Day 122 – Sanctuary in the second city
Every year Salford puts on a two day festival called Sounds of the Other City. It has a little more grit than most two day inner city dos and plenty of good ales, fancy foreign beers and tasty fresh food more commonly found at a farmers market than a festival. The weekend has not started well but I’m trying to be a more positive person and so I pick out the prettiest dress, comb out my hair and with my glad rags on try to raise my spirits for what has traditionally been a slamming party.
Though it wasn’t meant to be the way the boy and I end up alone and having the kind of time alone together that we rarely have these days. It is one of those days when you find yourself falling in love just a little more than ever before, I hope you’ve had them. You remember why it is that you work through the tears and the tantrums because in truth this is the one in your life with who everything just feels right.
We go skipping through the shops like children, searching for a cardigan to keep me warm because I was too worried about looking good for my boy in the band. The weather is freezing and the boy does his best as usual to usher me into his hooded top but its blue and for boys and the dress is too pretty to be covered by it. We end up settling on a long grey cardigan from Wallis which will now be my new cover it up for work. The problem with the project is that I have lots of very pretty dresses which are borderline suitable for the workplace, some a little short, some a little low, this will make even the shortest shimmery shift suitable for the most conservative court appearance.
After sipping down strawberry beers and munching on chicken tacos and tasty chilli which even my soft-core taste buds can handle we slink back on the walls to watch a wailing guitar guy leads us in a chorus of She’ll be coming round the mountains when she comes. We glimpse an old friend who I haven’t seen for some time, she is looking well and loved up and there is something about seeing somebody so content that cheers me through just as much as my cherry beer; strawberry got sickly quickly.
We head over to the gig where the boy plays an acoustic set. The crowd seem to like it and I wish I could be playing the part of the reviewer once more. The venue has a great feel to it and the two girls who put it on are either extremely excitable or just pissed. Either way their enthusiasm is infectious and the crowd laps it up.
We end up hanging out with the other Onions and our friend Ben, who is just lovely. The last time we were here our gang was a lot bigger and I miss the rest of the crew, especially the girls; Anna, Clara, Ellen and Niki. They are all great company and I wish we had all found work in the same city. Sometimes I find myself a little jealous of London which has landed all these great ladies and I lament not making it down there to see them as I should.
We watch a surf band from Wales. They are playing at one of the city churches where they are selling beer and alcopops. It is surreal and though I fear my mother might not like it I lie beside the boy on a blown up sofa beside the altar. I figure its okay because this is the Church of England and I figure they do things different from us Catholics, we kneel.
Later on we head back to The New Oxford, where the boy had his gig. There’s a band Frazer King, friends of the boys who are playing and based on the last time I saw them they are well worth a watch. Though I do not tell the boy, there is something a little sexy about their lead singer who growls the lyrics. When we get there we find the band outside, setting up on the steps of Salford Magistrates Court, having decided they are too big for the venue. I am amused by their arrogance but their choice of setting is inspirational and the set is sublime. I shiver throughout and see traces of blue on my lips but I don’t want to miss a moment and dance and sway with the boy just to keep warm. They put on a show and its one of those gigs you just know you’ll never forget. I wish the crew were all here but its great and I’m happy and in love and I don’t care if it lasts, its here and we’re happy.
- The dress is from Topshop, a tea dress. I usually hate showing my back, its broad and has a mole which I would love to move but its an eight and when it fits I get a bit carried away and forget all my usual insecurities if only for one day. It is on loan from Kat Ingham, who is in Manchester but who I unfortunately missed out on seeing tonight as she was at the sound of the other city, or Maps.
Day 75 – Lost in Lycra
My mood has been all over the place today. The first part of the day I was feeling as high as a kite, after having a luxurious lie in and bubble bath I started snooping around the house for dresses to wear which were conservative enough for my visit to my new place of work to sign the contracts. After having a bit of a snoop in my mothers wardrobe I came across a combination of flowery shirts, one old dress which I know is her favourite and a kaftan top which is quite long. Though the shirt was too short and the dress was just to desirable to steal without first asking the long kaftan dress fitted just right and I added it to my pile of packing along with my dinner dance dress, a silk 1920s Vintage ball gown or bridesmaid dress and a jumper dress which may well be a tad too transparent. Having had such a productive start to the day I set about the task of finding an outfit for the day again. 
I tried on countless nighties with fancy belts and slimming slips, attempted to turn a skirt into a dress and even raided the giants wardrobe for shirts with “shirt dress” potential. Whatever I tried though just wasn’t right, although I was rather keen on one nightie when combined with a silk cotton 1970s French Connection sleeveless top, there was no way of getting around the behind issue; whichever way you looked at it the nightie was see through and as the contract I was signing was not an agreement to enter rear of the year I started to despair.
Having just about resigned myself to a “shirt dress” with a long coat which would never come off I traipsed downstairs for some tea. Imagine then my delight then when I stumbled across this dress which I had only received yesterday from my lovely London based friend. I had somehow completely forgotten about it and although it is a teeny-weeny bit tight and shows off every hump lump and bump it is a dress and it is black. To ensure the look was completely conservative I classed it up with some blue Marks & Spencer tights which I bought in one of their outlet stores for £1.50. I had to pour myself into the dress so I quickly did some evil squats and sit ups to prevent the seams from splitting once I felt confident enough to breathe in it. Once I got the hang of sucking in my stomach and throwing my shoulders back I loved wearing this dress and by the time I was ready to head down town I was feeling like a slinky with a hill to master rather than a set of stairs.
Unfortunately a slight damper was put on my day by the usual troubles with getting a prescription and having a uncomftarble conversation with a doctor I had never met before about why exactly I was on weekly prescriptions. ”I think it might be because they were worried I would take an overdose.” Que awkward silence followed by me grinning in a misguided attempt to lighten the mood which probably left me looking a little loopy. Couldn’t be helped but not the easiest start to an acquaintance by any measure. In spite of this little awkward moment I had a really rather lovely bubbly day. As well as signing my contract without bursting into tears of joy, I also found a bar in Market Harborough which has WiFi. It is called The Square Bar should anyone ever be around the area and is as pleasant a place to work as any. Delicious coffee, plenty of natural light and unlike Cafe Nero two doors down does not charge for internet access and gives you a warm glow for doing the right thing by local business.
