Philip Levine

Phil says MY NEW WEBSITE

2009-09-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

I have an official website called 'Phil Says'. It is purely to keep updated on my new head designs from which you will receive a new post. Please subscribe as this blog will now lay dormant.

Lecture University of the Arts London

2009-07-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

I was kindly invited to lecture at the University of Arts on behalf of Lazy Gramophone as part of the ECCA graduate week. The lecture was about 'Creative collaboration and Networking' which I shared with the design collective Kithkin.

It was a very fruitful experience explaining to the many graduates about Lazy G, and then talking about how they could further their careers from graduating.

ICA and Love in the Sky with Lazy Gramophone

2009-07-03T01:31:00.000-07:00

People were out in force on Tuesday night. The ICA supported the charity project Love in the Sky on Tuesday 30th June by auctioning collaborative pieces of art work made by such people as Goldie, Johnny Blue Eyes and Leah Wood.
Involved in that was Lazy Gramophone's finest Matt Black (on the right) who had been paired with Ned Conran.
As well as Dan Prescott (centre) who was paired with Liz Dalton and Bruno Maag. We are also pleased to say that Dan's works have been accepted to be displayed for 2 weeks at the ICA, which is an outstanding achievement.
Also as part of the event was Ben Moore (above) and Mr Woowoo's collaborative piece 'Love Machine' that went down a storm in its pimped out chesterfield design and personally styled fruit love sayings. That was eventually bought by Johnny Blue Eyes who word has it wants more of these fab machines!

Jewelry Designs

2009-06-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

As you can see below and in conjunction with London Jewelry Week Kat Sinclair put together some amazing jewelry designs (all painted). A unique way to have a fabulous accessory for the day that might just be out of your budget.

Online Fashion 100

2009-06-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Gigi Morley and myself went to the Online Fashion 100 party that was put together by my friend Leon Bailey Green. Much fun was had and various PR, stylists and designers such as Ada Zanditon and William Tempest were there.

Philip Levine Doll

2009-05-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Just for you insiders my friend Danny made this at work for my Birthday. His company will actually be making this into a mass product for anyone to do personal dolls soon. Until then you can see my limited edition Philip Levine crystal headed doll here. I will of course bring out other designs such as Kapow and Butterfly soon!

Treasure House Make Up sponsorship

2009-05-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

After 3 years of working together Kat Sinclair and I have received sponsorship from Treasure House Make Up who have kindly supplied us with the above products. Treasure House are the leaders in supplying the best professional make up to leading UK Film, TV and Theatre industries. This is in link to London Jewelery Week where we will be painting jewelery designs onto the public.

A Crystal Experience - Art Below

2009-04-19T02:31:00.000-07:00

I have been chosen by Art Below as an artist to be shown on the London Underground. Enjoy.

Rebekah Roy - Stylist Stuff

2009-04-06T15:52:00.000-07:00

Rebekah Roy, one of the top fashion stylists in the UK wrote an article about me in her blog

Sound of Rum

2009-02-15T15:26:00.000-08:00

Went to see Excentral Tempest's band Sound of Rum at a Sunday Best night. She quite simply took it to the next level. Coming from the spoken word scene it is always great to see such talent shining. One to watch!

Marc Rogoff and Elle Magazine

2009-02-06T16:53:00.000-08:00

Two things to tell you about. Firstly I got together with photographer Marc Rogoff to do a photo shoot. He is a very talented man who has been involved with many projects and industries in his time. Now settled into photography his biography is here. He also has a great blog and you should check out 'David's House'.
As well VV Brown was interviewed for Elle magazine and mentioned a crystal headed person at a party, I wonder who that could have been? This was brought to my attention by Fred Butler one of the best accessory makers in the UK.

Luxury face painting by Kat Sinclair

2009-01-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

My professional body painter and friend Kat Sinclair has been a busy lady. I met Zoe Halfon owner of Papa Razzi at September '08 LFW. Zoe makes fabulous clutch hand bags that look like magazines. Zoe has seen my head designs and her friend Laura was having a masque Birthday party but didn't want to wear a mask. So Zoe suggest for Kat to come and paint a mask onto Laura's face. See the final design with crystals.

