#when I first saw this ep I wasn’t Quite familiar enough with the lyrics to catch the change

[karouvas]

“your affection is a promise you couldn’t keep” 🥲

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

champagne problems (part 1)

here's my first part of my modern no magic "champagne problems" singer-songwriter quarantine thomastair AU! happy birthday to @foxglove-airmid even though I don't think it's your birthday where you live anymore (and I still haven't posted zia's birthday fic, it'll happen I swear)!

no content warnings for this part (besides maybe quarantine), but future parts will include discussions of mental illness, substance abuse, and a suicide attempt

obviously, the song alastair "wrote" in the fic is not mine, it's by taylor swift! and a few of the lyrics have been changed!

Masterlist | AO3

Thomas breathed out a sigh of relief as he lugged his suitcase up onto the fifth floor landing.

“‘Ere we are,” Piers announced as he unlocked the door.

Thomas was utterly exhausted, such was the result of taking a redeye flight across the Atlantic during a global pandemic, but any idea of rest that he’d had was interrupted when he heard the sound of piano flood the apartment.

“Ah, sorry about that,” Piers nodded, “One of my flatmates, the walls are paper thin. He can’t record at the studio right now, but he’s trying to finish his EP, so it’s been a bit noisier around here. He’ll take a break soon, hopefully.”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s no problem. Thank you, again, for allowing me to stay here. I’ll be looking for my own place as soon as the quarantine is up.”

“Of course. You’ve got the couch as long as you need it. Couldn’t just hang you out to dry, could I? Although, you did pick a god awful time to move to the city, if I do say so myself.”

Thomas sat down on the couch and tried to make himself comfortable. It was more comfortable than the flight or the airport, at least. “I know… I considered postponing the move, but the visa was so difficult to get, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. They say this will all blow over in a couple of weeks, but borders are closing and I heard talk of them suspending all pending visa applications. I didn't know how long it would be if I waited, if the job was even still here for me at all.” Although at first entrance, the music had seemed to be a nuisance, it now comforted him. It wasn’t bad at all, in fact, it quite reminded him of the days Alastair’s playing had filled their flat…

“Where did you say you were working again? At a record company?”

“Yeah. I’m just doing pretty basic stuff for now, but if I ever do want to record my own music, I’ve got to start somewhere.”

“Hm,” Piers said, gesturing to the room the music was coming from. “Perhaps you’ll get on with him well, then. Would you like some tea?”

Thomas nodded and Piers went to start the teapot. Piers continued, “Though I suppose he's more of the tortured artist type. Very reserved, quite prickly. I didn't even meet him until a couple weeks after I moved in here because he was off in some psychiatric hospital.” Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was never one for gossip. “My other roommate’s nice, though, I think you’ll like him. He-”

“How did you end up in New York, again? I don’t think I ever asked.”

Piers dove into the subject change quite readily, explaining his uni - or college - years in New York City and his decision to stay afterwards. Thomas had tuned most of it out, truthfully. It wasn’t that he was trying to be rude, but he was rather exhausted, and Piers was wearing thin on his patience.

As the kettle started to whine, Thomas heard the musician begin to sing, and he froze. It sounded so much like Alastair. But it couldn't be, could it? With over 8 million people living in the city, he would not end up in Alastair's apartment by accident. His Alastair was certainly reserved and prickly, but it wasn't possible. It must be like all those times he thought he saw him on a street he'd never walked or heard his laugh in a café he'd never been to. Just his mind, tricking him. Even if he knew that voice so well, despite not hearing it in so long.

“It’s quite good, isn’t it? His first single just dropped.” Piers asked, bringing over his cup of tea. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been staring intently at the door.

Thomas took the cup. “Hm? Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

“You should look it up. It’s called “champagne problems” by Simurgh. That’s spelled- Well, it should come up.”

The name Simurgh sounded familiar, but Thomas couldn’t put his finger on where he knew it from. At Piers’ insistence, he pulled out his phone and brought up the song. As he skimmed through the first few lines, a cold feeling settled in his stomach.

“You booked the night train for a reason So you could sit there in this hurt Bustling crowds or silent sleepers You're not sure which is worse”

“Simurgh,” Thomas realized.

“Yeah, I think it’s Arabic or something.”

It took Thomas a moment to process that Piers was responding to him. “It’s Persian.” He was certain that Alastair would have some very stern words to say if he heard Piers confusing the two, actually. Thomas had admittedly let his Farsi skills deteriorate quite a bit since the breakup, but he was fairly certain the name came from the Shahnameh. There was no doubt in Thomas’ mind now: he was staying in Alastair’s apartment, and Alastair’s first single was about one of the most painful days in Thomas’ life. “I, er, I used to study it.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right!” Piers launched into a tangent that Thomas tuned out as he read through the rest of the page.

“Because I dropped your hand while dancing Left you out there standing Crestfallen on the landing Champagne problems”

“Thomas? Are you alright?”

He realized then that his hand was trembling so badly that his tea nearly spilled. He used his other hand to steady it. “Oh, uh, yes, I’m just tired.”

“Perhaps you should rest. I can ask Alastair to quiet down for a while-”

“No!” he exclaimed rather too forcefully. “No, that’s not necessary. I’d just rather not talk, if that’s alright.”

Piers nodded.

Thomas kept reading.

“Your mom's ring in your pocket My picture in your wallet Your heart was glass, I dropped it Champagne problems”

Of all the songs, why did he release the one about him? Why was it about a memory still so painful in Thomas’ heart, all of these years later? He remembered it so well, standing there, alone, shattered into a million pieces.

“You told your family for a reason You couldn't keep it in Your sister splashed out on the bottle Now no one's celebrating”

He was fairly certain that Barbara had been more excited than even he was, confident that Alastair would accept, and so very proud of her baby brother, all grown up. She’d been furious when it fell apart, but it was her who stood with him during the aftermath, who boarded him onto a train to Edinburgh to visit Eugenia when he couldn’t stand to be in the same city as him any longer, who went through his phone, blocking all of Alastair’s accounts so that he could obsess over him no longer, who comforted him as he wept and held him as he picked the pieces of himself back up again.

And all the more sour was the memory in light of her death.

“Dom Pérignon, you brought it No crowd of friends applauded Your hometown skeptics called it Champagne problems”

He looked up at Piers, who had fortunately become enthralled with something on his phone and was no longer paying Thomas any mind. He lifted the teacup gingerly to his lips, but he felt far too sick to take a drink.

“You had a speech, you're speechless Love slipped beyond your reaches And I couldn't give a reason Champagne problems”

A reason, that’s all Thomas had wanted. Just any explanation. He understood if they were moving too fast, or perhaps he’d misread something, but he just didn’t understand it.

Why? Why can’t you tell me why? I deserve an explanation, Alastair. Please, anything.

I… I’m sorry, Thomas.

Stop it! Stop apologizing! We can just go home and pretend this never happened, please, forget about all of it, it was a stupid idea-

Thomas, stop. I shouldn’t’ve… This was a mistake. I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner.

That was the moment Thomas felt his heart stop beating.

“Your Midas touch on the Chevy door November flush and your flannel cure "This dorm was once a madhouse" I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me" How evergreen, our group of friends Don't think we'll say that word again And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls That we once walked through”

Despite the nearly two decades Thomas had spent in London before Alastair, it was never the same without him. He saw him everywhere he went, despite knowing he was thousands of miles away. After graduating uni that May, he accepted a spot at a graduate program in Spain and didn’t look back.

“One for the money, two for the show I never was ready so I watch you go Sometimes you just don't know the answer 'Til someone's on their knees and asks you "You’re the only one I want by my side, What a shame you’re fucked in the head," you said”

Those were the words that haunted Thomas’ nightmares, even now.

It’s you! It’s only you for me! It was always going to be you! But I can see now that I was never going to be enough for you, you and your secrets and walls and your lies. It’s a shame… it’s a shame you’re so fucked in the head, Alastair. You’ll never truly love anyone, will you? You’re not physically capable of it.

Alastair hadn’t responded. Thomas had wanted a rise out of him, any reaction at all, despite knowing how lethal and volatile Alastair could become when provoked. But there was nothing. Not a flicker of anything in his steeled expression. He’d simply looked down, apologized again for any pain that he’d caused, and left.

That was the last time they’d spoken.

Thomas and his sister left for Edinburgh that night, and when he’d returned to London, Alastair was gone.

“Well, you'll find the real thing instead Who'll patch up your tapestry that I shred And hold your hand while dancing Never leave you standing Crestfallen on the landing With champagne problems”

Thomas couldn’t imagine giving his heart to anyone again, not now and certainly not then. He’d dated in Madrid, but it had always stayed casual. He’d made sure of it. He could see now that he and Alastair had gotten together quickly, moved in together quickly, done all of it very quickly. After all, he’d fallen hard and fast. He gave all of himself to Alastair, and he’d nearly lost all of himself in the process.

“Your mom's ring in your pocket New picture in your wallet You won't remember all my Champagne problems

“You won't remember all my Champagne problems”

Now, he wondered what the rest of the story was. He’d convinced himself that Alastair had never loved him, that he was heartless and cruel, though he’d known that wasn’t true. Could Alastair have written this song if he’d never truly loved him? Perhaps he was a sociopath.

Thomas felt like he should run. Like he should pick up his bag and dart out of the apartment before Alastair could notice him, find some hotel somewhere with undoubtedly extraordinary high rates and just pretend like this never happened. He could get back on a plane and go back home to his parents and delete his phone browser history and pretend like this was all just a bad dream. But he could not move.

He didn’t know how many minutes had passed before Alastair’s door opened. He looked up with a start.

“Thomas,” Alastair breathed. He stood wide eyed, flushed.

“Do you two already know each other then?” Piers asked.

There was a moment of silence before Thomas cleared his throat. “We used to,” he said, looking down.

“I, er, I forgot that your friend was coming today,” Alastair told Piers. “It’s quite a long journey from London, you should have told me, I would have been quieter.”

Thomas considered correcting him for a moment, but decided not to. “Don’t worry about it. I heard you had your first big release. Congratulations.”

Alastair gave an awkward nod. “Thank you. Right, well, I’ll just…” He rushed over to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’ll try to be a bit quieter.”

“Don’t- It’s fine, really. In fact, I’m sure there’s some hotel in the area I can stay at for now, actually-”

“Well, don’t leave on my account,” Alastair interrupted. “We agreed to let you stay here, and the city’s a bloody mess right now. I’ll stay out of your hair, Thomas.”

Thomas only nodded as Alastair disappeared back behind his bedroom door.

Thanks for reading! Taglist (ask to be +/-): @stxr-thxif @chaos-and-starlight @zosiaenrique @lifewouldbebetteronmars @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @eugeniaslongsword @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @livingformyself @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @writeforjordelia @sapphic-in @jem-nasium @fortheloveofthecarstairs @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @shadowrunner2000 @thewarthatsavedmylife @fair-childd @itsjusta-j-really

[sunsetinmyvein]

The Radio Station - Chapter One - Think About How to Think

"I’m still not quite used to these proper radio interviews.” He said as he reshuffled the headset over his clean shaven mohawk. “It all… feels so professional.” She laughed in response to that, “Well, it’s nice to know I’m doing my job right, then!”

Eyyyy, I’m back! A sort of different story compared to what I've done in the past. Small snippets in time, across quite a bit of time, focused around radio interviews. Almost all of Matty's interview answers are verbatim transcribed from various interviews, but it's what happens around those answers that's the important stuff.

Taglist: @dot-writes​ @imagine-that-100​ @robinrunsfiction​ @tooshhhy​ and feel free to give me a shout if you wanna be added :D

6th of December, 2012

Adjusting the microphone in front of her, she watched while the last few seconds of the song played out. “You ready?” She asked the man sitting in front of her. He looked up from picking at the sleeve of his jacket, nodding apprehensively as she switched the microphones back on. “That was Sex by The 1975 - and as promised, we have here Matthew Healy of The 1975 with us in the studio this morning.” She spoke, turning on the radio presenter voice.

He leaned towards the mic slightly before speaking, “Hi.”

“How are you doing?”

“Yeah, erm… good?” He said with a small laugh, sounding unsure of himself. “A bit nervous.” He admitted as an afterthought.

“About your show tonight at Barfly?” She asked, remembering her conversation earlier in the day. Her managed warned her not to drag the interview out too much as they had a gig later that evening to prepare for.

“Uh, yeah, that, and I’m still not quite used to these proper radio interviews.” He said as he reshuffled the headset over his clean shaven mohawk. “It all… feels so professional.” He shrugged, looking around the studio for the millionth time. When he’d come in, the process of actually having to check in through a receptionist and wait before he was ushered through was fairly intimidating.

She laughed in response to that, “Well, it’s nice to know I’m doing my job right, then!”

 She figured it would be best to just get the ball rolling to try and give him something better to talk about than his nerves, “So, you guys have two EPs out now. How many more are there on the cards before an album?” She questioned, glancing down at the sheet of question prompts in front of her.

He appeared instantly more comfortable as soon as the topic switched to something that he had better familiarity with, straightening up in his seat and looking more engaged, “There’s probably another couple to come out before we bring out the full album.”

“It seems that the band is getting some good traction with what you already have out.” She pointed out with a nod. Over the last few weeks at the station she’d had a chance to hear the EPs in passing, and she thought that they were pretty decent. But the station itself had been receiving a fair number of requests for them and pretty good feedback whenever they were on the air.

“Yeah! We’re really humbled that we’ve been given the opportunity to live this past year, and we’re only getting closer as a band.”

  “Is there a strategy with how you’re releasing things?” She asked. “Is this all part of some grand plan,” She saw him smile at that, “or a secret to getting your name out there?”

He thought about that for a second, “Kind of a bit of both? When we wrote the first EP, shortly after we’d written the majority of the album, we kind of… I dunno, we just wanted people to…” He paused, taking a short breath as he recomposed his thoughts. “If we were gonna do it, it’s such a personal endeavour, this band. If people are embracing the music, we wanna do it properly. We want people to fall in love with a band the same way you fall in love with a person – the more you know about somebody over a longer period of time, the more you both invest in the relationship.” She was taken aback somewhat by his statement. For a band just starting their career, that was a pretty profound thought process. “That was kind of…” He continued, clearly debating over his words slightly. “We had ideas for a lot of material. We wanted records that went against the grain of most EPs nowadays that are just a single. We wanted to release these little records that kind of almost culminated in a debut record.”

  “That all sounds pretty well figured out.” She noted, still rather surprised at the extent of his answer. It was intriguing watching him stumble over his choice of words to try and get across exactly what he meant. “Does that mean that the tracks from the EPs are going to be on the full album?”

“There’s a lead track off each EP on the album, yeah.” He nodded eagerly as he leaned forward in his seat. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding that our material works chronologically. We wrote the album pretty much before we wrote the EPs. We took singles off the album and wrote EPs around that to take a bit of the story and embellish it a bit. Create a feel for what the album is gonna be like.” He explained, his hand motions getting more enthusiastic the more he spoke.

