03/21/10

Day 33: Arty Me

I’m not a big fan of cultured stuff…sit me with a Shakespeare play or in front of the Mona Lisa and I’ll complain about the old fashioned language or say ‘right what’s next…’. When it comes to things arty I am not someone who appreciates fine art. However this does not mean I don’t like art…back in January Jo and myself went down to London and as part of our trip we visited the tate modern which I really liked.

My taste in art seems to be a little bit odd….for example I LOVE the artwork attached to Less Than Jake’s album ‘Anthem’ which is very pop-art in style and when I was in London I took a couple of moody photos (photo 1 | photo 2).

I quite like odd, empty, desolate or quirky pictures and so on Friday whilst down the bomb shelter (as you do) in South Cave I took this photo which I really like.

Now alongside this I’ve been mixing loads of my own songs and wanted artwork to go with them so that there’s a booklet when I upload the whole thing because I love album artwork and love being able to read the lyrics….so I’ve added the above photo to some lyrics and I really like the outcome!

03/15/10

Day 27: They Stole Our Idea

There’s a new product heading to the supermarkets and that product is a Marmite Cereal Bar…Jo told me about it after seeing a billboard advertising poster.

Whilst I love marmite and love this idea I am a little cross about the prospect of a marmite cereal bar and the reason behind my anger and upset is quite simple…ME AND HEIDI CREATED THE CONCEPT FIRST!

Back in September (link) I blogged about our attempt to make Marmite flapjacks which I believe this cereal bar is obviously trying to be…so if you buy a Marmite cereal bar in the shops remember the concept was here first!

From Baking With Heidi & Marmite

03/12/10

Day 24: Skins

About a year ago as series 3 of Skins was aired Jo spent so much time watching it I decided to start watching it and whilst I don’t like the impression of youth culture they put across (whilst it may be an accurate picture of some young people it works on a generalisation) I find it a fantastic drama to watch.

I have since watched series 1 and 2 as well and I find that with Skins I become more attached to the characters than with other series. Skins has this trend of focusing an episode on a character and whilst the other characters appear in that episode it gives you a chance to get to know that character and it’s always struck me as clever that whilst you focus on a character a wider storyline is going on.

Having said that I’ve felt disappointed with series 4 as it’s aired over the last 6 weeks, the characters haven’t developed much and whilst the writers have aimed for a darker side they seem to have lost the merging of characters within the episodes. However my urge to blog on Skins comes from watching episode 7 where the series have suddenly got good and back to how Skins should be.

So who’s watching this series of Skins? What are your thoughts so far?

03/8/10

Day 20: Newton Faulkner

For Christmas both myself and Jo managed to independently go for gifts ‘you do’ for each other and Jo’s gift to me was tickets to see the genius that is Newton Faulkner and so last night I headed down to Sheffield for the Newton Faulkner gig.

I’ve been going to gigs since I was 17 and it’s the first gig I’ve been to with seats and so even upon entering the venue there was a very different vibe about this gig, City Hall in Sheffield is a lovely venue quite a contrast from the sticky floored O2 Academy in Sheffield I last went to in November to see Bowling for Soup.

The crowd were warmed up by musician Charlie Winston who, whilst being a very talented musician didn’t quite do it for me…not sure why….however this didn’t take any anticipation away from the arrival of Newton.

With some light background music Newton Faulkner casually strolled onto the stage, picked up his guitar and burst into ‘Intro’ and ‘Badman’ from his album ‘Rebuilt by Humans’ before continuing to go through the majority of songs from both his albums with a few quirky sections such as a short cover of ‘you spin me right round’ and concluded the gig with his famous 1 man cover of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘I’m not giving up just yet’.

Throughout the gig there was something very refreshing about the gig, Newton joked, made some comments, explained what he was doing and even tuned his own guitars giving the impression that even though he is really well known he is still a pretty humble man.

For me as a music geek my favourite thing about the gig was the transparency. All but 1 song was played by Newton all on his own combining guitaring, tapping his guitar in a variety of places and using a series of pedals to play strings, synths and a variety of other noises (oh and he used a cassette at one point!). To accompany this one man band was a couple of cameras positioned so you could see him doing everything showing that Newton Faulkner is truly a musical genius!

