#barratts club

[publiccollectors]

CB Radio Postcard People. New Public Collectors publication available here. $7.00

People that talked to each other over CB radio (a particularly popular form of communication in the 1970s) made printed calling cards that they exchanged with others. They are called QSL cards. In CB radio speak, “QSL” means “I confirm receipt of your transmission.” These postcard-size printed cards were traded through the mail, or through collector clubs and at CB user social gatherings. I have a modest collection of these cards—most of which came from eBay sellers—because I love the art and design. I particularly enjoy cards that feature roughly hand-drawn art and lettering, with jagged linework and forms. I appreciate the urgency of these cards, and the feeling that community participation was more important than fine craft or hiring an illustrator to make some kind of self portrait, couple, or family portrait. Some people clearly worked with what they had, and that just needed to be enough. Hand-colored black and white printed cards are common, and I have many examples of QSL cards that were filled in with markers, colored pencils or both. I imagine families sitting around a table doing this together.

This booklet presents a small sample of my QSL card collection. In the spirit of the form, I’ve hand-colored the cover of each booklet. I printed this on scavenged/thrift store paper and the entire project was created at home in a few days. I’d like to thank my friend Jeff Barratt-McCartney who brought me a couple QSL cards when he recently visited from Michigan. The cards he gave me aren’t in the style of the ones in this booklet, but his visit prompted me to show him my collection, which immediately made me want to make this publication.

[marta-diablo]

Remembering The Mighty Boosh Through The Lens Of Actor And Photographer Dave Brown

“Come with us now on a journey through time and space,” I heard for the fifth time during a recent binge of the beloved BBC comedy series The Mighty Boosh. The televisual project, which stars creators Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt in various workplaces, is how most fans will remember the Boosh, but the legendary comedy troupe scaled the pages of books, the retro realm of radio and the live stage too.

Like Monty Python, the Boosh thrived on surrealism, but while the former made lengthy strides in religious satire and social commentary, the latter specialised in pop culture references, scaly man fish, talking naan bread and virtually anything Fielding and Barratt could conjure from the colourful cauldron of their unfiltered psyches. Ever awoken from a strange dream and decided not to tell the story? “No, it’s too weird,” you might think. Thankfully, the Boosh never held back.

On the topic of naan bread, I’d like to introduce you to today’s featured photographer, Dave Brown. As well as sporting gorilla garb for his role as Bollo, Brown played several other minor characters, including the deadly Black Frost and, of course, an anthropomorphic naan. While coordinating crimps and marshalling the mayhem as the troupe’s self-confessed “organised control freak”, Brown was never far from his camera. Much to our benefit, he took thousands of photos, documenting the Mighty Boosh’s meteoric journey to the big screen and beyond.

Last week, I had the great pleasure of chatting with Brown to sort through his extensive photography collection and discuss his time as a member of the Mighty Boosh. “I was at university with Noel,” he began, revealing how the Boosh came about in the 1990s. “We lived together at uni and, before I specialised in graphic design, in the course that we did, I was Noel’s partner. He was the copywriter, and I was an art director. We used to write various things and do crazy shit that always got horrendous marks, but actually turned out to be way ahead of its time because it was so ridiculous.”

“We used to be into comedy; Noel always wanted to be a comedian,” he continued. “We were basically comedy trainspotters. And there was a comedy club near where we were in Buckinghamshire called Hellfire Comedy Club. We’d been to see everyone, Kevin Eldon and Harry Hill – all of the greats of that era. Julian was on that bill as a comedian, and me, Noel and Nige [Coan; he and his partner Ivana Zorn conducted the animation for The Mighty Boosh] went to see him do the stand-up and then chatted to him after.”

The students became well-acquainted with Barratt, who told Fielding he had won the Daily Telegraph open mic award. Inspired, Fielding also entered the open mic competition, and there began his first foray into Britain’s comedy underworld. “When [Noel] did that, me and Nige kind of shadowed him through the whole journey, which was extremely stressful. I think Frankie Boyle won it, and I don’t think they have a second place, but I think Noel pretty much came in second.”

Energised by the open mic success, Fielding became involved with the Edinburgh festival alongside Chris Addison, Julian Barratt and Frankie Boyle, among others and eventually began working on the first incarnation of the Mighty Boosh stage show with Julian. “They started realising they were kindred spirits and started writing together,” Brown remembered. “They did Mighty Boosh, which was the first live show. They had met Rich Fulcher while doing a sketch called Unnatural Acts. They liked him and asked Rich to be the zookeeper in their first live show, which won the Perrier Newcomer Award.”

The troupe began to take shape in the late 1990s, a time when Brown was working a steady job as a graphic designer. “I was just living with Noel in Hackney, mucking about and helping them out and getting involved in that Monday night stuff [at the Hen & Chickens theatre in Highbury & Islington], playing music dressed up as different shit. Then I went to Australia to work,” he told me. “When I came back from Australia, [Fielding and Barratt] were writing their third live Edinburgh show [Auto Boosh] and wanted a third person in it because they wanted to do various characters and wanted two people on stage while the other changed into different characters. So they asked me, and I agreed to do that.”

Following the success of Auto Boosh in 2000, Fielding and Barratt were commissioned to partake in a six-part radio series, The Boosh. The show aired in October 2001 on BBC Radio 4 and served as a golden gateway to their popular television adaption, The Mighty Boosh, which aired on BBC Three for three series between 2004 and 2007. “My job varied from helping out with props and playing stupid characters when they needed,” Brown said of his role on the set of the TV show. “I was quite influential in the live direction of it and them two [Noel and Barratt], I was a therapist between those two most of the time [laughs].”

With a fine cast including Brown, Fulcher, Michael Fielding (Noel’s brother), Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry, Barratt and Fielding created a world unlike any other that gave fans a chance to escape. It could be hard to fathom how this silly world of surrealism could offer anything beyond laughter and release; however, in 2020, Netflix removed The Mighty Boosh from its catalogue, citing the use of blackface in episodes like ‘The Spirit of Jazz’ and ‘Jungle’.

