Left: Fur, stylist's own. Harness, Bliss Lao. Underwear, Gris Gris. Right: Top, Sally LaPointe. Bodysuit, Heidi Merrick. Stockings, Staerk. Cuff, Heidi Gardne. Boots, LD Tuttle. Photography by Martina Scorcucchi Styling by Jenni Hensler Makeup by Cheyenne Timperio at Top 5 Management using Smashbox Cosmetics Model: Alexa Yudina at Women Management NYC Stylist's Assistant: Sheyna Imm Left: Top, Sally LaPointe. Bodysuit, Heidi Merrick. Stockings, Staerk. Cuff, Heidi Gardne. Boots, LD Tuttle. Right: Vest, Parkchoonmoo. Bodysuit,Heidi Merrick. Click "Read More" for additional images. Left: Top, Sally LaPointe. Neckpiece, Chromat. Pants, Jac Langheim. Right: dress Lako Bukia. Peplum, Chromat. Cuff, Bliss Lau. Boots, LD Tuttle. Harness, Zana Bayne. Underwear, Gris Gris. Cape, Jac Langheim. Harness, Zana Bayne. Underwear, Gris Gris. Left: Shoulder piece, Chromat. Vest, Gris Gris. Right: Dress, Lako Bukia. Peplum, Chromat. Cuff, Bliss Lau.

Lola Montes Schnabel is an artist living in New York. These five paintings make up her show, Love Before Intimacy, currently on view at The Hole, 312 Bowery, NYC, though February 4.

To contain it so gently The first time I saw him he had barrettes in his hair, wore a huge hoodie and big pants and looked like a cross between a raver and a boy in a fairy tale. The last time I saw him he was hooked up to a ventilator—all tubes, neck brace, IV drip. The first time he may have been standing outside our dorm, smoking, trying to look fucked-up enough to make the right friends. It was about time for me. Neil was a year younger than me, a freshman who landed at Oberlin one year after I did. I wonder if I picked him because he kind of looked like a girl, except he wouldn’t have been a very pretty girl with his deep-set eyes and slightly big nose, which were exactly the best things about his face. And full lips. But he was small-framed, so maybe less threatening as a male specimen, and more familiar—the city boys I’d grown up with tended to be shorter, slighter than boys from outside the city (or maybe it was just that everyone swam in their baggy clothes). When he didn’t wear those barrettes, he would have to brush his hair out of his eyes. The last time his eyes were sealed shut and blue, blood dripped down from the corner of one. The first afternoon in the hospital I thought he could hear us talking to him. It almost looked like he smiled or nodded but I can’t remember if his eyes were open that day or if the doctors opened them at the end or if they never did. I vaguely remember a blank stare, the big brown eyes. But mostly that blue, purple. All bruise. Life support. What is that? I think of Neil sitting on the ground, feet tucked under him, knees pulled up to his chin. Ratty jeans bottoms that dragged on the ground when he walked. I think of us making eggs in my frying pan in the dorm kitchen on special occasions, pretending to be grownups or kids at home even though any food we bought had to be labeled (when someone ate my Phish Food I went ballistic). I think of when he first read me Rosy Ear by Zbigniew Herbert, a poem he wrote about Achilles, and the drawings he left in my Longman Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, large-eyed boys and girls with spiky, misshapen hair next to lines by C.D. Wright and Tom Lux.  When I went to his house while friends were collecting his things (when do they become “personal effects”?), I took his copies of Frank Lima and Zbigniew Herbert, whose work he’d introduced me to, hoping I’d find notes in the dog-eared pages, or more of his drawings. The hospital said it was a broken leg. Then they called back and said come right away. They wouldn’t tell us much because we weren’t family. We sat and smoked in the “Sobriety Garden” overlooking the river and the FDR Drive. We got drinks and waited a few hours for his mom to arrive. I picked a piece of mint in the garden, or maybe that was one of the next days. It was unseasonably warm and nominally “better” to be outside than pacing the hall waiting for news, trading visitor’s passes as more friends arrived. There was also sitting in his room, listening to the machines’ accordion of air, heave and collapse, the occasional beep. Looking at his cheeks, his skull wrapped, his feet. Touching a hand I hadn’t in years. At his funeral service I read from a postcard he wrote me about brushing his teeth with soap and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle while on a camping trip in Yosemite with one of his friends Gabe (there were two), but why was I one of the readers? I couldn’t have been to him what he was to me, a first in that way. He lost his virginity years before we even met, so I probably started out to him as just another person to sleep with. The card he made for