Time to grab a flashlight and head to UI’s basement to see what’s buried in our boxes. Per usual, we’re rifling through our treasure trove of interviews to Flashion Backward and fish out a vintage gem–the better to explore the strange vortex in which fashion and musicians meet. Today we’re in for a unique treat.
Where do we begin with this dapper gentleman, this…Lightspeed Champion? The colorful palette from which he dips his idiosyncratic brush before painting his chiaroscuro portrait of life is multi-hued indeed. The British composer and songwriter is a musical chameleon (is he dance-punk? A classicist? A soul man?).
Not that it really matters–whether he’s penning comic books, dressing up like Princess Leia, striking dour poses with lawn furniture, writing for the Chemical Brothers, or strapping on a Bill Cosby ski sweater circa 1982 and some sort of headgear that appears to be the stitched together from the hide of some sort of wily urban mammal, Lightspeed Champion is an all-around ass-kicking wonder.
And to be fair, he may be just as confused as the rest of us. When contemplating whose ass he’d most like to kick (why does he spend time contemplating such things? Even he isn’t sure), he’d totally choose Screech’s over Bob Dylan or Kurt Cobain. Why? This is not a query one can pose to a man who regularly straps a dead raccoon (rat? rerret?) to his head and goes about his business.
He’s got a new comic out- it’s published in a collection and will be one show at the Lazarides Gallery (Soho, London) later in the year.
It was illustrated by a competition winner- usually his girlfriend Nicole Michalek does them.
http://www.jotta.com/magazine/articles/343/dev-hynes-comic-book-hero#big_image