Kelly Rowland, anyone?

As much as I enjoy reviewing CDs, sometimes I really really hate it. Like when I need to review 7 in one afternoon, which is what happened today. It's now ten to seven in the evening, and I've still got 2 to go. Granted I have only spent about 2 hours today actually reviewing. Today's Tasty package was quite the disappointment. Number one, they were all full length albums, which is more time consuming all round, and two, a lot of them were bloody awful, particularly the offering from a Ms. Kelly Rowland. I'm not sure why Sony BMG though it would be a good idea to sent a predominantly alternative music zine this particularly horrifically radio friendly, r n b gem, but they did, and lucky me got to review it. Needless to say, it was pretty poor, but at least I only had to listen to a couple of tracks to find that out. Luckily there were a couple of saving graces that travelled with Ms Rowland, and to stop me giving up on music entirely.

Elsewhere, I've decided to learn Spanish. (Not actually elsewhere, at the same desk where I do everything -review/blog/watch/listen/learn.) I got a little CD/booklet thing out the library today, and have every intention of listening to it as soon as I shift these CDs. It's only on loan for a month though so I better get cracking.

I got Beth Rowley's album the other day. I was a little concerned she'd just play it safe with a voice like that, and sadly she has. The reggae inspred cover of Bob Dylan's I Shall Be Released is pretty awful, and she even manages to make Willie Nelson sound boring. A little too much record label ((Universal, a huge conglomerate of course) influence there I think, as she sang far more interesting songs when I saw her live.

Back to the listening post...

I can't talk... it's 7am.

So this week I began the exams. Not my exams, obviously, but a large bunch of delightful 16 year olds who need someone on hand for pens, pencils, rulers, numerous toilet trips and general consolation during their GCSEs. On Russell Howard's radio show they were discussing how most invigilators are about 125. They were right. When I wandered in the other morning I'm pretty sure one such lady was about to ask me if I was taking the exam. Anyway, in conclusion exams are boring for everyone involved. At least if you're taking them you get to sit down. Standing up for nearly 3 hours is really no fun. Neither is having to take someone to the toilet ever 2 minutes. I'm sorry, lovely pupil, if you think it's a fun way to fill the time instead of actually doing your exam, but quite frankly I'm sick of trailing back and forth. So you can just cross your legs.

In all seriousness though, I do find this job a little disheartening. In maths yesterday, most of the kids turned up without even a ruler, in some cases not even a pen or pencil. I can't imagine caring so little about something relatively future shaping like GCSEs to show up completely unprepared. At my school, (approximately 3 miles away from this one), we were threatened with not being able to do the exam if we didn't have the right equipment, which to a future-conscious 16 year-old was pretty terrifying.

It gets worse though. Today was English Literature, and someone asked me how to spell literature. I don't really have the words to describe how I felt. Amused, briefly perhaps, but mainly very very concerned. For starters it was on the paper right in front of her. And secondly: COME ON! At least she cared enough to ask though.

Granted it isn't the worlds' best school, and a lot of the kids don't have the easiest of backgrounds. But it's the sense of apathy that worries me. Fine, maybe they don't plan to enter higher education. But is that a reason to waste an entire 5 years of secondary school learning just because you 'can't be bothered' to write something in 2 1/2 hours? It's disheartening to say the least. With more than a month left of this job, my plan is to ignore it, otherwise how on earth am I going to get out of bed in the morning. The 7am starts are bad enough (I am literally on auto-pilot, I have a routine, I stick to it, if anything else happens I may have some kind of breakdown. Communication is out of the question), without worrying about the demise of our population.

In more exciting and optimistic news, I'm going to be writing for The Line of Best Fit soon. It's a fanzine, like Tasty, but on a slightly bigger scale, they seem to have a lot more material and more high-profile albums, gigs, etc. I love Tasty, but I am more than comfortable there, so it's time to step up a gear I think, but I'll continue to write for them - every little helps, as they say.

Fun and games, fun and games....

Toddles.

My life in two car boots....

