This interview appears in ALARM #40. Subscribe here to get your copy!
LA-based crate-digger Logan Melissa is a minority within a minority — a female among diehard vinyl collectors. An MF Doom and Madlib super-fan, she chronicles her impressive hip-hop, soul, jazz, and funk finds at HeightFiveSeven.com while showing off a personal style that includes two-piece bikinis and sundresses.
“It began with my mantra: I’m a weed-smoking white girl, and I really fucking like being naked.”
Clearly, photo blogger Britny Jo knows the recipe for success. The 26-year-old Canadian turned LA transplant has amassed more than 100,000 Tumblr and Instagram followers in only four months, due in no small part to the second half of that mantra.
What do space exploration, Dostoyevsky, and Call of Duty have in common? Find out as photographer Sloan Wolf documents her LA escapades.
This content appears in the July/August iPad edition of ALARM Magazine. Download it for free and keep reading!
Chthonic: Takasago Army (Spinefarm, 7/6/11)
“Takao”
Since the late 1990s, Hsiang-Yi “Doris” Yeh has served as the leader and bassist of Chthonic, a Taiwanese metal outfit that utilizes the traditional Asian erhu. The band shreds, but its members have a more important mission: supporting internationally recognized independence for Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China.
The members have been a voice for Tibetan freedom as well — vocalist Freddy Lim, who doubles as the chairman of Amnesty International Asia Pacific, met with the Dalai Lama in 2009 in advance of a “Free Tibet” benefit concert — and they remain outspoken in support of the Uyghur people of China.
That would be solid enough as a day job, but Ms. Yeh, who has appeared on the cover of GQ Taiwan, also moonlights as a sex symbol. Maybe China should rethink that whole blacklisting thing…
