I covered Underage for The Fly as previously mentioned, please do check it out here! I’ll be working with The Fly on a freelance basis from now on so expect some more live reviews soon. Also ended up interviewing Ed and Suren (Bombay Bicycle Club) w/ Time Out – no video yet but here’s a picture of me with the boys, talking kidnap, European festivals and going back to the future for album number 3:
Image credit - Frank Sale
So that was Friday.
The following day I got myself back to Vicky Park to work behind the scenes at Field Day, the older brother of Underage. There was plenty to sort out and I donned about a billion wristbands (unfortunately had to cut them all off before starting an internship the following week). Being a diligent worker (e.g.: sitting around eating sausages and mash in between working at the media tent and box office) meant that I only had time to catch Anna Calvi’s set. Resembling the YSL ‘Elle’ print ad (hair slicked back, good tailoring) she was captivating and intense, even though the crowd appeared mostly unreceptive, if not indifferent. Field Day was great and I met some really nice people like Trekstock founder Sophie Epstone, who is a real inspiration for young people trying to make a difference. Her cause is one close to my heart, and the delivery of her message through cultural channels, events like the aforementioned, and social media is wholly inspiring.
The only Hackney festival I didn’t make it to was Apple Cart (Sunday), but you can read all about that here.
Field Day tea towel, complete with cute (and true) proverb
Check back at the end of the month for my normal post and even more madness
The only monster FIB review in the blogosphere… it’s taken me a while to sit down and write, but now that I’m no longer employed for the summer here you go! Also heading to Underage this Friday with The Fly so keep your eyes peeled. HJ x
W hat would make a self-confessed camping virgin travel hundreds of miles to do battle with insects and pop-up tents (or slow cookers, as they should be known)? The 16th outing of FIB, of course. Known simply as Benicassim to most of us lazy Brits, this is one annual festival that isn’t really worth a comparison with the UK circuit. The holiday vibe at the site in Southern Spain is a million miles away from the mud and orienteering of Worthy Farm, and rather than being cooped up like livestock we had a town to explore, beaches to visit, and supermarkets to raid for chorizo, horchata and, erm, deodorant.
Besides the music, there were also film screenings (missed as was at the beach), a fashion show (again, at the beach) and even the chance to take part in university-accredited courses such as music journalism (should’ve left the beach for that one). The main USP of travelling hundreds of miles is that there are warmer climes to enjoy until about 7pm, before returning to the campsite and inducing artificial insomnia via cheap sangria in preparation for the 2am headliners. Lovely organiser Vince Power even chucks in a eight free days of camping. This year, the 4 day event went something like this:
Jueves/Thursday
After a day spent exploring cultural sites (the beach and the supermarket bread aisle, respectively) we headed back for Paolo Nutini’s set on the main (Maravillas) stage. Seemingly tipsy (please don’t sue me for libel!) as he stepped onto stage, the Scottish crooner’s set was not only 1940s OAP but also decidedly DOA. With two multi-platinum albums behind him, the bar was high for Paolo who peaked early with crowd-pleasers ‘Jenny Don’t Be Hasty’ and ‘These Streets’. Seemingly going through the motions for the mostly British crowd, he deviated from tried and tested material just once for a quick flirtation with ‘Over and Over’, a Hot Chip cover. Overall, Nutini brought the foot-tapping and limb-shaking music we all expected and delivered it with soul, but there was something repetitive and spent about the set that only a true groupies, sorry fans, could ignore.
Paolo Nutini onstage at FIB (image copyright of Fiberfib)
Drum and bass devotees came together for Chase and Status, who were headlining the Fiberfib.com stage. Touchingly, MC Rage catered for the amnesiacs among us by screaming “Chase and FUCKING Status” between numbers. From the first African-accented word of opener ‘No Problem’, to the Asiatic scarefest Eastern Jam and intermittent commands to ‘bounce’, right through to closing track ‘Fool Yourself’, the pair’s reputation for delivering an energy-packed and unpredictable live experience was sealed. Twenty years on and boasting another Liam, I think we’ve found an act who will become as definitive as The Prodigy (whose seminal hit ‘Firestarter’ still rocked the dance stage during a DJ set some 15 years on…).
Continuing the dubstep mood of Thursday night we went back to the Maravillas for Pendulum, who pleased a mostly Antipodean and British crowd with the material which everyone wanted to hear. Closing with Watercolour from last album Immersion, they declared the crowd to have been “fucking brilliant” (oh we were).
This look is the definitive "our mood swings are more swingy than a swingy thing, like a Pendulum" and explains how one of the worst names ever was conceived
On the Fibclub stage, I caught a negligable amount of Crystal Fighters’ set, which is a shame because watching happy people dance to “we were born to be alone, everybody all alone” would have totally smacked of postmodernist irony and would have made writing a blog so much easier. Still, I’m seeing them later in the year so I can dance/write polemics then.
Viernes/Friday
Friday night was spent exclusively at the Maravillas, where Brandon Flowers, Elbow, The Strokes and Friendly Fires were top of the bill. I chose the showers over Flowers, but three out of four ain’t bad and I heard most of his set from the campsite. Unfortunately for the Killers’ man, the unanimous highpoint was ‘Mr Brightside’ (a track which his band played at last year’s FIB) rather than anything from his own foray into solo artistry, Flamingo.
Illustrative purposes only
Elbow provided a high point of the weekend, delivering their music with passion as well as a high level concern for the wellbeing of fans that was often absent elsewhere. Whilst kicking, beer-spilling and even cartwheeling in crowds is commonplace, frontman Guy Garvey was having none of it, instructing fans to move back to prevent a crush. Although there was none of the tomfoolery seen at their Glasto performance (backwards Mexican wave, anybody?), tracks like ‘Grounds For Divorce’ and epic closer ‘One Day Like This’ were raw Mancunian slices of indie rock ‘n’roll. The relationship between the North West of England and Eastern Spain is surely back up to par, after fellow Mancs Oasis caused a furor over sound problems at the fest in 09.
Fresh from work on their latest LP, ‘Angles’, The Strokes had six new tracks in their roster alongside higher octane classics such as ‘Juicebox’ and ‘You Only Live Once’. Their set was well-received, although the loudest cheers were heard (rather predictably) for ‘Last Nite’. Ten years on and its still causing a commotion, with ‘Under Cover of Darkness’ and ‘Machu Picchu’ falling short of such appreciation. I can only analogise this situation to playing Strokes Top Trumps – would a Julian beat an Albert? Subjective.
Topping off Friday were the boys from Friendly Fires, who lived up to their agreeable moniker. Returning to the festival with a higher profile (the band played the FiberFib.com stage two years ago), they attracted fans in their droves with their early hours set. Swishing and trying out fancy footwork to ‘Hawaiian Air’, the atmosphere was as magical and jaunty as current album Pala, although much like The Strokes it was an older favourite (‘Paris’) which brought out the best in the crowd. Still, they got to show off their creativity and charm which has ensnared the mainstream and permeated the charts of late, much as they did here a few days later.