I recently moved out of my student house and back home. I hate moving. I'm only 21, and I really can't imagine ever wanting to move enough to do it again. It's a ridiculous amount of hassle. Packing, carrying, unpacking, not having enough space to unpack into and having to throw things out. I'm not a very big person, and yet I still have a huge amount of stuff - I've almost filled the wheelie bin and any available cupboard space with stuff I haven't got space for and don't really need. Student living is pretty wasteful - you move into a barely furnished room, have to buy a bunch of furniture, kitchen stuff, bed linen, everything, which ultimately you only use for 8 months of the year, then you bring it all home and have 2 of everything. Or at least you do if you like it at home anyway, which I do. I have it pretty easy at home, probably one of the reasons I decided to move back here whilst I complete my final year at uni. Only child, I live in the loft (it was converted, I don't have to climb a ladder every night), own bathroom, and a pretty good relationship with the parents.

So here I am, back on home farm for the forseeable future. Just the small matter of a well paid job to sort out. My car Daisy had it's MOT today, and a bit more, and cost £430. Ouch squared.

On the plus side, I made some bloody nice blueberry muffins today. I love baking.

'Pip pip.

Sun, sunburn, and the perfect omelette

So it's been sunny. Nice, but not my favourite. Particularly the beach. It's just a bit boring really isn't it? So I went to Bournemouth yesterday, had a look at the beach, concluded it was still there, still boring, and went home. Passes the time I suppose.

More excitingly yesterday I also made an absolutely perfect omelette. Perhaps for most people this might not be a great achievement... but after nearly 22 years of definitely NOT liking eggs, I've decided they're all right, especially omelettes and quiches. In fact pretty much exclusively omelettes and quiches. That's as far as I've ventured into the world of eggs so far. Anyway, yesterday my omelette was absolutely perfect. Cooked to perfection on both sides, and, more excitingly, I successfully flipped (twice) and there were no rips or tears, and it maintained a perfectly circular shape. One of the best meals of my life, mhmm.

Also Anäis Mitchell - Hymns for the Exiled - corker. Here's my review

Firstly I’d like you to take a moment to appreciate the two dots above the ‘a’ in Anäis, which is spent a fair amount of time trying to find. And make no mistake, I only did it because Anäis herself has taken the time to make a sublime album.

1984 is a brilliantly innovative cross between the tune of Prince’s 1999 and references to George Orwell’s 1984, resulting in the line: ‘we’re going to party like its 1984’. Who said disco couldn’t be intelligent.

It’s a simply made album, recorded in a barn with just guitar and vocals, making it charming, quaint, and quintessentially folk. However, Hymns for the Exiled goes a little deeper than your average folk album – more Joni Mitchell than Fairport Convention, and Anäis displays the singing and songwriting skills of someone a lot older than her relatively few years. Loveliness not to be taken lightly.

Also if you're a Maccabees/Cajun Dance Party fan, check out The Thirst, they're rather enjoyable.

Other than that I'm sitting around waiting to do my exam and then go home and properly begin my monumentally long summer. Laterz (ironic z).

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio

I am currently reclining with some milkybar buttons watching a drama featuring the delightful James Nesbitt. Life is sweet. I am currently not thinking about my impending exam, and the slightly less impending start of part of my summer employment which involves 7am starts. Ouch.

