The Folk Forest

It’s no secret that I think Sheffield is the greatest city on earth. I’ve been to Paris, Berlin, London and Amsterdam, loved them all (especially Berlin) but I’d still rather live in Sheffield. It’s just the right size, a bit above 500,000 people at last count, it has a long history of sport and music, it has a ridiculous number of hills and most importantly it is so beautifully green.

You can make it from a point about 20 minutes walk outside the city centre to the countryside solely walking through the many parks and barely having to cross any roads. That’s incredible to me, a busy city with an industrial past, yet absolutely covered in parks and gardens. Within 5 minutes of leaving my house I can either be in the countryside or at the top of a hill from which I am able to look out across half of the city.

This photo isn't one of my own, I googled views of Sheffield from Crookes and this came up, but it's a photo which perfectly summed up my point; I could leave right now and be in the spot where the photographer who took this shot was stood within at most 10 minutes.

This weekend Sheffield has hosted Tramlines festival, one of, if not THE, biggest free music festival in the country, where bands are playing in a range of open spaces, bars and clubs. It’s sad but I haven’t been able to do the festival justice this year, I went for a wander in town yesterday but for various reasons I didn’t get to see Los Campesinos or The Crookes, the two main bands I really wanted to see this weekend.

However there was an hour this evening that almost made up for the disappointment of missing out on the rest of the festival. I went to one of my favourite parks in the city, Endcliffe Park, to experience the final hour of what the festival organisers were calling ‘The Folk Forest’. That hour was a performance by Martin Simpson in a small area enclosed by trees and a almost too picturesque stream. I’m going to try and upload a video I recorded in the next couple of days, but for now you’ll just have to try and picture what a folk legend playing in a woodland glade as the sun begins to set.

It was one of those moments that come all too rarely, where everything possible seems to have come together to create the kind of moments you picture in advance but never actually believe will take place.

So in conclusion I didn’t do justice to Tramlines this year but there was an hour this Sunday evening which almost made up for it. And perhaps one perfect hour is actually better than two days worth of trying too hard to enjoy a festival. No I’d rather have spent the entire weekend at the festival, but I will be grateful for what I did enjoy.

Today's song is one of the ones Simpson played this evening, a song that showcases the kind of music he makes and just how good a guitarist he is.

Rest In Peace

It has been a sad day today. Waking up to find that the death toll in Norway is so much higher than was being reported last night is truly tragic; it is one of those events that on some level defies explanation yet makes everyone desperate for one. No matter what degree of analysis his political or religious alignment gets, there will never be an entirely satisfactory explanation for what motivated this man to kill so many other humans.

There was the instant surge in Islamophobia over Twitter and Facebook when news started to break of the bomb attack, before the anger and rhetoric swung towards condemning right wing fundamentalists as the real identity of the terrorist emerged. In all honesty I don’t believe it matters or helps the people of Oslo and Norway as a whole to start pointing fingers at groups or religions. A whole lot of people pointing at each other saying “it was your group who did it” helps no-one and only serves to enforce the idea of ideological lines in the sand which we must fight over and spill more blood.

Yes there is a serious problem with militant right wing groups in Europe, just as the world is right to be concerned about the threat of groups like Al Qaeda but what matters right now is bringing people together and emphasising the point that this was carried out by one inconceivably cruel and deranged individual, rather than damning entire cultural, social or religious groupings. Divisive statements and accusatory mud flinging only serve to sow precisely the kind of discord I imagine this man hoped for, people like him, the people who value human life so little and have the mental capability to carry out such acts want attention, they want to cause pain, anger and suffering and so the best response the world can have is to join together in condemning the man, calmly and rationally looking at the groups he claims to be aligned with and, without wanting to sound like too much of a hippy, not answer hate with more hate.

The victims of the attacks can be better honoured by people looking to do everything they can to avoid another attack of this kind rather than spreading more animosity and vitriol. Their families will draw more comfort from sympathy than from their loved ones death’s being used for political point scoring. The key problem with any mudslinging is that it is rare anyone comes out looking particularly good.

This evening the news also broke that Amy Winehouse has died. The singer was only 27 and though it hasn’t been confirmed in anything I’ve read that the death was drugs related, the assumption is forgivable due to her long history of problems with substance abuse. It is a tragic event, because regardless of her issues with drugs, the death of any 27 year old is a sad event, especially one who clearly had so much to offer the world. I don’t believe she, or her family and friends, deserve less sympathy due to her personal life; Amy Winehouse deserves our sympathy and pity for ending up so addicted to drugs and drink that she couldn’t find a way out, even with the help of professionals. People making jokes about how she ‘should have gone back to rehab’ etc are pathetic and slightly sickening, to try and find humour and some sort or pleasure in the untimely end of a woman who clearly was troubled. It shows a lack of basic humanity in them if they decide that it’s funny that she died because she was addicted to drugs. As my sister accurately put it, would they be making jokes about rehab if their sister or best friend had died from a drugs overdose? I’d hope they wouldn’t and so that poses questions about why it is ok to say it about Ms Winehouse, just because she’s a celebrity.

Then there’s the depressing number of people stating anger and disappointment at people showing so much sympathy for Amy when something so terrible has happened in Norway. I have two main problems with those people. The first and lesser issue is that I didn’t see the majority of them posting anything last night or this morning about the attacks in Norway, there were no messages of condolence and sympathy then, but now they can make an aggressive and negative comparison they are jumping on the opportunity in the manner that seems so common on the internet.

The second and much more pressing reason is that I don’t understand why they seem to believe sympathy for one person must take away from the other situation. I can only speak for myself, but I have it in me to feel grief for the people of Norway affected by the attack AND a singer who died far too young. I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t express sadness at the death of Amy Winehouse just because another tragic event occurred recently. One doesn’t cancel out or dilute the other and the likely self inflicted nature of one doesn’t make it any less sad.

I am deeply saddened that there are people so utterly evil that they can commit atrocities such as the attack in Oslo and I will mourn the passing of a talented but troubled singer. If you don’t have it in you to do both then maybe you need to take a good hard look at yourself.

There is only one song that could finish this post, the song that Amy Winehouse will be remembered for, the song that proved that despite whatever else went on in her life, she had an incredible, passionate and soulful voice, one which will sadly no longer be heard.