my twentieth birthday, after we’d been together on and off for many months, had a drawing of a slim, long-haired girl. I wanted to believe it was a drawing of me, but I was also weirdly jealous of the drawing, figured it was of someone else or some dream-girl I could never be, like the girl in a screenplay he wrote—the perfect girl drawn on a sheet of acid. But the card said he loved me and “everyday it astounds me that you tolerate my nonsense.” Neil was my training for a lot of nonsense. Neil was the original nonsense. It happened in a dorm, naturally, the shittiest dorm on campus, where we lived down the hall from one-another. (My roommate and I had gotten second to last draw in the housing lottery.) It was in his room—his roommate was probably out with his role-playing game crew. I think we first kissed the night of the annual “Red Party” (one of the school’s most frat-like events), after talking in the terribly-lit cinderblock hallway for a while post-party. Around that time my friend Sarah threw a “tequila pajama party” in her room in the all-women’s dorm. We didn’t actually sleep over, and not all of us even wore our PJs, but I drank tequila for the first time and wound up puking all night thanks to a shots and beer one-two punch. Sarah is known for being blunt as hell and asking slightly inappropriate questions in front of large groups of people, which is perfect for slumber parties at any age. We played a variation of “Truth or Truth” or “Skeletons in the Closet” and Sarah asked everyone who was a virgin, or not a virgin, to raise their hands. It was a fairly even split, but I was still determined to get rid of it pronto. It was getting ridiculous, and there was a known shortage of straight (even straightish) men at our school. We probably used a condom from the vending machine downstairs. I can’t remember much else other than feeling relieved, and I’m sure it was incredibly awkward except he knew what he was doing compared to me, and he was very sweet. I was glad to get it over with already. I probably did a little dance in my head like Tom Hanks in Big when he finally gets with his grown-up lady girlfriend and orders coffee, black, the next morning. Right after the big event, or maybe it was a couple nights later, Neil and I took a walk over to Fairchild, the nicer dorm nearby with a semi-vegan food coop in the basement. Sarah was standing outside. Could she tell? Did I signal to her in girl-speak? I was relieved to be delivered into the safe company of a friend, or mixed company at least. I also felt some kind of small triumph. Check that off the growing-up list. That I soon fell in love with Neil was a benefit or inevitability (given how much of a romantic I am and how much of an under-the-radar charmer Neil was) that I hadn’t counted on but I’m sure I secretly wished for. When you can’t see someone, can’t physically be near them again, it makes you want to speak to those you can, keep them in your life in some capacity no matter what. Writing to those who are gone magnifies the line between the possible and the impossible. To address them—does it soothe or just call up the ghosts to keep you from sleeping? It’s the kind of sentiment Neil might scoff at or at least express more eloquently. When I read the cards Neil wrote to me, he is still addressing me. We are not back in the time when we were in love, and I don’t wish to be, but he calls me “you,” he calls us “we.” He writes, “I’ve seen beautiful things. I’ll never be able to describe them, but I hope someday we can come here together.” He frames that time I learned how to share space, choose words carefully, nurture and be nurtured, hurt and be hurt. The main character in Cut Out Paper Heart, Neil’s screenplay, eats the entire sheet of acid, not tab by tab, but devouring the whole thing in ragged pieces, chews up the girl, not swallowing her whole but still consuming her entirely—by the same token she consumes him from the inside out. Neil was that kind of love, albeit in a less menacing or cannibalistic way. I’ve seen Neil more in the past year in my sleep than in the past almost-decade since we finished school, even though we lived a five-minute walk from each other in Brooklyn for several years. In the dreams, mostly he is telling a story and making me and everyone laugh, maybe doing his impression of an old man, maybe talking about otters or llamas. I was always competitive with and inspired by Neil, but he could out-word me any day. He could call something “grand” and get away with it or say, “I can’t wait to see you. We’ll make chicken soup,” in a letter. The last time I saw him conscious was at a party the night he got hit by a car; I had also run into him the night before that after not seeing him in a while. He had just