‘Auto Boosh’ at Edinburgh Fringe 2001

BBC Radio Show 2001

As we touched upon this delicate topic, Brown recalled the show’s censorship as a particularly distressing period for the Mighty Boosh group. While Netflix cancelled the show, the BBC decided to keep it on iPlayer, instead issuing a warning that needs to be accepted before proceeding to the stream. “I love the fact that the BBC stood by us; Netflix just pulled us,” Brown said. “You know, you gotta tread so carefully. I’d hate to think that we ever offended anyone. I think most of our characters were so fantastical and based on surrealism and fantasy, based on our heroes. And everything was a celebration of those heroes and of a surrealist, fantastical, dreamlike child angle on all of that. So when you get accused of something so dark, it really hurts; we were all really hurt by it.”

“We always made sure that everything we did was based on fun, humour and silliness and never wanted to offend, upset or alienate anyone,” he continued. “We had so many people [fans] who felt like they were on the fringes of society all getting together because of their love of the Boosh. And we’d have people sending us letters saying, ‘I was suicidal’ or ‘I was being bullied, then I got together with this Boosh community. You’ve saved my life – you’ve improved my life’. We were always getting beautiful letters and feedback from fans. To then hear that we were getting cancelled for being inappropriate, it was like a double-edged sword where you go, ‘OK, times have changed, and we would never write that stuff now.’ But at the same time, there was never any malice.”

Brown added: “We weren’t dressing up or doing voices to alienate a particular race or particular section of society. But if we did offend anyone or if anyone watches it now and is offended, then that’s really sad, and we’re sorry.”

Towards the end of our conversation, I was keen to ask the question on all fans’ lips: “Have we seen the end of the Mighty Boosh?”

“All of us are still very close,” Brown affirmed. “We talk to each other all the time. I talk to Noel more than anyone else, but still, Julian was down here a couple of weekends ago. You know, life becomes life. Most of us have got children now. Rich has now moved from America to Richmond. We all meet up occasionally. We met up before Christmas at a Kim Noble gig, which was incredible.”

“We have a massive following in Australia; hence, this gallery have contacted me and asked me to put these exhibitions on. I was like, ‘Does anyone give a shit anymore?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s massive!’ So there was always talk of doing a reunion show or something. But it’s a hard one, you know – I try and think of Noel squeezing back into it. It would have to be relevant to the time. I don’t know how it would be or what it would be, or whether it be as a band.”

Brown then revealed that, beyond the group’s near-constant musical references and sonic tangents in the various live and TV episodes, they had actually put a lot of work into an album. “We went to Electric Lady Studios in New York and recorded a whole album,” he revealed. “Like 25 tracks properly produced in one of the best Studios in New York, and it never got released because of disputes between the American representatives and English representatives. And Noel and Julian had a meltdown over that.”

As well as their huge following in Australia, The Mighty Boosh aired in the US on Adult Swim and dredged a cult following. “A cult following over there is like ten times bigger than a popular following over here,” Brown said.

They weren’t totally aware of the scale of their influence across the Atlantic until they visited on a DJ tour. “We went to New York and LA and did the big Comic Con in San Diego, and it was just fucking insane,” Brown remembered. “The following was mental. We went to the Bowery Ballroom in New York, and we were just meant to be doing a DJ set. But we ended up doing a bit of a live ad-lib thing, finding costumes and stuff because it was sold out. There were queues like four blocks down the road trying to get in, and the Roxy was the same.”

Below, we present a collection of photographs from Brown’s colossal archive, some of which you may recognise; others have been shared exclusively for his feature. The photographs are arranged chronologically, mapping out The Mighty Boosh’s epic journey from 1997 to 2013.

Dave Brown’s Photographic Journey With The Mighty Boosh:

Show at Hen & Chickens in Highbury & Islington 1997

‘The Mighty Boosh’ at Edinburgh Fringe 1998

‘Arctic Boosh’ at Edinburgh Fringe 2000

‘Auto Boosh’ at Edinburgh Fringe 2001 

‘Auto Boosh’ in Melbourne, Australia 2001

BBC TV Pilot 2003

BBC TV Pilot 2003

BBC TV Series 1 Rehearsals 2004 

BBC TV Series 1 2004

BBC TV Series 2 2005

Live Tour Rehearsals 2006

Dave’s selfie in Bollo eye makeup for the first live show in York 2006

Live Tour 2006

BBC TV Series 3 Filming 2007 

Live Tour Rehearsals 2008 

Live Tour 2008 

Creating Live Tour Artwork 2008

Boosh Festival 2008 

USA Promo Tour Comic Con 2009 

Recording album in USA 2011

x

[tundrafloe]

Today is my 2 year anniversary in Boosh fandom! To celebrate, a fave quote from Noel from OK magazine in 2007.

Noel: “Me and Julian Barratt kiss in the show. We’ve kissed many times before in clubs when we’re drunk and showing off.”

[fortunatelychaoticartisan]

Nothing Else Bar Sports Bar & Video Games

Barratts Club Sporting Activities Bars In Northampton Rustic Tap, a Beer Garden sixth road bar, is an expansion along with Austin's Oldest Family members Owned Restaurant, The Hoffbrau. Live acoustic music on our dog-friendly patio, and Craft beer Tracy Bay Boys Brewing hosts and djs inside on choose nights. Please email our group at [e-mail safeguarded] with your name, event date, host's name, and business name (if relevant) for us to locate your details. Desire An Added Special Occasion? Submerse yourself in the outstanding sonic luster generated by our innovative sound system.And also, indulge in a plethora of outside video games consisting of cornhole, ping pong, bocce, and much more, ensuring limitless enjoyment for all.With fantastic alcoholic drinks, outside patio area and a signature crush bar, it's sure to take your occasion to the next degree.In person interactions build confidence.We've additionally obtained sufficient drink specials to put a smile on anyone's face, with 2-for-1 blended, pails of ice-cold beers, and bottles of Sangria to name but a few. Order your pals, see the video game, and take pleasure in brand-new included drinks each week. Sports & Social Allentown is the ULTIMATE FOLLOWER EXPERIENCE. Your headquarters for home & away video games feature modern leading sporting activities seeing on a 25-foot cinema and over 30 HDTVs. With fantastic alcoholic drinks, exterior patio and a signature crush bar, it makes sure to take your event to the following level. Specials & Events Kicking back at bench with the pool hall in Everett gives one of the most delighted sensation. Our protected stage features an amazing 8-foot-tall by 13-foot-wide LED TV screen, making certain daytime satisfaction of performances. Submerse yourself in the extraordinary sonic radiance produced by our cutting-edge sound system. And also, delight in a huge selection of outside games including cornhole, ping pong, bocce, and more, assuring countless home entertainment for all. Sports & Social St. Louis is the best sports club home, including over 20 high definition LED TV's, and a media wall, plus interactive video games like Shuffle Board, Sound Pong, Skeeball, Mini Bowling, and extra!