Kat was also at another party themed on animals with designs such as birds and zebra prints as below. So ladies and gentlemen if you want to feel that little bit special and don't want to go as far as shaving your head, call on Kat and she will do incredible job. Welcome to the art of accessorising.

Matt Black

2009-01-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

One of Lazy Gramophone's artists in residence Matt Black won Don't Panic's poster competition. His image 'Chaos' has been made into 5000 posters to be distributed around the UK in Don't Panic's flyer packs.

Matt's 'Shark!' piece will also be displayed on the London Underground by Art Below.

Dream Machine

2009-01-22T03:01:00.000-08:00

My friends and I went to the October Gallery in London to see Brion Gysin's art work and famous creation the dream machine. He was part of the Beat Generation and I remember creating one of these with friends at University. As in all explainations find more at Wiki.

Benin City

2009-01-20T16:50:00.001-08:00

Benin City are one of the best bands around. Coming from the spoken word scene they have evolved into a afro-funk outfit. You can listen to tracks here. Fronted by Musa Okwonga and Joshua Idehen they breathe originality with such tracks as 'Boogieman'.

I have started to help them make their own style. Find Musa with a broach (esk) quill on his lapel that I made in reference to him being a poet.

C.A.L.M The Campaign Against Living Miserably

2009-01-12T14:04:00.001-08:00

I would like to highlight a worthy charity C.A.L.M The Campaign Against Living Miserably that raises awareness of depression amongst young men.
I had the tragedy of finding out a friend committed suicide this weekend. You didn't know more men have died from their own hands in the last 4 years than have died in road accidents, drugs or AIDs. We need to change that. Yes! Not enough people know about C.A.L.M.
I have been trying to help this charity since last year when it first came to my attention. Now that someone I know could have had the possibility to be saved from knowing about this charity makes me feel even more strongly about the cause.
My generation has been so numbed by charity (clip board) muggers on the street and such milked events as Live 8 that we can't connect as much to real life.
If this seems a harsh comment then what I am trying to simply say is support a charity that you have a connection towards, and with that you are in daily life making a very BIG difference for a great cause, whichever one you choose. Don't let apathy become you.

Please see a recent video by Mat Lloyd and Matt Frodsham that might give another angle of C.A.L.M

Living Loves Fashion

2009-01-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

A project I produced is up and running. The TV show is called Living Loves Fashion and is all about what is en vogue right now. There have been 8 episodes made, you can find the first lot up here. It was made by Chuffed Productions, run by Ben Baldwin (director) (camera man Matt Wilson), in association with Rocks, Frocks and Cocktails run by presenter and executive producer of the show Gigi Morley. Enjoy

Leon Bailey-Green and Drapers

2009-01-09T15:32:00.000-08:00

This is Leon who is one of the leading online marketing and content consultants in the UK, and has been in digital media for over five years. I met him during Fashion week and we have become friends since, even helping him out on a few of his projects. He has recently been asked to be on the judging panel for Drapers Etail Awards which is a very distinguished accolade and I believe he is the youngest on the panel. I can see him in the not too distant future having his own TV show.

Spoken Word: Pip Vs PIP The Greatest Spoken Word night of the modern day

2008-12-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

How do you explain to someone a magic moment.
Well you can't, you just tell them they missed out. The second best I can do for you is recreate it in writing.

I had been putting on Lazy Gramophone Present shows for the last year. The night consisted of music, spoken word, performance with art displays in a second room. The performance poets were exceptional at what they were doing on the LG nights, and no one (many still don't) knew about them enough.
After speaking to Joshua Idehen during a show, we discussed putting on a one off night called Pip Vs PIP. From that point I set into motion the greatest poetry gig of the modern day. Firstly I had to find the poets. This wasn't at all hard. They consisted of Scroobius Pip who formed a band called Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip (and had a classic hit 'Thou Shalt Always Kill'). Anyway Scroobius had saved money and given up his day job in 2006 and was now driving around doing poetry gigs...

