!! Q&A !!

!! OMG, a Q&A with DJ Fat Tony !!

» Posted By omg team On Thursday, August 17, 2023 | category: Fashion, Q&A | 0 comments

DJ and music producer Fat Tony is currently enjoying the continued success of his award-winning best-selling memoir, I Don’t Take Requests. A harrowing depiction of his addiction and recovery journey peppered with humor and vivid accounts of some of the most creative eras in fashion and music, the book catalogues Fat Tony’s travels, tribulations, and friendships with the likes of Boy George and Leigh Bowery. It also shares details about his drag performance as Dusty Springfield in a London Fashion Week show for the line Joseph in 1986.

Check out this newly surfaced clip of that moment:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fat Tony (@dj_fattony_)

Style is like a secondary character throughout the memoir, with Fat Tony delving into fond recollections of what he and pals were wearing during their most debauched exploits in great detail (while other memories are expectedly fuzzy, if able to be conjured at all).

When describing the rise of the club night Kinky Gerlinky, Fat Tony recalls that “People were over drugs and back into fashion”, and name drops cult labels like BodyMap as readily as Vivienne Westwood and Versace. At one point in his book, Fat Tony spills about Donatella Versace shouting to him as he DJ’d a fete for the Italian brand: “Aiii, Fat Tony! No K, NO PLAY!!” –apparently a catch-phrase during his more wanton moments.

“There are certain dates I couldn’t remember what I was doing, but I could remember exactly what we were wearing,” Fat Tony says of why fashion is so integral to his life story’s plot. “That narrows [details] down, almost perfectly pinpointing a certain era or a certain time.”

In 2020, Fat Tony founded his own London-based label Arrogant Hypocrite; his partner, Stavros Agapiou, has since pushed the designs into streetwear territory as its Creative Director. We love the TNUC tee, which launched in June along with an assortment of casual looks. Musician Mnek and artist Tracey Emin are both fans of the brand.

Mnek and Tracey Emin model the TNUC T-shirt by Arrogrant Hypocrite

On the music front, Fat Tony has been bopping around the U.K. and Europe playing gigs from intimate (like extended sets in the “Wild Room”, a dancefloor-meets-bathroom in the famed Hï Ibiza nightclub) to massive, like the Ministry of Pride event he played in July.

His devotion to lewks makes it obvious why Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, asked Fat Tony to be Vogue’s resident DJ, and why he continues to be the name of choice for events thrown by the likes of Kate Moss.

We caught up with the DJ, producer and meme lord in between gigs to find out more about Arrogant Hypocrite, bringing back his bitch tracks, and why Ibiza still has his heart.

Read the full Q&A after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, a Q&A with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu !!

» Posted By omg team On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 | category: Books, Q&A | 1 comment

Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu

Jamie Stewart’s debut novel Anything That Moves begins with an author’s note. It reads:

“If we are related, please, for the love of God, do not read this book.”

The book charts the more notable sexual exploits of the author’s history across 31 chapters. It’s true that familial dysfunction, self-flagellation (of the non-erotic variety), and moral chaos take as much as part of the narrative as the expanse of sexual tales do here.

Those familiar with Stewart’s band Xiu Xiu will have their sea legs in their distinct ability to confront the terror of mortality and the irony of the underwhelming thud of life with a blunt humor that reads as tongue-in-cheek as it does eviscerating in its honesty.

Jamie Stewart has made a career of inhabiting this space, and with their debut book Anything That Moves, Stewart very much takes the throne there.

Xiu Xiu songs are often packaged in pummelling power electronics and vocals delivered with an emotional intensity that leave you hoping they aren’t in fact autobiographical. Ranging from the earliest sexual awakenings of their youth to the depths of sexual depravity years into being on the road with their band, these personal accounts leave no question of the brutal reality of their origin in Stewart’s life.

Like some sort of a post-MTV Marquis de Sade, Stewart’s stories are at once horrifying, hilarious, tragic, and often just fucking disgusting. Anything That Moves is a visceral read that you can take to the beach. The stories are frequently quite hot, but this is not erotica—they veer bareback into extremely uncomfortable territory. That discomfort takes many forms—and although heavy, Stewart navigates the thud of life with a refreshing candidness.

It should be mentioned that the book does explore some of the more unsavoury aspects of sexual self-discovery that crosses into (and for the most part remains in) some potentially, if not likely triggering territory for its readers. The following interview may do so as well (this is your content warning)!

Earlier in the month, Xiu Xiu released their album Ignore Grief (stream the album right here):

We talked to Jamie about the parallels between their work as a musician and their newfound role as an author, how the horror of sex can make you a better person, and the origins of unforgettable pick up lines such as, “Hey, little mommy, let’s fuck.”