A Dream Weekend

I, like I imagine a lot of people, have been thinking in the past couple of days what I could have done with the money if I’d won that £161m Euromillions jackpot. One idea that would probably be completely impractical but when viewed with the same degree of realism as involved in me winning a lottery without entering it in the first place, it seemed pretty brilliant was that I would organise my absolute dream festival. The idea was triggered by my excitement about Tramlines in a week’s time and the knowledge that it’s now about halfway between Glastonbury and Leeds Festival, the two national festivals that I always wish I could afford to go to.

As it is a festival being paid for out of my money it would of course have a line up handpicked by me, and just as obviously, every single artist I’d like would be available and eager to play at the festival. I’d also somehow control my weather to be a beautifully sunny every day and have some kind of control over who was allowed to turn up. Because in my fantasy I’m allowed to be a bit of a snob.

That though naturally rolled into this one; who would make up that dream line up. I decided to settle on a 3 day festival, with 10 bands playing each day (I have no interest in booking a festival so fully that I end up having to choose between two bands I want to hear.) There’d also be an almost excessive number of conveniently placed toilets and cheap beer stands, so there would be no issue of too much or too little hydration. There’d be 15 minute breaks between each band for people to get food and drinks and stuff.

So here goes, in chronological order of when they’d go on stage, starting at around 3 pm, with the first 6 bands having 45 minute sets, the next three having an hour and 15 minutes and the headliner getting two whole hours. Factoring in the breaks that means the headliners would finish at around half 12. At which point a club in a giant tent would start up. I would also have final decision on set lists, which for some of the bands listed would mean skipping whole albums or focussing on 1 particular record.

Friday

· Hurts

· Delphic

· Arcade Fire

· LCD Soundsystem

· Naked and Famous

· The XX

· Wild Beasts

· Fleet Foxes

· Elbow

· Bloc Party

Saturday

· Florence & The Machine

· Chapel Club

· The Gaslight Anthem

· The Strokes

· We Are Scientists

· The Boxer Rebellion

· Muse

· White Lies

· Arctic Monkeys

· Rise Against

Sunday

· Tegan and Sara

· Jamie Woon

· Frank Hamilton

· Sigur Ros

· Bon Iver

· City & Colour

· Adele

· Laura Marling

· Mumford & Sons

· Frank Turner

That festival would, for me, be absolutely worth whatever expense it took to arrange. It’d be worth it just for the three headliners, but with all those other bands I can’t really think of a way I’d rather spend a weekend than at that festival.

Today’s song is a Frank Turner one, a song that fits well with yesterday’s post, specifically the section where I mentioned that he is responsible for some of my favourite lyrics ever. This song has probably my favourite two verses worth of lyrics and I think I’ve posted them before, but I love them so much I’m going to post them again.

“I am sick and tired of people who are living on the B-list. They’re waiting to be famous and they’re wondering why they do this. And I know I’m not the one who is habitually optimistic, but I’m the one who’s got the microphone here so just remember this:

Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings, and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering, and help us with remembering that the only thing that’s left to do is live. After all the loving and the losing, the heroes and the pioneers, the only thing that’s left to do is get another round in at the bar.”

A Man With A Guitar And A Whole Lot Of Heart

So I now feel that I’ve given Frank Turner’s new album ‘England Keep My Bones’ sufficient listening to be able to write a good review of it. The title is drawn from a lesser known Shakespeare play, ‘The Life and Death of King John’ and as Turner himself explained in an interview with ‘mindequalsblown’ website, “the album was, for the most part, about mortality, and about Englishness”.

Those themes are abundantly clear throughout from the gentle build up and reflective lyrics of opener ‘Eulogy’ to the medieval ballad ‘English Curse’, this is an album that is all about what it means to Frank Turner to be English and what it means to accept that life has been going on for a long time before you arrived, and will do so again after you die. It’s an album about not just understanding, but taking pride in your place in the world, the fact that you’re just one person among billions being a beautiful thing rather than a negative.

It’s no secret that I love Frank Turner’s music, I’d definitely say he’s my favourite solo artist and so I listen to any new songs from him with that combination of expectance and nervousness that we reserve for our favourite artists. We are sure it will be brilliant but are terrified it might fall short of what we expect from them.

This album didn’t disappoint and it is perhaps an improvement on the previous album in my opinion. I never connected with ‘Poetry of the Deed’ in the same way I love his first two studio albums and the collection of b-sides and alternative takes released under the title ‘The First Three Years’. It was maybe a little too polished and radio friendly when compared to the wonderful roughness and passion of his earlier material. That’s not to say it was a bad album, far from it, merely that by the ridiculously high standards I hold him to, it was a tiny step backwards.

On ‘England’ the passion and the hint of pain is there again. I think I’ve mentioned before my theory about there being two types of music fans; lyrics people or melody people, and that I fall within the lyrics camp. Well one of the things that appeals to me about Frank Turner is the lyrics in his songs, so many of my favourite lyrics come from his music and that fine tradition is continued in this latest album.

I’m going to post a selection of the lyrics that have stood out so far in the album, the lyrics that show the themes of Englishness, mortality, passion and romanticism, themes I have more than a passing interest in.

Eulogy

‘Well I haven’t always been a perfect person,
And I haven’t done what mum and dad had dreamed,
But on the day I die I’ll say “At least I fucking tried”,
And that’s the only Eulogy I need.’

Peggy Sang The Blues

‘And Peggy said “It doesn’t matter where you come from,
It matters where you go,
And no one gets remembered, in this listless, loveless life,
For the things they didn’t do.”’

I Still Believe

‘I still believe in the need for guitars and drums and desperate poetry.’

‘I still believe that everyone
Can find a song for every time they’ve lost, and every time they’ve won
So just remember folks we’re not just saving lives, we’re saving souls and we’re having fun.’

Rivers

‘And all our sins will be forgiven, washed away to set us free,
By the rivers that run through our homesteads, by myth and modal melody.’

I Am Disappeared

‘We are blood cells alive in the bloodstream of the beating heart of the country.
We are electric pulses in the pathways of the sleeping soul of the country.’

If Ever I Stray

‘And some days it feels like you just can’t win,
No matter what you do or say.
Things didn’t kill me but I don’t feel stronger.
Life is short but it feels much longer’

‘The path I chose isn’t straight and narrow -
It wanders around like a drunken fellow.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to follow,
But if you’ve got my back I’ll go on,
If you’ve got my back I’ll go on.’

