More on March on CultureVultures

Here be my latest post about March, on the ever-lovely theculturevulture:


http://ow.ly/1qcVd

The diary's looking a bit full..

Oh dear, May's looking a bit rammed for music. Hooray!

Here's what I've got coming up over the next couple of months. I'm not posting this because I think you might find it interesting (although some of you might want to come along), but mainly because a) I'll get confused otherwise (diaries are so last year. Unless you've got one for 2010). and b) I'll be previewing them in a bit more detail shortly. 

So for now, cos it's late, and cos someone's coming round with a power drill at 10.30 tomorrow morning, here's the list:

March:

• New Young Pony Club (Cockpit)
• Save BBC 6 Music protest (Broadcasting House, London)
• Alt Track instore gig, (Musician's Centre, then 1in12 club, both Bradford). I can't actually go to this but you all should.

April:

• From Leeds to Haiti, from Needs to Ability (Brudenell) with: I Like Trains / Middleman / Micky P Kerr / Lee J Malcolm / Secret Circuits / Alt Track and loads more
• Alphabeat (*cough*) (Leeds Uni)
• Fuck Buttons (TJ's Woodhouse)
• Mark Lanegan (Brudenell)
• Ben Frost/Sam Amidon/Nico Muhly/Valgeir Sigurðsson (Manchester Academy)
• LCD Soundsystem (O2 Leeds)

May:

• Live at Leeds (all over Leeds! For 4 days!)
• Some gigs in Reykjavik (Iceland) - if you know what's going on in RVK in early May let me know. 
• Pavement (Brixton)
• Shonen Knife (Brudenell)
• Seabear (Brudenell)
• Delphic (Leeds Met)
• Chrome Hoof (Brudenell)

I might add the hyperlinks to these tomorrow but I might not. You've all got google though right? Goodgood :)

Night x

Roskilde 2010

I've been to my fair share of music festivals but never one outside the UK, and Roskilde is one that I remember older friends talking about in excitement awe when I was a little (well, before I hit gig-going age). So when I saw that the organisers were looking for people to attend the festival for free and write a blog about it in the months leading up to it as well as while there, I got a little bit excited. So I've not been doing this writing malarkey long and I'm still finding my feet in places, but the last couple of festivals that I've been to I've had such a strong urge to document what I'd seen and done for people to read about, I thought I'd apply. 

Unsurprisingly, the application process attracted over 450 entries, and I didn't get in (you can read the successful blogs here by the way). I was disappointed, yeah, but let's be realistic, I've only been doing this for real for 5 minutes (years of doing it in my head probably doesn't count. Should have thought of that years ago really..). But I thought it would be a shame for my application never to see the light of day ever again - so here it is. I don't think it's awful, but it ain't really in the top 2%. Some of it I'd probably change if I did it again but I'm leaving it like this because it's a little moment in my history now and you can't muck about with that shit. Look what happened to Marty McFly. 