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Phone: (209) 879-9431

1005 E Pescadero Ave STE 111, Tracy

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Eat & Consume Alcohol All of our menus are jam-packed full of fresh, wholesome food and drink that's best for snacking, sharing and freshening. From a straightforward, loosening up beverage after work to a big banquet with the large game, we've got a flavour for every single occasion. The huge patio area provides over 20 draft beers and mixed drinks in an unwinded, easygoing atmosphere. Take part in some simple "corn-hole" or jenga; or up the stake with some intense p

[catinfroghat]

Starfield is getting a bit annoying to finish at this point because I'd had no trouble with the side quests but now I'm doing the main quest line there's so many bugs that stop my progress and I have to work out how to fix before continuing... I feel like it's a game that I will maybe come back to in a few years and enjoy it a lot more with mods and patches and tbh for the most part it is fun just too repetitive after a while and still annoyingly buggy. But I sometimes think maybe it's because I'm playing it start to finish whereas a game like Skyrim I love but I just dip in and out of so I don't get so bored with the repetition. But also in Skyrim every single cave is individually designed so it does feel a bit more varied whereas Starfield is procedurally generated so after a while you see the exact same copied and pasted building with the exact same loot and enemies spawning in the exact same places with the exact same notes left behind to tell the story of what happened there which is so boring I just end up avoiding exploring because it pisses me off to see the same layout all the time... I also agree with some of the criticisms that the game is very sterile like compared to fallout where there's limbs being blown off and weird stuff and grime Starfield barely even has blood which I'm not saying I would have liked it to be a gore fest or anything but like even the "pleasure planet" where people say it isn't safe and there's drugs etc. it's like you go to the seedy clubs and they have the vibe of a school cafeteria and no one tries to rob you or anything and even the pirates are mostly just rude but reasonable people and these are things that a patch won't really fix because it's ingrained in the writing idk I still really enjoyed most of the side quests like the Terromorph quest line is probably one of the best quests I've played in any game ever to the point where I wish that had been the main quest instead of having to go to loads of identical temples and float around trying to catch magical lights for ages which is just a pain after the first 2. Plus I think it's kind of cruel for the game to kill off one of your closest companions (You get the choice of 2 and it's the 2 that you have spent the most time with/have the highest affinity with) because then you might end up with characters you like less for example the game made me choose between andreja (my wife) and barratt (my favourite character) so now I just have Barratt from the companions that I don't mind having as followers which means less variety (I don't use Sarah or Sam because they both nag at me too much I end up wasting ammo shooting them to get them to shut up) and it's making me want the end of the game to come sooner because I miss having andreja around

[twoinchreview]

2023 gigs.

A list rather than a review but there will be the odd descriptive comment when warranted. The list will include accompanying fine dining.

13.1 Harry Hill. New Theatre, 'Boro. Nuts. Funny af, but nuts.

23.1 Frank Turner, Lottery Winners, Wildwood Buoys. O2 Academy, Leicester. The Marquis Wellington.

26.1 Francis of Delirium, Sloe Noon, Collars. Bedford Esquires. McDs. Great gig. 1st support, quirky (the drummer was also the guitarist), 2nd were superb, reminded me of Slothrust and FoD are always excellent.

2.2 Sprints, Langkamer, Eades. Bedford Esquires. Herd. Amazing, just brilliant. Missed Eades (fucked off 'bout that), Langkamer got me well in the mood and Sprints nailed it. Burger at Herd was one of the best I have ever eaten. Top night.

14.2 Mogwai, Brainiac. Rock City. Horn in the Hand. Brainiac are odd, Mogwai were fucking loud. HitH always delivers when it comes to burgers.

17.2 Doors Alive. Roadmender. Oriental Garden. Great tribute act. Great Chinese meal.

18.2 Dr. Feelgood, Dois Padres. Bedford Esquires. McDs. So glad I made the effort.

22.2 Hotel Lux, Average Life Complaints, The Barratts. The Craufurd Arms, MK. 81 The Original Diner. Three good bands. ALC stood out, HL were so interesting to watch. Burger was just 'good'.

25.2 Total Stone Roses, Oaysis. Met Lounge 'Boro. The College Arms. decent tributes, decent pub-grub katsu curry.

28.2 Young Fathers, Callum Easter. O2 Academy Leeds. Almost Famous. Wow. What a midweek trek, what a gig! YF did not disappoint and CE was intriguing - he played with YF also. And, the best burger I have EVER eaten. EVER.

3.3 Emily Breeze, Andrea Kenny. The Donkey, Leicester. Heritage India. EB was fabulous. The restaurant front of house thought I was a food critic, I am sure of it.

5.3 Grade 2, Clobber, Kings of Pigs. Voodoo Lounge, Stamford. McDs. Sunday gig, G2 were really good.

10.3 Suede, Desperate Journalists. Rock City. Horn in the Hand. DJ were fucking excellent. Also, saw great singer in the Lilly Langtrees pub after the gig....see 06.07 entry.

13.3 Self Esteem, Campbell King, Tom Rasmussen. Cambridge Corn Exchange. Honest Burger. SE was wonderful - great show, great songs, great voice, great live.

14.3 Slow Readers Club, Andrew Cushin. Lafayette, King's Cross. Cut and Grind. I loved this gig. SRC in a small venue - place was bouncing. Katsu chicken burger was good.

16.3 Mike Wozniak. The Core at Corby Cube. Nando's. Wonderful, laugh out loud ramblings.

21.3 Death Cab for Cutie, Slow Pulp. O2 Institute, Brum. Manzils. SP stole the show, DCFC were 'alright'. Great veg madras but with fucking mushrooms.

22.3 The Orielles, Pale Blue Eyes. MASH, Cambridge. Butch Annie's. Brilliant gig. TO were a different band live and PBE will play arenas one day, I'm sure of it. Marvellous burger, marvellous gaff.

