Shooting Rohr

Below is a film I made.

Shooting Rohr from Tom Rohr on Vimeo.

Fat Boy Slim is always fucking in heaven

A couple of months ago now, I had the pleasure of working up at this festival called Rock Ness. It's an incredible setting on a field leading down to Loch Ness there were about 25000 people there to see the likes of CSS, Fat Boy Slim, DJ Yoda, 2ManyDJ's, Soulwax, Editors and so on and so forth. 

During this festival I was lucky enough to be working for Canon doing a promotion there. The great thing about doing this was that we were given production wrist bands which meant we could go anywhere other than actually on the stage. When you do mix backstage at a festival of this size you ultimately end up meeting some pretty cool people. A person I did interact with on a work level over the weekend was the head of press for the event. I'm guessing this chick was mid-30's still looked very good for her suspected age and had a huge amount of confidence. The funny thing about this chick was what a massive name-dropper she was and what a massive groupie she appeared to be. I'm sure she had done this role at different festivals for quite a few years which made me think about the amount she would have seen and done with world-beating names. She really should write a book uncovering it all.

As the first day was coming to an end we met up with this captivating press lady who took us side of stage for Fat Boy Slim who was headlining the first night. As I was speaking to our friend she was quite obviously off her head on something (bless her). 

Anyway, being side of stage for a headlining act at a relatively large festival was something I'd obviously never done before. This is one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. To watch a very relaxed, bare-footed Norman Cook control the crowd the way he did was absolutely amazing. He is a master of controlling and entertaining an audience and they responded accordingly. He had the hearts and souls of 25000 people completely in his control, and from that experience I learned that it is way more of a show for him that it ever is for anyone of the 25000 people watching.

The interesting thing about being side of stage for his set is that i was barely focusing on him or his set at all. I was completely entranced and focused on the crowd the whole time. This was such a rush and what a lucky fella to be able to do this week in week out. Bastard!

Words and Photography: Tom Rohr

The awkward Kiss

"Hi"

Yes . . . OK.  She's looking at you and not looking over her shoulder as to where her friends maybe, in the one- off thought that I maybe a sleazy person who could potentially spike her drink just to take advantage of her.

"So are you having a good night?" 

"Yeah me too, It's a great night."

(slightly awkward silence)

Quickly say something. Fuck, fuck. It's getting awkward.

"So do you work?" 

Fuck, you're a genius. Keep it flowing.

"Oh, you study, cool. What do you study exactly?"

"Arts, oh yeah, art is cool. I like art. The classic degree for slackers, haha"

I'm so witty. Sometimes I just don’t know where it comes from. 

Hang on. No. That was just a polite sympathy laugh and there goes the head over the shoulder, desperately seeking eye contact from one of her friends. Shit. I'm losing her. 

"What music do you like?"

"The Arcade Fire, they're awesome. I like them a lot to"

Fuck, she's my dream girl. Don't get too carried away. Pull it in. Refrain!!

"Do you want to sit down and have a chat?"

"How about we grab that couch while we can?"

 

Now, how do I sit? In the 50 year old crossed leg kind of way or the more manly ankle on the knee. I don't want her to think I'm gay. I best go the ankle on the knee. Hang on, that’s impractical, the couch is too tight. I'll go the 50 year old gay style. She's an arts student, she'll dig it. But then other guys in the room may think she's only hanging around me because I'm gay, then they'll come in and stir my porridge. That’s not good. Just sit, no cross legs. It's impartial, unoffensive and definately not gay.

 

One hour later:

 

"Hahaha, yeah that David Bowie what will he get up to next"

Ok, things are going really well, do I just go for the number and call her at a later date? No. Be a man, kiss her. How do I do this? She's looking at me and looking away. Fuck, that’s so cute. She wants to be kissed. Do it. How? Ok get close and just go for it. No, that’s too much, too sleazy, be cool and make her kiss you . . . Brilliant.  

Why should it be up to me anyway? No, I can’t, if i leave it to her it won't happen. Aaaahhh!

"So you got friends here"

I'm not even listening to her anymore. All I can think about is kissing her. Do it now. She's midway through a sentence, no, oh fuck it. 

I half lean in, she follows late, as she starts to lean in, I pull away thinking she's not following the lead, but she was. So I then quickly go back in. probably, no definitely, way to quick. Fuck why did I do that? She's still going. Yes. Yes. Here it comes.