If there’s a seat belt in your sex sling, its most definitely time to buckle up for this negligently naughty must-read book of the summer.

Experience our very raw conversation with Stewart interspersed with spicy excerpts from the book, after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, a Q&A with Izzy Spears !!

» Posted By omg team On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | category: Music, Q&A | 1 comment

Photo by Erika Kamano

Izzy Spears is coming for you and he has no intentions of making you comfortable about it.

After moving to New York from Atlanta, the musician (who also works in fashion) met Shane Oliver—the visionary behind NYC subcultural tsunamis such as GHE20 G0TH1K, from which later emerged his fashion movement Hood by Air.

Their burgeoning friendship solidified Spears’ intent to release music as a solo artist, after an onslaught of collaborations with Oliver and the HBA crew, who recently created yet another conceptually driven art and music collective called Anonymous Club—an amorphous creative community that finds Oliver championing young like-minded artists from a multitude of creative backgrounds.

Izzy became central to this scene, featuring on lead singles such as “Bleeding Out” on their debut drop Screensavers Vol. 1 in 2021.

Following short-lived creative jaunts with shitty ex-boyfriends, and the all-consuming umbrella of Anonymous Club, 2022 sees Izzy stepping out solo with a series of confrontational singles and videos and an upcoming EP, aptly entitled MONSTER, dropping early November.

We talked to the restless, rambunctious not-rapper about finding a creative community while maintaining an uncompromisingly distinct vision that aims to creatively pollinate with shameless f@ggotry, though with clear determination to exterminate what he sees as normalcy in gay culture.

Read the full Q&A after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, a Q&A with Boy Harsher !!

» Posted By omg team On Friday, September 9, 2022 | category: Music, Q&A | 0 comments

Photo by Jordan Hemingway

We got in touch with Jae Matthews and Gus Muller of the moody duo Boy Harsher at their home in Northampton, Massachusetts while they caught a breath from relentlessly touring. The region also provides the setting for the majority of their most recent project, body-horror film The Runner, released this past January along with an accompanying original soundtrack.

The film follows a woman with carnal, violent instincts as she navigates the treacherous, emotional, wooded terrain surrounding the band’s home turf, and is based around characters that the band has been exploring in various elements of their work for years now.

Boy Harsher has conquered major hurdles in order to see The Runner into the world. Just as the pandemic closed in, Jae was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, leaving her partner Gus to creatively explore how their band might look or sound when the two couldn’t work together.

Perhaps The Runner represents an overdue pause for the band who, since their inception in 2015, have had a non-stop approach to playing live in support of their albums, and they have the growing fan base to prove it.

We talked with the duo about the emotional depths and challenges they had to navigate to complete the film and album, how they resulted in the fog-drenched frames of The Runner, how horror is more terrifying when the threat lies within, and the perils of independent filmmaking.

Read the full Q&A after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, a Q&A with Mic. Carter of L’Uomo Strano !!

» Posted By omg team On Thursday, August 4, 2022 | category: Fashion, Q&A | 4 comments

Left: Mic. Carter wearing L’Uomo Strano Spring/Summer 2022 | Right: The same look on the runway at Fashion Art Toronto

The name of designer Mic. Carter’s label might be L’Uomo Strano (which translates to ‘the strange man’ in Italian), but the Toronto-based creative’s catalogue of wearable delights is everything but off. In fact, Carter’s assemblage is a perfect synthesis of the times we’re living in, where optimism and angst rub up against one another on the daily. Throughout the pandemic, Carter kept busy crafting red carpet looks for the likes of Bilal Baig and Olunike Adeliyi, and dressing Vivek Shraya and Tynomie Banks, all while also producing seasonal offerings and displaying them with abundant drama during virtual versions of Fashion Art Toronto (“FAT”).

Carter’s current collection “Open Haus” debuted at FAT’s return to the real-life runway this past May; but it wasn’t the only the only recent opportunity for Carter to have pieces meant for public consumption on show. They also created the costuming for dancer Devon Snell as part of the collaborative artistic exploration staged by Toronto Dance Theatre called Performance Clash. And last week, Carter’s designs were worn by legendary choreographer Hollywood Jade on Canada’s Drag Race.

Hollywood Jade wearing L’Uomo Strano on Canada’s Drag Race

Having interviewed Carter during one of the city’s many lockdowns, I was eager to catch up with the fashion designer and educator (for both grade school and university students) and hear more about what influenced “Open Haus,” what it was like going back to the catwalk, and what utopia means to them.

Read the full Q&A after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, a Q&A with author Derek McCormack !!

