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[ivory-sunflower]

✨Peter 'The Heater' Clarke✨

Hello!

I'm going to start by apologising for disappearing for 2 months, life has been very busy as of late but I am back! There's a few posts I want to make but I thought I'd start with something fun.

If you've seen a few of my other posts, you'll probably have seen me talking about a musician called Conchúr White, a few months ago he started a podcast, called Liquid Chords, with Dead Rabbit Whiskey (highly recommend, it's a great if you're into your music, particularly Irish musicians). In January they introduced a new co-host/character to the mix: Peter 'The Heater' Clarke, a slightly off-putting but incredibly loveable "Australian" man with a diabetic pet fish. Being a podcast, it was all auditory so I decided to bring Peter the Heater to life, and here we are!

This was the first one I made and it went down very well with Conchúr and Dead Rabbit! They loved it! If you're wondering why "Conchúr" is written as "Con-chur" it is because Peter will not pronounce it right. I had no idea at that point who was playing Peter the Heater on the podcast so I made him up, I thought the outfit was funny and that's why I went with it. After I posted it Conchúr told me who was playing the character and considering I designed the character blindly I got REMARKABLY close to the actual fella, the only difference being that drawing has slightly darker hair.

Peter the Heater joined Instagram in February and he uses that drawing as his profile picture <3

To welcome Peter the Heater (yes, I will continue to use his full title) to Instagram I drew up another picture of him having the time of his life in a tree. That drawing is the only one where Peter's outfit changes and that is because the shirt is meant to reflect the Instagram logo colours, no one seemed to pick up on that though...

The next one came after Episode 16 of Liquid Chords was released and in that they had added special Peter the Heater segments where he was taking part in therapy sessions with Conchúr (an actual qualified therapist). I added Peter's diabetic fish in for emotional support.

The therapy sessions continued and it was revealed that Peter wanted to be part of Liquid Chords to get a girlfriend and in this drawing he put his own Lonely Hearts advert on The Financial Times... He is also very insistent that he is the star of Liquid Chords and that it is, in fact, Conchúr who is the annoyance; I beg to differ, it is quite clear that the fish (whom they refuse to name despite me asking many times) is the star of the show!

The next came from another therapy session where they tried some meditation. As you can see from all the drawings, Conchúr is having such a GREAT time with Peter around but I think secretly he loves having him around.

Bringing the little saga to a close (for now) was the season finale of Liquid Chords this week and I absolutely love this drawing, it's probably my favourite of the lot. I'm going to really miss the podcast to be honest and I really hope we get a second season. I'm not sure if I'll do anymore drawings while there's no new episodes going out. I have ideas for some but I'm not sure if I'll follow through with them. With Peter the Heater having Instagram I'm assuming the character will carry on for at least a bit so maybe I will do a couple more.

I've had a lot of fun doing the drawings and everyone involved has enjoyed them, I'm sure my other Instagram followers are a bit mystified but ay well. I'm just glad that they have been enjoyed and they didn't find it weird that I was making them, but they could at least name the fish! Until they do, I'm giving him the honorary name of Kevin.

~ Love Ginger xx

19/03/2021

[ivory-sunflower]

✨Hyperfixations✨

Hello!

If you’ve seen previous posts from this blog, you might already know that I’m autistic; It’s not something I hide because I don’t see the point in doing so. I’m putting this disclaimer here so people don’t come for me and try and call me out for whatever reason.

I’ve had many fixations through the course of my life, as I’ve gotten older the way they develop and the impact they have had definitely changed. In my early teens I was dealing with a myriad of other mental health issues alongside these fixations. However, at the time we didn’t realise that that’s what they were because I was only diagnosed when I was 14. It’s important to note that I was dealing with other issues, as those issues consumed a huge amount of energy and so I never realised how truly draining hyperfixations are. It’s only now that I’m fairly level with my other issues that I have seen the full effect of a hyperfixation. I always put my lack of concentration and the exhaustion down to the anxiety and depression, but it’s become clear that they weren’t the only factors.

I joked in a couple of posts that Temples were becoming a new fixation for me, but oh boy... It has hit hard. It has completely knocked me off kilter. For the last 3 or 4 weeks (maybe longer) it has been almost unbearable, all I can think about is the band and it’s incredibly difficult to concentrate on anything else. Even when I manage to focus on something else, if someone says something that fires something in my mind then I’m just out for the next half an hour. I’ll be trying to do physics revision, I’ll be looking at Milikan’s oil drop experiment, I’ll see the word “Atomised” and then I’m off thinking about ‘Atomise’ and suddenly it’s been 2 hours. 

