Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks – Review

Today is the first official day of summer and what more fitting a way to mark the occasion than Foster The People’s first single Pumped Up Kicks.

Vandaveer – Dig Down Deep – Review

Washington DC-based duo Vandaveer have returned with their third LP, Dig Down Deep. The new album announces a more gutsy approach to the group’s amalgam of country and folk and acknowledges front man Mark Charles Heidinger’s Kentucky roots – ever apparent in the album’s title track Dig Down Deep.

The Savage Nomads – The Magical Eye Review

A nomad by definition is ‘a member of a people who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.’ The Savage Nomads are certainly on a quest to find pastures new in their experimental pop rock sound and are already causing quite a stir amongst their fan base livestock.

Penny for your thoughts?

Photo by J. Paxon Reyes

Advice is the parable of social interaction. Generations of
life enhancing self-help tips are passed on every day to assist each other in problems we can’t figure out by ourselves. But for some reason, it is always  much harder to apply advice you have given to someone else, to yourself. Humans  seem to have little faith in themselves, convinced that something has more  integrity if it comes from someone else.

Well, to add to the pile of growing integrity, I have conjured what I feel is some excellent advice.

The next time you want some advice from someone but have no  one around, write. Write exactly how you are feeling, but write it as if you  are telling it to someone. Then read it back yourself. Tweak it so it reads  perfectly in grammar that suits you (It doesn’t matter how ‘gay’ it might sound  to anyone else) Then read it back in full. It will be as if you are reading  something a friend has written to you, you will feel as though someone is on  the same level as you, even though you are just levelling with yourself.

Of course I am not suggesting that this is a universal solution to giving advice, it’s just some advice…

“Have you ever experienced the scenario where you care so much about someone who doesn’t feel the same way anymore? Where you know that every time you speak to them, they give you fielding answers that are only semi sympathetic and sincere; yet you still hang off every word they say? You cling to a glimmer of hope that your heart has conjured in your delusions. It is the pinnacle of choosing between your head and heart.

What was once flowing conversation that filled you with a feeling of satisfaction and happiness; has now evaporated to surround you in a cloud of smoke that cocoons all that was from sight. You do everything you can to make the smoke blow away; you continue to talk to them, trying to squeeze any drop of enthusiasm out of them, but all the while you know your mind is just creating gaps in the smoke that do not exist. You are convinced that they still feel the same way but just don’t want to show it.

Then, like an arrow hitting your chest, you get the reply that slips through their brilliantly clever web of falseness. The reply that is just a little too blunt giving you glimmers of how bored of the conversation they really are. Your mind races to recover, to regain what you believe to be lost ground.

Then one day you receive the reply that stops you dead. It’s the one you’ve been dreading. The one that has kept you awake at night. Your heart has that certain feeling that is only felt when love is involved; when it beats hard, making your breath shallow, feeling like it is only just working enough to keep you conscious… Reality crashes back down to Earth. It’s done.”

Apologies for the depressing tone of this entry..

I’ve come to realise that the more effort you put into people, the less you get in return. I don’t mean material gifts or ‘i’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ favours, I’m talking about the simple heart-felt emotion of appreciation. This of course is not true of all people, there are probably far more people who would be appreciative of efforts made by others, but there is a small percentage who like to smudge that statistic.

There is undoubtedly a select few in everyone’s lives who we would go that extra mile for; dropping everything to meet their needs to the best of our ability, irrelevant of our circumstances. I have people I would do that for, a fair few in fact, but that number has unfortunately dwindled in recent years. Perhaps it’s my own naivety that has led to my eyes slowly opening to see what real appreciation is, I suspect that is more than likely to be the case. But realisation of that has left me slightly disappointed in some of those closest to me. I will still happily go that extra mile for them, but perhaps not with the same enthusiasm or regularity that I once might have. Knowing that they are more than willing to take help without much more than slightly selfish intentions is a disheartening thought.

I am not for a moment saying that I feel underappreciated, or in fact that I should be appreciated more, I would never dream of intentionally making myself out to be so pompous. This entry is based purely upon a recent observation that left me deep in thought. Naturally as a journalism student I am trained to extrapolate on things slightly, making things out to be far worse than they are, but that was not my intention, it is just a curse of the trade.

So perhaps a few wise words to those of you who are as naive as I am, treat people as you wish to be treated, but don’t allow yourself to give too much too soon without a truly just cause.

Again, I apologise for the negativity of this post, so in order to lift your spirits, a joke:

A Barman says, “We don’t serve time travellers in here”

A time traveller walks into a bar…

An extract…

The pixellated image made it difficult to distinguish from one woman to the next. It was rush hour; suits, skirts and umbrellas; clones swarming into the subways like ants. Six hours straight and still no luck, this was the fifth tape. She had to be here somewhere; there was nowhere else she could have gone. Her picture hung from the notice board, she had a weak smile and vacant eyes; she stared back at you. You knew the chances of finding her were slim, it had been over seventy-two hours now. Shame, she was such a pretty young thing, bright too according to her school report.

