Ke$ha

The multimillion-selling party girl takes some time out to chat.



Time Out NY

Interview



Sure, Ke$ha might gets her kicks out of making necklaces from fans’ teeth and licking rock stars’ faces (the proof awaits below), but the hard-living pop star is no dummy. On a break from her European tour, the “Tik Tok” hit-maker talked with us about life on the road, in advance of her Get $leazy blowout that’s coming to Jones Beach on Saturday 20.



You’ve just finished touring the U.K. Did you find it rougher there than here?

[Laughs] Oh, God! Yeah, in Scotland everybody was wasted by three in the afternoon—it was awesome! And last night I played here in London and we definitely got into messy, rowdy after-parties.



What’s the most bizarre thing you’ve seen in the past year of craziness?

Oh, you know, I’ve been all over the world…the most bizarre thing? I just played Glastonbury and I brought all my trannie friends, and we were all walking around and they were in thongs, with big fake boobs and giant wigs and wellies on. And one of them fell in the mud, so we all decided to just roll around in it together. So by the end of the night there was a bunch of trannies in thongs and wellies covered in mud, all drunk, singing along to U2. It was pretty good.



You strike me as being very hardy—you Tweeted that you actually like sleeping on the tour bus…

Well that’s definitely the image that I try to uphold, that I am tough, and I am confident. Because I think that that’s a good role model, to let things roll off your back and not take any negativity too seriously, and to really not give a fuck. Of course there are certain things that get to me, but I try and lead by example and show people that, especially with haters, that you should just ignore them.



Do you ever have to take quiet time?

[Laughs] I try to get in quiet time and book time, but really, the only time I ever get that is when I’m on an airplane—I have a fear of flying, but I actually love flying because it’s the only time I can sleep, and it’s the only time I get to read. Right now I’m reading Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins. He’s one of my favorite authors; he wrote Still Life with Woodpecker and he’s great.



You write your own songs and work hard. Do you ever feel like people underestimate you?

I mean, yes—but I’m living my dream. I’m so thankful every day I get to wake up and play music to people that show up to my gigs. So is it hard, is it a grueling schedule and do I work my ass off? Absolutely. But that’s not what I’m going to focus on, because I just feel so lucky, and it seems a little bit pretentious. And the party-girl image—it’s true, I do drink whiskey. But to maintain the kind of schedule I have and to work on all of my songs—and I play almost every instrument if you come and see my live show—there’s brains behind that. I write for other people, and I am a smart person. I don’t think you could be dumb and be conquering the world.



What makes a hit song? Is there math to it?

I think anybody would have a different answer to this, but for me what’s really important for my songs is that they’re honest [Emphatically] and they’re real. I can tell when someone’s singing a song and they don’t mean it. I write every song. It’s coming from me and my life and my experiences. So it’s all real. And when I can connect with somebody and I believe them, I think that makes the song more tangible to me and, you know, a hit.



What music is believable to you?

Well, for Animal, I’d always listened to Licensed to Ill, the Beastie Boys record. It was just so funny and irreverent and youthful and no matter what, when you put on that record it makes you wanna destroy and party and it puts you in a great mood. And I always wanted my record Animal to be like that. Just ’cause I believed them. They were out of control and running around New York City. And I loved it. But another song? Iggy Pop, “Nightclubbing”. I believe he goes nightclubbing at all hours and is kind of just lurking around, slithering around like a weirdo in the night. I believe him when he sings that.



Tell us about your Hands On Nashville project. That sounds pretty noble.…

Well, I’ve snuck into shows since I was 13 years old. And I know there are people who don’t want to break the law, but I thought I could give kids a way to get into my shows, by giving back to the community—they can earn their way into the show. I know when I was younger I couldn’t get a [break], so this is a way for them to do something good and get a free ticket to a dance party.



Your fans are so devoted, they’ve started sending you their teeth.

Ah! [Laughs]. They are devoted. One fan sent me one tooth, so I made a necklace out of it. But then I found a bunch of my baby teeth, and started realizing I would love to wear a piece of my fans’ bodies on me. I mean, it sounds kind of weird, but I’m very much into wearing gemstones and natural pieces of jewelry ’cause it makes me feel grounded. And I started thinking, maybe I could make some sort of garment out of my fans’ teeth. I have almost 500 and I’m still collecting more. I got four yesterday.