It’s just so frustrating because I’ve never experienced a fixation in this way before, it’s so intense and I just want it to stop. I know that I shouldn’t get so annoyed with myself over it, but it gets in the way so much for me. When my mental health deteriorates and I can’t work or concentrate I find it easier to accept because I know that when my brain is in puddle mode that doing anything complicated just isn’t viable. The people around me also recognize this. With this fixation, I’m finding it hard to justify why I can’t do anything. I just can’t get myself to view it as “valid” because my brain certainly isn’t in puddle mode, it’s very active in fact, so I understand why I can’t shift that energy to be productive. It’s much harder to explain too and the people around me are less understanding. I’ll be honest, I don’t blame them for not understanding - heck, I barely understand it myself at times - how can I expect them to understand something they’ve never experienced and never will? It’s been a nightmare trying to keep up with college work, and I can feel myself beginning to burn out because of it, I feel like I can’t let myself fall behind because the reason doesn’t feel “valid” to me. I can’t exactly go to my tech teacher and say “Hi miss, sorry I didn’t do any of my assignments or coursework this week, I’ve been thinking about a band.” - granted, there’s more to it than that but at a basic, bare-bones level that is what I’d be saying. To someone who doesn’t live in my autistic little mind, that sounds like the most ridiculous excuse imaginable.

It’s hard to explain that it’s not voluntary in a lot of ways, it just happens whether I like it or not. It’s getting to a point where it’s impeding on my ability to function normally. I can’t sleep properly because I can’t get my brain to shutdown and stop thinking about them, or the music, or whatever else. I get distracted from work, from daily activities like cooking and cleaning, even hobbies are getting neglected unless they’re related to the fixation. I’d been learning ‘Clare De Lune’ on piano but that’s been sidelined for ‘Certainty’, any guitar parts I’d been learning and writing have just been ignored because I just can’t concentrate on them, but I can with Temples riffs. The only times I’m not thinking about them is when I’m sleeping and when I’m worrying about other things (intrusive thoughts kinda worries), even then I’ll occasionally start worrying about Temples. Example: “Does Tom remember my brother heckling him last year? He probably does, and he hates me.” - that’s a bit of a side point but one I thought I’d mention anyway. 

To an outsider, I will just look like an obsessed fangirl and if you want to think that of me then go for it, if this post doesn’t change your mind then I’m not going to convince you otherwise. I wouldn’t compare this to a fangirl experience, because usually those experiences are enjoyed by the girl in question. With this, I spend a lot of time wishing I wasn’t like this. I spent months fighting it off when I could feel it starting. I’m not saying it makes me completely miserable because with a hyperfixation does come happiness and excitement, it’s part and parcel of it, but in between those times I hate it. 

I have had very complex feelings around fixations in the past and the same rings true with this one. It seems to be hard to grasp for neurotypical people that we do NOT choose to fixate on the things we fixate on. For me this stirs a lot of anxiety because of the obsessive nature of a hyperfixation. My last few have centered on real people, such as bands or YouTubers, and I always feel awful about it because it feels creepy. I would never actually stalk these people, but the amount of content I consume and the energy that goes into it all just feels like too much even though there’s not much I can do to stop it. I can take away the media but that wouldn’t stop me thinking about it. I’ve experienced a lot of ostracisation from past friends because they found my fixations weird or annoying, and that feeling of rejection got internalized and I can’t stop myself from thinking that I’m weird because of it. I know for the people around me, it probably does get boring that I only talk about one think for hours at a time and it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve found friends who take the time to let me talk about my thing without getting annoyed or taunting me. Even with a supportive network, I still find it hard to get out of the mindset that fixating on real people feels wrong.

I’ve had this complaint for years, but recently I’ve seen more and more people misuse the term “hyperfixation” and it’s really been bothering me. It seems to be the new  ✨cute, quirky thing✨ to say that “X, Y, Z is my hyperfixation!” when in reality the person saying this probably just really likes X, Y, Z. I get so frustrated because they don’t realise just how tiring they can be, how they don’t always make a person happy, and how they actually make us feel. Not to mention the fact that when too many people say it in the wrong context *Context by Temples starts playing* the word starts to lose it’s meaning. This only makes it harder to explain to people “no, I don’t just really like this thing, it literally consumes my whole life, I’m so tired, please make it stop!”. 

