#there's no shame in being a studio-only artist! you can still have live concerts! just fucking dance and jump around or disc jockey or smth

[punk-pandame]

call me an asshole if you want but if an artist isn't good at live performance then it shouldn't cost hundreds of dollars to attend their concerts

[fromaliminalspace]

1-5, 14, 21 for the year end asks :3

hi, thank you so much for asking, really!! and apologizes in advance for such long answers, as you can see, i'm just being “a bit” indecisive, hopefully I won't bore you too much with it!

1. Song of the year?

(for real, why such a seemingly simple question turned out to be the most difficult one. it's impossible to choose just one!)

czxcohjkhv okay, the first to come to mind is "Stargazer" by Rainbow, so gonna go with it. the drum intro, the sheer onomatopoeia that Ronnie's vocal approach always is, the astonishing guitar solo that practically spoilers the plot by being so evocative as well, the fucking intensity that this song is overflowing with??? I can never be normal about it, just can't. about their “Catch the Rainbow” (live 1977 Munich version specifically) neither. most ethereal ballad ever (and nope, Blackmore's solos don't even ruin the “balladiness” of it, just add to the vibe).

out of Black Sabbath's songs, i'm very much torn between Children of the Sea, Die Young, The Sign of the Southern Cross, After All (The Dead), Time Machine, Sins of the Father. and out of Dio's own stuff — Like the Beat of a Heart, My Eyes, Evil on Queen Street, Evilution, As Long As It's Not About Love, Shame on the Night. hhhng they're all too good, how am I supposed to choose anything, even one per band.

when it comes to music that doesn't have anything to do with RJD (yeah, I have been listening to it this year. sometimes), I still can't get enough of Queensrÿche's “Take Hold of the Flame” (especially live in Tokyo 1984). *in loud whisper* but also “The Story of One Sky” by Dimash, “Until It Sleeps” by Metallica (whoops accidentally became obsessed with it years after first hearing it), “Incense and Myrrh” by Arch/Matheos, and “Between Two Worlds” by Uriah Heep. (can you tell how tricky it is to choose just one..?) and out of this actual year's releases (but tbh I haven't really been keeping up) most memorable was Liliac's “Carousel” or Metallica's “Screaming Suicide”.

and the most satisfying one to play on guitar is definitely “the Last in Line”, it's a literal dopamine feast for my brain for some reason.

2. Album of the year?

have admittedly been listening more to live performances than to studio recordings this year so it'd be easier to just list specific concerts but gonna try pick a latter one after all. actually I think the album i've most often listened to from start to finish is “Lock up the Wolves”, it just flows very nicely in its entirety. the second place would likely be the masterpiece that is “Heaven and Hell”. as for the album that's made me spin it in my head most intensely it's “Magica” bc it's a concept one but in the least straightforward manner possible.

3. Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year?

my most prominent discovery of the year was probably Fates Warning (and their more modern incarnation Arch/Matheos), I believe. or Jethro Tull (and nope, I legit haven't even heard about them until recently, what of it).

but there's also a musician who's basically defined this year for me and whose voice i've been listening to almost daily (and who probably needs no introduction at this point). I have by no means only started listening to him this year though (c'mon, Blind Guardian cover of “Don't Talk to Strangers” was literally one of the very first songs to get me into metal in the first place; and my most favorite Sabbath song, back when I didn't give a damn about different lineups and was just vibing to the songs I liked most regardless of their albums, was from the Dio era). the difference is that only last December I first heard a live recording of his voice and was overwhelmed by the unparalleled level of intensity in it. bc ultimately his magic is so much more than just his voice, it's the laser-pointed intention behind every single word and the multi-layered thought-provoking lyrics and the everything hiding between the lines and the neverending love and generosity. it's not even sth easily convertible into words so i'd probably better stop being insufferable about him right here and now but the point is that Ronnie has had such a huge impact on my life that goes beyond anything that I ever thought any musician or even just anyone who i've never technically gotten to meet would be capable of having. but this impact has in fact helped heal sth very deep down so just... yeah.

4. Movie of the year?

i'll probably go with “predestination” (2014). there's just sth very intricate in all the levels of meaning in that movie, and especially in the way the main character is queer and their queerness is used of all things as a metaphor for quite a lot of interesting stuff. ngl I do have some issues with this movie but honestly considering that the short story it's based on was written in the fucking 50s and was still focusing on it is impressive already despite its flaws (also I love how the movie extrapolated and expanded on the original premise).

the most rewatched movie this year though would definitely be the “dreamers never die” documentary, no contest here (not crying at the very end of it is a challenge I always fail tbh).

oh and a honorable mention to “Nimona”, really loved that one.

5. TV show of the year?

realized only now that I haven't really watched lots of tv shows this year, huh. I think the only thing I did watch was the second season of “shadow and bone” and that's it, even though there's lots of other stuff i've been meaning to catch up with.

14. Favorite book you read this year?

answered there!

21. What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year?

hmm i've got a new pin board, does it count?? it's bigger than my old one (and made from a different material, which turned out to be better) but i'm somehow already running out of space on it XD it was nice though to rearrange everything on it in a more systematic way rather than just slapping new bits of paper onto whenever I found a free spot (and to add Silvy's gifts there💜).

another new (like. literally last week new) thing is actually on my computer but it's sth i've been wishing for for literal years so it gets a mention anyway and it's an amp simulator. bc to be able to just plug my guitar in and build up the sound I want from scratch (well, not necessarily, there are tons of presets, it's just a very rare one that sounds well enough with solos imho) and have so much control over it, even over how much distortion I get depending on how hard I hit the strings? it's divine, i'm telling you. took me a while to figure out what exactly I need but damn, it's just so freaking awesome

[putschki1969]

H-el-ical// LIVE Limited Production Album Song Commentary 〜「elements」Edition 〜♪ 空 – Look ahead

In this weekly series all H-el-ical// songs from the limited albums (only available at the live venue and through mail order) will be discussed. The look of the series has changed a bit, there is some editing here and there and we now have a proper intro. Hikaru and the composer Hideyuki Gushimiyagi are talking about the song production and share some inside stories. There will also be comments from other creators that participated in the making of the individual songs. Please be sure to check out everyone’s thoughts. A new video airs every Saturday at 20:00 (JST). Find summaries for all previous videos in the tag #helical-video-series.

This time sound producer Akihiro Tomita will provide answers for the questionnaire.

H-el-ical// “elements” Mini Album MP3s

My English Translation of the Lyrics

Summary/Highlights 〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→

The last song of “elements”. The lyrics are inspired by what kind of sceneries one can envision while looking up at the sky. Gushi says it was hard to express the sky with the music. For example, with “water” and “fire” you can use specific sounds that reflec those elements but the “sky” does not really make any sounds that could be expressed with music. The vibe of the song changed a lot throughout the production. She recorded her singing before it was even arranged so she had to idea what the final result whould be. She feels like it will also be very different during the live performance. Gushi is being a fanboy and gushing over old Kalafina songs. He has always been so very touched by the world which was created in those songs and while he still has a lot to learn and gain many more experiences he hopes that he can envoke a similar feelings with his songs. Hikaru says that even during Kalafina times there was quite a difference between the recorded song and the song they performed live but now as a solo artist, these differences have become even more apparent. There are so many nuances that keep being added or changed from the very first moment she starts writing the lyrics. Lots of trial and error, there is no right answer, they are all just trying to find something that fits nicely. Hikaru prefers listening to the studio version of a song before attending someone’s concert and seeing the song performed live because this way it’s more enjoyable to take note of all the changes the song has gone through. So she recommends listening to her CDs before attending her upcoming live. She is definitely planning to sing some songs from “elements” as well since her concert in spring was cancelled.

This time sound producer Akihiro Tomita is doing the questionnaire.

What was your impression when you first heard the song? The marching beat of the drums and the amazing arrangement make it feel like the sky is clearing up and the clouds are disappearing. Despite hesitation and conflict one gradually finds hope by looking ahead. As the lyrics and vocals build up there is a sort of catharsis happening which can heal and purify even the most unruly and thunderous heart. Hikaru also is a big fan of the marching beat, so is Gushi. With this kind of march it feels like you are transferred back to your childhood but this kind of vibe can actually be enjoyed by people of all ages .

Any difficulties? This song, like the entire album, was produced specifically for an acoustic live so it was quite tricky to stay true to the magnificent world views of the song while still respecting the acoustic feeling of it and not overdo it. It was hard to find the right balance. In the midst of static and dynamic ripples, every element of the song now exquisitly expresses the swaying emotions. Hikaru says that when she wrote the lyrics she had that feeling in mind when you worry too much about everything and end up being stuck.

Anything you want the listeners to pay attention to when it comes to this song? The song will provide comfort when you are feeling down. It will help you find a ray of light and hope in the darkness when you can’t seem to find the exit. It’s a pick-me-up that will cheer you on and tell you to not stop fighting. Both Hikaru and Gushi once again talk about the overall vibe of the album. It’s very raw and human. Hikaru wanted the lyrics to be relatable and comforting. She put a lot of herself into the songs, more so than in the first “H-el-ical//” album.

LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to her channel!

Hmmm, that’s actually quite surprising, they didn’t mention anything about whether or not they are planning to eventually continue with “Blooming”. This sounded very final. What a shame. I guess at some point we will be getting videos about “Blooming” but not any time soon...?

[messiisgodibeliveinhim]

Just Another Rant

Okay, so why do NCTzens have a hate boner for Taeyong??? It's so f*cking weird, it doesn't make sense.

Taeyong has been under NCTzens' microscope since his debut. Everything he does is dissected and twisted into something its not. No other member of NCT or any group (except maybe Jennie from Blackpink) is treated this way by the group's fans. NCTzens want Taeyong to be the villain so bad, that they're willing to stoop as low as dehumanizing, body shaming and wishing d3ath on him. NCTzens dislike him, some even hate him and they're not very subtle about it.

Now, I'm not saying all NCTzens are TY antis. I have moots on Twitter who dont stan him, but are incredibly respectful towards him and acknowledge his talents and hardwork. If you're one of them, then this rant is not about you. But i will say this, if it isnt all NCTzens who anti Taeyong, it's most of them.

It started with Lines and Screentime distribution for NCT songs and mvs. Now, i agree that Taeyong used to get a little more lines and screentime than the others at first. But instead of calling out SM, most of you targeted Taeyong saying he deliberately stole the said lines and screentime from his members so that he'd get to shine more..... Really???

Next, when he was announced as a member of SuperM, NCTzens were clearly upset it wasn't Johhny or Jaehyun. Do you wanna know why??? No, they didnt talk about talent. Instead, they wanted Jaehyun/Johhny instead of Taeyong because SuperM is a group targeted at the western audience and Jn & Jh knew to speak English better than TY..... Okay.

And it keeps getting worse.

-NCTzens saying that TY goes into the recording studio to record his solo songs, by LOCKING OUT the rest of NCT, so that they wont get to record their solo stuff.

-That TY is SM's Golden Boy cuz he 'gETs a LoT of SoLO pRoMos anD cENter TiMe', completely refusing to understand what 'SOLO PROMO' means or see how overworked and mistreated he is by his own company.

-When TyongFs praise TY about anything, NCTzens always, ALWAYS insert their faves in the post. Like, go make your own post maybe???

/Trigger Content

-NCTzens saying that TY dances like he has a sq*irrel in his pants, raps like d*g, looks like a skeleton etc etc. And these are just mild stuff i mentioned here. NCTzens are so much worse when it comes to body shaming and dehumanizing him. And when we call them out for it, thay have the audacity to say that its a JOKE and we're STUPID for not having 'A Sense of Humor'....

/End of Trigger Content

-NCTzens saying that TY's main dancer/main rapper/main visual/leader/center positions should go to their faves cuz their fave 'iS So mUcH beTTeR aT TheSe pOsiTIOns'. Yeah.... sure..... NCTzens rarely talk about the positions other members have , but are really obsessed with Taeyong's.

-NCTzens still denying that Taeyong is NCT's leader and that he's really good at it. Just yesterday, a Wayzennie (also a TY anti) started spewing sh*t about Taeyong's leadership. And their arguement??? That they have 'lEAdeRsHiP eXpEriEncE iN UnI, WoRk aND ouTsIDe wOrK' and that makes them an expert about leading a 23 member global kpop group, who had a rough start what with their controversial 'unlimited' concept and experimental songs. Sure, Jan.

(Also, the thing where some Wayzennies are still not accepting that TY is the leader of whole of NCT, cuz Kun is WayV's leader..... Seriously, though its not that hard to understand. Kun IS and WILL remain the leader of WayV, a 7 member group. That's a fact. But when the subunits (127, Dream and WayV) come together for projects (ex: NCT 2018 and NCT 2020), Taeyong becomes the overall leader. But since these Wayzennies are still on their WayV not being part of NCT agenda, they're simply ignore this. Go figure.)

- Oh, but when some other member in NCT messes up, it suddenly becomes Taeyong's responsibility cuz 'HE'S THE LEADER'. Funny, how NCTzens change narratives quickly. Also, weird how, according to NCTzens, NCT members suddenly can't think for themselves even though they're grown adults and need Taeyong to take the blame for them. Haha.....

-Also, NCTzens guilt tripping TyongFs from canceling NCT Beyond Live tickets when they got to know that he was injured and wont be participating in the concert a little too late, cuz "Taeyong, as a leader, would be sooo upseeet that his group wont be getting TyongFs' money and he'd feel sooo guiltyyy that y'all are getting refunds of your OWN money that YOU CHOSE to spent and its not my business at all. But damn, y'all are sooo selfish!!!!"

-NCTzens posting about how overjoyed they are that TY is injured cuz that means their faves get to shine..... "Look how MY FAVE killed TY's part" "MY FAVE ate Taeyong up" "Should've put MY FAVE in the OG line up instead of Taeyong" "MY FAVE made TY's part as his own" "Thank god, MY FAVE got to show off his talents, now that Taeyong isnt here". God, if i were one of the Neos whose fans say sh*t like this, it would've felt like a slap to my face. Honestly, tell me, do y'all really think so low of your faves? Do you really think they cant shine even with TY being on stage? They absolutely can, but you're focus is not on them, is it? Way to embarrass yourself.

-NCTzens blaming Taeyong for NCT's slow rise to fame because of the false rumors/allegations pinned on him by nasty people. They say Taeyong was the sole reason for NCT not being liked by many, not because of their confusing/complicated concept or the music. Yeah, you heard me. NCTzens are not above victim blaming and pointing fingers, cuz they are not ready to accept the fact that Taeyong was the one who carried the group on his back all the way.

-And how they can't stand the fact that TY gets praised by proffesionals or non-fans or locals. A dance analyzer analyzed 127's Kick It and at the end stated that Taeyong was the best dancer in 127. And what did NCTzens do. They bullied the analyzer to the point that they deleted the video, just cuz their fave was not named the best. A reactor reacts to Taeyong's Long Flight and the comments on the videos are along the lines of 'Hey, MY FAVE'S also has a solo song too. You should definitely react to that' or when they're tryna be subtle (but not really), they go 'Taeyong is soo good but you should also check out MY FAVE'S blah blah blah'

Hell, even when TyongFs say 'Taeyong is very so creative, by coming up with BDLI Jungle Gym concept and the MAW chandelier thing. He's literally an Idea Bank', and NCTzens go 'All the Neos are idea banks' in the same post.

When TyongFs say 'Taeyong is the really so handsome. NCT's main visual', they go 'All the Neos are main visuals'

Lmao, just 3 days ago, someone commented 'Taeyong is cute' under a tiktok video and an NCTzen just couldn't help but fume about it and went 'All Neos are cute'🙄

Like seriously, this is sooo annoying. Make your own goddamn post about the rest of NCT, ffs! Why do you to insert anyone else in a Taeyong tweet? Literally, can't let Taeyong have a moment for himself.

-Recently, Taeyong released 2 solo demo tracks on SoundCloud- Dark Clouds and Dark Clouds Remix (check it out here: https://soundcloud.com/eh_ovo_taeyong). And NCTzens being NCTzens started those who never even promoted Kun's SoundCloud before started promoting it under every TY tweet on the same day. Now, i don't have a problem with them promoting Kun's SC. But they could've done it any other day or made their own tweet about it. But doing it under every TY promo tweet and on the very same day? Really??? And some of them had the audacity to say that TY was getting free clout from Kun cuz Kun followed him on SC.....😑😑😑

-NCTzens have this weird belief that TY is getting solo promos and is being pushed by SM. What on earth are they talking about? Taeyong being center, main rapper and main dancer of the group is not solo promo. Him being in SuperM is not solo promo. Him opening Instagram and SoundCloud is not solo promo, but self promo- which means HE'S promoting himself, not SM. Solo promo is usually provided to the artist by the company in the form of photoshoots, accepting brand deals, releasing the artist's solo music etc and SM isnt doing sh*t for Taeyong. All they're doing is overworking him and milking him for money. That's it. And i want NCTzens to understand that.

