Latest news with #Fifties
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wigs, Vapes, and Elvis Dreams: Welcome to Remy Bond's Vintage Fantasy
The doors of the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles felt like a vortex last Friday: Fans walked in wearing Hawaiian shirts, leis, and tropical flower clip-ins, ready to be transported into the Elvis Presley Blue Hawaii world of Remy Bond. A burlesque dancer opened the show, and for her set, Bond popped out of a giant cake, backed by a pair of dancers (and her sister Olivia) dressed like Fifties diner waitresses. At one point, Bond sang from inside a martini glass; at another, she marries a fan and shares a kiss with him onstage. Her giant blonde hair bounces over her tiny shoulders as she serenades the crowd with her oldies-inspired sound. In the middle of the fever dream, Bond pulls out a bedazzled vape from her dress, offering a puff to each of her dancers before taking one herself. Bond's music lives in this fuzzy, decade-blending, kitschy utopia. It doesn't feel real — and it isn't supposed to. Since her first single in 2023, Bond has built a cult-like audience around this vintage fantasy, and her sound offers nostalgia and a breath of fresh air at the same time. More from Rolling Stone Meet After, the L.A. Duo Making Y2k-Inspired Pop That Feels Like Right Now Meet Lily Seabird, an Unflinching Songwriter Who'd Make Leonard Cohen Proud Remy Bond Channels the 'Diamond Sadness' of the Seventies in 'Moviestar' Video 'It's a diamond sadness and a washed-up glittery sound that works for me,' she tells me over a greek salad at a diner, where we meet for lunch. We sit in the back corner of the tiny joint called Cindy's, surrounded mostly by seniors, as Bond goes off on tangents about her adventures making music. Today, there's no wig, but she's wearing a Hawaiian shirt-inspired blouse, and a fake Sailor Jerry tattoo is fading off her arm. The workers here are dressed like Bond's dancers during the show, and Bond can decipher the Sixties songs that are playing in the background. Even as she preps for her first big tour, Bond is already thinking about a new era of music. 'Every shroom trip, we got a new source of inspiration. We wrote 'Movie Star' on shrooms. We were like, 'Oh my gosh, if we take shrooms, we can write so many bangers.' So we would just go into album mode every time we would do it,' she says of a recent trip with her go-to producer Jules Apolinaire. 'Wait, we should do shrooms together. Why not do shrooms right now?' Despite being early in her career, Bond is already carving a distinct sonic and visual lane for her music, which pairs her old-school inspiration with a sharply Gen Z perspective. She listens to both Kanye West and the Ronettes, although 'Kanye is not the bad bitch he once was,' she says. It's not the real-life Sixties and Seventies that inspire Bond, but the fantasy worlds imagined by Hollywood — it's no surprise that Elvis' campy world is high on the inspo list. 'Elvis' guitar-shaped car is for sale… I should have bought that instead of the Chelsea Hotel sign,' Bond says, confessing: 'I spent all my money on it. I can't even afford furniture.' That dreamy, retro longing in Bond's music? It probably started at home. Bond's parents often threw dinner parties and played music that she quickly fell in love with: She'd play Cat Stevens, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Mamma Mia! Soundtrack on repeat. The Bond sisters (they also have a younger brother) weren't allowed phones until eighth grade, so Remy listened to whatever CDs were lying around. (Supertramp's Breakfast in America comes up more than once in our conversation.) Her dad, she says, is a cinephile and would play classic movies all the time. She'd also watch shows like Downton Abbey constantly. 'I was Lady Branson for Halloween for three years,' she says. 'I consumed everything my parents were really into. I guess they had good taste.' Oh, and she grew up next door to Sean Ono Lennon. 'My first exposure to nudity was him shooting [something] in the backyard,' says Bond. 'Dude, this guy literally never left this house.' Before music became her full passion, Remy and her sister Olivia made history as the first sibling duo to compete on MasterChef Junior. Culinary art was like her first love, thanks to her mom. In some adorable YouTube videos from 2018, you can see a tiny Bond strutting around the kitchen in a giant bow, bossing the other kids around. The hair accessories — now it's usually a tropical flower — are part of the vibe today, too.'I still am into cooking. I make macaroons and shit,' she says. 'It was something I was into, but it just didn't mean anything to me.' She traded the spatula for a microphone once she hit high school. 