She made a soft noise of understanding at his answer. Thinking back to the vibe of the two EPs she had listed to, what he was saying made sense. “From what we’ve heard from you so far, it seems The 1975 has a knack for creating upbeat music with fairly deep lyrics in comparison. Is there a reasoning behind that? Is the album going to be similar?” She asked as she flipped her notepad over.

  He let out a sigh as he stared up at the ceiling of the studio, “I dunno… we’re just a band… for ourselves? We just wrote music for ourselves and have since we started when we were kids.” He started, leaning back into his seat. “Because we grew up in punk and pop punk playing around, we were kind of a bands band? Our music just became very, very personal and very, very kind of…” He made a vague gesture with his hands, “I suppose, it’s our only expression? It’s the only thing we’ve ever known how to do. It’s the only form of honest expression we’ve got. A lot of the time it’s quite self-deprecating for me – lyrically. I kind of find solace in it. But I suppose now it’s been romanticised a little bit.”

She wasn’t entirely sure if that answered her question, but pressed on. “Certainly songs like Sex seem to have a lot of girls romanticising you.” She threw in with a laugh. He cracked a grin at her remark.

“I think that is a reflection of our music – coming across as sexy. Not just because of, y’know, all this.” He shot back with a wink as he held a hand proudly on his chest. Any awkwardness he had been carrying at the start of the interview seemed to have dissipated now.

  “All right, we are gonna play another 1975 song and then we’ll be right back. This one came off of the first EP. This is The City.” She announced, happy to segue away from having to discuss whether she thought Matthew Healy was or wasn’t sexy on live radio. As the track started, she lowered her headphones to sit around her neck, the man across the desk from her following her lead. “You’re killing it.” She reassured him.

“Yeah?” He smiled.

“Yeah.” She chuckled, his enthusiasm now that he was on a roll was contagious. “You obviously know what you’re about.”

“Well, I’ve been fuckin’ thinking about it all for long enough.” He laughed loudly. “We spent ages working out what to do before stuff finally started happening for us.” He added for clarification.

“You’ve been the same group since you were kids?” She asked out of genuine curiosity. He looked like he was in his early twenties now, which would mean that they’d already been a band for quite some time. It seemed odd if that was the case, that they’d only had these two releases.

“Yeah, the four of us since we were fourteen or something. Just messin’ about trying to work out what sounds good.” He confirmed.

“Fourteen? That’s pretty young to start a band.” She said in astonishment.

“Yeah, well… I’d just moved to Manchester; I grew up in the very north of the country…” He started, looking like he was about to launch into another story. Part of her wished she had saved this line of questioning for the interview, but another part of her was secretly mildly honoured he was only giving this information to her. “But I went to high school and there was this kind of thing that was going on where the council were letting old people’s kind of bingo halls be used by kids to start bands. And after a couple of weeks it became this scene and everyone started making punk bands.” He explained.

  “So, you got dragged into it by your mates?” She asked.

“Well, in the end our whole social group oriented around that scene.” He shrugged. “We started there at fourteen just because of how fun it was. The fact that we realised we could be genuinely creative but also really indulgent? It was the most fun we could have.” He had a fond smile playing on his lips as he spoke.

“Plenty of time to experiment and work out what you want to be as a band.” She nodded in understanding.

“Exactly.”

“And clearly it’s starting to pay off.”

“You reckon?” He had a genuine look of disbelief.

“I’ve liked what I’ve heard,” She admitted, “and we’ve had nothing but good things coming in about the EPs.”

He scoffed as he ran a hand through his hair, “That’s a lie and you know it. I’m not oblivious to the critics.” He rolled his eyes, but was still smiling. “Thanks, though.”

  They had some more casual chit chat between them until the song came to an end and she switched the audio back over. “And we are back!” She said into the microphone, pulling her headset back on. “Still here in the studio with Matthew Healy, the lead singer of The 1975. Now, I believe that you guys had a few name changes before you finally settled on this one?” She asked as she crossed that prompt off of her list. In an effort to be prepared, she’d tried her best to find out as much about the band online as she could to form some half decent questions. She hated feeling like her interviews were just the same as everything else out there.

“Yeah, we did, but that was when we were just a live band, really. We didn’t really wanna put any music out officially until we were really ready. There were also issues with the old names that we had picked. One of ‘em there was another band called that already, Big Sleep, in America, so we couldn’t call it that. Another we didn’t really like, The Slow Down…” He said with a shrug. “People like to idealise quite a lot of things… in the end, it kind of became our thing? Changing our name. We didn’t really think people cared about our band, anyway.” He laughed softly.

“They certainly do now.” She smiled across at him, earning what appeared to be a delighted look in response. “So, is there any importance to what you finally settled on?”

  “The date doesn’t have any, no.” He said as he shook his head. “It’s this story, that’s been quite over dramatized, to be honest. When I was like… nineteen? I was on holiday with my family. There was an artist who lived in the village who was kind of a local drinker who befriended everybody. I spent a couple of days with him at his house, and he gave me loads of literature to leave with, like Kerouac and beat poetry, you know. Basically one of the books I ended up readin’ six months later, and it had kind of been treated as a diary by the previous owner. And it was dated ‘first of June the 1975’. The use of ‘the’ I felt was quite interesting.” He answered.  “It just stuck with me as a kind of… why? What made them write the 1975? I don’t know, but I think it really works with the fact that we were discovering a lot about ourselves, and we weren’t really sure who we were.” He gazed off into the middle distance for a second, looking like he was zoning out. “George felt it was a bit long at first, because you know, seven syllable band name. But once a band name becomes a band name it’s just there. It’s like that Pavlovian reaction. But I think when we went in for a meeting with our publisher, we’ve always liked to pitch things left of centre, we said ‘we’re gonna call the band The 1975‘ and they said ‘absolutely no way, it’s too long and there’s never been a big band that’s just been numbers.’ And then we looked at each other like ‘that’s the name.’ so I went and got it tattooed on my arm that day.” He laughed loudly. “Sent them a photo of that-” He held out his arm to emphasise the numbers inked there, “-like ‘that’s the name of the band now!’ As soon as they said there’s never been a big band that’s just numbers, we just thought… excellent.”

“The impulsivity worked in your favour, then.” She noted with her eyebrows raised in surprise. To go out and get something like that tattooed as an act of defiance to your creative project was impressive. “Good thing you’ve not had to change it again since.” He just chuckled.

  “It seems to fit in quite well, though, the name. What with the whole black and white aesthetic that you guys have created.” She continued, eager to hear what he had to say on this image that they had surrounded themselves with. Everything she had been able to find out about their ‘look’, how they presented themselves, it all seemed highly thought out and planned. But thinking back to what he had mentioned before, if they’d been a band since they were fourteen, it probably had been.

“If you’re quite altruistic in personality, that’s normally twinned with a certain amount of self-awareness. Because you’re exposed to many situations where you’re putting yourself out there a lot.” He started as he fiddled with the cord of his headset. “I think if you’re an artist and you’re like that, you find solace in maybe… detaching yourself from reality a bit? Because you’re not as exposed as normal. We find a lot of comfort in everything being in black and white, because… Yeah, that’s it, you’re not fully exposed.” He explained as if he was mostly talking to himself, or trying to sort out his answer as he said it. “But it really works for our band because it makes it… a bit out of reach?”

“How do you mean?” She frowned.

He hummed thoughtfully to himself before speaking, “There’s a great quote by Kafka, which is that ‘a camel is a horse designed by a committee’…” He said with a pointed look. “Which is like… one person’s vision is always going to be a lot more concise than something that’s been diluted or compromised by a committee. If you want to project a certain image it needs to be an individual’s own vision in order to be really palatable and really concise and really consumable. So, it’s all about creating something that isn’t that accessible, because we live in an industry where accessibility is paramount.” She was starting to realise that this man truly had very roundabout ways of answering questions. However, it was fascinating listening to his unfiltered thought process as he tried to work out what he wanted to say. She couldn’t say she’d had a lot of interviews with people are interesting as Matthew seemed to be.

  Taking a quick look at the time, she could see that they had to wrap this up shortly. Between the long-winded questions and the songs, her twenty minutes had gone by quite fast. She’d better start winding this down. “What’s next on the agenda for you guys?” She asked, looking back over to him.

“Uh, let me think…” He racked his brain for what their immediate plans were for the near future. “We’re heading out on tour after Christmas, and then pretty much we don’t stop ‘til sometime next year.” He confirmed.

“Sometime?”

“We’re in high demand, what can I say?” He said with a laugh.

“That’s not surprising, I’m sure it’ll only get harder to get a hold of you guys in the future.” She concurred. “Well, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Matthew. All the best for the tour and for the next EP.” She nodded. He looked caught off guard for a second. Glancing down at his phone, he was surprised to see how much time had gone by. “Thanks for coming in.”

“No, no. The pleasure’s all mine, truly.” He grinned. “Thank you for having me on.”

“I’m sure we’ll be hearing again from you soon.” She finished up, switching his microphone off as she did her outro spiel. He took his headset off, stretching his arms up above his head before standing up and heading towards the studio doorway. It took her a second of seeing him linger in her peripheral vision to realise that he was waiting to say goodbye. As she started the next track, she slipped her headset off and spun her chair to face him.

“Erm, thanks.” He said as he scratched at the back of his neck. “I’ll see you around?” He asked hesitantly. It was curious to see him go from charismatic interviewee to nervous guy in her studio so fast.  

“As I said, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you soon. You’ll be back here in no time.” She assured him. He nodded to himself, looking pleased as he headed back outside.

  It was another twenty minutes after Matthew stepped out before her shift ended. Thankfully, she was able to get out of the office pretty quickly. Sometimes she ended up being held back for up to a couple of hours if there were meetings and such that required her attention. And today wasn’t a day that she wanted to deal with any of that. It had been a pretty shitty Thursday to start with. She’d had terrible traffic on the way in, couldn’t find a parking space, had to trudge her way to work in the cold, dropped her coffee when someone ran into her on the way – she just wanted to end a long day. It was approaching evening as she stepped out into the brisk winter air, letting out a sigh as she looked around the street. She started making her way to her car only to catch sight of a familiar mohawked man standing at the side of the station building, smoking with a few other guys. As soon as he spotted her, he shouted her name and waved her over. She debated whether she should go over and talk to a group of more or less strangers or not, but he seemed pretty keen on her joining them. He turned briefly back to the guys he was standing with and as she approached she heard the tail end of him explaining what had happened in the interview.

“This is the band!” He said excitedly.

“Oh!” Instantly, that made a lot more sense than him larking about with a bunch of random people. She took in the other three men he was standing with, noting that they were all quite a bit taller than he was. “You guys could’ve come in to the interview, you know.” She said as she wrapped her arms around herself to try and block out some of the cold threatening to seep in through her jacket.

“Nah, it’s fine.” One of them with somewhat of a beard shrugged.

“We’d rather let him do the talking.” Another quietly agreed.

“He’s loud enough for all of us.” The last one, that also had a kind of mohawk thing going on, spoke up.

“Hey! Fuck off!” Matthew shoved the last one with a loud laugh.

She stood around with them for a bit while they smoked, listening to Matthew talk about the interview and answering the odd question that the band members had for her. This man seemed far more sure of himself than the uncertain one she kept seeing in the interview. He prattled on excitedly about tour and the next EP and just generally seemed more confident. The band only spurred him on as well, encouraging him and getting into in-depth conversations about the tiniest details. She could see where those long-winded answers had come from in their interview. If he held this level of passive confidence and enthusiasm in a casual environment, it was only a matter of time before that started shining through in his career. And it was truly no surprise after speaking with them that this band was getting popular at the rate that they were. They were obviously talented, and had enough drive and direction to push themselves through whatever challenges they faced. She could tell that The 1975 were only just beginning their music industry journey. It was after about fifteen minutes that she figured she had better excuse herself and actually go home – she didn’t really have any reason to hang around here, even if it was nice to chat with such an interesting group of people.

  She waited for a lull in the conversation (which wasn’t very forthcoming) before finally making her move, “I might get going…”

Matthew’s face fell a little before he recomposed himself. “Why don’t you come down to the pub with us for a bite?” He suggested.

“Ah, thanks for the offer but I’ve got places I need to be, and I don’t usually mix business with pleasure as they say.” She chuckled lightly. “Nice to keep things separate.”

“It’s also nice to make exceptions sometimes.” He shot back; a challenging eyebrow raised. “But it’s cool.” He said with a shrug as he dropped his cigarette onto the ground, snuffing it out with his shoe. “For real, though, thank you for all the kind words about the band and the music in the interview. A station with as many listeners as yours… your words mean a lot.” He nodded, looking pensive about whatever was going on in his head.

“It’s really no problem. I meant everything I said.” She smiled back at him. Before she could get on her way, he pulled her into a tight hug. She hadn’t overly expected that from the man she’d known all of about an hour, but she hugged him back regardless, happy for the brief warmth after standing in the icy street. “I’ll, uh,” She cleared her throat, attributing the heat she could feel in her cheeks to being in the cold for so long, “I’ll see you at the next interview.” She said as she finally headed towards her car, leaving Matthew staring after her before heading back to his band mates.

Next Chapter

[rhinoswriting]

A Life On The Road - Part 4 (A Luke Hemmings FanFic)

Overview: Elizabeth and Calum have been best friends since they were 15/14 respectively. Elizabeth is from and lives in the UK, but her family lived in Sydney for a brief 2 year period which is how the two met.

With 5SOS embarking on their biggest and most ambitious world tour to date, Cal has invited Elizabeth along to work as a photographer/content creator for their social media. This is in the hopes that travelling with them will help Elizabeth achieve her dream of becoming a full-time travel writer.

Elizabeth is acquainted with the rest of 5SOS but doesn’t know them tremendously well. Obviously that changes as they are all forced to be in one another’s company for the duration of the tour. As the tour progresses and new friendships blossom, Elizabeth feels the connection between her and Luke grow more and more.

A/N: Picking up in Paris. There’s drinking and swearing in this one.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

******************************************

“That was genuinely one of the best meals I’ve ever had.” Michael announced as we exited the restaurant.

“It was incredible! I’m still so jealous of your main though, Mikey. Like, mine was good but I should have got the same as you.” I replied.

“So where to next? The night is still young and we have no obligations before tomorrow’s soundcheck.” Ashton asked the group.

A bar was obviously the unanimous decision. But I did convince them to walk aimlessly until we found a bar. That way we could see some of the landmarks lit up and I could get some content both for the band insta and to go alongside any Paris articles of mine that got picked up.

“I’m going to have my work cut out topping these,” I told the guys as I reviewed the short series of photos I had just taken of them by The Louvre, “So I think that counts as me done for the night. Time to find the nearest baaarrrr!”

It didn’t take long to find a bar. It also didn’t take long for us to all have a cocktail glass held in each hand. While the meal was excellent, it was quite a posh place, something none of us were exactly used to. This bar felt much more like our kind of place. It was time to really relax and have fun as nothing more than a group of friends.

In terms of music it was a bit hit and miss as to whether or not we knew the song playing. While that stopped us singing, it never stopped us from dancing. Also, not being familiar with a song was an excellent opportunity to get the next round of drinks in.