And the list goes on and on and on. This weird hate boner NCTzens have for Taeyong is so bizarre to me. All Taeyong does is sing, rap, dance, talk cutely, take care of his fishes and play games with Baekhyun. And this somehow gets NCTzens mad. They constantly discredit him, try to make him seem less than what he actually is, insert everyone else when someone is talking just about him, make him seem like a villain by twisting his words or actions and making it into a big deal.... *sigh* Its so unbelievable how low NCTzens can stoop. And it gets tiring real quick.

N E Ways, this is everything i wanted to rant about and damn, this turned out to be too lengthy. Now, if you havent followed Taeyong on his Instagram, please do @eh_evo_nct. Stream Long Flight, his one and only solo station. And please look forward to BaekhyunxTaeyong collab on Taeyong's SoundCloud.

Ciao!

[pupa-cinema]

Happy Go Lucky Heads - えんがちょ(Engacho) - English Translation

Lyrics：Sekihan and Ponikingdom Music：324

えんがちょ　犬のクソ踏んだ Engacho, I stepped in dog shit こりゃ　いじりの的だ　青天の霹靂 Easy now tiger, I’m the target of sleights of hands, it’s a bolt from the blue えんがちょ　とんだ災難だ Engacho, what a a major fiasco この　穢れを誰に　なすりつけてやろうか How about I just foist all this evil energy unto somebody else

何でいつも俺ばかりこんな目に遭う Why am I the only one who can never catch a break 実は'身から出た錆’ Actually, ‘You're the one who shoots your own foot' ここで気付かなければ If I don’t acknowledge this soon, then everything will- スパイラル Spiral

悪い縁を断てえんがちょ(往々) Cut ties with bad vibes, with engacho (again and again) 開運の鍵だ　起死回生 It’s the key to success and good fortune, to be reborn anew 悪い縁を断てえんがちょ(往々) Cut ties with bad vibes, with engacho (again and again) 断捨離のススメ　執着心 I recommend to let go with alobha, then cling to that! 己の人生(ライフ)加速させていく(往々々) Up the tempo of our lives (again and again and again) '無駄な過去は1つもない’ ‘I have not 1 useless past experience on my belt'

えんがちょ　鳩のフン落ちた Engacho, pigeon poop landed on me こりゃ執念深い　青天の霹靂 Now this is some real conviction, a bolt from the blue えんがちょとんだ災難だ Encgacho, what a a major fiasco この　穢れどこから　降り注いでるのか Where on earth is all this evil energy pouring down from

何回やったって　遠回りだったって I’ve done things a bajillion times, I’ve taken the high road, 勘違いされたって　諦めたくないから I’ve been misunderstood, but I still don’t want to give up so ぐちゃぐちゃにされて　へし折られた牙 My fangs have been twisted and torn apart, but nevertheless 取り戻してやる　覚悟決めたのさ I’ll take back what’s mine, I’ve steeled my resolve

悪い縁を断てえんがちょ(往々) Cut ties with bad vibes, with engacho (again and again) 開運の鍵だ　起死回生 It’s the key to success and good fortune, to be reborn anew 悪い縁を断てえんがちょ(往々) Cut ties with bad vibes, with engacho (again and again) 断捨離のススメ　執着心 I recommend to let go with alobha, then cling to that! 己の人生(ライフ)加速させていく(往々々) Up the tempo of our lives (again and again and again) '無駄な過去は1つもない’ ‘I have not 1 useless past experience on my belt'

エンピ・ミッキ・ブッチ・バリヤ Enpi, Mikki, Bucchi, Bariya がっぴ・めんち・ぎっちょ・バーリア Gappi, Mechi, giccho, baarrier やめち・めんき・ガッキンバリア Yamechi, menki, gakkin barrier えった・ビッキ・グッピバリア Etta, bikki, guppi barrier

縁を知れ因果性(往々) Now this what ‘en' ties are, this is causality 大抵は他者の相対性 A big chunk of it has to do with natural human relativity

悪い縁を断てえんがちょ(往々) Cut ties with bad vibes, with engacho (again and again) 断捨離のススメ　執着心 I recommend to let go with alobha, then cling to that! 残りの人生(ライフ)掛けて叫びだす(往々々) Scream like the rest of our lives are on the line (again and again and again) '無駄な過去は1つもない’ ‘I have not 1 useless past experience on my belt' '過去がなけりゃ今はない' ‘Without a past, there would be no today I say'

undefined

Footnotes:

● Engacho is an apotropaic crossed finger hand sign. “縁En" meaning “ties/destiny” while “cho” is short for “chon-kireru [to snip]”. It's used to dispel any dirty things or impurities found. Though it was originally religious, it was modernized instead to be used among children as a fun and easy way to promote cleanliness.

Similar to the ‘Father son and the holy spirit’, or ‘Knock on wood’ hand gestures.

If someone steps in dog shit, is the target of pigeon poop, or any such minor but ill omens… Engacho will detach you from that bad luck!

● Enpi, Mikki, Bucchi, Bariya~~~. The name for the engacho hand gesture differs by region in Japan. Most ring similar to ‘chop’, ‘cut’, ’stop’ sounds, or even just the English word ‘Barrier’. The difference is due to regions in Japan each bearing their own unique cultures and accent, or… Just 'Barrier' being influenced from action shows like Anpanman on TV.  

● Appearing in the MV are toys commonly used by children, all which are long and attached: a kendama, a hula-hoop (looks like a ◯ (album name) / rising sun at the end) and then bandages.

● 縁・起死回生・断捨離・因果 All inherently buddhist concepts. 縁: destiny. 起死回生: rebirth. 断捨離: minimalism 因果: karma.

断捨離 I translated to alobha because I felt the ‘detachment from possessions’ part of buddhist minimalism was the main focus here. However, to give it the recognition it deserves, 断 indicates the rejection of nonessentials 捨 indicates the disposal of nonessentials 離 indicates the detachment from possessions.

As a whole they create an ideal.

● Quick digest from Poniki:

Completely stripped of tomfoolery, it’s an Omedeta style “Minimalism song”! True to the word “Engacho, meaning ‘cut ties’”, a word I’m sure everyone heard at least once in their childhood, I sing about my desires to cut bad ties and move forward. Our seemingly shameful past are the exact reason we’re all where we are now. There’s not one wasteful moment in life! That’s the message!

● Blog post from Poniki

It’s a story about a boy unable to find motivation or purpose. Screaming feverishly just trying to become somebody.. Only to get ensnared by corrupt adults who devise to manipulate him. He’s conflicted by “the misfortune which befalls him” and “baseless words”, but nevertheless he’s meeting allies, finding his way through life, and through self-actualized change is he able to move forward.

That’s the deal.

Sekihan was the one who initially brought the base concept to the table. “That ol’ custom of the past generation to dispel bad luck, Engacho”, he had said.

So I said “What if we didn’t only work to dispel bad luck but, we linked that icky past to the present and the future!"

Then took it and made it into a story. As such, it’s even stated in the lyrics as follows! ⇩

"I’ve done things a bajillion times, I’ve taken the high road, I’ve been misunderstood, but I still don’t want to give up so My fangs have been twisted and torn apart, but nevertheless I’ll take back what’s mine, I’ve steeled my resolve." Stigma and misinterpretations pressure him into taking the high road, where he ends up manipulated, broken, and marred. But even if the fangs he once boasted end up twisted and torn apart, you gotta believe that one day other people will come to understand you, and that’s when you’ll take back your fangs. My such passion is tucked into this song.  With that said and all things considered, The final words of the last chorus are the key piece to this puzzle. It’s easy to just sing of hate and cynicalness. Omedetai Atama de Nani Yori are “A band who turn negative energy into positive energy." After all.

At the studio, we even could not settle on a direction for his song until halfway through recording.

Back then Sekihan was even reconsidering the song all by himself in the concert hall next to us. One day I realized that my current state was being projected into these lyrics. Moving up the big city of Tokyo, sticking in an band making no sales, Desperately chasing dreams despite being a starving artist with no time on his hands Ultimately splitting up the band after yielding zero, he stepped away from music for a while. Until this new band came along, Ever since we formed Omedetai Atama de Nani Yori, I’ve been helped by a surprising amount of my past acquaintances, boosted and supported.

Before we formed Omedeta I wanted to clean my slate, I deemed my past useless and fruitless, but that past is exactly what lead me to where I’m standing here today. This point right here was it! This is what got the last puzzle piece to fall into place. “‘I have not 1 useless past experience on my belt’ ‘Without a past, there would be no today’" This song is the story of some nobody protagonist At the same time as being like a biography to me It’s a ‘fight song’, designed to help somebody, anybody, to move forward It’s ‘Engacho'. The song.

[murobrown]

Hello!

This is the last time I’m going to annoy you with my festival experience, I promise. I’m just so happy right now. I can’t stop talking about it. It’s a paradise on Earth. I forgot about the rest of the world for a while and it felt incredible. Nothing else matters, just music.

First day was short because we arrived pretty late (not my fault but my shitty friend). But I was still able to get a place at front row for The 1975. It was something beautiful. And I swear Matty looked at me and I think we’re in love now. And yes I cried like a baby while singing Always Wanna Die. There’s just something very emotional while screaming this chorus from the top of my lungs. I felt like a biggest loser in that crowd full of so many beautiful and stylish people but I still had so much fun. 

And I had a chance to see Skepta. I nver liked his musich that much but I liked seeing him live (shame my friend was tired and forced me to go to sleep at midnight so I didn’t even see his full set).

The biggest star of my second day was Mac Demarco. I never seen any musician enjoy their work so much. Boys had no crew and did all reharsing themselves and it was so interesting to see them in action. It all felt like just being with them at their studio, just having fun. 

And I will never forget the last day. The biggest star was Liam Gallagher. I didn’t catch a place at front row as I planned but second row still isn’t that bad (but it’s hard when you have 150 cm). He sang mostly Oasis songs but also both his new songs. I was singing so loud, I feel bad for people that were around me. And I cried while Champagne Supernova and it feels much better crying to it live. And Liam told us that we’re beautiful :) And there was a cute guy next to me and we kept bumping into each other and every time he gave such a cute smile. 

Even bigger fun begat at L.I.F.E concert. If you don’t know them please listen to them if you enjoy british punk. My friend left me there on my own because it was ToO LoUd for her :))) But I was at the front row drooling over shirtless Maz. And here comes the best part!!! After last song he stayed down with the crowd and we could take pictures with him and shake his hand. So stretched out my hand and suddenly I felt his sweaty hand touch mine and all I could say was “Thank you, I love you” and Maz looked straight into my eyes and said “I love you too, baby”. And yeah I died right after. So I guess I’m taken now boys, sorry but I am faithful girlfriend. 

Last day ended with Little Big concert. It was in a rather small tent. Me and my friend found nice places in the middle which turned out to be pretty bad idea as whole place was packed with people and no oxygen. Welll, and as music started everyone began to jump and dance and what a surprise I ended up on the floor within one minute. Luckily some guys helped me to get up. As I said...concerts are hard when you’re short. So I enjoed them from distance. And crawling on the floor was still pretty funny experience.

Yes I loved it so much and I had such a great time but I am sure I would enjoy it even more with right people. The thing is that none of my friends are so passionate about music as I am so it always ruins the fun. I mean...who goes to sleep at midnight at festival? Me and my friend have very different opinions about everything and we’re pretty much polar opposites but she was the only human willing to survive three days with me. I love her a lot but I need to find new friends for next year, the best would be some bigger group. Nevermind I am talking abut things I didn’t enjoy while there are so many things I enjoyed.

I took this pictute on the last day, as I woke up before leaving. Yes I look like a hobo, but I haven’t been this happy for years (probably two years ago at this festifal when I saw Jake). It really made me realize that music is the thing that makes me go on, it’s the thing I want to live for. And I also realized that I need new friends that would share my excitement. I just hope I’ll meet some brave volunteers until next year.

Sorry for this loooong nothing but I am still happy and excited and I need to share this with everyone I meet. Sorry for my face and thank you if you read this. I wish you all to see your favourite artists live and get as close to them as you can, get butteflies in your stomach and happy tears in your eyes. ♥

[uhelenh-blog]

the stuff Dreams are made of

A square clock is suspended from the ceiling. The short hand is placed on the eight and the long one waves past two. Below the clock, and on the floor, a banner with the Soweto Theatre and Joburg Theatre logos stands tall behind a close-together band set-up including keys, MPC table and a mic stand.

Having put down the rectangular case carrying the bass guitar he learned to play more out of a quest to be in a band that lives a DIY ethos than out of pure necessity, the rapper known as Solo has the microphone in a grip. 

He steals a glance at Instro, who has an iPad in hand to control the sound, while his family chats away in a corner and young people in matching t-shirts come in and out of the room and band members quietly take their places. 

“I dropped an EP on these boys’ heads,” Solo says into the mic, like it’s a conversation only between he and Instro. “In terms of buzz? ‘Bout as loud as the noise gets...” He stops.

It seems like it’s been lightyears since Solo shone with those opening lines on his 2014 single, Star Dust. He featured Proverb and Stogie T on the Star Dust remix. He released three albums - .Dreams. A. Plenty. (2014), Dreams. B. Plenty (2016) and C. Plenty. Dreams (2019) - and established himself as the Dapper Rapper on red carpets and racehorse events. 

Solo co-founded BETR Gang with prolific producer and rapper, Buks, and the Gang got greater with the addition of permanent members that have included Al da 3rd, Solid and Th&o. Together, they put out concept albums and toured Mzansi and Europe. He married his longtime love, actress and singer, Dineo Moeketsi and showed the world this journey on Kwakuhle Kwethu, the TV special put together by the couple’s production company, Langa Enterprise Hub. 

So when I’m watching him soundcheck Star Dust on a Friday evening in December, he is unfolding the answer to: what else does Solo plan to do? He aims to put on his first theatre production, The Dreamers ABCs, at the Joburg Theatre on December 17 and 18. 

THE REASON

“The concept of a play was pitched to me by Reason,” Solo tells me. “He said he wanted to see what it would be like and I said: if we do this, then you will have a front row seat to everything.” Beyond being a rapper, Reason also runs a creative agency and has partnered with Solo on The Dreamers ABCs.

“Reason lives close to my place so there’s a frequency with which we see each other,” Solo explains. “One day in October, he hit me up and told me he’d be hopping onto the Ivyson Tour stage to perform a song he was featured on and wanted to know if I wanted to roll with him.”

“On the drive to the concert, we were just talking and I told him I knew I still had to put on one last show for the year because I wasn’t happy that the work we put in in terms of [Solo and the BETR Gang’s] Tour Dates and the consistency was interrupted. I was getting married. Sometimes I am capped by my ambition because I hope I can do everything. But I have gotten better in realising what’s not realistic and what to drop.”

He continues: “Reason openly admitted that this was his dream for his Azania album,” Solo recalls. “But he said because I had a whole trilogy of albums, he wanted to know how I’d feel about the last show of the year being a theatre production where I do A, B and C. I said: ‘say less, bro.’”

The Dreamers ABCs follows a young man who fantasises about becoming an aviator. Selected music from Solo’s albums is the bedrock of the young man’s trials and triumphs on this journey to realising his dreams. While collaborators like Langa Mavuso, Kabomo, Buks and Dineo will grace the stage and while there are similarities between the fictional character’s and Solo’s life, the rapper insists the story is not biographical. This is why he doesn’t place himself at the centre of the production. 

THE REHEARSAL

It’s just four days before The Dreamers ABCs opens. When I arrive at 6pm, the actors are rehearsing but Solo and the rest of his band have not yet joined them. The musician who has the cables that are crucial to the band literally being plugged into rehearsal hasn’t yet arrived.

“Theatre is mostly conflict.” Those are Solo’s first words to me when I ask him how he’s been. He grins and says: “and then maybe there’s resolution.” 

Since the play’s inception less than three months ago, Solo and his team has had to let go of a director. They’ve had to demystify myths that organisations hold about musicians and money. They’ve also had to assert their right to rehearse in specific rooms despite arriving to other artists being told they are meant to be in those rooms too. As we wait for the cables, Solo asks MPC player, producer and the artist in charge of the play’s visuals, Solid, to do him a, well, solid: to open the rehearsal room door about 15 minutes before we eventually enter.

When we get up to go into rehearsal, Solo stops his wife, sister, brother-in-law, Loot Love and Reason to ask them: “Have you guys been that side? Let me just give you some pointers: it’s super stuffy in there.” He chuckles. 

But when we arrive at the Cas Coovadia Studio for Youth Development, it’s not stuffy at all. Solid leaving the door open worked. There. Resolution. It’s shortly after this that Solo starts with Star Dust. Then, the multi-talented troupe that ranges between 19 and 27 years old files into the studio and most of them sit on the floor. One of them loosely carries a paper plane made from a script page. He is the lead actor. 

