ARTICLES BY JOHN MCDONNELL
|
 PRANCEHALL
I was walking down the street the other day when I had an epiphany. I turned to my reflection in a nearby shop window and said, "Hey, you know what? There's more to the world than just UrBaN Mu$iC in that Do It! column." In celebration of this sign from heaven, I am now going to be using this precious space in Vice to also write about lots of other interesting things, like animals, people and popular culture, with some side-splittingly hilarious anecdotes thrown in for good...
|
|
|
  BIN BANQUETS
Mmmm, Scavenging For Out-Of-Date FoodYou may be under the impression that eating out of bins is a practice confined to tramps, starving refugees and really crazy people, but the phenomenon is becoming very popular among students and young arty types who tend to live in squats...
|
|
|
 IMAGINARY FRIENDS
Introducing... AlessiWe saw Alessi’s second ever gig at the end of last year. Heavenly Records had taken over a bar off Oxford Street just before Christmas and we stumbled in all drunk and were like: “Wow! She’sssh amasssshing”. It’s an obvious comparison, but she sounds a lot like Joanna Newsom. A sixteen-year-old, swe...
|
|
|
 LINGERIE PARTY
In The HoodYou'd imagine those parties where "adult lifestyle" company reps come over to your house to flog frilly knickers and sex toys to be a prudish affair involving frumpy, middle-aged, middle class women mortified by the thought of coming into contact with any type of battery operated object. And this, t...
|
|
|
 READING WITH POLYTHENE SHEETS
These New Puritans Got Special Treatment in SchooolThese New Puritans are four gaunt, well-spoken 19-year-olds who've been clumped into the imaginary "Southend Scene" (one club night is not a scene) with bands like The Horrors and Wretched Replica (who have now split up) but sound nothing like either...
|
|
|
 KILLING STUDENTS
Friendly Fires Avoid a ManglingI first saw Friendly Fires live a few years ago at The Dublin Castle in Camden when the band were still at university and went under the awful name First Day Back. They sounded like an incredible cross between LCD Soundsystem and At The Drive In, but...
|
|
|
 RIDING WITH A HEROIN GANG
On The Trail Of Bobby BrownSelling drugs is wrong and illegal, but is it fun? I wanted to find out, so I found a gang of heroin dealers from one of the most economically deprived areas in London and hung out with them for a night so I could find out the answer to the above question. Here's what happened....
|
|
|
 VICE RECOMMENDS
Right now, I'm really liking laid-back hip-hop from the dirty south-the kind of stuff you could almost imagine people dancing to while lying flat on their back. They wouldn't exactly be dancing though, more just gyrating their hips very, very slowly. One of my number one jams right now is Young Dro'...
|
|
|
 PROTECTING YOUR PAD
At some point in your university life you will end up living in an area that is swarming with packs of wild-eyed rudeboys who, given half a chance, will happily clear your room of anything worth more than a packet of Maltesters. Securing your home and deterring would-be burglars is therefore very im...
|
|
|
 THE WORST FESTIVAL EVER
I can say with absolute certainty that I have never had a good time at a festival. Festivals these days are for bloated marketing people in flip-flops and three-quarter-length shorts to prance about in a field twiddling one of their nipple piercings and pretending they like music so they can go into...
|
|
|
|
|
| |
