I have this weakness for female musicians. It started in my formative years, when I fell in love with the Shirelles on oldies radio. It continued as I explored other 50s and 60s girl groups, The Pretenders, Siouxsie, Poly Styrene, etc. In general, I think women in rock music are severely underrepresented and frequently appreciated for the wrong reasons.

So you’ll have to forgive my hypocrisy in saying this, but I am currently obsessed with M.I.A. and The Pipettes. Their music is good (especially M.I.A. – that new album is killing me), but ultimately they just look so damn good.

(Nylon, August 2007)

(telegraph.co.uk)

It’s refreshing to see ladies who aren’t white, or who aren’t stick thin, holding a point of view in fashion. Can I help it that I’m inspired by their music and their looks?

In July 2006 we were lucky enough to score tickets to the Broken Social Scene + Belle and Sebastian concert in Columbia, Maryland. Being huge fans of both bands, we decided to go despite the long drive from Pittsburgh. As fate would have it, Broken Social Scene agreed to do an interview with us for the ModLife blog. Here’s the interview, in it’s entirety. Funny, thought-provoking, and sometimes downright silly; we talked for over an hour and had an incredible time. Many thanks to Kevin Drew, lead singer and founder of Broken Social Scene, and Matthew Kopel, our dear friend, former marketing director, and the main narrative voice of this interview. Enjoy!

After our four hour car ride to Columbia, Eric Susan and Myself stopped first at our hotel room to drop off our things, orient ourselves, and enjoy the extremely high air conditioner setting before heading out towards the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Once there, directed by Brendan (last name) Broken Social Scene’s tour manager to the side stage area, we sat and waited for what was to come next. The side stage itself was extremely pleasant: Hammocks and umbrellaed picnic tables with surprisingly comfortable chairs littered the lot, along side massage booths set up by the venue for anyone in any of the bands who wanted a pre-show relaxation session.

Brendan came down and told us that the sound check was running a bit off schedule, but to hang tight, because Kevin Drew, front-man and co-founder of Broken Social Scene, had decided to do all of the interviews through the week. We sat and waited eagerly for Broken to finish their sound check, and then saw Kevin walk down towards us, toweling of his hair with one hand, holding a bottle of Bud in the other.

At first, though, he was a bit skeptical. “So who are you guys?” He took our card and went back inside for a moment. I was a bit nervous, as in my experience, the interviewee leaving is not the best sign. But when he came back, he seemed to be a bit more comfortable, but we had to sell ourselves a bit more before the deal was cinched. When he asked me what the point of ModCloth was, I gave him the straight deal.

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Since ModCloth’s still a fairly small operation, we all pitch in and do lots of different jobs. One day I’m a photographer, the next I’m writing product descriptions, and maybe later I’m a shipping clerk. I love working on ModCloth no matter what I’m doing, but I have to admit that my favorite job (by far) is “Shopper“. August is a busy month for us Shoppers, as it’s the time to start stocking up for the big holiday rush. Last week we left Pittsburgh and headed to New York City, where we proceeded to shop for 5 days straight! I brought my camera to give you, dear reader, a glimpse of what life as a ModCloth Shopper is like.

Our bus arrives in New York City around 8am. We quickly grab some breakfast and head over to the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market on 39th street.

One of the first vendor booths at the flea market. I love the juxtaposition of the flowing sheer curtain and the concert promos.

We continue further into the market and find these old printing press letters…

Of course here’s what we all really care about: the clothes. This flea market is like heaven for vintage clothing lovers like myself…

Although the charm of vintage buttons is always hard to resist.

I’m a sucker for a good close-up, and the colors of this vintage dress were just too good to pass by.

The next two days are spent at a tradeshow and, unfortunately, no pictures were allowed. Luckily I did remember to capture our delicous Korean dinner with my camera phone…

The next day is spent in the Garment District sifting through tons of baseball caps, fake designer purses, and ugly jewelry to find some hidden gems for ModCloth.

Another camera phone capture – lots and lots of neon beads at a jewelry shop.

Hats, anyone?

All in all, it was a successful yet exhausting trip. We found lots of incredible items (like the Perfect Fedora and the Falling Leaves necklace), did some fun window shopping, and ate tons of delicious food. Next week is a new adventure at the biggest tradeshow of the season: MAGIC in Las Vegas.

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Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted by our dear friend and former marketing director Matthew Kopel.

By late afternoon, the sun had decided to let Pittsburgh relax a little bit, so that it was a warm June day, but not swelteringly so. Legal pad and recorder in hand, I chain smoked in front of the Rex Theater on East Carson Street in the South Side district of Pittsburgh, talking to the owner Chris about hip clothing.

“I want some good tight bell bottoms, man, loose in the crotch, but tight, comfortable. See that girl? Excuse me, Miss? See this girl, it’s all tight on her, it looks good, I want clothes like that, but for guys, and have it be cool.” I told him I’d see what I could do.

Mike, the tour manager, waved me around the corner of the building, telling me there had been a mix up, but that it was all settled out now. I walked through the stage door to see Joey Burns, who saw me and immediately asked “Interview?” with a solid, subtle smile on his face. We strolled outside and on to the street, walking in the sunshine towards a guitar shop a block and a half down.

M: How was Chicago last night?

J: Amazing. So much fun.

M: Where was the gig?

J: The Metro.

M: Okay, yeah.

J: We had fun. Also, the intonation festival was going on at the same time this weekend. Everybody was pretty excited at the prospect of the festival coming up. Seems to me like there are a lot more festivals going on these days.

M: Yeah, it’s nice to see the resurgence. I think this weekend in (Cincinnati) there’s the Desdemona Festival, I think it’s being cosponsored by WOXY who just moved to Cinci-

J: I haven’t heard of them.

M: They’re a big online independent music radio station. They’ve been around (in some form) for around twenty years now. Five or six online. Between them and KEXP out of Seattle-

J: I do like KEXP.

M: Yeah, they’ve both got quite a bit of good music.

We strolled into the guitar shop on E. Carson Street to find a few older hipsters browsing about. Joey had the look of a kid in a candy store when he bumped into one of his friends. We walked about, talking about guitars. It was then that the conversation began to normalize a little bit. Joey’d been in a van traveling from Chicago for hours. Now he had a chance to stretch his legs, and surround himself with a great passion: guitars. He was fluent in the language in ways that I won’t pretend to be here or anywhere else. With every detailed glance he gave, there was an element of parental love, wanting to appreciate the smallest facets, the uniqueness, of each piece. To be quite honest, I was fascinated, but realized that our conversation wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. This wasn’t going to be a sit down interview, and I had to acclimate to the change in events.

M: Out of all the bands you’ve played with, and all of your colleagues and peers, if you could steal one guitar from them, which one, and who would it be?

Of course, I had meant the question innocently enough. We’d spent about ten minutes talking about classic guitars, and appreciation of the variance in sound. He was a bit taken aback at first:

J: I’m not really into stealing.

M: Well, not stealing, but to borrow to use, or have an exact replica made.

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