This has been sitting in my drafts for a couple of days and I wasn’t sure if I should post it or not but after talking about some of this stuff with a friend, we decided that maybe I should. I won’t be tagging this under Temples because it doesn’t feel right. 

~ Love Ginger xx

19/01/2021

[ivory-sunflower]

You give off Libra energy

Oooh interesting! What makes you think that?

I'm not a Libra, I'm a Capricorn (so my birthday is very soon, oooh exciting) 💕

[ivory-sunflower]

Happy New Year ✨

Well it’s 2021 and I’m about 9 days late for posting this... I’ve not really known what to say in all honesty, England is in another national lockdown, all my exams have been cancelled, and I’m not necessarily dealing with it badly I’m just a bit numb to it all. I’m hoping to start using this blog as a blog more this year, not just popping on the drop a selfie or some nice pictures, but actually using it to talk about what’s on my mind alongside what I’ve already been doing. There’s over 400 people following me now which is a bit mad but rather lovely. Hellooo if you’re new here, how you doing? 

~ Love Ginger xx

09/01/2021

[ivory-sunflower]

youre so cute!!! i cant cope 🥺🥺 i started listening to conchur after seeing your music posts and he is so precious,, i would trust him with my life 💗 i love your blog so much argh ok bai 🥺💗

asdfghjkl thank you so much!! He's an absolute lamb, I'm glad you like his music! You might have seen it on the music post, but he used to be part of a band called Silences and they made some gorgeous songs so I would thoroughly recommend checking them out! 💕✨

~ Love Ginger xx

[ivory-sunflower]

✨dream on and sleep won't save you from the night ✨

Hello hello!

I'm well and truly embracing the dark academia vibes for winter and I'm loving it. My room constantly smells like gingerbread from my candle which is about as Christmas-y as I intend on being, apart from some cinnamon based baking projects. Life is very busy with exams to revise for and university offers coming through, very exciting and scary things. I'm having a lot of feelings about university at the moment, ya know the usual "is this really what I want?? am I making the right choices?? " feelings.

I'm finding most of my comfort in music currently, lots of Temples (as mentioned in the last few posts) and Silences. Conchúr White released his cover of Townes Van Zandt's song 'Lungs' to Spotify last week and I am obsessed, I loved it when he released the video a few months ago but now I can stream it on repeat - I must have streamed it about 3000 times in the last week, it's all I think about. Go have a cheeky listen, support the fella... Pleeeaaasee!

I've resurrected my journal that got set aside during lockdown (you'd have thought I'd have used it more then but apparently not) and that's been nice. I've got a really good routine going with everything at the moment, balancing studies, guitar, journalling, cooking and all that - it's strange to be so organised and get so much done. 💕

~ Love Ginger xx

11/12/2020

(Someone sent me a message asking me to list the song that my post titles come from so this one is 'Keep In The Dark' by Temples)

[ivory-sunflower]

Arty Art Things ✨

Hellooo!

I've decided to post some of the arty things I've done either recently or in the last few years, well the pieces I'm somewhat proud of at least. All my posts tend to be a lot more wordy than they need to be but hey it's what I do here!

Conchúr White

Anyone one who's been on this blog for a bit will have probably have seen me talk about this lovely Irish fella. The pencil drawing is actually a year old as of yesterday, I only know that because screenshots of me flipping out about Conchúr following me on twitter popped up in my memories yesterday. I think I'd sent it to him at about 3 in the morning (I was not in a good head space at that point in time), so probably not what he was expecting to see when he opened his phone in the morning aha

The biro version is much more recent: I got bored while sat at my desk and doing research about university courses, saw a biro, saw my old drawing of Conchúr, had an idea. I revisited my GCSE art techniques and here we are. Again, I put this up on Twitter and now (at the the time I'm writing this) when you google "Conchúr White" it's the third top image of him which is a bit mad really. I think I spent all of about 20 minutes on Conchúr but another 45 minutes on the words behind him. The words are the names of the songs on his EP 'Bikini Crops', he doesn't just really love the idea of Channing Tatum driving him around at night in a daisy print bikini... Well maybe he does but what he does in his spare time is none of my business...

TechDif

So I mentioned that the pencil drawing of Conchúr came from a rough patch in my mental health and this one is no different! In fact this one came from an even worse circumstance so we love to see it. I had a bad, bad time in July and this started as a way of distracting myself from what was going on in my head. Without it, I can't honestly say I'd still be here so even if the final product of this had been a terrible mess I would still love it for keeping me alive. However, it did not turn out to be a terrible mess!