“Hurry up! I don’t have a good grip on these! Quick! Take your fucking drinks!” I yelled as I returned from the bar doing my very best to carry five glasses.

“Thanks, EP!” Cal shouted back as he took two glasses from me, passing one on to Michael.

“TO EP FOR ADDING MORE FUN, AND RIGHT NOW DRINKS, TO TOUR AND BEING A STEP CLOSER TO ACHEIVING HER DREAMS!” Ashton called as he raised his glass into the air for a toast.

“TO EP!” The four of them shouted as they clinked their glasses together.

“You guys are too much at times,” I laughed, “But thank you very much none the less.”

With that slightly embarrassing moment of attention out the way we got back to dancing and sipping on our drinks. After a few songs Cal excused himself to the smoking area. Not long after he’d gone Michael went up to the bar as it was his turn to buy the round, leaving just me, Luke and Ash dancing in a little triangle of space. That was until Live In The Moment by Portugal. The Man started playing. 

As soon as we recognised the song Luke gave me a knowing look as I exclaimed ‘As if!’ because only hours ago in that random little coffee shop had we bonded over our mutual current obsession with the song. From that point until the song faded into the next Luke and I were solely focussed on one another as we passionately sang the lyrics at each other and let the beat draw our drunk, dancing bodies closer together in the already small space. 

Without even realising it we became only inches apart, loudly singing into each other’s faces with our drink-free hands moving between air punches, waves and resting on each other (his hand on my waist, mine on his shoulder). And then far too soon the song was over.

“That’s officially made my night,” I declared as I took a step back and downed what remained of my drink, “That was the best coincidence ever.”

“I think that just became our song.” Luke smiled down at me while pushing a few curls back out of his face.

“Are you fucks going to take your drinks now? Because I’m 30 seconds away from drinking them.” Michael somewhat playfully asked, pulling the two of us out of our bubble.

It wasn’t long after taking our drinks from Michael that Mr. Brightside came on and the five of us went mad for it on the dancefloor. And it turned out that, just like a multitude of other clubs I’d been to, Mr Brightside was a subtle signal that closing time was fast approaching. After the two songs that followed, the music stopped and the house lights came on.

“Boooo!” We all declared, clearly not ready for the night to be over just yet.

We collected our jackets from the cloakroom as we were ushered out into the cold Parisian night air with the rest of the crowd. Once out on the street we checked the time for the first time in hours. Realising it was 3:05am and nowhere else was likely to still be open we began our walk back to the tour bus.

It may seem strange to say, but drunk walks home at the end of a night out are one of my favourite things in the world. I get such a feeling of togetherness when I’m laughing and slightly staggering down the street with friends. It always makes me feel like I belong. And semi-lost under the streetlights of Paris I had that feeling of belonging wash its warmth over me. I took two large steps to catch up with Cal and looped my arm through his, 

“I so fucking glad I’m here. Thank you so much for being my best friend. And thank you for having bandmates that are so easy to get along with.” I told Cal as I placed my drunk, sleepy head against his arm as I wasn’t quite tall enough to reach his shoulder.

As Cal and I continued our drunk heart-to-heart we absentmindedly followed the other three in what we hoped was the direction of the tour bus. Seeing as we hadn’t been paying much attention to them and their antics, it was a bit of a surprise to hear Ash shout “Smile!” at us. Thankfully we were quick enough to pose. 

The result was a pretty cool photo of us, arms still linked, pulling tongue-out faces while flipping the camera off. I asked Ash to send it to me, edited it a bit and kept it in my Insta drafts for review and posting in the morning. By the time I’d done this, we’d managed to find our way back to the bus. Once we all piled in we promptly collapsed in our bunks for what remained of the night.

*

The next day was actually quite a relaxed one for me by touring standards.

I was woken up by Michael repeatedly prodding my upper arm. Once I stirred and opened one eye to find him there, he let me know that Ashton had gone and done a coffee run and mine was waiting for me in the kitchen area. Begrudgingly I got up, because I knew the caffeine would do me good, and I also really needed painkillers for my head. As I padded into the bus’ kitchen area in my XXL tee I saw that the guys were looking just as rough as I felt and probably looked too.

“Thanks for the coffee, Ash.” I said as I picked up the cup with my name on, “I don’t suppose there’s any painkillers on this bus?”

“Got some on my coffee run. Here you go.” Ash responded handing me the small rectangular box.

“You lifesaver.” I said taking the box and settling down on the small sofa next to Luke who was barely awake.

As everyone was pretty hungover we didn’t talk much. We just sat in a comfortable silence while we waited for the caffeine to kick in. 

The silence was finally broken by Lou getting onto the bus and letting the four guys know it was soundcheck in 30 minutes. This prompted them to go and change out of their joggers and freshen up a bit. As they did so I dug out my laptop, charger and notebook from my bunk in order to set up a temporary desk at the kitchen booth’s table and get some work done.

After two hours I’d managed to finish, proof read and send off my article on Glasgow to ELLE; as well as flesh out two article ideas for Paris. Pleased with what I had achieved in that time, despite my headache only being dulled slightly by the painkillers, I took a break. 

Predictably, after making some instant mug ramen, I ended up on Instagram; which was when I remembered the photo in my drafts from last night. I clicked onto it and saw drunk me had gone a bit too far when altering the brightness and warmth of the photo. Once I had edited them down and was pleased with how it looked, I tapped out the caption “Two of a kind!” with the emoji of the two dancing girls at the end, tagged Cal and hit ‘Post’. Not quite ready to go back to work, I decided to get dressed and head into the venue to see what the guys were up to.

The guys were just finishing up the meet and greet, so I hopped round to the front of the venue and gave some of the roadies a hand with prepping the t-shirts and hoodies into piles by size at the merch booth. In between pile sorting, Lou appeared to let us know the boys were in Dressing Room 4 doing radio interviews over the phone and to avoid that area of the venue until they were done. Not knowing when exactly that would be, I headed back to the bus once the merch had been sorted and video called Drew.

“Work is so shit without you. Your replacement sucks too.” Drew complained.

“Aww I’m sorry, Drew! Have you heard back from the other firm you applied to?”

“No, not yet. But I should hopefully within the next week. I can’t survive much longer with these people. How’re you surviving on the road?”

“Really well actually! Not to rub it in or anything.” I laughed.

As I was divulging into some of the details and anecdotes I heard someone slapping their hands along the length of the bus as they approached the door.

“Oh. It sounds like I’m going to have to go.” I managed to say before the door opened and Luke stepped onto the bus, “Adios. I’ll call you again soon.”

“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t realise you were on the phone.” Luke apologised as he caught the tail-end of my conversation, “We’re all just chilling in the main dressing room now, so I said I’d come and find you.”

“Let me grab my camera gear and I’ll be right with you.” I told him while shimmying out of the booth at the front of the bus.

After a few wrong turns backstage, which resulted in a game of Marco Polo between Luke and Michael as a way to guide us the right place, we were back into our comfortable evening routine. They got prepped and hyped up and I documented it with my camera. That evening I took each of them down the hall to a really cool, cobalt blue door I’d spotted for some solo shots. Luke, taking the longest to decide on his stage outfit for the night, was the last of the four I photographed.

“That red silk shirt was such a good choice.” I complemented him as I held my eye up to the viewfinder, “It contrasts this cobalt door so well. And the two together really bring out your eyes.”

“He doesn’t need a bigger head than he’s already got!” Cal called playfully down the corridor.

Luke let out his infectious giggle and I seized the opportunity to grab another photo while chuckling myself. It was a great photo. Such a pure moment captured. I almost didn’t want to share it on their social media, but I knew that was a foolish, and not to mention selfish, thought.

Not long after that the guys were called to the stage. I took my place side of stage and ritualistically fist bumped each of them as they took to the stage for another amazing show. I felt I had already got enough content while in Paris, so I chose to just enjoy the performance instead of worrying about shots and footage. It was the first time I had let myself do so on this tour and I had a blast.

“It looked like you were having a good time tonight.” Cal later remarked when we were all back on the bus and on the road to Brussels. 

“Don’t tell Lou, but I sort of let myself take tonight off shooting to enjoy the gig as I already have so much Paris content.” I confessed as I reclined on the sofa in the lounge at the back of the tour bus.

“Your secret is safe with us.” Cal reassured with a wink, before taking the final swig that remained in his beer bottle, “Right you fucks, I’m off to bed. See you in Brussels.”

Not long after, Mike and Ash made their way to their bunks as well. This left just Luke and I chilling in the back lounge. As he was scrolling through Netflix looking for a film to put on, I asked him, 

“Are you not shattered too?”

“Eh,” He shrugged, “A bit, yeah. But I always have trouble sleeping. Plus after our drunk chat the other night I’d like to hang out with you more, and I seem to only really get the chance at night.”

“I’m not going to argue with that.” I responded while draping a blanket over my shoulders as the opening credits to Groundhog Day began. After a pause I continued, “We can hang out during the day you know. Like take a break and grab lunch or something. Hey, why don’t we do the coffee run together tomorrow? That’ll be an opportunity to hang out.”

“I’d like that,” He smiled, and then tugged a little at the blanket, “Don’t go hogging all the blanket.”

I released my grip on the blanket, allowing Luke to drape it over himself as well. The added warmth of his body next to mine made me feel even cosier and it wasn’t long before I nodded off to sleep.

The tour bus abruptly coming to a stop a few hours later managed to rouse me from my slumber. As my eyes fluttered open, the rest of my body registered that I wasn’t in my bunk, or even laying down, and that the warm thing my head was on smelt very good. Once my eyes were open and no longer fuzzy with sleep I realised that I had fallen asleep during the film, as I was still sat on the lounge’s U-shaped sofa. Luke must have fallen asleep at some point during the film too, as the nice smelling thing my head was resting on was his shoulder, and I could feel his head resting gently on top of mine as he snored softly.

“Wake up. Hey, Luke. Wake up, “I prompted as I gently shook his thigh, “I think we’re in Brussels.”

[mcrmadness]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but do you have any song or album recommendations for Apulanta? So far I've only heard Toinen jumala and Lokin päällä lokki. Absolute bangers, but I've always had a hard time listening to new songs for some reason. Guess it's a comfort zone thing? Also, do you have any other Finnish band recommendations? I just think the language sounds pretty.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA thanks for asking about my hyperfixation and also sorry because now I cannot shut up but you can only blame yourself for that!!! XDDD

No really, I had to look for the song Toinen jumala because I remember it exists but I think it was just some special release that was not on any studio album - they do those sometimes - I am not even sure if I have listened to this song before :D But it sounds incredible!!!

Anyway, both of those songs are in their nu-metal style. And the song and album recommendations really depend on what you want from music. They have a quite long history - the band was founded in 1991 and they have been through lots of changes what comes to their musical style - still somehow they have managed to sound like Apulanta for all these years and I don’t know any other band that would sound exactly like them. No song on an album is like the other and you can’t listen to just one song and think you have heard the whole album now. (Sounds familiar eh? :D) Anyway, I’d say they kinda went from punk to “melodic minor key pop” - that is an actual description of their first album, which didn’t sell as well because they made what they thought people wanted to hear instead of what they wanted to play (but I love the album too!) - and then back to punk after almost breaking up because people didn’t like them that much. From punk rock they evolved to alternative rock, to a bit harder nu-metal sounding music. In 2004 their bassist left the band after 7 albums, and this is the time when I kinda grew out of their music and stopped listening to them.

I found the newer music only last year or something, I was never interested in it because it was too metallic for me and the songs I heard from the radio were either uninteresting or too slow for me. But that was a mistake I made because I literally judged the whole albums based on just a few single songs and those did not tell the truth of the albums. I really learnt to like those albums, but my favorites will be forever their first 5 albums.

So I see you have now heard only newer songs. I don’t really even like Lokin päällä lokki, because I have never understood nu-metal. Explains why I wasn’t that much into their albums Heinola 10 (6th, 2001) or especially Hiekka (7th, 2004). Heinola 10 still has several very awesome songs but I have never really gotten behind Hiekka, even today.

So, shortly: if you want punk, listen to Ehjä (2nd, 1996) or Kolme (3rd, 1997). If you prefer alternative and a bit more metallic rock, also accompanied with string instruments, then go for Aivan kuin kaikki muutkin (4th, 1998) or Plastik (5th, 2000). Plastik is actually my favorite album of all these, but I’m also love Ehjä and Kolme, and am very fond of their first album: Attack of the A.L. People (1995). They also have tons of great b-sides so the single compilation albums are great too.

From the newer albums the lates 2 are my favourites and I actually like to divide their history into two: old Apulanta (1991-2004) and new Apulanta (2005->), mainly because I was a fan when I was 9 yeras old and old Apulanta was a part of my childhood, but then I had a pause and found them again in 2008 or 2009, and started listening to the “new Apulanta albums” for the first time pretty much a decade later.

This is the song that peaked my interest after years, it was the first punk sounding new AL song I had heard ever since their late 90s era and I liked this song a lot and it still slaps!!! The song is called Zombeja! and here’s it’s music video too:

I’ll put more songs from different eras and styles under the cut! The max amount of videos in one post if 5 so I’ll put the audio ones behind links.

For other band recommendations - there’s plenty of bands but it really depends on what is the genre and other things you’re going for. I don’t think I can put too many videos in one so I can e.g. reblog this post with videos from other bands I like - I’m not too fond of Finnish music as it’s mostly metal or boring Finnrock and I don’t like those really. Or you can also send another ask where you specify what you would like to hear so I can try to find something that’d match that.

OLDER STUFF:

Systeemi kusee - from their punk era. At this point they still had two singer-guitarists. The title means “The system sucks”.

ATTACK OF THE A.L. PEOPLE:

Here’s my favorite song, Aurinkoon (”To the sun”), with a video where it’s a playback but for some reason the recording is not in sync at all but I can’t find a better video of this at all. I think someone filmed it from a dvd from tv screen.

Päivästä toiseen (”Day after day”), no words, it’s a bit slow but I think it’s really pretty!

EHJÄ:

...silti onnellinen (”...still happy”). The second and third album were very similar but not in a bad way.

Mitä kuuluu? was the hit that was their breakthrough. It was first released on an ep called “Hajonnut”, “Broken” in English, and they were going to break up if it didn’t work. But it did work, better than ever, so they stayed together and that’s why the second album was named as Ehjä, “Intact”.

KOLME:

Mitä vaan (”Anything”) is one of my favorite songs still day, of all time.

Mato (”Worm”), this is hilarious. I love the lyrics but unfortunately can’t translate them right now :D

AIVAN KUIN KAIKKI MUUTKIN:

Hallaa/008 (”Frost”) is just so. good. Also the video is interesting, it’s very gore and has nothing to do with the song itself :D Their old bassist directed all of these old videos of theirs.

Teit meistä kauniin/007 is one of their most famous songs. On this album they didn’t give the songs any titles, they gave only numbers to them and because of that I still am not entirely sure what are all the songs on the album. I don’t have names for them and I only remember the single releases and other songs that ended up having names in public. It’s interesting.

