escobar was murdered in his home country, having scored an own goal in the 1994 final. The first ever African team to qualify were Zaire, who were humiliated over three games by a total of 15 goals to 0, and went home utterly penniless, while in a 2001 qualifying game Australia beat even that, winning 31-0 against American Samoa, an average of more than a goal every three minutes. Cuba, El Salvador and our own South Korea have also been on the receiving end of complete thrashings. In 2006 there were even add-your-own team colors voodoo dolls on sale to ensure the right result. Then, of course, there’s a whole host of FIFA conspiracy theories…

The Qualification: There’s nothing like a few shocks to keep things interesting, and the appearances of North Korea, New Zealand and Algeria in particular have livened things up, though we can probably expect all three to crash out in the first round. Algeria got to the tournament by beating arch rivals Egypt in a one off game in neutral Sudan, where their were attacked viciously before the match, but still managed to win. Their qualification was far from the most controversial, though, with France’s Thierry Henry denying Ireland a penalty shoot out in their play off with a blatant handball, and forever landing himself the nickname ‘Le Cheat’. Costa Rica also had the (bad) luck of the Irish, losing to a Uruguay play off goal that should have been disallowed for offside. Some favorites didn’t make it, such as Russia, Croatia and World Cup mainstays Saudi Arabia, while the likes of Holland, England and Spain blitzed their way through qualification in clinically impressive style. The controversial Diego Maradona’s Argentina made it, but only just, and are far less fancied than normal.

The Tournament: Favorites Spain are the current European Champions, shaking off their long-standing ‘big tournament flops’ label, while Brazil, Italy, Holland and England make up the remainder of the five fancied squads. African football is on the up, though, and many are expecting one of the African sides to reach the final few games of the tournament for the first time. While the Asian and North American/ Caribbean sides are largely expected to flop, the World Cup is notoriously unpredictable, especially in the early changes. Plenty of pundits, in fact, are pointing to the mighty Brazil as a possible early casualty, with Ivory Coast and Portugal – both formidable teams – drawn against them. For most of the favorites, though, the groups will be a formality, and the knock out games will be the big test. Especially the dreaded extra time and penalties. With odds ranging from 7/2 (Spain) to 3000/1 (North Korea and New Zealand), it’s a very open game, as Greece proved winning the European Championship as rank outsiders back in 2004.

The Dream Match Ups:

South Korea vs. North Korea. The qualifying matches between the two have been watching-paint-dry levels of dull at best, but at the world cup… shame the chances of it happening are at best negligible.

England vs. Argentina. Is there a better game in any World Cup than this? Cue tense drama for 90 minutes, followed by years and years of mocking and bitterness, plus comments about Maradona and the Falklands War. There’s a good chance it will happen late in the tournament.

New Zealand vs. Australia. One of the most unlikely match ups, as the kiwis in particular are expected to crash out without doing too much damage in the first round. If they do make it through to play each other, though, expect sparks to fly.

Our Tips: Portugal to go out in the first round after losing out in the ‘group of death’ to Brazil and African stars Ivory Coast. Argentina to crash and burn far earlier than normal. France to make the second round, despite the scorn, then crash and burn too. North Korea to lose every game by at least 3 goals. England to impress, but lose on penalties (it’s inevitable, right?). USA to defend well, but struggle to score, and lose out to Slovenia on goal difference. An African side to reach at least the quarterfinals. South Korea to bother Argentina, but still go out in the group. Spain to beat Brazil in the final.

As published in Eloquence Magazine (South Korea), January 2010.

When most of us feel the urge to break a world record, we join a particularly large Facebook group, start growing our toenails, or attend an oversized pillow fight. Not Graham Hughes. While the world was still shaking off its collective New Year 2009 hangover, Graham was setting off across Argentina, hoping to cross a few borders before teatime. His main concerns this year have been things like ‘Am I going to get arrested for my out-of-date visa?’; ‘How do I convince the government of an African island that I’m not a human trafficker?’ or ‘Why does every backcountry bus’s resident goat gravitate towards me?’. His record attempt is gritty, multi-national and logistically outrageous, and it’s taken the best part of a decade to get off the ground. Graham’s seeing the entire world, and he’s doing it his way.