...poetry gigs...OK when I say the word poetry or reading poetry, what do you think? Maybe a person reading from a collection of poems they have dustily written, and are reciting them to a room of about 9 people, half of which are yawning. You might not be wrong. But this is not the case at the moment. Somehow out of this has come a force of spoken word artists who perform their poetry in lively and uplifting ways. Capturing the imagination of those in a room...

...Scroobius Pip was one of those poets. He has classics like 'Angles', 'Letter from God to Man' and 'Thou Shalt Always Kill'. These pieces not only drew you in but made you feel at one with the poem, as if you had a part in helping the way it was written and an uncanny familiarity to the actual story. This is the same with pieces such as Polar Bear's 'Jessica', Musa Okwonga's 'Cooper Chimbonda', Ventriloquist's 'James Brown', Excentral Tempest's 'Balance', Joshua Idehen's 'Stop Me', Inua Ellam's 'Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars', Mat Lloyd's 'Two Inches to the Left', Gypsy Girl's 'Stage Fright' and so on.
Scroobius Pip was now having immense success with his band, putting his poetry over electronic music and I was fortunate enough to book him before it all kicked off for him later that year. If you hadn't guessed he was the 'Pip' in the title. Next we had Poem Inbetween People an accumulation of Musa Okwonga, Joshua Idehen, Inua Ellams, Poeticat and Shabaka on Sax. They were the 'PIP' in the other half of the title. Josh and Musa were later to move on and form Benin City out of this group, a superb live music act.
I then went about booking Polar Bear who later couldn't make the night and was replaced by AF Harold. As well we had Gypsy Girl, Mat Lloyd, Ventriloquist, Excentral Tempest, performance group NeveroddoreveN (later to form into SKIPtheatre) and display artists Matt Black, Tom Harris (Tom The Pen) and Andrew Walter. We also decided to give all the money from the night to charity in aid of Cancer Research UK.

So the date was set for Lazy Gramophone Presents Pip Vs PIP on Saturday September 22nd 2007 for a whole night of spoken word at The Macbeth, Hoxton, London. To have a night like this on a Saturday in a pub was unheard of and could have been a complete failure.
Anyway people started filtering into the venue at 8pm and before we knew it there were over 200 people in the room.

I started off by warming up the audience, this didn't by any means need me to gyrate my hips or even spinning around in the light with my glitter ball head piece. But to ask them 'can you feel it?', to which they replied 'yes we can!'. After doing this a few times 'Can You Feel It' came on by The Jacksons. Next we had NeveroddoreveN kick off with a colourful set with umbrellas and audience interaction. From that each poet leading up to Pip Vs PIP had a 10 minute set.

This started with Poeticat, A F Harold and Mat Lloyd speaking on the bar.

Try to imagine this though, 200 people in a pub not saying a single word but watching, listening and telling people to be quiet when a poet was performing. On top of this each time a poem was performed the crowd went wild, and I ain't talking about no out in the bush wild with zebras and lions, but screaming, hollering and whooping wild! This shouldn't have even been possible with the nights I had been watching on the scene, but everyone was a part of the experience and gelled together.

We had a break after this and next came on Gypsy Girl and Ventriloquist with his classic 'James Brown'. By this point the atmosphere was becoming electric. I had been getting a little tetchy cause Excentral Tempest hadn't turn up yet, but to aplomb she turned up on cue and went on stage.

The crowd went mental, reacting to every syllable she spoke. It was truly awe inspiring and I think that was felt by her as well. From that point the bar was set.
I started getting the crowd to shout 'Pippy' in the way the audience from the Rocky film chant.
As they were chanting this name (which obviously referred to both acts) the theme tune 'Gonna Fly Now' from Rocky came in with me introducing '...in my right corner, weighing 170 pounds with black beard and cap, we have Scrooooooooobius Pip...' and '....in my left corner having an accumulative weight of 650 pounds and being bad ass we have A Poem Inbetweeeeeeeeeeeen People'. Both came on stage, white towels over necks squaring up to each other.

