Flux and Flow

ALEXISONFIRE TICKETS ARE HEEEEERRRRRREEEEEEE!!

Ahem.. excuse me... but apart from that!

Been a quiet one this week - apologies apologies! I finished work at the factory last Friday, and since then I've just had a bit of a laze and seen some friends and spent some quality time with my nan and grandad :) I have a ton of reading to do for uni that I need to get on top of too (about 12 books!), plus job search, and I'd like to try paint/draw some more too. Also, upkeeping this blog (because all writing is practice!) and getting back into writing fiction and fan-fiction - yes, I was one of those in a former life! - is something to keep me busy too.

I'm currently catching up on Reading & Leeds 2012 highlights, and watching The Maccabees, The Cure and Florence and the Machine atm, although I'll probably watch as much as the highlights as I can by later. I'm totally jealous of my friend who spent the entire weekend at Reading, it sounded like it was an absolute blast!  I've often struggled to justify the price of festivals due to the ticket prices compared to the amount of bands that I'd want to see, but my friend said that they saw at least 20-25 bands with only occasional overlaps, and apart from that there was tents with various activities and shopping and things going on, which was more than I'd ever thought was there to be honest, so I think next year I'll definitely have to go! Plus Muse are due for the festival circuit next year (though I have a feeling that they'll opt for Glastonbury) so I'll definitely put some effort into getting down there!

Apart from that, I've not much to say for now, but I think I may leave you with a LIGHTS live set just to give this post some purpose :) She's talented and a total beaut!

Flashback Friday's.. Alexisonfire - 'Hey, It's Your Funeral Mama!'

Slightly late today ladies and gents, but I have FANTASTIC news (for me at least anyway!) because, after approximately 8 or 9 years of loving and wishing, my wish has come true! I.. am going to see.........

ALEXISONFIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :'D :'D :'D :'D ajfkepgkfnpesnbgv-gewanaffangoebgikuaesgve a!!!!

I can't express how happy I am at all! This bands means so much to me and they've been my favourite band for so long! This was really perhaps the first band that made me make the transition into more mature 'rock' music, moving away from bands such as Lostprophets etc and into post-hardcore.

Alexisonfire are a very diverse band, easily shifting between being melodic yet edgy and downright aggressive punk. What also makes them unique is their effective use of not 1, not 2, but 3 (!?) vocalists! In theory, it should be a mess, but it works so well because each of the vocalists specialise in a certain vocal range; George Pettit shrieks and screeches his tirade, Dallas Green smooth, pitch perfect voice, with Wade MacNeil straddling the fence in between with his rumbling punky undertones!

The band announced that they were to split last year, after Green decided to devote himself full time to his folk side project, City and Colour, whilst MacNeil was named the new Gallows frontman following the departure of Frank Carter, but that's another story! At the time, I was so distraught that I'd missed the opportunity to see them play during their previous run of the UK (their visiting Nottingham seemed too far away at the time, despite the fact that I'm now willing to travel to London!), so I'm ecstatic that my friend managed to get us tickets this time :D

Back to the song - this is 'Hey, It's Your Funeral Mama!', taken from their second album, Watch Out!, perhaps their most experimental release, and my personal favourite! It was the first song that I heard by them and will always be amongst my favourites, perhaps just being on the subject matter of Go-Karting! If you like this, go check all their albums; if you're not so keen on one, you may be on another, as the sounds shifts a little through the time periods. Their last release, Dog's Blood EP, was easily their heaviest stuff to date and they went out with a bang!

Alexisonfire are playing London's Brixton Academy on Mon 3rd December (sold out) and added Sun 2nd December due to demand !

Grab 'em whilst you can!

http://theonlybandever.com/presale/
http://www.facebook.com/AOFofficial

Nothing better than a good idea!

So, in the midst of Britain's yearly heatwave, I spent the day indoors flitting about and sorting my student finance application (finally finished!) and printed some tab to learn on bass, 'R U Mine' by Arctic Monkeys next for me, I think. Also trying to teach myself guitar on my old acoustic that I first bought in age 11, saved all my pocket money for that! I quickly remembered what it was about attempting to teach myself that made me give up last time - struggling to hold down the chords. For someone with long, bendy fingers, you'd think that I'd have a much easier time achieving this than I actually am! However, I have a better concept of how to play the instrument this time around, after teaching myself bass; when I tried about 8 years ago, my brain genuinely couldn't comprehend strumming and timing!

Anyway, whilst filling in my student finance I was quickly reminded that I could really do with finding a job. Even if I only earned enough to have a bit of spending money as well as give my folks some board, it would be better than getting in more debt. Money left untouched is money that can be repaid quicker, after all. It was whilst browsing through some of my favourite blogs that I was struck by an idea. I was on LLYMLRS BigCartel, JWLRY, when I realised that she was, essentially, purchasing, bundling and re-selling rings in order to make a profit. After seeing all of the reconstructed and customised clothes at vintage store, COW in Birmingham last week, I realised that this was something that I and two of my friends whom take an interest in fashion could easily do ourselves, buying cheaply from places such as eBay and in sales and even raiding our own wardrobes for unwanted clothes which we could bleach, shred, stud and patch in order to make something one-off and unique. 'Vintage' has been really embraced in the past few years, especially so within the youth market who have a lot of disposable income, so this is something we could really capitalise on! Customising to order is another idea that I also had, for example taking a denim item and buying patches specifically and halving price costs between us and the seller. Retailing the actual denim higher than what we paid for it could still result in profit, as would purchasing the customising materials such as studs and the like in bulk. 

The three of us have pretty different styles of dress - I prefer dark colours, plaid and tartan, prints and loose fitting tops, whilst my (girl) best friend is far more feminine and prefers dresses, skirts and bright colours, whilst my (male) best friend prefers retro shirts, painfully skinny jeans and gaudy prints. Between the three of us, I really think we could come up with something that could appeal to a lot of people! Hopefully, the financial and business side of this can work out as efficiently as what I think the creative aspect will :)

In other news, the Japanese Voyeurs B-Side and Rarities CD that I ordered last week arrived today. It's a limited edition of 250 (mine was numbered 231) and I knew it was something that I had to own, as they were set to be my new favourite band (after the demise of Alexisonfire D':) before they too, decided to split a few months ago. The disc has some really good songs on it and was a snatch at £7 including postage, and I'll probably do a review on it in the next few days!

If you've never heard of Japanese Voyeurs, I'll leave you with a taster below, enjoy :)