29 Aug 2012

Oh dear, what can the matter be...

Hi!

Remember me?


I thought I hadn't posted for a couple of weeks but was pretty surprised to see it has been almost 4 weeks. Can I use writer's block as an excuse? It would be a lie but...ok, I won't. So an update…


Music


I have been listening to music and I have been away and I had all good intentions but somehow I just became lazy. That isn’t the right word exactly but it’s the best I can come up with that might make some sense.

I still have some bands to interview and I will get back to it – I was slightly unsure about doing it as no-one ever comments on music reviews, there are plenty of people out there writing them, not just people but dogs and pigeons and …one of the bands I reviewed was a bit, I don’t know – not rude or anything but just unresponsive. I didn’t want them to throw a party, I didn’t even want them to say it was good but I would have liked some feedback. Even if it had been, your review f*ck*ng stinks would have been better than nothing. I suppose that I shouldn’t have taken that personally but I am pretty sensitive I suppose and to be fair the other bands were all very polite.

It’s very odd how you can actually get an idea of what a person is like, or the vibe that a band has, when you receive an email or message from someone. It may be a very misleading impression but you get one all the same and as this is all you have to form your impression from, that is what you do.

I have only interviewed & reviewed 9 bands – the first three bands got the short straw on interview questions because I was unsure of what to ask or how many questions they might answer. The really new bands with only a few reviews and maybe three tracks also had a minimal review but they had a chance to put themselves across in the interview questions. Of these 9, there was the one band that were less personable than the others and one band that have a vibe that makes me think of them as a certain type of people of whom I would not really hang out with. I think you can tell a lot about the band from their interview answers in terms of confidence, outlook, experience etc. It was these answers that I looked forward to the most and hoped people would also be interested in knowing more about the bands.

I have 9 bands left that have agreed to an interview and they have been patiently waiting for me – or more likely they have forgotten, but I want to get these bands reviewed and interviewed by the end of October when I will decide if I go back to just blogging once a year or so about my favourite sound.


Writing


I failed completely in participating 100% in five sentence fiction – I have managed 3 posts in about 6 weeks, so 50% success if we are being positive about it.


I do come up with ideas, a lot, and I scribble them down in a notebook or starting writing them as a post. But what happens more often than not is I will start writing this great post, that I simply must put out there, in my head. So I will be walking home from work (40mins) and this post will be flowing and I will be marching along with a spring in my step. Then I will rewrite it in my head and edit out all the ranty parts, then all the repetition and then all the stuff that I probably don’t need to go on about and I am left with scraps! Scraps I tell you! Scraps! That unwritten post then slowly fades in to a distant memory and I decide that I can’t really remember what I was going to write anyway.

So, I have been writing but my rewrite process has been erasing them and thus you get zip, and I get zip.

I should say that I will keep trying to write more and hopefully better and about something of interest and I won’t be a total coward and edit out all the parts that might make people think I HAVE and opinion!

Travel

I haven’t been anyway travelly - I tend to think of travel as somewhere on an plane – but I have been to Manchester. It was the first time and I had intended to write about it and still do but I am not sure how interesting it will be. I have a few photos’s and it was great fun except I never got to see a live band play when I was there.

It’s another thing on my to-do list!

In summary...


It is also that time of year when I start crafting more with the build up to Christmas, I don’t know why as I rarely give homemade gifts to people, but I do always start thinking about making stuff anyway, and always with the intention that everyone will be wowed by what I have made them. But all this crafting means that I can’t type at the same time, and in addition I have some books that I want to finish reading and again you can’t do that in tandem with much else. Add to that the fact that my job finishes at the end of September (so I need to find another job, ugh!) I am quite busy. However, I am rubbish at applying for jobs, my crafts are always picked up and put back down again, the non-fiction books I have to read can be done so on a chapter by chapter basis and writing is what it is. So, I won’t be abandoning my blog just yet! I will try to get posting regularly at least until Christmas,


If you managed to reach the end of this then please post a comment – I don’t mind if it says you talk a lot of nonsense and are super needy! – Pleeeeeeeeese, oh and feel free to ask me anything ;)



22 Aug 2012

IHSW update

So a mini-update - I didn't get as much done as I would have liked - so much drama all at once!

Here is an update...

Before:

After:

Apologies for the shoddy pictures!


15 Aug 2012

IHSW & Update

This weekend is IHSW and I am hoping to start page two of Spaniola - yes, you heard right! I am ready for page 2. This is the exciting page as it is the lady's head as opposed to brown background. I am hoping to hide away and hermit properly as I have two days off next week which I will be spending with my nieces. 

The eldest is 6 and I am going to take her to London for the day, she wants to go to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs and I have booked us in to queue jump, she also wants to see Big Ben and go to the aquarium and to Buckingham Palace. As we are only going for the day, I don't think we will get to see all of this and none of them are close together! The middle niece is 3 and I will spend the second day with her - I think it is nice to sometimes to have some one to one time with them - but I really don't know what to do with her. She is quite easy going but I want to do something different to the norm, so if you have any suggestions??....

