PIXIES @ Field Day

Yesterday Mitch and I headed to Victoria Park for Sunday's edition of Field Day. I had but one solitary goal: to see Pixies perform live. I think it's fair to say that I'm a pretty big fan but before yesterday, I'd never seen them live and had kind of written it off as a, 'that'll never happen'. But there in East London, surrounded by fellow Pixies fans, amidst cigarette smoke and flying red stripe cans, beneath one of the most spectacular sky scapes, a dream was realised and it was awesome. Wave of Mutilation, Gouge Away, Debaser, Bone Machine, Mr Grieves, Here Comes Your Man, Monkey's Gone to Heaven and of course, Where is My Mind? to name but a few were all there. Within half an hour of them playing I'd heard 5 of my all time favourites. So, so good. Plus, it was a gloriously warm and sunny day, I drank craft beer and ate churros which all amounted to a bloody fantastic Sunday evening. Hope the sun was shining where you were too!

Friday's Jams!

Just a couple of tunes that are getting me in the mood for the weekend. I was alone in the office earlier for about an hour and these were on, perhaps a little louder than is neighbourly.

It's looking like a busy weekend - tonight it's dinner, drinks and a catch-up with some friends I've not seen in aaages, my last wedding dress appointment before I need to make a decision and a friends birthday tomorrow, and on Sunday I think I might pay a visit to the work in progress show at the royal college of art.

Happy Friday!

Reading & Seeing 12

Gravity

A lot of hoo-ha has been made about this film and for good reason. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are part of a space crew whose mission is severely compromised thanks to an influx of debris (mostly bits of broken up satellites). And so ensues an extremely tense hour and a half of willing the survivors to make it back to earth. Yes, some of it does seem a little far-fetched at points (the Wall-E moment in particular, yet part of me actually loved this too) but for the most part you'll be so captivated by the escalating action (not to mention the truly beautiful cinematography) that it's hard to dwell on those niggly points. I've seen a lot of films that are set in space (I do love my SF as you know) but this one was different. Devastating debris attacks aside, it all felt much more real - from the (very) cluttered and claustrophobic ISS to the terrifying absolute silence of space. The zero gravity scenes were fantastic and the entire way through the space scenes I found myself gripping hold of the chair or mitch's hand (subconsciously hanging onto something grounded? possibly). At 90 mins it's a perfect length, no amount of the screen time is wasted with filler scenes, literally every minute counts. This is a film that needs to be seen on the big screen - it must be incredible at the IMAX. I repeat: do not wait for the DVD. Also on the plus side, the 3D in this film actually works.

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Arcade Fire @ the Roundhouse

Despite the fact that I've been an Arcade Fire fan since the days of Funeral, that's a good 9 years ago (an after school wander into hmv to buy it on it's release date), I'd never seen them live before Monday. And, what with their growing success, I'd resigned to the fact that unless I wanted to go and watch them in a soulless and cavernous venue like the o2 arena (which I certainly did not) I'd probably missed the boat. So, when I heard (the night before the tickets went on sale) that there were two dates at the Roundhouse to see them - under the fake name "The Reflektors" - you can bet I was there at 9am refreshing my browser window, with my debit card ready to purchase the maximum of two tickets. As an added bonus to actually securing the tickets, my impatient self didn't have to wait more than a week and half before the gig! And the gig itself? It was AMAZING. Mitch and I arrived early and joined the small queue that had started to form, the shitty weather clearly kept most people in the neighbouring pubs until the last minute). Once inside we collected our tickets to the musical talents of the Mariachi band from the doritos advert - it was then that I knew that this wasn't going to be like any other gig I'd been to. Next, we were given masquerade-type masks followed by the offer of having our faces painted, which I  did, obv. before being ushered into the main area along with about 200 other people to be part of a flash mob! A lady taught us a simple dance routine to one of the band's new songs which we could then perform during the gig (which we did, obvs). At 8:45, out they came and it was awesome. I'd listened to their new album a few times and liked a couple of the tracks but hearing them live was a completely different matter. It sounds corney but they completely blew me away. They all have so much energy – you can't help but dance around and sing along, I couldn't take my eyes of them! It was very new album heavy, which, at a couple of points I thought was a bit of a shame as I'd loved to have heard some more of their old stuff (disappointingly nothing was played from Neon Bible) - but this feeling only lasted all of 10 secs because their performance was so mesmerising. We did get three songs from Funeral (Power Out was probably my highlight) and Sprawl II from The Suburbs (my favourite from that album). For those of you who aren't quite convinced about the new album all I can say is: you should see it live. It was probably one of the best live gigs I ever seen. Never before have I left a show on such an insane high. 