The crowd went wild, how could they not?!
So the way the night was set out was an accapella piece by both people, then a piece to live music, and finally two pieces over electronic music.

First came Inua Ellams followed by Scroobius. The crowd went crazy on both, hanging to every word.

Next came Joshua with Shabaka on Sax with 'Stop Me', one of the best performances on the night, followed by Scroobius with his 6"2" Piano player.

We then went into the electronic realm with Musa and Scroobius each performing. By this point in the battle neither act could be separated on who was the better.

So we came to the finale, neither act willing to acknowledge defeat.
PIP did their all time classic 'This Is London' the crowd couldn't contain themselves, it was electric. Scroobius then came up and performed 'Thou Shalt Always Kill'. On his final line everyone seemed to join in from the whole room '....and thou shalt always, and thou shalt always...Kill!'.

It was immense the roof was shaking and some say even smouldering. We who were poets, artists and organisers stood in disbelief to the crowd reaction. I came on stage and asked everyone to hush. From that I asked firstly who thinks Scroobius Pip should win, the crowd went insane, the place did truly shake. Next I asked who thinks PIP should win, again a sound that if had come from the lord of thunder himself would have truly been proud of. We just could not believe what we had all done, it was a draw but that didn't matter in the end.

A scene to this day still slowly making waves showed in one night what it can really do and was a bench mark for many of them, most now moving into music.

We made £1045 for charity and left on the biggest high imaginable.

The Greatest Spoken Word night of the modern day...

Smile

2008-12-22T04:23:00.000-08:00

Another fab design I thought of and Kat Sinclair did for me. Very simple and obvious but people seemed to love it.

Courvoisier 500, Mesh Minds

2008-12-16T02:14:00.000-08:00

I went to Courvoisier 500 party the other day. Courvoisier sets to identify and bring out a yearly list of the country's top achievers across various categories including Fashion and Retail, Food and Drink, Art & Design, Travel & Leisure, Media etc. As you can see I have their logo on my head which was fun to parade around. I met Kay Vasey who has started Mesh Minds a cultural market place connecting the arts and business worlds. Meshers have one thing in common - a passion for culture, arts & creativity. They love to invest, collaborate and connect with like-minded people who bring them cutting-edge, unusual, and inspirational experiences.

Vernon Francois

2008-12-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

This is Vernon Francois who I was introduced via my friend Anna Lou of London. In short he is a highly talented and on the ball individual. He dresses exceptionally well and even though his focus at the moment is directed towards styling hair he can do much much more, and plans to do much much more. Before anyone gets in there, back up his phrase is 'casually fabulous' just in case you don't hear him say it.

Agyness Deyn and yours truly

2008-11-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

A friend went on a business trip to Japan. She was in a shop and picked up a Japanese magazine called Street (issue 12 p8). Flicking through it her eye caught no other than oneself in my trademark crystal head piece on the same spread as Agyness Deyn! Oh yes. I thought it might have taken a little longer to make a cover spread with a super model but beggers can't be choosers.

Nadja Swarovski

2008-11-24T03:58:00.000-08:00

I went to the V&A where Nadja Swarovski was talking about her families company and history. She is the one behind making it into a global fashion brand when joining 10 years ago and turned round its credibility into a fashion supporter. She was bedazzled by the 1000 crystal head piece and no doubt has me in her mindset for future campaigns.

House Of Fraser

2008-11-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

Find myself and Gigi Morley having a little tipple after our talk at House of Fraser. Gigi spoke about the art or accessorising from head to toe through her brand 'Rocks, frocks and Cocktails'. There will be more of those in the future.

V V Brown, Anna Lou of London and Kindred Spirits

2008-11-11T17:14:00.000-08:00

If you take a sneak peek here you might know that I bumped into the IT girl of the moment VV Brown at London Fashion Week. I met her at the Vivienne Westwood party with that amazing flat top hair and a wonderful dress. I found myself seeing VV with her Do Wop Indie style tunes at The Soho Revue bar in London a few months later. I met her back stage and as you can see she was also wearing a hot off the press Anna Lou of London's bespoke VV Brown necklace.

