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.
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!!
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..
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..