Redemption

‘Oh is love really real and can any of us hope for redemption?
Or are we all merely biding our time down to lonely conclusions?’

‘These failures shift and shake me in the night,
Like I fever I can’t break, try as I might.’

Hope, pride, retrospective thought, passion, desire, despair and determination; all are emotions that are touched upon in ‘England Keep My Bones’ and surely that’s the mark of the truly great music, the songs that manage to combine a great tune with lyrics that are heartfelt and meaningful. It’s the reason that no matter how much I might be enjoying the dancier end of the musical spectrum, no matter how much I’m loving an album that is 90% or more comprised of computer based noises, I will always return to the songs by men and women with guitars and pianos, who sing about life, love and all the painful stuff that goes along with it.

Instead of posting a song here like i usually would, I simply advise you to give the whole album a listen, including the bonus tracks if you can track down a version with them on. If you can afford it and still own a CD player and a set of speakers rather than playing everything through your computer, go out and get a physical copy of the CD, put it in the CD player and just listen, without distractions or skipping songs, appreciate an album in the way it should be.

A Very British Summertime

I experienced two moments today that felt like the perfect embodiments of British summertime, or at least what I want it to be like.

Moment one came while watching Wimbledon and a match between the 2^nd seed Djokovic and the 32^nd seed Baghdatis. The match took place on Centre Court in clear sunshine and, in front of a passionate crowd a classic example of the British affection for the underdog unfolded. Djokovic is a great player, perhaps one of the only real challengers to the Nadal/Federer dominance of the past 8 years, and I’m sure if or when he comes up against either of them he will get a much more favourable response from the crowd, but by the 4^th set of this afternoons match it was abundantly clear where their affection lay, and it wasn’t with the Serb.

Baghdatis, the 26 year old Cypriot, always looked likely to lose the match, his opponent was that little bit sharper and more assured, as you’d expect from someone rated as highly as he is, but especially in the 4^th set he put up such a spirited fight that the crowd warmed to him to a degree usually reserved for the plucky but doomed British players at this tournament.

At 4 games to 2 down in that set, with the overall score at 2 sets to 1 in Djokovic’s favour, it seemed almost a foregone conclusion that the Serbian ace would see the rest of the set out with a minimum of effort but Baghdatis battled on and it reached the point where every point he won was cheered to the rafters and calls of “Come on Marcos” rang out.

Djokovic eventually won 6-4 and though he looked a little frustrated with the crowd’s reaction, he’s experienced enough to know that it was affection for the Cypriot rather than any negative opinion of him or his performance.

It’s a British stereotype, but I suspect it actually extends to most nationalities, the affection for the underdog, stories of someone battling to try and beat a far superior foe, often regardless of whether they eventually win or not. I’m not a massive tennis fan, nor do I have any particularly strong feelings of any kind for Baghdatis, but I really enjoyed this particular game and found the way the crowd got behind the player kind of inspirational.

Moment two came while watching footage from Glastonbury, specifically watching Elbow’s set on the Pyramid Stage. I love Elbow, especially the previous two albums, and a number of their songs seem to have been written almost with this particular moment in mind. They were playing just as the sun began to set, in front of a crowd which stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was one of those perfect festival moments, the kind that when you see them on TV fill you with an intense longing to be actually in that field. It doesn’t hurt that Guy Garvey has to be one of the most likable people making music at the moment, his charisma and charm was clear to see as he interacted with the crowd and likewise their affection for him was displayed through passionate sing-a-longs and some entertaining crowd stunts. The performance of ‘One Day Like This’ was suitably euphoric, ‘Lippy Kids’ was incredible and ‘Open Arms’ provided the very definition of a feel-good moment as the entire crowd sang the chorus at the top of their lungs while the sun began to sank behind the Somerset hills. However the song of theirs I want to finish this blog with is the studio version of the one which I believe was the strongest performance of the lot, a fantastic rendition of ‘Grounds for Divorce’.

A Festival On My Laptop

Sadly I’ve never been to a big weekend festival, though I am a big supporter of ‘Tramlines Festival’ the free summer festival held in Sheffield which has been excellent the past two years and is looking promising this one. Despite never attending, I do however always look forward to the weekends of the Glastonbury and Leeds festivals as they guarantee a whole host of entertaining live footage from my favourite bands.

The BBC tend to devote BBC3 to showing a mixture of live sets and highlights while also streaming them online and uploading them to view over the next week or so in an archive; it’s an opportunity I always try to take full advantage of. It won’t ever be the same as being at the festival and experiencing the atmosphere, but enjoying the sets of some great artists in the comfort of my own home is a luxury I’m incredibly grateful for. As a general rule I manage to see a good 20 or 30 sets via the TV and Internet and that's a remarkable opportunity as well as an argument in favour of the license fee and the value of the BBC.

Tonight’s highlight from the opening day of Glastonbury for me was Mumford and Sons set. I’m a big fan of those guys and their debut album is one of my most played CDs from the last couple of years; they offer folksy indie full of banjo riffs and the kind of cheesy, melodramatic romantic lyrics that I can’t help but love and they make me want to dance, or perhaps the better verb would be to jig.

Despite the rain, the mud and the facilities which I am sure are in a pretty terrible state already, watching that set made me incredibly jealous of the people in those Somerset fields; Mumford seemed on great form and the crowd really seemed to be enjoying it, both the well known favourites off of the first album and the new tracks off of the album they claim will be recorded very soon ('Lover's Eyes' stood out in particular and there are decent live versions on Youtube if you missed the Glastonbury set). If those performances were anything to go by I will definitely be looking forward to hearing the 2^nd album and I’ll be keeping an eye out for any tour dates I can make.

I’m going to be spending the rest of this weekend alternating between coverage of Glastonbury, coverage of Wimbledon and finishing off Battlestar Galactica and I’ll probably write a review of the best sets I’ve watched from the festival on either Monday or Tuesday.

Today's song had to be a Mumford and Sons one, so i thought i'd go for one that's slightly less well known than 'Little Lion Man' and 'White Blank Page', despite my love for those two tracks.

A Friday's Worth Of Music

I spent today enjoying being free of exams and coursework by doing relatively little; watching some TV (Battlestar Galactica, which so far seems decent but i'm only 4 episodes in so i'm reserving judgement for now and the opening episode of Family Guy series 9), going for a brief walk in the sunshine, doing sudokus (i find them incredibly relaxing and addictive), watched a film (Monsters, which was part of an ill-advised but inevitable DVD spree in HMV on Wednesday, and absolutely as good as i remembered it being, 5/5 definitely) and read both online and physical news.

