Real life blows

So this weekend for many people university is officially over. My last semester lasted a measly 3 days and I've spent much of the last 2 months saying good bye to Cheltenham in a particularly unhealthy way. Trouble is, when all the fun and goodbyes are over the panic starts to set in and the pressure of becoming a fully functioning, career driven adult, begins to creep over you.

This should be an exciting time for me I have a good degree behind me and some excellent journalistic skills to help build my career but all I feel is panic and apprehension. This may be due to the current job climate, however any graduate worth hiring will use their initiative to find jobs and work placements. I have been doing this and there is work out there, it is just my geographical and financial situations that are holding me back.

To do a standard 3 month internship at a magazine I should ideally live nearby, or close to, said magazine. This costs money which is something I have very little of and if the internship is unpaid I'll need to save money in order to get by while at work there. This will take time and lots of it. I thought about commuting from my home town into London every day but even that would be a financial tragedy and probably leave me a broken, hollow and bitter man after three months of three hour train rides a day.

I think during university in the final academic year you should have 'real life classes' that prepare you for the post uni depression almost everyone I know is suffering from. These classes should be made up of modules like 'how to work a shit job you don't care about in order to get a job your do care about' and 'how to stay in and save money when you are used to going out whenever you want and having the time of your life'.

All jokes aside it is the purpose of university that I miss the most not the drinking (contrary to popular belief). It's the feeling of working towards something you really enjoy that could potentially turn into a career. It's the feeling of getting excited about the work you produce when you think of doing the same sort of work and actually being paid for it. It's the feeling of having a career you love instead of one you need. I always had that safety net of I'm studying to be a journalist and now it is all over I'm asking myself why aren't I a journalist already? I guess this is a good outlook to have as it will keep me motivated I just hope I don't end up like one of those guys who people ask;

"So what did you do at uni?"

"Oh I studied journalism"

"and what do you do now?"

"I work in a job I hate, because the money is ok and I got comfortable".

Fuck that, time to sort my life out.

My first time at a Spiritualist Church

It was my first time and I was pretty sceptical. My girlfriends family are all reasonably spiritual, but not in a weird hippy-like sense, especially my girlfriends sister who can sense and often see spirits. Now I'm pretty open minded but also very logical, I don't discredit these sorts of things straight away I just need proof if I am to be fully won over.

Now If you don't know a medium is a person who can receive and transmit messages from the deceased to the living.

So after the hymns were over which was pretty awkward for me as I'm not religious (this isn't an attack on religion I'm very accepting of peoples faiths it's just not for me!) the medium took to the stage. At first she pointed out my girlfriend and said to her that the spirits were saying that one day she would be doing the same job and that she has the potential to become a very successful medium. This was freaking me out a bit but my girlfriend was super calm, as if the news that she will be contacted by ghosts was ok. I was pretty stunned but not as stunned as I would become.

"Is this a partner" the medium said turning to me

"Yes he's my boyfriend" Hayley replied.

"Oh dear" I thought.

the medium then went on to say she was getting contacted by my granny who had past away over the last summer apparently my gran said that she knows that I've accomplished more than I thought I could, which is true because I've always lacked faith in my abilities until it became apparent to me that I could graduate this summer with a 2:1. My gran also said she likes my current girlfriend and that we should stay together which is true I guess, we are having a lot of fun at the moment and it's going really well. Then my granny said something that will resonate in my mind forever.

So the medium continued;

"There is one thing she wanted to talk about, and that's the alcohol"

Now just for the record I'm not an alcoholic but I do like to party because I'm at uni in my third year and I'm just making the most of it before I have to leave and be ultra responsible.

She continued:

"Your granny, she was quite confused when she passed wasn't she?"

"Yes she was very old (92) and very forgetful"

"Ok, well every time you wake up with a hangover and don't know what day it is, your gran said that that is what it was like towards the end"

My Granny did always have a wicked sense of humour.

"Right, Ok, I'll watch that then Granny, Thanks?"

"But she also says she very very proud of you and of what you have achieved, just watch the drink."

I've always wondered what my deceased relatives thought of what I was doing in life and I've always wanted them to be proud of me and to finally hear it, whether it was true or not was really quite touching.

