Blog - Babycakes Romero

15/06/2015

#MYLDN (565)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

12/06/201512/06/2015

#MYHPSVLLE (05)

Me and my camera on a 60s weekender, my jolly up, my Hipsville

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Hipsville is a great festival, although when I told that to Ade, one of the guys who runs it, he said “its not a festival, its a party!” and he’s right. Its actually just one big jolly up. There is never more than one thing going on at any one time which makes those difficult decisions of who to go and see much simpler. Each event of the weekend is announced verbally by Ade who just shouts out to the crowd in a very raspy voice, “Alright folks, in about ten minutes the band is on, so go and get your drinks and get settled” – no programme, no board, no problem. Its beautifully sweet and simple.

The slightly odd thing about it is that takes place on a NRA base which is the oddest location for a 1960s weekender, the decade that championed peace and love is celebrated in a haven for weapon fanatics. So its basically a site full of guys with guns on one hand and go go girls on the other. At night you watch scantily clad girls shake their thing on the podium and in the morning you are woken to the sound of gunfire. Its a metaphor for something, I just wish I knew what.

The crowd themselves are a brilliant band of musos, car freaks, vintage scenesters, wasters and misfits as are all the acts on the line-up. Fav acts of the weekend were The Tikiheads, the Deep Space Deviants and their alter egos The Deadly Stab ups, who were proper mental in quite a superb way. There was also a horror theme (in case you hadn’t noticed from the photographs) which only added to the bizarre experience as everyone wandered around in classic 60s b-movie horror outfits. There were also some killer cars there from the era, all beautifully decked out and you would kill at least a granny or two to get one. It got pretty messy throughout the weekend which was a great antidote to the usual clean & serene squeakiness of the vintage scene..hipsville 2015 we salute you and hope to see you in 2016!

11/06/201511/06/2015

#MYHPSVILLE (04)

Me and my camera on a 60s weekender, my jolly up, my Hipsville

10/06/201510/06/2015

#MYHPSVLLE (03)

Me and my camera on a 60s weekender, my jolly up, my Hipsville

09/06/201509/06/2015

#MYHPSVILLE (02)

Me and my camera on a 60s weekender, my jolly up, my Hipsville

08/06/201505/06/2015

#MYHPSVLLE (01)

Me and my camera on a 60s weekender, my jolly up, my Hipsville

05/06/201505/06/2015

#MYLDN (564)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

This week’s dedicated followers of fashion are a celebration of one of the great British traditions: The Eccentric Dressed Gent. They also champion the fact that you can pretty much get away looking any which way you wish in London. One of the joys of a melting pot metropolis is that you can really be who you want to be and wear what the fuck you like and no-one will really give a shit.

The irony is that all these flamboyant dressers move to the big cities, not so they can stand out, but so they can blend in. Much as their outfits would imply the need to be noticed I feel its actually the opposite. When you live in a small town you stand out like a sore thumb if you break from the norm in the slightest of ways but amongst the millions you barely get a look in. And maybe that’s just what they want.

All the freaks, weirdos, crazy dressers and extroverts flock to places all over the world where they can be themselves. In London we are tolerant of everyone. We don’t judge. Not because we are necessarily enlightened, we just can’t be bothered. We’re too busy getting worked up about other shit. People’s chosen attires are the least of our problems. So if you want to release your “inner peacock” London might just be the place for you…

04/06/201504/06/2015

#MYLDN (563)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

03/06/201503/06/2015

#MYLDN (562)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

02/06/201502/06/2015

#MYLDN (561)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

01/06/2015

#MYLDN (560)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

I have seen many weird and genuinely odd things in London but I have never seen anyone stare at rotisserie chickens for as long as this man did. In my mind, or rather his mind, he thought that it was maybe a portal into another dimension that would take him back to the era he really came from if he just looked at it long enough. I didn’t actually wait to see if his Hot Chicken Time Machine worked. I haven’t seen him since so possibly it did…if anyone wants to give it a go its at the top of Queensway.

29/05/201529/05/2015

#MYLDNites (29)

Me and my camera in my home town at night, my capital city, my london..nites

Alcohol giveth but it doth also taketh away…as you can see from this week’s collection of London’s nightlife. If there is one thing you can be pretty certain of finding on the city’s streets at night is a lot of drunk people. Alcohol fuelled nights out have always been an integral part of British culture but apparently its grip on our society is waning, even though hospital A&E departments might tell you different. Recent statistics show that the youth are turning away from booze binges in favour of online marathons instead. A shift in socialising into the virtual world has meant that there are seemingly less young folk getting wasted in public, although I have to say that it is not immediately evident from my experience.

What has changed is that a lot of bars are often conspicuously lacking a younger demographic and you are more likely to find 30something professionals than their broke 20something counterparts. London rents also mean that they are more likely to be stuck at home with their parents rather than being out on the town. So, isn’t this all a triumph for society? Keeping the kids off the sauce? Protecting them from themselves with prohibitively expensive prices?

Alcohol can be a very destructive force but it’s also important to remember that it has brought people together for thousands of years and helped them bond, have a good time and escape the horrors of daily drudgery. And even though its detrimental effects on our health are now well documented is it not necessarily worse than the habits that are replacing it. It has been proven that inactivity and over-eating are equally as harmful so its not actually a healthier choice to stay at home. I read yesterday that by 2020 more liver transplants will be linked to over-eating than to alcohol abuse. It has also been well documented that the amount of money that used to be spent by NHS dealing with smoking related diseases is now being spent dealing with obesity induced illnesses. Booze and fags were demonised for being unhealthy but it just shifted consumption elsewhere. We might as well all have stayed in the pub, got wasted together and had some fun instead of being isolated on our sofas watching back-to-back netflix and gorging on junk. Food for thought…

If you would like to see the full #MYLDNites gallery please click here