Sábado/Saturday
Saturday was a bit of a blur, probably due to the phrase “uno Heineken por favor”. Hours of beach and a snack or two later, it was time for some cutesy folkpop-by-numbers from ukulele-wiedling Mumford and Sons, who paved the way for Arctic Monkeys, giving Benicassim their all. Mumfords were one of many acts who attempted to engage with the crowds in both Spanish and English (n’aww). Luckily we could rely on the artists in showing gratitude towards the locality which – let’s face it – isn’t always the top priority for us (litter-dropping, beer-swigging) fans…
Anyway, I digress… After a few years out on the road regurgitating their first three records, it was time to bring ‘Suck It And See’ into the mix on the Maravillas. Arriving on stage to the unmistakable sound of ‘You Sexy Thing’ by Hot Chocolate, the band played a catalogue of hits including ‘Brianstorm’, ‘The View From The Afternoon’ and ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ as well as new tracks including ‘Don’t Sit Down Cos I’ve Moved Your Chair’ and ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala”. A vibrant and sometimes brooding atmosphere, coupled with chanting of well-known, quasi-misogynist lyrics such as “oh, you know nothing, but I’ll still take you home!” and some RIP-to-romance numbers like ‘505’ (for Alexa?) combined to make an exciting set.
What A Scummy Man: Jk Benicassim loved Alex and his Lego-esque hairdo
Stuggling to stay awake during Primal Scream’s ‘Screamadelica’ is a bit like passing out on your own birthday, but unfortunately that was this writer’s fate (do excuse the crap analogy, it was more like passing out on Christmas and being poked in the eyes by stray pine needles). By the time that Bobby Gillespie and co. took to the stage at an ungodly hour to bring us classics like “Movin’ On Up” and “Come Together”, I may or may not have been sitting on the ground, craning my neck like some kind of wounded giraffe. A treat for fans of the Scream boys/Denise Johnson but it was the inclusion of ‘Country Girl’ (from 2006′s Riot City Blues) that brought the set from a retrospective to a collection of modern classics; ultimately it was an epic celebration of the band’s work since their rise to fame/notoriety circa 1991.
Fresh from Kate Moss' star-studded nuptials, Bobby Gillespie goes back to the day job as he poses backstage at FIB (image copyright of Fiberfib)
After the kitsch kerfuffle caused by Fake Blood’s (the Brit DJ best known for ‘I Think I Like It’) set on the Fiberfib.com stage, it was time for bed (how he managed to mix in tacky house classic ‘Get Down’ by Paul Johnson into his most aforesaid hit I have no idea). After that, I have clear memories of losing my torch and the girl in the tent next to us insisted on talking as though she was devising a parody of ‘Homecoming’ by The Teenagers for half of the night.
Domingo/Sunday
Officially burnt, I skipped the sun in favour of reading the official festival programme under a parasol. It was a pretty interesting programme too – a bilingual booklet full of interviews and info on the acts. Shame I hadn’t read it on the first day…
Professor Green took the festival by storm, playing all of his singles with the kind of gusto I haven’t seen him deploy in the daytime. Predictably, everyone besides the most diehard INXS fans went wild for ‘I Need You Tonight’, and the reaction to ‘Jungle’ was huge (two girls in particular, seemingly dressed as spandex cowgirls from the future, complete with Cher Lloyd-style baseball caps and fairylights adorning their jackets appeared to be having some kind of religious expeience). Pro even seamlessly slipped in a cheeky Chase and Status sample (‘Eastern Jam’) on the aforementioned track, turning his ‘Norf Lundun’ sound up to 11. My personal highlight, however, was the plug shout out to Radio 1 before ‘Just Be Good To Green’. Keeping it real (and tethered to the BBC) has never been easier.
Portishead played the Maravillas at 11pm, providing one of the most haunting experiences of the festival. On a darkened stage, surrounded by screens showing the surreal animated videos commissioned for their music, the band played a set which was both uplifting and heartwrenching. Currently staging a comeback, they opened with ‘Silence’, perfect for the festival due to its spoken Spanish first verse. This was followed by a veritable ‘best-of’ including Mysterons, Sour Times and Glory Box. Beth Gibbons gave an inimitable vocal performance throughout, despite the somewhat ‘early’ set time.
(Apologies for sound quality – not my upload)
Closing the festival were Arcade Fire, who played a breathtaking
(just breathing out)
set. The Canadian septet provided the Win-ning (sorry) end to the festivities, reprising hits from across their career. Faster tunes like ‘Ready To Start’ and ‘Keep The Car Running’ were perfect for high energy dancing, with more mellow ones like ‘The Suburbs’ providing a chance to cool off and just sway. The generous group even took the opportunity to raise some funds for (singer Regine’s crisis-stricken home country) Haiti during the show. A two-part encore comprising arena-worthy ‘Wake Up’ and tearjeaker ‘Sprawl II’ was also well received. Whilst this writer can’t speak for all present, I felt invigorated with hope for all mankind, and imbued with peace and love. Sponsored by Heineken.
- My verdict: Go amigo! The upbeat Spanish affair gets a stellar 4/5.
What did I miss?
Anna Calvi – does listening to ‘Suzanne and I’ on the plane count? Kate Bush 2.0 would have been a magical addition to my weekend.
Art Brut – added to the bill at the nth hour, Art Brut weren’t even in the programme. Clumsier than The Libertines and cuter than Pulp (see: stalky ‘ode to luv’ Emily Kane): if only I’d known.
Bombay Bicycle Club – heard most of their set from inside my tent. Still wish I’d been there to hear ‘The Hill’ (insert secret reason for significance here).
Beirut – and the award for the act I am most devastated about missing goes to Zach Condon and co. How can I build a time machine? Answers on a postcard (from Italy) please.
Insider tips:
- Be an earlybird: Act erm ‘pronto’ and get your 2012 ticket for £40 off the normal price (£125 for the 4 day event, 8 day camping included).
- Get a room: A hotel. hostel or apartment is advisable in the heat.
Hey readers (I’m sure there must be one or two of you still out there!)
I have been on a hiatus which will end when I hit Benicassim fest! In the meantime, here is a hideously lazy, unformatted phone post – an interview with Hyde & Beast:
The Creature Feature: Beast on the left, Hyde on the right, please stand in name order next time!
“It’s like a Futureheads record on a fucked up record player”
Hannah J Davies: Dave and Neil – you’ve both been in other bands (The Futureheads and Golden Virgins respectively). Is Hyde & Beast for all intents and purposes a supergroup/side project?
Neil Bassett: Well The Golden Virgins split up about 4 years ago so it’s definitely not a side project for me. I mean for Dave I guess it is a side project because his day job is as drummer in The Futureheads. But it doesn’t feel like a side project. We set out to make an album that we would want to listen to, and I think we achieved that, but it has always been fun so far. And I think if it stops being fun then what’s the point?
HJD: It’s all about the fun factor. How long have you known one another and how did you meet?
Dave Hyde: Me & Neil have known each other for about 12 years. We used to go to the same gigs years ago.
Neil: Yeah, Dave was this young spaced out dude in a velvet smoking jacket at these shows and I used to think, “who the hell is this pimp ?”.
HJD: This one is for Dave – did you opt for this group because you wanted to try something which Futureheads fans wouldn’t necessarily appreciate?
Dave: That seems a little negative; we are definitely a totally different type of music to The Futureheads but I can’t see why some Futureheads fans wouldn’t like it. There’s plenty of harmonies in there.
Neil : Haha, yeah it’s like a Futureheads record being played at the wrong speed on a broken fucked up record player haha!
HJD: Some writers would try and make a pun involving broken record players and ‘Skip To The End’ but I won’t bother. You’re an unusual pairing in that you’re both better known as drummers. In what way is being in a duo different?
Dave: There is definitely a lot more work involved. But that’s fine, healthy for the mind.
Neil: We don’t have to deal with bass players and guitarists on a daily level!!! Nah, actually we do because although we are a duo in the studio, when we play live we expand into a 12-footed monster. It was going to be impossible for me and Dave to recreate the album live with just the two of us, so we have recruited another four people for when we play shows.
