Blog babbling

So, after reading my good friend Amy's blog (http://dreamfortresss.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/dr-who-ten-thousand-and-parodies.html) I decided that whilst my blog should be solely music based, I am going to start blogging about random life and non-music related things as well, to fill the gaps when I have no gigs/bands to review. Here comes the useless babbling... 

I went to see Catching Fire last week after, quite honestly months and months of counting down the days until it came out. I was worried about how good it would be because I had such high expectations for it, and it was most definitely worth the wait. The film was marvelous, it was well made, well acted and of course, being a huge fangirl of the books, it was amazing to see the pages being played out on screen. So amazing in fact that I will be seeing it two or three more times in the next few weeks! I am now also counting down the days till Mockingjay part 1! 

In other news, it was my 17th birthday yesterday, and I celebrated by buying my provisional license ready to get set and get driving! I also got an amazing selection of gifts of my lovely friends, including a new Bass guitar, Voldermort's wand from Harry Potter World in Florida and a plectrum and setlist from when I saw Jake Bugg. I also had a lovely party put on for me by my friends full of references to The Office and with Canned Heat playing on repeat all evening. I got a happy birthday tweet of Fred Macpherson which pretty much made everything perfect. I also spent the entire day bleaching my hair which has now resulted in me having candy floss pink hair which is pretty cool. 

I'm really excited to go and see Peace next Monday and to see all my lovely Leeds gig friends, so you should see a review of that pretty soon! And finally, my friend Laura has interview me for her brilliant group blog Fiblar about the perils of being a fangirl so read it! http://fiblar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/interviews-five-fangirls.html

I guess me babbling about life is pretty dull, but whatever- #yolo so to speak. 

Happy Thursday 

Maisy Meets Palma Violets (Leeds Met 21.11.13)

Palma Violets Rattlesnake Rodeo tour kicked off in Wolverhampton last week, and I managed to see them in Leeds on thursday night. We hung around before the gig and met the majority of the band (including the absolute genius that is Harry Violent) before they went to Dry Dock (ITS A PUB IN A BOAT ON THE GRASS) for cheap beer and chips. 

The first support act was Glasgow band Baby Strange who I already knew one or two songs of. They were really good, their act made better by the fact that Harry was disgusted with the crowds lack of movement for the support and decided to start a mosh pit in the middle of the room - fair enough. The bands best songs were Friend, Pure Evil and an amazing upbeat cover of Peter, Bjorn and John's Young Folks which I would love to see being recorded as a B side for their next record. Would definitely go see the band again and have high hopes they'll be booked for Live at Leeds this year. 

Next support was a band called Childhood, think a hybrid between Splashh and Theme Park. They were probably less enthralling but still good. Palma Violets came on and played two unknown songs before playing their way through their album 180. Highlights were the amazing single that introduced Palma Violets to the world, Best of Friends, and my personal favourite Rattlesnake Highway. As is to be expected at a Palma Violets gig there was havoc with people crowd surfing and falling on top of people, and I did at multiple times have my hair ripped out. They left the stage for a few minutes, in which time Chilli took his shirt of (standard) and came back on to play a couple more songs, including the cover of the Hot Nasties Invasion of the Tribbles, with members of the two support bands actually playing their guitars for them so the rest of the band could just prance around on stage and jump into the crowd. 

Afterwards we went backstage to talk to whoever we could. We found Harry and talked Game of Thrones, his antics in Sheffield the night before and how people of the North are so much better at gigs than in the South, followed by a YORKSHIRE YORKSHIRE YORKSHIRE chant and lots of jumping around. He then dragged Chilli out to see us, who took photos with everyone and thanked us all profusely for coming, and promised they'd be back soon. I can't wait to have them back to Leeds. 

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the gig, as I was scared that if my phone came out of my bag I'd never see it again. You'll have to just use your imagination as to how it looked.... 

Vampire Weekend / Leeds First Direct Arena

On saturday night I saw Vampire Weekend for the second time in my life. The day started with slight disappointment, as me and my two sisters arrived at the arena 10 minutes after Ezra and Baio went into the arena, meaning we missed them! However, we did get there early enough to be at the front of our queue and get to the barrier.

I really enjoyed the support act, Noah and the Whale, which I doubted I would after seeing them at Glastonbury 2011 and be sorely disappointed. However they were a good opening act, and pretty much the entire crowd knew L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N and 5 Years Time which made for a nice sing along. A highlight of the evening, I must admit, was at the end of 5 Years Time a girl next to me just throwing up all over the floor and there being a huge circle of people in the middle of this crowd, trying aimlessly to stop drunk lads from stumbling through this pile of vomit. As sorry as I felt for the poor girl, it was hilarious.

Vampire Weekend were brilliant. Baio and his dance moves provided great entertainment as he hops around the stage. They opened with Diane Young, and moved through their songs pretty swiftly with little talk in between them. I was at the barrier for about half of the show with my little sister, who's 10. She did really well getting squashed at the front, and the security guys looked after her well. However, half way through she got a bit overwhelmed and wanted to get out so both of us got lifted over the barrier (Ive never done that before and it's really fun) so I watched the remainder of the show from the back. Regardless, it was a really enjoyable show.