PLASTIK:

Käännä se pois (”Turn it away”), I just... this is very similar to the next song but I love them both - this might be the one whose audio I remember from my childhood.

Odotus (”Waiting”), I remember this music video from my childhood. It’s my only actual memory of the time when I was a “fan” of them. The actor in the video was in a Finnish soap opera (that my mom didn’t let me watch but I watched it was my cousins’) and I was very confused of why he was in the video and if it was him. Somehow didn’t understand what an actor is.

Terä: with a video but low quality OR better audio but no video, I’m linking this only because it’s one of my favorites and really shows how this album can yet again be so diverse!

Ei yhtään todistajaa, this just slaps and also has a cool video for it.

Maailmanpyörä (”Ferris Wheel”), absolutely one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. EVER.

^You can see maybe that it’s my favorite album :D I just can’t decide only one song!

OTHER STUFF:

They have also made two English albums - both have songs with lyrics either translated into English or with completely new English lyrics but all the songs are originally in Finnish. With the second one they clearly have rerecorded the whole songs but with the first one they have just done the vocals:

Viper Spank

Apulanta (Import) - I think this is actually an English version of their 2002 album Heinola 10.

***

Okay I think this is enough for now! Here are lots of my favorite songs, lots of videos (unfortunately there’s no better quality versions of the old videos anywhere) and way too much text! I hope you’re not overwhelmed and feel free to ask if there’s something you want to know! You can also see my Apulanta tag for newer songs (and also for some older ones) since I’ve been hyperfixating on the newer albums a lot lately (I saw them live in last February and never recovered lol).

I think I won’t talk about other bands here now - except if you are interested in comedy rock or fun punk, then there’s Klamydia. But I think I should do an individual post about them in that case. Anyhow, check this song from my favorite album, the song is called Ooko tehny lenkkiä (pyörällä ilman penkkiä) aka “Have you driven a bike (without the saddle)” and, well, the lyrics are what you can imagine them to be too :D The sound of that song just clicked to me and had so much dä energy I just had to listen to them even more :D Let me know if you want to know more about them too, tho with them the fun part literally is in the lyrics (and sometimes in videos) so it might be difficult to understand things sometimes.

[asouthernprincessupnorth]

Sweetener Tour, 19 September 2019, Sheffield

Hi guys! You can guess from the title what this post is about: Ariana Grande’s Sweetener Tour! I went to her concert with a very dear friend, Nabil, and let me tell you that it was amazing.

So, we bought the tickets way back in December 2018, if I’m not mistaken. When I found out that Ariana was coming to the UK, I thought I just had to see her at least once. Me and Nabil looked at her schedule and when I found out she was coming to f-ing Sheffield, I just knew that there is no way I could possibly miss out on it. I mean, Sheffield, of all places!

I got up as early as I could on the day of the ticket sales and within a minute that the tickets were being sold, I couldn’t get any. I kept on refreshing the page until it showed I could get two tickets on the f-ing Gold Circle, which is basically the most expensive ticket category (but not as expensive as VIP-Meet & Greet). After hastily agreeing with Nabil, I clicked on the purchase. Yep, I bought a very, very expensive concert ticket.

Me and Nabil went to the venue as soon as queuing was allowed by the Arena and we spent at least three-and-a-half to four hours in the queue. Was it worth it? It was. We got into the Standing area but I just knew that our Gold Circle tickets should’ve gotten us closer to the stage so I basically ran to the edge of the Standing area, showed our Gold wristbands to the security guards, and got ourselves into the f-ing Gold Circle. I ran and managed to stand on the second-to-front row. Let me tell you this: it felt awesome. Me and Nabil got slightly separated because he went to buy us some water (which each cost f-ing £2.50) and when he returned, two girls and a mother already stood behind me. But it’s okay. He was still very close to me and we managed to chat a bit during the concert. Also, so many young girls (preteens and even a child barely five years old) going there with their mummies and daddies. Wow.

Social House and Ella Mai opened the concert. I honestly loved Social House! I’d never heard their music apart from their collaboration with Ariana on Boyfriend but they had such positive, great energy and were very engaging with the audience. I might’ve not known any of their songs but when they left the stage, I knew that they made me want to listen to their EP. Ella Mai had a very beautiful voice but, sadly, I felt she wasn’t very engaging. The stage was rather circular/oval-shaped, with the central void being filled with VIP audience and the outer parts of the circle surrounded by Gold Circle (yes, I’m terrible at describing visual stuff in English). However, Ella stayed only on the main stage with the musicians and did not go around on the circular part, which made things less engaging (at least in my opinion).

Warning: The part about Ariana is very much all over the place.

Now. Now. Ariana. The songstress herself. Good God. She opened with the intro raindrops (an angel cried), and the crowds just went mad, including yours truly. We basically screamed and sang along and I saw that the stage was still empty but the visuals were starting. Oh. The visuals were very much all about the sun and stars and moon. When she started raindrops, it looked as though there was an eclipse or something.

And then, she rose up from the ground with her dancers in a very, very familiar setting: God is a woman as seen on the MTV VMAs 2018. Spread across a dining table, as though it was a reinterpretation of The Last Supper. And she sang. She had a very beautiful, very clear voice. I noticed, however, that the mic might not have been super clear because whenever she said anything that wasn’t her song lyrics (like when she greeted the audience or said something about the song no tears left to cry several songs after God is a woman), I couldn’t really hear what she said. Either that or she wasn’t very good in her pronunciation (this is actually one of the quite valid critiques of her vocal/singing. Yes, I love and adore Ariana but I also agree that sometimes she doesn’t enunciate well).

Anyway. I had a very, very magical 90 minutes listening and watching Ariana’s performance. She was generally energetic, fun, and engaging. She was appreciative of her band and her backup dancers, whom I think she genuinely sees as her friends. Ariana’s vocals, though, are the star of the show. Of course, what else do you expect from her? Every time she hit a high note it made me feel like I was being choked because how did she do it???? And she killed it. I’m pretty sure at some point I heard a whistle note from her, though it wasn’t as flexible as Mariah Carey’s had been in her prime. This isn’t a bad thing, though. It’s great that Ariana can do whistle notes, doesn’t mean she has to do it in the most vocally-acrobatic style because God knows stretching it too far can affect your other vocal abilities.

I loved every part of it, of course, but I really loved her performance of NASA. I guess that’s because it’s my favourite song off thank u, next. To be honest, lots of the songs were kind of a blur to me but in a good way: I couldn’t remember exactly how she did it because I was just so happy with singing and screaming at the top of my lungs. I hope that’s a good sign, though. Anyway. NASA was such a great performance and I honestly remember not being able to properly record a video of it because my phone’s camera is absolute crap and Ariana’s position onstage wasn’t strategic to mine. Still, I was like, f it I’ll sing my lungs out because that is what I want to do. I screamed so loud when she sang: “I’mma need space, I’mma need space”.

And also needy. I loved, loved, loved that song. needy is such a mood and I know it was a song of vulnerability but damn, I sang and screamed. It felt like pouring my heart out. I guess that’s exactly why thank u, next is my favourite Ariana album: it speaks to me. And when she sang, I know that she was singing what my heart felt, too. And it’s an amazing feeling.

Of course, no Ariana show would be complete without some sexy choreography, like in Side to Side and Into You. I sang and screamed but... mostly it was a blur. Again. I feel like because those songs are, so sorry to say this, generic provocative songs, it did not make me feel super connected or anything. It was fun to sing them and dance to them but wasn’t the most wow this is amazing OMG feeling. I did, however, enjoy break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored. Her vocals in that are amazing, oddly enough for that kind of song.

I also fell so much in love with R.E.M. I later found out it was at first a Beyonce song but Ariana made it a very, very lovely song. It’s actually very much like a lullaby and it’s such a sweet, sweet love song that sways your heart.

This has gone way, way too long (just like the intro of in my head, which wasn’t sung at the concert but used during an interval). Now. The grande finale: thank u, next. I recorded the whole performance and it actually made me feel rather emotional. I can’t possibly imagine singing the names of my exes every night for a year of touring, one of whom died of drug overdose and the other you thought you were going to marry. But Ariana sang it well. And again, I felt very connected to how she sang it. It’s not about whether you have as many exes as she does or anything: it’s about connecting on the understanding that you could take a lesson from the people in your past. And she closed the show with dances of love and pride.

So. I loved every second of it. It was worth every penny that I spent on it (though I would’ve loved if she’d sung for an extra 30 minutes lolz). It’s definitely something that I’ll remember for as long as I live, and I’m just ever so grateful that of all the places, I chose Sheffield and so did she, both in 2018. She delivered a beautiful, fun, entertaining performance and it was such an amazing way to close my postgraduate studies (sort of). It’s incredibly strong of her to embrace her vulnerability and create something that connects with others.

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

90’s Rap: Random Quarantine Thoughts

1. Vanilla Ice...I remember he was absolutely killed in the media when he tried to say that he wasn’t using the sample from Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure.” I have no idea why he tried to lie about it in the first place. Every rapper back then was using samples of previous songs. This was before rock, pop, and every other artist got wise to the fact that they should be making money from these rappers using their samples. Take a look at “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer, which uses a Rick James sample. I mean Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys came out right around the same time as well. That album was essentially the equivalent of a Girl Talk mashup album. One of the members of the Beastie Boys has even said that album could never be done today because it would cost $1 billion. Vanilla Ice should have told the truth in the first place, then perhaps people would not be looked upon as such a moron. The irony is that such honesty would have helped when he did that stupid Amish reality show.

2. Coolio... His career goes to show you the power of simply having a couple of hit songs. I have noticed that he continues to tour almost 25 years after “Fantastic Voyage” and “Gangster’s Paradise.” People are still paying money to see him and venues are still booking him, even though he only has one strand of hair remaining on his head.

3. MC Hammer...I was watching the video for “U Can’t Touch This” when a lightning bolt of an idea hit me that is pure genius. Hospitals should do away with the gown. Everyone hates them as they feel a huge dread of embarrassment when they have to put one on. What do we replace the gown with? MC Hammer jackets and MC Hammer pants because they will allow enough room to do anything with tubes, IV’s, needles. This is a gold mine that I need to look into after this pandemic calms down.

4. Puff Daddy... There are so many things that I could talk about when it comes to Puff Daddy. I could go on and on about the fact that people appear in his videos that really do not need to be there. Case in point, take a look at Biggie Smalls in the “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” video. He does not rap, but instead argues with a cop in various portions of the video. His presence really does not serve any purpose. Yet, that goes along with my primary point...What the hell is going on in his videos? Take “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down.” There are so many damn things going on in this video that make no sense whatsoever. Why are they in the desert, why does their car blow up, are these concerts that they are rapping at, where are they going, did they ever meet up with Biggie, and so on.

5. 2Pac...One of the things that completely blows my mind in the annals of 90’s rap is the fact that 2Pac Shakur was a member of Digital Underground. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they were recording the “Humpty Dance.” I may have to research his feelings about that song as it went completely main stream. As I watch him in some videos, it becomes twilight zone surreal just to see him walking next to Humpty. I am not sure if he ever talked about that in an interview, but I sure would like to find out.

6. “Regulate...” Something people either do not know or tend to forget about in this song,but it was recorded for the movie Above the Rim starring 2Pac. That is why in the music video you see scenes that perhaps one is not familiar with. I have actually seen the movie which is a cult classic now simply because 2Pac was in it. The film is pretty terrible, and probably should have gone straight to DVD upon its release. I am not sure if this has happened too much, but the hit song was 100 times more popular than the movie. Unfortunately, not even the song could save a film about a troubled janitor who used to be a basketball phenom.

7. Naughty By Nature... There are two things that I will always remember about this group. The first is their hit song “OPP,” which whenever I hear it I am immediately transported back to my freshman year of high school. Certain songs bring up certain times in your life. The other thing that I think of whenever I see or hear this group is that long ass knife Treach had in the videos. What was the deal with that knife? In later videos, they always made a point to include at least one shot of him holding that absurd knife. I wonder if he is going to be buried with that knife. There probably is a story behind it, but I am not sure I want to know that particular story. You do not want to get the reputation of actually knowing why Treach from Naughty By Nature has a knife.

8. West Coast Rap All Stars... This was an all star track comprising of West Coast rappers in an effort to raise awareness about gang violence. I think this was a reaction to the East Coast song that did the same thing with artists like Queen Latifah, “Self-Destruction.” I remember owning this cassette single when I was younger. The hook in this song is very catchy, which is probably the reason why I liked this song so much. Yet, this song also brings out a surreal feeling when listening to it or watching the music video years later. Surreal in the fact that so many diverse rappers are in this song. I always found it strange to see Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, MC Ren walking along side MC Hammer and Humpty from Digital Underground. I think Young MC is even in this video at some point. You would expect the Compton rappers to be in this video, but even as a kid, I was surprised to see those rappers that end up on Pepsi commercials like Hammer to be there. The other strange thing about this song and music video was a couple of other things. First, Humpty actually goes into his character within the song. I guess that illustrates just how big that guy was back in the early 90’s. The other thing was MC Hammer took about five seconds to do some sort of ridiculous dance because that is what he was identified as with the public.

9. NWA... One of the more underrated rap albums of the 90’s was 100 Miles and Running from NWA. This EP was better than the full length album that followed it a year later. This might be because Dre knew that it was only going to be a preview of the forthcoming album, so it had to be leaner than normal. The full length album is iconic and well done, but it is just a little bloated, especially with all of the commercials and sketches.

10. LL Cool J... I saw LL last year at Lallapalooza. I did not know what to expect thinking I would probably have a good laugh if nothing else. In fact, Todd turned out to be quite good. I think people tend to forget how many really good songs that he had over the years. His performance was excellent because I went in thinking that he might struggle possibly remembering some of the lyrics. Yet, then again, the dude has been an actor for about 20 years. Near the end of the show, I made a comment to one of the security guys there. “I bet f’ing Chris O’Donnell could not do that.” He laughed, which gave me the assurance that he had seen NCIS LA.

[thotyssey]

On Point With: Blake McIver

Beginning his career as a child star with memorable roles in “Full House” and “The Little Rascals” reboot, this actor / writer / producer / director / singer / songwriter / ex-gogo boy has definitely sashayed his way into our hearts and minds. New Yorkers can enjoy a pair of performances from him this week at the Laurie Beechman Theatre: first covering a legend’s songbook in a solo show, then as a supporting player of a drag queen’s showcase that he’s directed. It’s the charming and talented Blake McIver Ewing!

Thotyssey: Hi Blake, thanks for talking to us! So, are you mad busy now with rehearsals and finishing touches on your two shows (Blake Sings Barbra and I Dream of Jackie), or are you comfortable with what you have down now for both of them?

Blake McIver: Well, I am admittedly a rehearsal addict, but I had to come back to LA for another show. So, we'll do a couple quick clean-ups before next weekend!

You've certainly been performing for nearly all of your life... have producing, writing and directing always been part of the equation as well? I've actually been directing for over a decade! I started a theatre company in Southern California at 19, and cut my teeth as a producing major during my time at UCLA. Writing came shortly thereafter, first with songwriting, and then it expanded from there! So are you pretty much open to a variety of projects, or do you have a pretty specific wheelhouse? I like wearing many different hats. It keeps my passion alive, and keeps me learning and constantly refining my skill set.