HJD: You’ve been supported by ex-La’s man Lee Mavers (who made a secret comeback under the silly sobriquet “Lee Rude and The Velcro Underpants”) and have played with The Stranglers – has this helped to develop your ‘classic’ sound?
Neil: Not really, we have only just played with those guys recently whereas our album was already finished about a year ago. We have just been lazy and only just got around to playing some shows recently. There is a reason our album is called “Slow Down” you know!
HJD: *slows down* You’ve already started giving away music (the pair gave away their first single from the album, Medicine Head cover ‘(And The) Pictures In The Sky’ as a free download) – why, and does this indicate your views about ownership of content in general?
Dave: Just moving with times I suppose. Seems to be the thing to do, a great way to get people into what you are doing. Not as many people actually buy music these days, lots of downloading going on.
Neil: It’s a nice gift for people.
HJD: Neil, you’re known as Beast, but who is your favourite fictional beast?
Neil: This would be the Jabberwock. It was made famous in the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll, who used to visit [Neil's hometown] Sunderland apparently. The opening lines of ‘Jabberwocky’ are “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe, All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe”, which says it all really! The Jabberwock was described as a huge and monstrous beast with bat-like wings.
I do also have a soft spot for the Yeti. A friend’s sister, upon meeting me for the first time, once described me as “like some kind of amazing yeti”. This still makes me chuckle to this day
HJD: Hyde & Abominable Snowman sounds much more arthouse to me. Now for your chance to plug whatever you like.
Neil : Dave is a great gardener and I make a mean vegetable soup, so if anyone out there wants some perennials pruning or a hearty broth cooking up for after your gardening then give us a call.
*
Many thanks to Hyde and Beast…they could, however, have used that plugging space to tell you that ‘Slow Down’ is released on 15th August on Tail Feather Records.
Dear my faithfuls…I’d give you all my last Rolo if I could. But I can’t due to the laws of physics and such.
This month has been seriously busy for me due to AS Levels. Such a cop-out, but as I’m seriously dedicated to high quality content I feel that rather than a coherent blog I’ll just roll out links to 5 cool things I’m enjoying right now and apologise profusely. Please follow me on twitter (@hannahjdavies) and I’ll spew more nonsense there.
1.MIA ROSE is a chanteuse and a bit of a flanteuse when she sings sitting on her bed but…
She’s really beautiful (think Glee’s Rachel meets Norah Jones meets Penelope Cruz) and although she’s been around a few years, (and endured more than a few suspcions over her seemingly huge Youtube following) this songstress never fails to make me smile. File her covers and Gibson-playing between Colbie Caillat and Sheryl Crow, even though she has been managed by Tommy Mottolla (Mariah’s ex).
And she wears quite a few hats. Something which kinda adds to her girl-next-door vibe.
2. Harry Hill’s paintings
They’re almost as hilarious than his TV show, and Harry Hill’s paintings provoke more of a smile than a Burp – as seen in this week’s Observer. I especially like Parker-Bowles Windsor (below) the love child of Camilla and Charles who is a decidedly ominous creamy spacehopper with more of a resembelence to Robin Williams in Flubber. I digress – a symbol, perhaps, of our strange relationship with the couple and (pathetically) undying love for Princess Diana.
3. Money
Not in note-form, although you can make any cheques payable to me. Nope, I’m talking about the 2-part adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel with Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men) and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) which recently graced our screens on BBC2. Reeeaaaalllly good (a little subjective as I’m a Martin Amis fan) but this was a really fun bit of 80s which should sit alongside the Rayban revival, John Hughes films being shown late at night and Vice Magazine’s Bret Easton Ellis interview this month.
Here’s a useless picture of Vince just to illustrate how symmetrical his face is. I think he might use Carmex, too. The guy who over-straightens his hair on Junior Apprentice could also take a few tips from Karthy’s bouncy straight locks which are statically mussed up a little on top as to appear nonchalant, but calmed with serum. I can smell Frederic Fekkai through my computer.
4. Twitterings
After over a year leaving tiny nuggets of mundanity and picking up quickly aggregated news and cynical musings and (possibly made-up) gossip from the twitterati, I don’t want to leave. It’s too fun, especially when real-life augments itself into Twitter via pictures, mentions and locations (becoming a mayor of Oxford St McDonalds on FourSquare is my next goal).
I even recorded a voiceover for reviews site The 405 (server isn’t working so here is the link: http://thefourohfive.com) after chatting on Twitter, and the manager of Cha Cha sent me this video after finding me on there:
Admittedly its too inoffensive, slick and overpolished for my liking, and lacks personality, but it is a cute video and i really do respond to everything which is emailed to me.
5. Festival essentials
Summer’s almost here, and I really want a Hunter festival survival pack (available from Office) – tons of good stuff packed into a one litre flask with Hunter logo in the classic mossy green colour, which is actually just known as Green. I. Need. This.
Urban Outfitters ‘Contrast Trim Satchel’ is probably too shallow to fit that massive bottle into, but I like it anyways due to its Americana feel and oversized clasp. I’m no Mariella Tandy but yum.
If money were no object I’d probably be stuffing everything into one of these stunning pouches courtesy of Felder Felder at Browns, which perfectly marry my ambition to be part of some outlaw motorcycling club in Arkansas with my (pipe) dream of designing a haute couture collection based on dirt and leather and saloon doors. Enough space or keys, plasters and a bit of cash although unfortunately £190. If Matalan are reading this, please make a copy for £4.
Urrgh, I’m almost a fool. I have to use these Sweet Valley High titles in order to grab your attention. That said, “almost a fool” refers only to the fact that its April Fools tomorrow rather than any intellectual anguish I might be having over my upcoming exams. I’ve almost been a fool millions of times, from fake £20 notes to bogus prizes…just dont trick me tomorrow because I will fall for it.
This pretty amazing (cake vs.) pie chart from This is why you’re fat has caught my foolish attention:
…as has everything else vaguely sweet recently. Weird craving for a proper, gen-u-ine New York cheescake, actually; one of those which looks like a round French cheese and tastes like one too. If anyone wants to bake me one then please go ahead.
Anyways, onto some higher culture. I have enjoyed such cultivated televisual viewing of late, including The Undercover Princesses on BBC3.
A follow-up to the equally cringeworthy culture-clash comedy of The Undercover Princes, this series saw three ethnically-diverse but equally stereotypical “royals” – the Bugandan with a shapely behind and a taste for market-stall weave, the shy, sari-wearing Indian wallflower and the whiter-than-white Europop heiress from Germany, who almost didn’t count as foreign – looking for love in the UK. So, the BBC sent the trio to our culture capital of Essex and watched asmadness ensued. One of Uganda’s princesses, nicknamed Cinderella, found Caribbean match Paul (Paw-ul) on a trip to Asda for mushrooms in a surprisingly tidy scene which was typical set-up fare. Meanwhile, sweet-natured asian princess Aaliya went on a series of disappointing dates with men who looked like Crimewatch-paedo-cut-outs for conversations about the weather, where we almost expected to hear Mad World dubbed over her plight. Eeyorl-liah was a nice girl but socially inept when it came to the opposite sex, and scuppered one of her dates by getting claustrophobia…whilst wearing a helmet. Doh! Instead of love, we got more BBC subtitles over anyone who wasn’t from Essex and a horrible soundtrack which even featured “world’s most overused and dramatic tearjerker” Kissing You by Des’ree. Yes, the song from Romeo+Juliet. A highlight was Xenia from Germany, however, whose much-hyped “relationship” with hairdresser Elliott involved much retarded singing, impressionism and crap dancing. Put her anywhere else and I think this woman would have been labelled a fag hag. Hilarious stuff as always from the BBC’s digital stable, but can we please have some proper princesses next time…this lot really lacked authenticity!