'I was studying music but wasn't writing it, until I got an Omnichord — that's when I started writing songs,' she says. (You can thank David Bowie for the instrument choice.) 'I was trained classically in Italian, but when I realized I could write my own songs and create the music I wanted to hear, I became fixated.' Bond started releasing music in 2023 with 'End of the World,' where she posed the paradoxical question, 'Why am I so nostalgic for the now?' — a lyric that still defines much of her music. The next summer, she dropped 'Summer Song,' which introduced her to many of the fans she has today, thanks in part to its virality on TikTok. 'Summer Song,' her breakthrough hit, was born from an impromptu trip to Paris after watching The Virgin Suicides. She and her sister Olivia had just seen the iconic film for the first time when Liv decided to DM Air — the duo behind the film's dreamy soundtrack — to ask if they'd want to collaborate. '[Jean-Benoît Dunckel] actually responded. I totally lied. I was like, 'I'm going to be in Paris next week, let's get a coffee,'' Bond recounts. 'And he was like, 'Sure.' So I flew to Paris for a coffee. I didn't want to seem like a stalker, so I looked at their tour dates… and we made 'Summer Song' there.' Early listeners of Bond were drawn in by the cinematic quality of her music, with some comparing her sound to that of a young Lana Del Rey. Her use of old-Americana nostalgia has sparked conversations about parallels with Del Rey, including with the visual for 'Summer Song,' which calls to mind 'National Anthem.' But Bond, who first got into Lana during the Covid pandemic, doesn't mind the comparisons. 'People can say what they want. I think it's a compliment,' she says. (She's a fan of Del Rey's unreleased music.) It's the whimsical energy of the music that really sets her apart. Bond's song 'San Francisco' takes inspiration from the Summer of Love. 'My muse was Jenny from Forrest Gump,' she says. She wrote last year's 'Red, White, and Blue' during what she describes as a time of 'a lot of political tension' around the 2024 election, and shortly after cutting ties with a friend who wanted to vote for RFK 'because of his views on food,' she explains. 'I was worried people would perceive it as an 'I love America' song. I think it is a little bit perceived that way, but it's not.' And 'Star-Shaped Baby,' it's about 'a girl who's shaped by the industry to be a star.' Is that you? 'I don't know,' she says. 'I think I'm a star.' The artwork for February's 'Simple Girl' features a Stepford Wives-like Bond mowing a lawn, mirroring the irony of the song's opening line: 'I'm a simple girl, I like gardening 'n drugs.' She pulled the lyric from something she overheard at a café in L.A. 'I was like, 'I relate to that.' I have a garden, and I hide my vape in my garden to avoid hitting it,' she says with a laugh. None of Bond's lyrics take things too seriously. Bond's latest single 'Movie Star' trades the Fifties-Sixties fantasies for Seventies Europop. Remy takes a jab at an unworthy lover withthe silly line: 'You say you love the music / But you vape, you vape, you vape.' 'That line modernizes the song a bit,' Bond explains. 'I didn't want it to be totally a throwback; I wanted it to feel a little kitschy, a little funny.' Then she giggles: 'The bridge is just about the guy I lost my virginity to…' She leans in and whispers his name in my ear. 'It's about some spawn of a Spice Girl,' she clarifies on the record, eyeing my phone recording. The vape talk suddenly reminds Bond of something. She pauses, checks her phone, and looks at me: 'I actually ordered a vape here. Do you mind if I use your ID?' she asks. 'I don't have my fake.' Yeah, I'm down! (I pull out my wallet.) 'Fuck. It said the delivery guy was here 20 minutes ago,' she says. 'It's not good for my lungs, anyway. I just like the flavor.' Mid-interview, a call comes in from 'Cheese,' the nickname for Bond's sister Olivia. 'She's editing the 'Moviestar' video as we speak,' Bond tells me, before answering one of her sisters' questions about the visual over the phone. (A close-up of some bedazzled vapes open the video meant to be set in the Seventies. 'No one let us film the vape on set. So we rehired a film crew to just get a shot of us twinkling our vapes,' she says.) Olivia is an integral part of Remy Bond, The Artist. During the tour, Olivia acts as a co-star. For 'Moviestar,' which Olivia wrote on and sings on, she grabs a mic and duets with Remy, frolicking with her onstage. During 'San Francisco,' she appears in a peace sign-shaped dress inspired by what Marina Abramović wore at Glastonbury last year. Olivia also directs and stars in most of Bond's videos — and when Bond's opener dropped out at a recent show, she filled in, performing some of Remy's unreleased songs. 'We just keep each other in check,' says Bond. 