NEWSLETTER

Cover photo by Ben Rayner

VIDEO GAMES KILLED THE RADIO STAR Games Review - The History Issue GRAND THEFT AUTO IV This isn’t particularly fair. It’s like they’ve told me to review the universe in a text message, or to summarize all of À la recherche du temps perdu in five words...READ MORE

VICE MAIL Letters - The History Issue Analog Mail, A Nation of Retards, The Sweet Stink of Girl Shit, Ready For Action, Ketchup on Your Porridge, Sex Snoop...READ MORE

VICE COMICS By Johnny Ryan U.S. HISTORY FUN FACTS...READ MORE

COGITATIONS UPON THE NATURE OF HISTORY They say that history is written by the winners. One day the feral scum of Britain will win and roam the country free. My problem is that they can't read or write. And that'll be the end of history...READ MORE

LITERARY Book Reviews - The History Issue THE US IMPERIALISTS STARTED THE KOREAN WAR This book is complete fiction. Every story in it is either fabricated or twisted so much as to be useless as an historical account. We South Koreans believe we could have...READ MORE

HISTORY ON REPEAT FOREVER AND EVER Ophelia Field Traces Vice's Ancestors Ophelia Field is a young and articulate graduate of Christ Church College, Oxford and the London School of Economics. She knows a lot more than you about the early 18th Century. When she isn't acting as an expert consultant to the European Council on Refu...READ MORE

VICE FASHION - THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS Photos by Valerie Phillips Styling by Aldene Johnson...READ MORE

ENGLAND IS THE PLACE FOR ME Val Wilmer's Hidden Photographs Uncovered. A Forgotten History of Black London While certain rock stars with surnames that rhyme with "dagger" were making pained efforts to be seen to be hip on the 60s scene in London, Val Wilmer was living in the calypso, jazz and highlife alternative. She worked for London's main black magazines like...READ MORE

THE HISTORY OF DAD The Vice Interview My father Stephen has done a lot of pretty cool things that have been significant in recent British history. He started something called the Boilerhouse Project at the V&A in the 80s, set up the Design Museum, wrote a book called Sex, Drink and Fast CarsREAD MORE

VICE FASHION - BERLIN PUNKS LOOK BACK AND LAUGH Photos by Christopher Voy Over the last 10 years Berlin's punks have all but disappeared from the city's streets. The vast majority of the former squats that previously acted as social and economic...READ MORE

POGUE MAHONE MEANS KISS MY ARSE An Interview With Shane MacGowan We won't go too much into who Shane MacGowan is here because, for God's sake, you should know. He's got our vote for best lyricist of the 20th century, and he's a singer who can bring grown men to tears with just one well-turned phrase. Is he a drunk and a now...READ MORE

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...READ MORE

THE DISEASES OF OUR LEADERS By Neil Hamburger, Comedian Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. That's what someone said. Because I didn't learn who said it, I am condemned to repeat it: Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it...READ MORE

THOMAS CAHILL IS SAVING CIVILIZATION Over the course of books such as How the Irish Saved Civilization, Sailing the Wine-Dark Seas, and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, which is newly released in a paperback edition, historian Thomas Cahill has done more for making ancient history read...READ MORE

THE SAGA OF TRUE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL I met Metalion during a drunken night at Oslo's Inferno Festival in 2003. I was impressed by his kind nature and unparalleled knowledge of extreme metal, so we stayed in touch over the next few years, occasionally geeking out over cameras and records. My frien...READ MORE

X'ED Eight Photographers Look Back Photos by Jonathan Black, Brandon Herman, David Titlow, Carolina Manaigo, Ben Ritter, Ed Zipco, Alex Sturrock and Jamie Warren...READ MORE

BLOODCLOT! John Joseph of the Cro-Mags Makes the Rest of Us Look Like Pussies One morning on my way to work, hungover and feeling sorry for myself, I ran into John Joseph, who I knew a little bit through our mutual friends in the hardcore scene in New York. John was the lead singer of the Cro-Mags, who are responsible for Age of Quar...READ MORE

SHAFTED A Guide to Sex and Death in the Old West Harry S. Truman once said, "America was built on courage, on imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." But that's bullshit: It was built by thieves, drunks, and whores whose job at hand was giving hand jobs. Thanks to Deadwood...READ MORE

OUR FATHER Six Artists Draw Washington Illustrations by Brian Degraw, Jon Vermilyea, Laura Park, Victor Cayro, Aran Darling & Milano Chow...READ MORE