The short hand on the clock still rests on eight and the long hand swipes down to four. The scriptwriter and new director, Mli, addresses the seated cast. “We’re going to do a run-through now because we’re not that strong on the lines yet. So if you mess up, just keep flowing. But don’t mess up the cues.”

From the floor, a young lady with a straw hat starts her lines. She shakes her head, then stands up and starts over. Like a flight attendant, she welcomes us to the play and a journey “transporting you from .Dreams. A. Plenty. to C. Plenty. Dreams”. By the time beatboxing emanates from the floor, she seems chuffed with her delivery.

The troupe is a pleasure to watch. They can sing their butts off, they act and they genuinely seem like they’re having fun. Even Mli, seated in front of me, joyfully simulates running when the characters are required to. He’s into it.  

Solo peppers his notes to the backing vocalists with some humour. He keeps them concise when he’s unhappy with the lead’s stage entrance during The Shame. Here, Mli takes his time to articulate Solo’s notes to the cast. Dineo joins them for The Frolic and silently raps Solo’s parts too. She shares smiles with the female backing vocalist and when they’re done, Dineo returns to the corner and Solo calls after her: “well done, mama. Thank you.”

THE RESOLUTION

For his last show of the year, Solo wears many hats. It’s interesting to see where he applies restraint and where he relishes in giving of himself. It harks back to a conversation we had while waiting for the cables. 

He told me for the last two years, in the pursuit of his dreams, he has had to reconcile with not asking for permission. It was after his 30th birthday that he became more rooted in his own decisions and not just what will be acceptable to the broader public. 

Again, it’s the idea of the theatre of life consisting of conflict and, maybe, resolution. “As long as my wife is good and the team is good about a decision,” he explained, “I don’t care about anyone else’s opinion.”

This makes it easy to believe there is no plan A, B or C for Solo. There is only the dreams. And before 2019 is over, he realises yet another one.

Oh! Before I forget: The Dreamers ABCs is at the Joburg Theatre on December 17 and 18. Tickets at Webtickets.

[therionsymphonicmetalmasters]

Vinyl Sunday

When I was about to write this text I thought of one thing: It's weird that such a huge portion of the hard rock/metal history of Sweden comes from the same spot. In this case Upplands Väsby, a suburb to Stockholm that back in the days had barely over 30.000 inhabitants (today it’s around 45.000). Besides Therion, you also have Europe, Candlemass and H.E.A.T. (very famous band in Sweden, not so big abroad). Yngwie Malmsteen also lived there for most of his life in Sweden (all of his time being musically active). Plus a number of smaller bands that got local fame (two of them, Universe and Excruciate, even released albums).

To put things in perspective, there are 85.000 inhabitants in Andorra and they have only one metal band that few people have heard of and Greenland has 56.000 inhabitants and no metal band at all. Africa has 1,2 billion inhabitants and just a hand full of hard rock/metal bands with record deals (none that made it big). Asia has almost 4,5 billion inhabitants and have only two hard rock/metal bands that made some international impact, Loudness (now sadly forgotten, they did some great stuff) and Baby Metal (which are really cool, but I don’t think they would have made it anywhere if it would have been grown up women) - both from Japan. Sigh (again; from Japan) has done pretty well, but only in the extreme metal scene.

Africa and Asia combined have 5,7 billion (81%) of the 7 billion population on planet Earth and the suburb Upplands Väsby with its (back then) barely over 30.000 people gave birth to more people that made it in this genre of music than areas covering 81% of the population of the planet. That’s pretty remarkable when you think of it, even given the fact that hard rock/metal is a western cultural phenomena, because in other fields of influence from the west, Asia has often managed to copy us very well and often even surpassed us in for example technical innovations (the last 35 years no one talks of ”cheap Japanese junk” technology anymore). And given the vast amount of black artists that made it in the blues, rock/hard rock scene, there should have been plenty of role models for Africans to pick up the guitar and be the Nigerian new Jimi Hendrix or Phil Lynott (Nigeria has a whopping 200 million people and have actually several artists that made huge success in pop music).

Having said that, I never liked Upplands Väsby it self too much and it felt good moving out of there 1992.

Back to vinyl!

In 1988 a friend asked me if I wanted to join for a concert with a band called Candlemass. Their debut album had been released 1986, but it was a big flop and not many people knew of the band even in Stockholm. But they had released Nightfall just some months earlier (nov '87) and now they had just started to gain some success with their new singer Messiah Marcolin. But to me they were still new and I went there much because of the support act Agony, which was a local thrash band with one really good song I had heard on the radio. There was also a female heavy/thrash metal band called Ice Age and I was curious about that too. At the concert I ended up enjoying the two bands I came to see. I even stage dived twice to Agony! But it would turn out that Candlemass with that that fat crazy singer with the huge hair, monk clothes and operatic voice from hell TOTALLY blew me away! You just gotta love YouTube when you can even find obscurities like that available today (I’m somewhere in the audience head banging):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ansj_O7mQ

I didn’t have cash to buy the album, so I got my friend to tape it for me instead (as often was the case back then when you were young and broke and there was too much good music). Some years later we were signed to the same label (Active Records) and I managed to sweet talk myself into a free copy of the vinyl from their manager Dave Constable who also owned that label (as I was still broke investing all cash into music equipment).

There are few albums that have intros good enough that you want to listen to it more than first 3 times (when CD’s came people would start skipping them) and there are few albums I’d give 10/10, but this is one of them. It was recorded poorly at Thunderload studio (owned by the Heavy Load guys) and they had to escape with the master tapes to Stockholm Recording to save the album. Technically speaking, the sound is totally terrible (especially the drums), but it’s somehow like with Black Sabbath - their murky lo-fi sound becomes a charming content that gives the music unique personality (something that never happened again once studios turned digital).

UPDATE: X-Japan should of course be mentioned as a successful Asian metal band as well. They are massive in Japan but also made it big in USA. But they actually never made it big in Europe (the main market for metal music after the 80's), ask random people at metal festivals here and most people won't even know the name. Which is a shame, because it's indeed a great band.

Also to clearify; with "making it" I refer to bands that sold at least over a million albums. There are of course some fantastic bands that made it in the smaller scenes

[fayestardust]

Disclaimer: This is the prologue or first chapter of a Harry Styles fic that I never continued beyond this point even though I’ve got most of the story mapped out in my mind. I might still, at some point, if you lot want me to. Let me know if you find it interesting or want to read more.  Second disclaimer: Pure fiction. K, thanks.

Avery still remembered how she felt when she was six years old. When she was on tour, with her sister Ella, her dad and her mom. She remembered the anticipation. Maybe some people thought it wasn’t natural for her and her sister to be there. But her mom had a show to put on, and her dad didn’t dream of letting her go without him. The only thing that made any sense was for them all to go together.

Ella and Avery were raised on music. They played guitar, piano and violin when they weren’t singing. They grew up on the stage. Oh how much Avery loved being up on that stage. She soaked up the lights and the applause. For a long time, she couldn’t imagine her life to be anything other than that. Even when Ella started to lose interest, Avery couldn’t go longer than an hour without her music, or longer than a week without the thrill of the stage. By the time she was fourteen, she was writing her own songs and set to open on her mother’s tour. It was all planned out and she was ready. She was set for sold out shows and a bright lights future. It was all in the cards for her. Until it wasn’t.

It wasn't often that Harry Styles visited a club that wasn't considered to be exclusive, for obvious reasons. It wasn't easy, after all, going anywhere without attracting unwanted attention within seconds of his arrival. But this one in London was an exception. It was a well-known haunt for musicians and ‘regular’ people alike, but some unspoken rule made it so that even the rich and famous could come here and enjoy their drinks and company without being bothered. So he had gladly accepted the invitation from Jeff, some songwriter friends and their friends to go out for a drink. It was, apart from a guaranteed good time, a smart move. The best connections were made, so he had learned, over a pleasant conversation and a drink or two, rather than from the other side of a conference table at the labels’ headquarters.

This was more of a social call than a business meeting though, narrated by bad jokes, with live music from the stage on the other end of the room. Harry had never played bars like this; had gone straight to concert halls and arenas with One Direction, and even though he’d tried to take a smaller approach to his first solo tour, it wasn’t as small as this. The people who played here were unknowns, fighting for their right to be heard in an open mic setting. Most of them, Harry thought bleakly, would never make it, their songs forgotten as soon as they were finished. Still, he watched with interest when he wasn’t engaged in conversation, knowing full well that he had been lucky and that this could have been him, too, working a job and playing music on the side because it was hard to make a living.

“A girl I know is playing here tonight,” offered Mark, a friend of a friend and a producer who had worked mostly on small projects for little known independent artists. “I worked on her EP a few months back. Wasn’t picked up. Shame, really. Girl’s got a great voice and a good story to tell.” He shook his head in disappointment, “Suppose she wasn't cut out for it, though. Too nice.”

There's no such thing as too nice, Harry thought, but the hum of agreement from the other men, even Jeff, stopped him from speaking up. It was more of an assessment of the industry than a comment on the girl’s personality.

Backstage, Avery Dawson sat on a beat down sofa, tuning her guitar restlessly. She was nervous, and there was no place to really calm and collect herself. The backstage was little more than a corridor and a couple of restrooms that she had to share with the musicians that had already been on stage and those that would come after her. She had fixed her hair and put on some mascara and lip balm in the restroom and had looked at her herself in the fogged up mirror.

“Excuse me,” a girl who’d just come out of the stall and washed her hand had interrupted, “Have we met? You look really familiar.”

Avery glanced at the girl in the mirror. “I don't think so. I just have one of those faces.”

“Oh, ok. Are you playing? Because if so, good luck.”

Avery looked a great deal like her mother, and if they had had the same last name, it would have made sense to people instantly. They had the same blue eyes, the same wavy curls that lightened in summer. Avery’s smile was almost identical to her mother’s. She would have encouraged all of this. Maybe that was why Avery was here, now, singing her songs despite the fact that it terrified her and she thought about quitting before every show.

“Avery?” Tommy, the announcer popped his head around the corner, checking his clipboard and smiling.

Avery’s head bobbed up from her guitar.

“You’re up next, sweetheart. I’ll announce you and you can come up when I call your name.”

Not your sweetheart, Avery thought, but she nodded and stood, making sure her guitar strap was fastened and smoothing down her oversized shirt, doing up another button and then immediately unbuttoning it again. This wasn’t a church. She followed the announcer to the edge of the stage, watching as he went up and the boy that just performed, disappeared past her into the safe darkness of the backstage area. She looked after him, considering following him until Tommy repeated her name from where he was standing on the stage.

“Avery? Come on up.”

Harry watched, intrigued by the showrunner's introduction of Mark’s too nice EP girl.

“She’s quite nervous,” he’d said, “She looks like she might rather be anywhere but here. Like she does every week. But she’s here so you might wanna give her some encouragement.”

The request was largely ignored by tonight’s audience, though everyone at Harry’s table clapped, with a loud whistle and cheer from Mark, as the girl took to the stage. Harry found himself wondering if - and why - she was here every week.

The unwavering loud chatter from the bar’s patrons was comforting to Avery as she took her seat in the spotlight. She wasn’t one to command her audience’s silence by her presence, even though hushing might have been the respectful thing to do.

“Hi, my name’s Avery. I’m going to sing a few songs if that’s alright with you,” she said quietly, moving her lips to the microphone and as she briefly turned the knobs on the stand to adjust the height. More a nervous habit than a necessity. She swallowed in a brief attempt to calm the flutter of butterfly wings against her ribs, breathing the ...2 ...3 ...4 and shifting the guitar on her knee. She touched its strings briefly, an intimate greeting before she began playing, accompanying the rhythm with a vocal melody.

The crowd never did hush, but it didn’t matter, she was content to sing her songs in the background of everyone else’s conversations. Attempts to talk to the audience fell on deaf man’s ears tonight. But not everyone’s.

Harry had heard every single word she’d sung and said, every single note that she had played. He had tuned out of his friends’ quiet conversation entirely. He knew passion for music when he saw it, could feel it resonate in his own bones, and she definitely had it. That and a lot more. Talent and charm, despite her reserve.

Tonight’s schedule gave every artist time for three songs, and Avery's last song was an uptempo tune; a final attempt to get people involved, but they remained distracted. When she finished, her quiet thank you almost dissolved into the murmur. Mark whooped, trying to get her some actual applause, shaking his head when there wasn’t much more than a hesitant clap from the far corner. Avery ducked her head, bid the audience good night and disappeared from the stage.

“People are deaf and blind,” Mark complained, still shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, man,” Jeff offered sympathetically.

Backstage, Avery ducked out of her guitar strap, setting it down beside her as she rested her head back against the wall and waited for nausea to subside.

“Tough crowd,” Tommy commented.

“Yeah,” she replied, glancing over at him.

“I don’t know why you go up there if you’re so scared.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Aye. See you next week, I assume?”

“Yep.”

As Tommy moved on to present the next performer, Avery pushed herself away from the wall and walked back to the dressing rooms to collect her belongings. She retrieved her guitar case and put it down on the floor, popping open the lid marked A.D. in golden script. After her guitar was packed away safely, she opened her locker and took out her things. She clicked her phone screen on to check for messages. There were a few: one from her roommate wishing her good luck and a couple from Mark: one before her performance and some after.

21:03 Mark:

Good luck! I’ve brought you a small entourage, we’re rooting for you.

21:30 Mark:

That was awesome! You smashed it! Sorry the crowd wouldn’t shut up.

21:32 Mark:

Come join us for a drink? I think you should meet these people. They loved it. They’re good people. And also in the music biz. Would be smart.

21:33 Mark:

Please? Ave?

Avery’s finger hovered over the screen as she contemplated a reply.

21:36 Avery:

I’m really tired. Gonna call it a night. But thank you for coming. I really do appreciate it.

21:37 Mark:

Aw. Please? :(

Wanting to avoid further discussion, Avery quickly switched off her phone screen and put the device in her purse. One day, she’d have to start being a person again, but today didn’t feel like the day. She pulled on her coat, picked up her guitar and headed out the stage door.

Harry picked up on the disappointment from Mark as he dropped his phone face down on the table. Neither of them were paying attention to the conversation that the group veered into about a new local studio.

“You alright?” Harry asked, shifting a little to turn his attention to Mark.

Mark looked up, a little distracted, but nodded. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. It’s just. Avery.” he shrugged.

“I thought she was really good.”

“Yeah, no, it’s not that. She just... switches off. I was hoping she’d join us for a bit,” he scrubbed a hand over his already shaggy hair, “I know it’s not my job and she’s not family or whatever, but I care.”

Harry smiled. “I’m sure she appreciates it. Pity, though, I’d have liked to tell her she was great up there. I felt it.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her.” Mark replied, taking a swig of his beer, then swallowed it suddenly, holding up a finger, “Actually, hold on.” Reaching down, he pulled his bag onto his lap and rummaged through it, pulling out a stack of cds. Flipping through them one by one, he looked for Avery’s EP. Finding one, he held it out to Harry. “Here. If you like. Only one of the songs she performed is on it, but they’re all spectacular.”

“Thanks! I’ll give it a listen,” he flipped the cardboard sleeve over in his hands, checking out the cover - not much to it, just a peachy pink colour with her name on it in white letters - and then the tracklist at the back. There were just four songs on it, but he was eager to hear them. “W’d’you reckon? Car EP?”

“I’d recommend a comfortable room, lights out, eyes closed. But anywhere, really.”

Harry raised his eyebrows, but Mark seemed utterly serious and it made him wonder. “That sounds rather intimate...”

“They’re intimate songs. She recorded them in the dark. She came into the studio a couple of times, but it just wasn’t happening. I really thought we were going to quit the entire thing and I think she did too. But then she just emailed me these vocal and guitar tracks out of nowhere. Said she’d recorded them in her room with the lights off and asking me to please turn them into an EP.” Mark let out a soft laugh, “Don’t think I’d ever been so confused. And I half expected them to be bad somehow because nothing was happening at the studio at all, but they were pure magic, mate. You don’t even know.”

Harry listened to Mark’s animated retelling of his experience with this girl, and he was a little intrigued. Glancing down at the cd, he read the song titles with this new perspective in mind.

He instantly wondered if the second song was in reference to the recording process or something else. Looking up at Mark again, he wiggled the cd in his hand. “I’ll listen,” he said, putting the cd away in the pocket of one of the larger journals in his bag before nudging it under the table with his boot.

“Haz,” Jeff looped him into the group conversation again suddenly, “Maybe we should stop by the new studio next week, maybe that’ll spark something.”

Harry hadn’t really heard much of what they had been discussing, but he nodded, “Sure.”

His second album had been a moderate success, not entirely what everyone had hoped for, so the pressure was on for number three. It was agreed upon that they needed something different to get Harry higher up into the charts. While he still had most of the creative freedom he was promised, he could feel the big bosses breathing down his neck, wanting him to deliver commercial success. He’d never had the illusion that it could be all about the music and just the music forever. He wanted his music to be heard by as many people as possible. Finding the middle ground, however, wasn’t easy.