24.3 Black Honey, The Howlers. Bedford Esquires. Herd. Bloody excellent night for food and music.

28.3 Anna B. Savage. Village Underground. McDs.

30.3 Jadu Heart, Gglum. Assembly Rooms, Islington. MEATLiquor, GDK. Gglum stole the show. She rocked, actually. I had a balcony ticket but snuck downstairs during a technical hitch with JH's kit; the upstairs bar ran out of beer (wtf?) so I went in search of booze only to find I could walk into the main hall unchallenged! Great burger followed by a really great kebab. 04.04 Gretel Hänlyn, Mary in the Junkyard. The Moth Club. McDs. Great little venue and MitJ were excellent (brilliant drumming and drummer) and GH was fantastic. No overground afterwards but jumped in an Uber to Finsbury Park with two fellas who'd been to the gig #lifesavers

11.04 Big Thief. Hammersmith Apollo. Chicago Grill. I found BT disjointed and out of tune at first, came good toward the end. Burger was fucking huge and beat me. Plus I had to use cutlery to eat it.

14.04 Joe Rooney., A Celebration of Father Ted. The Key Theatre, Peterborough. Interesting evening with the chap that was in one episode of Father Ted as Father Damo. 18.04 Waxahatchee, Indigo Sparks. Earth. GDK. No overground, walked there and back and still made GDK and caught the 23.00 train. 20.04 Fenne Lily, Naima Bock. Islington Assembly hall. GDK. Last minute gig (thanks to ReTickin') and I am glad I made the effort FL and her band (esp. the guitarist) was most impressive - great live sound. 21.04 Lemondaze, Treeboy & Arc. Portland Arms, Cambridge. Butch Annie's. Brilliant live sets from both and a flipping excellent burger.

04.05 Yard Act. Troxy.

05.05 Big Country, Spear of Destiny. Islington Assembly hall.

08.05 Haley Blais, Katie Tupper, Georgia Harmer. Bush Hall. Tiger's Diner. Three great artists and HB's voice is one of the best I have ever heard. Burger was a treat...I shovelled it down!

11.05 Foals. Pryzm Kingston. The first of two shows for the band on the night presented by Banquet Records and they were on top form.

16.05 Lael Neale, Guy Blakeslea. Lexington, Islington. McDs, GDK. LN was simply wonderful. 2-4-1 GDK is always a treat! 08.06 Crawlers. Omeara, Borough. The Kebab Shop. Last minute ReTickin' gig and I am very glad I made the effort. Lamb Shawarma was amazing. 10.06 Diane Cluck, Johanna Warren. Cafe OTO, Dalston. Only went to see JH and it was a performance workshop, so no singing. Not what I expected.

16.06 Arctic Monkeys, The Hives, The Mysterines. Emirates Stadium. 22.06 The Sherlocks. Bedford Esquires. Herd. Last minute gig 'cos Dara O Briain was cancelled due to flooding. TS were cracking.

26.06 Indigo de Souza, Rosie Alena. Village Underground. Fat Hippo, Shoreditch. IdS, and her band, flippin' rocked. I like it when the live performance is a real step up from studio. FH was also cracking.

06.07 Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Girl Band. Craufurd Arms. GB were excellent - saw the guitarist/lead singer, Georgie, after the Suede gig 10.03 - chatting after their set, she remembered me! GCWCF lost the plot with the chatting, rowdy audience...it was embarrassing.

07.07 Breanna Barbara, Memory of Speke. Moth Club. Burke's Warehouse. BB was so good, fantastic. MoS were very good. Burger & chips were excellent.

19.09 My Baby. MK11 MB were really good value - rock enthused dance music and the lead singer's voice is exemplary.

22.08 Boygenius, Ethal Cain. Piece Hall, Halifax. 242 mile round trip was just about worth it. Both acts were OK. Venue is special, though.

28.08 Karen Jonas. Great Easton Village Hall. 29/08 Future Islands. Cambridge Corn Exchange. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. FI are so good live. Cajun chicken burger was fine.

05.09 Samia, Art School Girlfriend. Kentish Town Forum. One of the best gigs this year.

23.09 Flock of Seagulls, Enjoyable Listens. Bedford Esquires. Brewhouse & Kitchen. FoS were good value, EL were excellent as always and the burger was fine.

26.09 The National. Ally Pally. Views from the venue were spectacular.

04.10 Sprints. Scala. Ballache getting to the gig 'cos of the train strike, but well worth it. Aftershow gathering at The Lexington warranted an overnight stay!

05.10 Hard-Fi, Tom A. Smith. The Junction. Impressed with HF, even more impressed with TAS and his band.

06.10 The Undertones, Tom Robinson Band. The Junction. TRB were amazing. He is a great entertainer and his guitarist was superb.

18.10 Treeboy & Arc, Bo Gritz. The Moth Club. T&A are seriously good live.

23.10 Lande Hekt, Charley Stone's Actual Band. The Lexington. 26.10 Yumi and the Weather, Sunny Gym. The Craufurd Arms. Only caught the final song from SG but it was excellent. YatW were banging.

30.10 Cash Savage and the Last Drinks, James P. Honey. The Lexington. CSatLD were amazing. The violinist pulled out one of the best live solos of any instrument I have even witnessed.

08.11 Deadletter, The Joy Hotel. The Craufurd Arms. TJH were bloody good...including bass, 5 guitars! D were superb - great front man.

09.11 Nothing But Thieves. World Resorts Arena, Brum (old NEC). £7.50 a fucking pint. NBT is about right.

12.11 This Is The Kit, Gina Birch. The Glee Club, Brum.

15.11 The Murder Capital. Electric Ballroom. Mental gig. Haven't seena mosh pit like it since the 80s. Thoroughly enjoyed this gig.

16.11 Bleach Lab, Wings of Desire. Scala. WoD were right down my street and delivered - a nice surprise as I'd not heard of them before. One of those gigs where support > headliner.

23.11 Bdrmm, Damefrisor. Bedford Esquires. I flipping enjoyed this. B drummer cracked open a bottle of beer with the end of his drumstick which was the coolest thing I have ever seen.

03.12 The Rural Alberta Advantage, Zoon. Lafayette. I was not in the mood for travelling down to this on a Monday night. However, it was well worth it. RAA were every bit as 9, or so, years ago when I first saw them.

04.12 Coach Party, Bedroom High Club, House of Women. O'Meara. A free gig put on by Beavertown brewery and I'd have gladly paid. Each band were great. BHC were brand new to me and were the pick of a fantastic bunch. I will definitely catch all 3 live again.