gotten back from a few months away, practicing Thai boxing, about which he was writing a beautiful blog. Even though he was drunk at the party, he still managed to say something sharp, observant, and sweet to me in our brief conversation about my band’s performance that night. I wish I remembered his exact words. I don’t remember much about the first time we slept together, but I do remember one of the last times. Fall of my junior year. We rode our bikes out to the golf course at the edge of town. It was misty—very The End of the Affair (a movie we saw that year), but with bad late-nineties fashion and neither of us looking nearly as attractive as Ralph Fiennes or Julianne Moore. Most of our last sexual encounters involved long walks or bike rides, tossing stones into the reservoir, me giving him a flat-eyed look in conversation to avoid saying what I really wanted to. At the time I was newly enamored with Rilke’s poetry, especially the Duino Elegies. In his Fourth Elegy, Rilke writes, “Aren’t lovers always / coming to sheer drop-offs / inside each other / they who promised themselves / open spaces, good hunting / and a homeland?” Sure, some of it was late adolescent hormones coupled with a penchant for drama on both our parts, but it was Neil who began to show me how to navigate the cliffs of intimate relationships, to search for adventure and a home. His postcard from Yosemite said, “I want so badly to show them to you,” the new landscapes he had seen and started exploring. I have been looking ever since. Note: The title of this piece comes from the Rainer Maria Rilke poem Fourth Elegy as translated by David Young in Duino Elegies _______________________________________________________________________________ Rebecca Keith's poems and other writings have appeared in Best New Poets (2009), The Laurel Review, The Rumpus, The Awl, BOMBlog, Storyscape, The Millions, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, was a semi-finalist for the 2010 “Discovery”/Boston Review poetry contest and has received honors from the Atlantic Monthly and BOMB magazine. A native of downtown New York, Rebecca is a founder, curator, and host of Mixer Reading and Music series at Cakeshop. She also sings and plays guitar and keyboards in the Roulettes and Butchers & Bakers. To contain it so gently originally appeared in the seventh issue of Dossier. Image: Adam Frelin, White Line, fluorescent fixtures and bulbs, steel cable, generator, 240' long, 2005.

Photographer Katja Rahlwes describes her images as “Cool Women, or better: Femme Intense.” She re-phrases the perception of the female gaze, with her own unfaltering approach to shooting women who are in command of every shot. Her glamazonian subjects often subvert the idea of the classic pinup. Katja has contributed to independent publications such as Self Service, i-D, Dutch, Butt and Made in USA. She has also created works for the fashion houses Celine, Chloe, Miu Miu, A.P.C, Maison Martin Margiela and Gucci. Katja’s closest relationship to date has been with Purple. Her most recent collaboration was the Full Moon supplement for issue #16, comprised of childhood pictures, Polaroid snapshots and a number of her own collection of vintage postcards. The zine is rendered with a combination of black and white images next to a neon orange colourwash. With her numerous editorials, intimate still-life pieces and self-portraits, Katja's images make for a rich portfolio. Natasha Arnold: How did you acquire a taste for fashion photography? Katja Rahlwes: From an early age I was drawn to imagery through magazines. I’d cut out everything that triggered an emotion in me, made me dream, escape or move. I still have a huge collection of bits and pieces, photo cut-outs, postcards, entrance tickets. Natasha: How did you develop your attachment to still-life photography? Katja: It’s a very personal process for me to work on stills, I really love that moment when I start setting up a scenario, it’s quiet, there is suspense. My aim was to inject some new sense to it. It all started when I took more and more pictures of my personal environment. I did that to remind me of ideas or situations or set ups I liked. It was a sort of diary memo work. I then discovered the magic of mini photo sets, the way you would set up a situation inspired by the items you photograph. Great design has a lot of soul, so a fabulous pair of shoes can lead you in quite a storyboard. Natasha: You’ve had a strong connection to independent publications throughout your career. What is your main drive behind this line of work? Katja: Basically, independent publications allow you to develop your groundwork. You are more or less free to let run your creative thoughts. There is also something quite confidential