I have spent the last couple of days at home. Family, chocolate and endless re-runs of come dine with me. I'm feeling rested but can't wait to get back into the studio again. Spending time away is always good. Sometimes you just need a bit of time to recharge and to reflect about the past week or so. I have come to realise that im never satisfied. I always want more. The brat that i am can not grasp the fact that there are not enough hours in the day or that simply i need to slow down. Fuck it i don't care. Lets not be satisfied. We shouldn't be too comfortable anyway. Life should always take you by surprise and once your are too satisfied with life you can't look ahead.
We've written some new songs one of which we showcased last week at the Lydia Lunch gig. Working title at the moment is Devotion. X-Bird is on thrashing bass, D-Bird is on kick arse drums and i'm on vocal duty. I really wanted you guys to here it but we don't currently have a sound bite to share with you. Here are the lyrics anyway.
Devotion
Dirty, so dirty
Emotions collide
Show me
Show me
Devotion, devotion
On your knees
On your knees
Don't you burn out
Don't you fade out
Show me
Show me
Devotion, devotion
Make of what you will from the words. They are quite stark and litteral. I have my own reasons. I suppose i was a little fucked off with someone. But hey don't let the bastards kick you down.
C-Bird
Monday, 13 April 2009
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Last Night
Firstly, I hacked off a lot of my hair.
This is what happens when you don't have any lightbulbs, you are bored and own a blunt pair of scissors. You kind of lose your mind a bit. I'm not sure what to do with the hair. It seems a real waste to throw it away but I don't really have any use for it anymore. Any ideas?
Ok so going from the day before when I had a pretty uninspired evening, it all changed last night after a fabulous evening at Ghost School.
Ghost School is an amazing club night run by Camilla Pia and her team. We played for them at their Halloween special back in October and since then I try and go along every month when I'm in town so it was a real pleasure to be asked back to DJ.
We met some friendly people upstairs on the roof terrace who are a French Parisian DJ duo Vicarious Bliss and Krazy Baldhead. They came to see us play but didn't realise we were DJing. They were really cool.
I was also really excited about finally seeing Male Bonding play. They certainly didn't disappoint. They had a real great energy between them and were such good musicians (they are all also in Pre). They were also really lovely guys. It came as a relief to finally see a good band play. I'd like to do some shows with them, think it would be fun.
We also had fun, fun times on the dancefloor.
Polly
Ruaridh
I'm really exhausted now after this week. Looking forward to my brunch. I just cooked salmon, asparagus and parsnips, which are my new favourite vegetable.
D-Bird
This is what happens when you don't have any lightbulbs, you are bored and own a blunt pair of scissors. You kind of lose your mind a bit. I'm not sure what to do with the hair. It seems a real waste to throw it away but I don't really have any use for it anymore. Any ideas?
Ok so going from the day before when I had a pretty uninspired evening, it all changed last night after a fabulous evening at Ghost School.
Ghost School is an amazing club night run by Camilla Pia and her team. We played for them at their Halloween special back in October and since then I try and go along every month when I'm in town so it was a real pleasure to be asked back to DJ.
We met some friendly people upstairs on the roof terrace who are a French Parisian DJ duo Vicarious Bliss and Krazy Baldhead. They came to see us play but didn't realise we were DJing. They were really cool.
I was also really excited about finally seeing Male Bonding play. They certainly didn't disappoint. They had a real great energy between them and were such good musicians (they are all also in Pre). They were also really lovely guys. It came as a relief to finally see a good band play. I'd like to do some shows with them, think it would be fun.
We also had fun, fun times on the dancefloor.
Polly
Ruaridh
I'm really exhausted now after this week. Looking forward to my brunch. I just cooked salmon, asparagus and parsnips, which are my new favourite vegetable.
D-Bird
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Too Cool For School
Today I was DJing and saw a god awful girl-fronted band play called Japanese Voyeurs. Oh my god, they were so terrible. The singer was a cross between Avril Lavigne and Paris Hilton and screamed out lyrics like 'I'm so cool, cool, cool, cool!' and 'I want to be a naughty little girrrrrrl!!' Basically those lyrics could work if you were the right girl in the right band (see The Kelley Deal 6000's 'Stripper' song for reference) but take it from me, there was nothing right about this girl nor the band.