All in all one of the best gig’s I’ve been to and Newton Faulkner is well worth going to see!

01/18/10

A Few Weeks In Pictures

Having spent quite some time working out why photos weren’t uploading properly from my mac and solving the problem I thought I’d post some photos from the last few weeks…click them to see full size…or head to ‘Photos’ and look at the albums! Enjoy

01/1/10

Bye Bye 09

So it’s 2010…a new year and a new decade has begun (although some would argue the decade bit) and it’s also been a week since I blogged last (and even longer since a proper blog).

I had a nice new years eve last night with Jo at Ben and Laura’s lovely new house with some other friends playing some games and having a nice chilled out time.

It’s bizarre to think that we have ended the noughties (as they call them), it only seems yesterday that I was staying up till midnight for the first time in my life waiting for the new millennium and here we are 10 years later!

2009 has been a good year, I’ve driven to Italy, finished uni, graduated, got a job, moved house and perhaps most excitingly got engaged!

2010 is going to be good…this time next year I’ll be a married man…exciting stuff!

As for this blog I hope to continue posting a mix of interesting and mundane things that catch my eye and post lots of new thoughts etc.

I hope all of my readers have a fantastic 2010!

12/18/09

Festive Things

So my Christmas shopping is done, I’ve just finished writing my first Christmas song (unless in the bleak midwinter re-write counts?) and I should have a drumless version on my Myspace in the next few days…the lyrics are already up on my lyric blog (it’s called ‘Christmas sucks without her’).

Tomorrow Jo comes to South Cave and we’re off to a 3 course meal at church tomorrow night which I’m looking forward too…gonna have to find my tie!

Finally in this very short update my blog now snows…appropriate I felt for the season and weather…I’m hoping to take some snow photos tomorrow!

12/7/09

Jo’s gender change?

Has my fiance changed her gender or has the person who sent me the e-mail (header pictured below) just decided that Jo is a blokes name and I’m therefore their gay youth worker? haha!

Disclaimer: I am definately straight, Jo is a female and this post is very much tongue-in-cheek

11/17/09

Update

It’s been ages since I last blogged proving once again that my blogs come in mass or not at all…which probably means I’ll think of loads of things to blog in the next few days.

Veggie Update!

I’m in the last week of my veggiexperiment and next Monday I can eat meat again however other than having the freedom to eat anything again and not have to mess around finding the ‘V’ logo on things I’m not looking forward to it, nor am I dreading it…the thought of meat is met with apathy which is probably the biggest surprise of my experiment…I am however looking forward to fish and chips!

SPARK

On Saturday Hunsley Christian Youth Trust launched SPARK, a monthly inter-church youth service and we saw a full youth band and 35 young people attend the first one which was brilliant, I’ve almost run out of the 250 leaflets I had printed and I’m looking forward to decembers (more info here).

Amish Grace

I’m currently reading a fantastic book called ‘Armish Grace’ looking inparticular at the Nickel Mines shooting and how the community responded with forgiveness that shocked the world…review to follow!

Finally a couple of weeks ago myself and Jo went to see Disney Pixar’s latest offerings in the form of ‘UP’. I love Disney Pixar films and they’re always pretty good and up was no exception however it’s probably the most depressing Disney film I’ve ever seen dealing with the issues of Infertility and death within the FIRST TEN MINUTES!

It had a great storyline though and tackled the issues really well and although I left it feeling sad I was glad that I’d gone to see it and shall eagerly await the DVD release.

11/11/09

Veggie Update…

2 and a half weeks into my experiment and I have managed to not touch meat and I havn’t really missed it, actually the most difficult thing is the lack of fish and chips (not that I have it often), walking past the shops is horrible…it smells so good.

I think the biggest challenge of this whole thing is not so much everyday living but when you’re out. Jo and myself went to Frankie and Benny’s last week and I didn’t realise how limited the options were for vegetarians. I also found it really difficult to find a non-meaty or fishy sandwich on monday in Market Weighton without having to have a plastic bowl of rabbit food.