The TV and movie bits aside the whole day has been soundtracked by a playlist i compiled shortly after waking up of a bunch of new music i'm really liking at the moment and that music is going to form the body of this blog post. Some of it i found by my usual method of stumbling around the internet following related artist links, some was on recommendations from blogs and websites and a couple were based on advice from friends. I'll have spoken about a few of them before but those that i have are worth a second mention i believe.

Wild Beasts

I've been seeing Wild Beasts mentioned in relation to a lot of other artists i am a fan of but for no particular reason had never got round to giving them a listen, that is until yesterday afternoon. I've now listened to their two most recent studio albums a couple of times over each and my main emotion is disappointment that i haven't checked them out before. 'Two Dancers' and the 2011 release 'Smother' are both great albums, dabbling at the electronic end of indie and entertainingly varied over the course of either LP.

Some tunes like 'Deeper' combine relaxed guitar, synth lines and drums with an almost Guy Garvey-esque vocal smoothness, while others are more fast paced and dancy, such as 'Hooting and Howling'. It's the range and changeability of tempos within their songs which makes them so entertaining.

Chapel Club

Another band whose name i'd seen plenty of but couldn't think of a song they'd done was these guys from London. Their debut album "Palace" is excellent with a refreshingly straight forward guitar based indie sound that reminds me of a number of the indie bands from the early 2000's, the period when i fell in love with music. There are hints of Editors, Futureheads and Cribs, but the band they most remind me of are Boy Kill Boy, a band who i think are under-rated and whose album 'Civilian' was a favourite for a period of my teens. Chapel Club's songs are characterised by aggresive guitar and drum lines as seen in 'Surfacing' and the song i posted last night 'All The Eastern Girls' or by more harmony focussed chorus' like in 'Oh Maybe I'. There slightly retro sound may put some people off, but for all that i love the current crop of electronica based indie bands, sometimes i like a good old fashioned guitar band and Chapel Club fit that bill.

The Crookes

I've written a few times about this Sheffield based band so i'll keep this short but it is worth remarking that their album is standing up to repeat listens and their song 'Backstreet Lovers' is a definite favourite.

The Naked and Famous

These guys are another band which i've already given quite a bit of coverage, but like 'The Crookes', their album still sounds absolutely brilliant despite some pretty intense listening. 'Punching In A Dream', 'Girls Like You' and 'No Way' are all incredible tunes which either make me want to lie in the sun with friends or go out, get drunk and dance like a loon depending on my mood at the time, but either way it's a good feeling.

Fenech-Soler

This was a band mentioned in passing by a friend as worth giving a listen to as i like Friendly Fires and that's a good way of summing up their appeal. So far i'm not convinced over the course of an album they offer a whole lot that is much better than Friendly Fires first album but the track 'Stone-bridge' is a great tune.

The Vaccines

Another of the group of bands bringing guitar based indie back after a period in the wilderness, at least so far as good quality stuff was concerned, is The Vaccines. Their songs at times have a brilliant simplicity reminiscent of The Ramones as in 'Wreckin Bar (ra ra ra)', but they also showcase on their debut album the ability to do some more complex tunes when the mood takes them. 'Post Break-up sex' is a real indie anthem in the making with the right combination of danceable tune and sing along chorus to make sure it gets played up and down the country in Indie clubs.

Dirty Projectors

Now i've only listened to a couple of the songs by these guys but i'm already intrigued, at least partly just because the songs were so different from each other. It means that i can't get enough of a handle on them yet to write a good review but i definitely like it enough to recommend it.

So that's the round up of the bands that appeared on today's playlist so if you're wanting to listen to some music this Friday evening, but aren't so so so excited enough to listen to Rebecca Black then you could do worse than to check out the bands listed above.

Over the next few weeks i'm going to be posting a series of film reviews in amongst the other news and random events inspired posts. They're going to be a series of 500 word reviews of my favourite films, categorised by genre and the first one will be my favourite comedy film, which will probably be posted on Sunday evening. I suspect that quite a few of the people who read this will be able to guess what it will be but until Sunday i won't confirm or deny those guesses.

Seeing as part of the reason i like several of the bands mentioned above is that they exemplify a return to the kind of indie which made me fall in love with music as a 13/14 year old, i thought i'd finish this blog with a song from the first album i ever bought with my own money, the first album i listened to all the way through only to press play again the moment it finished and the first album which made me realise just how important music could be to my life.

Just Over 12 Hours Until The End Of Second Year

So by this time tomorrow i'll have finished my second year of university. That's a terrifying thought. Barring a pretty cataclysmic collapse in my grades i will only have one more year of higher education before i have to start making real, life changing decisions.

This is only going to be a very short blog post as i'm tired and need to focus on some last ditch revision, so after briefly mentioning being scared i'll just post a couple of the songs i most enjoyed listening to today.

Tommy Reilly - Jackets

Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean

& Radiohead - House of Cards

A Brief Break From Boredom

As i really should be revising rather than blogging right now i'm just going to do a quick top 5 list of the songs that have helped me get through a day's worth of Rousseau, Mills, Locke and Hobbes. Tomorrow's post will probably be a list of films according to some theme i've not decided on yet, but i'll go back to doing more lengthy posts once i've got this Political Theory exam out of the way. For now though, enjoy.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

A Quiet Saturday Night

This is one of those days where i don't have any one particular issue i want to write about but there are a bunch of smaller things i want to cover, i'll warn you in advance if you find a coherent link between them all, it's purely accidental.

