NYPC

In the anticipation of New Young Pony Club's forthcoming album, Optimist, the kids over at Topman CTRL have roped in the band to take the reins for February's CTRL program!

This time, it's being held in Sheffield round at Bungalows & Bears on the 25^th February.

Y'all know the drill by now...CTRLers NYPC are pulling in Mercury Music Prize nominated (we still think they shoulda won...check this interview I did with them back in '08) trio The Invisible, art-rockers and responsible for invite only festival In The Woods, The Laurel Collective as well as sets from DJ duos Run Hide Survive and Children For Breakfast - as usual, a pretty impeccable line-up...!

...And YEAH the band designed a tee and YEAH we've got one of them to giveaway to our super ace readers. So YEAH. Here it is, the special limited edition tee specially made for Topman CTRL by New Young Pony Club:

THE TEEEEEEE

To be in the draw to win one of the tee that we got, what you gotta do is get your twitting gloves on and retweet the following:

IM//the Optimist and I'm going to win this New Young Pony Club designed Topman CTRL T that @imyouare is giving away http://bit.ly/9joQta

Now kids, you can re-tweet as much as you want, the more you twit, the more chance you have at winning, innit. Comp closes on the 12th of February where we'll gather up all the retweets and pick one at random.

And whilst you're all going forth and re-twitting that shit, here's the vid for their latest single, the wicked 'Chaos' for you to tweet along to:

The Black Lips

So let's see, Topman CTRL have in the past hosted such curators as  Sam Kilcoyne of Underage, The Rumble Strips, Lightspeed Champion, Ladyhawke, and Metronomy.

Are you ready kids? Aug 26^th is where it kicks off with a live event in Bristol at Start the Bus where The Black Lips are in CTRL and going to be causing a ruckus, roping in The Big Pink, The Sticks and Thee Vicars.

EPIC. Two days prior to the event, The Black Lips' latest single is being released in the UK, entitled 'Drugs'. The b-side is a cover of 'I'll Be With You'; the original a lazily jangly and sentimental kind of track with a vaguely piss-taking video that the band obviously had a hilarious time making in all it's nostalgic and lo-fi glory.

The cover has been given the creepy treatment by Lumina (Faris Badwan from The Horrors in another guise). Full of creaks, low droning keys and Faris' softly seductive vocal cop it below too.

Rumble on the, erm, 'river'

So for the month of June, The Rumble Strips were curating CTRL for Topman this month of June. The lads chose Golden Silvers, Everything Everything, My Tiger My Timing to play their CTRL gig at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff earlier this month. To date the CTRLlers have been an esteemed list of Metronomy, Ladyhawke, and Lightspeed Champion.

And as of July, Sam Kilcoyne, founder of the Underage Club, will be taking over, pulling in a massive line-up including Metronomy, Little Boots, grime artists Tinchy Stryder and JME, Esser, grime and dubstep DJ Plastician, Rusko and Caspa, and the infamous Tomb Crew all coming to a head on the 2nd of August when the Underage Festival hits London's Victoria Park.

In the meantime, whilst we're waiting for Sam to take CTRL, here's a video of The Rumble Strips experience as well as their chosen three having a chat about being in control.

Ladyhawke by Sarah Larnach

Well, at least for an incredibly limited edition run of 30 t-shirts that she designed for her month in CTRL for Topman.

Super Limited Edition Ladyhawke for TOPMAN

And of these 30, how many are left in the WHOLE WORLD after most of her posse/entourage went through them?

TWO. 

And you know who has them?

WE DO.

But you know what? We wanna give them away to you guys.

Stalk us on twitter, hit follow and reply back @imyouare what you would do to get your hands on one of these tshirts. Competition will close at 10pm LONDON TIME on WEDNESDAY the 20th of MAY, and we'll pick a winner at random from the FOLLOWERS who hit reply.

So go forth and twit that shit!

UPDATE: We have our winners! PARABÉNS to PEDROSOTERO from Brasilia, Brazil, and congratulations EllaBM from London, United Kingdom! Thanks everyone for all the @imyouare replies - we had a lot of fun reading what you'd do for one of these tees. Never fear, we'll be back with some more goodies for you soon! XOXO

Dev in CTRL

Photograph by Ren Rox

Topman CTRL's heading to The Great Escape for Dev Hynes' turn at the wheel.