It was probably the reason they were here tonight, even though Jeff had disguised the evening as a ‘not business’ event. In truth, the last couple of weeks, he had introduced Harry to as many industry people as possible, from producers to studio owners, to songwriters, to composers, in hopes that one of them might stick and inspire his young client. It was tough sometimes, being friends at the same time. Because pressure was on him too. So far, though Harry had gone along with everything, none of it was very fruitful. “Sure,” he repeated.

Avery shared a second-floor apartment in Camden Town with a girl named Alyssa. It wasn’t big, but it came at a decent price given the location. Alyssa paid most of the rent and didn’t mind. She had lived there by herself before Avery moved in and could afford to take on the lion’s share. Her job, working for a publishing agency on Carnaby Street, paid well enough to allow her childhood friend to sort herself out without having to worry about money. While Avery had a job as a waitress at the pub on the nights she wasn’t playing, London was especially expensive if you compared it to their hometown and her paycheck didn’t cover her half of the rent completely. She promised Alyssa she’d pay back what she owed, but ever the supportive best friend, Alyssa had said there was no need. They eventually agreed to disagree.

“How’d it go?” Alyssa asked when Avery came home and let herself in.

“Shit,” Avery hissed. Her guitar case banged against the wall as she tried to get it inside. It wasn’t the first time; some plaster had crumbled off and a number of dents had been left on the wall. Avery mentally apologised to the neighbours, who despite her late night guitar sessions, never complained. Perhaps because their other neighbours had a tendency to be much louder.

“That bad, huh?”

“Huh, what? No. I mean. I just said shit because of my g- Oh, never mind.” Abandoning her guitar case and purse on the floor, she made her way over to the couch and peeled her coat off. “It wasn’t bad.”

Alyssa barely looked away from the Netflix show she was watching on her laptop. This was almost a routine by now, and the answers were predictable. Back in the day, when Avery had just moved in, Alyssa would often come with her to shows, but not anymore. Not for lack of support, but on Avery’s insistence. “They shut up this time?”

Avery draped her coat over the back of the couch and disappeared into the kitchen. “No.”

“Clap?”

“A bit. I think Mark brought friends.” Avery grabbed a mug and a tea bag and poured herself a cuppa from the kettle, still hot.

The mention of Mark and friends made Alyssa look up. “Who’s Mark? Do I know Mark?”

Returning to the living room, Avery slipped her shoes off and settled in an armchair across from the couch, wiggling her toes to get the feeling back into them. Performing made her so tense she couldn‘t feel her feet. “Producer Mark. The one who did my EP.”

“Ah, and he brought friends,” Alyssa was seemingly quite pleased.

“Apparently they loved it.”

Alyssa’s smile widened but then faded as she considered what Avery had said. “What do you mean, ‘apparently’? You heard it from them, right? You met them?”

“Not... exactly,” Avery said evasively, wrapping her fingers around her mug and blew on it so she didn’t have to look her friend in the eye.

“Tell me you stayed. Avery. Come on.”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Alyssa threw up her hands in exasperation. “Why didn’t you stay?! I try to get you out of this bloody flat, but you never listen! And fine, I get that, but I’d have expected that in ‘your scene’, you’d at least make an effort!”

It wasn’t that Avery didn’t understand that she needed to make an effort. She just didn’t know how to handle the embarrassment. “I didn’t feel like it!” Avery said, shields up, “What am I supposed to say to them anyway? They’re industry people, and they just watched me fail as a performer.”

“You just told me they loved it!? Which one is it?”

“That’s just what Mark said. Probably felt sorry for me.” Avery quipped.

“Didn’t you move out here to actually get your life back?” Alyssa asked, accusatory.

Avery flinched. Being confronted like that hurt a little, but only because it was true. She had moved from their hometown of Wilmslow, Cheshire, a year ago for that exact reason. She hadn’t gone back home except for Christmas. It was too tough to stay there, but it hadn’t exactly been easy to start over in London, either.

When Avery gave no reply, Alyssa snapped her laptop shut and got up from the couch. “You’re impossible. I’m going to bed. You can have a pity party all by yourself.”

“Fine.” Avery huffed, taking a gulp of the scalding hot tea and hissing when it burned the roof of her mouth. She probably deserved that.

Alyssa gave her a look, slowing her walk towards her room as if she was waiting for Avery to change her mind. When she didn’t, she sighed. “Night, Ave.”

“Yeah,” Avery murmured back, “Night.”

Once Alyssa was gone, the living room felt quiet and drinking tea alone turned into the loneliest feeling on the planet. It was during moments like these that Avery wondered if she should go back to the counsellor she stopped seeing a year ago. But even he had said that he couldn’t help her unless she admitted that she needed help and wanted to be helped. Most of the time, she didn’t. She was fine most of the time. Really.

Avery got up from the armchair and went to turn off the lights in the living room and kitchen, making sure to turn down the heating before heading to her room, leaving her half-empty mug on the coffee table. Being in her room in the dark, swallowed up by her duvet and pillows, felt comfortable. She liked watching the shreds of light from the busy Camden street below as they crept through the blinds and danced across her bedroom wall. Their repetitive motion carried her halfway to sleep and calmed her mind. Tomorrow would be a new day and it would be better. It always was. One of those tomorrows would be the day she found her spark again. No matter how many times she failed, no matter terrified she felt to be up on that stage, there would be a day when she would no longer feel like that and she’d go back to being the person people knew her to be. With that flicker of hope as a ghost in the back of her mind, Avery fell asleep.

At the end of the week, after a long, unsuccessful day of writing, Harry let himself into his London home. It was dark, quiet and uninviting, which had nothing to do with the house itself but with Harry’s mood: he was frustrated. His writing session had run later than planned because they had all wanted this day to finally give them some results, but what he had written today was definitely not going on his album. It wasn’t bad, per say, it just wasn’t him. He was hungry but too tired to do anything about it; he really wanted to go to bed. Maybe he could write something from the comfort of his own bedroom. It had worked for him before.

He dragged himself upstairs, dropping his bag onto his bed as he flicked on the light on the bedside table. After he had taken off his jeans and sweater, undressing further felt like too much effort. He pulled back the covers and sat down on the mattress, propping the pillows up so he could sit comfortably back against the headboard. One leg still hanging off the side, Harry upended his bag onto the duvet.

Keys, phone, half-eaten sandwich - he’d finish the rest of that later - recorder, lip balm, tissues, journal, notes, not the ones he was looking for, his other journal. He flicked through the first journal in search of today’s words but couldn’t find them. He was pretty sure he’d stuck the napkins he’d been writing on during lunch in there somewhere. There was exactly one line on a pink one he was keen to get back to. A little annoyed, he gave the second journal a little shake. A packet of things fell out, some change, someone’s business card, the napkins, “Yes!” And, Harry paused, moving them out of the way, Avery’s EP. He had forgotten all about it. Laying it aside, he rummaged around until he found the line he was looking for. He opened his journal and copied the lyric onto the lined sheet, but then glanced at the cd. He had promised Mark he would listen.

Afraid he would forget again, he got up and put it on over the stereo, pausing it right away, because he remembered Mark’s instructions. He might have been joking, but it didn’t stop Harry from turning off his light. Once he settled on his bed again, he pressed play on his phone and closed his eyes.

Whatever he thought the experience was going to be like, it wasn’t this. The darkness made it feel like she was right there in the room. When he had heard her perform almost a week ago, he had noted that she had a good voice. Now, without the chatter of the pub’s patrons or the feedback from the microphone, it sounded fragile in the best way possible. Not weak, but honest and full of emotion. He frowned, because the lyrics were regretful and sad, something that didn’t correspond with the smile he had seen from her on stage.

13 minutes and 25 seconds later, he played it again, from the beginning. That’s when it hit him, with a slight tingle down his spine: Inspiration.

[londontoseoularchive]

favours, part ii.

➵ characters: leeteuk x reader ➵ genre: fluff ➵ wc: 3.9k ➵ part i

➵ summary: finding out you’d be bringing work home as one of the artists you work with is your neighbour, it’s not as a bad as you had initially thought. i’m gonna have to make all of my leetuk gifs clearly. ➵ masterlist ➵ disclaimer

The constant and loud ringing of your door had woken you right out of your sleep, having fallen upon your sofa as soon as you had gotten home, but found half of your body falling off it with how you must have shifted mid sleep. As you jolted awake, you scrambled to your feet, straightening the garments on your body, realising you were still in the shirt and trousers you had worn to work today.

The repeated ringing pressed you to move faster, not even looking through the peephole to see who it was. Though you were weary of who required you with such urgency, the culprit did not surprise you, sighing in relief it wasn’t someone unknown.

But still, the moment you tried to avoid for the rest of the day, post Jungsoo seeing you outside Rino’s office, was now suddenly in your face. The day consisted of looking over each corner before taking them, looking over your shoulder more than it was necessary and your heart almost falling into your stomach every time an unsuspecting figure crossed your path. However, you were successful in avoiding Jungsoo for the rest of the work day. It was not out of embarrassment or shame, because, after all, this was now just as much your workplace as it was his, but more out of fear due to what he would now perceive you as. You could have been honest with him from the start, but instead decided to be aloof and withdraw as much information about your workplace as possible, even though Jungsoo showed interest. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ cannot be applied here, because he did, in fact, ask. And you lied. The good neighbour slash co-worker relationship you were looking for was now surely a myth, you presumed.

And that’s the confirmation you were expecting with the first words Jungsoo would speak to you, as he stood before you at your door step. “You’re home early,” was his first phrase, his arm leaning on the frame, his other hand inside his pocket. Even though you were half asleep, you comprehended his statement, surprised he was not yet scolding your for deceiving him.

“What?” you said out loud softly, your thoughts transcending from your mind to your lips. You pulled up your watch-cladded wrist to read the time. It was a few minutes after eleven. “This is early?”

“It is for me,” he still did not speak in a raised tone, “I usually get home at one in the morning. Most of us don’t leave SM until midnight.”

“Yeah, well…” you stopped to think if you even owed him an explanation. “I… Rino and I didn’t have any sessions today and so we went home a few hours early.”

“Are you sure that’s the reason?” he quickly followed you up with the question. His head now tilted into his raised arm, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly but never leaving yours.

You scoffed. “W-what other reason would there be? It’s Thursday, so people are either in meetings, music shows are in the recording studio. I already knew it was going to be a slow day.”

He scanned you from the top of your head down to your feet and back up. Seeing as he won’t be getting the response he wanted from you, he contemplated giving up. Dropping his arm and standing up straight, he looked over his shoulder at his door and sighed. “You’re pretty stubborn, aren’t you?”

You scrunched your eyebrows. “What… does me being stubborn have to do with me being home—”

“Don’t lie or hide from me again,” he demanded turning his head back to you.

“I didn’t hide—” you lied and Jungsoo knew it.

“I mean it, Y/N.”

“I—I won’t.” Getting caught in your lies multiple times meant to you that you really couldn’t keep anything from Jungsoo, or even say anything deceitful as he’d be right on your tracks.

He wanted to believe you wouldn’t, he really did. But with your past record, all accumulated in a single day, he didn’t know what to think. Finding some empathy on the fact you may still feel flustered in the new workplace, Jungsoo was going to let today slide.

As you both stood perfectly still, you not knowing how to react and Jungsoo not knowing what to say next, he decided to look down at your entryway. “Your shoes are scattered.”

You followed his eyes and down to your feet, seeing that your shoes were all perfectly aligned and adjusted, but your heels, although standing up right, the right heel was not adjacent to the left one. “It’s just one that’s out of—” looking up again, Jungsoo was out of sight. You leaned in to look beyond your door and in the direction of his apartment, seeing him disappear into it.

“Stop being so picky!” you yelled out loudly enough in the hopes he’d hear it. Groaning to yourself, you shifted your shoes in the right position, annoyed that he’d even pick on something so little. Can anything go past him?

Friday was less eventful in the sense that, as you no longer had to avoid confrontation, your day could carry on as normal again. Most of your day was spent assisting Rino and Red Velvet for their upcoming concert, retouching and finessing some choreography. The six women were the people you saw the most that day, having breakfast and lunch with them, staying in the same studio all day, and even during breaks, being the ones you socialised with. This meant that you didn’t get a chance to see anyone else from the company; no other dancers, singers, not even actors. Or Jungsoo.

The guilt that you had was still festering inside of you, so much so it would take you into a different mental space when your attention was required. The fact that you were caught and didn’t make a formal apology was the source of this negative feeling, questioning yourself why your pride got in the way and how to redeem yourself. You said that the next time you’d see him, you’d stop him and apologise properly. Say that you didn’t mean any arm, that to offend him was the last thing you wanted to do, that you were just trying to—

“Y/N,” Rino called you out a third time after you did not hear her first attempts. She found you leant up against the mirror with your hands inside your pockets, at the farthest corner of the studio after the practice had been over and the members had been dismissed, founding it an odd position and stance for you to be in. You shook your head back to reality, your head following the direction the voice was coming from. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, I…” you tried to think of an excuse, even though clearly you shouldn’t be making anymore of those. “I was just in my head for a bit, sorry.”

“Is something troubling you?” Rino asked genuinely concerned, her inner older sister instincts surfacing.

“Just some… neighbour slash boy trouble. I don’t think I made a great first impression.”

“Impossible!” she said exaggeratingly and humorously, trying to get a reaction from you and succeeding. “Since it’s your neighbour, you’ll have more chances to see him. You can still redeem yourself.”

You nodded in agreement. “That is very true.”

“But don’t think on it too much. The more you do, the worst it’ll be,” she advised you, knowing she was right. “Hey, I’ve got the perfect thing for you. Me and a couple of people are off to the Burning Sun tonight. You wanna come with?”

“That new nightclub?” you could do with some fun. “Alright, I’m down. Who’s going?”

“They said they wanted to end their promotions on a good note, so Donghae and Siwon. They’re gonna try and get Jongdae and Minseok to tag along, I heard Hyo was down and she’d bring Yuri—”

“Donghae’s going?”

“Yeah…” she narrowed her eyes at you. “You don’t like him, do you?”

“No!” you denied immediately. “I mean, not to say anything negative about him, he’s been nothing but nice to me since getting here, but I know the rules here. I’m sure there’s a clause somewhere in my contract that I’ll have my ass handed to me if I look at any of these idols for a second too long.”

“Ah,” she said, “you had me worried there. Of course, we all have eyes and we’re not completely immune, but you’re right on that clause. Tread around these idols lightly. Obviously don’t allow them to make you feel lesser than, but this is still our workplace.”

“Absolutely. I know my boundaries.”

“But I mean… outside of this place… if Donghae ever asked—”

“Oh, my god,” you started laughing, already knowing what Rino was insinuating, starting to walk with her towards the exit of the studio.

You had fun tonight. A lot of fun. After meeting with Rino beforehand and walking into the club arm in arm, you were ready to get the drinks flowing and the alcohol into your blood stream, the music that bumped out of the speakers already getting your feet to step. It was not long before you had reached your designated table, bottles of champagne had already been popped, conversation was already flowing, and the atmosphere was already lively. You had become livelier when the first two shots trickled down your throat, already having your shoulders move at their own accord. The following shots added your hips to the equation. With the champagne included, after an hour, you were ready to break into full routine.

Being mindful, you would still drink glasses of water between breaks, to ensure some sobriety and that tomorrow’s headache won’t be as severe. It would only work for so long, as the shots of soju to downed were catching up to you, and it went from being slightly tipsy to seeing two worlds at once by the end of the night.

“Oh, careful!” Donghae called out with a chuckle as he saw you wobbling slightly on your feet despite holding onto Rino’s arm for dear life as the group made its way out of the club after what felt like endless hours inside. He came to the rescue by putting one hand on the small of your back and the other on your lower abdomen.

You laughed at your own clumsiness. “I swear I can walk,” you insisted, looking down at the ground and at your feet, focusing more than most would to put one foot in front of the other. Releasing Rino to prove yourself, you continued to walk steadily, but the balance was due to Donghae maintaining his hands on your torso.

With your back straight once again, the land at your front left and Donghae strengthened his grip on your hip for reassurance.

“Let me get you a cab,” he suggested, peering left and right for one until one finally approached. Opening the door for you, you were able to crawl into it in your hands and knees, sending the group into further laughing fits.

Luckily for you, your dress had not hiked up and the material was securely over your behind, halfway down your thighs. Didn’t stop Donghae from looking, though.

“Are you going to be alright going home by yourself?” he leaned into the door as you settled down.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about me, I’ll get home safe.”

“You’ve proven yourself to be daring tonight, I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Don’t I do that every day?”

He didn’t respond at your statement, just nodding in agreement with a pursed lip, closing the door for you, waiting for you to roll down its window. “Get to work on Monday promptly.”