» Posted By omg team On Tuesday, February 22, 2022 | category: Books, Q&A | 0 comments

Derek McCormack photographed by Christopher Paulin

The first lines of the Author’s Note in Derek McCormack’s new book Judy Blame’s Obituary: Writings on Fashion and Death state simply:

“Fagginness is what I write about. I focus on things that fags love: fashion and death. Think about it: all fags wear fashions—I’m wearing some! And all fags love death—I’m dying!”

In 2012, McCormack was diagnosed with cancer, and given five years to live. Ten years later, he has released a collection of essays, spanning his career and focusing of his work in fashion, and ruminations on death—two subjects which seamlessly intermingle in McCormack’s world.

Published by Pilot Press, a young, independent publisher based in London, UK, Judy Blame’s Obituary marks McCormack’s thirteenth published book since his first in 1996. Its title refers back to an obituary McCormack wrote—originally appearing in Artforum—for the legendary UK-based designer, stylist and fashion icon Judy Blame. Blame passed away tragically in 2018, leaving an immense cavity in the world of British fashion, after serving as a source of vital inspiration to the author and creative people internationally.

McCormack credits the torment of growing up as a young homosexual in a rural Northern Ontario town as the driving force behind his work. The disgust directed at him by the general public is a two-way street. In his work, he documents the palpable disdain directed towards him by normals, jocks and filthy heterosexuals—a disdain he continues to gleefully savour in his often confrontational, yet consistently humorous work.

The new book steps away format-wise from his novels of late, such as 2015’s The Well Dressed Wound, and most recently, the concept-heavy, scatological sick-fest that is 2020’s Castle Faggot, both via avant-academic American publisher Semiotext(e).

McCormack’s books unfold like the mirror mazes he describes encountering on the fairgrounds of his youth: warped, horrific and hilarious.

His world is populated by glamorous ghouls, fanged fashionistas, and of course, haunted hillbillies. In this world, Dracula, a life-long love and frequent character in McCormack’s work, somehow comfortably inhabits the same space as the ghost of country legend Hank Williams.

McCormack’s preoccupation with death may come off as macabre, which of course it is, but his delivery of all things deadly is a type of sinister slapstick, filled with wordplay and vaudevillian folly. He’s the goth haunting the halls of the old school.

Judy Blame’s Obituary serves as a totem to the writer’s history not only in regards to his work, but forms an inadvertent autobiographical portrait of the author himself.

We sat down to chat with McCormack about how the book came together, and how it feels to unexpectedly and simultaneously mourn and celebrate his work up until now.

Read the full Q&A after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, a Q&A with Johnny Marr !!

» Posted By omg team On Thursday, January 20, 2022 | category: Music, Q&A | 0 comments

What do you ask a “guitar god”? This was my first thought when I was recently asked to interview Johnny Marr.

“Johnny is literally the best, and he doesn’t mind talking about his time in The Smiths, or his relationship with Morrissey, but please try not to dwell on it,” warned Marr’s publicist in advance of our chat.

Marr’s early days as the guitarist and songwriter in the seminal, foppish (read: gayish) ’80s indie band The Smiths, and the subsequent fall-out with frontman Morrissey nearly eclipsed his career, and I vowed not be the type to broach the subject.

Despite the undeniable impact of being one half of one of the greatest songwriting partnerships of all time, Marr’s career following his time in The Smiths has been far from dismissible. Before endeavouring an official solo career in the early 2000s with his band The Healers, and a brief stint as a member of The Pretenders, Marr was involved with projects like the indie-dance super-duo Electronic with New Order’s Bernard Sumner. His covetable versatility as a musician led to pop-leaning collaborations with the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Talking Heads and The The.

A longstanding working relationship with the legendary film composer Hans Zimmer lead to what might be Marr’s most unexpected partnership yet, a collaboration with Gen-Z poster girl Billie Eilish. Marr worked closely with Zimmer on the score to 2021’s No Time To Die, which included Eilish’s theme song to the film.

Marr’s official solo third album, Fever Dreams Part 1–4 (pre-order the album here), is already garnering critical praise in advance of its February release. The conceptually forward record has been released in four parts—3 EPs culminating in a full-length record, and finds Marr leaning into newfound territory as a songwriter.

I was excited to speak with him about the record, and seconds before an affable, and candid Marr joined me on video chat from his studio in London, I realized that in the top corner of my frame was a limited edition box set of The Smiths complete biography—a rather deep collector cut if I do say so myself—and it seemed my intentions to stick to paths less-Smithsy were defeated before we even got out of the gate.

But as his publicist suggested, Johnny remained chatty and bright on the subject and dug right into some juicy behind the scenes details on the album’s art work. We managed to move swiftly beyond the past and talk about the lofty intentions for his new record and some highlights from his storied and thriving career.

Read the full Q&A with Johnny Marr after the jump!

JUMP IN AND READ MORE

!! OMG, don't miss these !!

1 2 3 … 12 NEXT