• Name: Ellyoracle 
• Music  Preference: Anything I’ve not heard before. Anything I have heard before and liked. Currently into: Future of the Left / LCD soundsystem / Hafdis Huld / Pulled Apart by Horses / Ladyhawke / Fuck Buttons. Anything loud and/or with a beat basically. (I make an exception for Hafdis because she sings about robots).
• Reason for going to Roskilde, and why I am the blogger of choice: Roskilde’s a bit of a legend for us Brits - a bit like Glastonbury is when you’re growing up in the UK, but y’know, ABROAD! The line-up always looks amazing, I mean this year (already) you have FM Belfast! Pavement! Obscure Danish bands! (apologies – if you’re Danish and reading this you’ll think I’ve been living under a rock..). I do love discovering new music, whether it’s new full stop or just new to me, it’s pretty hard to stop me going to gigs. Ok it doesn’t even have to be new music, anything that I already like gets me quite excited too. It all kinda makes me twitchy-in-a-good-way, I love the atmosphere, I love the adrenaline, I love sharing the experience. Hell I even love trying to fit 6 different bands into one night (doesn’t always work to be honest but it adds to the entertainment). Stick all that into a festival, complete with wellies, loo roll and cider, and I can’t think of anything that makes me happier (other than maybe cake). Oddly though I’ve only just realised that I also enjoy writing about music, the whole live experience, and how it makes me feel. Fortunately people also seem to enjoy reading what I write (I’d still do it even if they didn’t but the positive feedback is quite nice. A bit like cake). I’m told my style is chatty and conversational, (oh, and witty.. ;) ) and people like reading it because it’s full of enthusiasm and easy to read - and that’s got to be a good thing for grabbing hold of your audience right? So... Putting all that together and blogging about Roskilde? Writing about the anticipation and who I’d like to see? A week of running around in a field in my wellies HAVING to go and see as many bands as I want? Talking to people and getting those obscure festival anecdotes out of them? Finding a solution at 3am for not having any ketchup? (Oh hang on, you don’t need to know about that…). AND  telling people what I think about it in my very own Roskilde blog? I’m so excited you might have to calm me down by feeding me cake! *(*this means that I would very much like the position and that I think I would be really good at it, much better than everyone else).

Going Live...

I've just finished my first ever live gig review then. Rather than start out simple, I've written about not 1 but 4 bands at the NME Awards Tour at the Leeds O2 academy, for the lovely people at TheCultureVulture. So no pressure then! But I had a great time at the gig and really enjoyed writing it up (thank god they didn't give me any less than 500 words!). 

So this is partly a thankyou to CultureVulture for having faith in me, and partly to jump up and down a bit and say yay! That was much fun!

You can read the review here.

Hafdis Huld/Synchronised Swimmers

Now I'm a girl who likes her music loud, and preferably jumpable to. Sugar-coated, cute-as-a-button, girl-next-door, singer-songwritery pop just doesn't do it for me. Or it didn't until I heard effervescent Icelandic bombshell Hafdis Huld's Synchronised Swimmers. I don't know if it's the homemade handicrafts on the album artwork, the Icelandic tongue-in-cheek attitude, or the ukulele (it's pink by the way. A pink flying V ukulele). Hafdis' songs are lilting, cheeky, and optimistic. She tells it like it is, but with a puppy-dog charm that oozes kitschy enthusiasm. Let's face it, you can't help but like a girl who sings about friends, nosy neighbours, and her love rival having "really stupid hair". 


www.hafdishuld.com

Golden Dreams

I'm strangely excited. I have never really felt very creative (although people have told me that I am) - well not originally or visually creative at least - but give me something to start from and I can be well away with things like event planning or decorating or hanging pictures (See? Not exactly ground breaking..!)

But then I started jewellery class just over 6 months ago. Now I'm not one for planning my "design" - it's my way of defying convention (because I'm hardcore like that) - and have always felt more comfortable just experimenting as I go along and seeing what happens. I like to think this hasn't resulted in bad results (see pics), but it IS time consuming and expensive. I have also sadly realised that I can't just sit around for 2 hours a week melting bits of (expensive!) precious metal and hope that I'll keep making something different and nice to look at and wear each time. 

Fortunately my lovely jewellery teacher Emma Jay not only gets how planning in the right way can actually help the creative process, but she can actually explain it to stubborn & clumsy students like me. Hooray! I know know about things like functionality, aesthetics, value and "reflection of self" (the bit that I always got I think, and it's more complicated than checking you look ok in the mirror..). More importantly for me, I have decided I want a project, to try and see if I can work all these things together, to develop myself as a proper artistic designer (haha!) and to bring pleasure to someone else: the finished article is not something that I plan to keep.