Hothouse (1962)

Science fiction in it's purest form. Earth is unrecognisable thanks to the fact that it's stopped spinning on its axis. The side of the planet which faces the sun is over-run with vegetation: flesh-eating plants, trees and gigantic insects thrive whilst puny humans struggle to survive. Our race has regressed to a more primitive and green skinned state - intelligence, the ability to communicate and reproduce and our actual size have all been dramatically reduced. The story follows a small tribe of humans, and the creatures they encounter, on a journey through a completely unfamiliar future-earth. The creatures are rather disturbing, the landscapes bizarre and the situations quite frightening - the best thing about this book was that it really captivated my imagination. There's probably not much actual science behind the events leading up to the explosion of frondescence but Brian Aldiss' descriptions of the planet and it's omnivorous forests are so vivd that all disbelief is suspended. I didn't for one second wonder whether any of it was plausible, let alone probable, because you're cast off into this crazy world with nothing but the conviction of Aldiss' writing. And it is convincing. I've not read any SF quite as raw as this but I really enjoyed it.

Mockingjay (2010)

The third and final instalment of The Hunger Games trilogy. After basically inhaling the last book, this one took me quite a while to finish - partly because I opted to spend my commute knitting a scarf but also because it's just not as good. There's no actual Hunger Games for a start which, although due to the progression of the plot means that that would be impossible, means that the book lacks the satisfying structure of the previous books. Mockingjay is all a bit chaotic - rebels this, rebels that - and even Katniss is pretty irritating throughout. You're still rooting for her most of the time but you'd like to give her a slap round the face all the same. Suzanne Collins hasn't short-changed you on horrific deaths and main character slaughterings but the ending is a bit of a non-event. The saving grace of the deflated conclusion was probably that our heroine, in my opinion, totally ends up with the right bloke (even if it half-arsed thanks to his character essentially being downgraded into something v.two dimensional in this third book). Saying that though, I'm glad I read them and of course I'll watch the films (only a week until Catching Fire at the IMAX - I can barely contain my excitement). Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh as the endings of the first and second books were amazing - two out of three isn't bad.

stuck on repeat

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I've been listening to these three tunes pretty much on repeat over the last couple of weeks - at home, at work, on my phone, on my laptop. I cannot get enough of them, so much so that I thought I'd share them.

All were discovered by accident - the Tycho track and Joe Goddard's song were played on BBC Radio 6 and the Clintongore remix was thanks to my already sure-footed liking for Happy Hollows. 

Hope all your weekends have got off to a tres bon start!

Eyes Down Ears Up and don't forget to Touch The Frog

A very lovely weekend – which included an all day family get-together at my parents' house, a friend's engagement party, a good work-out at the gym and some sewing – was sandwiched between two excellent nights out. It all started on Thursday night...




EYES DOWN EARS UP

This year, for her birthday, my sister had asked for "things to do" as opposed to "things to have" so I got her (and myself of course) a ticket to Musical Bingo at Drink, Shop & Do! It's quite probably one of the best nights out to be had in London. The last (and first) time we went was for my birthday last year - I wrote a post about it here.