I do not know when the anxiety started to kick in. It might have been after I got home and realised just how much I had to do. I have been putting off a couple of reviews and doing the women’s week proved more difficult than I thought. I am trying to find decent quotations and if possible direct quotes from the women in question particularly in letter form to give the postings more warmth and authenticity but all of this takes time and as we all know so well time has a habit of hurrying on regardless. To be fair the anxiety may have well been much to do with being alone in the house for a couple of days and having little contact with anyone other than shopkeepers and cyberspace. Usually there is at least one person in the house or even the dog to keep one company and I find it difficult being by myself for too long. I love the idea of getting my own place once I start work but perhaps I am more suited to the social aspects of sharing a flat.
Though I managed to get quite a bit done with a little help from the Glee massive, by the time I went to bed my head was ticking with all the things I wanted to do the next day and it was impossible to switch off. By all rights the dose of the dreaded nauseating Quetiapine should really be all that is required to send me into a near comatose state for eight hours but for some reason tonight it just never kicked in. Perhaps it was the eight cups of tea I drank whilst trying to stave off hunger pangs; the tablets stimulate ones appetite but I am desperate not to gain any more weight even though I know its shallow I just don’t feel I look like me and it makes me feel fed up. Whatever it was I ended up lying here till three am, trying to get to sleep and desperately trying to ignore all the unanswered questions in my head. I think it was about three that I gave up on getting any shut-eye and just decided to do the work I wanted to.
For months now I have been considering getting business cards but have not yet found a suitable site. Last night however whilst tweeting through the witching hour about my desire for prettily designed cards of my own with lostinnotation as my home I was sent a tweet from a stationary angel from across the pond. She writes a wonderful fashion blog called Prim Knickers and recommended me a decent site. I do not actually remember ordering them as I was so tired but here within my email is a confirmation of the 500 business cards I ordered. The difficulty of the internet for occasional insomniacs like myself is it allows you to do pretty much everything 24 hours a day. Decisions which would previously be denied to the sleep deprived are now available and openly promoted. Once after not having slept for five days I booked my boyfriend at the time a trip to Amsterdam for his 21st birthday, it cost me around £800, nearly all of my savings and for some unholy reason I had booked us in to The Botel, a boat which is also a hotel because I thought it sounded romantic. 
It was not, but there was no getting out of it because they had my card details and I had confirmed it. I sometimes think there should be a universal law for those who suffer from instances of mania no matter how brief that once they have emerged from their spell they should be allowed to take back all their ridiculous purchases and get a free refund. Alas they do not and so soon I will have 500 business cards, at least they look pretty.
- Dress today is on loan from Clara De Los Acres Diez. She is an utter legend and the dress is a great shape from Zara and with blue tights and Kurt Geiger boots it looks extra special. I wore my hair up today as I think it makes me look more serious plus it has started to get on my nerves and if it continues to fall into my face I will be getting a bob before you can say limp lank and lifeless.
Day 67 – Our very own heavenly home
Today is International Women’s Day and though I was going to moan about how hard it can be to be torn between the boy up north and my own number 67 heavenly home, I decided it was too trivial a subject for a day when there are more important issues to consider.
When I think of being a woman and what feminism means to me what comes to mind is the women in my own life who have inspired me through their strength, creativity and kindness. 
Though I will always be grateful to the suffragettes and the bra burning, sexually liberating women of the 1960s and 1970s 1970′s for all they have done and all they continue to do, my experiences of sisterhood are firstly and firmly immersed in my own memories of the ladies in my life who have shown me the beauty of being a woman of this world and the importance and necessity of female friendship.
After reading reels of articles, tweets and re-tweets upon the subject of International Women’s Day I decided to focus today’s post on the women who are and who have been a major part of my life. I want to honour the friend who held my hand in the car as we returned to my house where my sister was dying; to share the tears and the laughter of the time my mother’s friend plucked my eyebrows to perfection or the time I sat on a stool in my auntie Bridgeen’s shop giggling like only a 13 year old girl can do whilst I waited for the sting of the pink gun which would pierce my ears. It is these women after all who along with the great women’s writers like Mary Wollstonecraft have shaped my understanding of what it means to be a woman.
Me and my mother had a chat about all the women who we thought would warrant inclusion in this celebratory chapter and in the end we came to the conclusion that trying to cram everyone into one post would be to do them all an injustice. Instead I have decided to do a women’s week where I will do my best to honour the women in my life who have in some way helped to shape me into the girl I am today. There will be a host of characters who you may have come across in previous posts but there will also be many who have not yet been mentioned. I have decided to divide the week up into six separate posts focusing on the following subjects. Friends, sisters (and cousins), mummy (and mummy’s friends), aunties, grandmothers and teachers. In the interests of equality when International Mens Day comes around I will of course do a small series on the men in my life; for better or worse I have enough subject matter to fill a week with them.
The main aim of international women’s day is to honour the accomplishments of women and press for equality between the sexes. Although much has been done to close the gap there are still so many women in need. One of the issues which today is focusing on is that of the death of women in labour. We are lucky in this country to have adequate provision of medical care during childbirth and pregnancy but in our world one woman will die needlessly of pregnancy related causes every minute. This is an unsettling statistic and is not one we should take lightly. If you want more information on how to help be you a guy or a girl you can find out more by going to the homepage of the white ribbon alliance http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org/about.cfm
Another thing I thought perhaps would be nice to do even though it is only a small thing is to try and do something kind for women in our own lives. This is something everyone can partake in today or throughout this week. If you remember and if you have the time it would be great if you could perhaps do something kind for one woman you know and one you do not. Even if you just help someone who has a buggy and a toddler get through a swing door you will at least have made one woman’s day better.
