jjj hottest 100 = bleh!

Oh my God, who the hell didnt see THAT coming. Kings of Leon – Sex on Fire, number one, well blow me down, who would have thought it. How fucking predictable. I would just like to say how disappointed I am with this years hottest 100, yes there will probably be a lot of slagging about this but I mean, come on, Kings Of Leon had not one, but four, yes 4!! songs in the top 100. Can’t you people vote for only one of their songs for Christ sakes. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the kings but doesnt anyone else think theyre a teensy bit overrated and the hype surrounding them of late is becoming ridiculous. JJJ is becoming so commercial these days I end up listening to my own cds instead. I mean, why not listen to IAMX, Or Patrick Wolf, or SOMETHING OTHER THAN KINGS OF LEON for a change people?!

For the record I actually prefer Aha Shake Heartbreak than their most recent albums. Something not so perfect about them. I wonder how manypeople actually have their first & 2nd albums, or did they all just run out and buy the last one because it had sex on fire?!

Lol, I know I know I’m being a bitch but I am not a gracious loser. What did I lose? My vote! Well not really but wasnt even worth voting because as predicted MGMT & KOL had nearly all of their songs on their albums chart anyway. What the fuck happened to Bloc Party may I ask?! Did you all just selectively ignore their songs and the brilliance they produced this year?! Did the shitload of people at their concerts all forget how to use the internet leading to the hottest 100 and not vote, did you all think their live show was so disappointing you decided not to vote for them?!

ANSWER ME DAMMIT!

Ahhh I’m annoyed. Whatever!

PS I actually like MGMT too

Listening to:
Tegan & Sara – The Con
Lily Allen – Guess Who Batman

uninspired sketches

here are some lameass sketches which shows just about how uninspired i am at the moment. i feel artistically fucking frustrated and it’s pissing me off. i cant seem to draw anything, and when i do it looks the same anyway. nothing inspires me anymore, not music, not other art, not anything. my whole mood towards everything is cynical and bland and i feel like i am just sitting in a zone staring into space with nothing in my mind but a big fucking black hole that is threatening to swallow me whole.

i dont know what brought this on, and more importantly i feel i cant stop it. (well admittedly I do kind of know what brought this on but lets not go into that shall we). the other day i did have an inspiring moment when it was raining and i was listening to patrick wolf and i managed to produce the bird woman sketch thing above but now im staring at it and i dont know what to do with it next. it’s like my brain wants to finish it but my hand is saying ‘fuck off im not doing anything for you, you wasteful piece’. and my brain just shrugs and doesnt care either way.

anyway. i’m currently over everything. or maybe i’m not. maybe that’s half the problem. maybe.

♥   now my feet don’t touch the ground

09

STRANGE BIRD

is coming…

So! It appears that some of you are still reading, and to that I say hello lovelies! At the moment I feel inspired! (not inspired enough to get off the computer and create haha). There are so many amazing creative people in the world that they inspire me and I want to feed off their creativity, not in a sucky leech way but in a lovemepleasedonteverstopcreatingbecauseyouareamazing! way!

Music of the year for 2008 (that maybe wasnt produced in 08 but was nevertheless enjoyed by me, and because I am slow on the catch up okay, there’s too much music and not enough days in the year to enjoy it all!)

- Bloc Party – Intimacy. Do not need an introduction! had the delight of seeing them live, one of the most amazing experiences ever, imagine ‘Ares’ + lasers + Kele dancing like a madman = a thing of eternal monumentalness haha
- The Dawn Collective – Save A Place For Us The Dawn Collective! has one of the most amazing songs I’ve ever heard – Art of Longevity and are amazing amazing live
- IAMX – The Alternative IAMX – read his blog it is full of beautiful revelations, it really amazes me how musicians are so eloquent in expression, okay and kind of makes me jealous too
- Lightspeed Champion – Falling Off The Lavender Bridge Come on! Keep up!
- Interpol – Our Love To Admire
- The Knife – Silent Shout
- Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
- Birds Of Tokyo – Universes
- British India – Thieves
- The Panics – Cruel Guards
- Wombats – A Guide To Love Loss & Desperation

Artists I am excited to hear more:
- Patrick Wolf – Battles – Prepare for battle! The fourth studio album! Kind of amazing for someone whos only 25.
If you don’t visit his site I shall smite you down and do not nice things because his music is the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life: Official Patrick Wolf
- Foals
- Mystery Jets
- Sigur Ros

Go and seek now and discover!

Any suggestions (by which I mean musical not medicinal!) Comments? Apples? Rotten tomatoes or monkeys? I prefer the purple ones for your information. Haha.

Currently listening: Antidotes By Foals Release date: 2008-04-08

jjj hottest 100

what i *should* be allowed to vote for:

Shortlist

 

 Birds Of Tokyo – Broken Bones
 Birds Of Tokyo – Silhouettic
 Bloc Party – Ares
 Bloc Party – Better Than Heaven
 Bloc Party – Biko
 Bloc Party – Mercury
 Bloc Party – One Month Off
 Bloc Party – Talons
 Bloc Party – Trojan Horse
 Bloc Party – Signs
 British India – I Said I’m Sorry
 British India – You Will Die and I Will Take Over
 Does It Offend You, Yeah? – Dawn Of The Dead
 Empire Of The Sun – Half Mast
 Faker – Sleepwalking 
 Glasvegas – Daddy’s Gone 
 Grates, The – Burn Bridges 
 Gyroscope – All In On One 
 Last Shadow Puppets – The Age Of Understatement 
 Lightspeed Champion – Galaxy Of The Lost
 Presets, The – My People 
 Something With Numbers – Stay With Me Bright Eyes 
 Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
 Wombats, The – Backfire At The Disco
 Yves Klein Blue – Polka 