about it, you work close with a team of people and you sense the passion everybody has for what they do, that is so important. Some magazines can become your house of thoughts. Natasha: You have worked a lot with Purple. I loved your recent supplement. Can you talk us through the ideas behind the display of intimate childhood Polaroids and vintage postcards? Katja: That book is a collaboration with Olivier Zahm and I guess we are still looking for who I am. I think we all are driven by a moment of time and images we never forget or helped us form a point of view. I am, for sure. I collected the vintage postcards at the time they were absolutely not vintage but they are today. Postcards help me to capture a moment of me being somewhere no matter where and what I do. A postcard is always the ideal representation of something. At least, I would say that is the intention of a postcard. For me, I sense a lot of loneliness from a postcard too. It really makes me think. Natasha: In your formative years you worked as a fashion illustrator, fashion stylist and studied fashion design at Studio Berçot. With such a multi-disciplinary background, is there a path outside of photography you’d like to pursue? Katja: I don’t know, but it is true I am thinking about it a lot, “What is my next step?” I love furniture and lamps, I would love to be able to just buy everything I discover in that domain and furnish a big house or an entire village! Natasha: Who are your art heroes and why are they important to you? Katja: I was actually really blown away by a recent show I saw in Paris at The Museum of Modern Art by Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch. I thought to myself: if you come up to such a high point of realization about our today’s today, what’s next? How can you move on and not go crazy? Super hyper lucidity, they are quite strong out there. Natasha: Could you pinpoint your personal influences? Katja: Really everything has an influence on me. Essentially it would be my dilemma and my strength. Natasha: Living between Paris, London, New York and then your home of Frankfurt- are there any tangible differences between each city? Do you have a favorite? Katja: No, no favorite, but a place like Frankfurt am Main is nice because it’s a ‘wannabe big’ city with all the wannabe clichés of a branded city like Paris or New York, but then its very provincial too. Those elements are very touching to me. I gain new headspace when I go there. I am currently working on a book called Paris am Main, the romantic drama of messed up perspectives. Natasha: What is your stance on the fashion industry today? Katja: There is a lot to say, it's a very reactive ground. I think its best to keep it in the open. Natasha: Do you think there is something a female photographer can access that male photographers cannot? Katja: I wonder is it really about making the difference? Because I think the work you do is due to the individual and the therefore each approach is different. Natasha: What is next for you? Katja: Going back to work! All Images, Katja Rahlwes

Born and bred in London, Phoebe Collings-James creates multidisciplinary works in sculpture, illustration, photography and video. Her art is thought-provoking, provocative and demands a reaction from the viewer. The twenty-something artist has exhibited in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan, Beirut, Mexico, New York and most recently at the Miami Art Basel RiffRaff show. Phoebe was recently featured on Purple Television, alongside her friend Karley Sciortino AKA Slutever, with their film Tit Prints, an homage to Warhol star Brigid Berlin. Up next, she will come to New York to hold a residency at The Still House Group's Red Hook Gallery in March 2012. Natasha Arnold: Is there a tangible chain of events which led you to art - or do you feel it is engendered? Phoebe Collings-James: For as long as I can remember it is the only thing I have been compelled to do. I always enjoyed escaping in to other worlds and making things when I was younger. My house was full of music and dancing all the time which might explain why I like using sound so much, my dad had a ridiculous subwoofer in the living room that would make the whole house shake. He also had a darkroom upstairs, where I spent a lot of time in watching him work. I went to art school when I was 18, first to Byam Shaw then Goldsmiths. They were both eye-opening experiences but I am definitely happier outside of that system, it can be quite claustrophobic. It feels like a lifetime ago now. Natasha: I read a tutor at Goldsmiths deemed your ink drawings of bestiality to be pornographic and highly offensive, I’d assert that just because someone is offended it does not make them right. Would you say attempts