Lastly let me leave you with some of the most inspiring quotes I have seen today on the subject of international women’s day. May they warm your hearts and give you some food for thought, even if they are a little hard to swallow.
Joanna Lumley: “We in the UK have access to all we need: millions of our sisters have less than nothing, not even hope. We should offer them our understanding hearts, our helping hands and our generous purses.”
Eve Ensler: “Women are not some marginalized, insignificant grp.We are the majority of citizens.What happens to us determines everything.”
Lynne Franks: “Great for women to celebrate together and to discuss how-with men-we create a new kind of sustainable, harmonious world.”
Claire Rayner: “Safety for women having babies:unacceptable death toll from this normal human function in many parts of our small planet.”
Kathy Lette: “Any woman who calls herself a post feminist, has kept her wonder bra and burnt her brains.”
Carol Ann Duffy: “It’s important to celebrate International Women’s Day not only to remember the great female achievements of the past 100 years but to remind ourselves of the huge talent and potential of women worldwide which still needs to be unlocked.”
Madeleine K. Albright: “There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.”
- This LBD is on loan from my elder sister. In choosing to wear it today I am embracing one of the most wonderful female fashions of the past century and am feeling their fierceness and their strength on this day which celebrates them. Being a woman is so wonderful because as well as having intuition and a great sense of direction we get to wear beautiful dresses as well. In the spirit of the day I paint my lips a lovely red and paint my nails I make an effort and though I may be totally overdressed at the gig I am reviewing I feel fabulous, feminine and totally in love with being a girl.
Day 66 – Freezing in floral on a sunny afternoon
Hurrah hurrah hurray, the summer is finally on its way. Whether you suffer from SAD, the blues or even just get cold a lot, there is nothing more wonderful than the first real rays of sunshine. 
Today, in spite of suffering from a collective hangover the Onions boys headed out to play tennis and football at Fog lane Park and me and my boy go on walk about in Withington town. For the first time in months sitting outside to read the Sunday papers seems like a viable way to spend a day and I actually can not wait to get out from under the covers because the sun is streaming through the curtains. I am a bit keen on the idea of going and playing frisbee in the park but the frock I’m wearing today is so pretty and feminine it seems a shame to go out and get it all sweaty and grass smeared. I could of course wear sports gear but it feels somehow a bit dishonest not to stay in the same dress the whole day and in the end I settle for a brisk walk. Perhaps I will have to start hassling Nike for tennis and yoga dresses to stop me becoming a sweaty Betty when wearing pretty prints like this. In just a couple of weeks I will be flying out to ski Chamonix and I am sorry to say that even I am not mental enough to ski in a skirt. 
I am an extremely cold person as it is and without excessive layering I succumb to hypothermia within minutes of hitting the slopes. I am hoping it will be acceptable to all if I just wear my dresses in the evening rather than on the piste, in return I promise you some brilliant apres ski stories and some of the most stunning backdrops to pictures of the dresses thus far. 
I really enjoyed wearing this dress today. The boy chose it for me to wear as we are going to watch The Miserable Rich play at The Deaf Institute this evening. As I am heading home in a couple of days he wants to see me in this floral feminine print even though it would not usually be my cup of tea. It is because I am heading home in a few days that I want to wear the dress I know he will like the best; though I do not like to dress for men as a rule, I do enjoy looking nice for him just as I know he likes to look nice for me. I brought him a stripey blue and white polo t-shirt shirt for our anniversary and when he wore it to his gig last night I felt really proud of him, even though his look was jeopardized earlier in the evening by a car of egg throwing bandits. 
I love finding clothes for him which he likes as he is very fussy about what he will wear and getting him to wear anything other than green, brown or blue is a miracle. Since we started going out however I have managed to persuade him to try all kinds of other colours and designs other than hooded tops and jeans and I once even managed to make him try on an orange t-shirt. I like the fact that he dresses well but is not too into his looks. I have dated men in the past who are obsessed with their hair and refuse to let it be ruffled for fear of wasting their carefully selected product. I once went for a meal with a guy and became utterly convinced he had a twitch in his right eye as it kept flickering to the side of my face; it wasn’t until I got up to leave that I noticed the mirror behind me and realised he had been checking how he looked the whole time. It was funny but also a little sad.
The gig we go to turns out to be brilliant and although I am technically wearing black, the flowers on the dress and the cloudless night continue to remind me that spring is in the air. At the gig many people arrived wrapped up warmly in their winter coats of muted colour but as they start to warm up there is a shedding of their dull outer layers and much like the sun which has emerged today from the folds of the bleak winter all around us there are people dressed in bright pieces from last years summer wardrobe. Greys and browns are on their way out at last as colour and cheery clothing is welcomed back at last. Whilst the sun goes to get his hat on lets all go out and play!
- This dress is on loan from Sinead Kenny. It is originally from Wallace and feels beautiful on and the thick lining and structured waist makes it a really elegant fit. There have been a lot of floral patterns coming out lately which are really beautiful, particularly those printed on silk. Economise on the material if you have to but don’t penny pinch when it comes to the print itself or you will end up looking as cheap as your outfit. The photos were taken on our way home from the gig on a green patch of Withington and outside a section of Christie’s hospital. If you look close enough you can see the sign which says do not walk under this barrier, as I was limboing and crawling under it I will hopefully not get a letter in the post advising me of legal action any-time soon.
Sound of Guns – Alcatraz
Release Date 08/03/2010 (Distiller Recors)
By Elinor O’Neill
Sound of Guns have been touring with Adam Green prior to the release of their new single, Alcatraz. Though they were talented musicians when they visited Club Academy in Manchester last month, they never got the crowd going in the way Green did. This was because, unlike Green, they couldn’t help but take themselves too seriously, and looked as though they were sulking throughout.
