Photo: Press
Leather jacket specialists AllSaints have revealed a festival's worth of New York bands for their new series Biker Portrait Series Part II.
Produced in collaboration with Bon Duke from the New York Fashion Film Festival, the lineup includes Skaters, Drowners, IO Echo, Wet, Astr and Haunted Hearts (note: by now you should recognise Astr's glorious 'Operate' and Skaters 'I Wanna Dance').
Hear AllSaints Biker Portraits playlist, including a particularly fine Drake cover.
The campaign's masterstroke though is the fact that they have included memories of each of the band's favourite shows. While there are the feature a few of the usual suspects (The Strokes and Kanye West particularly), the stories told reveal a genuine thrill. Here are three of our favourites.
Brandon Welchez on The Cramps in 2003
"Lux was wearing vinyl pants, no shirt, women's stilettos, downing a bottle of red wine per song, pouring half of it over himself. Half way through he climbed up the speaker stack, smashed a bottle, cut the crotch of his pants and performed the rest of the gig with his cock hanging out. They just don't make 'em like that anymore."
Adam Pallin on Prince in 2011
"My friend got me free tickets in the Fox executive box, which was soulless and corporate. I went straight home and bought $500 tickets sitting in the main audience for the following day. Prince walked through the audience right by my seat, it was the best ever.
Ionna Gika on Lydia Lunch in 2012
"Lydia arrived dressed in all black, and performed frothing and stomping. At one point a rosy-cheeked, corporate looking man in a suit holding a Martini climbed onstage, swaying back and forth, and grinning ear to ear. Lydia asked him to leave, and when he didn't she punched him square in the face. He'd seemed so out of place, this man with the suit and Martini. But as the blood from his nose began to pool in and around his grin, I realized that it was almost as if he wanted it to happen, as some sort of punishment for his corporate ways."
Read more of the stories at allsaints.com/biker-portraits/