High Renaissance Man – exclusive -
Yes, THIS is what the title of the blog is about! HIGHLY CULTURED MEN!
Vice ran this pretty amazing picture of JFK in a series of hats for next month’s issue…just to cover myself legally I should point out that the pic below is by Tara Sinn of http://www.babydinosaureyes.com/, and it is just so cute. Especially the top hat…can someone please Cafe Press this into a mug/t-shirt/babygrow (with permission ofc).
And here is my horrific illustration for the following feature. I forbid anyone to Cafe Press this:
It’s been less than 2 months since Mr Totally Tom – that’s Mr Totally Tom Stourton and Mr Totally Tom Palmer to you and I – launched their comedy short High Renaissance Man on Youtube. Part one of four is above, and given my damning review of a BBc 3 programme (also above), I advise that our controllors take note: this is what TV needs.
The two Toms – who have somewhat sarcastically declared that they want BBC’s “pinkies”, that’s £50 notes to you and me – have been friends since the tender age of 12, when they met at a sleepover (everybody say: awww!)
Described by Michael Hessletine as “Evelyn Waugh on acid” (100% true quotation), the duo take their inspiration from Garth Meranghi’s Dark Place and Brass Eye among other series’, although this Bristol-based mockumentary is all their own work, and they strongly deny “copying” anyone. In fact, their influences peek through rather than being worn on a collective sleeve, surely the mark of subtle genius. Thanks to the way in which universities are “interlinked” through Facebook, High Renaissance Man has gone down a treat on the interwebs – probably because James Talbot-Smith (Stourton) is the perfectly recognisable Oxbridge-reject turning his hand to uni pursuits such as event promotion with his trademark awkwardness. If Abercrombie did philosophy degrees…
That’s enough from me anyways…let’s read James’ exclusive diary for hannahjdavies.com!
The diary of James – by Mr Totally Tom
D e a r D i a r y,
J a m e s h e r e a g a i n. F i r s t o f a l l, a s y o u m a y h a v e n o t i c e d, I h a v e j u s t f o u n d a f u c k i n g
l e a n f o n t t o u s e f o r m y d i a r y e n t r i e s. M a k e s i t l o o k l i k e a n o l d s c h o o l t y p e w r i t e r – a n d
i t u s e s u p l e s s i n k.
Spiked Mathew’s tea with seven grams of Mephedrone this morning. He has an exam later AND his parents are taking us for lunch after. Would love to be a fly on the wall for that one! Even though I will be sort of. He’d better pay me back.
Speaking of pranks, expenses scandal broke out today – so fierce! In a bit of trouble with Dad as I ordered a duck house on his account for one of my nights – he is soooooo angry. Also v. bum-out as has ruined my Duck and Bass night – apparently freedom of expression has been banned by the government! Sorry, didn’t realize Tony Blair had collaborated with the Nazis! (Not! – as in I’m being sarcastic not as in I think Nazis actually are actually in power in real life).
Anywayz, until the next time we meet, see you tomorrow dear diary.
Yours truly truthfully,
Me….James.
*Thanks to the two Toms for their help with this feature…now go and watch all four parts of High Renaissance Man on Youtube!
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LIKE A DRUG
Up on VBS.tv right now, you can click here to watch the first part of the Vice Guide to Film, on Mexico’s Narco Cinema, from their popular internet TV station (you might remember me talking about another VBS production, Swansea Love Story, in a previous post).
I digress: in this series, Vice will be exploring some lesser-known cinematic genres from across the globe, as co-founder Shane Smith and creative director Eddy Moretti explore the relationship between drugs and B-movies in Mexico, Korea and Japan. It’s described it as a foray into the low budget, seedy, fast-paced, straight-to-DVD genre inspired by (and often funded by) Mexico’s ultraviolent drug cartels. This culture-packed production is essential viewing for all Vice-lovers and beyond, as it also touches on the bizarre pagan patron saint of drug dealers…and a music genre based about trafficking! Throw your guidebooks in the bin, grab un sics (yes, thats a six pack of beer in spanish…spanglish) and click onto VBS.tv instead…
Til next month, adieu (actually, I’m going to be working with Artrocker on Underage Easter festival next week so that might pop up here too)
Happy new year. I mean it. At the beginning of last decade we were all too busy wondering whether all of our computers would crash and chaos would ensue. Ooh, and it was the beginning of a new century, a new millennium, how extremely novel. 2010, by comparison, snuck up on us like an itchy throat leading to a flu. Yes, I have been bed-ridden due to a horrific flu for the past few weeks, which is when I saw the year ticking away with extreme alacrity. Christmas was pretty good – Mad Men and 30 Rock box-sets of course – but something about 2010 was strangely scary. I started listening to Blur’s ‘End of the Century’ everyday in pensive anticipation before realising that it wasn’t the end of a century at all. It wasn’t even the end of a decade with a particular scent. I thought about all of the cool stuff that has happened since 2000, and none of it really jumped out at me as original. In the 2000s we recycled music, films and books. We remade really good things into not so good things, like Psycho. Even the top 30 films of the decade featured just two originals . Anyways, I digress. I have loved the past 10 years so here is my review:
2000
The year when giants of mainstream metal Metallica sued poor little college boys Napster (future millionaires cough cough). Also the year when Madonna brought out the electronic smash ‘Music’. I’m not sure if I knew what the bourgeoisie was when I was 8, but hell did this tune sound fresh. It still does a little. Madge helped the anti-piracy ship by getting pretty damn angry when this song was leaked on the internet four months early. Can’t mention rebellion in a song and then get angry over errrm rebellion, can you? But still she can do no wrong in my eyes.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: ‘Beautiful Day’ by U2. Yes, it’s the ‘football song’ thanks to our ITV. Yes, it wears pretty thin, pretty quickly…but Bono and co’s ability to create arena anthems full of optimism and pretension is second to none. Philosophical father of music, Michael ‘Losing My Religion, Everybody Hurts’ Stipe stepped off the moral high ground for a second to declare that he wished he’d written the song himself. Bono returned the favour by praising REM’s ‘Reveal’ the following year, but REM haven’t made a record so full of gritty personality and optimism since Shiny Happy People. In 1991. Carpe diem, Mike.
Also love:
2001
The iPod launched in 2001 to much Daily Mail hype. I was still in primary school, so I wasn’t in the first batch of white-headphone-wearers who were mugged for their £200 jukeboxes. ‘A glorified Walkman’ according to my mum…but did a Walkman have Music Quiz, Brickbreaker and a cool b&w screen? Thought not. Too cool, even though there are four ugly control buttons on iPod snr (later removed and integrated into the click wheel). Little did we know that everyone would have an iPod a couple of years later, and prices would drop as a result.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: A huge loss was felt in the world of R&B when soulful sweetheart Aaliyah died aged just 22. I remember being on the motorway as a little un and hearing a news bulletin about her death in a plane crash and feeling really, properly sad despite my geographical location (somewhere in the South of a little island called England). A massive talent had passed away before reaching her prime, and the world mourned her to the sound of ‘More Than A Woman’ from her eponymous, posthumous album which topped the charts in this year. Passion, Instant…a timeless tale of sexy suggestion and no submission from La Haughton.