If I realised anything about Vampire Weekend it's how amazing their new album is. Their album Modern Vampires of the City, which came out in May, slipped into the set really well, and although these songs are relatively new, people knew and enjoyed them as if they were classics already. They ended with Walcott, a classic off of their first album and the crowd left the arena to the sound of New York, New York.

Good Old' Miley Cyrus

Seeing as Miley Cyrus has spent the last two months or so bouncing from magazine to tabloid with her ridiculous and raunchy antics I decided to allow you my view on her situation. Lucky you.

At the VMA Music Awards in August, former Hannah Montana pop star Miley Cyrus took to the stage wearing a nude coloured underwear set, 'twerking' on teddy bears and dancing with Robin Thicke (shudder). This seemed to be her baptism of fire into her new persona. Since then she has smoked a joint on stage whilst accepting awards, danced provocatively with dwarfs (?) and released a music video where she licks a hammer. Now, I totally get that she has spent her entire life as this blonde, Tennessee country pop star Hannah Montanna, and is primarily, a disney child star. So whilst I think the stuff she is getting up to is quite frankly stupid and disgusting,  I don't blame her for wanting to break free from this.

However, the complaint of many (including myself) is that due to her disney career, Miley Cyrus will forever be a kids star. The age group of her fans are pretty much around 11-14, which raises the argument of her being a bad example to these kids. Suddenly Hannah Montana fans are going to buy tickets to her concerts which will be nothing but glorified strip shows. Young girls are going to start sticking their tounges out and twerking on things. But is this Miley Cyrus' fault? Should her life be constantly tied down to being a good example for these children? Is that really fair? It seems as if the only option for child stars is to die down into non-existence or shock everyone when they announce that they actually want to have some fun. In all fairness you'd see worse behaviour coming from normal non-famous girls her age, but because of her highlighted life of fame, she gets all the stick for it. Sort of doesn't seem too fair?

This blog post has no real meaning or formulated ending. I'm not even making any point, other than child disney stars are sort of trapped in a cycle of good example vs living your life. I would however like to point out that I am in no agreement to Miley Cyrus' behaviour, but she wants to do it and so thats that. Give the girl a break?

Heaven Knows He's Miserable Now (Morrissey Autobiography Review)

This past week I went to Turkey, because ever so occasionally I do something social that isn't music related (not often mind). Whilst in Turkey I enjoyed reading three books, Gone Girl (excellent - really recommend), The Fault In Our Stars (re-read it for the fifth time and cried on the beach) and finally, the autobiography of Steven Morrissey.

My first attempt at reading this was cut short. It was the first book I tried to read, yet the first two lines, 'My childhood is streets upon streets upon streets. Streets to define you and streets to confine you', indicated that this wouldn't exactly be an easy read. Morrissey is obviously a very poetic man, as we all know through his classic Smiths songs, which meant that he struggled to write about his childhood in any simple sentences. Every sentence had two or three meanings which takes time for me to get my head around. So I put it away, read a book about a psychotic fictional woman, and then picked it up again for round two.

I was afraid that reading it would really put me off Morrissey. I have made the mistake in my head of ignoring anything anyone has ever said about him being a completely miserable arse, and have imagined a fictional Morrissey that smiles at fans and whips Gladioli around his head 24/7, however obviously this is not true. In truth, Morrissey's outlook on life seems to be that everyone and everything is out to get him. If anything, it's horrible to read about a musical idol who suffers so much inside, so much so that he spent his teenage years either waiting for something exciting to happen or to just die.

This book also gave me the impression that Johnny Marr was the lifeblood of The Smiths. Johnny came to Morrissey, Johnny brought in Andy and Mike, and convinced them to come back when they didn't want to be in the band anymore. It was through Johnny's 'man about town' persona that got them in touch with people, got them playing gigs. I believe this book also didn't give enough insight onto the break up of the smiths, with Morrissey reporting that they broke up without any screaming and fighting, but later on having Johnny asking Morrissey wether he did have any idea how the rest of the band felt in those last days. If this book did anything for me, it made me desperate for a Johnny Marr autobiography, to piece together the real emotions of the band as they went through their fame.

Finally, one of the later sections of the book goes into great, great detail about The Smiths famous legal battle over royalty payments, which I do believe Andy Rourke won and got his money. Morrissey uses his book as a platform to tell the public about the court case in, quite honestly, too much detail! Page after page of how Rourke had no evidence to his name, and everyone else wanted to gang up on him. The case is put across to the reader as if it is all completely unjust and that the judge just wanted Rourke to win, however I find myself doubting the complete truth in this. The english justice system may be unfair at times but I highly doubt a judge would award a man £1 million after presenting as little evidence as Morrissey made out.

It may not seem as though I did, but I really enjoyed reading this book! This blog has turned out to be less of a review and more of a 'what I thought was wrong with it', but for some reason I'm struggling to pick out particularly good points. However, overall I enjoyed reading it, and really hope we'll be seeing a Marr autobiography soon.




Final note: I appreciate that by removing chapters in the book, Morrissey was breaking free from literary boundaries or whatever, but it feels like he's rebelling against something just because he can. Books have chapters for a reason and I don't really want to give up ease of reading in order to stand up against every writer ever for the past 300 years....