Now that the origin of this is out the way, where do I start with TechDif? Unlike Conchúr, I haven't really talked about them on here (unless you count one brief post about Citation Needed) before so I guess I'll do it here. The Technical Difficulties are a wonderful group of 4 British fellas who have had their fair share of fun online and even before. They did a radio show at university together, which went on to become their Reverse Trivia Podcast, later moving on to a panel show called 'Citation Needed': and a game called 'Two of These People Are Lying'. All of which I would thoroughly reccomend, they're one of my go to things when I'm having a rough time. All 4 of them are excellent! Tom Scott (red top, blue jeans on the picture) has his own YouTube channel which does content aside from TechDif. If you're quite nerdy and like science, linguistics, computers, or any number of other things you may enjoy Tom's channel. He is probably best described as "The Moderator" of the group, much like a tired teacher he tries desperately to keep everyone on track with what they're meant to be doing, but usually it does not end well for him. Then we have Matt Gray (space top, holding an ice cream) who also has a channel away from TechDif stuff, he does techy electronic things and has a series called 'Will it Soft Serve?' where he puts all kinds of strange things through a soft serve machine. Matt brings a very specific energy to TechDif and I can't fully describe what that vibe is but I love it. Matt and Tom also share a YouTube channel where TOTPAL is posted and they had a series called 'The Park Bench'. Moving on to everybody's favourite Gary Brannan: Gary Brannan (SATIRE hoodie, glasses) and can I just say, what a fella he is! He's just excellent! He is the one that will argue and rip into Tom the most (not in a malicious way) and hilarity ensues. There are some episodes where he is absolutely on it, getting all the points and others where he very clearly has no idea and that's where some of his funniest quotes come from. Given how badly I was doing at the time I made this, his response to it on Twitter was so so lovely. I specifically remember one tweet where he said I'd made him happy and although it was probably a flippant comment, it just made feel alright for a bit. Yeah I might be feeling awful right now, but I've made someone else happy so that's a nice feeling. Then last but certainly not least, we have Chris Joel (buffalo check shirt, beard)! I would be lying if I said he isn’t my favourite... His sense of humor is the one I vibe with most, he can get rather dramatic in parts and can chat bollocks like a champion. He has absolutely no online presence away from TechDif and, like Rens from Temples, I fully believe he’s a cryptid and lives off in a tree somewhere. 

The picture took me about 4 days to complete, well 4 nights because I did most of it between the hours of 12 a.m. and 7a.m. - I remember watching the sun come through my window each morning. It’s made up of lots of little pieces, all cut out and stuck on; even the sky and hills are made of separate pieces of paper. Nothing was actually drawn on the piece of paper it’s all stuck on, it’s not how I usually do things but if I messed up one little but I could just redraw it rather than ruining the whole thing. The most tedious parts to make were Chris’ shirt because I had to draw each square individually and then join the as well, and cutting out the ban-hammer in the bottom right was surprisingly hard. Every single detail of the picture is a reference to the podcast/shows, I still have the plan sketch and reference list knocking about somewhere. I listened to a lot of true crime videos while making it to the point that certain parts remind me of different cases: the brandy now reminds me of Peter Tobin, and the big spiral thing reminds me of Tim McLean (very harrowing case) - sorry that fact is a bit morbid but interesting nonetheless. 

I did post this for a little bit back in July, but I received some rather awful messages so I took it down. Generally, Tom Scott/TechDif fans are lovely but there’s been a few that have taken a disliking to me for some reason so I’m hoping they don’t resurface again. I’m in a better head space now though, so even if they do I’m more equipped to deal with it this time.

Hozier

This was a quick sketch I did in April, I was getting bored with lockdown and decided to summon the bog man himself. There’s not really much more backstory than that, no poor mental health story, no fun twitter story - he’s just here. He’s vibing. I will say I’m particularly proud of his nose, I just think it’s one of the best noses I’ve ever drawn. His hand is okay, but I think that the hands on my Conchúr drawings are better. So there is the Hozi-Boi...