Not much has changed in terms of set-up - you still get four themed rounds of glorious bingo, the chance to win some truely ace/horrendous prizes, a lovely list of seriously tasty cocktails including the signature tipple, bingotini (although they're nowhere near as strong as they used to be - which, it being a thursday night, I was grateful for), excellent tunes and your fabulous host for the evening, Jess Indeedy. Although we were blessed with beginners luck on our last visit, we weren't so fortunate this time. However, as DS&D have moved Musical Bingo to their downstairs bar area, Katie and I managed to get two seats at the bar, right in the middle of the action, and had enough space to have a good old dance (which we didn't last time). So, I didn't get to win to an awesome dinosaur poster but I did get to dance like a looney on a thursday night (my memory is hazy but I have a sneaking suspicion that there might be photographic evidence of this thanks to Jess's photographer...). As ever, if DS&D in Kings Cross is a bit of a faff to get to, you can catch Jess Indeedy and Musical Bingo at various other locations in London.

TOUCH THE FROG

On sunday night I met Mitch in Hammersmith and after a pizza at Pinch, we headed off to the Apollo to see comedian Adam Hills. Last summer when the paralympics were on, Mitch and I were ardent followers of the show The Last Leg, hosted by, largely un-known to us, Australian comedian, Adam Hills. Thanks to the frankly hilarious conversations of Adam and his regular sofa occupiers/co-hosts Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe, the people at Channel 4 granted them their own show of the same name after the conclusion of the paralympics. We even got to be in the live audience of one of the recordings of the show earlier this year. Mitch booked tickets to see Adam perform live soon after the recording and we had to wait about 9 months before the day finally came! It was definitely worth the wait!

alex brooker, adam hills, josh widdicombe

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The performance on sunday night was actually being recorded for Adam's DVD - Happyism and thanks to a mix-up about the start times printed on the ticket we (those who arrived early) got a bonus performance from Josh Widdicombe! It was such a great night, I basically laughed my ass for two and a half hours. Adam Hills is an excellent story-teller, that's basically what he does, tells stories, really funny stories. Also, on all (or at least most of his tours) he has on stage with him a sign language interpreter who repeats everything, and I mean everything, for the deaf members of the audience. It sounds rude but this was pretty funny in itself as a lot of the signs for words such as 'wanker', 'balls' and 'cockfosters' (as in the end of the piccadilly line) were surprisingly easy to recognise! Live comedy is bloody great, I just wish I got around to seeing it more often! Oh, and incase you were wondering 'touch the frog' was in reference to Adam meeting Kermit the Frog and doing a show with The Muppets - cool no?

hello surrey

Last weekend was bloody good for a number of reasons:

1. we got to leave London. Of course I love my city, but I love it even more when I've spent a good few hours away from it. We didn't stray too far from the capital - namely Guildford and the very pretty little village of Witley - but there were plenty of green fields, sheep, castle ruins and beautiful flowers which was a v.welcome change of scenery.

2. we took some rather big steps towards planning the wedding. Yes, I'm talking venues. We even have a tentative date which is scary but also unbelievably exciting.

3. I got to see my parents which is always nice but this weekend they were especially amazing as they not only drove us to Guildford but knew all the best questions to ask when it came to checking out the venues. AND they bought us lunch. I honestly don't know where I'd be without them!

4. Saturday night unexpectedly turned into a fabulous night out of drinking and tonnes of dancing at The Effra Social (a.k.a my other living room). 50's and 60's tunes were the soundtrack to the evening and one of my oldest buddies was in attendance. Pretty much perfect really.

5. Sunday was sublime - the lazy day that I needed after all the excitement of the day before. A leisurely stroll to Herne Hill Market via the Brockwell Park car boot sale - where I found these scales for £2! - before chilling in the park with an icecream. Lush.

6. Lastly, as if the weekend couldn't get any better, in the evening we went to watch The Postal Service play at Brixton Academy. It was a-mazing :) everything I could've hoped for and more - Jenny Lewis was there to sing her parts AND they played some new stuff which sounded sa-weet! I didn't take any pics partly because my camera is crap but mostly because I was having such a good time. Thankfully though, this guy got some good ones. 10 years is a long time to wait for an album tour but The Postal Service was definitely worth it.

still corners

I am in love. This is Still Corners.