The aim? To drop in on every one of the 192 UN member states (plus eight assorted others, in the interest of a nice even number) all inside a single calendar year. With a lot of money and a good grasp of flight schedules, though, setting foot in all those countries – an average of one every 43 hours – would be far too easy, and go totally against both Graham’s philosophy and his budget. So the audacious adventurer came up with some rules to make things more interesting: no flying, no private transport (a rule enforced by the Guinness Book of Records race regulations, which can’t condone a public race – even a year long one – in private vehicles) and no sneaking into tiny backwater territories and counting them as visiting the motherland. That ought to make things suitably complex.

Years of planning concluded when, on the first of January, an otherwise innocuous border crossing from Argentina to Paraguay was accompanied by an appropriate mental fanfare and the start of a solo round the world charge. Only four days later Graham found himself curled up in the back of a bus across Bolivia with a nasty case of altitude sickness, no doubt wondering what on earth he’d let himself in for. Things weren’t to get any easier, and though Graham’s an experienced backpacker, the intensity and pace of this particular trip was another thing entirely.

It takes a particular kind of personality to attempt this kind of adventure. Liverpudlian Graham describes himself as “a total fruitloop” and “hyperactive”, while his philosophy is “to have a good time, all the time” as well as showing a healthy disregard for modern materialism: “on your death bed, do you want to look back on the stuff you bought, or the stuff you did?” It’s the same kind of outgoing thinking that had seen Graham become a central figure on the Liverpool Indie scene, where he shot videos for the likes of Arctic Monkeys and The Coral with his film company Hydra Studios, as well as winning the Liverpool 48 Hour Film Challenge. He also teamed up with Mark Bowness, the founder of the off-the-wall ‘The Beach’ inspired island adventure ‘Tribe Wanted’ (www.tribewanted.com).

The first half of the year went swimmingly: Having negotiated the Americas, Graham even had time to drop in on his family in Liverpool, before flitting through Europe in little more than a fortnight. Then came Africa. Graham’s been arrested in Cameroon, Cape Verde and Congo, for things like filming a nuclear bunker cunningly masquerading as a roundabout, or pushing his visa blagging a little too far. He’s had to re-route to avoid Somalian pirates, struggled with ferry routes to Mauritius and then Madagascar, been sent on 4,000km round trip to replace a slightly out of date visa… and then the worst happened, and the West African island of Cape Verde – which Graham’s own rules dictate he can’t fly to – nearly ended it all.

Having paid an extortionate sum to a Senegalese fisherman to acquire a lift, Graham was arrested on arrival, held in 3m² cell for six days with eleven other men, and not even given the right to meet with a lawyer. When his case did come to court – and Graham was eventually set free with just a fine – he found getting off Cape Verde almost as difficult, and ended up staying for a total of just over six weeks. The record was still on, but the 200-country target had gone. Unsurprisingly, Graham rates the country as his second least favourite on his website’s ‘League of Nations’, accompanied simply by the word ‘No’. Cape Verde was country number 89, a number that, incidentally, has gained him so many stamps in his passport that the Moldovans were convinced it was fake.

There has been the occasional break in Graham’s manic schedule. He (intentionally) paused for breath in The Dominican Republic, Florida, Halifax and (less intentionally) Gabon, but when he’s on the move, things pass by ludicrously fast. Russia and Belarus were so quick they only involved a walk up to the border post, where Graham – having technically entered the country – was turned around and sent on his way. Plenty of other countries have flown by so fast that Graham confesses that he really doesn’t have anything to say about them.

Logistical problems are a nightmare. With two passports on the go, Graham had to obtain a visa for every last corner of Africa before he left, only to have the entire trip thrown out of whack by his jail time in Cape Verde. West Africa then became a case of blag (or pay) your way through, while Graham’s long suffering girlfriend Mandy and the rest of the Odyssey team hung around at home trying to fix it all up. The Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries have proven awkward, too, with personal invitations from residents needed for every visa.

On the ground, things are a lot more fun. In Gabon, Graham sampled Iboga, a hallucinogenic tree root that the local tribes use to liven up the evenings, but managed to avoid the full tribal induction. A good thing, too, since it involves taking so much you vomit, and often having the root inserted up your bum to top it off. In Venezuela he sat quietly and pondered amongst nerve-jangling maps laying claim to Guyana, a long time British (and never Venezuelan) territory. On reaching Columbia, Graham experienced America’s ludicrous forest-destroying anti-cocaine policy first hand, and responded by blogging “fair trade cocaine is the way forward”. Later, in a single day in Europe, he visited Liechtenstein and Switzerland by 5am in the morning, before mistakenly taking a train to the tiny and inconveniently named Italian village of San Marino, and having to turn round to check off the better-known principality.