The Corpse Bry

I’ve talked about Bry on here before as well, I love him, he’s excellent, top lad. He is a living Tim Burton character, he’s 6′6, very skinny, and his legs are longer than my will to live. I was watching ‘The Corpse Bride’ a few weeks ago and suddenly had an idea and so ‘The Corpse Bry’ came to be. I gave him a little panda friend because the panda has always been his animal - he used to wear a panda beanie all the time and his album had a panda on the cover. Again, there’s not really a fun story behind this one, I guess it’s somewhat fun because it’s the first art I made after finishing my psychology exams in October so it was nice to actually have the time to draw.

James Bagshaw

Ginger talking about Temples for the third post in a row? it’s more likely than you think! I did this one last week, I’d had a bit of a wobbly day and had group therapy on Teams in the evening and I just couldn’t concentrate on what was going on and I ended up doodling Mr James E. Bagshaw, the glitter crying fraggle man himself. It’s a bare-bones drawing that I could definitely work into more but I’m happy with it as it is to be honest. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit and add the individual bits of fringe to his jacket, just thinking about doing that makes me tired. Maybe I’ll get around to drawing the whole band at some point...

Alice in “Wonderland”

This one is from about 5(?) years ago, it’s not my typical style and was a “study” based on another artists work (basically i just had to copy this fellas work). I’ll be honest, this one has a sketchy backstory that I won’t go in to because it’s not exactly a nice one, and because of that I also won’t say who the artist is that it’s based on. Despite this, I’m still really proud of this one and I’m so sad that I never got this piece back after I got taken out the class. I’ve considered trying this style again, I’ve even joked about doing another Conchúr drawing in this style as a nod to my progression through GCSE art, eventually leading to Conchúr drawn in ink on music manuscript and stained with neon paint and dyes - it would be quite the project!

So this has been quite a lengthy post so apologies about that but life goes on. Similar to the vinyl post, I’ll probably add to this as and when I make more art. Even if no one is reading these posts, I’m enjoying making them so that’s the main thing. It’s just nice to document things and the feelings that go with them. 💕

~ Love Ginger xx 

29/11/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

The Vinyl Collection ✨

So I’d been thinking about making a post about my little vinyl collection for a while and then I got an anon message asking me to so here it is! My collection isn’t huge but it’s slowly growing, with Christmas and then my birthday coming up I imagine it’ll grow in the next couple of months. I have a little mental checklist of the albums I want to get before I go off to uni next year so we’ll see how that goes...

Temples: Hot Motion 

If you saw my update to my post about some musicians I like (here if you’re curious), you’ll have seen that I have really deep-dived into Temples recently but I will not go on to that on this post because it will become an essay (might make a post just about the band at some point tbh). 

ANYWAY ABOUT THE VINYL: It is so pretty!! It’s hard to see on the photo but it’s a clear vinyl with streaks and flecks of yellow, red, blue and black marbled through it - it’s just gorgeous! I’ll probably say this about every vinyl but oh boy does it sound lovely. There’s something so endearing about the crackling of a record between songs! I’ve said before that ‘Atomise’ makes me want to lie down on the floor for a few hours and that feeling is increased tenfold with the added vinyl crackles. It’s so pretty, I could cry!

Temples: Sun Structures

It’s the boys once again! I love love love this album, don’t even get me started or I might cry or scream or both... probably both. Every song is just beautiful, kudos to them for coming out with such a banging debut album. ‘The Golden Throne’ and ‘Fragment’s Light’ sound particularly good on vinyl - they both have such good vibes anyway and those vibes get amplified!

Hozier: Self Titled

A wlw with a Hozier vinyl? Who would have expected that?? Given the fact that the majority of my followers come from the cottagecore community, I feel like it’s safe to assume that you all know what’s up here. I f you enter my room while ‘From Eden’ or ‘Cherry Wine’ is playing you will see me lying down and silently weeping...

Dave Giles: Tennessee and 48th

Similar to Temples, if you’ve seen the original music post you’ll have seen a bit about Dave and this particular album. My opinion still stands, it’s a gorgeous album and (similar to others in this list) the vinyl crackling just adds to it. ‘Child Again’ is just so so beautiful!

Queen

I’ve put all my Queen albums together because I don’t think I need to explain why these albums are BRILLIANT! Queen made bop after bop and we love them for that!

The Boomtown Rats

The Rats aren’t at the same iconic level as queen but they are the same era. I’ve grouped them together for the sake of ease, I have to say that ‘The Fine Art of Surfacing’ is my favourite of the 3 albums I have, it’s a class album!