IRON LADY Seven Artists Draw The Woman Who Changed Everything Illustrations by Jiro Bevis, Rose Blake, Jo Sinclair, Mimi Leung, Ted Pearce, Georgia-Rose Fairman & Liam Sparkes...READ MORE

THE EPICLY LATER'D PAGE by Patrick O'Dell I remember Jerry Hsu coming to New York in 2001 and 2002, back before he knew anyone here. He was probably 17 but I thought he was 24. We were at my house on Graham Avenue in Brooklyn and he turned to me and said, "Do you wanna go to Supreme and...READ MORE

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The Vice Interview The worst thing about history is the fact that most of the really cool stuff happened centuries ago so anyone who can tell you anything remotely vivid about it has been dead for ages. We have to rely on books, and books are generally full of shit. So you can i...READ MORE

VICE FASHION - NIGHT SKATING IN OLD LONDON TOWN Photos by Jonnie Craig Styling by Kylie Griffiths Last month I went skating with some friends around London's most...READ MORE

JOHN CHEEVER GOES UNDER by Blake Bailey In 1974, John Cheever accepted a teaching position at Boston University, the better to distance himself from his family and drink in peace. One of the first things he did on arrival was order stationery: "John Cheever/71 Bay State Road/Boston, Massachusetts 02...READ MORE

SAMMY DEVIL JR. The Candy Man Was a Satanist If nobody else is willing to say this out loud, I'll step up to the plate. Barack Obama is totally ripping off Sammy Davis Jr. I'm willing to overlook their general similarities (cross-racial appeal, Amazon brides, chain smoking), but the senator's appropriati...READ MORE

VICE FASHION - OH WHAT A PARADISE IT SEEMS Photos by Roe Ethridge Styling by Annette Lamothe-Ramos and Mordechai Rubinstein...READ MORE

THE KIDS WERE ALRIGHT Selections From Ryan McGinley's Early Work, 1998-2003 These are photos from the fucked-up party days, from when Ryan first started taking pictures of all his crazy friends up to when he had his solo show at the Whitney Museum, which flung him like a wet young noodle into the boiling pot of the art world...READ MORE

I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE J. Spaceman on the Strange and Beautiful Canon of Mississippi Records I've always had this belief that if you produce something beautiful, and it's packaged beautifully and has had some love and attention invested in it, then somebody will want it. Unfortunately, the record industry is the opposite of that. It's all about "...READ MORE

BLOOD SPLASHED ON A DAISY IN THE SUNSHINE An Interview With Siouxsie Sioux When Siouxsie Sioux climbed onstage at the 100 Club in September 1976 with a band made up of nonmusician buddies-Marco Pirroni, Steven Severin, and Sid Vicious-she probably wasn't thinking about world tours with roadies, lighting rigs, and costume changes...READ MORE

DAVID WALLECHINSKY IS A HUMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA A longtime reader of this magazine (such as yourself) already knows about David Wallechinsky because you read the People's Lists feature in every issue. That's the column that takes excerpts from Wallechinsky's (along with his late father and sister) brilliant...READ MORE

RECORDS Music Reviews - The History Issue PAPER ROUTE GANGSTAZ Fear and Loathing in Hunts Vegas If you aren't up on Paper Route Recordz, get familiar. These dudes have been putting it down in Bama for a minute now. With a little push from Benzi and Diplo, the crew...READ MORE

CHINESE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM Last year, Belgian photojournalist Nick Hannes took a year off from shooting warzones all over the world and travelled from Antwerp to Vladivostok and somehow then ended up in Beijing. While there, he heard things about their Museum of Natural History which ma...READ MORE

MORE CHINESE BODY SHOTS A Viceland Exclusive As a Sunday afternoon bonus, here are a few more shots taken at the body-part wing of the Beijing Natural History Museum by the VBS camera crew who shot the Supergirl series. Enjoy! ...READ MORE

SKINEMA By Chris Nieratko AMY FISHER/JOEY BUTTAFUOCO CAUGHT ON TAPE How was your weekend? Mine was shitty. Me and my wife went down with the flu for two weeks and were running 102 fevers, bedridden, and about to tear each other's...READ MORE

A CONVERSATION WITH LEWIS LAPHAM Lewis Lapham is one of our most distinguished editors and essayists. Called "a connoisseur of the perfect word," he was editor of Harper's magazine for almost 30 years, assuming emeritus status in 2006 to start his own journal, Lapham's Quarterly...READ MORE