Looking at the information which accompanies their single one wonders if their management is to blame for their failure to just put a smile on it, apparently their music consists of riotous gang vocals, but one look at these skinny jeaned, floppy haired, frowning five-some is enough to reassure oneself that neither The Bloods or The Crips will be needing to work on their trash talk to take them on any time soon.
Alcatraz is decent enough, and will be lapped up by lovers of pop-rock and (again this is from the press release) “power chords”.
Though it has been beautifully mastered, lyrically it lacks the substance for musical longevity – but on the plus side it is great fun to jump about to.
Everything one reads about this group is complimentary, so I do hope they stick a flower in their guns and enjoy the fast-flowing river of positive critique they have been receiving; if they don’t, I fear they will fail to attract anyone other than the miserable-fringed- fair-weather-few.
Errors – A Rumour In Africa
Release Date 22/02/2010 (Rock Action Recored)
By Elinor O’Neill
As one listens to A Rumour In Africa, it is not the coming world cup, the political turmoil within, or the vast plains of the African nations which come to mind. What one thinks of is jumping out of an aeroplane in Australia or New Zealand or some other god awful backpacker occupied island.
Not, you understand, because you are jumping from the plane in a bid to escape listening to the mind numbing rift which filters through the track to invade your cranium, creating an irritation akin to a fat child kicking your seat all the way from the UK to the USA.
It does not have a hard enough beat to make it dance worthy, but if your head has been mushed up by mood enhancers from the first three letters of the alphabet, you may enjoy its lyric lacking beat.
It is not nice to have so little nice things to say about a track but when the band describe themselves on their profile page as “Four guys without any spark of talent”, one feels the guilt lift a little.
As the track continues, occasionally daring to bring in some interesting sections, you slowly realise that unfortunately, you are not partaking in a parachute dive or even politely watching a video of a friend doing so. At least if you were there would be a chance to slip out to “use the loo”, or alternatively of dying mid jump so there is a less painful end to Errors musical suicide.
JLS – Single Review, One Shot – Battle of the Reviewers
The Great JLS Boxing Match
Release Date 22/02/2010
Two of CityLifers heavyweights go head to head in the JLS single review rumble in the jungle. Who will win?
Elinor O’Neill (fan of JLS)
Vs
Chris Gilliver (most definitely not a fan of JLS)
Round 1
Myself and JLS have a bond shared by few others; when I crashed my car last year, flipping the vehicle three times and spinning it around only to emerge from the wreckage bruised but not broken, I was listening to their debut album. Because of this, I feel a strange pull when I hear them, because to me, their angelic harmonising voices signal one thing, survival.
When I stick in the CD, tres retro, I am a little concerned hearing them may bring on a full blown panic attack, but it doesn’t. It just sounds wonderfully smooth and very cool.
Second only to the memory of a car crash, the single reminds me of two very different but equally lyrically brilliant songs. The first being Britney Spears; Lucky which was released prior to the dawning of her difficult days and may well have been a forewarning of what was to come of a girl who should feel lucky but who is actually “Cry, cry crying at night”. The other song is The Girl All The Bad Guys Want by Bowling For Soup.
The lyrics allude to the difficulty of a guy brave enough to try his tricks with the ladies, who is approaching the pre-breakdown equivalent of Britney, a girl we read about in magazines. The song reminds us of the importance of making the most of every moment, as after all, we have only one shot.
I have always known that JLS are geniuses of the sing-song; I listened to Everybody In Love until the point when those who were not in love with me, or the song asked me, to put a blooming sock in it – though in an abbreviated form.
I was also aware of their mega-hunk status; they have a tendency to look as chiselled as Ken, and the innocence they exude makes one think of them in extremely asexual terms. And if they ever do respond to my fan-tweets demanding tickets and tokens, I would probably retreat quicker than John Terry from his meeting with Capello
They have that boy-band quality that leads to the ladies lapping up every hit they churn out, but they lack the sex of Take That in their early days before they became mothers meeting fodder, and the underwear thrown at them became more likely to be Miss Selfridge than La Perla.
I always wonder if I should feel a little guilty about my JLS obsession. Surely a lady of my years who used to be in a TTAC (Take That Are Crap) society when I was ten should not melt at their music, but I do, and I think we should acknowledge their talent for tunage.
One Shot professes a mature philosophy, which reads as Carpe Diem for illiterates and with it they have shown themselves to be more than just hunky, dancing, singers, who make you bop like a space hopper on speed; they are also learned beings and accomplished lyricists – even if according to daytime TV they are the third party responsible for me crashing my car.
Round 2
JLS have broken the traditional boy-band mould and invented a new paradigm: the prematurely balding one; the one who desperately wants to grow some cool facial hair but can’t; the one who sings like Cher and can’t stand up without cocking his entire body to one side; and the one who looks like the lovechild of Sacha Baron-Cohen and Vin Diesel.
The old saying goes ‘you can’t polish a turd.’ Well, I reckon if you tried, you could probably flash-freeze it, apply some sort of superglue/laquer mix, leave it in the fridge overnight and ‘voila’ – shiny turd. Nowadays, technology allows us to make recordings of any talentless oiks sound quite good. JLS’s ‘One Shot’, however, is not one of those recordings; it is dire, unadulterated tripe of the worst kind.
They seem to have stolen a riff from the ‘Rave Anthems’ advert and the lyrics from Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ then got rid of all the good bits. At one point they even run out of words halfway through a chorus and say ‘da da da, da da da’. The pitiful ending to this disjointed mess of a song sounds like a 16 year old’s music technology project.
I genuinely despair that this will reach number one.
The Drums – Live (Me – wishing I was not)
Sound Control, Manchester 06/02/210
By Ellie O’Neill
Oh the sound, the sound of The Drums. When I heard seven days ago I was going to see them, I got so excited I began practicing my dance moves and planning what to wear to a night I thought would be monumental. This was the act which I thought would propel Manchester’s new venue Sound Control to a whole new level of luxurious musical mania, an act which would test their control of sound, an act which would pull in the crowds so sadly sparse upon their opening night. This was their chance to be The Venue for music lovers to go to when they wanted to hear great music and to hear it lovely and loud with lots of beautiful bass.