Now at first I was like OK the medium could have got lucky with the death of a grandparent and saw I was a young male in my 20's who often likes to drink so made those conclusions for herself. But then I remembered the conversation between me, my girlfriend and her sister in the car on the way there. I said.

"If I do get a message it will probably be from my gran or grandad and I bet they'll warn me about drinking so much". This was meant to be a joke.

And there it was, there was no way that medium could have heard that conversation. she then proceeded to communicate with the spirit of my girlfriends sisters friend who died in a car accident and described him and his mannerisms extremely accurately and gave her a message saying he was sorry for driving too fast and causing the accident. The medium then passed other weirdly accurate messages to other people in the audience.

So yea it didn't have me reaching for a bible and repenting my sins but it has made me think a lot. I came away from the evening quite shocked, it was difficult to take in for me, I'm the sort of person who needs proof to believe these things are seemingly, there it was, right in front of me. Everyone else was really cool with it, as if talking to ghosts was totally normal and I was sat there pretty wide eyed and pale.

My girlfriends family have been a few times and they have seen some bad mediums who are really quite vague and rubbish and they said this lady we had was one of the best, she was blunt, straight to the point with no waffling around to try and get clues. I'll probably go again because this stuff interests me but then again, that's what the spirits said too.

Drugs, domestic abuse and ballet?

So the other day I saw Black Swan. When I first saw the film being advertised I had the exact same reaction any narrow minded male has when confronted with a film seemingly about grace and culture; 'that looks fucking shit'. However the more I learned about the film the more interested I became. 'Stunning, mesmerising, dark and disturbing', these were some of the one word reviews that started to appear and I began to give it more of a chance.

Then came the facebook reviews literally everyone who had seen it before me said it was amazing and everyone needed to see it. So I gave in and took my long suffering girlfriend to watch it and what a twisted surprise it turned out to be.

The film is about ballet dancer Nina Sayers and what happens to her when she lands the dream role in an adaptation of Swan Lake. Pretty dull stuff at first glance but then she begins a quick decent into madness when she takes the role of the black swan a little too literally.

It is a very dark and especially disturbing film with many different overlapping relationships between characters that are never fully explained which adds to the gloomy feeling of the film. Natalie Portman is definitely perfect for the shy unassuming ballet dancer ready to be corrupted, even if she does look like she needs to snaffle a couple of burgers, but she plays the part perfectly and the relationship between her and her ultra weird mother makes for some harrowing scenes.

Black Swan is shot almost like a horror film with jumpy camera shots and intense close ups. I cant really say a lot else about the film itself because I watched it not really knowing a lot about it and in my opinion it's the best way to watch it. I thoroughly recommend this film to everyone and it is one of the best shot and acted films I've seen in a while.

Plus I had no idea professional ballet could be so sleazy and rock and roll, obviously this probably isn't a truthful insight into the world of British ballet but I like to think it might be, especially one scene in the film anyway......

So yea if you like your culture and arts laced with manic depression, self harm, sexual liberation and drugs get Black Swan in your life.

Me and the X factor

I know this was all over weeks ago but I thought it might be vaguely interesting. So, me and the X Factor, we have a particularly one sided relationship. Basically I hate it with such intent that I don't think I can put down into words what I would do to the people responsible for broadcasting this piece of televisual plague.

I got so angry watching it with my girlfriend that I decided to blog about it but instead of ranting about it for 300 words I thought I would try and uncover WHY I hate it so much and finally give myself closure.

Part of me would actually quite like to enjoy the program even in an ironic sense like most people do. It would be nice to get to Saturday evening and look forward to something on the television instead of transforming into a depressed miser who sits behind his laptop cursing the X Factor and shouting obscenities at Simon Cowell. The only time I can remember getting excited about television was when Walking With Dinosaurs and Band Of Brothers was first aired.