to teach art within an academic framework are futile? Phoebe: I was livid when I first found out! Institutions are such funny things, some people seem to get fossilised in them and progress just passes them by. It was sad because I had really respected the work of that tutor and those drawings were quite clearly far from pornographic, most definitely not offensive. I don’t think education is ever futile. But I did have such a polarized experience of art school. On the one hand I had experiences like you have described, with old-fashioned ideas that ran all the way from what I was making to what I was wearing and the color of my hair. But then I also had some of the most stimulating conversations about art that really challenged and encouraged me. Choke on Your Tongue, 2010 Natasha: Would you say your work is deliberately provocative? Phoebe: I want it to have an impact on the viewer, I want them to be able to engage with it and as a tool quite often it helps to be a little provocative. Sometimes I think about it like a puzzle with a few missing pieces. I don’t want to give away the whole story, just make suggestions to encourage a thought or feeling. My work is not definitive, an important part is for people question what they are seeing, how it makes them feel and why, I want people to enjoy the experience. Whether it be emotional, silly, disgusting or even boring. Natasha: Does London play a role in your creative output? Phoebe: I grew up here, so London has my heart. Most of my friends and family are here. It is a very hard city, especially at the moment. The country is being crippled by cuts which makes it hard to stay optimistic at times. Saying that, I did feel very proud last week when I heard that 2 million had gone on union strike. Many of those people including my mum were under huge illegal pressure from their bosses to stay at work, so it must have taken a lot for them to make that stand. Natasha: Do financial implications affect your work? Phoebe: It some times affects the speed at which things can happen which is frustrating, but things always work out in the end. Natasha: You have mentioned that music is a key influence to your artwork. What are you listening to at the moment? Phoebe: Coastal Grooves by Blood Orange is great. I bought it as soon as it came out and have probably listened to it every day since. Sun Araw are getting to be another favorite too, I really want to work with them- maybe they will see this! Little Dragon is also fantastic. As for older stuff I started listening to Archie Whitewater’s Steam again recently, which I love. There really are too many to say! My Ipod is on all day so I am constantly flicking. Natasha: Who are your art heroes? Phoebe: I always find myself looking backwards, perhaps partly because works tend to build in pertinence over time. Particularly to the 70’s, artists like Carolee Schneemann, Stephen Dwoskin, Lynda Benglis, Yoko Ono...I could go on and on. Vito Acconci’s Seedbed is another work that springs to mind. I was actually speaking with Brenden from Still House quite recently about some work on show from that period at MOMA, I think it was from their permanent collection. We were both saying what an affinity we felt with the work they were making. I definitely have a feeling we are at a similar point now of massive social and technological change. Natasha: More general influences? Phoebe: Sun Ra, John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Rebecca Horn are all people I look to a lot. I think that growing up with a constant stream of TV, computers and cinema has had a massive affect on the way my brain processes and creates imagery. There is a pace to it that requires immediacy both when making the work and experiencing it. I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on art films for more than a few minutes, which is something that has probably filtered into my work. It is the predicted sensory overload of my generation I suppose. Having been saturated with digital screens we constantly require more to be sensually fulfilled. Natasha: Did this observation act as a catalyst to your piece ‘Broken Hearts Requiem’? Phoebe: Very much so. The gallery was shoebox small and as it reached crescendo the sound was so hypnotic that despite the near deafening wails people watched it through to the end. I was having quite a traumatic year whilst making that piece and the thought of sitting in front of a computer blubbing over a tiny, grainy youtube video seems ridiculous now. But actually, finding comfort in the inanimate, as futuristic as it sounds is the reality we are living in. I guess that’s what video often strives toward. Making the inanimate, animate. Broken Hearts Requiem, 2011 Natasha: How does the Internet inform