• Forest today guaranteed a two legged showdown with Swansea in the Championship Play Offs with a supremely comfortable 3-0 win over a Crystal Palace side who knew they had nothing to play for. It was a good win and will hopefully see us go into the Play Offs full of confidence; something i can't quite manage to share. I have a pretty intense love/hate relationship with the end of season competition; i love it for the adrenaline that the games cause to flow through me, i hate them for the seemingly inevitable disappointment they cause. I am fully aware even as i type this that for many people what i'm about to write will seem idiotic and bizarre, that's because it is both things, but i am so much more nervous about the Play Off matches than i am about my impending second year exams. It's the power football holds over me and i'm just hoping that for once that they pan out a little better this year than last.
• I want to congratulate QPR on their promotion to the Premiership, they deserved it for how consistent they have been throughout the season and though the FA have handled the whole inquest incredibly badly, i'm glad they haven't had a points deduction. My one objection is that if it's clear they're in the wrong which seems to be the case as they've been found guilty on two charges, the fine of £850,000 is a bit redundant seeing as they're owned by one of the richest men in English football and have just won a promotion which will bring in millions of pounds; that size fine is fairly meaningless to them. A 5 point deduction earlier in the year, when QPR would still have had time to recover in footballing terms would have been a much more satisfactory outcome, but once they took so long to organise and carry out the inquest any points deduction at this stage would have just seemed cruel on the fans.
• There's a rumour going around on Twitter that one of the pieces of information to come from the Osama Bin Laden raid is that he is a fan of the sitcom 'The IT Crowd'. Now i am 99% certain that there is absolutely no truth to this, but it's a brilliant rumour for someone to have made up and if he wasn't a fan, he was missing out. It's a great show and i'm very glad they've been commissioned for a fifth series.
• One definite positive to come out of the Local Council elections this week, a positive that got kind of ignored amidst all the focus on the Liberal Democrat collapse and the rejection of AV is that the BNP only managed to win 2 of the 268 elections they were contesting, a huge drop in the support they had in 2007 and lost all 5 of the seats they had previously held in Stoke-on-Trent.
• I'm loving Fleet Foxes new album right now, heard it for the first time earlier this week and it has grown on me even in such a short space of time; it's maintained the beautiful harmonies and atmospheric instrumentation of the first album but there's a more mature sound to their songs and a greater freedom to experiment on show, now that they know they have an audience who will listen to them. 'The Shrine/An Argument' is a great example of this, 8 minutes which alternate between typical Fleet Foxes delicate melodies, intense vocals, aggressive guitars and strange, almost proggy, little moments which should seem out of place yet somehow fit perfectly. It's not as easy a listen as the first album but i don't mean that as a criticism; yes it looses a little of the soothing quality that made the first album a favourite, but i'd rather they try something a bit new rather than simply reproducing the same sound over and over again. Like any great band they've grown up a little following their debut album and it shows on this effort.
• I watched 'Doomsday' this afternoon. Directed by Neil Marshall who brought the world 'Dog Soldiers' and 'The Descent', two of the best British horror/thrillers of the past few years, this 2008 effort lacks the level of quality and control that the other two showed. It's a tale of a post apocalyptic Britain where Scotland has been sealed off by a modern day Hadrian's wall after the outbreak of a killer disease called the 'reaper virus' in Glasgow. The main part of the film takes place nearly 30 years after the initial outbreak and Scotland is believed to be deserted after the people were left to die out, but when an outbreak is discovered in London an elite squad is sent to Scotland to try and find a cure after it's revealed that survivors have been spotted via satellite. So far so genre, but it's an opening packed with potential. Sadly the rest of the film is a confusing mess, entertaining definitely, but it flits from one set piece to the next, encountering an urban gang of cannibal-punks in Glasgow and a society which has regressed to medieval standards in the moorlands, both of whom are immune, without a strong enough plot or deep enough characterisation to make the story particularly involving. You watch it pass you by and at several points are drawn in by a fight or a car chase, but despite some strong elements and ideas it doesn't work particularly well as a whole. Marshall is a director who clearly has a lot of talent but Doomsday feels self-indulgent, as if he's living out a range of fantasies without justifying them. At most i can give it 2/5 and that's mainly because i wasn't bored throughout, i just wouldn't watch it again.
• To finish this post i'm going to choose a mash-up done by a Sheffield band who i've mentioned on here before, The Gentlemen. Now i've not been to one of their gigs for about a year, and not seen them much at all since i left Sheffield for university, but i still keep an eye out for any new music they make, seeing as i spent a lot of time at their gigs during the couple of years before i moved to Leicester. It's a mash up of two songs i wouldn't have imagined working together; precisely the kind of mash up i tend to love.

Enjoying The Worldwide Element Of The Web

The Internet is kind of scary. The sheer scope and scale of it is incredible and though there are a lot of brilliant sides to the world wide web, it has it's flaws and the very freedom it grants people is often abused or misused.

My reason for writing this is that last night highlighted for me just how brilliant it can be. It was a bit of a weird night all in all; i couldn't focus on any one thing for the majority of the evening and kept chopping and changing what i was doing, but eventually i started writing, working on a fledgling idea for a new story, and somehow i managed to keep going until it was gone 3am. I'd had no intention to stay up so late but i've written so little creatively this year that when i am in a mood like i was last night i'm loathe to stop myself from writing more. Like i said though i ran out of steam a little after 3, but i still wasn't all that tired. It was then that i remembered something i'd seen on Twitter earlier that day but dismissed as impractical. Frank Turner was playing a gig in Brooklyn, New York yesterday evening and he'd posted a link on his twitter page where the entire gig would be streamed live from 3am onwards.

It may have been late but a chance to watch a Frank Turner gig live, even if on a computer screen rather than in person, isn't something i was going to miss out on. Here is the link to why i think the Internet is incredible; for two hours i sat watching a live video of a man playing a gig on the other side of the Atlantic, talking to other fans who were watching the gig via the stream and just enjoying this sense that distances were somehow made smaller by the web. The picture and sound quality was great to say it was a live stream and it made it all worth while staying up that late when i got to watch him perform one of my favourite songs of his - 'Smiling at strangers on trains'. I've never seen it performed live and, as someone who values live music pretty highly and Frank Turner equally so, it was a big deal for me.

The sense of being connected with people thousands of miles away was a more intense version of the feeling i get when i look on the statistics bit of this blog and see that it was read by people in Singapore, China and Indonesia. I'll never meet these people, i almost certainly have very little in common, yet on the far side of the world there are people who've read things i've written. It's a cool concept.

An extreme example of this inter-connectivity is the role the Internet has played in the so called 'Arab Spring'. Social networking sites have allowed oppressed communities to organise protests and mobilise people in a manner that the various "security" forces of the region simply weren't prepared for. It also allowed people to get their stories heard by the wider world even as governments desperately attempted to stifle the flow of news in and out of their countries. Though their problems are all very different and each situation is unique, the revolutionaries in different countries drew inspiration and practical advice from each other, for example Tunisian protesters advising their counterparts in other countries how to deal with tear gas. The Internet didn't cause these revolutions or even inspire them, the reasons for the unrest in the region goes back much longer and are much deeper than that, but it facilitated them, it offered citizens a weapon to fight back with against repressive governments.