I think I can break down my dislike into a few key areas the first being awkward television, I hate it I find it genuinely difficult to watch television that makes me feel uncomfortable. What is more uncomfortable than watching some poor loser haul themselves up in front of the 'judges' and sing in a voice so terrible it makes your very soul weep. Why would anyone let their friend or family member embarrass themselves so spectacularly in front of the nation, SURELY someone would have said 'I'm sorry but your singing makes me feel like I have wronged you in some way because I don't understand why you would put me through that please don't enter the X Factor'. Maybe people are genuinely that cruel.

The second area is the sort of music it promotes and produces: Pop. Arguably the worst genre in the world in my opinion with only a handful or artists I probably wouldn't kill with fire if given the chance. The whole show is a horrible celebration of bad haircuts, shallow personalities and terrible fashion choices. Unfortunately the show is responsible for some of the worst artists and music in the industry at the moment and yes some may say 'just don't listen to it' but its difficult when their songs are used across many different platforms, television adverts/ shows, shop music, radio play, documentaries but to name a few.

The third aspect is the drama. I've not watched a lot of it but a large proportion of what I have seen is rammed full of weeping individuals having a break down because they've been working really hard for all of 5 weeks and it hasn't quite come out like they expected. I don't want to see people being miserable, it makes me miserable!

The last reason is simon cowell I deliberately neglected to capitalise his name as a sort of 'fuck you' to him, petty and grammatically incorrect, I know. But yea him, in his entirety and everything he has done or will ever be responsible for makes me hate him and I will always hate him.

On the other hand the final is OK because the show then does what it should have always done - celebrate peoples talent and help them to progress. Watching professionals doing their job and singing well is nice, you get a good feeling from it but the best feeling is knowing it is almost over for another year. It was nice to see some round faced chap win and see how happy it made him I mean who doesn't like to see that it's just a shame I've already forgotten his name and he'll only be popular for about 20 minutes.

This show does however make a lot of people very happy and I can see the appeal which is why as much as it pains me to say it, it will be around for a very long time to come maybe I should just jump on the bandwagon, swallow my pride and enjoy it. Or I could just go back to shouting obscenities and wishing a studio light would come crashing down on top of cowells flat top head, yea, I think I'll do that.

Why I hate most people who like music.

So one of my favourite bands, Architects, released a new video recently titled Day in Day out and it was some of the comments left underneath the video that led me to writing this post.

Architects are a metal band, some may say progressive metal which is sort of true but if you want to classify them in a basic genre they are most definitely metal. The band have pretty much gone from strength to strength since forming in 2004 and have acquired a strong fan base through their hugely technical riffs and ferocious vocals. They are also most rad to watch live. I've seen them 3 times, just putting that out there.

The Here and Now is the title of Architects newest album and upon first listening it is different from the last 3 albums that have made them so popular. Day In Day Out is a mix of more melodical riffs with the same venomous vocals but instead they have also included some normal harmony vocals as well. Some would argue that it sounds more 'pop punk' than metal which upsets some narrow minded goons.

This is where, apparently, they have gone 'wrong' according to some so called fans on the page where I found these comments. Because the band have changed their sound slightly they are 'selling out' and becoming mainstream. Now what upsets me is that if you are a true fan you should respect the bands decision to take a new direction, after all, that is how bands progress.

I understand some peoples concern because I do prefer my vocals sounding like they come from satan with a throat infection but I also understand that if you are in a band professionally trying to make money a change in direction sometimes freshens things up and creates new income for them. This in turn allows bands to keep making music for the people that enjoy it and after all isn't that what music is all about anyway?

I for one am welcoming the new album with open, clenched fisted arms and although I've only heard a couple of tracks it still sounds as gloriously brutal as ever. People need to get a grip and realise bands are not around to stay underground to make your Itunes and ego look equally as good they need to make a living too and I would rather see my favourite bands progress and sound a little different than fall apart and quit.

Sorry guys rant over here is where I found the video and some of the douchebag comments that angered me so:

http://www.altpress.com/aptv/video/exclusive_architects_uk_day_in_day_out_video/

See if you get as annoyed as I did.

65 Days of Static, Kong at the Oxford Academy.

It was an instrumental sort of night in Oxford last week but not the sort of instrumental music you can sit down and relax to. No this is the sort of instrumental music that makes you want to punch people in the throat one minute and weep with lonely sorrow the next. This is the sort of music 65 Days of Static and Kong make.