Mind-bogglingly, the total budget for the entire trip is less than £18,000, which works out at under £90 per country, meaning – if you have Graham’s flare for a budget – you could see the entire world for the price of a mid range car. This works partly because of Graham’s insanely fast pace of life (he covered most of Europe in days, and England, Scotland, Wales, the North and the Republic of Ireland in just 24 hours), but it’s largely because experience has taught him how to travel on the cheap. Couchsurfing, sleeping on trains, eating street food and hitching lifts are all part of the fun, and keep Graham’s hard earned cash stretching to plenty of new horizons.

The madness all has to be documented somehow, and Graham plans to turn his adventures into what will no doubt be one of the more off-the-wall travel books. He’s gained the (non-financial) backing of National Geographic, Lonely Planet and the BBC, too, who plan to make a documentary on his efforts, while all the man himself wants from the experience is to enjoy the lunacy and set a seriously hard-to-beat benchmark. So will he make it? Well, Graham’s latest estimate puts him at around 170 countries by the dawn of 2010, 30 short of his original ambitious target. That’s still an average of very nearly a country every two days. He blames Cape Verde for falling short, but he’s far from bitter. If he makes it as far as Australia (country number 188) for New Year, our gallant explorer has promised to head for Cairns, watch the fireworks whilst quite phenomenally drunk, and throw himself naked into a billabong.

As Graham’s attempt is the first of its kind, however it goes he will finish up with a record. It’s going to be a seriously hard mark to beat, too, but should you have the guts to make your own attempt, Graham’s been kind enough to throw us some tips: “Have your own yacht, or know how to sail. Get to Cuba from Mexico, not the US. Don’t turn up in Cape Verde with a bunch of Senegalese fisherman. Wear your safety belt. Smile, and the world will smile with you”. Go on, we dare you…

To catch up with Graham, you can find his blogs, video diaries and witticisms on every country to date at www.grahamdavidhughes.com, or catch up with the day-by-day madness on Twitter at @TheOdysseyExp.

As published in AU Magazine, December 2009.

With the likes of Oasis, Jamiroquai, Maroon 5 (and Weezer!) starting to show their faces Seoul-side, it’s high time we all learnt how to get past our language problems.

As Muse, Kasabian and Nine Inch Nails know, interest in Western music is at an all time high in Korea, which means the need to get tickets early is almost as pressing as it is in the rush for those magic Seo TaeGi or Drunken Tiger passes.

If you live in Seoul, ticket-buying’s not too difficult if you know where to go. Bandi and Luni’s bookstore (in Gangnam and Bundang) or Kyobo bookstore (in Gangnam, Bucheon and Jogno) are good places to start, with each branch selling tickets for a selection of events and usually able to provide service in decent English.

In other cities it’s also common for major bookstores to stock tickets (Kyobo in Daegu, for example), though tickets for events elsewhere are rarely held.

Alternatively, turning up at the venue with a calendar and the name of the artist spelled out in Korean has worked for me in the past, too. It’s worth noting that a lot of bigger events have an early bird price if you buy a few months in advance, which will usually save you 5,000 to 10,000 won.

For those living a long way from the venue, online ticketing is the way to go. Some good places to start are ticket.interpark.com or ticket.auction.co.kr.

If you don’t have substantial Korean skills, you’ll need to rope in a friend to guide you through the online booking steps. If you’re lucky, they might lend you the use of their credit card – in exchange for the cash, of course – to get your reservation through. But if not, most companies accept payment via the easy to use English language bank transfer options available on most Korean ATMs. You’ll probably need to take the supplier’s account details to a branch of your own bank to make the transfer, though some banks allow transfers from cards connected with other banks. You’ll also need a Korean address to have the tickets sent to; most employers will allow you to use their details if you have any doubt.

It’s worth noting that the booking isn’t always confirmed when you complete the online process. Confirmation can involve a follow up phone call from the company you purchased from, or in some cases ticket purchase is confirmed when the bank transfer is received.

Check the policies carefully. The sites can also prove troublesome when it comes to registering: Alien registration numbers are required, and we’ve found they’ve been accepted or declined at different times and on different sites, with various levels of success.

The phone options have no such requirements, so if it’s proving too difficult, InterPark English ticket reservations can be contacted on 02-1544-1555 (press #2 for English).

