The Beautiful & the Damned

Here's the feauture story I wrote for TAMIU's The Bridge, which gets published this coming Monday, February 27.

The MisShapes are a DJ collective with a unique aesthetic and sensibility. The Misshapes are Greg Krelenstein, 25, Leigh Lezark (aka LoveLeigh), 21, and Geordon Nicol, 22. The trio deejay and host a stylish weekly party, also called MisShapes, every Saturday at Don Hill’s in New York City. The MisShapes are both savvy and irreverent DJs. Inspired by the UK party, “Miss-Shapes” and the Pulp song “Mis-shapes,” the group of friends founded the party in February 2004. The party is a clever mix of “celebrities,” artists, designers and New York club kids.
Madonna and her producer Stuart Price, Hilary Duff, Boy George, Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane, Norwegian pop star Annie, the legendary Yoko Ono and “It girl” of the moment Australian teen supermodel Gemma Ward along with members of The Killers, My Chemical Romance, Franz Ferdinand, and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs have all guest deejayed or attended MisShapes. Here in an exclusive interview with The Bridge, Geordon Nicol answers some questions about MisShapes and "the greatest pop star of our time."

Andres: The MisShapes are releasing an album this summer. Can you tell me some more about it?
Geordon: It's a compilation of remixes, new songs, covers and songs people may not have heard from new artists and old. Songs we play and like that you might hear at MisShapes, like a mix cd.

Andres: What is it about MisShapes that attracts celebrities? The aesthetic? The music? The vibe?
Geordon: I think all of the above. I mean a lot of the "celebrities" that DJ are our friends or people we work with. Living in NYC celebrity is quite different. It's not that big a deal, you know? Everyone is around each other all the time; bands, musicians, artists, designers, actors, etc. But the ones like say, Madonna that come I think what brings them is the people. Everyone that comes has interest in great music. Everyone is really positive, [have] good energy and want to have fun. I think they just want to be around that young group with that type or outlook on things.

Andres: Only in New York right? Do you think that MisShapes could have thrived in any other city other than New York?
Geordon: No, never. We can do one offs in certain cities but nothing so incredible could truly happen elsewhere like Madonna has said about her song “I Love New York,” it's a ‘New York state of mind.’



Andres: So how was your experience with Madonna “the queen of NY”?
Geordon: Amazing! She was incredible. It was my birthday and she was incredibly polite and easy to work with. She was there to have fun and just wanted to have as much of it as she could. She was also into really good music. She played mostly herself but played a lot of good stuff with Stuart Price, her producer.


Aside from the weekly party the MisShapes host an Internet radio show every week on Thursday on East Village Radio from 10PM-12AM PT. Go to http://www.eastvillageradio.com/displayshow.php?showname=Misshapes to check it out and subscribe to their podcast. You'll hear lots of exclusive new music and some really great new wave, rock, pop, dance, and hip-hop. They play everything from Siouxsie & the Banshees, to The Artic Monkeys, to Sophia Lamar, Garbage and Lil' Kim. Even the leaked Paris Hilton song "Screwed" has gotten airplay. The MisShapes have also parlayed into modeling, Leigh Lezark is featured on the cover of the new Sounds album, Dying to Say This To You due out March 15, Geordon Nicol is featured in new Alexander McQueen ads and the group are going to be featured in Eastport ads out this summer. Go check out their MySpace profile at: http://www.myspace.com/themisshapes
or their website at http://www.misshapes.com.



Photos by Scott Meriam
Courtesy of http://www.misshapes.com