your work? Do you feel it has had a positive effect on the art world? Phoebe: The Internet is a contemporary life force; it is incredible and naturally has a positive effect on art. Ultimately my work does come from life, I am looking at how we communicate fears and desires but I do find its possibilities very exciting. Natasha: What does Art Basel mean to you? Phoebe: Art Fun. I have never been, I have a picture of sunny skies and art dealers falling off boats drunk! The experience of viewing work at art fairs is usually pretty sterile, I think most artists I know going out there are planning shows that try to break away from that. Natasha: With Charles Saatchi recently describing the art buying world as 'vulgar, eurotrashy and masturbatory,' do you care about your audience and who buys your work? Phoebe: Well he would know, wouldn’t he? It’s yet to be something I’ve had very much contact with. Luckily all of my works have gone to happy, art loving homes. And it definitely makes a difference because, to go back to what I was saying earlier, art really should be about a conversation. There is no need for that to stop at the gallery. Natasha: You had a piece in the show ‘Riffraff’ with the Still House Group in Miami. What did you exhibit? Phoebe: I showed a piece called Splitting of the Phallus, Making of the God. It is a phallus splayed through the seam, swinging from a noose. Natasha: What message do you hope to communicate from that piece? Phoebe: The description creates quite a violent image but in reality it almost resembles some sort of bone. I was interested in the historical symbol of the phallus as protector, against evil spirits, as a protector of women and children. It is about breaking myths, freeing us from the shackles of certain charms and traditions. The split phallus is an effigy, a mini monument to the free. Splitting of the Phallus, Making of the God, 2011 Natasha: What motivated you to join The Still House Group? Phoebe: I love them! I went to visit their studio when I was in New York this year and I was really impressed by their attitude and the art I saw. They are working from an incredible space in Red Hook at the moment, it’s the size of a football pitch, right on the dock. I am going to do a residency with them in March next year and I can’t wait. Natasha: Would you say your gender is pertinent to your work? Phoebe: I don’t think there is an artist alive or dead whose gender doesn’t colour their work to some degree. I wouldn’t say it was pertinent but it is certainly visible. Natasha: Is the reaction to your work notably different when you exhibit in cities outside to London? Phoebe: I have really noticed it when works have been shown in London and then taken to another country. When I showed Primates last year in Berlin the reaction was far steelier than in London. People were not just uncomfortable but in some cases found it very offensive. And that’s where the power of suggestion comes in to play, the shame and disgust that are felt are dependent on the viewers’ own perception of what they are viewing and the connections they make. Natasha: What are you working on next? Phoebe: Lots of things all at once! But I am really excited about a new work I am making with Matthew Stone. It’s a performance piece that will happen in a Hammam in Marrakech during the Biennale early next year. Top Image: Phoebe Collings-James by Tom Ordoyno

Although the Long Island-based quintet Twin Sister just released their first full-length album, In Heaven, this fall, the band has previously released two EPs (Color Your Life in 2010 and Vampires With Dreaming Kids in 2008), and they have enough unofficial material online to create at least two additional albums. The band’s five members---singer Andrea Estella, keyboardist Dev Gupta, bassist Gabel D'Amico, guitarist-singer Eric Cardona and drummer Bryan Ujueta---first met on the Long Island band circuit, where they grew up in adjacent towns. They officially formed a band in the summer of 2008, layering Andrea’s breathy vocals, which range from a suffused whisper to kittenish purring to a ghoulish rasp, with the band’s hypnotic dreamscape sounds. Since then, they have gained worldwide renown and a cult-like following. As Twin Sister’s European tour was winding down, Andrea sat down before her Parisian show to speak with us about the band’s homegrown approach to making music videos, old versus new songs, her obsession with zany hairstyles and how Nickelodeon led her to her first rock experience. Sarah Moroz: You played a cover from Italo-disco maestros La Bionda when you played your Paris concert last year. I can’t think of anything more different than your sound, and yet it was one of the most fun and electrifying covers I’ve heard. How did you