listening to: think of england – iamx
watching: Wallace & Gromit
thinking: far too much

urghhh. I feel kind of annoyed and tired. why write a blog about it, tell someone who cares hey.
I have been working on a series of canvases featuring the members of Bloc Party (all hail!), today I finished them but I feel that the last one I did is absolute crap, so crap in fact I’m not going to post it because it’s embarrassing. I thought your artistic skills were meant to improve with age/more practise, appears not. I just cant get the face right and Ive analysed it so much that its becoming ridiculous I can’t get it right no matter how hard I try, I know I know you’re meant to leave it and not look at it and then come back and I know that works on occassion but I want to fix it right now! I’m pissed because they didnt turn out as good as I thought they would as good as they looked in my mind and I wonder if thats a problem that a lot of creative types have and if so how can we ever really be satisfied? (I figure there should be a full stop there somewhere! But as I learnt in my creative writing days you can write the way you want break the rules and dont use punctuation!)

Anyway, back to what I was on about. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and it’s really getting to me, i’m going through a mid life art crisis and feel like sometimes giving up but if i did that i’d certainly have nothing and be nothing and i cant stay away from it for long because it’s my love i suppose. and how I hate it too.

another thing, everything i do seem to look the same and i know thats what people call ’style’ (as milton glaser said, there is no such thing as style!) that defines who you are as an artist and where you are headed in but dont you people feel so restricted by your style! I know I am but I cant change the way I do things and that annoys me too because I want to be different and try different things but I just let my work guide me into the same place it does all the time. sometimes i feel that place is nowhere.

sometimes i feel like im going in circles

sometimes i feel like pulling my hair out

Mercury’s in retrograde

Oh my Lord I’ve found the best remix ever of Mercury – Bloc Party. Now I’m not one for remixes all that much personally but this is pretty awesome, listen to it!

Bloc Party – Mercury (Herve Is In Dissarray Remix)

so here we are

So by means of introduction, dear internet land, let me begin by telling you about an obsession of mine which I think is important! It’s music, sweet music. I know I know not very original or anything is it?

A couple of things you need to know:

1. I need to have music everywhere I possibly can (ie. at home, in the car, going for walks. I do prefer music to TV most times.)

2. Almost always, I have to have it LOUD.
This isn’t to annoy people around me (although I suspect it does a good job of it). In fact I mostly don’t realise how loud it is, maybe due to the fact I’ve lost a fair few decibels of hearing by now due to my constant gig going, but I really have to have it loud so it is emphasised, so I can hear every aspect of a song, every beat, every strum of a guitar, so I can let the song, its rhythm and melody, flow through me. It really gives me a thrill (trying not to sound wankish)

3. I go to gigs and love it. A lot.
And I am kind of a groupie, I’ll admit it now. I love live music. There’s nothing that beats the feeling of standing, or moshing rather, at the front row of a gig. Its letting the music flow through you only it’s more intense because you’re seeing the creators of the songs you love interpreted by them, you see them putting their hearts into performing their ‘babies’ for you, and there’s nothing more exhilarating than that. It makes it that extra special. Especially when they add different elements to the songs live. Plus most people in bands are unbelievably and outrageously sexy it should be a crime!

4. I buy CDs. A lot of CDs.
Some CDs I haven’t even got around to listening to. I often become obsessed with certain musicians/bands and no matter how many CDs I’ve bought I only seem to listen to those bands.
There is so much music out there I still want to listen to but I find I don’t have the time because I devote my ears to what I know sounds beautiful. I wish I had several sets of ears to experience everything.

5. I love originality in music. And really have a strong dislike for mainstream.
Mainstream and radio these days is fake bullshit to me. Now I’m not claiming to be a snob or anything but there’s nothing that irks me more than the same plastic produced shite  performed by pop culture moulds who know nothing about music.
I love music with originality, something different, experimental, beautiful and inspiring. Every song on commercial radio these days is a particular song which has just had the lyrics and performers changed so it sounds different. They’re tricking you! It has the same beat, same style, same shit ‘I love you why dont you love me woe is me im a loser’ or ‘come over here sexy girl I can’t compose for crap and can’t rap either’ lyrics to match, just different versions of songs which can be grouped into different categories of crap. (of course there are certain exceptions to the rule) Haha I’m on a roll here.

6. I love certain parts of songs. Mostly the guitar riffs
You know the part I’m talking about, the part the whole song has been building up to, the part that makes the song, the part that gives it that extra oomph factor. Usually kicks in about 2/3s of the way through and brings the whole song to a higher level. There’s something amazing about those parts of songs.

7. I get very obsessed with bands/musicians. Only if they’re brilliant though.
I get so obsessed that my other love, art, revolves around and is inspired by them. You can often find me trawling the net for info, pics, vids, forums for my hit. I try and get every song they’ve ever made including b-sides, live, demos etc. I live on b-sides between albums. For example, I have about 208 Patrick Wolf songs and 82 Bloc Party songs. I also have a tendency to go to the Bloc Party or Patrick Wolf section at JB Hi Fi despite knowing that they haven’t released anything new, in a blind hope that something shiny is there I haven’t heard before.

8. I love lyrics.
I put them as my facebook/MSN status. I write them in a book. I write them in my art diary to go with art which has been inspired by them. I name artworks after them frequently. There’s not enough space for me to write down all the lyrics I love. There is something special about relating to a lyric, like the song was made for you and your various situations.

Well I think that’s about it I had to tell you about my obsession with music, now we have established some ground facts be prepared for a whole load of raving, maybe about music, most likely about Bloc Party, or Patrick Wolf, or many many more bands I want to share with you. Maybe I’ll write about art next time hey.