The Internet's undoubtedly got it's flaws; it offers people anonymity to be crueller than they'd ever dare be in person, people feel free to insult and threaten other people from the safety of their computer keyboards, never having to face up to the consequences of their actions. Even the most cursory glance at the average YouTube video will show you that the old adage "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all" isn't really acknowledged online. The song 'Friday' by Rebecca Black is a terrible song, but the level of abuse thrown at this teenage girl by people who get some sort of kick out of writing the most horrible thing they can think of is just depressing.

I'd write more but one of the consequences of staying up past 5am watching a gig in America is that i'm extremely tired already this evening and i fear if i write any more i'll lose any sense of narrative flow or structure and it'll just become a complete ramble, rather than the traditional partially rambling nature of my blogs.

The song to finish this blog post is the Frank Turner song i mentioned earlier. That feeling of being so close to the answers, yet so far away, especially when it comes to girls, is one i'm more than a little familiar with and that is at least part of the reason i love the song. Plus it's just a good tune.

Back to the Bloc

The choice of what to focus this blog on was made very easy by the discovery of a news story i stumbled across completely inadvertently while having a quick look at the Guardian's music section - http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/06/bloc-party-new-album.

Yes, that's right, according to the guitarist Russell Lissack Bloc Party will be recording new material by the end of the year, with a view to more albums and live tours. Now anyone who knows me properly will know just how happy this news made me. Bloc Party are my favourite band ever, their debut album 'Silent Alarm' is one of my favourite albums ever, 'This Modern Love' is arguably my favourite song ever, or at least it's the one that consistently springs to mind first when that question is posed and when i saw them almost a year and a half ago at the o2 academy in Sheffield it was one of the best gigs i've ever been to. So it's safe to say it's a good bit of news that when they split up over a year ago, it was merely a hiatus rather than a true conclusion to them as a band.

It really has made my day to know that there will quite possibly be another Bloc Party album, that i might get a chance to see them again live. Now bands reforming doesn't always mean a return to past glories, as often as not they're a dissappointment and the suspicion won't go away that the return was inspired as much by profit margins as the pursuit of musical brilliance, but i really hope this isn't the case here. I suspect it isn't as Kele has had a successful time as a solo artist with his more dance orientated debut solo abum, 'The Boxer' earning good reviews and plenty of plays on my iPod. The guitarist Russell has just finished touring with Ash after being their guitarist for the duration and has his own side project in the band 'Pin Me Down'. These are people who could find success elsewhere if they chose to, but are returning to Bloc Party so i'm definitely hopeful that i won't be let down.

The fact that i found out this news on my last day of university for this year, a day where i got two pieces of work back with grades i'm happy with and a day where i'm really beginning to look forward to all the plans that are beginning to take shape for the next couple of weeks only adds to my current almost uncharacteristically cheery mood.

The great thing is there's nothing scheduled for the next couple of weeks that is inevitably going to spoil my mood. That's not to say there won't be something, almost certainly there will be, but at least i can go into the next few days genuinely optimistic and positive about how things are going to pan out.

To finish this blog i'm going to post a list of my top 5 Bloc Party songs at the time of writing (it changes often enough so i can't promise it won't have changed by the time you read it, but the songs chosen will remain great regardless.)

5. Blue Light

4. Halo

3. So Here We Are

2. SRXT

1. This Modern Love

Football, films and funerals

Despite a slightly morbid start, today was a very good day.

It started morbidly for two reasons. Firstly because i had to read over last night's post about the death penalty as i'd written it while tired (or at least i was tired by the end of it) and so wanted to check i hadn't made any glaring mistakes. The other reason was that, as part of a 30 day song challenge that i have been joining in with on Facebook, i was asked what song i would choose for my funeral.

Now much like the question of the previous day, about wedding song choices, i really hadn't given this topic much thought. It's a tough one to decide really. Do you go for a sad, mournful song? Or an optimistic, happy one? Do you go for something ironic? (Oasis' "Live Forever" sprang to mind) Or darkly comic? (If i died from decapitation, as unlikely as it may be, i'd be a bit annoyed if someone didn't at least suggest the Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Heads will roll", likewise, if i die from a heart attack i hope someone would propose the XX's "Heart Skipped a Beat") I don't really like the idea of having a really depressing funeral. I know i dabble in misery and melodrama at times, but i don't want to inflict that on others. That's why the more comic options appeal, i kind of want my funeral to be more about moving on with their lives than mourning. Who knows though, when i'm older and closer to dying (hopefully the two will be linked) i might want to draw out every last bit of sympathy i can get, even after i'm no longer alive to appreciate it.

Then there's the issue that a lot of the songs out there that deal with death are intensely personal affairs, written by one person, about losing another specific person, it doesn't feel right adopting their grief for my own purposes. For example, "Friends of Ours" off of Elbow's album "The Seldom Seen Kid" is a beautiful, heartfelt and moving tribute to a friend of Guy Garvey's. I wouldn't be comfortable using a song like that.

I'm also not religious, so songs that suggest the afterlife seem slightly inappropriate and almost insincere. If i've never believed in the concept of life after death while i was alive it wouldn't seem right to make references otherwise in my song choice.

However, all this thinking was getting me no where, and as the clock was ticking down towards midnight and i just wanted to choose one i had to loosen the conditions a bit, allow a few songs as possibilities that went against the issues i raised above. In the end i settled for a song which is beautiful, neither too sad or too happy and would make my funeral pretty epic, especially if someone could actually sing it live; i chose Pink Floyd's, "The Great Gig In The Sky".

It was an interesting topic to think about but i am glad that the rest of the day managed to be a bit more upbeat. I had my first park kick about of the year, with a few friends, jumpers for goal posts and a penny floater. It was great fun and i've got to say i'm loving the fact that the weather is getting warm enough for the idea of spending an afternoon in a park becoming a good one, rather than an act of stubborn bravery.

Afterwards i had a curry while watching the film, "Easy A". It was released last year, with Emma Stone as the lead actress. It was a very good high school comedy, about the power rumours can have on a person's school life, the way people's perceptions of you can change and the degree to which a little white lie can get completely out of hand. It's definitely a bit similar to "Mean Girls", which is a definite guilty pleasure of a film, with perhaps less stand out laugh out loud lines, but managing to remain consistently funny throughout. I'd definitely recommend it.