12.12 Rahill The Lower Third

[wafact]

If Soccer Clubs Harness Their Power, Fans Can Change The World

Rio Ferdinand during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Arsenal FC at Goodison Park on … [+] February 4, 2023. (Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images) Getty Images Former England and Manchester United captain Rio Ferdinand says that soccer fans have the power to change the world and if soccer clubs have the bravery to “step out from the norm”, they can harness this fan…

[arun-pratap-singh]

Tottenham boss Antonio Conte to undergo gallbladder removal surgery

Antonio Conte will miss Tottenham’s clash with Manchester City on Sunday. Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images Tottenham manager Antonio Conte will undergo surgery on Wednesday to remove his gallbladder, the club have announced. Conte fell ill this week and the diagnosis came back with cholecystitis requiring surgery. He will spend time away from the club recovering from the operation before…

[callixton]

noel fielding & julian barratt

wuthering heights, emily bronte // the face, 2000 // the guardian, 2007 // x // av club, 2009 // bbc, 2019 // emma, jane austen // o2 academy brixton, 2014 // danny baker & noel fielding, 2014

[randomvarious]

Sweet Exorcist - “Test Four” Aural Ecstasy: The Best Of Techno Song released in 1990. Compilation released in 1993. Bleep Techno

Before the Sheffield, UK-based label Warp Records would go on to assume its role as the world's epicenter for IDM and "intelligent techno" music, it was actually a small outfit that was giving rise to a different and local electronic movement, which turned out to be a short-lived one: Yorkshire bleep-and-bass aka bleep techno. And one of bleep techno's finest acts was the duo of Sweet Exorcist, which was made up of the prolific Richard H. Kirk, who was a member of the always changing and nearly impossible to pigeonhole, experimental-industrial-post-punk-dance band, Cabaret Voltaire, and a Sheffield DJ named Richard Barratt, who went by the name of Parrot.

Both residents of Sheffield, Kirk and Barratt met each other at a club in the mid-80s, and a few years after Barratt opened for Cabaret Voltaire, and then Cabaret Voltaire played at a club that Barratt frequently performed at, the two of them started making music together, deciding to name their project after a Curtis Mayfield song.

Sweet Exorcist's first single, Testone, is a wonderful piece of lighthearted and inventive early 90s dance novelty. Kirk and Barratt came up with an idea to sample studio test tones that came from tape machines and managed to craft some really spacious and sweet lead melodies out of it. They took their combinations of these bleeps, bass, drums, synths, and lines lifted from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and made a handful of similar-sounding tracks out of them.

So, here's "Test Four" (also titled "Testfour"), which after initially appearing on the Testone Remixes, was featured on Warp's own sampler, Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove, as well as a compilation called Aural Ecstasy, which was released by Relativity in '93.

My favorite parts of these "Test" tunes are when Kirk and Barratt run the high-pitched bleeps against a bed of much deeper vocal synths, and there's plenty of that going on in here. It's just a type of contrast that will personally never get old to me, no matter how many dingy TR-808 cowbells there are that go along with it that end up revealing this tune's true age. If you've been reading my posts long enough, you know that I really don't care that electronic musicians were using far less sophisticated equipment in the 80s and 90s compared to today. It's not the tools that matter; it's how the carpenter uses them.

Thirty-plus years on and this shit still hits. Yorkshire bleep deserved more time!

[ladydarklord]

The Mighty Boosh on the business of being silly

The Times, November 15 2008

What began as a cult cocktail of daft poems, surreal characters and fantastical storylines has turned into the comedy juggernaut that is the Mighty Boosh. Janice Turner hangs out with creators Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and the extended Boosh family to discuss the serious business of being silly

In the thin drizzle of a Monday night in Sheffield, a crowd of young women are waiting for the Mighty Boosh or, more precisely, one half of it. Big-boned Yorkshire lasses, jacketless and unshivering despite the autumn nip, they look ready to devour the object of their desire, the fey, androgynous Noel Fielding, if he puts a lamé boot outside the stage door. “Ooh, I do love a man in eyeliner,” sighs Natalie from Rotherham. She’ll be throwing sickies at work to see the Boosh show 13 times on their tour, plus attend the Boosh after-show parties and Boosh book signings. “My life is dead dull without them,” she says.

Nearby, mobiles primed, a pair of sixth-formers trade favourite Boosh lines. “What is your name?” asks Jessica. “I go by many names, sir,” Victoria replies portentously. A prison warden called Davena survives long days with high-security villains intoning, “It’s an outrage!” in the gravelly voice of Boosh character Tony Harrison, a being whose head is a testicle.

Apart from Fielding, what they all love most about the Boosh is that half their mates don’t get it. They see a bloke in a gorilla suit, a shaman called Naboo, silly rhymes about soup, stories involving shipwrecked men seducing coconuts “and they’re like, ‘This is bloody rubbish,’” says Jessica. “So you feel special because you do get it. You’re part of a club.”

Except the Mighty Boosh club is now more like a movement. What began as an Edinburgh fringe show starring Fielding and his partner Julian Barratt and later became an obscure BBC3 series has grown into a box-set flogging, mega-merchandising, 80-date touring Boosh inc. There was a Boosh festival last summer, now talk of a Boosh movie and Boosh in America. An impasse seems to have been reached: either the Boosh will expand globally or, like other mass comedy cults before it – Vic and Bob, Newman and Baddiel – slowly begin to deflate.

But for the moment, the fans still wait in the rain for heroes who’ve already left the building. I find the Boosh gang gathered in their hotel bar, high on post-gig adrenalin. Barratt, blokishly handsome with his ring-master moustache, if a tad paunchy these days, blends in with the crew. But Fielding is never truly “off”. All day he has been channelling A Clockwork Orange in thick black eyeliner (now smudged into panda rings) and a bowler hat, which he wears with polka-dot leggings, gold boots and a long, neon-green fur-collared PVC trenchcoat. He has, as those women outside put it, “something about him”: a carefully-wrought rock-god danger mixed with an amiable sweetness. Sexy yet approachable. Which is why, perched on a barstool, is a great slab of security called Danny.

“He stops people getting in our faces,” says Fielding. “He does massive stars like P. Diddy and Madonna and he says that considering how we’re viewed in the media as a cult phenomenon, we get much more attention in the street than, say, Girls Aloud. Danny says we’re on the same level as Russell Brand, who can’t walk from the door to the car without ten people speaking to him.”

