See you tomorrow Cuba!

My best friend, Chelsea Vickers and I are heading down south to Manzanillo, Cuba tomorrow for a week of fun and sun.
I'm ready for psychedelic Che Guevara murals and antediluvian American Buicks, dudes with bongos and old men slapping down dominoes, queues outside ration shops and communist cadres smoking chunky Montecristos.
GIVE IT TO ME.

See you soon,
Em

lolita from the hood

I was nervous that she just wouldn't be everything I fantasized her being, but damn, after the first note of "China Doll", you knew she's the real deal.
Her voice is deceptively strong (considering she has an unpolished  New Yorker accent) and she controls it well. She seamlessly flows from high-pitched lolita to the weathered voice of someone who has been through it all. ‘Blue Jeans’ felt twice as powerful in person as it does on record. ‘Born to Die’ is almost on par with the cinematic ‘Video Games’, and is given an extra punch with its jarringly explicit chorus. Seemingly out of nowhere, the fantastic chorus ‘let me fuck you hard in the pouring rain / You like your girls insane’ ( I thought it was hearing it wrong til I realized I wasn't).
Consumed by self-consciousness, she barely spoke except to apologies for the brevity of the nine-song set but the overall appeal of the show was plenty. As she dreamily sang, three large balloons screened grainy footage of some of the pillars of the "Del Rey" persona: Elvis, Vegas, 60s paparazzi.
There's something really special about this gangsta Nancy Sinatra.

 

xo em