So, as i said at the beginning, today has been a good day. It's been a day where i contemplated my own funeral, a day where i played football and a day where i watched an attractive woman be accused of promiscuity. What's not to like?

To finish off, here's a song i considered for the funeral song, but decided against in the end for a whole host of reasons. However this particular live performance is definitely my favourite video on Youtube. It's Frank Turner playing "The Ballad of Me and My Friends" live at Reading in 2009.

A Rare Day of Productivity

Today has been uncharacteristically productive. Or at least the first part was. I woke at 9, handed in my essay, had a haircut, did a food shop and did a bit of reading, all before 1pm. For me to have achieved anything before 1 o'clock is pretty rare, i tend to fall into the student stereotype definitely of sleeping in for a good chunk of the morning.

It probably helped that when i woke up the sky was pretty much cloudless. Sadly that hasn't lasted, it's all gone a bit grey now, but while it lasted it added quite pleasantly to what was a pretty enjoyable morning.

The morning was to a large extent sound tracked by the second White Lies album, Ritual, which i really rate. I liked it from the moment i first heard one of the singles, Bigger than us, and since buying the album it's developed into a real favourite. Their first album highlighted how comfortable they were with the epic and the rousing, but the entire album had an almost maudlin air to it. Now there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, and when i was in the right mood i actively appreciated the slightly depressing melodrama of it all, but it meant it couldn't really be music for all occasions.

The second album is definitely more uplifting, more optimistic, as highlighted by a lyric in the first track on it, "The only thing i've ever found, that's greater than it always sounds, is love." It's definitely not a lyric you'd have expected to hear on their first effort, an album that had the cheerily titled songs 'Death' and 'To Lose Your Life' as an opening double.

What makes it impressive is that it's still dark and epic in places, they've managed to retain what made the first album good, without it sounding quite so much like an album i might have written if i was having a really bad day.

In a little bit me and my mate are wandering over to the Leicester City ground to watch the varsity football matches between De Montfort University and Leicester University. Should be a good laugh and any excuse to watch a football match is one i'm going to take.

To finish this blog i'll post two songs, from a fairly new and promising sounding band, one which i've taken an interest in for musically irrelevant but geographical reasons. They're called 'The Crookes' after the area of Sheffield they formed in, an area neighbouring where i grew up. Sadly none of the members are actually from Sheffield, but they're good enough that i don't mind.

&

Post-Essay Laziness

It's going to be a pretty short post today. I've spent all day writing an essay on whether the US death penalty is effective in reducing crime. I'll probably write a blog about it sometime soon, because it's a subject i find very interesting, but right now i can't bring myself to write anything more about it.

Last night i made a surprising amount of progress on a short story i've been trying to write for several months now. I'd got a lot of the key elements together, but i just couldn't get it to flow, couldn't quite get it to feel like a story rather than a selection of chapters. I'd written it in a kind of odd style, i wrote the beginning, middle and end of the story without writing the chapters that linked them. Hopefully i'll have it finished soon, i'll definitely mention it on here once it's done and anyone who wants to read it would be perfectly welcome.

Now for the main part of this blog, a top 5 list of songs that got me through the essay writing today. Seeing as it took me quite a long time to do the essay, my mood changed a fair bit and so the music i listened to ended up being quite varied. Seeing as it's a Sunday evening it seemed appropriate that i did a chart countdown of my own.

At Number 5 a song that makes me want to go on a night out every time i hear it:

In at Number 4, a classic and permanent favourite

Number 3 in this countdown of songs that kept me going is a bit of good old fashioned guitar based indie, from a promising sounding band:

Just missing out on the top spot, in at Number 2 is this:

And Number 1 tonight is a song which is a definite favourite right now:

Singing Their Hearts Out

I'd like to think i have a pretty varied taste in music, at one point my iTunes goes from the Foo Fighters, to the Four Tops, to Frank Hamilton, which i kind of love. I have, and enjoy, plenty of music which is simply fun and almost slightly throwaway, but the songs i love, the ones that get played over and over again are the songs with real emotion and passion within them.

Songs where you can tell that the musician cared about the song they were making, put real thought into the lyrics, wanting them to truly mean something to someone.

Songs where the emotion and message seem genuine rather than forced. Songs which draw in your full attention, not an easy task when most people, me included, very rarely sit down and just listen to an album, instead usually on their computer, or reading, or at least texting.

It's those things that set songs apart for me. I reckon it's why i've never properly got into the dancier and more electronic ends of music. As good as many of those songs are, and as much as i can enjoy them if i'm in the right mood, i find they rarely carry the weight of meaning that other genres achieve and it is that weight which tends to be the reason i begin to really like a song.

When i say songs with emotion and passion i'm not just talking about heart wrenching ballads. Rock songs, indie songs, folk songs and acoustic songs, pop songs, blues songs, rap songs, soul songs and classical pieces,all these genres and many more have songs within them which have struck me as powerful.

Sometimes a powerful song isn't what i want, sometimes i want a song which to use an inadequate adjective are simply more 'fun'. But the songs that matter, at least in my opinion, are the ones which clearly mattered to the person making them.

I reckon there are two types of serious music fan; lyrics people and instrument people. Pretty much everyone will lean towards one or the other. For some people it's the lyrics that make you love a song, for others it's the tune and the rhythm. That's not to say a lyrics person can't love a particular guitar riff or that an instrument person can't connect with a particular set of lyrics, merely that for anyone it tends to be one that matters more, that is the catalyst for them becoming passionate about a song.

I am definitely a lyrics person. If i like a song i pretty much inevitably try and learn at least some of the lyrics, precisely because it will be sections of those lyrics that drew me to the song in the first place. My dad on the other hand is very much an instrument person, he likes certain lyrics, but they're very rarely the defining feature of a song for him.

The inspiration for this whole post came in two parts, or more specifically two musicians. First up was Adele. It's not a situation i'm all that used to, where an artist i am really loving, someone who i feel sings with real passion and emotion, is also top of the charts and getting played everywhere, but i'm glad in this instance it has happened. I've never quite understood some music fans attitudes towards there favourite artists gaining success and mass-popularity. I guess they feel like their losing some of their connection to the music, it isn't 'theirs' any more if everyone is listening to it. You only have to go on Youtube and have a brief look at almost any popular artist's videos to see a selection of the fans boasting about 'having liked them before they were big' and making the assumption that popularity means that they've 'sold out'.

