Lovers Love Haters

LLH is Deb Cohen guitar player from the Organ’s solo band/project where she SINGS! Woop. Deb also plays all the instruments (except the drums) on the recordings and she’s got a West Coast Canadian live band and an Eastern one in Toronto (saves money for touring when you only have to fly one person!)

I once tried to be the bassist in Lovers Love Haters but I wasn’t good enough 😦
One day if I practice REAL hard I might be…haha… but this is why Deb’s music IS sooo good because she is a perfectionist. The whole 6 song EP can be found here: www.loverslovehaters.com

It’s really good and if you ever liked the Organ you will definitely like this as well. She’s just made a music video for the song Poison which funnily enough stars my big brother (in name only) Shane Nelken, along with old friends of mine Selim, Sarah Warren and Deb’s sister.

Lovers Love Haters Official music video. Poison. from morehartfilms on Vimeo.

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Just Jeffrey

I’ve known Jeff McCloy since I was 15 years old. I met him outside a Specials gig in Vancouver which we both couldn’t get into (me being well under age and his problem being he’d forgotten his ID in Kamloops – a 4 hour drive away!).

Over the next 15 years – he taught me a lot about punk rock bands, lent me Maximum Rock n Rolls, I put on gigs for his old bands The Disgusteens and New Town Animals, he acted in a movie I made (but never finished), I went to his Halloween wedding dressed as Alice Cooper, I let his most recent band The Tranzmitors stay at my place in London… it’s been a long friendship. Hell, I remember the time he was working in a kitchen cut his hand open and had to get stitches without anaesthetic so he could still play guitar later that night.

And I don’t know ANYONE else who knows more about punk rock records than Jeff McCloy who’s just released this very suitable new music video and song as Just Jeffrey.

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My Birthday….

It came and went. I had an adventure to Berlin. It was great to see old friends, we partied at the Canadian Embassy, ate Canadian pizza at Ron Telesky’s (yes I was in Germany NOT Canada). That’s the thing half of Canada lives in Berlin now and I found out why apparently if you are under 35 and Canadian you can get a German work visa for free (or like a 10 Euro admin fee) how crazy and amazing! Caught up with so many old friends I hadn’t seen in 8 years, partied til the wee hours with old German friends and on my actual birthday which was a Monday I saw the Gates of Babylon…

Last weekend I had a drunk birthday gig party at the Victory (my new local). My band, The Racket, played and new friends from NYC We Are All Romans played as well. I actually met WAAR in Berlin the weekend before I drunkenly asked them to play my party without even hearing them!!! But luckily for me they are ace AND the nicest guys in the world. Thank you Brian & Angus for playing. Also Angus’ girlfriend Joanna is equally as sweet and took loads of pictures that night so hopefully those will surface at some point.

The bands were followed by very very drunken HEAVYOKE curated by the lovely Mike & Jen of Hot Breath Karaoke fame. I did Alice Cooper’s Poison and Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation. Then I’m really not sure what happened, a lot of people came, I probably made out a bunch, I think we tried to DJ Waynes Girls but were too trashed by that point, I went to a house party in Clapton with Dan & Annabelle…

But the best surprise of the evening was this amazing pizza with my face on it! Thank you to my BFF Jen Long for making this most awesome present (which I didn’t eat because it had meat on it!)

Thanks to everyone who came and was involved special shout outs to Belle & Mireia DMD for DJing all night!

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The Last 10 YEARS

This is going to be the most self-obsessed post I’ve ever written BUT I’m turning 30 in 5 days and I realised it’s a milestone to look back at all the bands and random stuff I’ve done in the past 10 years. So here it goes in the form of a brief photo gallery and of what photos I still have lying around…

18 years old playing bass in the Riff Randells somewhere on Vancouver Island.

The Riff Randells were my first band and we got 5 Ks in Kerrang magazine for our second single. I was 19 and lived in Canada. I’m still pretty proud of that.

The Ewoks at my 20th Birthday Party

This was my second band and my first playing drums. I started the band with my best friend Jenny so I could learn to play drums (11 years later I’m still not that great!).

The Ewoks in the first edition of ION Magazine

Now the me and famous people selection. I did work at CBC Radio & TV for 5 years of my life which gave me the opportunity to interview over 100 bands/celebrities and travel all over Canada. It was amazing. Here’s just a couple pics I could find from that time…

Here I am giving Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols fame a MASSIVE smiley hug. I think I’m about 21 in this picture.

Age 20 with porn star Ron Jeremy at the Toronto premier of his movie “Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy”

Age 22 I worked with Elijah Wood and Franke Potente on a CBC radio show

Here I am about 21 with Peter Mansbridge my hero and CBC Television’s National news anchor

On the poster for my friend Charlotte’s night in London age 23

My first band in London – The Scandelles – age 25

My second band in London and most successful band I’ve ever been in the Duloks. Age 26

My third and current London band, The Racket, age 29

And lastly Age 29 DJing as Wayne Girls (I’m Garth) with Jen Long

It’s been a fun 10-11 years of adult hood. To the next 10 years! May my 30s be just as fun, maybe slightly less wild and full of rad people and friends as my 20s were.

Oh and Feb 19th The Racket plays a birthday party / gig here for me here:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=140568962670222

It’s free and open to the public.

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US SKINS

So it came across my attention that a US version of Skins has started airing on MTV and apparently it’s word for word exactly like the British one! Even the characters have the same names etc.

Why do they do that? What a waste of time and money – why not just show the British one in America? Is it because they don’t think American teens will get British teens or their accents?

If Cheryl Cole (who barely speaks English) can go on X Factor in America than Americans can understand any British thing we send them.

I loved the original Skins and it just annoys me everything has to be watered down / changed for North American audiences. Blah.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/jan/18/mtv-skins-us-being-human

Rant over. Hi!

Sorry I haven’t updated this in months. I went to 2 ATPs in December, flew to Canada, I learned to ski, I need a new flatmate, I’ve been up to things I just keep forgetting to blog about it. Doh.

Love Mar x

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