I intend in my project to turn an old (bottom of the range) engagement ring, and another gold & diamond ring given to me by an ex, into a new piece of jewellery. This relationship is water long under the bridge I hasten to add - there will be no symbolic or emotional smelting, this is a phoenix from the very cold ashes scenario, a truly exciting prospect where I really want to see if I can make something beautiful and new out of materials that exist in my past, that symbolise a past era in my life, using my new skills. A metamorphosis of my past experiences if you like, into a new, more creative me. There will be a certain irony in using those rings as materials like they were never intended (this will be part of the "reflection of self" Emma, check me out doing my homework!), and when I'm done, I'm going to take lots of photos (so that I can show off, naturally), and then SELL IT. And then when some new owner is delighted with my work, I am going to go out and buy all my friends an awful lot of cocktails with the profits. Can't wait!

Tasty Icelandic Tunes: Bloodgroup/Dry Land

Smekkleysa (Bad Taste) Records on Laugavegur, 101 Reykjavik, have a reassuring end-of-aisle display of CDs bearing the title "Smekkleysa Recommends:". Music (literally) to my English-speaking, tune-hungry ears. I pick out a few with covers that grab me (my tried & tested, yet not always successful, method of choosing brand new music) and ask the extremely helpful man behind the counter what delights are in store for me should I buy them.

He describes Me, the Slumbering Napoleon's EP (the cover of which reminds me of Leeds' Tom Hudson's artwork) as noisy & heavy indie rock. I'm pretty much sold on this one and plump for the album as well just to be on the safe side. Apparently I also pick out another, heavier band (Morðingjarnir), and a reggae act (hjálmar) as well as the electro-pop Bloodgroup, (whose latest release Dry Land I later buy from ridiculously ace store Havari across town) and indie-rockers (with the emphasis on rock, apparently) kimono. I arbitrarily opt to buy the latter to accompany my first choice, along with the achingly gorgeous Hafdis Huld's new record Synchronised Swimmers. I'm very tempted by the rest but I force myself to take it steady for once - a decision I regret within about 20 minutes when I see a review (complete with live pictures) of Bloodgroup's Dry Land in a cafe magazine, and instantly feel I'm missing out on a lot of beeps, beats and energy.

So - I resolve to track a copy down during our packed sight-seeing schedule (made tighter by us not waking up till sunrise (11am), leaving the hotel considerably later, and the shops inconsiderately shutting at 6pm). Havari is on our list of places to check out and when we eventually find it (on our last day), there is another very helpful lady (whose husband we discover designs gig posters) more than happy to explain to us what the bands are like (despite seeming mildly baffled by our untypically-English enthusiasm). She explains that Dry Land is being hailed as the "best album to come out of Iceland this year" - she's not sure that any album deserves quite that much hype, but she does think it's bloody good, explaining that their first release Sticky Situation was lots of fun but not much more - the band have taken some time out to "find themselves" though and she thinks it's paid off - the songs are better written, more powerful, more exciting, and it shows she tells us. She says she likes it. I buy the record.

Back at the hotel, it doesn't disappoint - the first track My Arms kicks in with haunting but instantly magnetic synths and a heartbeating kick drum. The pace is instantly addictive but relaxing. Track two This Heart has the beeps, twangs, clicks and determined syncopated beats I was promised - classily put together, singer Lilja's voice makes the ever so slightly dirtiness of this track sound pure as her glacial voice. She shares vocal duties with one of the boys (they neglect to tell us which one) and the contrast between his and her voices only make it more electrifying. I've started to dance about to this in my head. This can only be a good thing.

The rest of the album is haunting, driving - god there's that icily stunning voice of Lilja's again - and upbeat, pacey. Overload and Pro Choice are Kraftwerk-tinged noughties gems, and while Moonstone and Dry Land are the token chill-out tracks, it's hard not to imagine a crowd chanting the chorus to the raw beats of Battered. To say the whole album wouldn’t be out of place as a James Bond soundtrack would be too one-dimensional a description of Bloodgroup’s cinematic crafting of beats, synths, strings and THOSE vocals. Go listen, go dance in your bedroom, go chill out. Go dress up, go drink cocktails and pretend you’re in a film. A really really cool one.

www.myspace.com/bloodgroup (Record records)