Sound Control was brilliant. Other than an audience tending a little too much towards the student crowd, pulled in by the cheapness of the drinks. The sound delivered perfectly and the place was packed. The basement was once again closed, presumably not because numbers failed to reach full capacity, but because of the heating being broken, again.
There are two issues Sound Control will need to resolve before it reaches its hey-day, the first is the choice of act, no matter how I try to put a positive spin on it I think The Drums are dreadful. So bad at one stage I nearly leave but am persuaded by my companion that reviewing only the first ten minutes of the act would be a tad harsh. The second issue is the crowd, which I strongly suspect would be a lot more friendly if those who were only there for cheap bottles of beer would leave, leaving behind the kind of people the venue needs, music lovers.
The Drums put on a performance so self indulgent that one gig goer suggests they were getting a little too happy about themselves; I am tempted to leave the rest of the quote to your imagination but it is too much of a line not to share, “God, was it just me or were they practically tossing themselves off up there at how terrific they think they are”. I try to enjoy them, I really do, I loved Sound Control the last time I came here and genuinely had high hopes for the night but The Drums don’t deliver to a crowd which would generally be just as happy dancing to the music of, well anyone really and the free unsigned gig I went to at Fuel earlier in the night in Withington had much more gumption than anything they had to offer.
When I first came I was inspired by the potential of the venue as somewhere for lovers of good indie to desend, whether they were old-school rockers or drainpipe wearing T-shirt clad disco dancers. Today I was struck by the shallowness of the place. The few people who were making moves could have been doing so to their I-pod, it was like being at a silent disco where someone’s let off a silent scent and you don’t want to say anything for fear someone will think it was you. I would rather drink water or pay £4 for a beer in the place if it means not being surrounded by people whose only concern is reaching a state of sedation so thorough that they struggle to remember who they saw the previous night.
I don’t want to upset you too much with my description of The Drums, but it is after all a review of them so I must. In spite of having a back catalogue of some really great tunes which fully tested the Sound Control machine, they were as one guy beautifully put it “Aaaarrrgh, that was awful, just awful, I’m so glad to get out of there”. Unfortunately at the time someone who looked scarily like one of The Drums was standing next to him outside. I had looked forward to a crowd in this venue who would dance with no regard to posing or prancing, a bunch of gig-goers who would genuinely be there to greet the act with an enthusiasm and willingness to boogie the night away, unfortunately I was horribly disappointed. As well as being called “A nice piece of meat” by a man whose only intention tonight was to find himself a honey and having a drink spilt on me by a guy so coked up he had no awareness of his actions, I was struck by how few people were dancing.
The sound was awesome, but the performance was dire. They continually rocked out to their own tunes, failing to engage with the audience or even notice they were there, so struck were they by their own greatness. They could have been at Rockefeller centre or The Queens Garden Party, there was no adjustment for the crowd to which they played and most of the time they barely acknowledge those who had forked out £8 to see them.
I came here expecting to see an act who could inspire the audience, but what I saw was an act who hardly hold our attention and a crowd who leave the moment they stop, leaving behind them a tide of plastic cups more akin to the debris of the cattle-market that was once The Bop.
Day 38 – Roller skating and why home is not always where the heart is
So first things first, where is the photo of lady Elinor I hear you ask. The dress is here and yet there is no girl in the dress, a mystery. Well in spite of being a bit of a lazy daisy this week I have finally decided to put you out of your misery. Yes I did wear the dress all day but by this point in the evening I was simply too tired for photos partly because I had partaken in a new sport called roller derby, like rugby but more fun and with a high risk of injury which makes it slightly cooler; the other reason was a dreadful argument I had on arriving back home with the giant. 
On this day of 365 dresses, day 38, I was feeling (largely as a result of the previous nights dreadful disappointment) a little bit blue, grey, and other non bright or sparkly colours of the spectrum. I had to leave the boy behind and as we have had a few troubles it was not easy. I also had to climb on to a train where I was once again confronted with idiots; idiots who charge £1.50 for a cup of tea; idiots who eye you up through sunglasses which aren’t dark enough whilst sitting next to their poor spouse; idiots who drink red wine from a bottle before midday and idiots of course who think its ok to run a train service which is nothing short of appalling. By locating a couple of magazines on the train I finally started to feel as though I might make back some of the £300 I have spent on rail travel over the past three months. I am unemployed for goodness sake, how can they get away with this, it is preposterous. 
Anyway enough of the rant, in short at the start of the day I was depressed and at the end of the day I was exceptionally depressed but there was a small short two-hour window spent with my sweetheart of a sister at Roller Derby when I was happy and writing this now I struggle to remember it but I was.
Roller Derby is an amazing sport from the states where, as I now understand it you have to knock people over and skate really fast. When I first get there I must admit I was surprised at all the padding and by the girl sitting taking photos with a plaster cast round her leg. I was wondering what need there was for such decoration when all we were doing was having a disco party, there were sweets and flapjacks after all. It turned out that when my sister invited me to a roller disco she actually said derby. The two are it would seem rather different and when I asked our tutor, who kept teaching me how best to fall, why it was one would be falling she looked at me rather alarmed. “Do you know anything about roller derby? Anything about the hitters?” Well if I was not a braver woman I would have immediately left, I knew nothing of these hitters or of the heathen sport of which she spoke. It turns out much of those of us in the beginners pen were not aware of what we were there for. We were being trained like pawns to be used during practice. Roller derby is a team sport, one which you have to sign a waiver for which absolves them of your death. 