This barometer of fame appears to fascinate and thrill Fielding. Although he complains he can’t eat dinner with his girlfriend (Dee Plume from the band Robots in Disguise) unmolested, he parties hard and publicly with paparazzi-magnets like Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse. He claims he’s tried wearing a baseball cap but fans still recognise him. Hearing this, Julian Barratt smiles wryly: “Noel is never going to dress down.”

It is clear on meeting them that their Boosh characters Vince Noir (Fielding), the narcissistic extrovert, and Howard Moon (Barratt), the serious, socially awkward jazz obsessive, are comic exaggerations of their own personalities. At the afternoon photo shoot, Fielding breaks free of the hair and make-up lady, sprays most of a can of Elnett on to his Bolan feather-cut and teases it to his satisfaction. Very Vince. “It is an art-life crossover,” says Barratt.

At 40, five years older than Fielding, Barratt exhibits the profound weariness of a man trying to balance a five-month national tour with new-fatherhood. After every Saturday night show he returns home to his 18-month-old twins, Arthur and Walter, and his partner Julia Davis (the creator-star of Nighty Night) and today he was up at 5am pushing a pram on Hampstead Heath before taking the train north to rejoin the Boosh. “I go back so the boys remember who I am. But it’s harder to leave them every time,” he says. “It is totally schizophrenic, totally opposite mental states: all this self-obsession and then them.”

About two nights a week on tour, Fielding doesn’t go to bed, parties through the night and performs the next evening having not slept at all. Barratt often retreats to his room to plough through box sets of The Wire. “It’s a bit gritty, but that is in itself an escape, because what we do is so fantastical.”

But mostly it is hard to resist the instant party provided by a large cast, crew and band. Indeed, drinking with them, it appears Fielding and Barratt are but the most famous members of a close collective of artists, musicians and old mates. Fielding’s brother Michael, who previously worked in a bowling alley, plays Naboo the shaman. “He is late every single day,” complains Noel. “He’s mad and useless, but I’m quite protective of him, quite parental.” Michael is always arguing with Bollo the gorilla, aka Fielding’s best mate, Dave Brown, a graphic artist relieved to remove his costume – “It’s so hot in there I fear I may never father children” – to design the Boosh book. One of the lighting crew worked as male nanny to Barratt’s twins and was in Michael’s class at school: “The first time I met you,” he says to Noel, “you gave me a dead arm.” “You were 9,” Fielding replies. “And you were messing with my stuff.”

This gang aren’t hangers-on but the wellspring of the Boosh’s originality and its strange, homespun, degree-show aesthetic: a character called Mr Susan is made out of chamois leathers, the Hitcher has a giant Polo Mint for an eye. When they need a tour poster they ignore the promoter’s suggestions and call in their old mate, Nige.

Fielding and Barratt met ten years ago at a comedy night in a North London pub. The former had just left Croydon Art College, the latter had dropped out of an American Studies degree at Reading to try stand-up, although he was so terrified at his first gig that he ran off stage and had to be dragged back by the compere.

While superficially different, their childhoods have a common theme: both had artistic, bohemian parents who exercised benign neglect. Fielding’s folks were only 17 when he was born: “They were just kids really. Hippies. Though more into Black Sabbath and Led Zep. There were lots of parties and crazy times. They loved dressing up. And there was a big gap between me and my brother – about nine years – so I was an only child for a long time, hanging out with them, lots of weird stuff going on.

“The great thing about my mum and dad is they let me do anything I wanted as a kid as long as I wasn’t misbehaving. I could eat and go to bed when I liked. I used to spend a lot of time drawing and painting and reading. In my own world, I guess.”

Growing up in Mitcham, South London, his father was a postmaster, while his mother now works for the Home Office. Work was merely the means to fund a good time. “When your dad is into David Bowie, how do you rebel against that? You can’t really. They come to all the gigs. They’ve been in America for the past three weeks. I’m ringing my mum really excited because we’re hanging out with Jim Sheridan, who directed In the Name of the Father, and the Edge from U2, and she said, ‘We’re hanging with Jack White,’ whom they met through a friend of mine. Trumped again!”

Barratt’s father was a Leeds art teacher, his mother an artist later turned businesswoman. “Dad was a bit more strict and academic. Mum would let me do anything I wanted, didn’t mind whether I went to school.” Through his father he became obsessed with Monty Python, went to jazz and Spike Milligan gigs, learnt about sex from his dad’s leatherbound volumes of Penthouse.

Barratt joined bands and assumed he would become a musician (he does all the Boosh’s musical arrangements); Fielding hoped to become an artist (he designed the Boosh book cover and throughout our interview sketches obsessively). Instead they threw their talents into comedy. Barratt: “It is a great means of getting your ideas over instantly.” Fielding: “Yes, it is quite punk in that way.”

Their 1998 Edinburgh Fringe show called The Mighty Boosh was named, obscurely, after a friend’s description of Michael Fielding’s huge childhood Afro: “A mighty bush.” While their double-act banter has an old-fashioned dynamic, redolent of Morecambe and Wise, the show threw in weird characters and a fantasy storyline in which they played a pair of zookeepers. They are very serious about their influences. “Magritte, Rousseau...” says Fielding. “I like Rousseau’s made-up worlds: his jungle has all the things you’d want in a jungle, even though he’d never been in one so it was an imaginary place.”

Eclectic, weird and, crucially, unprepared to compromise their aesthetic sensibilities, it was 2004 before, championed by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company, their first series aired on BBC3. Through repeats and DVD sales the second series, in which the pair have left the zoo and are living above Naboo’s shop, found a bigger audience. Last year the first episode of series three had one million viewers. But perhaps the Boosh’s true breakthrough into mainstream came in June when George Bush visited Belfast and a child presented him with a plant labelled “The Mighty Bush”. Assuming it was a tribute to his greatness, the president proudly displayed it for the cameras, while the rest of Britain tittered.

A Boosh audience these days is quite a mix. In Sheffield the front row is rammed with teenage indie girls, heavy on the eyeliner, who fancy Fielding. But there are children, too: my own sons can recite whole “crimps” (the Boosh’s silly, very English version of rap) word for word. And there are older, respectable types who, when I interview them, all apologise for having such boring jobs. They’re accountants, IT workers, human resources officers and civil servants. But probe deeper and you find ten years ago they excelled at art A level or played in a band, and now puzzle how their lives turned out so square. For them, the Boosh embody their former dreams. And their DIY comedy, shambolic air, the slightly crap costumes, the melding of fantasy with the everyday, feels like something they could still knock up at home.