Kicking off the UK festival season for 2009, Dev's curating a 3-day music extravaganza on the CTRL stage at The Great Escape’s Digital venue. Swish. Looks like he got the best month to control so far - though I suppose it would also be much more work I reckon.

Being Lightspeed Champion does have it's kicks, after all, so Dev's gone and rounded up his mates, other creatives and a bunch of hyped bands to play his stage, starting with goth poplets This Tawdry Affair, then his bum chum Emmy the Great, and The Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando. Dev is also playing his own stage on the second day alongside Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, and the third day sees Telepathe play next to British Sea Power.

Pretty hot line-up, huh. And looky looky, here's Dev doing a short talk exclusively for us about his month of CTRL.

It's Ladyhawke, innit.

Photograph by Matt Irwin 

Topman has been giving emerging fashion designers a leg up in the industry via MAN, the only menswear show on schedule at London Fashion Week. Each season a panel of important industry types choose a line up of designers to showcase their collections alongside Topman Design. Topman has turned it's attention to music and CTRL is their platform.

Last month it was Metronomy, and this month Ladyhawke is curating Topman's CTRL series, having chosen Marina and the Diamonds, Dan Black and Fan Death for her gig. Here's the lady herself telling us a bit about it all, exclusively for IM//UR.

The gig is on the 30th of April at Manchester's Deaf Institute. In the meantime, speaking of Fan Death, here's the sexily dark remix they did of Ladyhawke's 'My Delirium':

Everybody should own a good white t-shirt, but white doesn't have to be synonymous with boring. Having that in mind, Topshop invited Phillip Lim, Richard Chai, Juun J, JW Anderson, Christopher Shannon and Henry Holland - along with two new Topman Design styles - to make this indisposable tee much more of a feature piece in the fourth edition of their series in the constant search for the perfect design in wardrobe staples.

From the more ordinary to high fashion in style, the six designers rebuilt the average idea of the plain white shirt. One features graphic/text, another plays with the look of the collar, one goes for a cape shape, whilst yet another has gigantic pockets.

The T-shirts will be available from May 28th at the London and New York stores and in the online stores.

GALLERY

Topman: Joe Mount aka Metronomy, in CTRL

As Raphael was on his way out to DJ (Feliz aniversario Michell e Fubah!) at a birthday party, I slunk in from Topman’s opening CTRL night curated by METRONOMY. It was a rather well turned out crowd, dressed in a way that those big guns at Topshop/Man would be proud; it was an event that they could marvel at their cleverly executed marketing strategies to see the very neatly eclectic and nattily groomed lads and lasses who filled the gig room at the Hoxton Bar & Grill. (I, in fact, was also incidentally in Topshop; sporting a black panelled body con skirt that I’ve taken to wearing at every opportunity with anything and everything in my wardrobe, and that night it was coupled with amongst other things, my favourite asymmetric Ann Sofie Back cardigan).

Anyway, the gig room was absolutely rammed. So, taking a deep breath and squaring my shoulders to forge through the crowd, I ended up meekly apologising to all the people whose drinks I accidentally knocked as I squeezed past them, ducking my head and weaving like Beyoncé. Even having mad weaving skillz such as I, it was still a struggle to get in and out of the obviously fashionable event.

Your Twenties (+ Metronomy on drums)

By the time I arrived and found a little space where I could comfortably obscure someone else’s view of the stage (unfortunately I was standing in front of a short girl - okay, I was wearing my beloved four inch platform Opening Ceremony wedge boots; I was probably actually her height to begin with), I had unfortunately missed Koko Van Napoo but skidded in time to catch Your Twenties. Who were accompanied by, to my surprise, Joseph Mount (curator of the night) of Metronomy fame on the drum kit - I didn’t realise that he had joined Your Twenties to drum to Gabriel Stebbing’s (keyboards/bass in Metronomy) vocals and guitar. Apparently not though as Gabe explained; Joe had kindly stepped in as their usual drummer had traded this gig to go to America with a band that was breaking up anyway (burrrn!). Your Twenties glided through their tightly harmonised set, charmingly nostalgic yet gently modern in their Metronomy tinged take on Beatles flavoured indie pop. Kamerakino then stepped up with their brand of jangly, quaintly noir gypsy throw down.

Kamerakino

I exited after that as I had a cameo to make at the bar I regularly haunt. It was their first karaoke night and I promised I would stop by. It was brief but intense, and as I was walking away one of the owners came running out after me yelling “Christel you’re on! They’ve got Britney! Quick!” WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY (but I did it of course. And it was beyond fun).