It sounds dreadful but turns out to be the most fun I’ve had since hockey games at Canterbury Court and cadets. It is dangerous, my bottom is severely bruised and I have mini anxiety attacks about my weak ankles and wrists, but you are padded up well and they only let you get in on the game if you wear a gum-shield. We learn how to do spinning stops, sliding stops, race relays, play tag and it turns out I am quite good at running on my breaks, though look a little too like a ballerina than a rolling rocking roller derby girl (I am secretly happy about this as it looks like the lessons paid off after all and I no longer prance like an elephant). I guess it doesn’t help that I am wearing sparkly tights and a pretty dress or that my hair is down unchecked by a bobble.
Fortunately roller-derby is a place of great female solidarity. 
Whilst in the outside world women are waiting patiently to get their claws into each others men, or so the press would sometimes have us believe, in here we look after each other and there is a great community spirit. There is no bitchiness, of which I was aware; I am lent a bobble by a friendly lady and we all cheer each other on. I even get teased about my porn star falls, (both knees, both elbows, face hits ground) and I don’t mind because it is just teasing.
It is great to find a sport which is physical yet does not feel aggressive. It is very competitive and amazing exercise, my thighs feel like thunder and every muscle aches. When I leave I am desperate for a bath and a hot water bottle and so when I receive a surprise attack from the giant I am most upset. I leave the place buzzing with endorphins and on being collected by my kind parents I was chattering away and unfortunately said something which put the giants back out and from here on it was less than forty minutes before I was upstairs crying to the boy like a child as he flipped out asking why the hell it was I get on ok up at his and at his parents but fall apart as soon as I get in the door. He does not mean it he just feels helpless but I know what he means, my home life is always on a higher stress level but it is as much my fault as anyone elses.
I do not know why it is myself and the giant clash. He is not a bad giant, like Hagrid’s brother Grawp he has good intentions, and is even able to form strong attachments, his only problem is he, like all giants is territorial and is not a fan of calm and collected communication as a way of doing battle. Yelling is much more effective he feels and I believe it was my unexpected early arrival upon his territory/ home that led to his show of strength. I foolishly joked about his pride of place, his giant throne which is the comfiest chair in the house. He did not take to it kindly and cited my annoyance at his response as another example of my rashness which meant I was manic. I miss Manchester, I’m starting to think it is time to leave the home of the giant and seek smaller dwellings.
Cloud Sounds Interview
Cloud Sounds started out as a one man radio show ran by a local Withington lad, mainly from the comfort of his own home. In spite of apparently modelling himself on Oscar The Grouch, once one gets over his provocative sense of humour, (which leaves you shoving your fist in your mouth to keep from laughing as you wag your finger disapprovingly) Cloud Sounds is really just a six foot two inch teddy bear with a face better suited for TV than radio and one gets the feeling, if he abandoned the grumpy act, the ladies would be queuing up to talk music after every show. Even though occasionally coming across as a bit of a cross-patch, he is a savvy businessman when it comes to promotion. By making use of every social media platform available, he has ensured an admirable listener-ship and a respectable following none of whom could be bored by his bone tickling tweets.
Although the name Cloud Sounds has no air head attributes, his business sense and willingness to work hard to gain and keep followers means he has survived for four years in a market saturated by pod-casts. Part of the reason is his recognition of the importance of keeping his listeners keen, by treating them mean and teasing them with just one show a week. But perhaps the main reason for his success, is his refusal to compromise his taste and his carefully nurtured relationships with some of the UK’s most popular and talented unsigned bands.
Whereas other pod-casts usually only last a few months, after producers realise sourcing music is harder than it sounds, Cloud Sounds has continued with his weekly radio show. He manages to fit in working towards an MA in Arts Management, releasing the music of bands he likes through his own record label and even running a successful gig night at fuel once a month.
As the night is approaching its second birthday, I catch up with Ted to see how he enjoyed Christmas, what his thoughts are on Manchester’s music scene and his vision of a future for downloading music upon the guidance of respected gatekeepers.
**************
E.O: As an impoverished student, how is it you have been able to keep the monthly Cloud Sounds Present nights going?
CS: We get to use Fuel for free and as a venue they have their own PA. They often give you some money for the bands which comes in use, especially if they have come from a long way away. It’s not much, but it’s enough to cover the petrol money. We don’t charge entry for the nights so we don’t make any kind of return, but they’ll give us a couple of free beers and help out with promotion.
E.O: How do you go about promoting the Cloud Sounds night; do you have a team that can help out?
CS: We don’t have a huge amount of money, so we don’t print very many posters. Those that we do print, we put up around Piccadilly Records and Fopp and the Northern Quarter. What we tend to find is that because we are far outside of town, it is difficult to convince people based centrally to leave where they have started their night, this is why you will see most of our promotional material down here at Fuel and around Withington.
E.O: Have you considered starting up a new gig night in town to cater for the lazier lovers of unsigned bands?
CS: I’ve got lots of plans and ideas of which way we can be taking things. One of the plans is to take it in the direction of getting individual bands to play, bigger names than we can afford to pay at the moment. In order to get these, we might unfortunately have to start charging entry and that’s something we have been able to avoid doing at the Cloud Sounds Presents night so far.
E.O: You seem to be getting a lot of bands on from Wales of late. Is there any particular reason for this?
CS: I have focused a lot more on Wales of late, as that is where the music I like is coming out of. I think people appreciate the time and effort that we put into searching out bands. For me, the bands who have come from Wales are delighted to be getting played here, having never really gigged anywhere outside of Wales. They have travelled a long way and because of this they are usually well up for putting on a great show. For the end of the year Christmas special we put on a Welsh band called Y Niwl and they went down really well. They are Wales’ finest (and possibly only) surf band super-group and they were playing their first ever gig in England. They have ex-members in their make up of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Eitha Tal Ffranco of Cate Le Bon’s band and Alun Tan Lan.
E.O: Does putting a lot of Welsh bands on, mean a lot of your fan base for the radio show are now stemming from Wales.