It's frustrating but the age old problem is that 90% of girls in bands are just, well plain annoying. They can't play that well or sing that well and care more about flicking their hair and reapplying their lipstick. Oh come on!!! Our female ancestors didn't burn their bras for this!!!! Or did they? I surely hope not.
I'd really like to see more 'real' girls pick up instruments and obsess about music for all the right reasons (i.e. not because they're trying to get with a cute boy in a band). It's so frustrating. This really pisses me off.
Women - grow some damn balls!!!!!!!
In the meantime, here are some women who genuinely rock in rock and have certainly inspired me over the years.
D-Bird
Ilona Prism (The Vyllies)
PJ Harvey
Kim and Kelley Deal
Patty Schemel (Hole)
Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)
Sharin Foo (The Raveonettes)
Bjork
Gudrun Gut (Malaria!)
Tanya Donnelly (Belly)
Peaches
Lori Barbero (Babes In Toyland)
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Is This It?
I have always felt different. I’ve never been academic at school, never aspired to be a doctor although my parents wish I had. They even wanted me to be train as a nurse. Somehow I don’t think that would have worked out. Academic studies scared the shit out of me. Numbers, words, teachers, rules. It was always a challenge for me to be inspired at school. Forced to sit on uncomfortable wooden chairs, staring blankly at chalk boards and learning about physics. I was relieved it was all over.
Music didn’t become part of my life until much later. I wasn’t into anything. It felt as if my brain was saturated with crap. I felt unmotivated like a dead weight getting on with life. I thought, “Is this it?” After school I have to get a job? I decided to study film at college and met some “cool” kids who had taste. That’s when I first heard of The Strokes.
Someone asked me recently what my all time favourite album was. Hands down I always say “Is This It”, The Strokes first and best album. To me they couldn’t have come at a better time. Some people say they were just a good idea thrust into the bosoms of the musical press. To be fair nothing exciting was happening at the time. Anyone remember N.A.M? New Acoustic Movement. Yet another musical movement concocted and aptly named by the music press. Oh god! No wonder why I wasn’t into music yet.
So boring and flat. No balls no kick in the gut and then The Strokes came along. Corny as it may sound they changed my life. Is this it? The very question I had asked myself for years. It felt as if this album was made for me.
They were five cool kids wearing tight arse jeans, drawling New York accents and had a ballsy attitude. It was all enough to make the knees tremble. Of course it wasn’t just their looks that got me hot under the leather collar but Julian Casablancas’s vocals captivated me. Here was a man with soul in his voice. Jim Morrison had soul, Iggy Pop had soul and Julian had it too. The dirty crooning drawls of sinning men forced out of hell to captivate young, I was seventeen at the time, and impressionable minds and like out of a sleazy John Waters film it was music for kids who were “so tired of being good”. Fuck knows I was.
The lo fi album title track Is this It still gives me goose bumps and every time I hear Lastnite it takes me back to my beer pouring antics and drunken dancing at Trash and Death Disco. Before The Strokes I hadn’t even heard of The Velvet Underground or even heard a Stooges track. A whole new world was opened up to me.
From the Stooges I got into Bowie. From Bowie I got into the Banshees. From the Banshees I got into Soft cell.... The list is endless. Music became an obbsession. One band can you lead you to others and I suppose another reason out of many why I decided to pick up an instrument.
Hearing The Strokes for the first time felt like I was reborn again. Music is such an important part my life I honestly don’t know where I would be right now. So I suppose I thank The Strokes for that. Is this it? I fucking well hope not!
Yours truly
C-Bird
Music didn’t become part of my life until much later. I wasn’t into anything. It felt as if my brain was saturated with crap. I felt unmotivated like a dead weight getting on with life. I thought, “Is this it?” After school I have to get a job? I decided to study film at college and met some “cool” kids who had taste. That’s when I first heard of The Strokes.