I am the man. I am the king, an absolute god of passion. I had her all along. I knew it, and here I am reaping the sweet rewards.

VBS

We all know that there have been so many good things to come out of Quebec. Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, Chromeo, some of the worlds best snowboarders and so on and so forth. However probably the thing that is continually growing into an unstoppable beast would have to be Vice magazine.

We all know Vice for their unrelentingly hilarious social and cultural commentary. However, vice's broadcasting service found here, is without doubt one of my favourite websites. As far as I'm aware it is run by academy award nominated director Spike Jonze. He directed being John Malkovich and adaptation. He's also done alot of commercials and music videos and funnily enough was one of the co-creators of jackass and is also one of the co-owners of girl skateboards. Thats a fairly impressive CV to say the least. However, the team he has developed to create the viewing they have, is second to none. Every documentary I have watched, I have been glued to.

Here is the first of 5 episodes of VBS's doc on the lead singer of a Norwegian death metal group called Gorgoroth. This shit is captivating alright, and this guy is straight out scary. enjoy . . . 

Homeless People

I haven't done an entry for ages. I'm sorry. It's just no-one really random has been inspiring me. Anyways I now have some people to write about. Basically 2 weeks ago I was doing a promotion for the release of a new game on sony psp. We were showing off this amazing piece of 3d artwork done by a guy called Kurt Venner at different London train stations. below is a snap i took with my phone.

The thing that was cool about this promotion was the attention it drew from such a mass of different demographics, whether it was artistic people, gamers, violent people and/or hippies. Over the week I had some interesting discussions with people about the picture. None more memorable than one particular homeless man at Waterloo. Initially he said to me he hated the piece and told me he was going to walk all over it and that I should fuck off back to the southern hemisphere. Doing my job I persuaded him not too and just kept him chatting to try and avoid a scene. As we got chatting he started getting really deep and telling me what a bad father he had been over the years and told me all about his failed marriage to an Australian Woman who lived just outside of Geelong. It was really quite emotional, and then in a split second he would go psycho again and tell me how he was going to go into the public bathroom and after he was finished no-one would want to ever go in there afterwards. I think it was pretty much a practical demonstration of schizophrenia. The whole thing was slightly disturbing but still interesting.

On another day I noticed an extremely dirty homeless lady with no shoes on and literally dirt all over her legs, only one tooth, checking out the piece. I went up to her and asked her what she thought of the piece, expecting some sort of a crazy answer and/or maniac response. Instead she had an extremely posh accent and raised some very intellectual points as to why she liked it and things she didn't like about it, then politely said thank-you and walked away. It bemused me.

Homeless people are so interesting and i really enjoyed my interactions with these two. As long as there not knifing you and/or asking for money. Bless their filthy cotton socks I say. I'll leave you with an emotional montage of homeless people I found on youtube. Bit of a shit way to finish I know. Some of the photography is nice though.

Social Standards

The cool thing about a city the size of London is that it's so big that you are likely to never run into a random person you may meet on a random night out ever again. This basically means that peoples social expectations when combined with the English's love of binge drinking are dramatically lowered in comparison to most other cities I've lived in.

On the weekend my friends and I managed to run into a couple of girls who had incredibly good jobs in very competitive industries. This being said, Monday to Friday I'm sure they uphold mass amounts of professionalism in dealing with some of the worlds biggest clients within the music and fashion world. Getting along well with these girls we all headed back to our house to continue the Party. As the night went on, one of these girls passed out sitting up and it took 3 of us to move her to the couch. Then about an hour after, her friend decided to dessert her passed out friend and took off without her, to our dismay. Especially considering we barely knew either of these people. The next morning, my housemate came in and saw her flat on her face on the floor, still asleep, just before he took off for the day. This was the last any of us saw of her. However, she did manage to leave her mark on our couch by urinating all over it. Good to see the old tradition of marking your territory is still alive in this day and age. I love the idea of her doing work with a marketing manager at Louis Vuitton on Monday and them asking "how was your weekend". . . 

I love the contrast of English gracefulness. Parts of the population pride themselves on it, another part is at the exact opposite end of the scale and then the majority are in the middle. I try to keep everything anonymous as to not find myself in courts of law. This situation was just way too funny not to write about. 