“Yes, Mr. Lee,” you teased him, waving him goodbye with a twirl of your fingers. Donghae watched as the taxi zoomed away from him, barely blinking as he felt a smile come to his face. After a second, however, he shook his head out of it. “No, Jungsoo would kill me.”

When the lift finally came to a stop, your fatigued eyes were jolted awake, the door open to let you out. Though your body felt heavy, you tried your best to stand up straight, putting one foot in front of the other. As your vision was blurred due to the alcohol still in your system and your eyes drooping from your tiredness, you had to trust that your body would lead you in the right direction as your brain was less than able to function currently.

That’s when the left foot that was currently behind you caught itself on your right ankle, stumbling a few steps ahead of you, your brain coming back to be on some alert to stop yourself from falling. Putting your arms out to gain any kind of balance and bending your torso forward in a ninety-degree angle, you became able to plant your feet on the ground, coming to a standstill. When you looked up slightly you saw a door handle and a keypad, sighing at the fact you had arrived at your door.

You grab onto the handle as your body became heavy again, quickly activating the pad, so you could press your passcode into it. Blinking a few times, you were able to see the lightened numbers, pressing the correct numbers. “Seven… four… zero… two… five… nine.” A tone which you had never heard before played, two quick beeps other and not the one drawn one beep you were used to. “Huh?” your eyebrows scrunched at its middle, quickly trying to press in the code again. “Seven, four, zero, two, five, none.” The same tone again. “What in the—”

The locks on the door started to be unlocked, but it couldn’t have been you because your kept pressing in the wrong code, even though you swore it was the right one. Your eyes widened in panic, thinking if there was someone else on the other side of your door. Did a burglar change your code? Was someone inside your—

“Y/N?” Jungsoo rubbed his right eye as he tried to come out of his sleep. “What are you doing here?”

You were standing up with your spine straight again, eyes still blown out, having frozen in the spot. The only things that were able to move were your eyeballs, looking at the door that Jungsoo had just pulled open. The number on the door clearly indicating ‘2703.’ Your door was 2702.

“I—I,” though your nervousness, your words still came out weak and slightly slurred, a dead giveaway that you were inhibited. “I thought this was… my place…”

“Are you drunk?” Jungsoo asked with a more worrying tone rather than an accusatory one.

“I… the crew wanted to check out Burning Sun… so I went with them… I just wanted to go home and watch Hello Counsellor… but they insisted I went with—”

“Alright, don’t worry,” he stepped out of his door slightly as he saw your body swaying. “At least you’re home now. Actually, yours is over there.”

“Where?”

“Over your shoulder, there,” he pointed.

You followed the direction of this finger. “Ah. Right. Thank you…” you tried to walk with more composure than before, even taking slower steps. Jungsoo’s eyes stayed on you as you made your way there, wanting to make sure you wouldn’t go too far and back to the lifts again.

Soon enough, you had arrived at the right door. This time, the code that you had pressed in was the right one, able to open the door at the first try. But you leaned in with all your body weight, making that you fell on your knees upon entering.

Jungsoo hissed with a square mouth at your fall, rushing to help you. “Goddamn it, Y/N.”

You whined as you felt the pain in your knees, thankful that your hands had broken your fall, but also knew that Jungsoo had just seen that incredibly embarrassing moment, making you whine even more. You were crawling inside and to the step, so you could sit on it, as soon as you turned your body around you saw Jungsoo right behind you.

“Hey, don’t stare,” you called him out. “This night has been hard enough on me as it is.”

“I can clearly see that,” Jungsoo smirked, finding your complaints endearing. “Don’t stay here though, move to your bedroom.”

“I need to take my shoes off first, silly,” you said, hissing at the end at the sight of your scrapped knees. Bringing your knees up you were able to reach for the straps of your sandal heels that went around your ankle at least five times. When sober you tied it in such a way it was effective that it would not come loose, but it only made your drunk self frustrated.

Trying to work at its strings, you noticed how there was still a figure standing a metre in front of you, making you look up. “Are you just going to stand there, Jungsoo?”

Jungsoo was still flustered from when you called him ‘silly’, his heart thumping just a little bit harder because of it, that he didn’t realise that he was just staring at you. “Oh… right.” He quickly moved to close the door to his own apartment to return to you, seeing you still struggling with your shoes. “Let me help you.”

He crouched down so he could sit by your feet, holding the underside of your calf gently. His cold touch contrasted against your hot skin, making goosebumps rising to the surface. Jungsoo inspected your work, trying to find the thread he would have to start with. “Why would you wear such shoes?”

“Because they look nice, Jungsoo, that’s why,” you raised your voice slightly, feeling brave enough to talk back. But when he looked at you with a rather stern look, you calmed down with a roll of your eyes. “You’re always criticising my choices. Even blaming me for things out of my control.”

“You are always in the most peculiar situations… this one included.” He tugged on a loop which, against his will, only made the shoe tighter. “I’m just calling it as I see it.”

“Well, you call it out in such a mean way.”

“I don’t mean to,” he stopped to look up at you. “I guess that’s just how I am.”

“But can’t you be nicer?” you now whined again. “I’d like you a whole lot better if you were.”

He chuckled. “Nice, how?”

“Compliment me in some way or another. I don’t know, say that I worked hard today, that you like my dancing, my work ethic is incomparable to—”

“You have really nice legs…” he said without a hitch of his breath, keeping his head down.

You raised your eyebrows, your mouth parting. “Not the direction I was going in. I wanted to talk about how I work—”

“You have nice lips too.” This time he shook his fringe out his eye’s ways before looking his way, his lower lip being tugged on by his teeth.

Lost for words at the sights, all you could do was scoff. “W-wow. You’re—you’re unbelievable.”

“At least I’m not lying,” he said. “Unlike a certain someone.”

You sighed exasperatingly, letting your head fall forward. “Look, Jungsoo, I didn’t mean to, you know, not to tell you… I didn’t want you to think…” You brought your head back up to see Jungsoo looking at you with soft eyes, a smile wanting to creep up as you finally spoke the words he had been waiting for. “Just, I didn’t want you think… think ill of me, I guess.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked sincerely.

“I… I don’t know. I was being stupid and overthinking. I tend to do that. I’m sorry.”

Turning his head to have his ear face you, he propped it with his index finger. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that quite right.”

He was really trying to rub this in your face, but as you admitted your own faults, you could not protest. But instead of speaking into his ear, you waited a while before he turned his face to yours again and got closer. “I’m sorry, Jungsoo.”

“You are forgiven, Y/N.”

Noticing that Jungsoo had ended untying your heels, you were finally able to have your feet relax for the first time this evening. Jungsoo prepared to get back on his feet before you held him by his forearm. “Can you help me up?”

At the hand that held him, Jungsoo now held with his own, grabbing onto both so he could pull you to your feet. You stretched the aching muscles in your feet, the pain worse than the one you feel after days in the practice room.

“Maybe these shoes were a bad idea,” you noted, agreeing with him, looking up to him with a tight smile, trying not to grin.

“I’m glad we’re both on the same page,” he freely showed his teeth in a grin, the first time you had seen him smile so widely, now smiling yourself. “Can we also agree that you don’t try to break into my place anymore.”

“I can’t come over?” you asked slightly offended.

“No! Y/N, that’s not what I mean,” he squeezed your hands. “Just don’t punch in the wrong code anymore.”

“It got you to come out.” Now you were teasing him relentlessly, and you were the only one laughing at this point, but the roll of Jungsoo’s eyes only made you laugh further.

“Give me a break, I just helped you out here.”

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry… I feel like I’m going to be apologising to you for a lifetime.”

“We’ll know each other for that long?” Jungsoo raised an eyebrow.

“Of course! Friendships can last that long,” you argued but he didn’t look convinced. “They do!”

“A friendship?”

“Exactly! See, now, now,” you used your index and middle finger to point at your eyes to then at Jungsoo’s, interchanging the direction of your fingers. “Now we’re getting on the same page. Off to a good start.”

You left Jungsoo to simmer your words, however drunken they may have been, as you made your way to your bedroom. Repeating the word entailed that a friendship was as far as you would take your relationship with Jungsoo, being nothing more than platonic partners. At the pit of his heart, he felt it tighten slightly, questioning if you would even consider anything more.

He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from calling out your name to clarify his intentions, not being the type to withhold his feelings, but stopped himself, believing that the friendship could in fact flourish.

But he moved to your kitchen to retrieve a cup from a shelf, thinking you’d have a water filter in your refrigerator, glad to have found one. After gulping down the refreshing drink, he was to pose down his cup before he stopped.

“Your kitchen if filthy,” he said out loud.

“What?” you yelled out, rushing out of your bedroom in your white large robe to the kitchen where Jungsoo stood. Turning your head quickly to look around, you couldn’t find a plate, cup or utensil out of place. Everything was out of sight and inside their respective cupboards. What could Jungsoo possibly be taking about?

You looked inside your sink, where Jungsoo was too looking into, seeing what he was referring to, exclaiming in protest. “It’s just one fork!”

[carriecourogen]

‘Exile in Guyville’ at 25: Still, if not more, relevant

It feels like we’re living through the ‘90s all over again right now. Everywhere you look, reboots of shows like Twin Peaks and The X-Files, slip dresses and Dr. Martens in Urban Outfitters, and reunions of bands like the Breeders and Smashing Pumpkins dot the current pop culture landscape. This is not unusual; we’ve found ourselves in these throwback eras before (think the ‘70s obsession with the wholesome ‘50s, or the ‘90s homages to the swinging ‘60s). Pop culture is cyclical, and when faced with uncertainty and turbulence (which we have in abundance), recalling “simpler times” of decades past provides some sort of semblance of familiarity and comfort.

And so, in the midst of this ‘90s resurgence, Liz Phair’s explosive and divisive 18-song debut Exile in Guyville turns 25 years old. The album came at the right time and place: in the midst of the (mostly male) rise of indie rock and trailing on the riot grrrl movement. Nearly three years in the making, it emerged as a fully-formed articulate, confident, and cutting concept — a track-by-track response to the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tome Exile on Main St. — paired with unpolished and imperfect vocals and instrumentation. It was an enormous “fuck you,” as Phair once recalled in an oral history on its making, to “people say[ing] ‘you can’t do this, you aren’t good enough to do this, you don’t know what you are doing’” giving Phair “enough rage in me to say, ‘I have as much of a voice as anyone.’”

Guyville topped the Village Voice’s esteemed Pazz and Jop poll the year of its release and thrust Phair into the role of an artistic wunderkind, even though she never thought of herself as a one, much less as a serious musician. “I was just a neighborhood kid who wanted to show the boys I could do it, too,” she told Mojo in 1994. In the decades since its release, the album has served as both a boon and a ball and chain: a critically-lauded record most artists dream of making, but one all of her subsequent work would be unfairly measured against.

Marking its anniversary is a new, expanded box set and short U.S. tour that will revisit the series of demo tapes that informed the album’s sound and concept. Revisiting emblems of pop culture from years past, and celebrating their milestone anniversaries, often drips with rose-colored nostalgia. But Exile in Guyville’s anniversary is different. To revisit Exile in Guyville in 2018 is to reckon with something that is not nostalgic, but something that strangely still feels current and all too relevant.

Exile in Guyville is a coming of age album, one that grapples with what it’s like to be a modern 20-something American woman: supposedly liberated, but not much better off than her mother, facing an insurmountable amount of societal pressures to look, act, and think a certain way. Phair wrote the majority of the album in ‘90s suburban Chicago, which the band Urge Overkill had previously deemed “Guyville”: a wasteland of “alternative” bros who, for all their feigned enlightenment, made it more than clear that, even though women were, in theory, their equals, in practice, in they would never really be their equals.

What if, in the 25 years that have passed, Guyville didn’t change or even get better? What if it just moved and grew? Women face just as many threats as they did in the early-90s. Guyville still very much exists in 2018, only now it’s come to encompass other gentrified, creative communities, be it by geography (like Bushwick) or industry (like the studio film system), or even digitally (like Twitter) — pockets where women are oppressed in some way or another.

“There’s a million Guyvilles,” Phair told the Washington Post this April. “‘Guyville’ could be a catchphrase for any oblivious community that has no idea that they’re shoving people to the side. I don’t know where it isn’t.”

Listening to Exile in Guyville today, I constantly have to remind myself that this album is almost as old as I am. It is not lost on me that I’m the same age as Phair was when it was released. Its words feel like they easily could have been written by me, by a friend, by other young, female artists coming up today, like Angel Olsen, Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, or Frankie Cosmos — all musical daughters (or maybe younger sisters) of Liz Phair. For me, and perhaps for many young women my age, Exile in Guyville is one of those albums that feels more fitting now than ever before.

Phair recently compared her album-making process to creating historical documents. “I’m doing these things to log on to history,” she told The Cut. “Like, ‘A woman lived in this time, and this is what it was like for her back then.’”

While Exile in Guyville does carry the weight of its time in some senses, its tie to a specific period lies mostly in the details: the paper map in “Divorce Song,” the stereo in “Help Me Mary,” the tight blue jeans styling of the titular “Soap Star Joe.” For the most part, Exile in Guyville seems to resist the trappings of history. Her words still sting, the taste of hurt and disgust and shame and anger in all of her words remain vivid, prescient, even. Art that both defines an era and transcends it is rare and worthy of discussion: What does that sort of status say about the art itself? More, perhaps, what does it say about our collective society?

In her 2014 book on Exile in Guyville for the 33 ⅓ series, critic Gina Arnold wrote: “Phair’s record brought out the uglier side of the indie rock scene, in the process highlighting the way that women artists, both there and elsewhere in the popular music world, are often undervalued as both listeners and consumers.”

Exile in Guyville pointed out that these problems existed then, but listening to the album now, I’m still hit with a stream of remembrances of offenses — some big, some small microaggressions that add up — that have come with being a woman in the music scene today.

I think about the conversation I once had with a male music writer who had just earlier asked me on a date. He ranted about why I was wrong to dislike a prolific male musician with a history of misogynistic behavior: “Most musicians are huge dicks,” he said. “Just put your gendered prejudices behind you.”

I think about the record store clerks who ask me if I’m looking for something “as a gift for my boyfriend.” The guy behind the counter at a used shop who rolled his eyes and told me to “just order a reissue at Urban to go with your Crosley” when I asked if they ever sell Sonic Youth.

I think about all the music dudes I meet at concerts, in record stores, and on dates, who always seem to test me, the ones who ask me what the rarest vinyl I own is, tell me that if I’ve never heard this or if I like X over Y, then I’m not serious, and I don’t know what I’m talking about. The ones who try to make me feel like I don’t belong.

I think about one of the most recent shitstorms of male @s I’ve brought upon myself on Twitter — the ones that happen every now and then when I casually denounce specific men or say simply that their art does not excuse their bad actions. Instantly, I recall the grown man telling me that a heavily researched piece I wrote wasn’t valid because I’m a woman, and that he saw my agenda as playing the victim card: “I get it. It’s the era of #MeToo and righting wrongs from 30 years ago. Getting justice for all those slighted for being female in a male world.”

“I was so disrespected,” Phair told Rolling Stone in 2010. “Being a woman in music back then, at least the level I was, was like being their bitch. Sit there, look pretty, bring us drinks and we'll talk about what music is good and bad. And it was almost understood that women's taste in music was inferior. [...] I was so angry about being taken advantage of sexually, being overlooked intellectually.”

Did Phair know something as a 25-year-old then that those of us living out our mid-20s now still have yet to figure out? A way to rise above her situation, maybe? Did she think that calling it out then would maybe lead to a change for now? How many of us girls listen to her today and wish we could wrap our arms around her like a friend and say, “Oh, but Liz, things are going to get so much worse”?

They make rude remarks about me / They wonder just how wild I would be / As they egg me on and keep me mad / They play me like a pit bull in a basement, and for that / I lock my door at night / I keep my mouth shut tight / I practice all my moves / I memorize their stupid rules

It takes Phair barely over three minutes on Exile in Guyville before she rips into the types of men who have tried to keep her in her place in “Help Me Mary.” They’re the ones who overrun her home — in her case, Wicker Park’s indie scene — and trap her, reducing her to a mothering role. Their ridicule is just barely above that of a schoolyard “you can’t play with us” taunt, nagging her with “you can’t do this” and “you don’t belong here” to her face incessantly. Instead of biting back, she swallows her anger, internalizes it and uses it as a fuel to learn their game, to get so good at it that she ends up besting them in the end. But can she really best them in the end? No matter how good Liz Phair got, she is still, at the end of the day, a woman.

In a recent essay on the prominent gender biases present in music criticism for The Outline, critic Leah Finnegan argues that perspective when writing about art matters: “How does the journalist see the world, and how do they place art in it? If you’re paying attention, an article will reveal those biases. It will sometimes tell us more about the writer than what the writer is writing about.”

