Two of my biggest regrets.. (maybe not ever, but definitely in terms of music)

So, over the last few years The National have barged their way through the masses of music lodged in my brain, and have managed to become one of my favourite bands..This is mainly down to the fact that Matt Berninger's voice manages to stir up feelings that a voice definitely should not be able to do.

Now they played at Glastonbury last year, and to my absolute dismay, I DIDN'T GET TO SEE THEM.. I'm pretty sure I had sunstroke (pale kid in extreme heat- you work it out), that teamed with a girl deciding to throw a pint of cider over my head, meant I wasn't in the best of moods. I was sat at my tent when they played their set, luckily we were pretty close to the Other Stage, so could hear it relatively well, but the magnitude of what I'd done only set in once they'd finished. I have no idea what I was thinking, and I have regretted it ever since. There is only one other event that I regret on a similar scale, and that's missing Latitude Festival 2008..Sigur Ros, Interpol and Joanna Newsom..and I wasn't there.. I know Grace Evenhuis will share my pain here.

But no matter, I will see them eventually..I'm pretty determined like that. Untill then, I have YouTube to try and fool myself into thinking I was actually watching them live. You see that person 5th row back in the fabulous hat? yea, that was ME..

Grace and I also manged to see Sigur Ros a few years ago at Alexandra Palace, which did help the slow healing process of missing them at Latitude..Here's a video of them, simply for the reason that it is ridiculously amazing..As good as they are, The National have a long way to go before knocking Sigur Ros off of the top spot..

The Pretty Reckless?..yea, err, they're alright..

Now, I'm not entirely sure where people stand on The Pretty Reckless, as anyone I've ever heard talking about them say they like them in a sheepish manner before laughing and denying they ever said anything. This, I can only assume is because the lead singer, Taylor Momsen, plays little Jenny Humphrey in Gossip Girl, which casts a somewhat awkward shadow over the band- 'What you like The Pretty Reckless? Bah, you must watch Gossip Girl you gay'.. That's the only logical assumption I can think of anyway..(Oh I do watch Gossip Girl btw..please don't judge me)

I always liked Momsen, that was until I found out she was 17, which is when my natural urge to hate anyone younger than me who has made far more of their life kicked in good and proper. That and the fact I saw her being interviewed on This Morning last year and she came across as such a douche. No one is better than Holly and Philip, so stop thinking you are! Plus, she kept saying she had been writing songs since she was 5..now, although I'm assuming these 'songs' were most likely about seeing a cat, stroking a cat, and crying for an hour because the cat ran away, the fact she had attempted anything at 5 years old just made me even more aware of how underdeveloped I was as a child. Unless there was a chance to play hairdressers and cut a Barbie's hair off, then I just wasn't interested.

I honestly started writing this with the intention of sticking up for The Pretty Reckless..but as I started writing it, I realised just how much I don't like Taylor Momsen.. except her voice, I'll give you that one Moms, you can hold a note..

I actually quite like their song 'Miss Nothing' (I know it's old- but I've just rediscovered it on my ipod)..but then I saw the video...I honestly have no idea what she's doing in it.. but yea we get it..you're sultry and hot.. get a new look for fuck sake!..and wash your eyes while you're at it..

So, that's 'art' then, is it?

Although I moan a hell of a lot about my dissertation, I am in fact LOVING researching about crazy artists. I mean, who wouldn't love analysing paintings like this!? :

Turns out alota these artists were slightly obsessed with sex.. which works great for me, as it means I get to talk about Freud..man, I LOVE Freud.. mainly as I always imagine him when he's alone thinking "Oh my God..I can't believe they bought that Oedipus shit..LOL"...

I love me some crazies..(pretty sure the term 'crazies' is not politically correct..but WHATEVS)

Public Announcement- Calling my Future Husband

If you were driving around Leicester today blasting out this song and singing along, occasionally in tune, please get in contact as I very much want you to be my future husband..

I look forward to hearing from you,

Sarah,Age 21.

'Hand me down the shark repellent bat spray'

So last week I sat down with my bro to watch the original 1966 Batman movie for about the 176th time, and I honestly don't know how it does it, but I swear it gets better every single time...It is one of the first films I remember watching , which makes sense as apparently my dad made me watch it as soon as I was able to understand words other than 'num nums' and 'potty', and kept making me watch it until quoting the film became my second language.. Think it's safe to say I was VERY popular in primary school.. I assume every family has a film that they remember all watching together, and the fact that Batman along with numerous Carry On films were my first memories, says quite a lot about my family.. particularly my dad.

Sadly, as I have absolutely no interest in football or any other form of sport, means I am somewhat limited in my conversation with him, therefore I often have to rely on old TV shows that we used to watch together on VHS (bear in mind I'm only 21 and obviously wasn't around when any of these first aired).. All I can say is thank God for John Cleese and the Monty Python gang, Sid James, Arthur Lowe (who btw is the spitting image of my dad ) Norman Wisdom, The Two Ronnies and Rowan Atkinson, otherwise conversation would have dried up long ago..

