How so very

In Photos: Football

howsovery — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:08:05 +0000

CPFC RFC / 291011

Born In South London. No to EPPP

He got a bit of the ball

Born In South London. No to EPPP

Jonny Williams, 18. (he's the one on the right)

Sean Scannell

Boy In Da Corner

In The Cold Wind We Smile

howsovery — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:38:36 +0000

Blogging off for 2009. Having a really brief scan through the music of the past twelve months and trying to find something of stand out quality that I’ve really been blown away by. Plenty of good, enjoyable stuff has come out but little of unprecedented originality. Animal Collective, St Vincent, The Maccabees, Everything Everything, Grizzly Bear, Basement Jaxx have all produced some really good songs and wicked albums. Seeing as theres not too much to shout about I thought I’d just do a list like everyone else of the records I’ve enjoyed the most;

The Xcerts – In The Cold Wind We Smile (outstanding album, simple and awesome)

Bombay Bicycle Club – I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose

State Radio – Let It Go

Baba Maal – Television

Brand New – Daisy (didn’t listen to it again after hearing it for the first time, now am a big fan!)

Jay-Z – Blueprint III

The Decemberists – Hazards of Love

Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers

The Maccabees – Wall Of Arms

Memorable gigs of the year include

The National at Royal Festival Hall, the best 2 hours of music i’ve heard

Bombay Bicycle Club at The Garage

Kid Id at Brudenell Social Club

Marcel Legane at Notting Hill Arts Club

Frank Turner at my house

The Crimea at The Camden Head

The Xcerts at LeeFest

DJ Hatsey at Dan’s Wedding

Everything Everything at National Of Shopkeepers

—

The Xcerts kindly used a picture of me aged six

—

the boring things of 2009

Muse

Fearne Cotton

Oasis

Autotune

Slumdog Millionaire

Its been a big year for the festival I work on (LeeFest) and I’m now scouting out and sifting through applications for artists to play at 2010′s event, if your interested, please email artists@leefest.org.uk

All the best

Make it/worth it

howsovery — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:49:31 +0000

When you write, in any discipline and write with dignity and respect – its greatly difficult to establish any motivation at all. With song writing or even simply writing I rarely deal with my work in its own context, how is it possible to, when someone else has created a far more natural, simplistic, effortless and compelling form of your intentions before?

When the routine bites hard
And ambitions are low
And the resentment rides high
But emotions wont grow

Its one of the most frustrating experiences to see bands/artists serving up souless, meaningless nonsense. A friend once told me that he spoke with The Ting Tings manager regarding the nature of their signing to a major record label – this professional simply remarked that the market was ready for a mixed sex duo – im not ignorant to how things work, but when things are done for the sake of it, what a waste? Music is constantly compromised now, the turn over of artists is rapid to say the least. Radio 1 has dumbed itself down even more, not only with its programming but with its current playlist A, this is the worst collection of music I have seen on the station for years;

Biffy Clyro

The Captain

Gimmicky, annoying, arrogant – a deliberate creation of sing along unifying anthem radio friendly nonsense – a great disappointment. Credit to my station (LSRfm.com) for rejecting this.

Alexandra Burke featuring Flo Rida
Bad Boys

9 months since her release of ‘the’ Leonard Cohen song and 4 seconds into her second single we hear Tramar Dillard screaming his alias Flo Rida, followed by a 3 minute score for semi-pornographic night time scenes in Tiger Tiger – a very confusing choice of single, but more understandable when you see what Leona Lewis has been doing in the states.

-
Chipmunk
Oopsy Daisy

No Comment.

Taio Cruz
Break Your Heart

From youtube member hplover09;

i love this vidoe it is amazing they are both really ht .well done again taio cruz excellent job i just cant stop watching it!

This pretty much sums up the point in this kind of record. As long as you can have buff women, speed boats, cocktails, sunglasses in the video – its the green light. The horrible things about songs like this is there is nothing compelling about the making of the record, they sound bland and you can also imagine the track being put together on the studio conveyor belt part by part. But I must say, people do listen to this a lot, so I should probably write about something else instead thats more me…

Duck Sauce
aNYway

…not that

Kasabian
Underdog

spent 7 years writing their debut album and 7 months writing this single’s home, that is the problem with record labels demands – another example of this is the latest Smash Hit Kings Of Leon album.

-
Robbie Williams
Bodies

lets make this one catchy and write two choruses in case the first one doesn’t take off. Robbie is till intriguing though, hes more like a rock star, self loathing but with the ego of the West borough Bapist Church.

: Everything Everything

Promise can still be found in music thought. Everything Everything pictured to the left are about the most promising thing I’ve heard in years. From Manchester, they use every single note and sound to the songs advantage. I’m looking forward to interviewing them and watching them play in Leeds, they are very frank about the music around at the moment and are determined to make quality records. They are yet to release an album but the singles Suffragette Suffragette and Photoshop Handsome are breathtaking, the videos for both were also created and edited by the band and are both well worth a watch and listen!