Also love:
2002
September 11th 2001 was a tragic moment for the whole of the world, and it led comic-book clerk Gerard Way – who at the time couldn’t sing and play guitar at the same time – to form a foetus which later became the phenomenal, global emo spawn ‘My Chemical Romance’. I know I just said ‘carpe diem’ but carpe-ing by starting a band aged 22 with little experience? They were signed in record time and, from 2002 onwards, alt-kids worldwide from Philadelphia to the Philippines clung onto the new breed of dark heroism… and the rest is history.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavinge. I don’t care if you’re laughing, Sk8er Boi pretty much summed up every clichéd ‘she’s out of my league’ love story ever and delivered it to us complete with a backing track that sounded suspiciously like one of those ‘play along’ ones from a Guitar magazine tape. She half-talked, half-sung her way through what I thought was the antithesis to a bubblegum pop song with its narrative of kiss-chaste between a ballet-dancing girl (read: tease) with friends who ‘stuck up their (presumably collective) nose’ at a sk8er boi (yes, we had just discovered texting too). As it turns out, the black-clad, three-chord-playing Avril was actually a blonde in disguise, but we wouldn’t find that out for a few years so let’s just remember the way things were.
Also love:
2003
It was Mrs Robinson Revisited when Simon and Garfunkel embarked on a reunion tour in 2003. Also returning, albeit after a shorter hiatus of two years in 2003 was our Britney with ‘In The Zone’. It was not her best, but shall surely be remembered if only for the graphic ode to Britters’ solo bedroom exploits ‘Touch of My Hand’. Of course, its nothing in comparison to 3 – released sex, sorry, six years later – but it caused a stir at the time, as did squeaky-clean Spears’ VMA kiss with Madonna and Christina Aguilera. The transformation, which had started with the relatively tame wannabe-subjugation of ‘I’m A Slave 4U’ was complete, and set the tone for the decade when Britney would become a bride, mother, mother and bride again, not to mention a shadow of her wholesome 90s persona.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Delta Goodrem first bounced onto my radar as Nina Tucker on Neighbours. Sadly, I didn’t even need to Wikipedia that fact. The Down Under Diva was destined for stardom like plenty of Ramsay Street residents before her, and in a strange twist from other actress-turned-singer alumni she actually played a singer in the programme whilst signed to Sony (a trick later reused to launch Caitlin ‘Rachel’ Stasey from schoolgirl to star in 2008/9). Unfortunately Delta had to leave the soap when she was diagnosed with a rare cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but she recovered and rose to popularity with ‘Born To Try’, a song debuted on the soap. The saccharine-sweet piano and nasal tones gained Delta a UK number 3, which can surely only mean she was robbed. In a strange twist of fate, she ended up with a pop idol from across the globe, Westlife’s Brian ‘Kerry Katona’s leftovers’ McFadden and the pair are currently engaged.
Also love: – NME’s top song of the decade, can you believe it.
2004
The year I went to high school. It makes me feel nervous even now..all of those people, the noise, the crowded spaces, the canteen queues that seemed to stretch for miles in the baking sunshine and the possibility of getting lost on my way to the toilets. Pantera guitarist ‘Dimebag’ Darrell was shot dead in this year by a mentally ill fan, although it would take me a few more years to discover the genius of 1992′s ‘Vulgar Display of Power’. It was also the year when No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani hit the mainstream with her reggae-rockstar status invigorated with new-found R&B/Harajuku funk fusion to create Love.Angel.Music.Baby, kicking off a L.A.M.B franchise which continues to grow today with a clothes line and (pretty good) perfume.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Mormon rockgod Brandon Flowers was an 80s dream as he characterised a jealous boyfriend in ‘Mr Brightside’, and when The Killers debuted on Saturday morning kids tv I resented the goody-two-shoes aesthetic of this whiney, shy little man. Who on earth was Brandon Flowers and would he be all over cool lists and future charts with his bashful eau de anti-fame like an American Chris Martin? ‘Mr Brightside’ answered my perplexities with a simple YES with its perfect composition and background-music capabilities. We could choose to listen to this swirl of deliciously repetitive electronic guitar and bass or simply stick it on in the background whilst playing The Sims. And I quite liked that.
Also love:
2005
Kanye West warned us about Golddiggers who don’t mess with no ‘broke niggers’ in 2005 with help from a cast of (deceased) musical legends, a tiny Sheffield band exploded with their odds-on bet that we’d look good on the dancefloor and a cast led by a flower-print catsuit wearing Brazilian ordered us to “make love and listen to death from above”. But there was also a Maroon 5 obsession on my part, probably started due to my obsession with another A Lavinge.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: I first heard ‘Sugar We’re Going Down’ by Fall Out Boy whilst watching an MTV2 chart show, something I used to do pretty often once I had my iPod, iTunes and wanted to waste my iNheritance in advance. One of the first songs I downloaded was this slice of American alternative culture. I hadn’t listened to The Shins or Brand New yet (forgive me, Jesus) but I really liked Fall Out Boy and this schoolboy heartache in a strangely high key for a pop-rock song was comforting. I downloaded a few remixes. I ordered a t-shirt…from America. If only I’d had a premonition – by the end of the 2000s FOB would be trying the R&B route too, and I’d be sleeping in that fetching yellow top. A couple of years later I’d understand those John Hughes refs.
Also love:
2006
My best friend and I used to convene at my house on a Monday after school, and this changed to Friday sometime around 2006. One day – either Monday or Friday, but I will put my bets on Monday because hours of sorting out press releases at NME taught me that most albums are released on a Monday – we raced home. No time for Ritter Sport or gossiping by the funeral directors, no we actually ran home. At home there was a brown package with that familiar black writing – Amazon.com, Amazon.fr, etc etc. We quickly gleaned that it was from Amazon. Even though I had recently bought an iPod, nothing could’ve compared to my excitement as I unwrapped Red Hot Chili Pepper’s first offering in four years, ‘Stadium Arcadium’ – the first album I had pre-ordered from the internet and the most eagerly anticipated one I have ever wanted. Oh, the disappointment as we discovered the 2 disc mess. Since year 5 I had been ridiculously into the Peppers, probably egged on by a favourite Kiwi teacher who rolled into school wearing a moth-eaten ‘By The Way’ t-shirt and chatted ‘Californication’ and calculators with us. The biggest hit was ‘Dani California’ as I could’ve predicted from this menagerie of sci-fi influences and country casuals, although ‘Storm In A Teacup’ sounded like a haka at a zoo (apologies to the Kiwi teacher).
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Naive – The Kooks. Oh, gosh it’s embarrassing now but for a little while we all loved Luke Pritchard. He was a pale, curly-haired little Lothario from Brighton who patronized a girl beyond belief with this ode to youthful nonchalance and could’ve been the face of a blood transfusion campaign. His pain showed through as he spoke of his adoration giving way to enlightenment: the girl (*cough*Katie Melua*cough) was naive despite her pretty face. Grossly overplayed, it wore thin after a while, once they – along with ‘rivals’ The View had bitten the dust (the busker trend didn’t really continue to top the charts after this point). Little did I know that I’d be jamming away to tales of ‘Wasted Little DJs at a little music festival called Reading in 2009.