A DJ, a geezer and an annoying American

The great thing about modeling in Milan is that you come into contact with people from such a range of different cultures and backgrounds. This can often set the scene for some hilarious situations.

On this particular night, My friend and I had been invited over to this very successful indie Deejay's apartment for a few drinks. She had some American friends who lived below whom she had planned to try and set up with us. As we sat drinking and sharing stories. I discovered what interesting stories this deejay and her boyfriend had. Hearing about how her Boyfriend got caught at the swiss border with 8 grams of weed and getting the 200 Euro fine sent to his mum's house. Or how In his time of coming to Milan for Modeling, he'd been invited to three orgies. Turning them down in sheer disgust. Or how she was very good friends with a Babyshambles member and always got AAA passes whenever they were playing. No doubt there were potentially some more hard core stories involving Babyshambles she was probably smart enough not too share with us. All in all, it was a very enjoyable night. Then the American arrived.

This girl was a larger girl, who was not overly attractive. However, you woudn't have picked it with the confidence she displayed. I do recall the deejay telling us her Father was someone of importance within the fashion world. As we continued to drink a bit more. The vibe of the evening certainly wasn't the same, as she continually made snide and condescending comments regarding our knowledge of Milan and a few other issues. This certainly riled my geezer mate who had been living in Milan for almost a year. Which I believe was a fair bit longer than she had. This resulted in a hilarious argument unto which the result was us leaving very awkwardly in quite an embarrassing situation. 

Its amazing how one person can completely change a social situation and turn it from a relaxed, hilarious and entertaining evening into an awkward unnecessary exit. Good times.

When People Leave

It's all well and good to discuss great times shared with people that you meet. However, none of us are immortal and one of these days we're all going to exit. When this does happen, it seems to me that the empty feeling left inside creates more of an impact than just about anything else.

I just recently had a friend pass on, and to imagine that the incredible amounts of great experiences we had shared together over the years are not going to happen again is an incredibly overwhelming and surreal thing to accept at the age of 23. This person was a larger than life character who was loved by all and made an impact on everyone he met. He's the type of person everybody would love to meet and be graced with his antics for an evening and without doubt it'll be a hilariously fun Time. There is a feeling inside that you can't help but think, I wish I had have made these feelings even more noticeable with our times together.

The impact we make on each other's emotions is the single biggest thing that goes through our mind at anytime. I guess in my state of emotional grievance, I can't help but think of the poignant lyrics from the flaming lips "Everyone you know someday will die, and instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know you realise that life goes fast and it's hard to make the good things last".

 RIP Laef.

Pharmacy Industry and WAD party

Last night I was lucky enough to immerse myself on the front-line of the French electro scene. From this scene we have seen the development of a sub-culture which has been responsible for just about taking over the world over the last year or so.

I experienced this at the Pharmacy Industry and WAD magazine party at Paris Paris nightclub in Paris. Pharmacy Industry is a very cool casual street wear label that has gained a mass amount of respect over the last year, particularly within europe. WAD magazine is a very respected french urban fashion and culture magazine of which have an amazing website. For these two companies to put together a party in the surrounds of Paris Paris,  a basement nightclub with the capacity of about 150, incredible neon lighting on the walls and a windmill of coloured lights on the 10 foot low roof, a night to remember was on the cards.

I was unaware as to whom would be deejaying throughout the evening. However, on entering the party I suspected someone big was a possibility. After sitting down on a plush leather couch and downing a few drinks and checking out the array of phenomenal style floating around the room, I noticed that we were amongst some amazingly cool French kids. I chatted to a local student who studies philosophy, she pointed out a 17 year old friend of hers who had just signed with Ed Banger records. In the midst of this conversation, the deejay changed, and a heavy, dirty, slow electro sound started pumping out with a large portion of the party moving to the dancefloor. As I got my first glimpse of who was deejaying, I turned to my friend and said "holy shit! It's Busy P, Thats f**kin awesome!!". Busy P (aka. Pedro Winters) is the doyen of electro music. He is the manager and brain trust behind the brands that are Daft Punk and Ed Banger records. The set this man produced was second to none, thrashing out dirty head banging electro sounds, mixing it in with tracks like Video Killed the Radio Star and Thriller. The crowd was like putty in this mans hands and the mixer was like an extension of this guys body with the level of control he was exercising. In the midst of this awesome set, in this amazing setting, i stood back to soak it in for a second and said to my friend "I don't think there would be a cooler party going on in the world right now at this moment". Enough about the party, this blog is about people. 