CS: We do get quite a lot of listeners from Wales. But then to be fair, at the moment if you look at where people are accessing the site from, we are getting people downloading the podcast from all over the world. It’s hard to see a pattern of where they are coming from especially, but we will see a couple of listeners from lots of different obscure places who have stumbled upon the site and then coming back to listen in to other shows too.
E.O: How do you manage to jiggle around studying for a masters in Arts Management with running the gig nights?
CS: There are three people who I would say together make keeping the show going, myself and two others. One is in charge of designing my website, he is a friend so is happy to help out free of charge. As we are re-designing the whole site at the moment, it’s a good way for him to showcase his talents and is a great help for me. The other person who helps particularly with the gig nights at Fuel is Tim from The Generalissimos. He does my sound on the night and has a hand in helping me decide which bands to put on, as I run a lot of stuff we get sent from various bands past him to get another perspective. His band have also played the unsigned night at Fuel on multiple occasions over the years.
E.O: What are the patterns of your listeners? Are a lot of them rather fickle in their habits?
CS: A lot of my listeners tend to just listen in for the Christmas special, so I try to put a lot of work into creating a good show. When I get back from Christmas, I usually have a lot more listeners as a result of the break and people just making New Years Resolutions to make more of an effort to listen in. There are some shows where we have done hardly any promotion, but for whatever reason we will just get a huge listener-ship. Then there are other times when you try and repeat the formula which you think may have made the previous show a success and the numbers go down again. You just can’t really tell what makes one show more popular than another.
E.O: What promotion do you put in place prior to the gig nights?
CS: There are some nights for which we do lots of promotion, but fail to get much of a mention in the press. We were plugged in The Guide by The Guardian just after Christmas which was pretty special. They did get the wrong date and were a little late on the information about the Christmas special (they listed it in The Guide in early January), but they said some really nice things about the show and it was great to get a mention.
E.O: How long ago did you start putting out the podcast?
CS: It was nearly four years ago now I started putting out and back then for a while I was doing a daily show on Unity Radio. We switched over to weekly slots and unfortunately, although they are doing really well, I had some difficulties with putting the show together. Unity were pretty small and I would turn up to record, having told my regular listeners when to listen out for me. I would have trouble getting into the studio as there would be nobody around to let me in. Now I do it from home it works out quite nicely. As it now gets released as a pod-cast, it means people are able to listen at their leisure once they have downloaded it for free.
E.O: The gig night coming up in March, what’s it for?
CS: As we cannot decide upon a fixed date from when the radio shows began, we have chosen to celebrate the anniversary of the Cloud Sounds Presents nights at Fuel. Although it is difficult to choose a birthday for the radio show due to all the stops and starts, it’s important as it is the root of everything else we are doing. When I started doing the pod-casts there weren’t many people out there doing what I was doing. At first I was just playing stuff I liked, often bands who I’d gotten to know and then I started moving more towards the unsigned stuff. There are hundreds of people now who put out pod-casts, but many seem to stop after a couple of months. I don’t think they really understand when they first start, the amount of work that goes into sourcing bands. It takes an awful lot of time and effort, but still there are a lot of people in Manchester who want to put out the tunes they like to listen to, stuff that isn’t necessarily available through Spotify or I-tunes.
E.O: How do you source new music for your shows?
CS: Back during the Myspace boom, everyone was doing Myspace and being really active about getting their music out there . It has tailed off a bit now, but I managed to form some good relationships with a lot of bands whose music I like and as a result I get a lot of their new stuff through to use on the show. I also get a lot through from PR companies and the Red Deer Club are especially good, the best I would say in Manchester. Sometimes I can get bands to email me individual MP3s of bits I want to play on the show, but you tend to find the better a band are, the more reluctant they are to send you stuff through. It’s the bands which are rubbish which usually do the most promotional work. What I do tend to find is we get a lot more through from bands who are interested in playing the gig night rather than sending in their stuff for the show, as you can reach a lot of people through the gig night and of course that means I will be mentioning them on the show in the run up to the gig, but it’s still good to get new material sent through.
E.O: What gig night’s do you particularly rate in Manchester?
CS: After a painfully long silence and some gentle encouragement: I guess they put some good stuff on at the Academy but I have been a bit busy of late to get out to many nights. Seems to be a lot of nights in Manchester who don’t really put on bands that I like to listen to, I feel as though the bands I play at the unsigned night are really very good and don’t understand why they aren’t getting as much of a chance to gig in more venues throughout the city.
I have never played a band that has gone on to become really huge. Wave Machine are obviously doing pretty well now, but even they haven’t yet become as big as I thought they would be. I haven’t yet seen any of the bands I have played over the years appear on the front cover of The NME. When I started doing the show the top two bands I was playing a lot of were Onions and The Loungs and I really thought they were very good at what they were doing. It was a few years ago now but I remember when I was listening to their stuff that I thought they were soon going to be two of the biggest bands in the country.
There are a lot of people out there, obviously not people who listen to Cloud Sounds, who just listen to what they are told to listen to and don’t put too much thought into trying to find new bands due to lack of time or inclination maybe. People tend to listen to what has been already validated and I have no doubt that if Onions were being plugged on Radio One and other more popular shows with all the power of the NME and their DJs putting them on their playlist, they would be huge by now and be featured in the NME but none of them are going to do that, perhaps because it’s the way they look or the way they don’t look.
E.O: How do you fit the show in around the masters?
CS: I usually have Christmas time off after the gig night and the end of year special, but this year due to deadlines I ended up taking six weeks off so it’s been great getting back to it. I do think it’s good to take a bit of time off as it does give people time to start to miss it and make New Year’s resolutions about listening to the show on a more regular basis, plus it gives people time to catch up on pod-casts and the special which is usually a good few hours of thirty tracks and the all important banter.
E.O: Have you ever considered doing live interviews on the show?