Someone asked me recently what my all time favourite album was. Hands down I always say “Is This It”, The Strokes first and best album. To me they couldn’t have come at a better time. Some people say they were just a good idea thrust into the bosoms of the musical press. To be fair nothing exciting was happening at the time. Anyone remember N.A.M? New Acoustic Movement. Yet another musical movement concocted and aptly named by the music press. Oh god! No wonder why I wasn’t into music yet.
So boring and flat. No balls no kick in the gut and then The Strokes came along. Corny as it may sound they changed my life. Is this it? The very question I had asked myself for years. It felt as if this album was made for me.
They were five cool kids wearing tight arse jeans, drawling New York accents and had a ballsy attitude. It was all enough to make the knees tremble. Of course it wasn’t just their looks that got me hot under the leather collar but Julian Casablancas’s vocals captivated me. Here was a man with soul in his voice. Jim Morrison had soul, Iggy Pop had soul and Julian had it too. The dirty crooning drawls of sinning men forced out of hell to captivate young, I was seventeen at the time, and impressionable minds and like out of a sleazy John Waters film it was music for kids who were “so tired of being good”. Fuck knows I was.
The lo fi album title track Is this It still gives me goose bumps and every time I hear Lastnite it takes me back to my beer pouring antics and drunken dancing at Trash and Death Disco. Before The Strokes I hadn’t even heard of The Velvet Underground or even heard a Stooges track. A whole new world was opened up to me.
From the Stooges I got into Bowie. From Bowie I got into the Banshees. From the Banshees I got into Soft cell.... The list is endless. Music became an obbsession. One band can you lead you to others and I suppose another reason out of many why I decided to pick up an instrument.
Hearing The Strokes for the first time felt like I was reborn again. Music is such an important part my life I honestly don’t know where I would be right now. So I suppose I thank The Strokes for that. Is this it? I fucking well hope not!
Yours truly
C-Bird
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Happiness is...
A toast to the past. I’ve been delving into my not so distant past, 8 years ago to be exact. Reminiscing past connections I’ve had with people- friends and enemies (I think it’s always healthy to understand past vexes) which have since expired or faded.
People change, people move on. I've been wondering at how sad it is to lose connections with friends who have been inspirational to me in the past as well as reminicing about people who have irked and broken me. Some of you may disagree but I stand to the fact that past disagreements, fights, arguments shape who we are. How we deal with these grievances I feel highlights the type of people we grow into.
Could we have done things differently?
Life is a constant learning curve.
I am by no means a woman who is wise beyond her years or even one who has even lived to an extent where wise words pour out of me like running water. I don’t think I’ve even experienced that life affirming moment yet- the one that gives you that eureka moment of enlightenment. I don’t think 99.9% of the human race ever experience that, we trudge on in the hope that we will finally understand the meaning of life etc, etc, blah, blah... As cheesey as it sounds, I think that’s why as a race, we’re never happy.
The Beatles once said, ‘Happiness is a warm gun’.
Happiness for me right now, is being locked away in a sweat box rehearsal room with The Birds, a never ending supply of menthol cigarettes, a bottle of cheap plonk from Tesco in the park with friends (D-Bird last week’s date in the park where I was short-sighted and thought the man lying on the grass was Kurt Cobain was one of the best days I have had for a long time), dancing in my room and at various London dives to old punk records with my old girl gang The Luvians- personally for me the only cure for the blues is music. How can you still feel like shit after dancing yourself crazy to your favourite song? Oh how, feminine of me.