Early criticism of Exile in Guyville and profiles of Phair were primarily written by men who missed the point entirely. Rolling Stone’s initial review lumped it in with PJ Harvey’s not-really-all-that-similar Rid of Me, describing both as albums by angry women exacting a strange sort of revenge, exploring “the toxic consequences of intimacy with lacerating explicitness [...] relationships don't just end, they splatter. Yet listen closely, and you'll hear these women laughing under their breath.” Meanwhile, Spin pushed their criticism further, calling Phair a “well-off Winnetka, Illinois brat” who wrote an album of “songs about all the boys she’s fucked and how soon they fucked her over.”

Attempting to follow an album that had set such a high standard would be difficult for anyone. Yet while many of Phair’s later records — Whip-Smart, whitechocolatespaceegg, and Liz Phair — were solid works, full of tender, piercing, tough, and smart songs about being a woman in this world, each faced subsequently fading reviews that placed more emphasis on her looks than her music — mostly written by male critics. Her career withered.

“Men can make middling, maudlin art and be celebrated, and women artists face harsher scrutiny while doing the same thing, and usually better,” Finnegan wrote in the same Outline piece. I can’t help but wonder how Phair’s career could have been altered if more women were writing about her back then. Women who understood what she was talking about, who didn’t reduce songs about complicated issues we face to maudlin drivel or the shallow venting of a girl who is simply angry.

But more distressing than the theme of how female artists continue to be mistreated is the theme that life as a young woman in America continues to be, more or less, the same. Maybe even worse.

Whatever happened to a boyfriend? / The kind of guy who tries to win you over. / Whatever happened to a boyfriend? / The kind of guy who makes love ‘cause he’s in it. / I want a boyfriend. / I want a boyfriend. / I want all that stupid old shit / Like letters and sodas / Letters and sodas

In 1968, Virginia Slims famously began marketing their cigarettes to women with a tagline “You’ve come a long way, baby!” The strides Gen X’s mothers had made for women’s liberation in the ‘60s and ‘70s had allowed women of the ‘90s to boldly own their sexuality as something casual, their wants and desires equal to a man’s. Except it wasn’t that simple, and on the song “Fuck and Run,” Phair laments the disposable turn that dating life had taken. Had we really come a long way? Hardly.  

Twenty-five years later, on an unusually warm April night, a friend and I were explaining Tinder to two parental figures over dinner. This was not the first time we’ve had to break down the State Of Meeting Men in 2018 to people who are our elders, but the first time I was struck by how exhausting it is, how demoralizing, how my resigned, yet defensive, argument that this swiping and scheduling our way to hookups thing just is the way it is makes no sense.

“Guys don’t talk to us in real life,” I insisted. Sitting back in my chair, I dropped my fork on the plate in front of me as defeated punctuation. “The only way to meet a guy now is on an app, and they pretty much all just want to have sex and nothing else.” They looked at us incredulously.

Millennial women share a desire planted by Baby Boomers and driven home by Gen X: That we can be independent women who don’t need men in our lives. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when independence becomes tiring; times when you know that even though you can do it all by yourself, you don’t really want to. Millennials are 48 percent more likely to have sex before even going on a first date with someone, even though we’re 40 percent more likely than Boomers to think sex is better with an emotional connection. Virtually having access to sex at any time is making us feel increasingly more hollow.

Sitting across from a couple who had been together for nearly half a century, Phair’s “Fuck and Run” lyrics came to mind. We both find ourselves wanting what the women who came before us have and had: stability, a relationship, affection, love. That admission terrifies us, in a way. It makes us feel like we’re betraying our generation and the freedoms we’ve earned, when, really, we’re just allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, allowing ourselves to be human.

So don’t look at me sideways / Don’t even look me straight on / And don’t look at my hands in my pockets, baby / I ain’t done anything wrong

In “Never Said,” Phair’s powerlessness against pervasive gossip and doubts recalls the strains of #MeToo. While Phair centers the track around adamance that nothing happened and #MeToo is focused on the insistence that something happened, what they both share is the painful sense that being a woman and being a person believed to be telling the truth are, at times, mutually exclusive.

When faced with doubts, both Phair and women today are forced to aggressively defend themselves as they see their reputations ruined. Past actions are called into question, personality traits turned against us, and our repeated insistences — done to keep our names “clean as a whistle” — are seen as lies or exaggerations, at best, admissions of guilt, at worst.

A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that a frustrating number of people think women are making false #MeToo claims: 31 percent categorized false claims as a major problem; 45 percent called them a minor issue. Do we really still think that women lie more often than not?

Why does it seem that men are believed unequivocally, but when women tell the truth, they are wrong until proven right? Why do we have to work extra hard to fight suspicions? It’s a frustrating sticking point. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. We’re not always seeking justice against aggressors, not always seeking revenge, as Phair may have been in “Never Said.” Sometimes, all we want is to be heard and accepted.

But for all its anger — and Exile in Guyville is an album full of a specific form of women’s rage — it still holds quiet moments of vulnerability. Its songs still depict evergreen, nuanced feelings so specific to this strange time period of delayed adult womanhood. The reflections on the city in which you live, the uncertain hope for a relationship with someone better than what you’re used to, the growing pains of doing and being what you want versus what is expected of you, and the encounters with the more realistic, perhaps sadder, side of elders you once considered heroic — all of those complicated situations live in the softer in-between moments of the album, from “Stratford-On-Guy” to “Shatter”, “Canary” and “Flower” to “Explain It To Me.”

It’s in these ebbs and flows that Exile in Guyville resonates. Guyville helped to usher in the transition between punks like Debbie and Viv and Siouxsie, who reached the bedrooms of young girls listening and made them feel like they weren’t so alone in their emotions and their anger, and alt-girls like Alanis and Fiona and Shirley, who built upon that rage, but let listeners know they, too, sometimes felt strange and misunderstood and were still struggling to figure everything out.

Listening to the album today can, on certain occasions, feel like listening to what the inside of your brain sounds like over the course of 24 hours, the rollercoaster of rushing thoughts and feelings that go through it. Angry. Excited. Sad. Hopeful. Complicated. So, maybe not much has changed in 25 years. Maybe being a 20-something girl still sucks in so many ways. But there’s a silver lining: At every step, we have this album in our ear, there to tell us that someone else, who is now older and wiser than we are at this moment, has been through all of this before and knows exactly how we feel.

[hookysblog]

Isreal, Australia and New Zealand.

BARBY CLUB, TEL AVIV, ISRAEl!

MERCH SITES...PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL MUSICIAN

https://the-hacienda-uk.myshopify.com/

 https://peter-hook-uk.myshopify.com/

Our second trip to Israel!

Complete with me nursing a really bad sore throat and chest;(

Not too many death threats this time I believe, what a world eh! Quite a long flight, but flies by with the boys. Immigration is easy until our sound guy gets dragged off for questioning about his granddad (who he never knew?).

He is kept for a long time, which is a little worrying, but is eventually let in and never really found out what it was all about?

His Big Bad Grandad sounds interesting!

The road works (in the centre of Tel Aviv at midnight???)  hold up our arrival at the hotel for a couple of hours, with all the roads leading to it closed. What a mess! We end up walking, which with the equipment isn’t easy;(

A lovely day dawns and our wacky little hotel called Hotel Cinema, has film posters and projectors everywhere. I am in the actual projection room at the top of the old theatre, complete with hole for the lens to poke through, really weird. I grab a haircut by the Mighty Zohan and a lovely pizza. The area we are in is very vibrant, in other words …..Rocking! The gig looms and we being joined today by Hadar Goldman, an Israeli violinist from the punk band Ciam, whose other claim to fame is the purchase of Ian Curtis’s old house, 77, Barton Street, Macclesfield. Hadar wanted to open it up as a museum but has not been successful so far, sadly. Could be a job for me in my dotage as a curator, like Night at The Museum eh?;)

Anyway, he is very nervous but the lads are on top form and the gig goes great from start to finish. Hadar is great on Atmosphere and Autosuggestion, and the three hours fly by! The lads are off early the next day to OZ but I don’t follow until the night of the day after, so have a bit of time to kill.

It is Yom Kippur here and everyone seems really worried I will starve to death. So like a real student, I invest in two Pot Noodle’s and a load of chocolate and after raiding the breakfast buffet, I think I will survive;) I sleep again after brekkie and wake and walk down to the beach. Spending the whole afternoon just watching the world go by.

Yom Kippur lasts from dusk until dusk the next day and as the sun goes down the noise levels decrease, until the only sounds you can hear are the children playing in the deserted streets. Breakfast is provided on Sunday for us and my wonderful hosts have hired me a mountain bike for what is called ‘Childrens Day’ here.

I have not cycled for years so am a little apprehensive to say the least. I get the bike on the street and it is really strange…..There are no cars at all! The whole place is deserted with every shop closed. The only problem is my chest….I am like puffin’ Billy.

In the old days there would be no power or phones in the city I am told. The leaves soon settle in the road and it gives a post apocalyptic feel as I cycle along topless the leaves blowing round me. I go down through the deserted market to the beachfront, and there the place is completely alive, with thousands of kids on every size and kind of bike, motorised skateboards and tons of electric scooters everywhere. It is completely magical, it really is.

I AM SPELLBOUND;)

 I love the bike and watching the kids in huge groups cycling along the freeways and empty streets is heart warming, it really is and I only give up because I am worried about getting sunburnt, heading back to the hotel for a hat and a T-shirt and a Pot Noodle. I go back in the afternoon suitably attired and ride and ride, until I have to give up because my arse is so sore (no 50p jokes please!). As the sun sets the city gets back to normal all too soon with the noise level rising to it’s usual roar by 7p.m. On the way to the airport for my flight to Oz the busy, noisy streets seem so coarse compared to how they were a few hours before, what a shame. I sail through Immigration/Customs, my granddad must have been ok? (Didn’t know him either;(

I begin a to long trip to Australia, one of my favourite places on earth.

 METRO THEATRE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Throat and chest still bad but we persevere;)

I arrive the day of the gig so by the time gig time comes I am completely addled. It reminds me of being drunk, it really does. This Joy Division ‘2 album’ night was added at short notice after our Japanese gigs fell through, but is very well attended. Great to play Closer again, wonderful. Martin our new keyboard player is top from start to finish, a great response. I crawl off to bed exhausted. Not much time to relax because we are off the next day for a gig at….

 CORNER HOTEL, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

 Lovely to be back, a beautiful city, very Parisien. It was here that I wrote most of The Hacienda Book funnily enough, when I was Djing at Parklife in 2008, you got the week off in-between so I thought it was a great time to start. Australia looms large in my books lives, as you will see later;)

The on stage sound is tough at this place, which I remember all too well from last time, but the gig goes great and is Sold Out! Too. Great reception for both Unknown Pleasures and Closer, yet again! An almost humane leave sees us off to……

 THE STUDIO, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

 Another beautiful country and now we have a lot of English friends living here now. Hi Carol;) Back to Substance tonight, which is nice.

I have to give in here, I am finding it hard to sleep my chest is crackling that much, so a trip to the Doctor’s beckons. Strangely both me and Pottsy have the same problem???

The Doctor says I am ‘crackly’ and he is ‘wheezy’,

 ‘Where’s Grumpy?’ I ask?

 He doesn’t laugh;(

 $350 Dollars light and we are both Amoxcycillined up and off we go.

Gig goes great from start to finish. Still struggling with my throat which is really annoying Grrrrr! I am waiting for the Biotics still to kick in. But I take it easy by cycling all over the place puffing gently. It’s my new thang!

It’s wonderful how both countries are completely suited, and go out of their way to encourage cycling. I follow the river past the Zoo all the way down to the centre of the city. Then get embarrassed because I am the only one topless? So head back. Hard on the chest again but well worth it! Grab a Kebab before the gig and I am ready!

The place is packed and gig goes great. The lads are on fire.

Ecstatic reception to both records!

Catch up with a few old mates, lovely to see you again Platty;) Next stop…

  THE TIVOLI, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

 Back to Substance and another Sold Out gig. This getting boring….only joking, after all our hard work it is the best compliment ever, thank you all.

Nice venue and everything goes well, recovering nicely;) Off early tomorrow so after more smashed Avacado we are off to…

 THE GOV, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA

 Another beautiful place.

Nice, quiet and very suburban. Lovely old theatre venue that is packed and of course….Sold Out! Bit of an altercation with some fans at the front, but it is soon sorted and the bouncer tells me it’s the same guys he threw out last time we were here….go figure? Very cold here at night in spring, so wrap up if you are visting. Up earlish to hop over to …….

 CORNER HOTEL, Concert’s 1, 2, AND 3, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

1.I feel marginally better today, thank god!

So have a lovely first day here, visit the Dior exhibition at the Museum along with The Great Wave exhibition by the Japanese Ukiyo-e artist Hokusa

.

  A very cultural day indeed! Enjoy a lovely stroll back to the Hotel and struggle through a short gym session, which does make me feel better.

It’s gig time before I know it and it’s back to The Metro for the struggle with the foldback.

Gig is a struggle and I cannot get the vibe, but it goes down well I must admit. Nice early night.

 2.Have a lovely Big Morning out for breakfast/Brunch with Viv (Big Day Out owner and very old friend) and one Zombie film later am ready for round two.

DING DING! Better gig tonight, great audience, sound still shit. The only place that sounds worse than this place is our very own Fac251 The Factory, where there is nothing you can do to combat it, believe me we have tried everything.

Lovely to see Viv Lees, with his son at the concert too. God we are getting old!

 3.Last night and we turn down a bit onstage and magically it sounds better for it. Play really well and great reaction gives us heart for our long trek to…….

 THE ASTOR THEATRE, PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

 This is one of my favourite places on earth. It really has to be seen to be believed, and that’s despite nearly dying from food poisoning here once see Inside New Order for details;) I am so happy we are finishing here. Stay in a wonderful Casino Hotel that is HUGE! Great pools inside and out, huge gym and as I am feeling a lot better I get in there and have a great workout, so good to be back to normal. Finish off the day sunbathing with a Virgin Mary and with dinner at their very own NOBU, am ready for whatever the concert brings.

Tonight we are back at one of my favourite venues. It’s an old Cinema complex transformed into a great gig. The dressing room used to be one of the smaller theatre’s but they have normal dressing rooms now….Boo Hoo! Do the meet and greet like a Old Mancunian Santa Claus then it’s the show, Sold Out show did I say? Hee Hee!

The sound is great, the audience is great, band is great!

What a wonderful end. I thank everyone and we are done ready for home, but Oops…… I forget to thank Phil Murphy and Steve Jones and they will not let me forget it either, sorry boys;(

Nice to see Brian Jary (I used to sit next to him at Salford Grammar in 1967) and his wife, along with Ken and Georgina our old friends too;) Wake to a huge storm, which is beautiful to watch.

After a fantastic breakfast with the biggest Las Vegas style buffet I have ever seen, Dan our Tour Manager takes us to the airport for the first of our three planes home.

 Thank you for such a fantastic time…..EVERYONE!

 Cheers Hooky, ’17.

[thepermanentrainpress]

REVIEW: CONTACT FESTIVAL AT BC PLACE - DEC. 27TH AND 28TH, 2019

Contact Festival is one of the most successful annual festivals in Vancouver. Over the years, it’s moved from Rogers Arena to the larger BC Place and hosted some of the biggest electronic music acts in the world. “Raves” are no longer limited to underground clubs – today, DJs play for tens of thousands of people at stadiums and festivals.

It was a very long event. The doors opened at 5 with music on both stages beginning at 5:20, extending all the way to midnight with minimal breaks. Not everyone attends for the whole seven hours, of course – but even for one day, that’s much longer than a typical concert. You really have to prepare for a big evening, and it’s even more important to stay fueled and hydrated once inside! It’s a hot, draining, crowded function, and keeping energy is essential.

The entire stadium was part of the event. On the floor area was the main stage and dance floor, holding a massive crowd amongst stadium seats and a few tents. However, on the second floor level where restrooms and concession were outside the main event was the “FVDED stage,” hosting a smaller but still crowded mass of people. There was really no escape from the noise – you could hear the pounding bass from both stages anywhere in the building, and for a couple of blocks outside BC Place as well. The upstairs stage had a more upbeat, contemporary, bass-heavy style for most of the evening. The main area’s music tended to be slightly more chill, feeling less like a club and more like an actual event. Performers on the FVDED stage for Night 1 included Kompany, Graves, and G Jones. Although the stage and dance area were much smaller, there were still many lasers and pretty colours flashing for an immersive experience the whole time.

Any crowded event can be difficult to navigate, particularly one with such an intense energy and fanbase as Contact. I was impressed with the crowd: I moved around a lot both days and walking, excusing myself through the people, etc. was never an issue. I didn't witness or experience any aggressive or rude behaviour. I appreciate everyone – not just the audience, but especially the staff and security – who worked to keep the event safe, fun, and accessible. 