With so many concerts cancelled in Korea, there might well be times when you need to return your tickets, too. Summer Breeze Festival (featuring The Prodigy), Flower Power Peace Festival and 50 Cent’s Korean date were all announced last year, but never took place.

It’s always worth keeping a close eye on official websites to check the status of any concert right up to the day before you head off. If the worst does happen, those who paid by bank transfer should wait a week or two before getting in touch, as refunds are often automatic. If you bought your tickets in another way, get back in touch with the point of sale as soon as you can. The promoters are legally required to refund your ticket money, though you’ll probably lose out on any booking fees.

As published in the Korea Herald, 15th December 2009. Click here to view original

If you ask Simon for tour stories, he’ll admit there have been a few wild times (“but you can’t live like that all the time, we try to keep our sanity in check”), and – highlighting the abundant female singers accompanying the group – portrays the atmosphere as “almost mothering. If we were just blokes together we’d probably be a bit more naughty. But there’s a really good chemistry, all kinds of characters”. The pumping live show and manic videos are not so much a portrayal of the duos lifestyle, but “in a spirit of fun, humor, imagination and experimentation”. All, it seems, is not quite as chaotic as public image has led us to believe.

Kish Kash was evidently a massive breakthrough for the duo on a personal level. Having always relied heavily on guest vocals, Jaxx graduated from “grabbing people off the street” to working with an up and coming (and yet to be signed) Dizzee Rascal and Siouxsie Sioux. The latter, in fact, is the product of a conversation about the title track during which the duo described their need for someone ‘like Siouxsie Sioux’ to sing the vocals, and found they had the draw to get a proper pop star on board. “From that moment on, we felt that we could venture out and ask a few more people who are established. We’ve always had guest vocalists, but now they’re people who have their own careers. We look for people with real character and personality, and most of the people who have that are already established.”

Simon describes latest effort Scars as “Basement Jaxx ten years after ‘Remedy’”, and therefore “more mature and reflective, as that’s where we were when we were making it, you can’t rock the world when you’re five or six albums down the line”. Despite acknowledging the new album’s successes live, it sounds like Basement Jaxx are their own harshest critics. “I’d have loved it if Scars had sold millions of copies and gone to number one all over the world. You put your heart and soul into something for two years…”

The house to Scars pop is Zephyr, an EP originally slated to stand alongside Scars as a double album. Simon describes the two efforts as “the two parts of the Basement Jaxx brain. Zephyr’s more influenced by jazz and experimental music, and we know there are people out there who like that side to what we do. In a way that comes from the original meditative deep house music, which was very soulful and reflective. It’s less like a set of songs, and more just a stretch of music”. By separating the two, Jaxx also hope to make Zephyr distinct from a ‘bonus CD’, and while they’re certainly not expecting much commercial success from the EP, they plan to promote it as the more experimental effort that it is, as well as marking it out as distinctly different to the new album without the less pop-focused audience switching off.

They’ll be plenty of chances to air their more experimental side live, too: “the live show’s wicked for us, it’s a chance to reinterpret stuff. I’m more in the mood for the DJ side of things right now, rather than the songwriting, so we’ll be taking the chance to do a little bit of what we were dong twelve years ago. New voices give you new ideas, so we rearrange the songs. Obviously we can’t have Yoko Ono, Dizzee Rascal etc. on tour with us every time, but there are about ten people on stage. It always goes off in Ireland. People are not portentous; they get stuck in. If people will come, we’ll be there.”

It’s hard to push Simon on where things might head next. The remixes seem to be a thing of the past, with Simon pointing out “the last thing we need is any distractions, and people are really good at doing mixes with their laptops. We were known for our part in the mash-up, bootleg scene, and everyone’s doing that now. It seems a little bit pointless, and the desire isn’t quite there at the moment. Vampire Weekend asked us recently, though. That could be interesting.” There’s a sense that it depends a lot on where the next spark of genius comes from, but Basement Jaxx are certainly at something of a creative junction: “Scars was the fifth album of a five album contract, and now we’re looking back at the DJing. It’s all very cyclical in a way. Ten years we’ve been with XL. Now the future’s open. The final date of the tour is the 28th of February in Japan, and that will be kind of the end of an era. After that, I think we’re both keen to take a break, maybe do a few things just for fun”. At a push? “I’d like to do some more stuff like Zephyr, and we’re thinking about doing some film music. I’d like to get together with someone who’s making a film”. There it is, then: Basement Jaxx, coming soon to a stage and a screen near you.

As published in State Magazine, December 2009. Click here to view the original.