Are you at all grossed out by it? Or is it just, Yep, got the teeth?

No! That’s, like, the animal inside. I love bringing that out of people.



Is your mom a bit of a hippy chick?

Yeah. I mean, she’s definitely a hippy—she lived in a school bus, and then a teepee for part of her life. So I guess I get the free spirit from her. And then I get a little bit of the rowdiness from my brother.



There’s a messiness to what you do—a critic remarked on the fact you did a cartwheel onstage that was not very good but really joyous…

[Giggles] Well yeah, that sums up my message pretty accurately—that what I’m doing is messy and imperfect, but it’s really fun. And it’s just a big celebration of life, and nobody on my stage takes themselves very seriously. We’re good musicians and we play a good show, but we act a little bit like jackasses. I never want to be pretentious.



You recently licked Slash on the face.

Ah! Yeah. I was playing the Oxegen festival, and I’d just gotten off stage and I was on this high. So I get out of my car and see Slash doing an interview, and I try to go kiss him. But I couldn’t reach ’cause he’s really tall, so I just decide to lick him. [Laughs] It was a good one.



Is Ke$ha onstage a persona like Ziggy Stardust, or is that straight-up you?

I think it’s like me times ten.

Kreayshawn

The small MC with the big mouth sets the record straight.



Time Out NY

Preview



“I mean, I said I wanted to be a stripper seriously as a seven-year-old, but I didn’t know what a stripper was.…” Kreayshawn offers an incredulous whatever frown as she recounts a recent interview. Welcome to the world of being misquoted, we say. “I know!” Kreayshawn responds.



The tiny California MC is curled up on an ornate sofa at the Box, a fashionably clandestine Lower East Side hotspot, getting ready for a showcase. She’s still reeling from the news that she’s up for a trophy at the MTV Video Music Awards (“I’m the newest artist in the New Artist nominees!”), and as if to confirm her newfound celebrity status, the 21-year-old was misidentified just this morning: “I was in the black Navigator and I rolled down the window for a second, and these girls are saying, ‘[Gasp] Oh my God, is it really you, Lady Gaga?’ ” She laughs. “And I’m like, ‘No, I’m not Lady Gaga! But I’m even cooler! I’m Kreayshawn!’ ”



Is Kreayshawn cooler than Gaga? Her cool, controversial friends from back in the Bay (Odd Future, Lil B) indicate so, and her crisp beats are certainly fresher than Gaga’s hackneyed Eurodisco stylings. But in terms of having something to prove, and achieving any kind of enduring fame, Kreayshawn has her work cut out.



Her big-bucks record deal with Columbia is a result of the success of a novelty single, “Gucci Gucci,” directed at girls whose identities hinge on their branded accessories (“Them basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even bother”). She’s been accused of minstrelsy, caused outrage by using the n-word in a tweet and reputedly got her start because Bruce Willis is her uncle.



But if Kreayshawn is a fake, she does an extremely convincing job of suggesting otherwise. She doesn’t seem to try too hard in person. Her laid-back attitude and slightly monotone speaking voice may suggest she’s bored, confident, insouciant or just really stoned—but it sure as hell doesn’t scream stage school, or even really show-off.



Kreayshawn categorically isn’t Bruce Willis’s niece. Born Natassia Gail Zolot, she was raised by her mother in Oakland. Mom was just 16 when she was born, and a member of garage band the Trashwomen; ergo, there wasn’t any money around, and Natassia was raised with music in the house. (Tito Puente, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Kool Keith were big hits with junior Kreayshawn). She enjoyed taking graffiti classes after school, and started directing music videos, working with rappers like Lil B.



“I definitely grew up running around Oakland streets,” she says, “And there’s a lot of sick shit.” Like what? “Like, child prostitution is everywhere, you know what I’m saying? Everywhere. The average age for a prostitute out there is 12, 13. There’s usually 250 murders a year and there’s only, like, 300,000 people living there, which means it’s a killing every other day. It’s hella crazy.”



The n-word scandal shocked her, as she was quoting a song lyric, she says. And in any case, Oakland is different: “It’s so multicultural and everyone’s blended in together; the only thing that we battle with in the Bay is just, like, fighting with the police, which brings everyone together.”