Also love:
2007
There were – in my mind – some amazingly hot hits in this year. I discovered DANCE by Justice by way of MySpace (remember those days?) and one of my best friends came to school with Klaxons inked all over her hands. Such a shame that the aforementioned catsuit-wearer got her hands on one of the ‘Golden Skans’ boys but still. My love affair with late-night radio from about 2000 onwards meant I usually just got the best tunes from XFM, and LCD Soundsystem’s ‘North American Scum’ (ahhh haaa haaa) was glamourous, hip-shaking and more 80s than Brandon Flowers et al. One of NMEs picks of the decade, MIAs ‘Paper Planes’ was released for the first time, but we didn’t know it would go on to feature on the biggest film of the following year.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Radiohead laid it bare with ‘Nude’ from their revolutionarily-released ‘In Rainbows’. Creeps all over the world paid whatever they wanted to get their hands on the album, which included this unforgettable story with a haunting pessimistic quality. Sound familiar? Possibly, but Thom cut down on the lyrics and focused on the slow-burning instrumentals which made his band famous. The organic, tumultuous yet structured sound which is created warms like a fire at a campsite whilst remaining strangely frigid to the touch. It’s no soulful Karma Police and one interpretation could be that it is about altogether more dark matters, but it holds a link to the past through Yorke’s irreplaceable, fragile vocal.
Also love:
2008
The year where Katy Perry kissed a girl, liked it and hoped her boyfriend didn’t mind it. One of my opening posts for this very website, which you can find using the Archives on the right was all about how very annoying this song had become, but it was still hugely successful and helped to launch a career which has been all about fun, flirting and press coverage. Beyoncé was also turning the tables by wishing she was a boy, and X Factor songstress Leona Lewis surprised the musical world by covering..wait for it..Snow Patrol’s Run. A strange choice, but it was a hit here and in the US, pushing Lewis from Hackney to Hollywood.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Lollipop certified Lil Wayne as an ODB and also publicised that dreaded Auto Tune which has unfortunately become commonplace in all kinds of music over the past decade. However, it was so catchy that we didn’t care about the misogyny or magic behind this candy-sweet club tune. It was also a posthumous hit for rapper Static Major who produced tracks for artists, including – ironically – the also famed-in-death Aaliyah (see 2001). Explicit, ringtone-material fare but its popularity showed that Tha Carter could straddle between genres better than 2008′s rap/rock flop ‘Scream’, an album produced by Timbaland for Chris Cornell (a UK number 70).
Also love:
2009
So many brilliant albums were released in 2009. Blur reformed. Springsteen did Glasto (see my archives). Jacko died (see my archives). Lady Gaga burst onto the scene (see my archives). Somewhere in there Kanye (see 2005) even managed to hurt the feelings of a poor little country girl named Taylor Swift. Ok, so a lot of things happened and I wrote about a few of them, so I shall not just be lazy and recycle all of that here. I’ll just cut to the chase: my song of 2009.
hannahjdavies.com’s song of the year: Tik Tok by Ke$ha was essentially ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ on speed and Auto Tune. Someone stone me?
Oh Ke$ha, how misplaced my adoration might be. Vacuous ode to hedonism “Tik Tok” stuck two very manicured fingers up to frugality in a year which saw culls at independents and even some previously untouchable artists such as Marilyn Manson getting the boot from the majors. Along came a brazen blonde who didn’t have “a care in the world” but did have, in her own words, “plenty of beer”. She encouraged us to go to parties and get “a little bit tipsy”, and although this French (kiss) Revolution was a definite step backwards, some of us started to feel empowered by this sweet antichrist for modern feminism. Yes, she references P ‘sugar daddy’ Diddy and her concept of time is slightly awry…but Ke$ha, your poor oral hygiene (anyone for brushing their teeth with a bottle of Jack?) and Dixie overpronounication made 2009 a little bit more frivolous…like.
Also love:
HAVE A HAPPY DECADE EVERYONE. GRANDS BISOUS AND CHEERS IF YOU READ THE LIST,
x x x x
PS: Thanks to all my readers for helping me get a crazy 2,000-3,000 people a day onto my site a few exciting times in 2009! Cheers to all of the people who’ve helped me get published in 2008-9, and all of those I’ve bugged for directions, phone numbers or press passes. It’s really appreciated, and I hope to work with even more great people and organizations this decade.
If you’ve just discovered the magical ramblings and professional articles then hello, I’ m Hannah and I’m a wordaholic. Welcome back if you’re one of those who has commented, critiqued (or just laughed at me) over the past 12 months.
So, its been almost a year since I kicked things off; using this site in part as a way to share my truly random findings, my best music, fashion and lifestyle pearls and also to link to my work elsewhere. It has been met with complimets and confusion, so much so that I think it might be time to reorganize things a bit, and redefine… something I’m not going to start now, because I have two months worth of material to just offload here…
So here we are, catching up with the calamity.
I’ve been told to write in black from now on by a load of very valued readers, but my green font and pink background are part of what makes me the ‘Schindler’s List girl’ of music websites. Yes, I know that film was about the Nazis. Maybe I should’ve just stuck with a comment about my Daria-like cynicism.
Anyways, I haven’t enirely been slacking off from writing in recent months. Firstly, I did another truly fantastic work placement at NME which meant listening to lots of new music and helping out in the most beautiful building in London* where anything can happen! (*my view entirely).
Inevitably, there are mundane, everyday goings on (stalkerish post, terrible demos, arguments over deadlines), but not many work experience girls can say that they’ve got to swoon over The Drums in person, who popped by to record a session for NME Radio. The Kink(s)y pair were a Stroke(s) away from me (those were much better in my head)..I digress: I was three metres away from the sparkly Speakeasy-city charm of the polished-and-deconstrcted duo. They are a dream of 1950s/60s surf soul and self-conscious noughties prose and repition. Choirs and restless brass accompaniment courtesy of these beach boys put me at a night spent in passionate conversation on a Brooklyn fire escape in swirls of iced (latte) rain. I hate on the bougeousie far too much for my own good, but The Drums are romantic and possess – for fear of tarring them with the same brush as CSS, The Shins, Fleet Foxes – a future-forward cult cool on tracks such as Instruct Me which is usurped by mixtape grainy licks of grunge rhyme”Submarine”, which seems to cite The Polyphonic Spree and Placebo.
Oh yes, and they look like they should be working at A&F.
Proper highlight material there, as well as the fact that I got to present an opening for a Roland Eye Session (a new performance venture from the guys at Roland Amps/Keyboards) and attend an unforgettable session with hardcore sweethearts Failsafe.
The boys performed their Kerrang anthem ‘Only If We Learn’ as we glided over London in our spacious pod. Not only did they give a stunning, intimate rendition, they were also some of the nicest guys I’ve yet to meet. It was easy to cast aside the Metalhammer image of a 2000s metal band being a masked gang of animal-sacrificing Viking warriors, greasy-haired axe-wielders or a pre-pubescent suicide forum with fringes…and feel what I call ‘soulcore. Metal music, courtsesy of the soul. Fellow worky Anna and I couldn’t believe our luck, and typically we spent most of the journey snapping panoramic shots on our BlackBerrys and getting soundbites about the band’s next gig which was the following evening in Newport.
And our express tickets meant absolutely no queuing. Haa.
Check Failsafe out here, and keep your eyes peeled for the video of the session which will hopefully be up here very soon!
I haven’t been totally slacking from the writing side of things, however, and I reviewed the BBC Emerging proms for my friends over at Converse Music last month – you can find that review here !
By sheer coincidence, the gig I was reviewing (which, I unfortunately didn’t enjoy at all, see above!) was at the Roundhouse on the same night Failsafe supported Bowling For Soup. Would’ve rather been with the latter bands.
I also wrote a little piece on my favourite fanzine, The Pix, run by the incredible journalist, DJ, fashion goddess of i-D Hanna Hanra. Yes, I would love to meet her, and not just because we have the same name bar one letter.
This picture pretty much confirms her status as like, SUPERCOOL…like. Anyhow, here is what I wrote – flippantly and sans title – for her fabulous website.