The LeeFest team

One day festival LeeFest is becoming at the forefront of my mind again as we prepare to construct our projected line up and budget for the 2010 event. It’d be nice to strike a balance between alternative, fun and original acts that we formed for 2009. LeeFest sits alongside T-In The Park, Isle Of Whight, Download, Summersundae, Secret Garden Party and many more huge names in the Festival Awards 09 (www.festivalawards.com place your votes here). Voting for the winning festivals ends in mid November and hopefully then LeeFest will gain some national recognition for providing a festival made with love and care.

As well as the award nominations, a highlight of recent weeks has been an interview

conducted at the Oceana night club last Wednesday. Dr Karl has always been a legend of television for me and Neighbors has probably received much more of my time than any other TV programme (though I must admit I haven’t seen a whole episode in a year!). Alan Fletcher (who signs off emails and texts with ‘Fletch) is a bloody lovely chap. He loves touring with his band The X-rays, but more than that, he loves Karl and to a certain extent is more Karl than Fletch.

Dr KK spills the beans

His idea to have Karl appear in UK shows like Emmerdale and Coronation Street was slightly deluded and hilarious. I was amazed at the seriousness of his suggestion to simply have Karl enter a pub in Corie and buy a pint or have Karl help a fallen character recover in Emmerdale – he loves Karl and these cameos were passionately described to greater detail than I have time for now. Alan was a pleasure to chat to and I wish him and his friend Karl all the best.

In 3 days time it will be the 6 years since the death of Elliott Smith. He is still for me fundamentally everything that music is about. I still sit in awe of his songs and shy away from ever picking up my guitar to attempt anything after listening to his work. There aren’t many days I go without thinking about his music or listening to it, what a remarkably hard work musician he was and one who has my respect and love.

: Elliott Smith

It is perhaps because of Elliott Smith’s music that I struggle with anything that is released now. If I ever make anything of myself and my music it will be in his shadow and from his creations. Because of that it will also be because of The Beatles and Big Star. That is the brilliance of music and of time and how history is history – how profound of me : ).

The first Elliott Smith Songbook is being released soon which is exciting and its great to see his website Sweet Adeline still going strong. I’l end with some choice words from his third LP Either/Or that sum up what I’ve been describing in earlier paragraphs.

Someone’s always coming around here trailing some new kill
Says I seen your picture on a hundred dollar bill
And what’s a game of chance to you, to him is one

of real skill
So glad to meet you
Angeles

Elliott Smith – Angeles (Either/Or)

You’ve charmed me

howsovery — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:40:42 +0000

A very traditional Saturday morning is commencing in the background whilst I begin this entry for the mm’teenth time. I have successfully been sleeping and have now a fantastic and warming cup of tea, as I am still in my nightwear you see.

Symptoms et al which I have before mentioned appear to be subsided gradually and I am ready to enjoy the delights of a healthy mind and body. Yesterday I consumed what should have been a wonderful can of Alibi, banana (under ripe), some Coke and free Dominos Pizza. However, none of these I could taste so I’m considering regretting eating and or drinking them, though a young lady (who shall remain nameless) reminded me that eating and drinking were staple parts of the human diet, so I guess not all was lost.

Dotton smiling

This is Dotton Adebayo MBE. Dotton is a sassy, easy going and fun radio presenter. His best work is probably heard on BBC 5Live’s Up All Night. Always a good listen if your struggling to sleep, Dotton almost seems like an alien at times as he is easily surprised by the world. I like his clumsy, under prepared style and his giant inflatable laugh. It was thanks to his music review section that I heard Baaba Maal’s ‘Television’.

Richard Bacon is also knocking it out of the park on 5Live, I particularly enjoyed his lengthy debate regarding the place of the mustache in society. Many listeners rang in to provide details of their upper lip decoration and why they felt it still had a valid place within the norms and values of the 21st century world. Personally I detest having facial hair on my face. I guess i’d be even more detested if I discovered facial hair anywhere else other than my face, but either way its an albatross round ones neck (and behind the ears, and on the chin and on your cheeks). I’m beginning to perceive each strand of pale crisp hair to represent a URL that i wasted my time on. At the moment I have (at an estimate) 25 hairs on my chin. This converts to 25 Facebooks or perhaps; 5 BBC footballs, 10 twitters, 5 emails, 3 ‘Miscellaneous” and 2 blogs. I think the two properties are almost perfectly proportionate.

Barry at my first public blog reading

This here is Barry. Webmaster, electrician, gamer, ex regional rep. beard grower and lover. I have had the pleasure of enjoying this young man’s company over the past few days in the Leeds Student Radio office. Hes been yelling, typing, jumping up and down and running round the union building like a lunatic. Taking a trip through joblink towards The Refectory recently, I heard stamping, jangling and ringing descending the stairs behind me. By the time I’d turned round to see what it was, a Barry shaped dustcloud was passing through the foyer. When I rotated back on course, in the corner of the room lay another Barry fixing a plug socket – he is one of a kind, who can be a fantastically epic pain in the ass, but generally is a hero – so heres to Barry and his next 5 years at LUU.