I know the Queen and Boomtown Rats sections are short but I have half of a post about bigger musicians I want to talk about written up in my drafts so I kept it short on this one. I hope this is what you meant anon! sorry if you just wanted pictures...

I’ll probably add to this as and when I get new vinyls because I think it could be a cute way to document them!

~ Love Ginger xx

27/11/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

please do a post of your vinyl collection! you look so happy in your music post <3 so cute!!

Hello! 

Heck yeah I’ve been thinking about doing one for a while and now I have a reason :D 

~ Love Ginger xx

26/11/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

I just want to update this a little bit:

Temples 2.0

So I've really deep-dived into this band recently and oh boy! New autistic fixation? *nods* New autistic fixation. I had their debut album 'Sun Structures' on while studying for exams in September and every single track is just brilliant, I absolutely love 'The Golden Throne' and 'Colours to Life'. Don't even get me started on 'Shelter Song', the 60s rock vibes are absolutely on point.

Their second album 'Volcano' is quite different to SS and HM, and out of the 3 it's probably my least favourite but I still like all the tracks. I hadn't noticed at the time but they played 'Certainty' at the gig in February and when I heard it again I had a lovely moment of "AAAH MEMORIES". 'Oh The Saviour' is also up there with my favourites, and 'Roman God-Like Man' gives me big 'Heroes' by David Bowie vibes

Their new single 'Paraphernalia' is like Temples X ABBA and I am HERE FOR IT!

I got the 'Hot Motion' album on vinyl this week and it's absolutely gorgeous, it sounds amazingggg and the vinyl itself is so so pretty. Plus who doesn't love an A1 poster of the lads themselves. The photoshoot for the album was done before Rens (the current drummer) joined the band, so the posters and all other photos are just James, Tom and Adam but I still love it. I shall stop before I completely info-dump about the band! 💕✨

~ Love Ginger xx

15/11/2020

Music #1 ✨

Hiya Lovelies!

I said that I’d make a post about the musicians I love, these are some of the smaller musicians I follower that definitely deserve more love and recognition. Did anyone ask for this? No… Is that going to stop me making this post? Absolutely not!

Bry 

My all time favourite musician ever! I absolutely adore this man and want nothing but the best for him, I’ve followed him for about 7 years and I’ve been to 10 of his shows (and I would do many many more). He is genuinely one of the most lovely people I’ve ever met, he’s just gentle and sweet and has a beautiful Irish accent. He’s just the definition of gentle giant (he’s 6’6, so he stands well over a foot taller than me).  He’s not that active online anymore and isn’t looking at releasing any new music any time soon which is a shame, but I would still wholeheartedly recommend his older stuff. Two of my favourite songs aren’t available on streaming services (sigh…) these songs being ‘Home’ and ‘Fall’ (not ‘Fall in Place’ but that is an absolutely lovely song). His newest EP ‘Love Pop Suicide’ is brilliant and his last single ‘Why Are You Bothering With Me?’ is so so good, the video for WAYBWM makes me feel so many things because it’s full of clips from all his past videos. ‘Disarm’ is another banger, as are ‘Care’, ‘Adventure Time’ and ‘You’re Alright’. I’ve said for years if my first wedding dance isn’t to ‘Your Life Over Mine’ then I will just straight up leave my oen wedding. Oh my goodness I could go on and on! I was meant to be getting a tattoo earlier in the year with a quote from his song ‘Astronauts’ but quarantine put that on hold. Just look at him! He’s such a lamb, I was so so happy that night 💛

Conchúr White

Another absolutely lovely Irish fella, he’s a total sweetheart! I met him in October at a city festival (I specifically bought a ticket for this to see him) and he was so lovely to talk to. I wish I could go back to that time because I think I smiled for 3 weeks straight afterwards, even when I think about it now I get ridiculously giddy! I was meant to see him play his first headline show in Dublin 3 weeks ago but alas that plan was cancelled, hopefully I’ll be able to make it to the rescheduled date. He released his debut EP ‘Bikni Crops’ in March and it’s honestly so good! The title track ‘Bikini Crops’ is amazing, but I think ‘Daisies’ is my favourite on the EP. He’s got some brilliant unreleased tracks that I heard at the festival and through livestreams, I cannot wait for him to release ‘The Woman in the War’, I have a video of that on my phone and I just adore it! His songs are beautifully written and he’s an excellent storyteller, he’s a very small musician and I think he deserves so much more recognition!  