Here’s a review of a single I did whilst at NME. Be warned…its not too pretty:
The Duke and the King
Summer Morning Rain (Loose Music/Universal)
What exactly does ergonomic mean in relation to keyboard design? That is a question I pondered as I struggled to capture a sense of creation behind the faceless and self-indulgent mundanity that is ‘Summer Morning Rain’. Optimistically billing themselves as glam, folk and soul, these Later alumni deliver no more than unremarkable join-the-dots guitar which borrows more than slightly from Tom Petty’s ‘Free Falling’. Cliché seeps from every apparently cultish Brooklynite pore via sweet but ultimately dry observations. If there is one noble thing about The Duke and the King, it is their ability to endow the masses with genuinely comforting, uncontroversial blues. However, they seem to be swaying in the middle of the same dead-end dirt track inhabited by tributes, buskars and other imitators…and for this they will never be the raconteurs an original fairytale of New York.
Don’t think I’ve ever written a positive single review.
I went on a journalism course this month, run by the brilliant Debate Chamber, which confirmed for me that I definitely want to keep slagging people off writing and commenting and thinking, and ultimately that I WANT TO BE A JOURNALIST! Very useful course either way, would really recommend it to anyone thinking of joining the media.
Anyways, I’m going to have to get some sleep, feeling pretty vile and in need of these
those:
(yeah, they’re limited edition Snoopy tissues I went crazy for aged 12, ok?!)
and this
(the beautiful Converse/heel combo I’ve seen about London town, possibly an asian copy of a catwalk style but they are buff…even if they smell of pvc and polystyrene, and the heels might break at an awkward moment resuling in severe injury/loss of feeling in your toes).
Merry Christmas .. I’ll be back to give a cynical overview of the world very soon.
Yours,
x x x x
Currently watching: The Thick Of It, Sat, 10:40, BBC 2. Hilarious, sharp, culture-rich, punchy even after the commercial success of cinematic spin-off In The Loop…if it were a person, I would marry it, if only for the witty banter and eventual inheritance.
Currently reading: Hippo Eats Dwarf by Alex Bosse…a detailed look at Urban Legends through the ages. Well-written, if not slightly alarmist with its gruesome tales of the link between human hair and soy sauce. Pass the bento bucket!
I’ll leave you with a image from my favvvvvvvvvourite website of the year, thisiswhyyourefat.com. Hot Apple Bacon Turnover With Icing is wrong, dirty and makes me so very hungry.
Evening readers, and welcome to my monthly cocktail of filth and stories about the inside of d-lister’s noses. I’m sure there’s no incriminating white fluff up there, girl who won Pop Idol in 2005 etc etc.
Anyways, it struck me as odd that I’ve literally never seen a celebrity doing normal stuff like shopping and drinking meal replacement shakes, even though I hang out all over London like a lost urchin with a curly mullet. So, I decided to ask some other people to email me with what they’ve seen celebrities doing, and I think I have done better than NOW magazine (seriously, the best they had last week was two BB6 people or something shopping for sausage rolls at Greggs. Guffaw.)
John Frieda was giving bowl cuts to kids on my ruff lundun estate and insuring them that they look just like Ziggy/Zammo, just sans the frizz…All the working class kitchen sink grit of his Polish ancestry shines through…NO. I tried to just say no but free haircuts only happen twice: once from publicity-hungry celebrities and the other in the Army. I’m too young to die, so I chose the ‘accept offer from Sheer Blonde creator’ option. I am going to be called soft forever, but thats ok because I work at B&Q and my sister’s bastard son was box 16 on Deal or No Deal once…so I must be straight.
(I actually think he was very brave to email us with this picture…after all, there is a place where people with teeth like his often end up…it starts with Beachy and ends with Head)
Richard Bacon was eating errrm a bacon sandwich outside a synagogue in North London. Incensed our group of friendly Jewish lawyers…I would’ve confronted him there and then but we must be home before sundown on a Friday (ready for Jonathan Ross presumably).
(Another brave, brave soul who – rather than confront Bacon on his crime for fear of sinning – actually decided to call a lawyer and try to settle away from court for a great deal of his assets (flat, car, signed poster of Rachel Stevens). Good on you Mr’s Chace, Crawford , Taylor , Momsen, Leighton and Meester).
From: lindsaylohan@
icantgetlaid.nu
Hiii Hannah <3
Saw your best UK export since like, the Queen, that sexy Cat Deeley snogging a butch woman in LA…no one noticed because said butch woman was probably C.D’s effeminate identikit lover JACK HUSTON. I’m definitely not jealous that she is going out with someone who is 89% Johnny Depp and 11% Morticia Addams, because I am a bonafide lesbian. No 89% men allowed! A woman needs a man like a fish needs a tricycle! xXx ps: that said, any directors I can hang with y’know, get me some film roles maybe? Ten year hiatus sucks when your Coke Fund runs dry, eh?
(Good choice, Linz <3, don’t think you’ve really been the same since you did Freaky Friday. Maybe it was that time you spent as Jamie Lee-Curtis…)
Hey Harriet J Davids i super love your website…I’m a 13 year old girl who is definitely not a 50 year old man LOL. Anywho, KStew and TLautz buying garlic and rabbits paws and copies of the Mormon biblein this totally hip and uber ironic shop called like yeah I dont remember because I picked heroin and Oreos for breakfast. Bad choice. But like, you should keep yourself safe before an interview with a vampire and such, bbz…sorry, I hear my goddamn blackberry… must dash, it could be one of the girls from The Hills, i put my PIN on a facebook group and have been so popular ever since LOLZ – *gunshot*
(It’s funny how much she looks like a stock image…maybe she is a model…or more likely she works in a video store like one of the sad kids in Scream, desperately downloading Neve Campbell screensavers for special time. I like inappapropriate italics.)
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ANYWAYS, moving swiftly on – THANKS AGAIN – Cathryn Innocent & I have started an exciting, brand new, never seen before website in the past month!
BELLEJAM.com is a place where us two crazy gimps hope to engage and entertain our readership with photojournalism, reviews, etc…its a HANNAHJDAVIES offshoot so I know that if you like this, you will LOVE Bellejam.com!!
Log on if only for my review of the J Depp/C Bale film Public Enemies!
(Image: C. Innocent)
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Bands I’ve seen – Jul 09 – o2 wireless festival, london; featured great performances from Kanye West (electriying even solo) and the Noisettes among many others. Fun day out, got plenty of freebies and had Domino’s from a van…
(Fan photography by myself – Shingai from the Noisettes shortly before a massive wardrobe malfunction rendered her indecent for a period. My friend and I were pretty close up as you can see…singing along and invariably gaining cigarette burns and beer in our respective hair [especially during Calvin Harris]. All good fun though…)
+++ MORE MORE MORE: coming soon when the Bellejam.com girlies (Cathryn and myself) go to the Underage Festival with !!! I can’t wait to chat artistes with Santo/igold and enjoy some Dubstep from Rusko & Caspa!I’ll keep posting after the festival!
Til next time, bonne nuit (yes, I teach French on the side)
x x x x
PS: massive massive huge congratuwelldone to this woman:
…if you’re not sure who she is and you are under the age of 30, then you maybe you should consider a career in caving…i mean that in the nicest way possible for such a facety remark. K to the Rissi!!
I’m doing exams. Yaaaay! Not. Except, maybe it should be yaaaaay, because in 13 short days I get my freedom and a summer packed full of fun (hopefully) and change (definitely).
So here we go: short and sweet.
I’ve done a bit of redecoration with the site this month…the poll on the right is where you can tell me if I’ve made the right choice or not by going all scarlet woman on your asses! Ok, I just chose the same colour as my nail polish if I’m being honest here.