HEY, WHERE DID BRIDGET CROSS GO? Alaska, If You Must Know How cool is Bridget Cross? She was the bassist for Unrest, the king of all early-90s indie bands, plus she was in Velocity Girl and Air Miami. If you cared about underground music in the 90s, she's already one of your crushes/heroes. Bridget played bass like a...READ MORE

RAW CHINA Wash Your Body When I first moved into the neighborhood I took a walk with my friend who's an old China hand and helped me find an apartment. We checked out the surrounding area and she pointed out some local features, the Italian restaurant, a laundry, a western supermarket...READ MORE

AMERICAN EROS From the Hypothermic to the Hypothetical It made little difference when the icy water finally reached my crotch; anything of mine living in that vicinity had already yelped in alarm, scrambled up into my torso, and perched itself safely atop my liver, chattering like a castanet. The last time my he-r...READ MORE

WHSSHKKKK! Rat Bastard Is the King of Noise Some facts about a man named Rat Bastard: Born Frank Falestra and unceremoniously given his current moniker by a shitty punk band he recorded 20 years ago, he lives in Miami, three blocks away from the thong-riddled shores of South Beach. He's 50 years old and...READ MORE

ZINN AND THE ART OF HISTORY MAINTENANCE A People's Chat With Howard Though not quite yet a household name, as historians and public intellectuals go, Howard Zinn has in the last few years become increasingly present in the public eye (whatever that is). Though it is safe to say that some 20 years ago, when his magnum opus A...READ MORE

OUR HERO Four Artists Draw Ned Kelly Illustrations by Brendan Keogh, Justin Williams, Kelly Smith & Rowan Tedge...READ MORE

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE WEST How Israel Almost Ended Up In The Kimberleys When you think about it, there's got to be a better place for Israel than the Middle East. It's one of the worst neighborhoods on earth. Crowded, violent, dusty, and hated by pretty much every-one on the block. Holy sites aside, wouldn't it be better if it was...READ MORE

OUR WILLY Five Artists Draw Willy Brandt Illustrations by Chriss Kunst, Jakob Hinrichs, Vanskap, Mario Wagner & Mathieu Desjardins...READ MORE

ROGUES & UPSTARTS Here Be the Standouts of Our Convict Stain Over 160,000 poor, poor convicts were stuffed into the hulls of tall ships and transported from the Mother Land to Australia between 1788 and 1868, during what was, by all accounts, up there as one of the least fun centuries of all time. The voyage took around...READ MORE

BIG AND UGLY Primitive Calculators On Kick-Starting the Aussie "Little Band" Scene It's 1979 and Robert 'Simply Irresistible' Palmer stands at the back of a dingy Melbourne venue in his best pop star finery looking at the stage in mild disgust. Someone from his entourage has dragged him along to a Little Bands night and he doesn't like what ...READ MORE

YESTERDAY'S TOMORROW IS TODAY'S COLOSSAL DISAPPOINTMENT A History of the Future (in Movies) For 100 years, movies have tried to show us what the future might hold. Now, in 2008 (which is officially "the future"), we can look back and say: They were almost entirely wrong. Nevertheless, here are their best efforts....READ MORE

A DIRTY LITTLE RAG WITH FILTH IN IT Richard Neville Looks Back On Oz Back in the late 1950s, when Richard Neville finished high school, Australia was in many ways, uh, what's the word? Oh that's right…totally fucked. Monarchy-loving Menzies, then in his mid-70s, had been in power since 1949; the White Australia Policy was still...READ MORE

THERE'S SOMETHING GOING ON THAT'S NOT QUITE RIGHT Wire Still Do Care Wire occupy a special place in the history of London 77. Unlike all the bands who broke up after losing steam only to cash in 20 years down the road with reunion after reunion, they never lost steam. And unlike other punk bands such as the Stranglers and the D...READ MORE

MASTER OF MINUTIA Martin Monestier Really Knows His Shit You've probably never heard of Martin Monestier, but he is literally one of the best people ever. He used to be a photojournalist but after taking his millionth photo, he went through a bizarre phase which involved boarding himself up in his flat and contempla...READ MORE

THIS GUY HUNTS DOWN NAZIS What Have You Been Up to Lately? Dr. Efraim Zuroff oversees Operation: Last Chance, an organization that tracks down the remaining geriatric dickheads who were responsible for the Holocaust. He is after the true dregs of humanity, bona fide war criminals such as Dr. Aribert Heim, whose contri...READ MORE