Nevertheless, Kreayshawn moved from the Bay to L.A. (“Small circles mean more and more drama, and you can only do so much out there”), where success found her, fast. She wrote “Gucci, Gucci” to amuse herself and her friends, but says she knew it was something special right away. “I never thought of signing to a label—it never even crossed my mind. [But] when I made ‘Gucci, Gucci,’ I was like, This song’s hell tight, showing my friends, listening to it all day. Then we made a video, and then it just rolled all over the Internet after that.”



Fact is, one can discuss Kreayshawn’s authenticity, her supposed right to make the kind of music that she wants to make, pretty much indefinitely. But it seems daft to deny that “Gucci, Gucci” is a brilliant pop song, and a shame to not be able to enjoy Kreayshawn’s posturing—this skinny little kid acting like a gangster, unbothered by notions of prettiness: “I got the swag, and it’s pumpin’ out my ovaries!”



“I’m a confident person,” she says quietly. “But people bring it up, that it’s going to be hard as a white female in this hip-hop game, you know? And I’m trying to say for me, I don’t wanna be looked at as a white rapper anyway. I wanna prove to everyone that I’m a artist. Sooner or later it’s not going to be hard at all, ’cause I’ll make my own name.” In the meantime, there are shows to play, awards to be (maybe) won. “I’m excited,” she says. “I’m excited just to be on the red carpet and kick it, you know?”

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Eid Dresses collection 2011 . There are present two Eid in the Middle East in a year. When the month of Ramadan inwards then after this holy month the Eid-ul-fitr is came. On that Eid day Muslims make a lot of dresses and also purchased very different and antique goods for themselves.
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Bon Iver

Time Out NY

Live preview



Does bigger mean better? Bon Iver expands its sound, and plays two huge shows.



Even if you’re not a fan, you are probably aware of the mythology that has sprung up around Bon Iver’s debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, since its release in 2007—the lore being that before singer Justin Vernon became BFFs with Kanye West, he locked himself in a cabin for an entire winter and made the saddest songs ever recorded.



Well, if For Emma was the log cabin, then the newly released Bon Iver is the Playboy-style 1970s country retreat. The snow is still falling outside, the guitar still leans against the wall—it’s just that this time around, your feet are sinking into thick shag carpet, and you’re pushing ice cubes around a tumbler of Scotch.



What does this mean sonically? Simply that Vernon has traded acoustic guitars for glistening electric strings and pitter-pattering drums. Bon Iver is an album of textures, trading as much in space as it does in melody. This expansiveness is borne out in such far-flung song titles as “Calgary,” “Minnesota, WI” and “Perth.”



Factor in the notion that at least one song here sounds like a lost Bruce Hornsby and the Range cut, or perhaps an Alan Parsons Project single, and you can practically feel the velveteen sofas and see the mood lighting. Those who love a GHM (Good Hard Mope) may be more resistant to the charms of this new record; for the rest of us, Bon Iver invites us to luxuriate in melancholy. Expect some serious escapism at these two big shows.

Britney Spears / Taylor Swift

Time Out NY

Live Preview





The object of a million teen crushes goes head-to-head with the perennial teenager.



Little girls have big crushes on Taylor Swift, and it’s easy to see why—from the singer’s perfect curls and well-chosen outfits to the pearls of grown-up wisdom that seem to fall from her lips (“Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together,” she writes in the sleeve notes to her latest CD, Speak Now). Swift’s fans show their devotion online with such breathless comments as, “I wish I could have a wonderful sister like Taylor Swift.”



But how would the “Swifties” really react to having Taylor as their big sis, wafting around the house in a cloud of serenity and making the right choices all the time? (Even when Swift loses in love, she triumphs in song.) Surely there’d be a bit of irate foot-stomping and bad attitude.



While Britney Spears is Swift’s senior in years (a mother of two at 29) and in record sales, she is the younger sister to Swift’s shining example. Spears is in defiant mode pretty much all the time; her new video, “I Wanna Go,” has the pop star cursing at journalists, grabbing a fan’s crotch and flashing a police officer. She’s awkward, too; after nearly two decades in the game, Spears still stands pigeon-toed, not quite sure what to do with her hands.



For tweenage girls, quaking understandably at the prospect of their first kiss, Taylor is obviously the winning choice, at least fantasywise. To those of us past our door-slamming teens, however, naughty Brit is by far the more appealing option. We’ll take our ticket with a pair of ripped tights, please.

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