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So I'm a bit late to the party but thankfully just in time for the release of the new album. AND not only have I just discovered this excellent track (berlin lovers ^) but also their whole first album (creatures of an hour) which actually came out two years ago - where the hell was I in 2011?! Anyway, the important thing is I've found it now and quite probably the soundtrack to my summer :)

...dreamy

karen o

To coinside with the release of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fourth album I'm having a swoon over the band's front woman, the totally rad Karen O.

I can still remember the first time I heard the yeah yeah yeahs. I was 17, my friend had made me a cd of songs and on it were a few tracks from their EP and Fever to Tell. Instant affinity. Hungry to have more stuff by the YYYs I bought their album and went to see them live at the Astoria. It was, obviously, amazing and Karen O was like nothing I'd ever seen before - her singing, her stage presence, her insane (in a good way) outfits. I've been pretty much in awe of her ever since.

 

What's also supremely cool about Karen O are the collaborations she gets involved with. The theme song - Strange Love - for Tim Burton's Frankenweenie and most notably the entire soundtrack to Where the Wild Things Are. Here she is looking well cute in a Max type costume. 

 Whilst looking for images of Karen O I discovered that a lot of her stage costumes are designed by Christian Joy. Colours and bold patterns abound! According to Joy the next big thing for the new album are suits and if the Sacrilege suit is anything to go by it can't be a bad thing.

And here's the whole gang as they were when I first clapped my eyes on them back in 2004 plus a little bit of what kicked it all off for me - Maps.

Tuesday's Tees - I'm with the band

In case you hadn't guessed it already, this Tuesday is all about band tees. There's something quite awesome about going to a gig (especially for a band you really really love) and picking up their tour tee  (especially when it's an awesome tee) as a souvenir. Below are some tees I covet either because I went to their show and didn't get a tee, or, worse still, I haven't actually seen them play live! Devastating but true in some cases.

Postal Service, LCD Soundsystem, Pixies, New Order, The Strokes, Death Cab for Cutie, Ratatat

More fun t-shirts here Insound.com

These two, however, are band tees I proudly own. Fond memories. 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs (left) Broken Social Scene (right) 

Got any good gig related tees knocking about?

goodness GRIMES

My weekend is about to take off - I know, lucky old me, I could seriously get used to these four day weeks. I am particularly stoked for this weekend as not only am I going to a wedding on Saturday, but it's also my sister's birthday tomorrow - cocktails and dancing are on the menu - and as if it couldn't get any better...I'm off to see GRIMES aka awesome Canadian artist Claire Boucher, at Heaven tonight! Cool beats and super haunting vocals are her speciality :) She's had a couple of records out previously but I didn't sit up and take notice until she released 'Visions' earlier this year. What can I say: I love her snyth-y music and undecipherable lyrics! I've not been to see any live music (shame on me) for absolutely aaaages, and I've never been to Heaven so, tonight should be amazing on many levels. This is my favourite track from the recent album. And yes in the video she is holding a mace AND a snake. Cool.

Musical Bingo!

There's been a lot of chatter about Drink Shop & Do, particularly of late (Betty magazine, friends even my editor at work) and I've been meaning to go for some time, so finally, last night, I went and just as everyone said I would - I love it!

For anyone who has not visited the former sex shop just around the corner from Kings Cross station - you must! And here's why: there's a lovely selection of tea and delicious cocktails if you fancy something with a kick, a plethora of tasty cakes (I highly recommend the lemon and almond drizzle), treats and sweets, a mini shop at the entrance selling pretty items from earrings to wrapping paper AND they host a variety of themed evenings and events throughout the week so there's something for everyone. To top it off your drinking, shopping and doing experience is housed in a space nothing short of awesome - packed with retro furniture and vintage odds and ends.

(My sister) Katie and I opted for Musical Bingo which is pretty much what it sounds like, instead of having numbers on your bingo card there are songs which you cross off as and when the DJ plays them. There are four themed rounds each with four opportunities to win a prize. Your host for the evening is Jess Indeedy who is quite simply fabulous. Katie and I sat right at the back and so had furthest to run if we did in fact win - little did we know we'd have to run up twice! First in the motown round (I won some dark chocolate tunnock's teacakes - yum) and then we got a full house in the soundtrack round earning us two bingotinis (gin based and dandy cocktails) on the house! Four cocktails later and it was time to go home but not before the DJ gave me some sweets for having a cool t-shirt - it was the dinosaur one, a clear winner.