A flick of colour, so out-of-place for this time of day, her red bag gave her away. A rush of excitement. Where did she come from? She didn’t walk into view? You play the tape back just to make sure, watching the time clock on the screen. She just appears in the middle of the crowd…must be a glitch. Just standing there, surrounded by hundreds of witnesses, yet no one came forward after the press conference. Bastards. Someone must have seen her? They move around her as if she were a permanent fixture. Her; Jennifer, that was her name. Your pride and joy, the love of your life, she was perfect in every way. You’d raised her, watched her first steps, and taught her how to stay safe. And now those bastards, those stupid fucking bastards, just walked past her. How often do they see a fourteen year old girl by herself in rush hour?! Never.

She starts walking, pushing her way through the crowds of people, still no one takes notice. You’re transfixed on the screen, watching her every move. She fights to get to the subway; the time clock on the screen reads 13:54pm. You scramble for your notepad, must write down the time and her description. Pen, pen! Where is the sodding pen?! A shot of pain strikes across your face as you knock over your coffee scolding your leg, you look back at the screen, she’s gone. Shit.

Rewind the tape! You fumble the buttons, rewind the fucking tape! You can feel yourself becoming more and more erratic. Scraps of paper covering the desk, all inscribed with pointless notes. They weren’t pointless. They were about her; every sighting, every lead, you’ll find her. You will find her. You rewind the tape and play it back, where’s she gone? 13:54pm, she was right there! How is this possible?

***

The doctor had said it was all in your head; the insomnia, the fits, the hallucinations. That’s why you had the pills. Those little red capsules that stopped the migraines, that took away reality, or at least what you thought was reality. But what does he know? He doesn’t know her, he doesn’t love her, and he doesn’t care about her like you do. No one does. You will find her.

Are you a YES man or a NO man?

On the quest to become a more positive person, can saying ‘yes’ lead to a more fulfilling life?

It was my birthday, so I was really quite pleased when she and her friends agreed to join us in the VIP area of the club. This Yes Man thing was starting to pay off…

Sitting in a drunkenly acquired private box in a club surrounded by four beautiful women, I was feeling pretty good about myself, probably like any man who when drunk, thinks he’s god’s gift to women… so it was more than likely that I actually looked like a desperate bloke with his tongue hanging out, panting like a puppy in a Pedigree factory.

Rewind two weeks and you’d have found me sitting in my room staring at an ever increasing workload, bored out of my face, wrapped in the cotton wool like monotony of routine. Needless to say my life was less than exciting; I needed something to spice things up a bit.

But when I stumbled upon the book ‘Yes Man,’ life suddenly took an unexpected upward turn.  

The plot was simple. When the main character was posed with a question that required a yes or a no answer, he always had to say yes. This was perfect.

Now, obviously, it would have been impossible to say yes to absolutely everything, so I set a few parameters before undertaking the task: One, don’t say yes to anything that would get me arrested, maimed or unwillingly sexually harassed/assaulted. Two…well I guess anything else pretty much goes.

 I also had the problem of my housemates trying to sabotage my new outlook on life by asking cleverly worded questions such as; ‘Will you buy me another drink?’ or ‘Will you go and get with that obese girl over there?’ To which I told them no and sod off…

During the first week I was asked to complete simple, more odious tasks created by my housemates. Tidying my housemate’s room was less than enjoyable. The unusual amount of tights I found could only be topped by the stale smell that came from his wank tissue filled bin…not the most fulfilling of starts. Yes 0, Life 1.

Ten cups of tea made and a cleaned kitchen later, I received a text from a friend in Nottingham inviting me to a house party. This was more like it! I replied with an overly enthusiastic ‘Yes!’ Alcohol and a house full of women, this could be the most productive ‘yes’ yet.

The weekend of the house party had arrived and so, armed with a stash of vodka, condoms and a clean pair of pants, my housemates and I boarded the train to Nottingham.

The night began with the creation of ‘carnie cocktail,’ a mix of Asda value cider, Lambrini and port all diluted with dash of Cherryade. It would have made better paint stripper, the sort of drink tracksuit clad 15-year-olds drink down the park, a natural brain cell killer. “Do you want another drink?” my mate asked, to which I of course replied yes, several times.

By about one in the morning I was about as coherent as a one legged parrot developing a cataract, I’d lost one of my mates and the other had passed out on one of the beds. Despite this though, I had somehow managed to end up in bed with a very attractive girl whilst lying next to my sleeping mate… turns out he was awake the whole time. Yes 1, life 1.