Contact is about more than just the artists: it’s an entire experience. People travel for this event and spend hours preparing their outfits, plans, and energy. Amongst the audience, there were lots of costumes, people adorned in glowing/flashing lights, and all sorts of vibrant colours. There were people dressed in Christmas costumes as elves and even Santa. Contact is a big party, and the clothing adds an immersive and distinct element. Every rave will have people dressing up, but only at somewhere like this do you see such a variety and number of stand-outs. Just walking around and taking in the audience visuals is a big part of the fun. 

EDM events are not like concerts. Obviously, the music isn’t being performed live by a band – it is mostly pre-recorded and sampled. Of course, the DJ does still perform – there’s a lot of improvisation in a set and control. It’s more than just pushing a button. Nevertheless, the focus is on the visuals and crowd energy more so than the music, due to its nature. A lot of the music is repetitive; it is mostly pulsing bass, and a lot of the stuff played is actually recorded by a different musician. It’s not something I have a lot of experience in, and thus it was very different from the shows I’m used to. 

On Night 1, the first act I caught on the main stage was Denver-based DJ Said The Sky. His sets are a combo of trap, future bass, and dubstep. All of the music on both nights was pretty intense, but this set was one of the more mellow of the fest. It was slightly ambient, with a mesmerizing/hypnotic effect. He brought a lot of energy to the performance, and lit up the room just as much as the later headliners. The visuals involved a lot of rainbow lasers and flowing clouds.

On afterwards was Dutch DJ San Holo, who continued the trap and future bass set themes of the evening. His visuals were extremely colourful, flooding the entire screen with neon, bright hues, and explosive patterns. He played guitar a lot on stage, adding a live element that really stood out amongst the popping giant patterns—a small figure holding an instrument, against a background of fiery shining flames. It was really cool to watch, and the visuals that personally stood out to me the most. The arena was equipped with pyrotechnic equipment, and San Holo repeatedly used giant sparks to create live explosions on stage – awe-inspiring to an audience now well into the night. It was like watching sparklers dance as a child, except the sparks are 30 feet tall.

Chicago DJ Kaskade was on at 9:15. He’s been a major EDM figure for almost 20 years, and really showed his experience that night. The visuals were distorted, colourful, and aesthetically pleasing. Images of nature like flowers and lightning, roads, and fire were dominant. There were also many subdued hues of Kaskade’s name and shadow in blue and pink. Naturally, there was also use of pyrotechnics – giant actual flames pumping on stage never failed to impress the crowd. This was deep house music, and Kaskade’s expertise means his music was some of the most recognizable of the era. There were many original hits (“Us” and “Atmosphere”), but also a lot of sampling of classic rock songs, unexpectedly. He sampled “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Welcome To The Jungle,” and even “Under The Bridge”—songs you don’t expect to hear at a rave. The audience sang along every time. Out of all the sets of the weekend, this was probably the most engaging in how the actual music seemed to connect to the people there. Most of the sets were about the live experience in the moment – this one seemed to emphasize the actual music best.

The final act and headliner was Major Lazer – fronted by major producer and DJ Diplo, also including a current lineup of Walshy Fire and Ape Drums. There was just so much energy throughout this set. Diplo tours all over the world and has been a part of several EDM groups, and he really brings his all to exciting a crowd. The visuals were many geometric patterns and multi-coloured images, projecting the artist’s name, the audience, and backup dancers. There were all sorts of lasers and images of cartoon drawings, like a DJ with a record or a wall of speakers. Of course, there was some pyro and lasers as well. The backup dancers were very in-tune and well-choreographed. They ran all around the stage area, climbing platforms, touching each other, and twerking in time. It’s not easy to engage that attention when there’s so much music and visuals literally banging around you – they were so good at what they did. I’ve seen backup dancers at rock concerts that weren’t as engaging. 

Major Lazer had the most engagement with the crowd of everyone I saw. There’s a lot of festival experience, and Diplo knows just how to keep people going and keep them motivated. There was never a dull moment – whether it was chants of “I say Major, you say Lazer! MAJOR!,” sampling the bass of “Seven Nation Army,” or reminding us it was the last Friday night of the entire decade. “I know right now that you’re going to have the best f***ing year in 2020!” to roars of applause. 

Day 2:

The FVDED stage included artists such as Wooli, Dabin, and Feed Me. The music ended slightly earlier at 10:00 instead of 10:30 like the night before, but the dance area and music was no less intense.

All the way from Australia was producer Fisher. His house set was engaging musically, but the visuals weren’t nearly as impressive as the other acts. A lot of it was repetitive patterns of his own silhouette or his DJ name mirrored, or just lasers bouncing with nothing on the screen. Some of them were more interesting, projections of shapes and patterns – things like spots, stripes, and fingerprints. They were nice to look at, but the sequences were very repetitive, so it just wasn’t that interesting after a few minutes. A lot of the music was sequestered by a high robotic voice saying “Let’s play it again!” before yet another bass drop. I guess maybe that applied to the visuals as well. It wasn’t a bad set, it just really wasn’t as unique or fun as the others. There were a bit of pyrotechnics near the end for when he played “Losing It,” but nothing very memorable. 

Our own Canadian talent Rezz came next, and her entire set was my highlight of the festival. I wasn’t familiar with her at all before, but heard she puts on an amazing show, and she definitely did not disappoint. At only 24 years old, she’s got two studio albums and is a prominent addition to any festival. She emerged to the ever-present giant flames and blasted the fire many times throughout, and it was just… so cool. Her visuals were themed and very in-tune with the set, instead of seeming almost random like the others. There was a lot of hellfire and church-type imagery, and an animated avatar in goggles (clearly supposed to be Rezz, who was wearing the same goggles on stage) burning things and running. Towards the end were gorgeous cosmic galaxy projections, something I’m surprised not many other DJs incorporated. There was also a disturbing tentacled monster and off-putting geometric patterns, near Lovecraftian imagery. 

A computerized, booming, commanding voice echoed a narrative periodically throughout the set, telling the audience to think about their feelings, to let it all go, and to “relax” – right before another bass drop. It held everyone’s attention and it was a really interesting, unique set. I would love to see her perform again at another fest or headlining show. She was the most interesting and probably the best act of the night – putting male DJs twice her age with many more years of experience to shame!

Closing the fest was one of the biggest DJs in the world, and my main reason for wanting to attend – Tiësto! With a two decade career, he’s performed all over the world and is very prominent in the live EDM scene. I saw him at Pemberton Festival a few years ago and it was amazing, so I was really looking forward to what was coming. Sadly, he was no Rezz. I’m not sure what was different, if it was the indoor setting or the music he chose, but it was just not that fun visually or audibly. There’s energy, and there’s getting the crowd moving, but it never overly impressed. The visuals were pretty forgettable – flashing lights, golden lasers, a lot of flashing of the act’s name in case we forgot who he was. There were animated Minecraft-like sprites when he played “Jackie Chan” (with Dzeko, Preme, and Post Malone rapping) but they were ugly and not very colourful. He sampled other EDM classics like “Titanium” and “Wake Me Up.” There wasn’t even much pyro. 

For a closer and such a respected DJ, I really wanted something more. I don’t know his inner mind, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this set was forgoing anything awe-inspiring for some phoned-in, basic heavy sets and even more basic visuals. When you’re Tiësto, people will come no matter what (I know I did) and I guess you can relax. The man is 50 years old. Not every set can be the best. Everyone still had fun and the music was still nice, and in the end, that is what’s most important… I guess.

Contact is a full experience. It’s unique in its size and scope as a festival, and is one of the largest annual concerts and annual EDM events in the area. It is extremely intense in all aspects and definitely not for everyone. I can recommend it, but only if you know exactly what you’re getting into and if you like this style of music. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was overwhelmed and exhausted afterwards. It’s a fun event… but it’s a lot.

Written by: Cazzy Lewchuk

[fridaynightbordercrossing]

INTERVIEW WITH MINUIT DE LACROIX

Minuit is not a character, is a being of flesh, bone and spirit that appears on the Tijuana scene around 1994 or 1995. First, with a series of drawings with gothic and dark imagery. Later he started to roll tapes with noises, and then achieve a strange combination of industrial, goth, pop and classical music, which did not go unnoticed.

Later, he achieves an unclassifiable style. Thus, we find someone with great talent in production and execution, also collaborating in projects such as Mosquito. Currently, who at the time was also called "an avant-garde talent not recognized in Tijuana", lives in Europe, making music and collaborating with all kinds of artists, here is an interview.

THE MYTH "From the beginning, some time ago, the way to know it is in the lyrics of my songs. Traumas like the breakup of my long-standing relationship with a witch, have changed my ability to express what I am, because it is your heart that you put in the songs and that is what I believe that goes to show the personality of each artist".

"If you remember, I started drawing for several fanzines before anything else. Around 1994, I started to read live poetry and roll some experimental music cassettes (influenced by groups like Art Of Noise, Orb, Skinny Puppy, Einstürzende Neubauten, Tear Garden and Mr. Bungle). With that I opened the shows of many local bands here and in Tecate. By then, I had already graduated from the music academy".

INFLUENCES "Hmmm ... Well, I grew up under the influence of Renaissance and Futurism, they are polar opposites, but in general, almost all the artistic periods have influenced me in some way. Aesthetic encounter not only in the music of the world, but in all the arts, feminine beauty and architecture. All those things are very important factors for the creation of Minuit".

THE OBJECTIVE OF INVOLVING IN VARIOUS PROJECTS "It is  a return to rebirth, I can not grasp the idea that you owe it to one thing alone. Interestingly, the first time I appeared on a cultural calendar, they put on "multimedia show". I have had the good fortune of participating in two films and a short film, I am working on two others of a kid who makes independent films here in Tijuana and I have received a couple of proposals from other people. I'm very interested because there is not a big stretch between the characters and the actor, I'm terrible, but nobody stops me".

DISTANCE BETWEEN THE PAST AND THE FUTURE "In my drawings, having gone through a surreal stage, i stop doing it so as not to repeat the same technical errors. Poetry turned into prose, and although my songs have a style that still does not disappear, my musical arrangements became less and less complicated".

BEING A REFERENCE OF THE TIJUANENSE "UNDERGROUND" "I do not know the references, because in Tijuana there is no longer a underground like there are in many cities of the republic. In one stage the scene became a society and many people decided to follow trends. One thing is to have ideals and stay working with your concept until you do it and another thing is to leave aside what you bring inside and do whatever it is that you want to be a success. I know people who sacrificed their identity for fifteen minutes of fame and not only is it a pity, but musically it became a shame".

MINUIT SPEAKS ABOUT MINUIT "Well, for the time being I have dedicated myself to producing other artists, recording the best I can, writing and participating with different young creators. When someone sees a guy with long hair, they think  he's a rocker. I do not have a goal to see myself in such a way, but I know that there are people who see me in different ways, but people will believe what they want to believe and that does not alter my way of being. What interests me is to be active in different projects with different individuals and different women (ahem ...) ".

THE SCENE "I've watched from afar a handful of bands in Tijuana that have the potential to become part of national rock, it's just a matter of not losing it. As for the Tijuana electronics, I see that there is an emergence of young people who are experimenting and I know that they can take their ideas to a foreign audience ... ciao ".

A MOMENT OF TIDE   To reflect a little what happened at the time when Minuit appeared on the scene in Tijuana, I leave this with what I collaborate on Trac! Trac! Trac! about TIDE in 1997. The text is originally in English.

TIDESTORY PER MINUIT TIDE has finally released the long awaited new recording, which is called Back Hand Fourth. After three previous attempts in the study, they have finally succeeded. "We have been trying to release this film for a year and finally we have achieved it," says Italian keyboard player RuBella Badoglio. Eccentric, TIDE is one of the most constant musical ensembles in his musical work currently in Tijuana. Despite its taste for the abstract, TIDE stands out as being of that rare species that has its own vision and sound, not because they want to sound different, but simply because they ARE different. Therefore, TIDE has managed to generate loyal followers, which are given by the recommendation of others.

I had the good fortune to talk to them. I hope you enjoy.

Back Hand Fourth, the new recording, have you heard it ?, "Yes, in fact, it's already been recorded", says Why? Known: A Rider - singer and composer, besides not so virtuoso guitarist-.

M: "Thats rare! (laughs), it's more strange than the others. The sounds are more demented, we're doing more analog overdubs live, a lot more weird things. Everything had been more acoustic in the past. We definitely try to make music for people's brains more than for anything else. It is more intense on this occasion because of the nature of our history. They are more intense songs, this makes it more rare and more professional at the same time ". October 15, 1997 is the date where they celebrate 2 years of launching what they call "settes".

"I think it's the last TIDE recording for me," says MALice-Terror, vocalist, who says: "It's the most beautiful and at the same time the most difficult recording we've made. I feel that it reflects all the fights that have taken place about where we are going with this. " The difficulties in developing Back Hand Fourth, were from the beginning to not be satisfied with what came out initially. The first problem arose with the same formula with which they had previously composed. In October of 96, the recording was finished, but in December it had not been released due to technical problems with the editing equipment. In January of 1997, RuBella Badoglio moved to Sicily, Italy, which caused her to start working on her own solo project, SpunoS.

M says: "We had to delay the launch date indefinitely." FatAlien Youth was out of the project and Why? AKnown: A Rider? began to disappear little by little after recording: "I think I was angry and bored, totally annoying to say the truth. I was on the edge, I felt like a school psycho!.That's how I describe that moment in my life". MALice-Terror also accepts his interest in leaving the band: "I had to review what happened in my life, mainly I was wondering, what do I do with these people? "

"If this had a soundtrack, it would undoubtedly be that of the sound of turbulent violence, so I would describe it", says RuBella Badoglio: "I really appreciate our relationship as a valuable jewel, but it is only possible to make a song if each one of us decided if it is a good step for TIDE. I think it's in all aspects, a recording that is very difficult to hear, in particular it took me a long time to like it, "admits RuBella, who also adds:" If someone else heard this album for a month, it would end to please him, it makes sense to be this way".

MAL-ice Terror, on the other hand, is more direct about it: "It sounds good, it's a great album. It is very different from what I had done before. I think we achieved a real sound, the guitars flow delicately. Never, in fact, I've heard something like that before it was recorded, I'm perfectly happy with what we were trying to capture on the recording. " RuBella agrees: "This recording has a greater diversity than any group in a demo has musically. TIDE has become a band with a sound, which was a necessary evolution, but ... ". MAL-ice says: "It's very natural, together with a lot of people who start playing music and obviously, from there you have to come out with your own sound without trying to look for it, you can ask that to Staura or Bodhisattva and they'll ask you they are going to say, A SOUND IS BORN".  

UPDATE   After this interview, Minuit explores Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum and other sites of the Riviera Maya, where he starts with photography, exposing in two groups. Likewise, it explores sounds through experiments, which were used in various events.

Obtains a partial support of the Program of Support to the Artistic and Cultural Promotion for the registry of sound investigation in Basque Country, Catalonia and Madrid of sounds of the nature, as well as of environmental noise of transport, which leaves in a disc called Luto Ibérico , which appeared on CD and digitally through Abdicate Cell, netlabel in Norway.

He starts a dance music project called Random Rooms, with which he toured in Spain, culminating in Barcelona. He later started MDL, a minimal techno project, with which he has participated in events, a film in Poland and a short film in Germany, where in Berlin, he has presented concerts with CDM. He teaches electronic music courses in Germany and Spain, as well as developing projects through his studio in Barcelona.

(Interview published in Tijuana Metro in 2002. TIDE Story was published in Trac! Trac! Trac! In 1997)

[noiseartists]

The Academy Of Sun: Psychaedelic Pop from Brighton

Formed in Brighton nine years ago, The Academy of Sun is a four-piece comprised of Nick Hudson (piano, synths, hammon organ, harmonium, vocals, percussion, synths), Kianna Blue (bass, synths), Guy Brice (guitars) and Ash Babb (drums). Together, they present dystopian fantastic creations that combine the deeply personal and the poetically arcane. Dark yet buoyant, this is a controlled explosion of psychedelic and dark power pop with atmospheres couched in vast and expansive landscapes and cinematic arrangements.

Nick Hudson's musical juggernaut has been active in various incarnations since 2012, always transcending expectations. The Academy Of Sun has collaborated with Massive Attack's Shara Nelson, members of NYC's Kayo Dot, David Tibet of Current 93, Asva and Matthew Seligman (Bowie, Tori Amos, Morrissey). Hudson has also collaborated with Wayne Hussey of The Mission, as well as Canadian queercore icon GB Jones. Known for explosive and psychedelic live shows, The Academy Of Sun has performed in a medieval castle in Italy, a boat on the Thames, an abandoned railway carriage in Offenbach, colossal churches, The London College of Fashion, The Old Market theatre in Brighton, the MS Stubnitz in Hamburg, Brighton Dome, and a string of L.A. shows in 2019. Having toured 3 continents, highlights include appearances with Mogwai, Toby Driver and Keith Abrams from Kayo Dot, and Timba Harris (Mr Bungle, Amanda Palmer). 'The Parts That Need Replacing' is out now, available across online stores and streaming platforms such as Spotify. The full album 'The Quiet Earth' will be released in summer of 2020 on CD, as well as digitally.