But I digress…
Speaking to old connections on the phone yesterday (here’s looking at you Carmen and Niko Luvian) after a lack luster Monday. Sitting in dumbfounded astonishment at how awful a week has been and only realising it was still Monday. Oh sweet Jesus. I wondered at how it was so rare these days to have people in your life who instantly even after a, ‘Hello’ give your spirits an instant endorphin kick. It’s these people who I’m writing this blog for today. My Birds- Dee and Char. My Luvians- Lisa, Carmen, Niko, Colster and Sarah. Women in my life who have inspired and enriched me in so many ways. In the past when toxic ‘friends’ have given themselves the challenge of damaging our equilibrium- there have always been friends (Colster and Sarah) pushing us out of moving traffic. When I was unemployed and on the verge of mental overload- there was Lisa buying me dinner after our long Withnail and I walks in the woods (mud, stilettos and tree climbing in the Buckinghamshire woodland)- a definite ‘we’ve gone on holiday by mistake’ moment. Dark times feeling completely uninspired and apathetic on almost all levels of ‘living’ have always been kicked in the gut by good friends, on several occasions good wine and a lot of laughter.
More often than not you don’t have to look further than your little black for inspiration. The Birds, The Luvians. I salute you.
X-Bird
People change, people move on. I've been wondering at how sad it is to lose connections with friends who have been inspirational to me in the past as well as reminicing about people who have irked and broken me. Some of you may disagree but I stand to the fact that past disagreements, fights, arguments shape who we are. How we deal with these grievances I feel highlights the type of people we grow into.
Could we have done things differently?
Life is a constant learning curve.
I am by no means a woman who is wise beyond her years or even one who has even lived to an extent where wise words pour out of me like running water. I don’t think I’ve even experienced that life affirming moment yet- the one that gives you that eureka moment of enlightenment. I don’t think 99.9% of the human race ever experience that, we trudge on in the hope that we will finally understand the meaning of life etc, etc, blah, blah... As cheesey as it sounds, I think that’s why as a race, we’re never happy.
The Beatles once said, ‘Happiness is a warm gun’.
Happiness for me right now, is being locked away in a sweat box rehearsal room with The Birds, a never ending supply of menthol cigarettes, a bottle of cheap plonk from Tesco in the park with friends (D-Bird last week’s date in the park where I was short-sighted and thought the man lying on the grass was Kurt Cobain was one of the best days I have had for a long time), dancing in my room and at various London dives to old punk records with my old girl gang The Luvians- personally for me the only cure for the blues is music. How can you still feel like shit after dancing yourself crazy to your favourite song? Oh how, feminine of me.
But I digress…
Speaking to old connections on the phone yesterday (here’s looking at you Carmen and Niko Luvian) after a lack luster Monday. Sitting in dumbfounded astonishment at how awful a week has been and only realising it was still Monday. Oh sweet Jesus. I wondered at how it was so rare these days to have people in your life who instantly even after a, ‘Hello’ give your spirits an instant endorphin kick. It’s these people who I’m writing this blog for today. My Birds- Dee and Char. My Luvians- Lisa, Carmen, Niko, Colster and Sarah. Women in my life who have inspired and enriched me in so many ways. In the past when toxic ‘friends’ have given themselves the challenge of damaging our equilibrium- there have always been friends (Colster and Sarah) pushing us out of moving traffic. When I was unemployed and on the verge of mental overload- there was Lisa buying me dinner after our long Withnail and I walks in the woods (mud, stilettos and tree climbing in the Buckinghamshire woodland)- a definite ‘we’ve gone on holiday by mistake’ moment. Dark times feeling completely uninspired and apathetic on almost all levels of ‘living’ have always been kicked in the gut by good friends, on several occasions good wine and a lot of laughter.
More often than not you don’t have to look further than your little black for inspiration. The Birds, The Luvians. I salute you.
X-Bird
Monday, 6 April 2009
Lydia Lunch the Life Coach and Marmite Lovers
LAST NIGHT
As usual, the amazing food spread from the wonderful Amanda and Adrian who run Corsica Studios, was phenomenal! The entirely vegetarian feast (yay!) was prepared by a local South London heroine, Miss Marmite who infamously runs a restaraunt from her living room. The food was amazing and helps to keep the faith that you can get great, varied veggie food.
You can read her blog here:
http://marmitelover.blogspot.com/
and an article about her restaraunt:
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/article.html?Eat_at_an_unusual_restaurant_-_someones_sitting_room&in_article_id=554230&in_page_id=194
We also met some amazing fans last night. Mary-Jane and Sally are both from America and met each other last night on the road as they were walking to the gig. It's great when people come up and say they love your music and genuinely mean it. I just never know what to say back. Sorry.