Are you still basically based out of California? I am still based out of LA. As much as I love my time in NYC, the West Coast is always home. I was born and raised in the heart of LA, which is very rare. I consider myself a unicorn, haha!

Unicorn indeed! You've had a long and amazing career as an actor, beginning with some choice gigs as a child star... including Derek from Full House, Michelle's adorable friend who slayed “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in his debut episode! When you're that young and that famous/successful, can you even fully understand what is going on... or is it just normal because that's all you know?

For me, it was just going into the family business at a young age. Both my parents have lifelong careers in entertainment, which meant that many of their friends were in the business as well. I went to regular school, with non-working kids in between gigs, so I was aware that my life wasn't exactly typical. But I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Nor would your fans! I understand Derek was meant to be a one-time-only appearance, but that evolved into a beloved recurring role for several seasons.

You're right! Derek was supposed to be a one episode thing, that turned out to be three seasons of the show until it ended. It was a joy to be on that set every single time. It really was a cohesive family by the time I entered the cast, and they all made me feel right at home.

One fun part of Fuller House is seeing many of these supporting characters and their actors from the original show return as adults for cute cameos. It would be difficult without the Olsen Twins on board for this version, but would Derek stop by Fuller House if it were up to you?

YES! If it were up to me, Derek would definitely be the flamboyant show choir director at the School of the "new generation" kids! Have you noticed the show is so gay now? DJ and Stephanie are hitting on gay guys, and Kimmy's ex-husband is basically the New Trade. It's wonderful! Haha! That's awesome to hear. I have to be totally honest and tell you I haven't actually watched any of the reboot past the first episode! I know, sacrilegious! There's just only so many hours in the day, and I have so many Real Housewives franchises to keep up with! But I'm so glad people are loving it, and I hope it goes on and on.

Speaking of Housewives, you made appearances on a Bravo show a few years ago, "The People's Couch!" What was that experience like?

Well I have to say, when they pitched the show to us I thought, "Okay, we've officially reached the end of entertainment! You're making a show about people watching other shows on TV." Of course I hadn't yet seen the brilliant original British version, Gogglebox. And then when I saw the rough cut of the pilot, I was blown away with how fresh and funny it was. 

We really had the opportunity to engage in social commentary in a way I couldn't have predicted. Of course there was plenty of silliness along the way, but we did get to talk about some real issues on Bravo primetime, which I'm proud of.

Your album The Time Manipulator was such a diverse collection of songs and styles. 

Indeed! The Time Manipulator was intentionally stylistically diverse. It wasn't until I began writing music that I realized the diversity of my musical influences. Each track on that album represents a story from a moment in my life; some happy, painful, frustrating, etc. The narrative is quite dramatic, and I felt the genres really needed to serve the narrative. 

Of course, that's the last thing any record label wants to hear... which is why it was important for me to self produce / release the first one so that my un-diluted musical story is there.

That's the way to do it! Who would you consider some musical influences?

I'm inspired by everyone from The Beatles and Queen to Diana Ross, Carole King, Elton John, Antonio Carlos Jobim, to Gaga and Beyonce. I'm a real music nerd so if the melody and lyric meet a pure emotional intention, I'M IN! Do you have any plans for another recording? I do! I'm in the middle of a (much more musically cohesive) new EP that is inspired by my love of Motown, Blues, and Soul.

Right before recording The Time Manipulator, the internet-browsing public was alerted (thanks to Perez Hilton, I think) to the fact that you--a former child star!--were gogo dancing to fund its production, and the Thirst Pics were abound. You've already talked a lot about that experience with honest candor and charm, but I was wondering.. does being a stage and screen performer prepare you for gogo dancing at all, or is it a completely different animal?

The performative aspect of it definitely felt familiar to me. Performing for an audience has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But does anything truly prepare you for shaking your moneymaker in a jock on a box? Not sure, lol! 

It was like playing a role to a degree. I had a character / persona in my head. He had a name and a personality that was admittedly bolder than my own. So I guess it kind of was like a fun acting gig. Def, and it paid! Is that also how you got to know people in nightlife, like promoters and drag queens, or did you already kinda know that crowd from just being a gay entertainer in LA? It all sort of happened simultaneously, in a beautiful way. Just as I was becoming more comfortable and free in my queer identity and expression, I was meeting wonderful queer artists and brilliant performers who challenged me artistically and mentally, which was really wonderful.

What's been your history as a stage performer in NYC?

Well, my NYC stage debut was as an honorary member of "The Broadway Kids" in the early 90s. I believe a Gavroche got sick before one of their big shows, and my friend Kathryn Zaremba (who was Lisa on Full House) was Annie Warbucks on Broadway. She said to the director, “my friend can learn this show in four days.” Before I knew it, I was singing and dancing alongside all these young Broadway vets who were very gracious to let the TV / Film brat come play with them! What's a dream role for you, as far as Broadway is concerned? Deena Jones in Dreamgirls. Which I realize is extremely problematic on every level, and will never and should NEVER, EVER happen.  

I wish that Disney could get it together and put Hunchback on Broadway. I would do just about anything to bring Quasi to the Broadway stage. Oh God that would be incredible!  

So I saw I Dream of Jackie during its initial run at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, starring NYC queen Jackie Cox, which you directed and also co-starred in. I absolutely loved it, it was cute and very funny, and even had sincere moments! How did you get involved with that show, which I’m happy to see returns to the Beechman on Sunday, August 20th?

I'm so glad you enjoyed IDOJ! It was such a joy bringing it to life. Jackie (aka Darius) has been my best friend since we met on day one of college at UCLA. We actually came up with the character of Jackie together, which is why I am referred to as her "Drag Father," hahaha! 

It worked out that my schedule opened up enough for me to be in NYC for the month of July, and I jumped at the chance to direct and choreograph the show. Can't wait to do it again next Sunday!

Amazing! Have you / would you ever try drag yourself, by the way?

I have very strong, angular features. Me in drag just looks like Idina MANzel.

Ha! Well, the night before IDOJ returns, the Beechman will see you solo on the stage for the return of your own hit cabaret revue, Blake Sings Barbra: The Concert! What role does Barbra Streisand's music play in your life, and what made you want to bring this show to the stage?

I've been captivated by Barbra since I first saw Funny Girl at 7 years old. But it wasn't until her 1994 comeback concert that I became completely obsessed. It was a crazy year for me: I was in my second season of Full House, I filmed The Little Rascals, and my parents’ house was destroyed in the Northridge earthquake. In the show, I take you through all these things via The Concert, which basically taught me everything I know about being a performer.

I've wanted to do this tribute show for many years, and finally sat down one day last year, during the tumult of election season, and wrote it all down.

Now that you mentioned The Little Rascals--where you play spoiled villain Waldo-- and the election, I have to quickly ask about how surreal it is that Donald Trump plays your Dad on the other end of a phone conversation in a brief cameo. That must be so surreal to process, nowadays.

It really is! And I tell the extended version of the story in my show. It becomes relevant at a certain point in the concert!  Intriguing! What's your favorite song to do in the show? I love the setlist from the concert so much, so it really changes with every audience. Last month I had some true 94 concert superfans in the audience, so during "The Way We Were" they were quoting her ad libs at me, then I quoted some back at them during the interlude, and we all screamed and it was a fabulous moment. I explained it all to the rest of the crowd after the song, haha!

Sounds like a remarkable experience, congratulations! Anything else coming up for you? Yes, in September I am directing and choreographing a tour for the wonderful cabaret and burlesque artist Ariana Savalas (of Postmodern Jukebox fame). I built the first version of her show last summer, and now it's expanding into a full Caburlesque extravaganza, which is so fun! And then I'll be back at the Beechman in October with two more shows! Excellent! So, lastly: what do you think The Little Rascals’ Waldo would be doing today, as an adult?

I feel like he'd be on a yacht in the South of France, spending his father's money as rapidly as humanly possible!

Sounds about right. Thanks, Blake!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for Blake McIver’s scheduled NYC appearances. Follow him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and his own website.

On Point Archives

[fmdxjerome]

You’ve Changed. || Solo Para

When: Somewhere in 2017

With who: Khaled Yilmaz & Freddy Albert (Best Friends).

The familiar sound of skype booting up filled the spacious room of the singers apartment. It was late, around 2am, but it was fine. Late nights were normal for the male. Either he couldn’t sleep, was writing random lyrics, be on his phone texting with someone or like now - getting ready to talk to friends. 

It was time, too. He hadn’t spoken to his friends in ages. Last time he got the news they were leaving their old apartment to live separated, seeing as things became serious between Khaled and his girl. How they shed tears that night, even though Jerome stayed in that apartment for little over two years, it had memories.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he smiled at the two figures appearing on his screen.

“It’s two past midnight in Korea and I have to be at a talk show in a few hours, be grateful.”

“I got school homework to grade, you be grateful.” Freddy said in his defense. moving his webcam to show a stack of papers.

Khaled just smiled proudly as he spoke. “I got a beautiful girl waiting for me so I got you all beat.” They both agreed to this, not really being able to fight his reasons.

They talked for awhile. About various topics. But when the topic landed on “Yuddy” so to speak, things became interesting.

Swiping through pictures on his phone, he showed the prettiest girls Korea had to offer - with riveting commentary, he might add. “Fucked her. Fucked her. Almost fucked her.” His tongue slid over his lips as his eyes glinted at the face that blessed his phone screen. “Oh, fucking her.” He spoke as he showed the picture, a pleased smirk on his face.

“You’re fucking Wren?” Khaled exclaimed, a bit too loudly, leaving Freddy stunned at his level of shock. It almost made the singer chuckle. “You know her name? I didn’t think of you as a WISH fan.”

“No fuck you, you know I don’t play with that gay shit.”

“Khaled.” 

“Shut up Freddy, you know what I mean.” He spoke. “No, but Selima’s sister is like a rabbit kpop fan and I’ve seen her room. WISH everywhere. She’d actually foam at the mouth if she’d knew her sisters fiancee is friends with the guy dating her favourite.”

Jerome felt the grin play on his lips. “Who said anything about dating her though?” He could see the confusion forming on both of his friends faces, understandably so. They’ve known him since he was just a teen, nervously talking to girls that didn’t deserve him just to be rejected anyways. And even when he was finally getting girlfriends at ages sixteen and seventeen - he was nothing but faithful. Always faithful, walking after them like a lost puppy hungry for love. Flustered at even the thought of being intimate with someone who he wasn’t dating.“You aren’t dating her?” He heard Freddy ask through stuttering audio, sounding concerned? He couldn’t quite make out the tone in his voice but something was there. The singer just took a swig of his drink “No? She just comes to my apartment sometimes, begging, let me tell you. And I just comply.”

“I’d rather call her a play thing.” 

Khaled had always been the extra one in the friendship. Always overreacting, even now six years into adolescence he almost fell from his couch. In contrast to Freddy, who just stopped eating his rice dish and stare. “Did Jerome Gauthier just use play thing to describe a woman? The guy who literally talked shit to me for hours when I suggested fucking the dönor kebab girl? The guy who was glued against that bitch of an ex of his sickly kissing her because oh no seven days without her how can I live?” He saw the Turk point at his drink through the screen. “You gotta stop drinking that soju shit, turns you into a fuckboy.” 

The mention of his ex made him take a quick gulp of his drink. It’s been years but the memories still hurt. Why was he still affected by her? Maybe because he hasn’t allowed himself to move on. Fall in love again. Care again. Freddy noticed. He always did. But he kept his mouth shut to hear what Jerome had to say.

“Shut the fuck up.” His tone sounded irritated yet masked with a playful tone. “Who has time to be monogamous when girls just come to you? Who wants to be monogamous then?”

“Fuckboy!” Khaled exclaimed, looking away from the screen to call to his fiancee. “Selima! Jerome is a fuck boy now, imagine that.” 

He had to listen closely to hear Selima speak her words. “Shocker. I have to stop my sister from drooling over him because-” Her voice went from far away to close by before the familiar beauty graced the screen from behind her man, directly glaring at Jerome. “You are a bad influence. I’ve seen your instagram mister Raki Papi are you fucking serious?”

“He’s fucking Wren.”

“He’s fu- He’s fucking Wren? WISH’S Wren?” She spoke in disbelieve, glancing at Khaled for a moment before returning her gaze on him. “She’s my sisters favourite you asshole. If you ever let this leak out to the public I will come to Korea and ruin your career. I don’t need my sister wanting a boy like you.” 

Freddy just kept quiet through all this back and forth, not really interested in who he was fucking - just interested in why Jerome turned into this.

“I’m offended. I’m good to my women. If Esra wasn’t seventeen and she’d ever attended one of my shows, I’d treat her right.” The Korean spoke, pretending to think about it.

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m joking! Jesus. Not even married yet and humour already left your life.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you.” She furrowed her brow before curling her arms around her fiancee’s shoulders. “Sign off Khaled, it’s been almost two hours. We need to do the dishes.” The male sighed heavily, wanting to hear more about Jerome’s scandalous life style but defying Selima isn’t worth it. “Fine. later Fred.” With a quick flash of a smile, he turned to Jerome.  “Later fuckboy!” 

“Later pussy whipped.”

Sipping his drink absentmindedly, he listened to Khaled’s last second rant getting cut off by Selima signing him out - eventually leaving him alone with his closest friend. He looked up to the male who seemed to be in thought. A sigh left his lips, breaking the silence with a tone of voice only described as tired. “Here we go, what kind of psychological analysis do you give my shocking behaviour? Mommy issues? Not being loved enough as a kid? Taking out my stress through sex? Whats the verdict?”

“You’re upset about your ex coming back into your life so instead of moving on you became a dick.” Freddy spoke matter-of-factly, taking a bite of his food. Jerome just raised both his eyebrows, not responding to the ex comment. “A dick?”

“A dick yes. Seriously Jerome. Do they know you’re just using them?”

“They enjoy it.”

“Not an answer.”

Jerome sat up a bit straighter, one of his eyebrows still raised. “Why are you so interested in my sex life anyway? You aren’t Khaled.” He asked.

“Who you are fucking is none of my business. Rather not have the mental image, my man. But you as a person is. Jerome, I’ve known you since you were this fourteen year old Asian boy who chased after the pretty white girls in class. Remember Emy? She was fucking hot and you got crazy rejected by her.” 

“No need to remind me.”

“You cried.” Freddy said smugly.

“Your point?”

The elder just kept quiet for a bit before he answered. “I know you. I’ve known you for ten years. This is not you. You’re a sweet guy who gets really grossly in love sometimes. Not the embodiment of a wack G-Eazy song.”

“First of all. G-Eazy? Gross. Second of all. People change. I changed.”

“Sure you did.”

“I’m twenty four Freddy. Not the fifteen year old crying about Emy. Not the seventeen year old who rejected the girls asking for one night stands at the bar we sang at. Not the nineteen year old who kissed the ass of a girl who ended up breaking my heart anyway.” Jerome finished his drink in annoyance. “I’m twenty four and lust just seems better than love right now. Is that so weird?”