It takes place at 8pm on the last thursday of the month and costs 7 quid for a ticket - I'd get them in advance because it was jam-packed when we went, there's a link on the Drink Shop & Do website. So, if you like music, bingo and cocktails (I think that takes in most of us) you'll be very happy here indeed!

market places, market faces

We're well into the Christmas lead-up and for the first time ever the presents situation is in hand! But I'm not here to boast, in fact this will begin as a mournful post, a 'this time last year' jaunt down memory lane...

This time last year it was all gluwein and bratwurst, novelty mugs and plenty of snow. I massively enjoyed myself on two trips to Germany last winter only two weeks apart. Little did I know that my Christmas Markt over-indulgence of 2010 would not be repeated in 2011, at least not authentically or to even a 10th of the scale. However, people with no money to go Germany to experience the real Christmas Markets cannot be picky. Hello Winter Wonderland Hyde Park! I went a couple of years ago and I'm pretty sure it's doubled in size - there's plenty of food, drink, terrifying-looking-fairground-rides for those sausage-filled thrill-seekers and even some more authentic looking German craft stands. Of course it's no where near as good as what I saw in Cologne, Dusseldorf or Hagen (where are the gluwein mugs Hyde Park? Where are the cute little Christmas themed mugs for me to drink my four-quid gluwein - huh huh?! And why is it almost double the price is a plastic cup?). I got my bratwurst though and even managed to ask for it in convincing German (so convincingly that the sausage seller tried to make conversation with me in German at which point I said thanks and walked off - smooth)!

chocolate ginger heart from Hagen Christmas Markt

Also on my market radar of recent is the one to be found at Greenwich, tucked away in the centre of a square of shops. Although it's not Christmas specific (it's on all year round) there are minced pies and mulled wine and the individual stalls exude a festive spirit. It's very craft friendly and a number of the stalls ('tis the season) have lots of little Christmassy gifts from tree decorations to cracker prizes, stocking fillers to the stockings themselves! We got chatting to a lovely lady (and her husband) who was selling quilts (surprise surprise) in all sizes and colours including some seasonal stuff too. Aside from the from the stalls themselves the neighbouring shops that look out onto the market square are worth a visit too.

Sandie from Eni-Meni Patchwork

Brixton village plays host to a number of varied events including music. At the beginning of the month my friends' band Silvers performed in between the awnings and shop shutters to mark the release of their new EP Parades which you can listen to here (it's very good): http://silversmusic.com/ 

They have also just made a Christmas song in conjunction with Greggs (yes, the steak bake people!) to raise money for the Help for Heroes charity, watch the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64jp6H_tHug&sns=tw

Staying within the Brixton area, last weekend saw many talented crafty people gathering in The Dog Star pub to set up mini stalls and sell their pretty creations from jewellery and hats to screen prints, home-ware and clothing, all courtesy of The Crafty Fox. It was incredibly tempting to buy a number of things (Storm in a Teacup for numerous pretty things, Love Lexi for v.cool bunting, Key Lime Pie for awesome t-shirts and Lucie Ellen for cute wooden accessories), however I restrained myself and only purchased three items that were Christmas present (for others) related.

Awesome screen printed wrapping paper from Frinton Press, v.cool cufflinks from House of Ismay and some extra large pretty pins from Zeena. 

And finally, I took a trip to an altogether different market in London's east end, Walthamstow - young Mitch's local market. He said a lot of it had changed (less stalls, the loss of a computer shop he used to go to) but thankfully one thing had not disappeared, our main reason for riding the length of the Victoria line, Manze's - the old pie and mash shop - home of very tasty pie indeed. It's been there on Walthamstow high street since 1927 with what feels like (in a good nostalgic way) all the original decor, tiles and wooden benches, even the brass cash register.