I guess the biggest eye-opener so far in my experience is the difficulty faced in finding food out-and-about for vegetarians, the easiest place to find food out and about was during my first week as a veggie in York where I found ‘El Piano’ (thanks to Caroline) which served completely vegan food…here’s me tucking in!

10/28/09

Album Review: Forget & Not Slow Down (Relient K)

For a long time now I’ve been a big fan of the punk-rock band Relient K and they’ve always been a band to show variety mixing pop-punk with piano riffs and even ranging to do songs with a hint of country.

Their latest album release ‘Forget and Not Slow Down’ was brought for me by Jo for my birthday last week and I eagerly stuck the CD in to listen to what they’d been up to since their last release however it was only during some long drives and loud music last week that I’ve really got into this album.

This is the first of Relient K’s albums that actually has a title the same as a track on the album and as with all their albums it shows the band maturing however unlike their last album (Five Score & Seven Years ago) this album has a clear and consistant feel about it with a feel similar to their 2004 release ‘mmhmm’ which I’ve considored to be their best for a long time.

The album opens with their first single from it ‘Forget and not slow down’ which is a catchy pop-punk song and as the album progresses the tracks flow perfectly into each other before the album finishes in true Relient K style with the song ‘this is the end’ which has a perfect mix of light piano and heavy rock. Some of my favourite tracks on the album so far include the tracks ‘I’m over it’, ‘This is the end’ and ‘If you believe me’.

I’d recommend you have a listen to this album on Spotify, Alt Press or just go and buy it on itunes!

10/26/09

Bowling for Soup Live

On Friday night Jo and myself headed to the 02 Academy in Sheffield to see Texan punk-rock band Bowling for Soup who were being supported by The Leftovers, MC Lars and Zebrahead.

I first saw Bowling for Soup live when I was 17 in Norwich and they were infact my first gig so seeing them is always special and with their new album ‘Sorry for Partyin” seeing them return to true-form (I shall blog on this album later this week) I was really excited about this gig and even more so when hearing that the incredible MC Lars would be supporting them.

So we queued up outside the venue at half 6 waiting for the doors to open surrounded by a mixture of students and 14 year old emo’s all eagerly awaiting the gig. Upon entering the venue which I’d last been in during a Ben Folds gig it seemed very full in comparison and the balcony was open this time so we headed upstairs to get the best view of the bands.

The Leftovers opened the gig with a set of their high energy pop-punk which was let down by unbalanced vocals but they were good and having since listened to them on their myspace page they are better live than on their empty-sounding studio recordings.

Next up was ‘post-punk laptop rapper’ MC Lars who I’ve been following for a few years primarily thanks to ‘Download this Song’ which he recorded with Jaret of Bowling for Soup. MC Lars gave us a high energy set of catchy rap songs including ‘Hot topic is not punk rock’ all accompanied by some fantastic video/animations on the screen behind before introducing Jaret and concluding his set with a live version of ‘Download this Song’.

Third up were Zebrahead who I first saw live (and disliked) with Bowling for Soup back in 2007 and once again I was not impressed by them, their performance although energetic was hindered by a constant bass buzz that had Jo and myself clutching our ears and despite their best efforts Zebrahead still don’t cut it for me…even with an awful cover of ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne.

Finally Bowling for Soup came onto the stage kicking off their gig with ‘The Bitch Song’ which was the only song from ‘Let’s do it for Jonny’ that they performed…surprisingly missing Belgium out of their set list. They continued playing a fantastic set of songs from all their other albums including the songs ‘Punk Rock 101′, ‘Come back to Texas’, ‘Girl all the bad guys want’ and ‘This song sounds like a dance song’ before concluding their encore with ’1985′. Unusually they even played their song ‘Two Seater’ which I’ve never heard them do live.

Their set was, as usual filled with energy and funny remarks to each other and as always they invited everyone to their houses in Texas. Bowling for Soup are one of those bands who in spite of their commercial success always seem to have fun during their gigs and never seem bothered about messing around a little bit, making them one of the most fun bands to see live.

During the gig I managed to take a load of photos which I was really happy with, here’s a couple:

One of the band