Indeed, many fans come to gigs in costume. At the Mighty Boosh Festival 15,000 people came dressed up to watch bands and absurdity in a Kent field. And in Sheffield I meet a father-and-son combo dressed as Howard Moon and Bob Fossil – general manager of the zoo – plus a gang of thirty-something parents elaborately attired as Crack Fox, Spirit of Jazz, a granny called Nanageddon, and Amy Housemouse. “I love the Boosh because it’s total escapism,” says Laura Hargreaves, an employment manager dressed as an Electro Fairy. “It’s not all perfect and people these days worry too much that things aren’t perfect. It’s just pure fun.”

But how to retain that appealingly amateur art-school quality now that the Boosh is a mega comedy brand? Noel Fielding is adamant that they haven’t grown cynical, that The Mighty Book of Boosh was a long-term project, not a money-spinner chucked out for Christmas: “There is a lot of heart in what we do,” he says. Barratt adds: “It’s been hard this year to do everything we’ve wanted, to a standard we’re proud of... Which is why we’re worn to shreds.”

Comedy is most powerful in intimate spaces, but the Boosh show, with its huge set, requires major venues. “We’ve lost money every day on the tour,” says Fielding. “The crew and the props and what it costs to take them on the road – it’s ridiculous. Small gigs would lose millions of pounds.”

The live show is a kind of Mighty Boosh panto, with old favourites – Bob Fossil, Bollo, Tony Harrison, etc – coming on to cheers of recognition. But it lacks the escapism to the perfectly conceived world of the TV show. They have told the BBC they don’t want a fourth series: they want a movie. They would also, as with Little Britain USA, like a crack at the States, where they run on BBC America. Clearly the Boosh needs to keep evolving or it will die.

Already other artists are telling Fielding and Barratt to make their money now: “They say this is our time, which is quite frightening.” I recall Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who dominated the Nineties with Big Night Out and Shooting Stars. “Yes, they were massive,” says Fielding. “A number one record...” And now Reeves presents Brainiac. “If you have longer-term goals, it’s not scary,” says Barratt. “To me, I’m heading somewhere else – to direct, make films, write stuff – and at the moment it’s all gone mental. I’m sort of enjoying this as an outsider. It was Noel who had this desire to reach more people.”

Indeed, the old cliché that comedy is the new rock’n’roll is closest to being realised in Noel Fielding. Watching him perform the thrash metal numbers in the Boosh live show, he is half ironic comic performer, half frustrated rock god. His heroes weren’t comics but androgynous musicians: Jagger, Bowie, Syd Barrett. (Although he liked Peter Cook’s style and looks.)

“I like clothes and make-up, I like the transformation,” he says. Does it puzzle him that women find this so sexually attractive? “I was reading a book the other day about the New York Dolls and David Johansen was saying that none of them were gay or even bisexual, and that when they started dressing in stilettos and leather pants, women got it straight away with no explanation. But a lot of men had problems. It’s one of those strange things. A man will go, ‘You f***ing queer.’ And you just think, ‘Well, your girlfriend fancies me.’”

The Boosh stopped signing autographs outside stage doors when it started taking two hours a night. At recent book signings up to 1,500 people have shown up, some sleeping overnight in the queue. And on this tour, the Boosh took control of the after-show parties, once run as money-spinners by the promoters, and now show up in person to do DJ slots. I ask if they like to meet their fans, and they laugh nervously.

Fielding: “We have to be behind a fence.”

Barratt: “They try to rip your clothes off your body.”

Fielding: “The other day my girlfriend gave me this ring. And, doing the rock numbers at the end, I held out my hands and the crowd just ripped it off.”

Barratt: “I see it as a thing which is going to go away. A moment when people are really excited about you. And it can’t last.”

He recalls a man in York grabbing him for a photo, saying, “I’d love to be you, it must be so amazing.” And Barratt says he thought, “Yes, it is. But all the while I was trying to duck into this doorway to avoid the next person.” He’s trying to enjoy the Boosh’s moment, knows it will pass, but all the same?

In the hotel bar, a young woman fan has dodged past Danny and comes brazenly over to Fielding. Head cocked attentively like a glossy bird, he chats, signs various items, submits to photos, speaks to her mate on her phone. The rest of the Boosh crew eye her steelily. They know how it will end. “You have five minutes then you go,” hisses one. “I feel really stupid now,” says the girl. It is hard not to squirm at the awful obeisance of fandom. But still she milks the encounter, demands Fielding come outside to meet her friend. When he demurs she is outraged, and Danny intercedes. Fielding returns to his seat slightly unsettled. “What more does she want?” he mutters, reaching for his wine glass. “A skin sample?”

[the-stoned-ranger]

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Julian Barratt/Noel Fielding

Wordcount: 7k

Tags: vampires, erotic horror, blood drinking, Julian is a bastard man, dubcon, vampire mind control, SEXY vampire mind control, the Bad Dirty but it feels so good

Summary: Noel picks up an attractive stranger on his way home from Vampire Night at the Goth club. His vampire costume is even better than Noel’s own! Noel takes Julian home for a night of sexy vampire roleplay, but it doesn't take long before their game stops being a game, and begins to get real.

His friends burst into laughter. “You and your vampire kink,” Sally teases. 

“Bite me,” Noel quips.

They’re so caught up in their private jokes, they fail to notice the smoking man at the far end of the alley. Not only is he dressed mostly in black, save for the white, stiff collar of his shirt, he’s had lifetimes to perfect the art of blending in with the shadows.

All creatures of the night learn how to eventually, and Julian is no different. It’s been a long time since he’s seen the sun, and everything looks the same in the shadows. 

But not the boy. He stands out. Very little captures Julian’s attention these days--he’s seen and heard everything at least three times over by now. The fake fangs are terrible, but the shape of the boy’s ass in his leather pants and his androgynous good looks make Julian swallow. 

He throws down the butt of his cigarette, grinds it out with his boot, and emerges, keeping to the shadows. He draws his long jacket more closely around himself; he’s had centuries of practice in going unseen, and knows to wait for the opportune moment to reveal himself. This young man, this poseur, this capricious upstart, wishes to be taken down an alley and bitten on the neck?

Julian smiles to himself. He’s happy to oblige.

[tundrafloe]

Julian and Noel are asked about the "meaning of Boosh"

Noel: "It's really for us."

Julian: "The thing we like to do, is to call it something that means something to us but no one else can possibly know. That amuses us every time we hear someone say it. So it's a secret, really."