'We are the same person, but also completely opposites. She has a really good perspective on things. I don't. I'm better with melodies because I'm not as quick at putting things into words. She's better with words, but not as sonic.' 'Same with our faces,' she adds. 'The top half of her eyes are better than mine, and my mouth is better than hers. So if we combined ourselves, we'd be perfect.' After the Bonds wrap her tour this month, they'll be going full-throttle on Remy's debut album. Bond says she's headed to Austria with Jules Apolinaire, her and Suki Waterhouse's go-to producer, to make more songs for the album. Expect more ABBA, more Seventies sparkle, more Europop flair. She's actually deep in 'research' mode. On a recent trip to Sweden — which included a shroom-fueled escape from the music of a modern male pop singer she won't name ('I don't want to diss anyone, but I was literally in hell,' she says) — she somehow ended up on a date with one of Björn Ulvaeus' grandkids. 'We just went for a walk. He didn't really speak any English,' she says with a giggle. 'In LA, I couldn't do that. But when I'm in Sweden, I'm free of all social norms, so I can be weird.' Also, she's single, and into English guys. 'I don't really date LA guys. They're all gay to me,' she says. After finishing her salad, I give Bond a ride to the studio — with a quick vape stop on the way, of course. She comes out holding a pink, strawberry mango-flavored one she's had before. She takes a few puffs before we get to the studio, where Apolinaire matches Bond's endearingly chaotic energy, greeting us in fuzzy red-and-pink-heart pajamas at the door. 'Today's a very special day,' he says in his French accent. 'Therefore, Rem-ee close your eyes.' The producer goes into another room to pull out a massive, Dolly Punkton, if you will, wig covered in plastic: 'Happy two years of friendship and music.' (Today marks two years since their first session.) Bond lets out a squeal as she opens her eyes: 'Where did you even get this?' asks Bond, plopping the head of hair on her head. 'It's so Agnetha.' The wig fits perfectly. 'That's the most Abba I've ever seen you,' responds Apolinaire. She's yet to use the wig onstage, but it won't take long before she does. She later sends me a photo of her gift to Apolinaire: a tin of caviar and a Bluey plushie. Weeks later, Bond sends me a text, with an amendment for this story: 'Can u include in ur article that my wig got checked for drugs at TSA?' she wrote. '#formative moment. Hairspray's a drug.' In Remy Bond's world, it really is. PRODUCTION CREDITS: Styling by OMID ANTHONY DIBAEI. Styling Assistant MICAELLA LANDERS. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
26-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Crystal Palace v Aston Villa: FA Cup semi-final
Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Aston Villa last won the FA Cup in 1957, 68 of your Earth years ago, and even that's something of an outlier. Five of their other six wins came during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, so it's not as though they've got much of a modern tradition in this competition to fall back on. Compare and contrast to Crystal Palace, who, despite never winning the FA Cup, arguably boast a better record in recent times. At least they came close to winning the competition in 1990 and 2016, giving it a good go in the final; Villa's only two appearances in the final since that aforementioned Fifties triumph, in 2000 and 2015, were thundering non-events from their point of view. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that both of these clubs are desperate to reach this year's final and put right some modern-day wrongs. Kick-off at Wembley is 5.15pm BST. It's on! Share
Telegraph
25-04-2025
- General
- Telegraph
I grew up poor. Making rich friends changed my life
Here in Britain, class has long been seen as the great divide when it comes to earning potential and aspiration. But these days, studies show there's an easy way to get ahead – hang around with rich friends, and start early. It certainly inspired me. My childhood in the Seventies was what you'd call 'Bohemian middle class'. My mum was a playwright, my dad worked for the BBC, and they were very young. We lived in a Manchester suburb, first in terraced houses, then in a three-bed Thirties semi until I was nine. We went on annual holidays to North Wales with my grandparents, and my dad's cars (when he had one) were generally held together with bits of string and optimism. I came from a long line of immigrant shopkeepers, clerks and postmistresses. But while we were always a bit skint, my family was also clever. We were never short of books (or blues LPs, in my dad's case). I spent my primary years being sent to work with the top class, which made me both stressed and unpopular with the children in