As the set finished I made my way to the bathroom. Standing there relieving myself, reflecting on what an amazing night it had been, I looked to my right and relieving himself next to me was no-one else other than Busy P. In the shock that I found myself urinating next to one of the most respected people in music I said "you know the last time i saw you it was with 20,000 other people at Parklife in Perth". More than to happy to chat, he said something along the lines of how cool that tour was. I gave him my opinion on what an amazing live show Daft Punk had, we did our flies up and he said "What about Justice?" and without giving me any time to respond he said "Yeah I prefer Daft Punk also, Justice are just 2 gay guys, you know Justice are gay" and then he proceeded to punch a guy in the side in a friendly manner. Only then I realised that waiting for the urinal behind me was Gaspard Auge, one half of the team that makes up Justice.

Respect is something that doesn't come by easily, and in the case of the entertainment industry, fame will often come right along with it. Therefore when you do have a positive and humorous interaction with someone with the fame and respect that Busy P has, it certainly leaves a good feeling inside. 

Milan Fashion week winter 2008

This winter fashion week has been my third. During these periods I've had the opportunity to meet and interact with people from all over the world. Over this last fashion week period I have managed to meet a range of interesting people.

The first person I would like to talk about is an english guy who I met at the Roen after party. This guy is the drummer for a pretty successful English band, they have had a fair level of success touring around the world and the UK. He fell into modelling by being spotted at one of his shows by someone from a london agency. He had a pixie like face with long dark rock and roll hair, he was as genuine as they get and he didn't have the arrogance you would expect from a model playing in a successful enough band. I shared a bus ride with him unto which I discovered he drunk at the same local as Noel Fielding (mighty boosh fame) and to which his biggest passion was quite obviously music. Fascinatingly enough letting me know that John Richmond the fashion designer was in a punk band in the 80's, ah the irony. I left him with 3 girls whom were certainly looking at getting to know this character a little better.

The second night of Fashion week I found myself at the Neil Barrett party. This party was as extravagant as fashion parties get. Held in a massive warehouse decked out with amazing lighting, chandeliers and sponsored by a vodka company, the scene was set for a memorable night. As it turned out I did take advantage of the vodka sponsorship and most of the night is unfortunately a vague blur, with one highlight of spotting Naomi Campbell. As I came to leave and look for a taxi I came across 2 guys heading in my direction so we shared a cab. Once we got talking we decided to go for some pizza as we had all drank way too much and eaten way too little. 

Upon sharing this meal with these 2 guys I discovered that they are professional water polo players. One was Italian and his english was slight, the other was American who had learnt to speak quite good italian after living in the country for close to 2 years. From what I drained out of them, it was likely they were going to represent their respective countries in water polo at the olympics this year, all things going to plan. I discovered they played in the same team as Elka Graham's (a famous Australian swimmer) boyfriend's team. Elka famously made news recently in Australia by saying another Australian swimmer offered her performance enhancing drugs. These two knew of the comments and claimed Elka had told them who this was. Despite my drunken manipulative attempts to get a name out of these 2 chaps they held firm and said nothing but insisting that elka would kill them if they did say anything. We ate pizza then shared a taxi home. For me the experience that made the night was not that I was able to party at some extravagantly over the top, overcrowded fashion party unto which Naomi Campbell was present (don't get me wrong, it was pretty awesome), but the fact these two humble potential olympians shared stories with me over a drunken pizza at about 4 A.M.

Finally, my third meeting with an unforgettable individual during this period was at the Roberto Cavalli party. This meeting was for all the wrong reasons. She was an upper class English girl who had the desire to be rude to me at every opportunity. She was a journalist for a trend forecasting agency in London. She was condescending to me by asking my age very early in the conversation and proceeded to make comments like "you're just a model" and "all i want is some intellectual conversation". It's amazing how certain people desire intellectual conversation at 4.30 am after an incredibly drunken evening. In hindsight I wish I had have asked her opinion on Dmitri Nabokov's dilemma of publishing his late Father's last literary works when he wished for them to be destroyed as they were incomplete. However, my major concern was getting a taxi. So after having one too many condescending comments directed towards me, I replied with "f*** off you miserable B****" walked down the road and pretty much instantly got a taxi. To be honest, it was a hell of an exit.