(Photo: Annie Hardinge; Quote: Toronto Sun, August 2009)

[sexualintimidationdemon]

Day 8

Reflections on: In Fabric (2018)

This movie is super weird but in the best ways possible! 

There are multiple commercials and montages of ads seen on TVs for the department store within the movie. They are all very stylized, dated and look almost like something from Look Around You. 

There are dozens of hilarious little jokes hidden within stills of promotional material and ad copy on old newspapers.

Julian Barratt plays a boss who calls the protagonist into his office for lectures on handshakes and waves and refers to lunch as “feeding time”. He and his partner also gets off on hearing someone describe common ways a washing machine can break down.

There are lots of hypnotic and beautiful shots of a red dress dramatically rippling in the wind.

A department store clerk, who dresses like a Victorian widow, speaks in extremely flowery, verbosely poetic lines. She describes a catalog as “such an infinite document of finesse and joy”. She also directs a customer to a changing room (labelled “The Transformation Sphere”) to “coalesce into a simple union of wonder” with her dress. 

The music by Cavern of Anti-Matter (a Stereolab offshoot) is perfect.

Characters visit a night club called Zin Zan’s.

A mannequin wears a merkin.

I loved this!

[k00244461]

Research

Harry Styles

His fashion has been noted as "flamboyant", "fashion-forward" and "fun". Citing his use of the colour pink, Styles quoted English musician and The Clash's bassist Paul Simonon in a Rolling Stone interview: "Pink is the only true rock & roll colour." Ann Powers of NPR wrote that his personal style recalls the Spice Girls' "theatrical parade through pop's sartorial heritage" and that he "comforts with fashion's way of telling stories through artful accessories." Tom Lamont of The Guardian noted that some of Styles' fashion choices have contributed to "an important political discussion about gendered fashion."

Styles won the British Style Award at the 2013 Fashion Awards. In 2018, Styles was voted fourth on British GQ's list of 50 best-dressed men, in which fashion designer Michael Kors deemed him "the modern embodiment of British rocker style: edgy, flamboyant and worn with unapologetic swagger."

Journalist and editor Anna Wintour chose Styles to be a co-chair of the 2019 Met Gala alongside Lady Gaga and Serena Williams, which preceded the art exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion. In 2020, Styles became the first man to appear solo on the cover of Vogue, for its December issue. Following criticism from conservative commentators and activists for wearing a Gucci gown on the cover, Styles defended his decision by saying, "To not wear something because it's females' clothing, you shut out a whole world of great clothes." He went on to say that "what's exciting about right now is you can wear what you like" and that the lines "are becoming more and more blurred. "He was voted GQ's Most Stylish Man of the Year in 2020.

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foibles".

From an early age he liked to dress in women's clothes and in his teens realised that he was a cross-dresser. At the age of 15 he moved in with his father's family in Chelmsford, where he began to go out dressed as a woman. When he was discovered by his father he said he would stop but his stepmother told everyone about it and a few months later threw him out.

Perry frequently appears in public dressed as a woman, and he has described his female alter-ego, "Claire", variously as "a 19th century reforming matriarch, a middle-England protester for No More Art, an aero-model-maker, or an Eastern European Freedom Fighter", and "a fortysomething woman living in a Barratt home, the kind of woman who eats ready meals and can just about sew on a button". In his work Perry includes pictures of himself in women's clothes: for example Mother of All Battles (1996) is a photograph of Claire holding a gun and wearing a dress, in ethnic eastern European style, embroidered with images of war, exhibited at his 2002 Guerrilla Tactics show.

Perry has designed many of Claire's outfits himself. Also, fashion students at Central Saint Martins art college in London take part in an annual competition to design new dresses for Claire. An exhibition, Making Himself Claire: Grayson Perry's Dresses, was held at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, from November 2017 to February 2018.

As of 2010 he lives in north London with his wife, the author and psychotherapist Philippa Perry. They have one daughter, Florence, born in 1992.

Leigh Bowery

Leigh Bowery (26 March 1961 – 31 December 1994) was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, and fashion designer. Bowery was known for his flamboyant costumes and makeup as well as his performances. Bowery was born and raised in Sunshine, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. From an early age, he studied music, played piano, and went on to study fashion and design at RMIT for a year. He moved to London in 1980: 'I was so itchy to see new things and to see the world, that I just left', he said in 1987. There he found himself part of the New Romantic club scene. He worked in a clothing shop and appeared in commercials for Pepe jeans. He soon became an influential and lively figure in the underground clubs of London and New York, as well as in art and fashion circles. He attracted attention by wearing wildly outlandish and creative outfits that he made himself. As a fashion designer he had several collections and shows in London, New York and Tokyo. He has influenced designers and artists. He was known for wildly creative costumes, makeup, wigs and headgear, all of which combined to be striking and inventive and often kitschy or beautiful.

Bowery influenced other artists and designers including Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud, Vivienne Westwood, plus numerous Nu-Rave bands and nightclubs in London and New York City.

Jaden Smith

Jaden Smith (born July 8, 1998) sometimes known by just the mononym Jaden is an American actor, rapper, singer, and songwriter. GQ described Smith as "in a league of his own" in terms of fashion and a "superstar who has taken fashion to an entirely different level". Smith has called Tyler the Creator, Batman and Poseidon his icons when it comes to fashion. Smith said that Tyler the Creator introduced him to the brand Supreme. Batman's dark, gothic scenery has influenced the clothing he has created through his brand MSFTSrep and his personal clothing style, wearing Batman protective armor to Kanye West's and Kim Kardashian's wedding and his prom. MSFTSrep's range includes hoodies, T-shirt, trousers and vests. In May 2013 Smith collaborated with a Korean designer, Choi Bum Suk, to create a pop-up store in which customers can buy clothes with their collaborated logos.

Smith raised controversy in 2016 after modelling in a womenswear campaign for Louis Vuitton wearing a skirt. Explaining his choice to wear a skirt, Smith said he was attempting to combat bullying, saying "In five years, when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won't get beat up and kids won't get mad at him." Smith continued to wear womenswear throughout the rest of 2016. Smith was the first male model to model women's wear for Louis Vuitton. Smith created a denim-line with fashion brand G-Star in 2018.

[sjweminem]

ugh i haven't made out with anyone in like 3 or 4 months.....i don't wanna go to clubs anymore idk what to do!!!!