CS: This is something which has been on my mind now for quite a while. The difficulty is with doing the show from my house, is that they would have to come in through our home which isn’t really practical at the moment, also I only have one microphone for the time being. I say every year that I am going to find a way of doing it, so hopefully we will be doing them soon as it would be a good addition to the Cloud Sounds label.
E.O: Would you ever consider filming the show?
CS: Not really, for the same practical reasons, but it’s not something I would rule out. At the moment I am more interested in the idea of filming the gigs, as I am conscious of the fact that we have listeners from all over the world who I am frequently telling about fantastic upcoming gigs they aren’t able to attend unless they are really hardcore, so it would be good to share them on the show though I am not sure how difficult that might be.
E.O: What has been the best gig you have ever seen at Cloud Sounds Presents?
CS: This month it will be two years since we started putting on the gig night and I think the best nights I have seen are the ones where the bands really seem to be enjoying themselves. Sometimes you will see bands that have to play in front of ten people and I get very embarrassed when this happens. If a band is playing a gig to a big crowd of people it really makes a night, especially when you have the bands coming up to you afterwards to tell you how much they have enjoyed it. At Christmas time we had a band come up from Wales called Y Niwl which was put together by a lot of people in Wales interested in creating surf music. This surf band played for us at the special at Christmas and the bassist who plays with Cate Le Bon is a part of them. He came over at the end of the night and asked about Cate getting a slot on the night; now she is far too big to be playing here but it was really nice that he asked and although she is on tour at the moment if we could get here playing here it really would be very special.
E.O: What do you look out for in a band who you give air time too or who you like to put on at the gig nights?
CS: Of all the things I look out for in bands, the one theme that runs through both the bands I play on the show and those who get a slot on at the gig night is the fun factor. There has to be a level of enjoyment running through their music. Cate Le Bon who writes some really very dark stuff and even Sweet Baboo write heart breaking songs, but they then dust it through with an element of humour. If a band does not have this streak they end up being over the top, they would end up being Razor Light.
E.O: Have you ever considered increasing the amount of shows you play?
CS: I am happy enough at the moment with the amount of shows and I think the listeners are as well. I have tried myself to keep up with other pod-casts that run more frequently than once a week and although I try to download it and make an effort to listen through before you know it, another week has gone and all of a sudden you have a massive backlog to get through and that isn’t terribly appealing. Obviously it would be great to be doing a weekly show but without being paid for it is an awful lot of work, especially at a time when I am studying for the MA.
EO: Do you ever consider charging for the gig nights?
CS: No not really because it doesn’t cost that much to run, other than the small amount of money I pay for air time and initial heavy costs such as buying a microphone. I guess for the sake of the show there has to come a point where you are prepared to put more of one’s own money in and take a risk on losing it but it is difficult to know when this point has come.
Releasing the 7” with Onions and Generalissimos was a bit of a risk and to be fair we all knew that due to the cost of putting it together, we were going to make a loss no matter what. But we didn’t really put it together for money, we just had some good songs we wanted to get out there and we were really pleased with ourselves as we recorded, mastered, promoted and even designed the record sleeves without having to go to any outside companies. It is pretty cool to produce something you have made from scratch and though we are not making profit on them, they are selling well and more than half of the limited edition CDs are now gone. We wanted to break even if possible, but it was released more out of mutual respect and a love for the music these guys are playing at the moment; what was eventually produced was really worth something to all of us.
A lot of people always advise you to get into music for the love of it, not because you want to get famous or be paid for it. There are bands however who are getting the money, there has to be as great an idea as it is we can all keep going for free. At some point bands have to be recognised for their contribution as records can’t keep being released at a loss there has to be some kind of reward financially so they can continue without becoming so submerged in their day jobs they don’t have time to record, gig or create new songs.
E.O: Do you feel the government or the arts departments are supportive enough of musicians at the moment?
CS: Not really, I think popular music tens to receive a lack of funding because people still see it as a corporate venture where a lot of people are making a lot of money. It’s a nice idea but so few bands get signed and even those who do don’t necessarily make large amounts of money from it. A lot of bands are recording their music themselves and trying to get it out there in that way but there is an awful lot of music on the internet now and jus because its there doesn’t necessarily mean people will buy it or even listen to it.
Perhaps the internet emerges we will start to get gate keepers who advise people on where to go for good new music. They would be tested sources and if a music lover liked a started genre he would follow a particular gate keeper who would put him/her in the direction of new music so they wouldn’t have to filter through a huge amount of information which few people have time to do these days. Perhaps Cloud Sounds will in time become one of these gate keepers directing people to decent music. If his happens I think we will see an increasing divide between the god stuff and the X-Factor dominated pop charts. Some stuff will leak through to the charts and vice-versa but at the moment I honestly can’t tell you of any band I like in the top 10 chart.
E O: I see you have recently become a tweeter, how has this helped the show?
CS: I only started with the twitter account in the last few months and like the way you can get your personality across to your followers. Perhaps social media makes the show seem a bit redundant as I guess I could post links but I think people still like listening to the show and its the banter they enjoy in-between as much as the songs otherwise they could just download a playlist or some of the pod-casts out there which are just a DJs listing of his favourite tracks without any talking bits which are of course the part of the show I enjoy doing.
E.O: Any plans for putting another album out there?
CS: I was reading an article the other day about the best bands in Manchester and it got me a bit annoyed as I didn’t like any of them and I started to think I should perhaps put a pod-cast of bands in Manchester that myself and my listeners have enjoyed, bands which perhaps are often overlooked on the scene. It is too much of a financial risk at the moment to put it out during the next six months whilst I’m still studying.
E.O: Albums and bands people should look out for in 2010?
CS: Well Onions have been keeping quite hush hush about their latest project so it will be interesting to see what they end up producing. Then there is the latest album from The Loungs and I swear you would struggle to find a better album this year. Finally there is a guy called the Voluntary Butler Scheme; I played him on the show last year and since then he has got really big. So it’s those three really that people should be keeping an eye out for.