I'm perfectly happy to admit that though i'd listened to Adele's debut album, and liked a few of the tracks, i'd never really been passionate about her music until i heard the new album, particularly the now insanely popular "Someone Like You". It's one of those rare songs that makes me want to stop what i'm doing and just listen, precisely because it feels so personal and intense. Watching the live versions from the Brits and the BBC Live Lounge, watching the emotion of the song so clearly displayed on her face, it's a wonderful counter-weight to songs like 'Dirty Bit' by the Black Eyed Peas. This is a woman who managed to make a Cheryl Cole song classy and soulful (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czwlth4mx5Q), two adjectives rarely associated with the X-Factor judge.

The other artist that inspired me to write this blog, is Tim McIlrath, or more accurately his band Rise Against. Now they're not exactly the kind of band a lot of people would expect me to like, but i definitely do. There's something so passionate about their songs, yet they also carry an intelligence and political message in their lyrics, which sets them a little apart from many of the other rock/punk/metal/whatever genre you want to put them in bands. On their last album they had a song with at times almost uncomfortably honest and open lyrics about the loss of innocence of an American soldier serving in Iraq called "Hero of War", on their new album released this week, there's a song about the prejudice and fear that can be the life of many gay Americans inspired by the suicides of several gay American boys in September 2010 (the names are read out during the song in the background). These are songs about real issues, rather than songs about bizzare dance moves or lives lived solely in the pursuit of wealth and 'bling'.

I don't consider it at all naive to suggest that these songs can really matter, that a song can make a difference to someone's life. There's plenty of songs which have got me through some pretty bad days, or given me the motivation to enjoy some really good ones. Songs are like stories, they're subjective and because of that they have the potential to mean a huge amount to an individual, they are capable of meaning so much more than the simple combination of vocals and melody would suggest.

If you want to read more about just how important i believe both songs and stories to be, have a read of two of my earlier blog posts. Here's the one about music and here's the one about stories, personally that's one of the posts i'm most proud of, so i hope you enjoy it.

As always i'll finish this post with a song recommendation. Today's is fittingly a song which i've always loved, because of the passion involved and the lyrics which manage to capture emotions most people will have felt at some point. Also it proves my point that songs with passion aren't just ballads in my eyes, The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love.

As a footnote to this blog i'll put the set of lyrics that are arguably my favourite, by anyone, right now. They're from Frank Turner's song "I knew Prufock before he was famous".

"And i know i'm not the one who is habitually optimistic

But i'm the one who's got the microphone so just remember this.

Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings

About fire in our bellies and about furtive little feelings

And the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a flickering

And help us with remembering that the only thing that's left to do is live."

Friday the 11th of March

This post is mostly going to be about music but i felt that it's only right that i start it by saying that right now my thoughts are with two sets of people half the world away this evening. I hope the news coming in from Japan doesn't get any worse, that the situation at the nuclear plant resolves itself and the men and women of Japan are able to begin to get their lives back on track soon after this earthquake. The footage that has turned up on the internet is shocking and awe inspiring in the worst possible way; the raw power of the earthquake and the tsunami that followed it have proven that even the most technologically advanced societies on earth are still vulnerable to the sheer power of a natural disaster. The other people on my mind are the Libyan rebels; fighting and dying for every town and city as Gaddafi attacks his 'people' with a brutal disregard for human life. Meanwhile the UN debates and discusses faced with the minefield of international diplomacy and a situation where there is no indisputable right answer. Personally i'd support the creation of a no fly zone over Libya, recognising the council in Benghazi as the legitimate government and offering them advice and weapons (seeing as we've helped arm most of the other powers in the region it would be nice if for once we gave our weapons to the good guys).

On a lighter note, i've been enjoying doing the 30 day song challenge on facebook (basically a set of rules which require you to post a different song, chosen on a different set of criteria, each day, and post it on your wall) it's been an interesting experiment and posed me several almost unanswerable questions; how on earth am i meant to choose my favourite song for example? It's a question for which the answer changes on an almost hourly basis, depending on my mood and where i am. As it was i chose my favourite Bloc Party song, This Modern Love as this has been pretty consistently up amongst my favourite songs. I've found it really entertaining trying to work out which songs fit which categories, though some have definitely been easier (favourite band) than others (a song that makes you happy - there were a lot of options).

It's also been good fun to go on the main page for the challenge and scroll through what other people have put. I find it fascinating to look at which songs other people find happy or sad, which songs carry particular meaning and which bands they simply can't stand. It's been a great reminder of just how subjective music is, how one person's favourite song can be another's most hated, without it saying anything critical about either person.

Music has some objective value, like any art form; there are some pieces which require more skill than others, some which challenge the audience more, but in the end the most important aspects; whether you enjoy it, whether it takes on some meaning beyond that of a simple 3 minute song or whether it captures peoples imaginations, all that is subjective and i'm incredibly glad for that. I love the fact that despite the hyper-socialised world most people of my age group live in, where peer pressure can be implemented on a national or global scale via the internet, music, and the arts in general, are still so wonderfully subjective. You may say you like one song or another to impress someone else, but deep down you have opinions on that songs which are entirely personal and i'm intensely grateful for that.

The experiment was one of a whole host of reasons why i've decided to change my own attitude to this blog. I'm going to try and post more frequently, instead of only writing when i have something that has been bugging me for days at a time. I'm going to try and write most days, even if it's just to post a song or two which i think people should listen to, recommend a tv show or film i think people should watch or just ramble about what is on my mind.

So today (it's technically tomorrow, or yesterday depending on your perspective, i'm too tired to care either way) i'm going to recommend a band from New Zealand called 'The Naked And The Famous'. If you're going to go on a night out, or just want a song or two to get you in a more upbeat mood, check them out. I'd particularly recommend 'Punching In A Dream' and 'Girls Like You' if you only have time to listen to a couple.

I think i'll finish this blog with a brief section of lyrics from one of my favourite songs right now:

I still believe, in the need, for guitars and drums and desperate poetry

If i was ever to get a tatoo, those words would be the ones i'd get done.

Any feedback is very welcome, whether it's good or bad, plus any musical recommendations are always much appreciated.