Also here are Teenage Jesus during their soundcheck as those of you who came to the show may not have seen much from where you were standing seeing as it was so packed last night:
It was great to see Lydia and to also know that she has heard of us and really likes our music. Lydia now lives in Barcelona after having lived all over the US and London. We asked her about when she lived in London. "I moved here 1981/1982 because Nick Cave and Marc Almond lived here. I was totally stalking them," she said with a cheeky grin.
Last night was a very strange and difficult night for me. I think I had an extremely indulgent night at Decasia and had been in hospital the day before that so everything really caught up with me. Lydia saw my state of numbness and took me aside and said, "Criticism means nothing to me. Praise means nothing to me. I do what I do for me and for no one else. I believe in myself and I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks. You do the same, doll."
I am trying, Lydia. I really am.
D-Bird
As usual, the amazing food spread from the wonderful Amanda and Adrian who run Corsica Studios, was phenomenal! The entirely vegetarian feast (yay!) was prepared by a local South London heroine, Miss Marmite who infamously runs a restaraunt from her living room. The food was amazing and helps to keep the faith that you can get great, varied veggie food.
You can read her blog here:
http://marmitelover.blogspot.com/
and an article about her restaraunt:
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/article.html?Eat_at_an_unusual_restaurant_-_someones_sitting_room&in_article_id=554230&in_page_id=194
We also met some amazing fans last night. Mary-Jane and Sally are both from America and met each other last night on the road as they were walking to the gig. It's great when people come up and say they love your music and genuinely mean it. I just never know what to say back. Sorry.
Also here are Teenage Jesus during their soundcheck as those of you who came to the show may not have seen much from where you were standing seeing as it was so packed last night:
It was great to see Lydia and to also know that she has heard of us and really likes our music. Lydia now lives in Barcelona after having lived all over the US and London. We asked her about when she lived in London. "I moved here 1981/1982 because Nick Cave and Marc Almond lived here. I was totally stalking them," she said with a cheeky grin.
Last night was a very strange and difficult night for me. I think I had an extremely indulgent night at Decasia and had been in hospital the day before that so everything really caught up with me. Lydia saw my state of numbness and took me aside and said, "Criticism means nothing to me. Praise means nothing to me. I do what I do for me and for no one else. I believe in myself and I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks. You do the same, doll."
I am trying, Lydia. I really am.
D-Bird
Friday, 3 April 2009
What a week
I am awfully grateful it has come to an end. Actually, this week wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. A couple of unexpectedly great, amazing things happened which overshadowed the minor crap. That is always special. Yay.
This weekend gives me a lot to look forward to. It is Decasia tomrrow evening! I am so glad it has come round so quickly as the Hacienda night was SO much fun and I have been anticipating this Back to the 90s night very much.
Last night, I ventured out to a club night that I have never been to but heard a lot about. It was such a major disappointment. The atmosphere was completely soulless, the music was crap, we got heckled by some idiots that turned out to be the promoters of the night and what annoyed me was that this night was meant to be one of the most edgiest in London. Jesus! I make a huge deal over the people and bands that come to my night. There is no favouritism as I want everyone and anyone to come along, have a good time and more than anything, to feel welcome. That is how I look at the role of a promoter - as someone supporting new and interesting music but also a good, friendly and accommodating host. If you are a dick looking to make a bit of money, get some street cred and don't give a crap about the people who come to your nights or the bands (I heard bands complaining at the bar moments before they were due on stage as they had to buy their own damn beers and had not received any free drinks) then I will find you, track you down, sit you down and slap you very hard around the face.
DO IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS OR JUST DON'T DO IT AT ALL.
I am watching you...
In the meantime, 9pm tomorrow for a FREE night at Catch with Not Cool, R O M A N C E, Vegas Whores playing live, The Birds, Zezi Ifore, Hanna Hanra and Rac Mac on the decks. Woop woop!!!!!
D-Bird
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