THE INTERVIEW

Who are the group members?

Myself, Kianna Blue, Ash Babb, Guy Brice.

How did you meet?

A poet introduced Kianna and I. We ended up living together, In our modest cottage on the edge of a cliff we kept house goats. Guy was one of them. It became quickly apparent that if he kept his hooves pedicured, he had an incredible way with a guitar. Ash and I met in a local tavern, courtesy of a mutual online awareness via the blog of author Dennis Cooper.

How did you come up with your name?

I'd been reading literature on pagan sun-worshipping cults and came across Heliogabalus, the queer teenage anarchist emperor of ancient Rome. Artaud wrote on him. So I wanted to unleash and harness the unkempt nuclear blaze of that energy within a formalist framework.

What is your music about?

It's about invigoration and alchemy – stimulating the mind and soul in tandem with the body. Music to dance and cry to. It's about pole-vaulting transgressive and subversive narratives over the iron gate of mainstream normativity. Spiraling wells of energy and dynamism. Loud and shimmering vibrancy. “Did I really hear that?”

What are your goals as an artist artistically/commercially?

Artistically I just want to continually evolve my craft, critical faculties, and general state of awareness so as I can get ever closer to precisely articulating the atmospheres, geometries and ghost stories that circle my head like ever-mutating angels, day and night, on the brink of expelling light and form. And in doing so, to gather those who are similarly drawn to peering through the cracks. Commercially, I - and we - really just want to connect this with a bigger audience. We're aware that we're a weird band, and that it's a long game. So it demands stoicism, patience and persistence. The ideal would be to get to a level where we have sufficient economic backing to be able to actually deploy all the ideas we have without compromising on logistics or production values.

What are you trying to avoid as a band?

The music industry.

Why do you make the music you make? Is it in you? Is it your environment?

It's more interior than exterior. Albeit I respond very palpably to landscapes, just not the one that I'm writing this interview from within! Haha. I'm drawn to severe, wild landscapes, and likewise to art and music that evokes such landscapes.

What inspires you for the music or for the Lyrics?

I've always written prose and poetry, and so a key factor in my embarking upon songwriting fifteen years ago was preserving the conditions of unabashed literary aspirations in my lyrics. I like to think/strive to ensure that as much as they might stand successfully alone on the page they also transmit the melodies with ease. I'm drawn to art in any medium that explores and expresses extreme states of being – modes of transcendence, ultimately. Ecstasies, agonies, the uncanny, the transgressive, the sublime. Stillness can also be extreme. Lots of nature imagery. European cinema and literature.

Tell us what you are looking when trying to achieve your sounds. Do you experiment a lot or have a clear idea of what you want?

I think we all share a delight in unusual sonics – there were some genuinely experimental moments in the studio – for example, the first sound heard on the record is a drone created by my playing a pre-recorded vocal through the speaker of a cassette recorder into the pick-ups on Guy's guitar, which was then sent through waves of delay. We created a MIDI church organ by recording the bass pedals of the church organ of St Mary's, Brighton and turning that into a MIDI instrument. The idea of pitch-bending such a monolithic and defiantly analogue instrument was irresistible. There's one track where we recorded the drum part four times and placed each take peculiarly across the stereo field. And there are field recordings scattered throughout, evoking radioactivity and harsh landscapes. I usually, with each track, have a pretty clear idea of the aesthetic and formal parameters within which experimentation can occur, and we go from there.

Explain your songwriting process.

Sometimes I'll be improvising on piano and motifs will surface that later impose their will upon my subconscious, continually knocking until I open the door and allow them to become a song. Other times I'll have the completed lyrics and sit and just experiment with ways to place them, and edit, and edit until they're homed. Some songs arrive in one swift nuclear wind, and others take years to ferment. I keep a lot of audio notes on my iphone.

Describe your palette of sound.

Rich but not cloying, Psychedelic but not nostalgic. Adventurous. Green and gold. Complex but not arbitrarily technical. Deconstructing, rerouting and inverting obvious formal choices but not at the expense of comprehension.

Who would you want as a dream producer, and why?

Trent Reznor, Bjork, Tim Palmer, David Lynch, Danny Elfman. I thought I'd compensate for not saying 'why' by instead listing five, haha.

If you could guest on someone else’s album, who would it be and why? What would you play?

Well I know he's technically on the cusp of retiring, but assuming this questions dwells in an amorphous temporality (as we do ourselves under quarantine), I'd say Ennio Morricone. Because he's peerless. I would love to have played piano/organ on one of his sixties/seventies film works. To say I've been produced by Morricone and appear on, say, the Sacco and Vanzetti soundtrack, would see me fairly ecstatic.

What musical skills would you like to acquire or get better at?

I'd like develop further fluency in classical notation and orchestration.

Which other musician/artist would you date?

I don't really subscribe to coupledom or its rituals but maybe Jack from These New Puritans. NB. I would never, EVER date a musician. Haha.

Is there a band that if they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be making the music you make?

Probably Mr Bungle. In that they not only blew my mind at a young age with their own music, but laid breadcrumbs for me to explore the family tree of John Zorn, Tzadik, and the sprawling concentric circles of artists making up the experimental underground of LA and NYC.

You are from England. What are the advantages and inconvenient?

Hold my hair back. Well. Its primary advantage is its proximity to the European mainland.

Its disadvantages are manifold and voluminous – aside from a micro-percentage of wonderful, compassionate, intelligent and progressive entities and institutions, its a nasty little hotbed of misplaced Churchillian hubris and post-imperial egocentrism, ruled as a playpen by which neo-liberal public schoolboy millionaires can move their assets around and grow their wealth while 'ironically' masquerading a paper-thin veneer of concern for the public interest and welfare.

Boris Johnson and his monstrous cabal aside, the UK treats its musicians appallingly. I've toured Europe, America and The Middle East and it shames me to say that the worst treatment I've experienced out of any of the countries I've played is that of the UK. I'm not alone in this assertion either.

There are exceptions of course, but as a rule, this sadly remains the case. Ten years of Tory rule certainly hasn't helped this.

What are some places around the world that you hope to play with your band?

There's that amphitheater built into a rock face somewhere in Central Europe. I'd like to do a tour of churches and cathedrals. And acoustically-dynamic natural rock formations.

It's my dream to take The Academy Of Sun on an extensive tour of Europe, but we'd need solid economic backing to be able to do so with production values intact, let alone keep us all afloat while doing so.

So that's something to push for. There's a pueblo in New Mexico called TAOS – obviously it's pre-destined that we play there. I went to Svalbard in the Arctic last year, and there's a beautiful concert hall called Huset right between two glaciers. I'd love us to play there. (Johannes, are you reading this?)

When is the next album/EP due?

June! We inevitably had to postpone the release from its intended release in April, when the whole world went on pause. We're super-excited to have you all hear The Quiet Earth.

Some artists you recommend

I can't get enough of Oingo Boingo right now – Danny Elfman's band that split in 1995. Peerless songwriting, arrangement, production and performance. Otherwise, Arca is amazing. I'm listening to a lot of Nico. Devouring Clive Barker's early novels. Revisiting Diamanda Galas' earlier catalogue. Watching a lot of Chris Marker and Maya Deren. And I just read Marina Abramovic's memoir, which is profoundly inspiring.

Anything else you want your fans to know?

Mainly – thank you for your support, engagement and enthusiasm, especially during this wayward, hazy and anxiety-inducing time. We hope you'll enjoy the record, and we're super-psyched to play shows all over the place when concerts are indeed a viable concern once again. Stay well, breathe deep, and celebrate and nurture the connections that enrich, comfort, soothe and embolden you.

MORE ON THE BAND

Find The Academy Of Sun here:

bandcamp

soundcloud

facebook

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instagram

[robbialy]

Djin Gen forthcouming after a Guardian article from dec 10th 2018.

We do not usually respond to reviews or articles, or even books that paint negative pictures ov my SELF. Opinions no matter how vicious or brutal, are a part ov our cultural discourse. Butter once in a while coumthing is written that is so poorly researched resulting in thee creation or perpetuation ov untruths, false allegations or is just a wanton character assasination that we are duty bound to respond. NOT to counter people's personal opinions, though we have noticed these are always written by people who have never met me nor spent any time with me, butter to at least set thee record straight with FACTS and chronological dates that expose thee resulting web ov distortions,half truths and total misinformation:-

heres is thee link, feel free to write to thee Guardian about thee low standard ov writing and research if it irritates you.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/10/genesis-p-orridge-throbbing-gristle

There was an article in thee Guardian today that was more a character assasination than review ov our Psychic TV concert at Heaven. So many facts are totally incorrect and misleading and there are so many we feel duty bound to correct just dates, names and facts. All thee corrections can be coumfirmed by thorough research and a linear chronology ov events via articles, interviews, essays and books etc.

There has been so much we do not choose to say in response to outrageous, nasty allegations. BUTTER we DO wish... if only journalists would check FACTS, they might see how false and impossible so many of these accusations are. And bear in mind, Cosey left me to live with Chris in 1978. (not 1981) and they had been lovers for at least a year already with my full knowledge. By then in 1978 my ongoing girlfriend was Soo Catwoman ( yes ov Sex Pistols fame), later Akiko Hada video artist too. TG carried on working together 3 more years.TG actually split up in 1981 Cosey was already pregnant with their child, and we were already remarried to Alaura, thee woman who became mother to my children Caresse and Genesse. "GODSTAR" did take time to enter the National top 30 at 29, it is true. But was number ONE in thee indie chart for FOUR months! Thee Rolling Stones office, at Mick's bidding we were told,called Radio One to stop playing Godstar or they would never be allowed to play Stones tracks again. It was written to make more public thee growing evidence that Brian Jones was murdered. It was not anti-pop, it was, and remains in my personal opinion, a classic little 60's influenced pop song.If we were persuading Cosey to have sex with other men, why we were told by a stripper friend, did she continue stripping until she was 7 months pregnant and doing porn films for money 3 yeras after she began living with Chris? Was Chris now persuading her? If all her porn work and porn photos were a "sex positive" art project then perhaps we'd expect that to be a concept of her artistic agenda rather than thee behaviour ov a woman with a weak will merely afraid of persuasion. We have not read Cosey's book, yet thee alleged rememberances and occasional allegations, we are told, occupy a good half to two thirds ov her book concern me, so thee majority ov reviews and descriptions ov her book seem reliant upon thee hearsay and very undocumented accusations regarding me that seem only to have surfaced to her 40 yeras after she chose to leave. Not once did she mention these grievances to me when we were together,and not once since 1978.She has had ample opportunity when we've all been in thee studio and on tours together. TG reformed for several yeras and we heard not a murmur ov old grudges regarding our brief six yeras together. Chris, Sleazy, neither ov them said anything, yet are supposed to be witnesses, though its a shame Sleazy tragically passed away as he could have shed more light on this. THERE IS COUMTHING that irritates me about how sloppy and factually chaotic these articles often are. I founded COUM in thee later Summer of 1969 Transmissions alone in Shrewsbury whilst visiting my parents. On returning to Hull in thee late Winter ov 1969 my friend JOHN SHAPEERO became thee second active member ov COUM Transmissions. Dr TIMOTHY POSTON became thee third member. Later RAY HARVEY and Ian "Spydee" Evetts joined. It was mainly an anarchic music group then. Cosey did not becoum active at all for about 18 months, even then only mainly making costumes at first. FACT CHECK: Cosey got pregnant almost as soon as we had mutually agreed unprotected sex on New Years Eve 1970 in Hull at thee fruit warehouse. Her father had thrown her out on thee street for being unemployed for 2 weeks. I hardly knew her butter couldn't refuse her shelter. It was freezing cold. ( FACT it was not until 2 years later that Paul Frew and myself dubbed our building "The HoHo Funhouse" during a stand off with police outside,.)

When we discovered she was pregnant after a tearful discussion we both unhappily agreed she should have an abortion. THIS IS IMPORTANT thee doctors who performed thee abortion implanted a "copper 7" birth control device IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEE ABORTION. She did NOT remove it, to my knowledge, until she and Chris decided to have a baby. So...THERE IS NO WAY she could have got pregnant from unprotected sex after that event that we know ov !! Now look at thee porn shoots she chose to do from 1973 until 1981 and she is not choosing or insisting on any protection. Perhaps because she knew she could almost certainly not get pregant and clearly had decided for herself to not be overly concerned with getting any sexual diseases. Or passing them on to me when she returned home.

We certainly did not witness Cosey having sex with anyone apart from me until 1973. When she asked me if she could live in thee commune in January 1970 I stressed I could not commit at all to be a couple nor "in a relationship"( only just part-time lovers ) as my total coumittment was to COUM, art as a spiritual path and Creativity, and always would be. Still is. We also can't say what sexual choices she made when she went out alone to party in Hull most weekends with her friends often tripping on acid and mandrax. We supported her right to choose ov course.

To this day we support Viva Ruiz's "THANK GOD FOR ABORTION" campaign as actively as we can.

PLEASE just begin looking at EVIDENCE and dates things happened, at CHRONOLOGIES and these allegations begin to look more and more flimsy at best. How do you sell a book when decades since thee 70's have little to no sensational content? Focus on thee person who sells copy....as we said, we have not read thee book. One ov its functions may be to irritate me, who knows. Why after all these yeras we are being attacked agen...hell we were a scapegoat at school, prosecuted for queen collaged postcards in 1975, pilloried as COUM after "PROSTITUTION" forced into exile in 1992 by thee British Establishment. Not even a parking ticket or half smoked joint was found. We were exonerated as victimes ov lies in a right-wing evengelical conspiracy to sell a book on "SATANISM". Coumthing we have never been nor been attracted to.

We stay away from biased opinion and attacks whenever we can. Thee papers dubbed me thee "MOST EVIL MAN IN BRITAIN" in 1991. Later they were exposed for having NO BASIS IN FACT for their accusations. Butter Lottie implies totally falsely, with no evidence "Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad raided Genesis P-Orridge's house and discovered a fascination with necriphilia, murder and nazism.." THIS IS PATENTLY UNTRUE AND PRESUMABLY AN INVENTION OV AN OVER HEATED IMAGINATION. Careful Lottie your predjudicial fantasies are showing. NOTHING ov thee kind was found. We have a list ov every item Scotland Yard took and it contains none ov that. Thee whole contrived attack was exposed later by Desmond Hill who DID check his facts and dig out thee truth. Where was this evil, degenrate Genesis, why in Kathmandu, with my famille helping and paying for a soup kitchen for Tibettan refugees, beggars and lepers at Boudenath Stupa, where we got up at 6am every day through the Winter with my daughters and twice a day fed anyone in need who came rice, dahl and clean drinking water. Psychic TV fans also sent a large bale ov warm clothes for refugee and beggar children to help them survive thee Winter. What had these evil people done before that, picketed thee Brighton Dolphinarium every weekend for almost two yeras until it was closed for loss ov incoum. Then with animal rights groups we arranged for thee two Dolphins to go to thee Turks and Cacos islands for rehabilitation in a Blue Lagoon project. Butter Lottie doesn't mention that either. Scotland Yard by thee way, they never returned my 2 tunnes ov property. Never reimbusrsed me for thee 2 homes we lost, both woth almost 2 million pounds value when coumbined at todays prices. Mud sticks for a while. Butter truth washes it away over time. We are patient and happy in knowing thee truth ov who we are ....

Thee journalist, Lottie, says DISCIPLINE is a great track because ov Chris. Now we have ALLWAYS said in interviews and conversations that Chris’ rhythm IS really great, a classic rhythm. We heard it that night at SO36 in Berlin... Chris would play me new rhythms and we’d say Yes we can sing to that, or no... we obviously said yes to this one. Then we said to Sleazy, what shall we sing about tonight? And he said "DISCIPLINE".., so we went onstage and I invented thee lyrics thee chorus, thee “vocal melody” in real time, onstage improvising in thee momeant... yet this journalist, Lottie, reduces my part to "screams ov Linda Blair" or coumthing. Thee loud crashes are my violin. Sorry butter remove my violin and vocals and it’s a good, even great, rhythm butter would NEVER be thee lasting anthem it is minus vocals, Cosey's guitar and Sleazy's tape noises.It would j only be a rhythm.

Thee Guardian journalist, Lottie, also says we " met avant garde performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti after dropping out ov Hull University before joining HoHo Funhouse art collective in London" It was May 1969 when we quit University, hitch-hiked to London to see The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park then accepted an ongoing offer to join famed kinetic artist David Medalla's " EXPLODING GALAXY" kinetic dance troupe in London. Christine Carol Newby was a lab technician in a Secondary Modern School. Which meant she put utensils, specimens etc on desks of teenagers ready for a TEACHER to give a class including those items. Then she cleared up the desks afterwards. Then thee COUPLE created...blah blah blah. THAT IS FIVE TOTALLY INCORRECT ERRORS IN ONE SENTENCE!!!!