There was silence between them both, the singer seemingly uncomfortable as the rapper just played with the remaining rice kernels on his plate. It wasn’t until a sigh left the elders lips that he silence was broken. “You know whats weird?” Freddy began. “I always thought that your stage persona was just that. A stage persona. But it seems Yuddy has seeped into my friend a little bit. Is it the air there? The alcohol? The attention? Marie? Ah, whatever it is, call me again when Jerome wants to talk, okay?” Jerome blinked, two times, as his friend spoke one last time before signing off. “About feelings. In here.” He tapped his chest. “See you later man.”

Call ended at 3.57am

He sat there till his laptop screen stopped illuminating his visage, the harsh blue tinted light now replaced by the warmth of his nearby lamps. Falling into thoughts had always been a negative for Jerome, getting lost in his head was never good. Yet here he was, Thinking.

Thinking about people. And thinking about himself. But just when his mind started to question itself, his phone buzzed. 

Freddy  → ✉: I did like that ‘uninvited guest’ song of your new ep. It reminded me of this kid I met in history class.

Freddy  → ✉: Wonder who’s it about.

Freddy  → ✉: *what’s it about.

That wasn’t a typo. And Jerome would be lying if he wasn’t nervous about it. His Adams apple bopped up and down as he swallowed audibly, fingers tapping away the text only to scroll down to open another one.

He had typed out a message but never send it. Instead he turned the lights off in his apartment, closed his laptop and returned to his bed - leaving his mind to wonder. Wonder about a certain person. A certain friend. A certain feeling.

His phone forgotten.

Jerome  →  Yoorin [send?]: Wanna fuck? I think I need your body right now.

[hellofreeblr-blog]

XXL Interviews XXXTENTACION from jail, talks Depression, Family, Drake

South Florida has one of the most vibrant rap scenes in the world right now. Ever since SpaceGhostPurrp shed a light on the underground with his lo-fi sound circa 2011, more national attention has been paid to the talent bubbling up in areas like Broward and Miami-Dade County. Smokepurpp, Lil Pump, Pouya and Fat Nick are just a few of the artists who’ve amassed a following for themselves in The Sunshine State and beyond. But while kids like Denzel Curry and Kodak Black are reaching new heights in their career, there’s a young leader emerging in the underground, and his name is XXXTENTACION (pronounced X-X-X-tent-asi-ohn).

The 19-year-old rapper, currently locked up in Broward County Jail on six felony charges across two jurisdictions, sounds unlike anything else out there right now. Songs on his SoundCloud, most of which boast millions of plays, make the leap between melancholy indie records and punk-rap rage, testaments to his desire to be more than just a rapper. And indeed, he’s quickly becoming something of a cult figure, as his popularity grows with each new day that he spends behind bars. He might be getting out as soon as this Wednesday (Feb. 8), when his first bond hearing will be held, but if not he’s expected to be free by March, a source familiar with the matter tells XXL.

He’s facing charges of battery and aggravated assault of a pregnant victim, battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and tampering with or harassing a witness, victim, or informant in Miami-Dade County, while in Broward County he’s being charged with armed home invasion and aggravated battery.

His biggest song to date is “Look At Me,” the only single he’s released on iTunes and Spotify, and in the last couple weeks the track has gained a special kind of attention after Drake previewed a new cut with a flow very similar to that on “Look At Me.” The snippet prompted X to tweet at fellow Florida rapper Kodak Black wondering what was good with Drizzy’s obvious nod, and fans have since criticized Drake for hopping on yet another trend at the most opportune time.

XXL recently spoke to the rapper born Jahseh Onfroy from jail, and during our conversation he addressed the Drake controversy, touched on the status of his case, clarified who’s in Members Only, and spoke at length about what the criminal justice system in Florida gets wrong. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

XXL: How’d you first get into making music?

XXXTENTACION: I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was very lost. I felt like music was what I was trying to use to numb my pain. Music gave me a purpose and it just came to me. I just listened to a lot of artists and it was the only thing that kind of soothed me when I was feeling crazy. I always felt crazy when I was younger and I always felt different. Music made me feel like there wasn’t anything wrong with me, music calmed me. I used music as an anti-depressant at first and then it just became something I tried to do myself.

What’s some of the first music you listened to?

The Fray, Three Days Grace, Asking Alexandria, Odd Future, Immortal Technique. I really love Immortal Technique. Papa Roach.

What was some of the first music you wrote?

I wrote two or three songs early on. I had one called “News/Flap” that was more lyrical and then I got a song called “Vice City” which is super old. That’s still up, it’s super weird because I used to be on my lyrical shit, and then I started to experiment with my sound and try an alternative sound.

What made you want to explore other sounds in your music?

I didn’t want to be just a rapper because if I was just a rapper, I wouldn’t be able to touch a certain crowd. I really wanted to be able to put my emotion and my energy into everybody and everything. Being just a rapper was very typical. Being an artist is more than being a singer or a multi-genre artist, I can also illustrate things or produce things or orchestrate things. I didn’t want to be put in that category because it seemed too small for what I felt like I was capable of. I always listened to every genre, so I didn’t want to be limited by the genre [of rap] because my mind was bigger than that. I love rap, I love melancholy, I love indie.

Do you have an official project out?

I actually have no project out. I have an EP [It Wasn’t Enough], but it was just three songs. I’ve done collectives [Members Only Vol. 1 and 2] with my collective music group, I have a lot of projects coming up, I’m gonna drop an album and a mixtape and I’ve dropped an EP or two, but it’s mainly singles and shit like that.

What are some of the projects you’re dropping when you get out?

I got this really really, really good album called 17. That’s more of an alternative, R&B sound. Then I’ve got this mixtape called I Need Jesus, which is mainly rap and the underground sound I did. So I’m trying to give my fans and anybody that comes in and listens to me everything with the mixtape and album. And then I want to come out with Members Only Vol. 3. People are gonna be really surprised about the shit I drop.

Tell me about Members Only. I know you met Ski Mask the Slump God while you were locked up for a year. How’d you meet Craig Xen and Wifisfuneral?

I met Craig when I went on a tour with $uicideboy$ and pretty much, Craig made me feel super comfortable. Craig has the same mental state that I have. We’re both on the same shit. Craig thinks the same way I do and we just got along, he’s very genuine with me. I like the $uicideboy$, they’re very genuine too, but they’re very busy guys and I wasn’t really able to get as close to them as I wanted, but Craig was an awesome guy. He’s my bro. We have the same mentality.

And how’d you meet Wifisfuneral?

I’ve known him since I was young.

Why’d you decide to form Members Only?

Members Only is a brotherhood. Members Only is a family. I always felt alone, so I built a band of brothers. Members Only was literally just a bunch of people who were taking care of me, keeping me calm so I wouldn’t end up in fucking prison and I pretty much showed them how to chase their dreams. Members Only turned into a community involving my fans, because all my fans I consider Members Only. As far as the artists on it, that’s a difference.

Who are the artists in Members Only?

Right now, I actually ended it. [Laughs] Because I’m reconstructing it, so as of right now, just myself, Ski Mask and Craig Xen. But I’m gonna be recreating it and putting artists I consider very good in it. But as of right now, just myself, Craig Xen and Ski Mask.

Your music’s got a raw edge to it. Why do you make your music sound like that?

It’s real. It’s not masked up. It can’t fit into a box. It’s its own sound, and that’s what I wanted to do, is be an individual, so doing that sound made me an individual. Being as raw as possible or as depressed as possible felt real. I made music for my pain to resonate with people, so you can feel the soul in that shit, you can feel my soul and my energy in that shit.

You produce a bit, right?

To some degree. I usually just chop shit and sample shit. I come up with all my samples, every single one of them, but as far as being able to put bass and snares on shit, I got guys for that. My main producer, his name is actually Stain. He’s a phenomenal guy, I love him. He fits me perfectly. That’s who I’m sticking to. As far as programs, I use things like FL Studio and Logic Pro.

You’ve dealt with a lot of anger and depression in your life. Where do you feel like that stuff comes from?

Being alone. With everything that my mom went through… I can’t stress that enough. I’m very thankful, she did everything she could remotely do as a woman and as I’ve grown older and looked back on everything I’ve said, I’d like to give her a bit more credit. She did everything she remotely could with the circumstances she was given. I didn’t have my dad around. It was just her.

We really have nobody, so I felt like with being placed away from her and then she having to pretty much hustle to help me, it was really being alone and being placed away from people I had any attachment to is what made me what I am. Just being alone breeds a different kind of madness and a different kind of pain, and not receiving a certain amount of love. So being away from my mom and not really having anybody around, I guess I just didn’t receive enough love.

When you started making music, was it therapeutic for you?

Hell the fuck yes. I put all my pain and my insanity and dark thoughts into my music. And putting it out there for other people to listen to made me feel like I’m doing something bad but good at the same time. So it was just a good way for me to put all my crazy ass demonic thoughts out there, and people feed on it. I saw it giving people energy and healing them, so it really multiplied. I really cherish it.

While you’ve been locked up recently, what have you been thinking about?  

I found the answer to life. I’m gonna get a lot of ridicule for this in the future, but life is but a perception. The way you perceive things is very important. I’ve learned quite a few things and this may be a really off-topic thing to talk about, but life is but brainpower. Life revolves around your brain. Life is purely the brain and your thought process. Your conscious and subconscious mind rule the world, so what I’ve learned is that nothing else matters. Nothing else matters except what you desire and what your dreams are. The whole purpose of humanity is to create, and the problem is that everybody reaches a certain point of enlightenment, it upsets the balance.

As far as what I accomplish as an artist, I want to leave something good for the youth and generations to come. I want to rebuild this world and change this world to a positive end and take my artistry and really be an artist in terms of building better jails so people don’t feel like they’re living in a fucking psych ward when they’re in here and getting all types of diseases in here. Building foster homes, doing anything I can to give back to the community and help this country in any way possible yet. [Being in here] made me want to be a better person and change my world.

Where are you locked up right now?

Broward County Jail.

How are you finding it in there?

Depressing. But it’s been a learning experience and it’s making my brain stronger.

What have you been doing in there to keep your spirit up?

Meditating. I’ve been reading the Twilight series, but mainly meditating and manifesting.

Do you know when your next court date is?

[Laughs] It’s a surprise. Just know I’m not gonna be out when they expect. I’m gonna be out way sooner than they expect.

A lot of people were talking about this recent Drake snippet where he has a new flow and it sounds like your flow on “Look At Me.” I saw you tweet at Kodak about the snippet. How do you feel about it?

I’m gonna address this whole situation. I have the utmost respect for Drake as an artist. I have respect for everyone as an artist. Now, I’m aware of what Drake does as an artist, I’m aware of what any smart artist does, because it’s one of the laws of the universe. If you study Albert Einstein, he says, “A great artist never reveals their source.”

How do I feel about the whole Drake situation is if he used the flow, by all means… it’s whatever, it’s not that serious. My whole perception has changed. But if Drake is gonna take the flow, and I don’t know if he legitimately did, but if that is the situation, at least reach out to a nigga, help a nigga out in this situation, and then if you want to run off with the flow, then run off with the flow, but I’m going through a lot right now, so it would have been nice if before that happened to me, for Drake to have reached out to me personally. He could have reached out to me personally and spoken to me and it definitely would have been more respectable. But he dropped that preview and it sounded a bit like “Look At Me” and he could be a huge, huge help in this situation to get me out of jail, because I’m facing life. So that’s just how I feel. If you’re gonna take the flow, reach out to me, help me out and then take the flow, because helping me out would have been more important.

But if he took it, kudos, that’s lit, it’s Drake. It doesn’t bother me as much as people think it does, but it’s lit at the end of the day because that’s a huge artist so it just gives me motivation to see how big I’m gonna be. My whole intention is being the biggest artist there ever was or currently is.

Who are some of the labels that have been reaching out to you?

I’ve seen a lot of labels reach out to me. I don’t want to say any names but I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m just gonna distribute singles. I’m not gonna do any record label signings, I’m not gonna sign over my fucking albums or anything like that. Initially I was almost going to, but I’m just gonna distribute my singles with certain record labels.

You’ve gotten love from some huge artists recently. DJ Carnage and iLoveMakonnen bigged you up, ASAP Rocky said you’re the hardest rapper coming out of Florida right now. Who are some people that have reached out to you while you’ve been locked up?

I heard Danny Brown reached out to me. By the way, I love Danny Brown. I fuck with “Adderal Admiral.” Lil Bibby. A$AP Rocky. I got an email from Metro Boomin. There are a couple really big names that have reached out that I can’t say because it’s gonna be a surprise, but I saw Lil Uzi say “free XXX” so that was lit. And then Debby Ryan from the Disney channel. [Laughs] Shout out to Debby Ryan, she was playing my shit on Snapchat.

Hearing all the cool names that fuck with me gives me a boost, but honestly there are way bigger names, I just can’t elaborate on them. You guys are gonna be like what the fuck? I got some crazy shit planned.

Whose come to visit you while you’ve been locked up?

My girl, two of my homeboys. That’s really been it. It’s been lonely. I understand people say you’re not alone, but I’ve been going through everything by myself. My mom took a step in and has been helping me. She hasn’t come to see me or anything like that, but she’s been beside me and I be looking out for her, take care of her, throw her money because I love her to death. She understands I’m crazy now but that’s my No. 1 fan. It’s just been my girl and my business partner Garrett. He runs a clothing brand, Revenge Official. That’s my brother, I love that nigga to death.

You post a lot of snippets on your SoundCloud. Do you plan to release the full version of any of those?

No. I have the full versions of them but I’m not gonna release them because I don’t want anybody to hear the full versions and I’m just gonna forever tease my whole fan base. [Laughs] Or I might. You never know.

Did you bounce around Florida growing up?

That’s literally what it was. I never actually totally lived in Pompano, I would always stay in Pompano when my mom would drop me off over there. So the whole thing was I was born in Plantation Hospital and then I ended up moving to North Lauderdale, but I was going from North Lauderdale to Pompano and back. And when I got kicked out from staying with my mom, I went to go stay with my grandma. So I never actually had my own crib over there [in Pompano], we never actually lived there. That’s just where I was as a jit growing up.

Do you have any kind of relationship with Kodak Black?

No, I do not. I’ve got a friend that’s actually in his group, I won’t say the name. As far as a personal relationship, I wouldn’t say I know him. But he’s from my city Broward County and I support what that nigga does thoroughly. As far as agreeing with everything he does, no, but I support that nigga thoroughly because he’s from where I’m from and whoever comes from where I’m from, I’m gonna support thoroughly. He’s from Broward, I’m from Broward, salute to that nigga.

What are you trying to do when you get out?

I’m gonna be doing a lot of investing and I really want to invest in a teenage therapy where every teenager that’s happy talks to another teenager that’s depressed. Because I feel like it’s really hard for kids to go speak to a therapist because they can’t relate to them. I want to do a teenage hotline where teens contemplating suicide can call the hotline and talk to other teenagers.