decide to do that song? Andrea Estella: I don’t know how we chose that song, actually. I think I or one of us found the video on YouTube. We really liked [it] and were like, “Oh, we could do this!” Sarah: Are there any other covers you’d be interested in performing? Andrea: We haven’t really been working on any in a long time. We’ve been playing longer sets now than we used to; we have more music now. We might work on another cover; I don’t know what yet, though. Sarah: So can you talk a bit more about the new stuff? Andrea: We’re playing songs from the album In Heaven. So, it’s kind of pushing some of the older ones out of the way, but we’re still keeping a couple---even bringing back one or two that are really old, and then trying to work out the new songs. We'll practice them when we get home so they’ll be better developed. We started the tour playing “Kimmi in a Ricefield” and then we stopped because we felt it wasn’t ready yet, even though it’s probably fine. We’re just crazy. Sarah: On your blog, you have work that references both Kimmi and Lady Daydream in the titles. Can you tell me more about your work as a visual artist? What is the relationship between the art you make and the songs—--do the two bleed into each other? Andrea: They bleed. Originally with Kimmi, I made a story---a short story. It changed a little bit for the lyrics, shortened the story even more. I just made up characters. And then we made it into a video, which is another version of Kimmi. But that original was a very innocent little…like an anime character. Sarah: Can you talk a bit more about the child-like tropes? I feel like that’s a bit of a theme. In the video for “Bad Street,” there’s a piñata and chalk drawings---there’s a playfulness. Andrea: Even me and my boyfriend---he’s the bass player [Gabel d’Amico]---we’re really childlike. We’re always talking in baby voices (laughs), being idiots. I think we’re just a bunch of dopey kids, so it just comes through. I love cartoons and toys and kids. Sarah: What was your first concert? Andrea: My dad surprised me. I came home from school one day when I was like…nine---eight or nine. I don’t know if you know the show Pete and Pete? It used to be on Nickelodeon II. They’re brothers and they’re both named Pete. And there was a band at the time that was kind of popular, Luscious Jackson…? Sarah: Yeah! "Naked Eye!" Andrea: So they were on an episode of Pete and Pete, and I started getting into the band. I came home one day, and my dad loved to surprise me so he just put me in the car and his friend came, and we saw Luscious Jackson. I was like the youngest kid there, and I still have this tank top that has Luscious Jackson written kind of graffiti-style on it. That was my first show. Sarah: Do you ever try to channel anyone or use other front women as inspiration for being onstage? Andrea: I don’t think about it too much. I do like Cyndi Lauper, but I’m not really like her 'cause she’s kind of insane and she does really weird dance moves, stuff like that. I also like how Björk is onstage. She doesn’t talk very much. She just kind of dances silly, like I do, but not as weird as Cyndi Lauper. Sarah: You have had all different types of hairstyles over the years. Even now, your hair is in this really pretty kind of crown braid. Is that part of your style in general, or is that part of your “I’m performing” style? Andrea: Hair is like a hobby in my family. When I was in middle school or even younger, my mom let me dye my hair so I had blue hair and purple. Me and my sister would get into extensions and my brother would have to have a mohawk---we’ve always been into messing with our hair. Whenever I go home, my sister is always getting me to dye my hair. Sarah: So do you have your eye on a next style? Andrea: I have a tub of violet hair dye that I want to use but now I’m not so sure because this blonde, with the weather changing, is breaking. But I really want to dye it light, light lilac or violet. Sometimes I have sea foam hair and all of a sudden brown, normal; blonde. And I wear wigs. I mess around with all that stuff. I like looking different every day. Sarah: Being from New York, does being a “New York band” mean anything to you? Andrea: I mean, we just are a New York band. We all grew up in New York; we’re all from Long Island. We grew up going to the city as kids. We just are a New York band---it’s not like we moved there for college and met up with other kids from Arizona. My family’s in New York. It must feel different for other bands. They go there looking for whether they’re going to be a painter or model. They go there and they’re like, “Yes, I made it! I’ve been here for four or five years. I’m a New Yorker!” I’ve been going to shows since I was in high school in New