My Billboard made SuperSuper Magazine Top Ten Trendz

2008-11-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Word people! Or 'Strike a Pose' with a saying. SuperSuper Magazine (one of the top selling youth culture mags of the moment) did a section about 'top 10 Super Trendz'.
To fill you in I organise numerous events including Lazy Gramophone, Musicalifragilistic and THE FAD.

Fad: A temporary fashion, notion, manner of conduct, etc., esp. one followed enthusiastically by a group.

THE FAD makes the audience to 'Dress to Express' and be who you want to be. With Dancers on the bar, balloons, bubbles, DJs, free face painting and billboards sayings (above). I was recently asked by Universal to organise a showcase for one of their bands under THE FAD name.
SuperSuper made my signs their number 1 out of 10 trendz called 'Get yr sign on!' (Issue 13, page 14) with a girl holding it saying 'Go DJ'. They said '...taking lyrics, poetry and commentary onto the dance floor...' and '... reference pop culture and encourage people to join in by handing them out...held high over the heads of the dance floor, perhaps acknowledging their influence and importance in public life...'

Word.

SKIP Theatre

2008-11-10T03:17:00.000-08:00

SKIP Theatre are these fabulous 3 girls named Chloe, Laura and Charlotte. I have known them for quite a few years and they have played at numerous nights I have put on. They formed at Goldsmiths and bring a fresh performance style to theatre and club nights that is more than just skipping. They challenge spaces and the audience standing within them, but still keep a light hearted effect to newcomers not accustomed to performance. At their last night they skipped with bags of icing sugar, within a few minutes the powder had seeped through the air and you could taste it in your mouth. This was a great sensations and very original. Another one to watch.

The Irrepressibles

2008-11-09T15:03:00.001-08:00

In life there are moments when once in a blue moon you come across something in simple terms special.
The Irrepressibles are that in abundance and I have booked them for Lazy Gramophone Presents night in the past. Led by Jamie McDermott this 10 piece orchestra with singer don't have competition, there is no one like them. If you listen to 'In This Shirt' or even 'My Friend Jo' you will understand why. They just ooze originality, quality and stubbornness. In the perfect situation, where all is hushed, and lights are turned down low, they will make you cry.

P.S I have just bought their album (28/01/09) and here is a review from The Independent

J Smith Esq.

2008-11-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

I didn't read so much when I was young but was always drawn to images. This was very much so with Isabella Blow a muse or champion of Philip Treacy and others. She found and supported talented people.

I had the privilege to have a meeting with Justin Smith Esq who seems to be the milliner of the moment, backed by Stephen Jones. His place was immense, what many of us would want in our flat/house for decor and he had a beautiful grey dog to match. He was lovely to chat to and it was wonderful to meet a person so talented. Pictures above.

Broken Hearts

2008-11-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

Some people look good, some look better than good, and then there are some people who look supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! This is none more so than The Broken Hearts. Dressing as if Bettie Page is their stylist they are one of the few women around who really float my style boat. Amber and Nish work at Beyond Retro and being DJs (Red phone used for mixing tunes) in the night time they are also slowly putting a band together, with the songs being fresh from the 1920s block.

Wobbly Eyes

2008-11-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

Find one of my new head designs. Wobbly eyes!

SteamPunk and Edward Saperia

2008-10-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

This is Ed who dresses from a subgenre called Steampunk. You can find the Wiki explainer here, but in essence it harks back to the steam power or industrial era. You can see an article from a Guardian journalist about one of Ed's superb dinner parties I went to here. Ed is multi talented, he makes SteamPunk Jewelery, is in a SteamPunk band and lives everything...well, errr....SteamPunk.