I want to give a donation to the foster homes in my state and give them PS4s and TVs and shit. I’m basically gonna try to run up my money as much as possible and give back to the community. I want to take my mom and grandma to Hawaii. My great-grandma, she’s getting very old, so I want to take her out and do something really nice before she passes. Pain resonated and I just want to show everybody they’re not alone.

What’s the status of your case?

There’s no evidence in both cases. For a conviction, it all comes down to hard evidence, and it’s sad to say I’m in jail with no evidence in any case. Broward gets paid to prosecute so that’s why they’re been holding on to me—for money. It’s not for right or wrong, it’s not because I committed anything. They’re getting money from me being in here and that’s why they’re holding on to me and a couple other inmates.

I want to get a bunch of people start a movement. Broward gets paid to prosecute, and I want to do everything in my power to end that. I want to change it to where they only get paid if they win cases. Because they’re holding on to people who literally have not committed crimes. I just saw it happen the other day. A guy was in jail for three to four months, he didn’t commit the crime and they arrested the wrong guy. He pretty much got fucked over in the process of that.

That’s actually what happened in my Broward case, they have the wrong person. I can’t go into detail, but it’s not me who committed the crime. Even though the victim in the case pretty much came to court and was trying to say it to the judge, he told my lawyer and he told the prosecutor that, but because the judge wasn’t there, it didn’t get dropped. That’s as far as what I know, the victim is saying it wasn’t me and it was someone else. Florida is fucked up, the Florida judicial system is very fucked up.

How do you feel about the police in Florida?

I want to say this as appropriately as possible, because there’s good police and there’s bad police. Everybody down here makes arrests for money. There’s no right or wrong down here. Now, that’s Broward County. It’s not about whether you’re a threat to society. I’ve actually seen quite a few good police officers in Miami-Dade, but a majority of police officers in Broward are making arrests for money. You don’t have to do anything to get arrested anymore. You could be 13, smoke weed and they’re bringing you to jail for the money. It’s not about right or wrong anymore, the society down here is fucked. There has to be a change.

How would you change that?

As far as hearsay arrests, people getting arrested with no evidence, that needs to be thrown out. Holding someone in jail for over 30 days with no evidence, they should be let go. As far as judges rescheduling and pushing court dates back for months, that needs to be changed. People’s lives need to be considered. You can’t keep taking time away from people, taking people away from their kids and family.

I was in here with someone whose mother died while they were in there. Can you imagine the feeling of being in here and your fucking mom dies and you see it on the fucking news? And you could not end up being found guilty? That’s disgusting. And these prosecutors don’t give a fuck. As long as they’re eating and making money, they don’t give a fuck, and it’s sad.

I need over 50,000 people willing to protest in the streets to end prosecutors being paid to prosecute, because the state attorney’s office is running with that shit and people in here are sick and demented.

What’s your relationship with Denzel Curry like right now?

Me and Denzel are okay. He called me, he apologized, he came to my court date. With the allegations…. he pulled a fuck nigga move. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I ended up showing everybody that the allegations with the girl who they said was allegedly pregnant, who is not pregnant, that I allegedly beat, who I did not beat, I put all the evidence online showing that she was lying and scamming the fuck out of everybody.

She was saying she had a fracture in her brain, a fracture in her skull that was gonna make her blind and she needed $30,000, that wasn’t true. She was saying she was pregnant, that wasn’t true. She was saying I beat her, that wasn’t true. She got beat the fuck up by someone she was staying with and then came down here, got beat the fuck up, and then I let her stay with my friends.

Pretty much, [Denzel] hit up the girl and asked her if she’s alright and does she need help. I was a very good friend of Denzel and he did not consult me before he consulted the girl, so he didn’t get a chance to see whether I did the shit or not before he consulted the girl. Me and him won’t be the closest of friends due to the fact that I see where his loyalty lies, but me and him are okay now.

I saw her GoFundMe was put up and then removed.

Yeah, because everybody figured out she was lying. She was saying she needed surgery, there was nothing wrong with her. She was saying she was pregnant, but she’s not pregnant. It’s not by me. She wasn’t pregnant when I was with her. That whole situation is just fucked up. I got arrested on some fucked up charges. She stole $13,000 from me, nobody knows that. She stole $13,000 from me and fucked my friend. I just didn’t put it out there because I didn’t want to give that shit any power. Now I notice when I speak on people, it gives their names popularity and power and it helps them. She fucked me over.

What artists are you listening to these days?

New rappers? Nobody. Artists overall? Nirvana, The Weeknd and Ski Mask The Slump God. That’s it. I’m not fucking with anybody else. I’m an old head when it comes to listening to certain things, so I listen to more old shit than the new stuff. I feel like when it comes to the new stuff, I feel like I’m the most innovative as far as artistry in my generation. I feel like nobody else is meeting my standard right now. If you’ve thoroughly gone through my music… nobody’s seeing me in my generation.

How do you feel like “Look At Me” blowing up like it has?

If you think it’s big now, it’s gonna be huge. I knew when I recorded it. I’m not an egotistical person and I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but I knew it was gonna be huge, like with “can’t keep my dick in my pants,” I knew the kids were gonna love it, it’s a sound for the kids. I knew it was a hit the moment I recorded it. I expected that.

Why do you think kids gravitate to your music so much?

Because I actually give a fuck about these kids. And I mean it when I say I give a fuck about these kids. Giving certain fans money, talking to them when they’ve been depressed, answering all their questions, Persicoping shit and responding to their tweets, responding to their DMs when they message me borderline about to commit suicide, saving them. I give a fuck about these kids.

I really understand how the fuck it feels to be mentally alone. You could be in a room with a million people, but you can still be alone. And some of these kids have families that just don’t understand there’s something going on in their head bigger than everything that’s around them. I understand that feeling and I understand that feeling can drive you to the edge. I will do everything in my power to be a positive role model to these kids, because now everything I do, I’ll be held accountable for. Even if my material is vulgar or I’m seen as a bad person, as long as these kids are happy and I’m giving them something to rage to instead of being depressed, that’s all that matters to me.

How’d it feel to see all your fans show up to your court date back in January?

All of them couldn’t get in because the courtroom’s so small, they weren’t letting people in. I guess I packed it out, they packed it out. I love them. There’s no other way to say it. I love my fans. It’s remarkable sometimes and I’m very grateful, I’m very thankful for them. It was great to see the courtroom hectic and shit. It made everything a little more harder, but I’m thankful.

What’s one message you want to send to your fans?

The law of attraction is the power of your subconscious mind. Anything you can visualize or anything you believe and you give your faith to, you can create. The bad thing about the law of attraction is if you think bad things and you have too much fear within your brain, you’re gonna attract all of these things. Use the law of attraction to your advantage because they do not want you using your brain and you need to become insane to use the law of attraction. Do not put your energy into anything bad that you would not want coming back to you, and exercise the karmic cycle. Anything you give out will come back.

When I get out, I will give all of my fans and this generation information they’re not supposed to receive. The general population is not supposed to receive certain information. I’m only giving my opinion and I don’t mean to disrespect anybody, but religion is for the small-minded. All religions believe in higher powers. So if you’re gonna be a good person, be a good person. If you’re gonna be a bad person, be a bad person. It does not fucking matter. Nobody’s opinion matters. Nothing matters. Anything you put on this planet, it will stay here. If life is infinite and there’s the slightest possibility that you have to come back to this miserable fucking planet, I’d stop putting all this horrible fucking shit out here and make sure you live your life happy. Happiness is all that fucking matters. If it makes you happy, it’s all that matters, and you will struggle and struggle and struggle, but happiness will come in the end. That is my word and I promise I will help everyone find happiness or I will at least help everyone find an answer and a purpose.

[alexrflores-blog]

Photo credits: lena_v29 on Instagram

INTERVIEW WITH HOMEBOUND - "THESE ARE THE MOST PERSONAL SONGS I’VE WRITTEN, LYRIC-WISE"

Homebound are making huge milestones in their career. Following the release of their EP "More To Me Than Misery", the pop-punk band from Farnham have (finally) gone on their first headline tour. In contrast to all the support tours they've done recently, they definitely had a slightly longer set list this time which gave them time to be more creative with their performance. It was their time to show their talents more than before as this is their first step in becoming their own band rather than just a support act. This was THEIR show. Everyone who spent the night at Thousand Island was there to see them, rather than another headline band and only stood through their set because they arrived at the venue early. A longer set not only meant that they had enough time to play every song from their last two EPs, but it also meant the audience had more time to open up pits the size of a third of the venue, be dripping in sweat, and lose their voices singing along to all the new songs. The only downside to the gig was the fact that there was not a single crowd surfer or stage diver. At a venue without a barrier and after having numerous people on top of me at all their support sets, it was quite a surprise. However, that didn't stop it from being a gig that will remain engraved on the audience's mind for a while. Most people had high expectations on how Homebound will be as a headline act and they certainly didn't disappoint. Before their I had the chance to speak to Charlie, lead singer, about their tour, EP title, and their change in sound.

This is your first headliner, how is it feeling so far? It’s been good! Every night we’ve been surprised in a good way. We had no expectations of what to expect and we’ve always felt quite nervous about doing it. We’ve done a lot of support tours and it’s good to know they haven’t gone to waste because a lot of people come to these shows and have said “I saw you when you supported trash boat” “I saw you on this and on that”.

Even myself, I’ve seen you support so many times, it’s cool seeing you finally headline. That’s the biggest request. They can only see so many songs when we support so it’s been nice on this headline tour to do a bit more than we usually do. We’re kind of improving now so it feels good; It feels like we’re starting to mould into more of a headline band.

You recently played this venue with Broadside, what are you expecting to be different tonight? That show was really good, we’re hoping it will be much the same. When we played that show we knew we would be headlining it later so for us it was a bit of a warm up I suppose. We know there’s going to be a lot of familiar faces from that show coming to this one. We were excited by this; we like the venue, it’s a cool room, and we’ve always had good experiences when we’ve played here but yeah it should be a good one.

Are there any other venues you’ve supported that you want to headline in the future? Oooh, I don’t know. We’ve played some cool venues so far. The key club is really cool, quite a well known venue and we’ve played loads of shows there so it’s cool to headline that one. I’m not too worried about the headline aspect, it’s just cool to have played certain venues. People have been anticipating and wanting it so it feels good to finally be able to do one.

How come you didn’t do a home town show in Kingston for this tour? Even Kingston isn’t really our hometown. We’re from Farnham which is near Gildford. We’ve always considered London to be our hometown show because there isn’t really a scene there for us to actually play a show. I’d be surprised if anyone turned up really. How has the reaction been from the audience when you perform the new songs? Really good, we were slightly apprehensive at first; we weren’t sure what to expect. With the slightly different direction with the sound, we weren’t sure how people would necessarily take it because we’ve always been plastered into that pop punk mould. Which is fine, that’s what we’ve always been but this time we wanted to try and do something different, try and find our own sound, which led to the darker and heavier side on the record. It’s quite raw, and I think that does come across. I think it shocked some people when we put out our first single, but I think for the most part, most people like the slight change in sound. So far so good, on the three shows we’ve already played there’s been loads of people singing along to the new stuff. How were you feeling before the release? Were you just scared about the reaction to the different sound? I wasn’t scared, I don’t think. At the end of the day we wrote the music first and foremost for us and it’s what we wanted to do and that doesn’t change whether or not people liked it or not. So many bands feel like they have to tick certain boxes, or do certain things in order to fit in a demographic but I suppose we wrote everything for ourselves and we like that and we just sort of did that for ourselves. I mean you’re always nervous when you release a record, no matter what it is. It’s a mixture of feelings; it’s more of a nervous excitement if anything. But it’s really nice for the songs to finally be out there. Especially for me, these are the most personal songs I’ve written, lyric-wise.

Are there any specific songs that are the most personal? All of them. This EP dwells into some of the darkest feelings I’ve had and they all sort of surround themselves in issues that people have. Whether it’s relationships, life ambitions, or how you find yourself in a bit of a dark space. It feels good to have it finally out there because I use these songs as a way to get it out on paper, as a way of releasing that so it’s a cathartic experience. It’s a way of expression and that’s what it is for most people and that’s why a lot of us do it so it’s understandable that’s what most people get out of it.

"More To Me Than Misery" is quite a long EP title, and so was the title of your last EP. Was this deliberate or just a coincidence? Not really, some people find it difficult to name titles and they overthink naming titles. It was just one we were talking about and I think it just fits. It wasn't really a debate whether it was too long or too short, it was just a good summary of what I wanted the EP to express. It comes from one of the lyrics but I twisted the name in order to make it sound like a positive thing because the lyric is "nothing more to me than misery".

Getting rid of that single word changes a lot. I did it on purpose really because I wanted the EP as a whole to represent the fact that the experience has sort of helped in the sense that having experienced these things there is more to me than misery and it just rolled off the tongue quite nicely.

Maybe it's a bit too early to ask this but three EPs now, do you think next will be another EP or is there a chance of there being an album? At the time when we were thinking about what we'll do for new music, we felt we needed to do another EP again. For a lot of people, the last EP was the first they've heard from our band and we didn't feel like people were necessarily ready to get a full length record from us so we felt like we needed another EP then hopefully to push on to a full length.

So you'll see where this one takes you and then you'll figure it out. Exactly and also, it was a nice way to introduce the change in sound and what people might expect from us in the future.

Do you think you'll stick to that sound rather than a more typical pop-punk sound? I think so. Nobody ever wants to write the same record twice either. We always want to progress but we will see what happens.

[noiseartists]

Palm Haze: Noise Pop melting Pot

PALM HAZE is, according to their Bandcamp presentation, "a Canadian based band that blends alternative rock, shoegaze and trip-hop influences to create a sound that's both heavy and smooth - think of fuzzed guitars and soothing vocals under a palm tree shadow".

To be honest it is close to the mark. From where I stand, they are a Melting Pot of music, capital M, capital P. There are so many facets to their music, that it is almost uncanny. Some of the following elements may be part of the explanation as to why it is the case:

Their background. Lucas, Anna and their bandmates are Brazilian and are living now in Vancouver, Canada, itself a mix of English and French Culture and close to the US border.

Where they live. Vancouver is itself a melting pot of nature: Ocean on one side, forests all around and mountain down the road. Surfing in the summer, Snowboarding in the winter and trecking the rest of the year. That's the life of some friends I know that live there. Being immersed in nature is something they are amazed at after themselves moving from other parts of the world

The light. Vancouver is known for the beautiful light, a result of the moisture of the ocean and the forests. An extensive cinema industry setup there for this reason only. Maybe one of the reasons why Palm Haze likes to play with light and have pastel artwork, reminiscent of some 80's Miami series.

Follow the guide (and the fan) in their mesmerizing music. And next week you will enjoy a great interview that the band was kind enough to give us.

WHAT is your music about?

"Our music is about what and how we feel. It portraits our mood and our state of mind at the moment we’re creating it. We don’t exactly follow a theme or a concept, although we are very influenced by our daily experiences and things we enjoy.

We just want to keep making music, and hopefully people can somehow relate to our sound in a way that it can also become a part of their journeys."