my class. Aged eight, I passed the exam for a very academic private girls' day school, and my grandparents generously helped my mum and dad scrape the fees together. That was when I met rich people for the first time. Of course, we didn't think in terms of 'rich' at that age, but I was very aware that when I went to birthday parties, other girls lived in big detached houses with landscaped gardens and banks of shiny cars in the drive. Several had ponies, in contrast to our beloved scruffy cats who covered my school uniform in orange fur. Some of my new friends would spend half-terms skiing, and summer holidays in Florida or the South of France. My best friend had five siblings and her home life was equally bookish and normal, so it took a while for me to notice the gulf in income between me and my classmates. Nobody mentioned it, it simply existed. I didn't feel jealous so much as curious. Their parents seemed to be lawyers or doctors, dentists or tech entrepreneurs. After school, they'd all board the bus and head to mansions in deepest Cheshire, while I wandered home past the newsagents to our red-brick semi. I sometimes wondered how their families earned so much money, forgetting that most parents were a good 15 years older than my own (and some had inherited it). At 17, most passed their driving tests and were gifted cars. One girl got a sports car. I carried on catching the number 41 bus into town. None of this affected our friendships – on the whole, they were kind, clever, funny girls, even if Nadia did wear Armani jeans at the weekend, and I wore Fifties frocks from a vintage emporium. Still, passing round a forbidden copy of the Shirley Conran novel Lace at lunchtime held the same thrill for all of us. It wasn't until I went to university in Glasgow that I became truly aware of the rich gap. My two flatmates both came from families far better off than mine. They had grown up down south (one had gone to boarding school) and, for them, dropping student loan money on designer clothes and hair-salon visits or buying 'good' wine was entirely normal. I shopped at Oxfam and bought Bulgarian Country White. My hair was a nest. Again, it wasn't that it mattered – they never showed off or mocked me; we just had different attitudes to money. They didn't fret about their finances like I did, or desperately compete for minimum-wage jobs in the holidays (I worked on the Co-op meat counter for one unpleasant summer). But when I left to start my journalism career, I swiftly found myself pregnant at just 21 and finally felt the burn of aspiration. I wanted security for my child; I didn't want to feel that queasy uncertainty about money that ran through my family history. As a result I worked so hard as a freelance writer, I was a blur. I saved madly for a mortgage and bought a five-bedroom house with my new husband, who had three children, when I was 28. I didn't care about cars, but I did care about eating out, holidays – we went to America, the South of France, Majorca – and well-dressed children. It was subconscious but, looking back, my school days were instrumental in this. And this experience is not unique to me: according to a recent study from global research consultancy BIT, children who mix with better-off friends go on to earn an extra £5,100 a year. I wanted my children to have what the well-off children had, I wanted them not to worry about money in the same way I had worried. Only an unexpected tax bill derailed me (I had grown up with a work ethic and the desire to earn money, but no one had taught me about the proper administration of it). But I was the breadwinner, so I picked myself up. Working so hard meant I was missing out on time with my family, and by 34, I was burned out. I opened a vintage shop, and went part-time as a writer. I earned less and, once again, my friends were generally better off – our closest friends lived in a huge house, drove a Porsche, and went to Antigua on holiday. Now, I'm remarried, and we live in a two-bedroom cottage in the Scottish Highlands. I write novels, and buy fancy vet-approved food for our two dogs and the cat. We haven't had a holiday in five years – but we are not poor. I suspect, deep down, that the phrase 'You have to see it to be it' is true. I was spurred on to work hard enough to buy a large house, provide for my son and step-children, pay for holidays and gifts and treats, partly because I'd seen what a well-funded life looked like. More importantly, I'd understood how it felt for my friends not to worry about money, because there was always enough of it. I wanted that feeling too. Do I still have friends who are better off than me? Yes, absolutely. Am I determined to write that bestseller and go on holiday somewhere fancy again? Also, yes, absolutely – the inspiration that started in childhood never stops.