 After returning home I decided to do a bit of research into this yes business. According to Dr. Victoria Tischler, a lecturer in Behavioural Science at the University of Nottingham, “Saying ‘yes’ can often represent taking a risk by changing your situation or agreeing to do something different or extra, this, whilst anxiety-provoking in short term, can lead to new skills and thus build confidence and success in the longer term.” Well that can’t be bad then can it?

Week two had started to dry up in terms of ‘yes’ proposals so when my housemate proclaimed: “Would you like to come and see a gig in London with me, I’ve got a spare ticket going if you want it?” “Yes!” I jumped at the chance, a weekend in London could unlock endless ‘yes’ scenarios.

After an awesome gig, my mate received a text from a friend asking if we were up for coming out. 30 minutes later we were the other side of London with two very nice looking girls; this night was getting better and better! Yes 2, Life 1.

It was a Monday night so we weren’t really spoilt for choice, but we ended up in an ironically named rock club called ‘Punk’. There we stood in a half empty club, surrounded by bearded, slightly rotund metal fans who looked like they were the condom-less love creation of the Honey Monster and Courtney Love. Brilliant…

I later found myself stumbling down Tottenham Court Road in the early hours following my mate, whose brain had turned to yoghurt due to alcohol consumption, searching for a night bus. We walked to seven different bus stops stopping only once to get a burger. Next thing I know I’m being awoken by a bus driver who informed us that we had reached the last stop…brilliant, stuck on some road outside some dodgy looking flats, in the freezing cold at 3.30 in the morning, god bless 24 hour taxis. It wasn’t ideal but it was a hilarious experience. Yes 2, Life 2.

Becoming a Yes Man is definitely a worthwhile thing. While engaging in a variety of spontaneous activities, I have met a lot of new people and made a lot of memories, ahh the house party…

I have come to the conclusion though that there are two basic criteria you need to do it successfully. For starters you need to be single. That’s not to say taken or married men can’t try it, they just may have to set up a few more rules than I did at the start. Your girlfriend/wife will not buy the excuse that you had to say yes to the pretty girl in the black dress when she invited you home. Secondly, you need money, a fair amount of money too, although I may have a lot of hilarious anecdotes to tell down the pub, I can no longer afford to be in said pub. Then again if you want to be a really hard core yes man, I suppose you could say that that’s part of the fun, trying to find a ‘yes’ solution to having no money; good luck with that… and as a good, and surprisingly sober, friend once told me “You’ve gotta spend the cash to get the gash.”

It’s time for a re-boot

Well well well, here I am once again returning to my poor excuse of a blog page, who would have thunk it.

After another extended peiod away from the online scrapbook that is thy beloved wordpress, and allowing my brain to turn to mush, I have decided to re kindle my love affair with writing once again.

The summer months have allowed me to indulge myself in a monotonous and quite frankly lazy routine resulting in a severe lack of self motivation. Working all the hours god sends to fund my final year at uni is all very well and good but it is still incredibly mind numbing. I miss the variety of universtiy life, the independence, the FUN. Now you all may think ‘well that’s your own damn fault’ which is true to an extent; but i think we’re all guilty of a little laziness and self indulgence at some point. My sudden urge to write again has been increasingly fuelled by the ‘fear’ of not living each day to the fullest it can be, trying or learning something new everyday, the want to be able to have something to say when someone asks ‘what have you been up to?’

In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure where I am going with this entry, or what point I am trying to address, but it’s proof that I am actively trying to reboot my brain and it’s four remaing cells in to something slightly functional. It’s a start!

These next two sentences were written then forgotten about and so sadly did not make it into this post. In the near future I hope to be able to think of enough adjectives, verbs and pronouns to join such sentences together:

“not to mention the pitiful lack of blog hits, the number of which has plateaued to very grand nought for the last few months…”

“as I sit here and air drum to my itunes…”

I assure you after a few more posts I will be sharp as a tack and have enough wit to take on the world.

Hello old friend, it’s been a while….again

Seeing as Sam and I are ridiculously lazy when it comes to posting new podcasts, I’ve decided to fill the void by returning to actually writing on this thing like I should. Over the next few weeks I’ll post some short and most likely badly written entries about various topics that either annoy or amuse me in the hope to get my site views to over one per day. I realise that  previous proposals to post things on here have fallen by the way side but I genuinely intend to keep this up for as long as I can, or can be bothered. Look I’ve done one already, enjoy….

Sorry guys…

Ok, so admittedly Sam and I have been a little slow in uploading the next installment of ‘Bedroom Banter.’ You guys gave us a great reponse last time and we genuinely feel bad! So as a small token of apology, we’ve uploaded this video to give you a small behind the scenes glimpse of where the magic is created!

In more good news, Sam and I are in the process of creating the Christmas special which should be uploaded within the next couple of days! Plenty has happened since our pilot went out so we’ll have loads of fresh material to enthrall you with! It’s even got sounds effects this time! 

Watch this space!

Adrian