I have also noticed that in 28 days it will be my one year anniversary of this blog! It seems longer but has also gone so quickly. As is blogging tradition, I am going to have a giveaway so keep an eye out for that post!

And here is a photo I took yesterday of a butterfly - I have named it Joyce! lol





6 Aug 2012

The end is near...

So my plans to stitch whilst watching the Olympics only partially worked until I ended up getting distracted and putting the stitching down.

Here is the last update picture that I took but I have actually done a bit more - the end of page 1 is near! :)

Before...

After...


I probably have about 300 stitches left to do as I have also stitched some red and black - so hopefully this week will see it finished and then I will start page 2 at the next IHSW!

I hope you are all having a great summer, enjoying the Olympics and getting some stitching done.


3 Aug 2012

Five Sentence Fiction: VICTORY

Today the new prompt was released for five sentence fiction and I have decided to spend 10 minutes writing it, ok it was more like 5 but still.

I have definitely noticed that I have a different style than others - I tend to write quite simply and veer more towards feelings than surroundings and this is also true of my poems.

So with victory as a the prompt, can I just say...tadaa!

There was no such thing in her mind as a small victory, they were all huge, and she resented that her best friend said that there were. If it was a victory (regardless of size) then surely it needed to be celebrated and preferably with dinner and cocktails at her favourite restaurant. Had she not had to fight the urge to give up when it all seemed insurmountable? Had she not had to delve into the deepest caverns of a well hidden mental resource and manipulate herself into not giving up and achieve her target? It was a victory, a battle she had won, today she would not be late for work.


Have a great weekend!

Kate x

Five Sentence Fiction: PERSEVERANCE


I missed the five sentence fiction for 'Scarlet' because I was wallowing but have now written something for 'Perseverance'.

I think I really do need to start drafting and rewriting things, but to write just something has been a real change for me and I am taking baby steps. After writing it I wondered if it counted as perseverance or determination or belief but I am leaving it up to interpretation. Hear it is:

She had dreams and aspirations that seemed as far away to her as the stars in the sky. She wanted to believe that it was possible to achieve them and she shared her dreams. They told her that she couldn't do it and that she was setting herself up to fail and she believed them. Then someone told her that she could do anything that she wanted to do with hard work and determination and she believed in herself. When she achieved everything that she set out to do with the support of that one person and that belief; they believed.



2 Aug 2012

Five Sentence Fiction: PERSEVERANCE

I missed the five sentence fiction for 'Scarlet' because I was wallowing but have now written something for 'Perseverance'.

I think I really do need to start drafting and rewriting things, but to write just something has been a real change for me and I am taking baby steps. After writing it I wondered if it counted as perseverance or determination or belief but I am leaving it up to interpretation. Hear it is:

She had dreams and aspirations that seemed as far away to her as the stars in the sky. She wanted to believe that it was possible to achieve them and she shared her dreams. They told her that she couldn't do it and that she was setting herself up to fail and she believed them. Then someone told her that she could do anything that she wanted to do with hard work and determination and she believed in herself. When she achieved everything that she set out to do with the support of that one person and that belief; they believed.



1 Aug 2012

Duke and the Darlings: Music Review

Surely you couldn't expect me not to blog about another Manchester band? So here it its...this band were getting mentioned a fair bit by people I follow on Twitter and I decided to see what they were tweeting about. I am glad I did.  The band have only been together since 2011 and so the back catalogue is not yet overflowing, not yet.


A twitter buddy of mine - can I coin the term 'Twuddy' (@luvthafrobro) thought they sounded like early Bluetones. I can actually remember having the Bluetones first album but I have real difficulty picking tracks for comparisons, mainly due to the fact that I get totally distracted and end up listening to everything, and so the Bluetones track I have chosen is my favourite from their first album - and quite possibly irrelevant, but lets have a listen to some early Bluetones anyway....

Bluetones - Can't Be Trusted'




They did remind me of  The Seahorses a bit...

The Seahorses - Love Me and Leave Me





So let me introduce you to...

Duke and the Darlings


Courtesy of Duke and the Darlings

Their EP, Live at Abbey Road, was released in May 2012 and is made up of three tracks:


                                                 1. Stop And Go
                                                 2. House of Cards
                                                 3. Let Me Down


Now this is a first for me because I can't insert any YouTube clips because there aren't any, and no soundcloud tracks uploaded either :( So I suggest checking them out on Spotify or MySpace (yes, it still exists) and listen to them there before you buy them or jump right in and buy the tracks from iTunes.

But.. there is an EP trailer..



...and a couple of acoustic tracks sung by the lead singer Alex Reed that aren't on the EP, so for your listening pleasure...

Don't Need To





Modern Man




I would hazard a guess that 'Stop and Go' is probably the most popular track on the EP. But recently I have been listening more to acoustic bands and this has lead me to crave somethings a bit rockier and this is why my favourite track from the EP is 'Let Me Down' (slight arctic monkeys feel to it).  I would recommend listening to them both and you should complete the hat trick with their slow number that is House of Cards.