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest film scenes ever made, everything about it is just perfect, and if you disagree then frankly, I no longer wish to be associated with you..

It's also thanks to this that Adam West was one of my first crushes..lets just say playground talks about who you're going to marry when you're older were particularly awkward.. I never did get a second invite to play fantasy weddings.. kids can be so cruel.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

I don't drive, but if I did, I would blast this song out wherever I was driving.. Particularly if I was actually driving home.. I might learn to drive purely to be able to do this.

stellastarr*

This band popped up on my ipod earlier this afternoon and WHAT A TREAT! I used to love stellastarr* not only because I loved their music, but because they had an asterisk in their name..Also the day I found out that Stella meant star pretty much blew my mind.. THREE stars in one name.. wowzers.

My coco is actually one of my favorite songs ever, although I've been told that I say that about everything, so it does lose it's validity somewhat whenever I say it, but for this song, it is actually true..

'Lost in Time' is the song I listen to whenever I feel shit, which according to its number of plays on itunes is quite a lot.. but it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! ..I used to always use the lyrics from this song in my artwork at school..there's a handy hint for ya'll, if you can't draw that well, just fill up the page with lyrics and phrases in an 'edgy' style, and hey presto- you've made some art..works every time.

ENJOY

The Joy Formidable

So I've been meaning to post this since I went to see The Joy Formidable perform at the O2 Academy Leicester a few weeks ago. For me, they have been a band whereby after seeing them I had one of those moments when you suddenly realise 'How did I not know about these guys before??' Admittedly, about a week or so before seeing them live, I had never heard of them, which resulted in me spending the week prior to the gig solely listening to anything they had ever done. I have never become so hooked on a band, so quickly.. not for a long time anyway, I'm pretty sure the first time I heard Hoppipolla, it sparked an instant love..But that's Sigur Ros, my relationship with them is on an ENTIRELY different level..

Anyway, I turned up for the gig ready to be wowed, now, I don't know if anyone has been to O2 Academy Leicester before, Room 1 is great (I use the term 'great' very loosely), but Room 2 (which is where Joy Formidable were playing) slightly resembles a church hall, which, let's face it, isn't the best venue for a gig. But no matter, on with the show.. Support came from The Chapman Family (another band played too, but I missed them), who were pretty good, but I felt so unbelievably sorry for them because the audience was honestly the most bizarre mix of people I had ever seen. It was a disjointed mix of students, children and A LOT of old men, maybe they got confused and thought it was actually a church hall? I always find it excruciating seeing a band play to a crowd who are just not having ANY of it, which is a shame, because as I said, they were pretty good..Maybe Leicester just aren't ready for the whole music scene yet..

Luckily, when The Joy Formidable came on, the audience drastically changed and suddenly, what had been a river of slow nods and sways transformed into a bit of a mosh pit (albeit a mosh pit confined to the front three rows, but still, anything compared to how it was before would have looked like a riot.) Thankfully I had had a fair few beers by this point, so I was in the mood for a bit of a dance, and the following hour and a half was quite possibly one of the funnest, and definitely the sweatiest, gigs I have been to in a while! Who woulda thought you could have so much fun in a room with wooden paneled walls..

If you haven't heard about them, I implore you to go and listen to their album 'The Big Roar'. It really is very good. The lead singer Ritzy is also a complete fox..I have no reservations in admitting I have a MAJOR girl crush on her, and when I found out she was dating the guitarist it just made me love them even more..how cute!!

Rolling in the Tweed

I realise most people would have heard this Jamie xx remix of Rolling in The Deep by Adele, but I am absolutely addicted to it, and have had it on repeat for far too many days now..It also got played at a club in Leeds on Saturday night..and I very much enjoyed dancing to it with Grace..Sadly, our particularly sexy dancing only attracted three men who were all wearing tweed coats.. A man who wears a tweed coat in a club is not a man for me I'm afraid.. Unfortunately, that was the only attention we got, so serves us right for being so picky..

Art and Insanity

Thanks to my dissertation on the Relationship between Genius and Insanity in Art, (which I have discovered sounds far more interesting than it actually is) I have stumbled upon some of the most amazing artwork, which bizarrely receives very little recognition. This untitled painting by Josef Forster has quickly become one of my faves, and had it not been for me stupidly wanting to do a dissertation when I didn't actually have to, I would have never found it. Mentally ill artists were deemed as outsiders due to their disconnection with society, yet i bloody love pretty much all of the art work that I have found .. not sure what that says about me.

I also spent quite a while researching the doodles and scribbles of schizophrenics, and found that my doodles have many similar characteristics..I'm going to pretend that doesn't have any sort of connection though..