York. Sarah: But does being a New York band have a kind of connotation of creative locality? Do you feel part of a New York music community? Andrea: I guess there are different pockets of people. My friends have always been New Yorkers because we’ve been going to shows there since we were kids. But then there are other people who go there because it’s a hip place to be and it’s this whole cool, hip scheme to play a certain bar in Williamsburg or whatever. We just play wherever. We like Silent Barn. I don’t know; it’s weird when I talk about Brooklyn… There isn’t much going on on Long Island so you just go and travel to Williamsburg. It’s more popular than it ever was. Now it’s like overload, but it’s cool. Especially from touring around the US, there are a lot of special people that need a special place to go that their hometown can’t give them. Sarah: You made all these extra mp3s available online: demos, different versions of songs that didn’t make it on the album… It’s quite generous to share all of that. Musicians are usually very careful about what songs they release to the public. Why did you decide to put all these songs in varied stages of completion out there? Andrea: Originally, we used to show ideas to our friends, because we weren’t a band yet. We just didn’t care. Some of them would jump on that idea and think it was really cool. Then it turned into strangers listening to it. I like some of the earlier ideas, unfinished recordings. People are evolving with music because no one really buys music anymore. It’s also cool because you put it on the website and it’s free and [people] like it. It’s better than them getting it from some rip on YouTube. It’s just nice to see early versions of finished songs too. Sarah: What about the videos? How much do you get involved in those? Andrea: Oh, I get in there. I’m bad at letting go. I was a visual artist before being a musician, which became more dominant. [The videos] are my way of getting visual with music, which is so fun. I did the art direction for the music videos that we have so far: “All Around,” “Bad Street” and then “Kimmi in a Ricefield.” “Kimmi in a Ricefield” was a big, nice studio. We got to work with a big, nice open space and a team. That one was a step up. It came out cool. It was a 22-hour day, and I got minor hypothermia from that video. I did the art directing but then I also had to do the acting. Luckily, I had a friend to help me with the art direction while I was acting. I sat in cold water in wet clothes on my knees all day, but it was so much fun. Music videos are so old school---when you’re little, you watch music television. It’s my favorite part. It’s like, “Oh, I can’t wait ‘til the music video comes out!” It’s really important to me. Sarah: ”All Around and Away We Go” is a really funny video---it doesn’t visually match the sound at all. Andrea: We were supposed to have a studio space…the guy was supposed to pick up the key, but we got locked out. We ended up going to this house on Long Island that we were living in and using it as a practice space, and we had to shoot it in the house. We didn’t have enough room to pull the camera out far enough, [so] we had to cut a lot of it. Dance scenes don’t look good unless it’s the whole body. We had to do from the knee up, which doesn’t register as much. And then we did a lot of stop-animation. It was really fun. Sarah: The contrast of the kitschy feel with the ethereal sound is quite unexpected. Andrea: What inspired us for that video was Teen Dream, this little pop trio. They had a one-hit wonder sort of thing. Their video is really scary, because they have a stop-motion animation of a guy coming in and he has a paper body and his head is an actual photograph and it’s moving and then he falls apart and then he comes back together---and there are clouds going by behind him and weird three-dimensional shapes. Then it goes to three girls dancing with a projection on them... The song is “Let’s Get Busy”, it’s from the ’80s. Sarah: There’s one line I really like: “Feel the power of my many destinies.” Does it feel like you have many destinies? Andrea: Already, when I go home I want to work on sculptures. I’m really into food, too. I don’t think music is the only thing for me. I’m a Gemini; I want to do many things. So yeah, there are many destinies for me. There’s a lot of time, so I hope to do more---maybe work on other music videos with other people, like friends who are in bands. Oberhofer, they’re also a Brooklyn band; I’d like to make their music video. They don’t have a music video yet. I’d be a lot of fun. There’s no money in that either (laughs). Sarah: Right, well, why start now? Andrea: (Laughs) Yeah, why? I’m going to live with my parents forever! Image by Shawn Brackbill