What did my research* turn up? Not much except that they are well liked but this was great because it meant I could ask some questions that would tell us what we want to know. A highlight of the research was coming across their tumblr page, (see question below) as it isn't often that bands write anything but preferring instead to post photo's, its really interesting, well written and refreshing to see and I look forward to reading more especially after getting to know a bit more about the band through their interview...

**********


Can you give me a brief history of the band to date?

During the Summer of 2011, Alex Reed, Jonny Saatchi, Grant Tildsley and Luke Wilkinson formed Duke and the Darlings. Their debut EP was recorded live at Abbey Road Studios, which was subsequently released on May 15th by Sweet Sweet Records.

The name of your band is Duke and the Darlings, where does that come from?

The name is derived from the darkest caverns our minds: It is very difficult to name a band, afterall, there are so many bands, and all the best names have been taken! It would paint us as neurotic to describe the criteria which we set when naming our band (Alex and Jonny both have Masters in Linguistics, so it got very particular at points), but needless to say it took a very long time. Names that didn’t quite meet the criteria include Old Warrior, Dorsal Front and Drink More Milk.

What was your first gig as Duke and the Darlings & what was it like?

Our first gig under this particular moniker was at Manchester Academy 3, a venue which all bands should play: The sound is great, it can fit a decent crowd without looking like a bad idea, and you are half-paid in beer. That night was particularly special as we gave away our EP for free during our set. There is nothing like the buzz of being onstage, but playing a gig is also about the crescendo leading up to your slot, and the sweet sweet ale-fuelled comedown.

Who or what do you think has been the biggest influence on your music?

A great open question! There isn’t a band which we all like, and so our sweat-box practices can sound somewhat collagic, but generally speaking we all appreciate good music, by our definition at least. We all bring something different to the table, certainly, but in fear of not giving you a concrete answer we’ll say Bucks Fizz: Bucks Fizz have been the biggest influence on our music.
What was the first album you bought yourself?

Alex bought Americana by The Offspring, while Luke bought Crush by Bon Jovi. Grant was raised on his father’s eclectic music taste, which fortunately included Led Zepellin and Van Halen, but unfortunately didn’t include Room for Squares by John Mayer, so he eventually bought this. Don’t tell a soul, but Jonny never really ‘bought’ music; Definitely Maybe by Oasis was a tape he had very early on, though. This answer probably best sums us up.

If you were to co-ordinate a flash mob, where would it be and what would everybody dance to?

Funnily enough, we have been working on a flash-mob (watch this space!). Only Grant can dance, so we would have to let him choose the music. There is a song which we rarely play live called Momma Fle, which would really get the crowds moving.

I have read your tumblr page and the first thing I noticed was that it contains words, and the majority of bands I follow tend to post photographs. I like that you show this other side and briefly discuss the music industry of today with a cheeky link to your EP, but who is it’s author?

Many thanks for reading. Alex writes the blog, but he takes influence from conversations had with the band with the aim to encapsulate the band’s ethos; we are lucky that there is a common moralistic and political thread through the band, and we channel this through the blog. There is simultaneously nothing to write about and too much to write about when it comes to the music industry of today, and makes for an interesting subject. Our Twitter feed is our garrulous side, the social monster within us.

Finally, what’s coming up for you guys for the rest of the year and any plans to do a gig in the South?

We have made it our mission to play as many free gigs as possible, so expect Duke and the Darlings to be spoiling you rotten this year. We are always meeting cool bands and aim to play with them all, especially if they are based outside of Manchester, so no stone unturned, but there is nothing planned in The South just yet; London, especially, is a hard nut to crack. On a different note, it would be great to have the next EP done by Christmas. We want to have a studio recording, rather than a live recording, just to contrast with the Live at Abbey Road EP....we just hope we can agree on a name


**********

The guys sound as indecisive as me! Ok, well maybe not that bad. I for one am looking forward to hearing more from these guys, deciphering their moral code through tumblr, practicing my dance moves for a flash mob and keeping my fingers crossed for a London gig.


Keep an eye out for the gig review. If you like what you hear check out some of the links below and share this blog post. 

*research consisting of first 10 pages of google - pretty technical stuff, eh?

Links
https://www.facebook.com/dukeandthedarlings
https://twitter.com/dukeanddarlings
http://dukeandthedarlings.tumblr.com/http://www.myspace.com/dukeandthedarlings/music/songs?filter=featured
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/duke-darlings-live-at-abbey/id528544540
http://soundcloud.com/dukeandthedarlings

Other Links
http://indiedunes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/lets-not-die-wonderingamida-marner.html
http://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Manchester/Night-And-Day/Duke-and-the-Darlings---Headline/11666674/
http://grooveshark.com/#!/artist/Duke+And+The+Darlings/2425212
http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/album/duke-and-the-darlings/duke-and-the-darlings-live-at-abbey-road/13416211/
http://twicsy.com/i/on7EMb
http://www.popscreen.com/v/6rhBb/Duke-and-the-Darlings-Dont-Need-To-AcousticAVI

Challenge 39: Watch 50 stand up shows (DVD or LIVE)

So I have been keeping notes on all my challenges and updating as and when something happens to move towards that goal, this is the notes fo...