Every now and then we'll discover a girl online. She won't necessarily be a friend-of-a-friend or an 'internet superstar' but normally we find these girls because their work finds us first. Jessica Straker is one of these women. If you type www.juicevcr.com into your browser, you'll be met with a full-bleed music video. No context, no small talk, just an unsigned artists' music video automatically playing. You're left with two options; if you're feeling the video you can play it out, or, you can hit skip. Simple, right? The best ones always are.
Described as an 'uninterrupted music television showcasing the latest visuals from unsigned and independent artists' we had serious Channel U nostalgia when we hit on Juice and we clapped like baby seals when we discovered the anonymous auteur was in fact a girl. As it turns out Jessica is something of a renaissance woman.
A natural born music-worm and track-selector, Jessica grew up in theatre wings. Jessica's mother had been a professional ballerina having danced for companies such as Alvin Ailey and Michael Clark (she also featured in the Pirelli Calendar and has performed for Andy Warhol) before setting up her own dance school in Hackney. It makes sense then that for Jessica visual entertainment and performance runs deep. Aged eight, Jessica performed a duet at the Royal Festival Hall which she had co-choreograph but her boisterous nature meant throwing off dance school, primarily for the very real dilemma that her lessons clashed with her favourite children's TV show Miami 7.
Like the best of us Jessica spent her college days juggling her obsession with Lil Romeo with her foray into the Emo scene whereby she was constantly consumed by trying to pin her afro over her eyes in a bid to create the ultimate scene-kid side fringe. Not a bedroom-ceiling gazer like yours truly, listening to her favourite music and Lisa Simpson propelled Jessica to pick up the saxophone and then the drums, before teaching herself the piano. Our kazoo days seem a little less epic in hindsight now. After finishing a degree in Advertising & Marketing Communications at Greenwich Jessica had a stab at advertising before working as a freelancer at places like Dazed & Confused Magazine and Anorak London PR mostly overseeing social for brands such as Nintendo, Topshop and Honda and artists Neneh Cherry and Eliza Doolittle. In 2013, Jessica abandoned ship and went travelling across the US, settling for a while in NYC to work at Sex Magazine in Brooklyn before making her way down to Barbados where she began writing a book and plotting Juice VCR.
If that's not a colourful enough CV for you, we can't help you, you're a lost cause. You won't be surprised to learn Jessica has big-ass music-focused plans for the future; from reinstating her Dalston night with her partner in crime and PR sweetheart Meliz Gokturk called LUVRIDDIMS, to updating her eyebrow appreciation (we fuck you not) blog, The Eyebrowser (www.the-eyebrowser.com) which has it's fifth anniversary this May for which she's organising a photography exhibition. Oh, and she's hoping to finish writing her first book later this year.