Silences 

So Silences was the band that Conchúr was originally part of and that’s how I found him. They were a great little band until they separated to do their own projects in early 2018. I’ve followed them for a fair few years (maybe 5 years now) and I love their sound so much, they’re just really chill and great to just vibe to. I really like ‘Cops and Robbers’ at the moment and I’ve been learning ‘There’s a Wolf’ on guitar recently. ‘Red Dress’ and ‘All these Crimes’ are also great songs. I’m not usually a fan of covers but their cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ is so so good! 

Dave Giles

Well Dave is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard, his songs are just beautiful! I saw him once in 2017 when he was supporting Bry and that was when I started listening to him but didn’t pay that much attention to him in all honesty. Then he released his newest album ‘Tennessee & 48th’ and oh boy! I sure did regret sleeping on his music! It’s such a good album, honestly any song on that album is worth a listen. I particularly like ‘No One Knows’, ‘Devil in a Green Dress’, ‘Last Man on the Moon’, and ‘Shoebox’ but for real any song on that album in particular is amazing! Like any musician, he’s a bit of an odd fella and he doesn’t wear shoes when he performs (I don’t know if I fear or admire him for that), but he’s pretty sound and he’s a massive space nerd too so his twitter is interesting to follow. This is the only photo I have with him, just don’t question the hat… 

383s

I don’t really know what to say about this band, mainly because I know nothing about them… They released one album in 2011 and then disappeared off the face of the earth, they fluctuate between 1 and 3 monthly listeners on Spotify, although once it did peak at 5. I really like their song ‘Five Working Senses’ and I encourage you to check them out. Maybe we can get them to 6 listeners!

Temples 

This is probably the most popular group on this post but they are a band that I got into quite recently after winning some tickets to one of their gigs in a Twitter giveaway and I had a great time! It was my last concert before quarantine and I wish I’d just enjoyed myself more (I also tried to invite the guy that I liked at the time and he straight up said no so rip me). I’ve mostly been listening to their album ‘Hot Motion’ and it’s sooo good, I’d never really ventured into psychedelic rock before and I’ve got to admit that I am a fan now. They are a trip back in time to look at, imagine a proper old school 70s rock band with the big collared shirts, flared pants, platforms, long hair, everything! Absolutely brilliant! I love their songs ‘The Howl’ and ‘The Beam’; I listen to them a lot in shower and they just make things a bit more fun. ‘Atomise’ is another great one, but it kind of makes me want to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling for a few hours not because it’s sad or anything, it just has a very specific vibe.

So there’s some of the “smaller” musicians I love, I’m planning on doing a post about the bigger ones I like. Have heard of any of them before? If you decided to check them out, what did you think? I’d love to hear what people think!

Sorry this post doesn’t fit the cottagecore theme that well but hey it’s my blog 💕

~ Love Ginger xx

08/06/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

Breakfast of champions 🌼

[ivory-sunflower]

I just want someone to pet my hair while I cry about how beautiful Conchúr White's 'Woman in the War' is... 💔

[ivory-sunflower]

We lay here for years or for hours...

So long we become the flowers...

Oh how I wish I could go on an adventure of any kind, but as things stand laying in a field for a week is about as much as I can do. Even then the hospital may have complaints if I miss my 3 weekly appointments, so that may kind of adventure may have to wait. In the meantime, I'll just use music to fill the void... 💕✨

~ Love Ginger xx

31/07/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

Thank you for 100 followers, lovelies!! 💕✨

~ Love Ginger xx

30/07/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

💛 forever thinking about the boy from the farmers market who gave me those roses 💛

i hope he is having a lovely life <3

~ Love Ginger xx

25/07/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

Dress Alterations ✨

So I started with a super cute daisy dress and as lovely as it was, it wasn't exactly an everyday casual dress. It was a bit big and pretty unflattering, but instead of just leaving it in my wardrobe to collect dust I decided to alter and change it.

I know it's nowhere near perfect but I love the new look so much! Shortening it and changing the neckline make it so adorable and I know for a fact it's unique now. I'm doubly proud of it because it was all done by hand!

It's so so pretty and is much more versatile now, I just love it so much!!

I was so worried I'd ruin it because I'd never changed something so drastically, most of my alterations have been tailoring shorts and skirts to fit my waist, so this was a huge undertaking. I'm glad I did it though because I'm so happy with the result! 💕

~ Love Ginger xx

23/07/2020

[ivory-sunflower]

✨ magnificent little beasties ✨

24/06/2020