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Here's a simple Beginner's Guide on how to be "Electroclash", the coolest and sassiest fashion trend item of 2002!
Just follow these easy steps to stardom, and you can't miss!

Buy, borrow or steal some old albums from Kraftwerk, Visage, New Order, Human League and Gary Numan. Some knowledge of the early 80s Italodisco and Giorgio Moroder doesn't hurt either.

Buy, borrow or steal a cheap sampler/inexpensive keyboard and nick everything you can from the artists mentioned above. Add some one-octave basslines and disco beats.

Buy, borrow or steal a vocoder to get some fashionable robot vocals in. Besides, said device comes helpful if you can't sing one bit (though remember, this didn't stop New Order's Bernard Sumner to have a go at some crooning... neither Madonna nor your current favourite chart superstar).

For additional cult bonus points, buy, borrow or steal an old Commodore 64 computer to make some bleeps with. At least, this will guarantee you a cult status among nerds, if you're still otherwise short of groupies.

Watch the 1982 cult film Liquid Sky repeatedly until you know it by heart. Then buy a skinny tie, a can of hairspray and some hair dye, plus some fluorescent make-up to go. Now, try to look as much as possible like the characters in Liquid Sky.

Now the hardest part: you have to try to write some lyrics for your simple two-note tracks. To make the task easier, here's a short checklist of handy buzzwords you might pick up from: cocaine, glamour, glitz, jetset, sex, lipstick, sunglasses, champagne, night life, disco, 1982, space invaders, Pac-Man, trash, romantic, Euro, electronique, lifestyle, robots, computer, sleaze, auto, plaza, dancer, fashion, style, human, cars, magazine, TV, seduction, silver screen, plastic, passion, android, leatherette, suicide, porno, telephone, neon, futuristic, robots, robots and robots.

Buy, borrow or steal some French and German dictionaries and pick up from them some sexy/authoritarian-sounding catchprases to make your lyrics more credible (a touch of Eurosleaze has never done any harm to anyone).

Now announce in public that you're gay or at least bisexual, and that you give good head (remember, this approach did wonders to Bowie in the 70s).

Try to manage yourself a record deal with International Deejay Gigolos.

If you can't get yourself any musical instruments and can't play nor sing, don't worry about that either. Just take care to get yourself the fashion accessories mentioned above, and then get together with some fashionable producer (giving good head doesn't hurt either).

When you're prancing around on stage like some stupid ass you are, tell all journalists about your high "concept" combining music, fashion, dance and performance art.

An occasional DJ gig will add to your credibility. Don't worry if you can't really mix records. Just get yourself anything made in The Hague and Detroit, plus for cheap laughs some cheesy old new wave, Italodisco and 80s pop records you found from a junkyard sale, and pretend you're "ironic" when drunken and stoned idiots get into it, cheer and clap their hands. That always does the trick.

When journalists at trendy magazines and glossies call you "electroclash", furiously deny this and tell you were into this stuff years ago before it became fashionable.

Who killed Bambi? (Oops, the wrong one!)

See also: http://somewhat.org.

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction: in June 2005 International DJ Gigolos label actually published a mix album called The Great Gigolo Swindle... [Read more here.]

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