 The comparison game

It is difficult not to compare Palm Haze with Drop Nineteens. The way Anna sings is very similar to the pouty, nonchalant voice of Paula Kelley. In addition, the composing is done with many different receipes, not keeping the usual melodic structure and progressions adopted by so many indie bands.

But musically, there is nothing obvious apart from some hints here and there of other bands, like the Pavement (ie chorus of Beautiful Island), Air in cloudscraper.

Why we love Palm Haze

Maturity: The first time I heard one of Palm Haze's song, I could scarcely believe it was their first 1 songs EP. The sound, the arrangements and melody were so well done. Since then, they have not let us down with the quality that stays at a very high level.

Arrangement work: The last EP released is an "almost unplugged", showing you the (almost) raw material upon which Palm Haze works. The transformation is alike seeing a diamond in the rough and then seeing it again  being polished, carved to show it on its best aspect.

Connection: To write this, it took hours of listening the songs again and again to ensure getting a sense of the full musical work. When you never get tired and enjoy the song again and again, it is a sure sign of a connection to the artists and their music. 

 Musical Work

Almost unplugged (EP, November 2017)

1. Beautiful Island (Almost Unplugged)03:48

2. Tangy Dream (Almost Unplugged) 03:48

3. Gravitation (Almost Unplugged) 02:48

These songs are (almost) unplugged version of some of Tangy Dream EP's songs.

They are these diamond in the rough I referred to above, that is then put through the arrangement machine to get the beautiful multifaceted gems of Tangy Dream. We included them along with the EP songs below, making it convenient for you to listen both version of the song.

Tangy Dream (EP, September 2017)

1.Glint 02:48

2.It Follows 05:38

3.Gravitation 03:08

4.Beautiful Island 04:34

5.Higher 04:37

6.Cloudscraper 02:54

7.Tangy Dream 04:30

"Lucas: Tangy Dream is an album that wasn’t exactly planned or built to have a concept, however it inevitably follows our journey as we say goodbye to our home and move to another country. All songs were written here in Vancouver, except for Beautiful Island, which was partly written in Brazil. I would say that our sound on this album gives mea mixed feeling of excitement and anxiety, as well as a nostalgic vibe (mainly on Beautiful Island).

 The name of the album came at the end, when we wrote the last song, Tangy Dream, which helped to define a lot of what the album was really about. We decided to name it after the song since we feel like it refers to dreams that are about to come true, dreams that are tangible and very real, but also about how people tend to feel once those dreams come true - fulfilled for a second but eagering for the next one, like a cycle on repeat. It accidentally worked out in a very interesting way, if you listen to the album on repeat, it starts with rewinding sounds on the beginning and the first lyrics sang are “All we have is a bitter end”."

Glint 02:48

It is an instrumental piece with an edgy guitar, a squicky horn, an ominous vibrating electro bass. Overall an excellent introduction to the EP, showing the ambivalence you find in this work: melodic and dissonant, clear and ominous, distorted and simple, Electro and Analog.

It Follows 05:38

A rare song where Lucas sings with Anna. The mix of both voices is a great texture to the song. A boy and a Girl talking about becoming of age and leaving their tender youth behind repeating "Why do I even think about it". After the energy of youth and the golden age, pictured by peachy guitars, the song stops, slightly dissonant, like the end of an era.

Only to start again and grow in power: growing up is not an end, only an evolution. Like Palm Haze's music changing type, texture, direction for every song.

Gravitation 03:08

This is the song that I discovered Palm Haze with. Bernard Lenoir (the French Equivalent of the late John Peel) would have said it is a perfect tatapoum song, (ie 2 hit of the Snare, one of the Kick, and repeat).

The distorted edgy chords, the big sound of the band and Anna's pouting voice give to the piece an almost teenage feeling, full of anger and nonchalance, looking for something. The bridge is a twee almost latino guitar part, an electron flying alone in the gravitational field.

Very convincing first song of the band; convincing enough that we contacted them shortly after hearing this single.

Beautiful Island 04:34

This song begins with a few simple notes, bringing you slowly into the song. Slightly discordant, they keep your attention on edge, ready for the discovery of the beautiful Island. Mixed with the beautiful voice of Anna, it is quite an introduction. The "Almost unplugged" strips it even further, to the bare minimum.

That's when the chorus strikes. It reminds me of Pavement's "Summer Babe", be it the guitar sound, the chord progression and the rhythm. Needless to say that Anna's voice is nicer than Stephen Malkmus which enhances the song.

This Island is more the one seen in Lost than a tropical paradise, with things to be wary of, and some to be amazed by.

Higher 04:37

Every time I hear this song, the intro has the perfume of familiarity, as if I have heard the same thing many times in other bands, without putting my finger on what song, what band.

This is a dreamy song, flying above the pink clouds of the cover. Close your eyes and you will feel yourself drifting along with the high winds. The guitars that come and go, always distorted ensure the movement within the song. It is not a resting drift as you are at the mercy of the elements.

The end of the song is a descent of chords, which is a great bridge to the next song. After driting high above the sky, you begin to go down and down to reach the clouds ... as a cloudscraper.

Cloudscraper 02:54

This song is like a small interlude in Electronica, almost like a pause in the LP. Reminiscent of Air for its lightness, this small journey in the clouds (the pink ones from the LP cover?) is a little breather.

Tangy Dream 04:30 

This song is well into the Shoegaze side of Palm Haze, and so much Drop Nineteen in the spirit ... Oh, one thing I forgot to mention before, Palm Haze do not know Drop Nineteen (I asked).

The voice duo of Lucas and Anna goes really well with the song, with a distinctive male part saying "you are so sweet" to the girl. It is not without reminding of Sonic Youth's My Friend Goo.

A perfect conclusion to this first full EP, full of novelty and a reminder of their elders' music. I can not wait for their next work. 

 Violet (EP, August 2017)

Violet 05:52

"Lucas: Anna wrote both songs on this EP, she may have better answers. Violet was for a friend we love and used to go by this name. It’s not exactly about her but it has some inspiration I guess. Lownly I saw the lyrics as voices that you hear either in your head or in moments of your life, that was kind of what I thought when I produced and named it. I didn’t think that much about the name, but the chorus where she sings “Slow Down” was on my mind, and also the lonely feeling of the song.

 Anna: For me, Violet talks about the end of a relationship, not necessarily a romantic one. It can be about the death of a pet, an absent parent, a friendship that’s over. We’ve all been there, and this is part of the grief. When I’m writing lyrics I never think about their meaning. The connection between the words and what they actually mean is very abstract, and I guess everyone can look at it and interpret them their own way, which for me is the point of the whole thing.

Lownly 05:22

Lownly came as a bit of a struggle to find the right balance between the lyrics and the sound. I didn’t wanted for it to be perceived as a depressive song. Instead, I wanted it to become a song that strips the anxiety of those moments when we do feel sad and alone. It’s about slowing down the rhythm of thoughts, and not letting ourselves to become overwhelmed by feelings and emotions. It’s also about accepting that life is not always happy. We feel sad and we feel lonely, but we should cope with that and move on to the next chapter. It’s part of the beauty of being human and alive - sometimes we just need to chill. "

Other songs

Gravitation 03:08 June 2017

Higher (Trip-Hop Mix) 04:37 April 2017

 Artists they have worked with

Lucas: I’ve recorded guitars for 2 tracks from Funny Death’s upcoming album Half-Present and I’m helping our band members Caio and Mary with production on their side project.

Anna: Palm Haze is my first project.

 Some good videos to watch

Gravitation Music Video

Higher in Live

You will find more videos, live, teasers and other on their YouTube channel

Where to find their music?

Bandcamp

Soundcloud

Do not forget to support the band. Their music is free for now. At least by them their music for the equivalent of a cup of coffee. 

[gigmusicdscvr]

#GIGCHAT : THE PATH LESS TRAVELED

Friday is the perfect day to find new music. For you who are bored with the pop and EDM music out there, there are Neck Deep, Sleeping with Sirens, One Republic, and even The Script who releases their new music. But, have you notice one of the good underrated ones like the song “The Devil” from The Path Less Traveled? This Canada-based band had just released a new single which catchy to all punk, hardcore, and rock music fans. 

The Path Less Traveled seems to be typical guys from a rock-band with tattoos, heavy voices, and everything associate to musicians you can name it. Yet, they are bunch of friendly guys with really cool humor and music taste. Here are they introduce us to their music, new single, and other fun stuffs. 

Can you introduce a bit about yourselves? How did you meet and decide to make band ?

 Jordan (our drummer) and I (singer/guitarist) were friends in Jr. and Sr. high school. We started playing our instruments at the same time, so we kind of learned off of each other in a lot of ways. After we got out of school Jordan and I stayed in touch and would jam together from time to time. Jordan was in another band at the time and so we did this fairly infrequently. After his band decided to call it quits, Jordan texted me and asked me about starting a band. After that point my brother Dustin came on-board and he played bass. Mike (guitar/vocals) and I met at a paramedic training course and he came on shortly after. We played with this lineup from 2013-2017. At this point a good friend of ours named Nic had recently left his band to try new things and we were really excited to see if he'd join us. So in February of this year Dustin departed the band and Nic joined on bass. It's been a really good fit so far and the shows have been a lot of fun.

How about the name “The Path Less Traveled”, is that a hint that you will take "anti-mainstream" path in music?

It's funny because that wasn't the idea of the name, but it actually does reflect how we write and sound. The band name basically means living your life to a higher standard that you set for yourself; to the best person that you can possibly be. Our world has a lot of crazy things going on and as an individual sometimes all you can do is be the best that you can be and try and inspire others along the way.

 How do you describe your music and also the influences?

 Our band has a lot of really unique factors. Jordan comes from a metal and hardcore background, so bands like Terror and Madball or Lamb of God and As I Lay Dying. Mike and Nic both come from a pop-punk background and really like that happy energy that you can put into music. Bands like Blink-182 and A Day To Remember. Then I come from sort of both worlds, although the more time we've spent together, the more we share new bands with each other and share interests. I like the heavier punk bands and some metal-core bands. I really enjoy bands like P.O.D., Seether, and Bullet For My Valentine. As I mentioned we share a lot of favorite artists as well. So we essentially put all of that together and get a unique sound that touches in the worlds of all of our favorite bands. The drums definitely sound metal, and the guitars have punk, hard rock, and metal elements. Then on top of that our vocal ranges also spread us around. I tend to have a more gritty and mid-range voice, while Mike and NIc both have the higher ranges that are familiar in the pop-punk scene. Jordan also sings on a few songs and his voice has its own sound too. We think that we have a lot to offer for rock fans though. We always try and create music that we would want to hear.

How is the writing process to you? You’re all involved on the lyrics writing or any other ways?

 This is kind of a song specific thing. We have some songs where I wrote the music and lyrics, some where Mike wrote the music and I wrote lyrics, and some where Mike wrote everything. We've just started to write with Nic in January and it's gone well so far. We've got a new song called Devil that we can talk about in a little bit. Nic sings on it and we're really stoked on it.

As an indie band what’s the most significant and effective promotion medium to you?

 It's really hard to say. Facebook and Instagram are our two biggest platforms. But what it comes down to is hard work. Tools won't do your job for you and that's something is really easily forgotten. At the end of the day it comes down to word of mouth. If people like what you're doing, they will share it with their friends. That can mean sending a text or calling someone to tell them about something, or just tagging them on Facebook. But at the end of the day that's what matters. Creating something that's worth talking about.

Do you manage to do all the management by yourselves or assigned a friend to manage the social medias and other band promotions ?

 We've never had a manager or booker. We run our website and all of our social media platforms by ourselves. It's great to have that immediate connection with people who are interested in reaching out to the band.

Can you tell us a bit about Canadian indie music scene?

 It's definitely in a weird place right now. There are more bands than ever before and more venues than ever before, but at the same time EDM and DJs are what is popular. There's a lot of competition for events and shows due to how many options are out there. Everyone in the live music scene is happy to co-exist though. There's a lot of support from each band and show turnout is usually really good. It's kind of hard because Canada has a much lower population than the United States and as such we have less cities to tour. If you're in California, for example, you could spend a week touring just that state because every 20-40 minute you hit a different county with 20 000 - 40 000 people in addition to the big cities like Los Angeles and San Diego. In Canada the cities are farther apart and the populations are less, which means it's harder to tour and make enough money to afford doing it. This does mean that the bands that choose to do it, do it because they love it. That's always really inspiring to see and to be a part of. 

 All that to say we are very proud of where we come from and our city of Calgary.

 Tell us about your next single “The Devil”!

 We're really excited about this song. It's our first song to release with Nic's vocals and it's a bit of a new sound for us. It kind of has a Rise Against vibe, but it also has elements of A Day To Remember and maybe Beartooth? The song talks about being stuck in the pattern of an unhealthy relationship and how it brings out the worst in you. Sometimes you know what the right thing to do is, but you just feel like you can't control yourself from being venomous.

Next project ?

 We had an EP nearly finished before Nic joined, but now that he's onboard we're looking at what we have and are building a plan. Some of the songs are worth keeping, and some songs should be either re-visited or scrapped. We have enough material to release until December. After that we're going to see where we are and look at releasing an EP or full length in 2018.

Name one of the most favorite things to do together as a band, other than music? 

 It's kind of hard because when we're not recording, playing, or practicing, we're usually going to shows. Jordan, Mike, and I went out to a festival called Montebello Rockfest last year and we saw every band that we've ever loved with 200 000 other rock fans. It was amazing. Before Nic was in the band we would run into him all of the time at concerts in the city.

 Besides shows we'll usually link up in smaller subgroups and go to a movie, watch the Calgary Flames (our hockey team), or get together with some friends and have a BBQ.

Mention bands/musicians you’d like to colaborate with?

I'd have to say that the number one goal would be to work with producer Bill Stevenson. He has touched every member of the band in a different way over his career, and we love that about our band. Nic loves the Descendents (the band that Bill plays drums in), and then all four of us love the Rise Against album "The Sufferer and The Witness". He produced one of Jordan's and my favorite bands called Wovenwar and also did A Day To Remember's latest album. We're just in love with the guy and what he does with his records.

 If it came down to strictly artist collaboration, it would be something like this:

 Scott: Shaun Morgan (Seether)

Jordan: Mike Johnston (Drummer)

Nic: Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) or Matt Skiba (Alkaline Trio)

Mike: Tom DeLonge (Blink-182 + Angels & Airwaves)

 Place you’d like to visit for gigin’? Asia ?

 Man! Asia would be super cool. The dudes in Our Last Night seem to go there regularly and they always have a blast. We'd love to play some US and European festivals.

A question you want hear people asking you but never been asked?

 We'd love to be asked to go on tour with Rise Against, but so far no one has asked us to. It's a bit sad. Ha ha ha.

Message to your fans or your new listeners?

Hey! Thank YOU for taking the time to read this interview and giving us a chance! If you'd like to keep up to date with what's going on with us, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and our website  and you will be able to get any additional information on there. Hit us up! We'd love to hear from you and hear your thoughts on our music.