Today my best of Joy Division cd arrvied. It really is incredible, and ridiculous to think that this music is over 20 years old. Ian Curtis died six years before I was born, yet here I am, aged 21, listening to his music since I was 16 or so. Despite having fairly limited success at the time, I think Joy Division are one of those truly brilliant bands and will never be matched, like The Beatles or The Beach Boys. For a few glorious years, everything fits and they produce some of the finest music the world has ever heard, and then it's over, but the music doesn't lose any of it's dignity or value, and becomes utterly timeless. I wonder if such bands had stayed together longer and made an average album or two then maybe their music would still be held in such revere. I'm glad they didn't, although obviously Ian Curtis' death is a huge tragedy. As Neil Young said: 'It's better to burn out than to fade away'. I'll also never know how they find Sam Riley to play Ian Curtis in 'Control'. The likeness is quite frankly terrifying, and I'm sure it must've given Deborah Curtis quite the shock the first time she saw him in character. Whenever I watch that film I always find myself drawn into the story of Deborah/Ian/Annik, and then end up hating Ian for abandoning Deborah and Natalie, and putting her through the pain of having an affair. But then you listen to Joy Division, and realise that, whilst feelings are important, some things transcend them, and I think that's definitely the case with Joy Division's music. Yes, he was a shit, but he was also very sick and struggled with the concepts of right and wrong. The amount of energy he put into his music ulimately meant he had none left for his home life, and so it suffered. I do always wonder why he felt the need to marry so early. I find it hard to believe it was simply his idea, he must have felt he had to conform. I don't think it was his parents, and all his ideals were must definitely unattached - Bowie, Jim Morrisson, and later Frank Sinatra. Even for 30 or so years ago marrying at aged 19/20 was still quite uncommon I think. It's certainly an interesting part of his life.

Anyway enough of Joy Division. Along with my Joy Division CD I also got series on of Gavin and Stacey. Whilst humour wise, it's fairly rudimentary and a little cringe-worthy, I find the storylines pretty charming and I have a wee bit of a soft spot for Mathew Horne (Gavin). The half hour episodes are quite the little treat.

Toddlepip

I'm the Queen of the word...I bump into things....

Deadline day looms and I am ready to go. The work is primed, printed, presented and...probably going to be fine? Sadly we are still a few pages short of a magazine, so another early start tomorrow to bag a mac in the madhouse that is the IT suite. Just being in that place makes me stressed and I've got nothing to be stressed about.

Wanted to show my face at the Tasty gig tonight, mainly to meet the lovely Northern men who are kind enough to put my musical scribblings on their website, and also to pose and meet some cool people and look cool in Kilburn. Most of those things probably wouldn't happen anyway though, and that's merely the image of myself I have in my head, rather than the one I project.
In the end it's just too far/expensive/big a sacrifice for sleep and, in all honesty, I'm a little nervous about going alone anyway. Hopefully there will be other occasions though, and I do feel bad about not supporting them... I can't expect them to run a website to showcase my work if I can't be bothered to sit on a train for an hour and a half.

David Ford is now apparently NOT playing Glasto. Just when I'd got used to the idea. And there's no other UK festivals or UK shows til Autumn/Winter. I honestly do not think I can last that long. He needs to come home now! I have some angry energy to release, and only a Ford gig will do it for me.

Beautiful day today... although I only had chance to appreciate it when rushing from uni building to uni building, and then I just got too hot becuase I was rushing. If it could keep it up for the rest of the week that would be fabulous, although it will undoubtedly be lovely again tomorrow and then rain of the rest of the week.

I'm off to stress out about nothing in particular. Marvellous. Chin chin.

Essays and Adonis...

I'm currently half way through a 2000 word essay about persuasion in advertising. I really could not care less about this subject. Advertising to me means wankers in suits. And the less I write essays, the more I realise I'm getting worse at them. Each time I write one (which is usually only about every 4 months or so) it becomes more and more of a struggle. This time I'm even forgetting not to contract words, like is not etc, which is one of the fundamental rules of essay writing really - maintain a formal tone. Ridic. I used to be good at essay writing, so I must just be out of practice. I will no doubt finish it, but it will be tosh, which is a shame because I need as many firsts as possible, and I didn't get a particularly brilliant mark for the other assignment for this unit, which ironically was a feature... the thing I'm supposed to be good at.

But High Fedelity is on soon and I promised myself I could watch so I'll try and squeeze a few more words out and then settle down for that.

Angus and Julia were of course brilliant last night. Here's the review I wrote.

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Angus and Julia Stone, Southampton Joiners

Another rather humid evening in Joiners, which is always the case when capacity reaches more than twenty, as the venue/sauna plays host to Angus and Julia Stone, a brother and sister from Australia.