I’m ever the recycler, sooooo lets hear what I thought of The Wire back on May 15th when I sent this email to an unnamed music publication:
“The Wire is a massive in-joke.
I actually think said Wire is an allegory alluding to the metal garden implements which non Wire fans will all eventually use to end the lives of those who persists in labelling said ‘gritty and unmissable’ drama as errrm ‘truly unmissable’ and ‘totally gritty’, as though they were born with a copy of the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine in their mouth.
And…breathe.”
I guess I just have a fear of time moving on without me…new crazes and hit TV programmes and nail polish colours which I have yet to try and will therefore brand hideous and so last season in order to appear the belle du jour. Take Gossip Girl. Tried the book – didn’t like it much so didn’t finish it. Whilst I’m wondering whether to dare to wear a denim jacket to a festival with new booties a la Kate Moss or Daisy Lowe or someone, other girls are watching GG.
“]
Hot Gossip: I'm always five steps behind [Ed
I’m not. So I brand GG “a poor girl’s [name of programme I am watching], and move on. Bad move, because next week people are swooning over Ed Westwick. I swoon as well, and start to wonder if GG is not a bad programme after all. I watch a little . It’s a bit of fun. Leighton Meester’s parents were drug smugglers according to Wiki. She is the ‘new’ underdog TV beauty…and I am about two years late.
Villain of the month: Why Barrymore is not my kind of person:
You might think this is a harsh way to start anything.Too subjective, too personal, too much of a bad pun. Why not pick on some of the other villainous creatures clogging up rehab centres in Copacabana? Have I ever met the man? No. Fortunately. But Susan Boyle has, and she is an incredibly talented individual. Britain’s Got Talent is usually a show which I stay well away from. I hate tacky programming BUT in a time of recession, male MPs claiming for tampons and such, SuBo and co. have provided some great entertainment. No, she didn’t win, but she will still have an amazing career in musical theatre, that I am certain of. As a great lover of BGT and musicals and therefore, SuBo, I was incensed to see the clip below. Yes, it was a long time ago. But Michael Barrymore is still a first class idiot for the way he acted when he ‘discovered’ Susan, who could’ve long been a star if it wasn’t for the arrogance of jumped-up tv ‘personalities’ like himself.
Hero of the month: How I was saved from agony by a pair of…
My friend’s Plimsolls. They’re having a renaissance among women, as I’ve noticed lately. However, I’m a fool, and chose to ignore this trend and wear heels to a party that ended up circumventing around a park. Luckily said friend is a boy, and they know everything. Said plimsolls were worn from that point onwards, and blisters were less inflamed than usual.
I think the chavtastic gif says it all. Channing Tatum has been claimed by them since we first saw him play the chauvanist but loveable hunk with a feminine side in Step Up. Went to see this guy in “Fighting” last (Orange) Wednesday. Bad film to say the least…token Hispanic girl played by a woman who I have seen play plenty of token Hispanic girls didn’t even brighten up the film on which I later Tweeted:
Fighting is a rip off of the classic violent underdog tale. Wooden and stunted plotless melee.
He gets the pity vote for eye-candy of the month, purely because he used to model for A&F and has obviously been taking acting classes at the same place as his cynical Senorita.
…And here you were thinking I was overaxaggerating. I might not have been raised by animals to sing Disney songs this
month, BUT I did have a great month regardless. My new nickname is Mowgli – given by a dear friend but disliked nonetheless. Why can’t a girl be a bit free with her massive curly hair and poor make-up regime, without being compared to a fictional eunuch, eh?
Anyhow, I digress: this month I appeared on the popular BBC programme Question Time, which was a laugh-and-a-half
…okay, it was a serious show featuring political prowess BUT it was as close to TV fame as I’m gonna get now that Jungle Run is a distant memory. I always wanted a bike/scooter/Gameboy colour.
Question Time was a great experience, and one that I won’t forget in a hurry despite not getting my massive gob on TV. And I met David Dimbleby (legend) who listened to my views on the control of policing despite being on his way off to the pub
X women at the X crawl/bad attempt at timely Marvel pun?
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Anyways, this month I also went down to the Camden X Crawl for the lovely Artrocker.tv. You can read all about my exploits with my great friend Cathryn Innocent of Cathryn photography here. The X Crawl was a great event, hence my piece, and great photos like this poser with My Passion bassist and general sweetheart Simon Rowlands ↓
I have now decided, however, that based on that experience I am never leaving home sans pen, paper and BlackBerry ever again, having made a crazeee dash to Sainsbury’s for interviewing supplies. Once and never again…I had difficulty self-scanning my items, as always…
Just to reiterate, click above for the article and read ALL ABOUT IT.
Here’s a humorous picture of me to lighten the mood of this thoroughly disjointed entry:
Shall I go blonde? Hmmm…either way, dressing as Alice In Wonderland for my friend Emily’s birthday party (British themed) was a true eye-opener to the great hair debate. Suddenly I was crazily energetic and carefree…no longer a sensible, coy brunette…
Actually, I think I look a bit like Dolly Parton myself…
I feel slightly lazy today due to flu (not of the swine variety, hopefully), so here’s something I cooked up earlier, a review of Mad Men, a show which I love so dearly. It’s in a classy font, and not-so-subtly followed by pictures of this month’s ‘Old Man Crush’, Jon Hamm. It’s a fantastic show – BBC4, 10pm, Tuesdays are the place to be for the vintage stuff (which unfortunately has to end next week as the magnificent 2nd season draws to a close)…
Truly MADly Deeply
Mutually Assured Delight has swept over my TV screen, as I’ve prepared to stage some wholly pretentious conversations about advertising, glamour and aestheticism. Yes, I’ve been watching Mad Men for all of twelve weeks, and I’m gripped.
Dapper men (such as the gorgeous protagonist Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm), Brycreemed to the max and trying it on with their secretaries, their clients’ wives or whoever happens to be nearest to the Xerox: check. The underappreciated wives; neglected whilst their husbands devise great copy for Clearasil, or ‘spend a little time’ with the aforementioned floozies: check. The deficient 2.4 children, putting the nuclear into nuclear family, making cocktails for mummy and daddy, and being berated in a terrific style for asking such uncouth classics as “are we rich?” Check.
Mad Men has stolen my Tuesday nights and transported them into a bourgeoisie world, which smells of smoke and sex and classy instrumentals. It honestly looks like a real 1980s made-for-tv-movie set in the 50s; such is the realism, the costumery and the expert camerawork. Mad Men is the truth behind both the tension and allure of the office, and I would give anything to be part of a fantasy which includes Elnett in a starring role.
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Old Man Crush status = in progress.
Stuff I like this month:
1 – Lush beauty stuff – nuff said. It’s LUSHious. and most of the products look like fudge…
2 – Festivals – counting down the days to Reading ’09!
3 – Afghani food – for the world food lover
4- My new banner, which is slightly stretched but very beautiful:
AND,
STUFF I DONT!
1 – Exams. I know that’s a stupid thing to say because we all NEED qualifications, but its the stress and hypochrondria that gets me!
2 – Swine flu. Just ‘cos.
3 – Weird coldcallers. You know who you are! I’ll ave ya for dinner!
@petejordan thanks for the follow! I'm one of the founders of Durham DJ Society + this has made our day x - Tweeted:8 hours ago
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!!! I can’t wait to chat artistes with Santo/igold and enjoy some Dubstep from Rusko & Caspa!I’ll keep posting after the festival!
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Fighting is a rip off of the classic violent underdog tale. Wooden and stunted plotless melee.
and most of the products look like fudge…