Musa Okwonga

2008-10-26T17:46:00.000-07:00

I met Musa in 2006 when I was checking out the spoken word scene. Musa was one of the poets pushing the scene forward at that point so much so he won Poetry Idol (beating Scroobius Pip). He is far by one of the most talented people I know and a good friend. A spoken word artist he written a book (pictured) short listed for the 2008 William Hill Sports book of the year, and is in one of the most vibrant bands of the moment Benin City with other talent and poet Joshua Idehen.

Gigi Morley

2008-10-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

Gigi Morley is founder of the amazing Rocks, Frocks and Cocktails you can find her blog site here
She knows how to Rock, Frock and Cocktail the place anything and plans to have a book, website and TV show out in the not too distant future. She is the fab looking one in pink!

Lazy Gramophone

2008-10-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

This is the biography of Lazy Gramophone.

Established in 2003 by myself and Daniel Chidgey with the aim of helping young, independent, up-and-coming artists, writers and musicians to gain exposure and showcase their work. We now have about 30 we support.
www.lazygramophone.com, designed and is now being redesigned by Ben Chidgey (who is an important part of the LG family), is the platform from which the artists can display their various works of art, music, poetry, illustration, photography and more.

In 2006 Lazy Gramophone Press was established and published Adam Green's debut novel, 'Satsuma Sun-mover' on May 1st. It was long listed for The 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize which is £60,000 prize designed not only to richly reward the best young writer in the world but also to serve as a focus for and incentive to all young writers throughout the English-speaking world.
Since then we have published Sam Rawling's poetry collection 'Circle Time' and his short horror story 'Echoes of Dawn' (illustrated by Matt Black), as well as a series of handmade illustrated poetry booklets featuring collaborations between Lazy Gramophone artists and writers. Guy J Jackson's spoken word albums and Simon Gibson's music albums also became available for sale via the website.

Since 2006 there have been regular live 'Lazy Gramophone Presents' events at The Macbeth, The Miller and The Luminaire (all central London) as well as a number of small day-long festivals info. These events include music, spoken word, theatre, art displays, fashion shows and comedy. Throughout all these activities, we are constantly dedicated to supporting and developing artists and groups from the UK and London.

We instigated a charity event called 'Pip vs PIP' in aid of Cancer Research UK with links to the Hackney 'Write to Ignite' festival in September 2007 for a whole night of spoken word with the finest poetry acts in London.

Our new site will have the aim of becoming one of the most prominent creative platforms in the UK, enabling our artists to consistently update and showcase their most current work.

Since the beginning of 2008 we have been coordinating and collaborating with artists in the curation of The Macbeth Gallery, that displays both up-and-coming and more established artists' work on a two-week rotation.

Recently, we have been fortunate enough to gain support from The Hospital Club, with three of our artists' works being exhibited and available for sale at the club. The artists featured are Tom Harris, Garry Milne and Dan Prescott, whose piece 'Quentin Armstrong' was featured on the front cover of the latest member's magazine.

You can contact me at theboss (at) lazygramophone.com

Head Pictures

2008-10-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Head designs and Kat Sinclair

2008-10-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

London born Philip started using his head as a canvas for creativity back in 2006 when he began to go bald. He did not want to conform to shaving his head like everyone else so started using it as an art form to express. Philip’s head designs are now becoming iconic within London’s fashion and art scenes where people strive to be original. As a tastemaker he is now gaining recognition abroad including Japan and China, and is leading the way to becoming one of the most original expressions of creativity in the 21st century.

Philip teams up with professional body painter Kat Sinclair, continuously creating a wealth of designs that have ranged from his 1000-Swarovski crystal head piece to homages of such artists as Roy Lichtenstein and Hokusai painted on his head. Philip caught the attention of Mehron, the largest body paint suppliers in America and is now sponsored by them.

Philip is cultural entrepreneur, co-founding the collective Lazy Gramophone, a couture arts and design label that supports developing artists by running a publishing label, gallery and events. He is also a partner in Art Below, an organisation that strives to create opportunities for emerging and established artists and designers to showcase their work in public spaces, both at home and abroad.