I’m getting ready for an influx of new music in the coming weeks. This is exciting, I’ve been listening to too much of the same thing for too long now. Had a listen to The Holloway’s second album and despite my prior disinterest in their first below average record, they appear to have grown up and made a pretty good album, which I respect. One artist I have little time for in anyway is Florence and The Machine. She strikes me as some sort of national trust/madame tussauds creation signing terribly dramatic, stage school trained songs.

a pile of promo CDs

‘Hurricane Drunk’ is the best I’ve heard from her album and I think its actually pretty good. But despite the hype etc in total the record just comes out ok. But get this, she gets onto the guestlist to Punk and knows the one in the hat from Lightspeed Champion.

In other news, Ash are releasing new material (the single is True Love). Always wondered why a band like Ash who have been around for long enough just accept the inevitable and just release everything again starting from the beginning, the rate we get through bands these days I doubt anyone would notice. Noah and The Whale seem to have got themselves together and made something of a second album, the single is good enough to listen to more than once. Next week we get a new record from Brand New and typically they’ve under promoted it and whimpered in a with a below average single, but I’m really looking forward to hearing this one as ‘The Devil and God are..’ is an album I find myself listening to alot.

Elephant and Castle

All in all, I’ve done quite a bit of moaning on this one, so here is something to remind myself that I’m actually into having fun with other people.

blog off

howsovery — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:46:16 +0000

I’ve been thinking about joining the bloggers of the world for quite a while now, though im still hesitant to actually publish a post. It is almost a pleasure for me to write this and probably a bit embarrassing for others to read it, so its taken some inspiration and boredom to create.

Today my fragile immune system has continued to put in lack luster hours of dossing. My sinuses seem troubled by inflammation and my ears feel like they need a good dusting down in the old aural canals. Despite this though, I have been able to produce one piece of public speaking today

the crowd was large and up for it

The audience that had gathered in one of the largest lecture theater venues in Leeds lapped it up. All enjoyed the show and some preyed for more. But unfortunately Stuart ‘the kill joy’ from the international student integration department insisted myself and Bam leave the stage before we incited crowd problems. I met some nice international people who reminded me of absent friends who had or will be traveling to new countries this year – please don’t bring this up too much with me as it is a particularly sensitive subject.

I am fascinated with the latest food outlet in the Leeds University Union. They have these incredible buzzers that light up and summon you to the kitchen hatch to pounce upon your hot meal or sandwhich. The buzzer is shaped like a tv remote but looks slightly like something you’d have at the side of a hospital bed which is used to alert the staff if a patient is suffering from pain, hunger or boredom. Another discovery today is that The Tannery building in Leeds has appalling signage, though i’m not surprised, it does make sense to make it as hard to find as possible.

back with new album 'The Resistance'

So Muse have a new album and have had their radio 1 tit wank. I love the first three albums from Muse and have a bit of time for Black Holes…however, its desperately angering to hear and watch their most recent work. Their politics and rebellious lyrics are embarrassingly ‘radial’, Matt, Dom and Chris are hardly going to bring down the ‘system’ – it’d be nice to hear more about guitars (plug in baby) girls (escape, unintended) and deep spiritual stuff (thoughts of a dying atheist). I know their OTT and bombastic but its not for me anymore, which is a shame because i think they always come across well in interviews and on stage (apart from Dom).

Whilst I’m on music, very much enjoying Bad Boys For Life by Mr Diddy at the moment, classic beats on that. LSR are starting DJing at the Old Bar this Friday night, so might just have to spin that one when its getting lively, we’l be Dj’ing in the bar every Wednesday and Friday for the coming term. Also on the subject of LSR, Bombay Bicycle Club are coming to Leeds on Friday the 25th and I’m doing an interview with them, which I intend to make very good. There will be no mentions of their age, A-levels or strange vocal sound – as far as i’m concerned most people who conduct interviews on British radio or television at the moment are trained monkeys who just get the same answers as everyone else. Above and beyond this though, Dr Karl Kennedy is coming to Yorkshire too and he’l be having a chat with Bam and myself for the station, this is going to be the highlight of my media career – a beer with Karl Kennedy you say? yes please.

acting in BBC's Waking The Dead

I have continued to enjoy Trevor Eve’s performance as Superintendent Peter Boyd in Waking The Dead, he has a similar convex assurance to that of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It (which is returning very soon for a second series!!). ITV again successfully managed to suck the blood and fun out of football last night with their comatosed and limping coverage of Liverpool in the Champions League. On the same night my team Cystal Palace managed to avoid defeat away at QPR without touching the ball…the hoops didn’t get their boots on it either, the match was rained off – but still, well done lads.