The pair have steadily been rising to mild popularity, and tonight’s show is part of their biggest UK tour to date, including two sold out shows in London. Bringing with them drummer Mitchell Connelly and Clay Macdonald, who also double up as roadies, it’s a full band show rather than an acoustic set.

Joiners’ peculiar layout means the band have to make their way through the tightly packed crowd to get to the stage, which seems to terrify the life out of the petite Julia as she clings to the much larger and hairier Clay, who leads the band onto the stage.

Once safely on stage, the band look much happier. Angus, who generally keeps his head down or towards his sister during shows, seems to have conquered his fear of the audience and looks more than happy gazing out into the assembled mass, and even engages in a little banter from time to time.

The band’s set list showcases most of their first full length album, the recently released ‘A Book Like This’, as well as some favourite tracks from their earlier EPs, including ‘Private Lawn’ and ‘Chocolate and Cigarettes’, which is rarely given a live outing.

Angus and Julia are both multi-instrumentalists, playing harmonica, guitar, trumpet, piano and slide guitar between them onstage, moving easily from instrument to instrument. Mixed with their rich, syrup-sweet vocals, the Angus and Julia brand is strongly influenced by reggae, but maintains a foot-stomping beat through drums and bass, and chord sequences are played on piano with melodies picked out on guitar giving their music a more melodic and delicate feel.

Julia has a somewhat whimsical stage presence, almost childlike in the way she flits about onstage and twirls her dress around when dancing, oblivious to the rooms eyes on her. Her voice, however, is far more grown-up, her Australian accent almost hidden by vocal nuances taken from English’s folk singers – trills and ornaments and rolled r’s. Angus’s voice was almost more delicate than Julia’s, hitting notes most men can only dream of, but on occasion taking on a deeper, husky drawl.

The first encore was certainly an unexpected choice, but a hugely successful one. Combining Joy Division’s ‘Transmission’ with the Beach Boy’s ‘Barbara Ann’ may sound like a rather horrific idea, but in Angus and Julia’s hands (and their bassist, who reveals himself to be quite the baritone), the two worlds collide to make a capella with a difference.

The band return for their ‘proper’ encore, playing another four songs and ending in a triumphant flourish with ‘Paper Aeroplane’, Angus and Julia leave the stage to a huge amount of appreciative noise, and Julia certainly looks more comfortable wading through the crowd on her way back to the dressing rooms.

As the crowd disperses into the night air to cool off, the unpleasant conditions were certainly worth it to hear some of the most beautifully written, enchanting music around.

----

I was really please to see Angus managing to look out in the audience, as he certainly is a beautiful thing to look at. Almost Adonis like. I feel a girl may be behind his new found confidence. Sadly that girl is not me.

And so back to the essay. Only 1000 words and a lot of re-writing to go...

Local Elections...

Being the semi politically aware person that I am, I voted in yesterday's local elections. It was a bloody struggle though. My thinking went: well I'm not going to vote Labour or Tory, because let's face it Labour are doing a pretty bad job, and David Cameron is just too smug. But Basingstoke, unsurprisingly (home counties, fairly middle-class, lots of families) is quite the Tory stronghold, and has been for some time. So my only other option was Lib Dem. There were no other parties. But then I thought well what's the point? The Lib Dems are never going to get anywhere are they. But today when I checked the results I was in for quite the surpirse. Lib Dem are in fact in second place. They do have half as many seats than the Torys, who continue to reign supreme, but at least they've got a couple more than Labour. So my vote did seem to count for something.

As for the London mayor... wilst Boris Johnson is amusing, the thought of him running a jumble sale frightens me. Never mind the capital city for the next rather important 4 years.

Anyway... that was frightfully dull and far too socially aware. I'm going out for a curry with my dad later, and then onto a show by two lovely Australians, Angus and Julia Stone. I can't think of better company for a Friday night. But then what would you expect from a 60 year old trapped in a 21 year old's body?

Still haven't worked out a signing off. Although toodlepip is quite enjoyable. So toodlepip.