Kong were the first band I saw of the night and I must admit I had never heard them before so I wasn't really sure what to make of them. At first glance they look utterly ridiculous dressed all in red wearing those super freaky see through clown masks, this band clearly like their theatrics. Kong sounded like 65 days younger angrier sibling following the same instrumental route but favoured disjointed, messy riffs compared to the more refined 65 days approach.

In difference to 65 Days Kong had included vocals which were at some points better suited to a punk metal gig which lead to a few confused and slightly scared looks from some of the crowd, clearly not expecting such a viscous noise. Kong is a particularly apt name for this band and their powerful, primal and sometimes scary noise. Plus they are clearly fucking insane.

With song names like Blood of a Dove and Whet Your Knives you know Kong are out to intimidate, frighten and bludgeon your ear drums into submission. If you are a fan of 65 Days slightly harder material I strongly recommend looking this band up.

This is Kongs video for Leather Penny, probably says more than I ever could.



And so with Kongs visceral noise still bouncing around my skull 65 Days of Static took to the stage. In my opinion this band is a musical equivalent of an excellent shag. They tease the listener with tantalising instrumental opening that slowly become more and more powerful before exploding into a glorious orgy of crashing guitars, pounding drumbeats and harmonious synths.

They played through a collection of new and old songs and my two personal favourites Retreat! Retreat! and the near on perfect Radio Protector. If you have never heard this band before they are fully instrumental and let their musical talent do all the talking for them. This is good honest instrumental rock with a hefty dose of emotion thrown into the mix. They are a joy to watch live and my only regret is that I'm yet to see them at a festival because I imagine watching them teamed with a spectacular light show would probably reduce me to a weeping mess. Here's Radio Protector and I honestly think no one can dislike this song.

Rinoa, While She Sleeps, Hold To This and Sons of the Sand.

Rinoa said a final farewell to their fans this year as they gigged for the last ever time with support from While She Sleeps, Hold To This and Sons of the Sand. This time they brought their savage noise to The Croft in Bristol.

The venue itself was pretty basic, the best sort of environment for this sort of gig. There was also a local Grindcore/Death Metal mini festival playing on the other stage downstairs which attracted an interesting mix of two scenes for each gig.

So after nearly walking into the wrong gig I made my way to watch the first band on the bill, Sons of the Sand, in a room only about twice the size of my living room. These guys weren't your typical hardcore band they had slightly more melody and included long instrumental sections throughout their songs. However they did leave in the harsh vocals to my delight.

Hold To This are a more traditional example of hardcore. Think heavy riffs laced with snarling punk vocals rather than screaming. They were an excellent choice to follow Sons of the Sand because they were slightly more energetic and woke me up a bit. The lead singer had all the right attitude and swagger for a up and coming hardcore band and spent most of the gig in the crowd starting pits and shouting in peoples faces. In a slightly more touching moment one of the people on the receiving end of this treatment was the lead singers dad who then got a little kiss on the cheek after the song. Awww.




Probably my favourite band of the night While She Sleeps rolled out with all the dramatics and arrogance of a hardcore metal band picking up momentum within the current scene. These Sheffield metalers know how to entertain and perform a solid set. All 5 members of the band thrashed around the stage, jumped up and down for the entire set clearly still keen to be recognised as the next name in metal. I like this though there is nothing worse than a band playing energetic music and staying still. The band played through pretty much all of their début album 'The North Stands For Nothing' and judging by their performance these guys should expect good things to happen. By the way be careful if you fancy google imaging these guys you might get a graphic surprise if your safe search is off.

Finally Rinoa took the stage for one of their last ever shows and they performed with all teh emotion and power of a band wishing to end on a particularly high note. For anyone not familiar with Rinoa they sound more like the first band on rather than While She Sleeps and sometimes some songs sound similar but you can't ignore their talent. Arguably more instrumental than vocal orientated this is more rhythmic hardcore. When the vocals do kick in however they had such an abrasive harshness I did actually wonder if the lead singer had damaged his vocal cords. So after performing a blistering set Rinoa said a last emotional goodbye to Bristol and left the stage to a rapturous applause.