Launch!

It was time for a change and I had big ideas about lots of blogs all together.  I am delighted to say I have finally finished my new site, All Five Horizons.  Please redirect your bookmarks and readers as follows:

All five horizons home page - complete feed to all 5 blogs

Journal blog - feed

TV and film blog - feed

Music blog - feed

Book blog - feed

Craft blog - feed

All the posts have been imported into the relevant parts of the new blog and this blog will remain up but will no longer be updated.

Thank you to all my readers and I hope to see you at the new place!

The new Weezer video is ACE

New Look

I have changed the theme on this relatively new blog already because although I loved the old theme, I wanted to bring the look into line with my other blogs ready for the GREAT MERGER, although this is still some time in the distance.  I was also fed up with the lack of widgets.  The header photo was taken on out trip to Ireland in January 2007.

Love love is a verb

Love is a doing word.

I can’t get enough of this song.

Must be your skin that I’m sinking in

This song makes me song funny inside.  That voice…

Bush - Glycerine

Sing as their bones go marching in

For my own benefit as much as anything, I am going to attempt something I have been meaning to do for a long time, namely, list all the bands I have seen live. This will involve a lot of research to remind myself what year (and if I can find it, venue) I saw them. I have started a new page where I will build my list - I will post each time I make a significant update.  This is the list so far with upcoming gigs (well, gig) and 2007’s shows:

Upcoming:

Foo Fighters, Wembley Stadium, London

2007

Stereophonics, NEC, Birmingham
Foo Fighters NEC, Birmingham
Serj Tankian, NEC Birmingham
Foo Fighters, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
Snow Patrol, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
Pink, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
Kanye West, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
The Fray, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
The Thrills, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
Dizzie Rascal, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
The Hoosiers, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
The Fratellis, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire
Goo Goo Dolls, V2007, Weston Park, Staffordshire

I would have seen more at V but it rained on Saturday meaning we ended up drinking FAR too much Lilt with vodka and so we went to bed while Kasabian were on the stage.  Rock n roll.

Time grabs you by the wrist

One of the best gigs I have been to was the Green Day concert at Milton Keynes bowl in June 2005 (how was it nearly 3 years ago?  God, that’s scary).  This is a band that really knows how to work the crowd, play some rocking music and also inspire young (and not so young) kids all at the same time.  I challenge you to find me one person of the 65,000 there that did not get blown away.  And if you do find them, give them a slap from me.  The weather was perfect - hot and sunny - and the beer was flowing.  We had our good friends around us.  The gig itself was a perfect mix of all the old favourites, the new (at the time) American Idiot album and a couple of kooky covers thrown in for good measure.  They got some kids up on the stage to jam with them (I choose to believe these weren’t plants!).  We bought the live album and everytime I listen to that, I get goosebumps. 

 

Lets escape into the music

I have just bought a few songs that put me in the best mood! They are 100% uncool but if you spend too much time worrying about that sort of thing then you will be sorry when you are 90 and you realise you have never danced around your bedroom to Taylor Dayne. What a sad day that will be.

So anyway, if I buy single songs these days it is usually because I have heard them on an advert, in a film or TV show and only occasionally if I heard it on the radio. This morning, I had a terrible journey into work but it was ok because I was bopping in my car to Rihanna’s Don’t Stop the Music and the deliciously 80s sounding Fascination by Alphabeat: two songs which I am sure go very much against the rock-ethic but then, see above. ITunes is completely deadly for this sort of thing because 79p seems such a little number to own a song that makes you sing and smile and happy. Fiest’s 1234, the ukulele version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow (which I am well aware is intensely irritating to many) and New Soul by Yael Naïm all make me happy too. Yesterday, I got caught singing at the top of my lungs to the Buffy musical soundtrack only the car next to me didn’t know that. All they knew is that I was really into what I was singing.

Soundtrack meme

If Your Life Were a Movie…What Would the Soundtrack Be?? Thanks to Spiral Skies, this is mine.

First, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…because you’re not!
7. Stick the soundtrack on your mp3 player and listen away during the day.

I am quite worried about how this will reveal just how much of a dork I am. I do have some very cool music in my ipod but for Pearl Jam’s ying there is Britney Spears’s yang. Without much further ado:

Opening Credits: Faith - George Michael

Waking Up: All Apologies - Nirvana (live)

First Day at School: Naive - The Kooks

Falling in Love: Are We Waiting - Green Day (live)

Fight Song: The Show Must Go On - Queen

Breaking Up: Little Green - Joni Mitchell

Prom/Dance/Ball: Good Life - Kanye West

Life’s OK: Come On Over - Institute

Mental Breakdown: God Bless the Child - Billie Holiday (I would so need Billie Holiday if I were to have a mental breakdown!)

Flashback: Hard to Concentrate - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Getting Back Together: Rape Me - Nirvana (unfortunate!)

Birth of Child: Funeral Song - Rasmus (what a shame this didn’t come up for the last song)

Wedding: Macy’s Day Parade - Green Day

Final Battle: Ta-Gana/Saturday Night from 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack

Funeral Song: Cry me a River - Justin Timberlake (I shit you not!)

End Credits: Anything but Ordinary - Avril Lavigne (how apt)

So, not as embarrassing as it could be. Did I dodged the Fame bullet, at least. What about your soundtrack?

I’ll do this one myself

As you may have guessed from the blog title, I count Pearl Jam as one of my all-time favourite bands. As an impressionable teenager, it is Pearl Jam that first introduced me to the fully immersive musical experience. I felt Eddie Vedder’s joy and his pain. Mike McCready’s lead guitar made me hold my breath. Jeff Ament’s bass guitar made my soul shiver. Stone Goddard’s rhythm guitar kept me dancing to the band’s first album Ten for hours at a time. The language here is purposely overwrought because when you are sixteen, every note means something, every lyric speaks to you and you fall in crush with the good-looking, tortured lead singer so hard it makes you feel like you will never know real love. I wore out my MTV Unplugged VHS tape during my first year of university (thank god for YouTube). In fact, that tape along with the 1993 VMAs looked after me during those scary first freshman weeks away from my steady boyfriend, friends and family. I went on to enjoy their subsequent albums and though my love of their new music is not as fervent as it was, no other band can give me a thrill that I get when I hear the opening bars of State of Love and Trust.

So here is song that inspired the blog title and the band that made me a sometimes rock chick.