Saturday 13 November 2010

COLOURS ALL LEAK

http://coloursallleak.wordpress.com/

Wednesday 30 June 2010

But where did she go?

To a place where hours of petty browsing, stalking, bitching and wild inaccurate assumptions by cowards no longer exist.

To a place where I choose who I want to keep in touch with and where real friends can keep in touch with me.

See ya....

A Little Time



Amazing song and such a perfect video for it...

Wednesday 16 June 2010

I wish I could afford a drug habit

Word on the east London streets...a new favourite drug is in town...it's called BROWN...

To say I was angry when I heard this is what my peers and acquaintances now choose to dabble in on top of Ket, Meph and everything else they call their trivial pursuits, is a mild understatement.

"Can I get into your night for free, mate? Cos I've got no money and can't afford the £3 door entry that goes towards paying the band, artists and you for putting this night on. Cheers luv."

"I'm so fucking broke but yet I always seem to have money for booze, fags and drugs...."


I am sick of all you useless layabouts who originally moved to London to allegedly find like-minded creatives and make something of your lives. Surely there's no such thing as peer pressure in your fucking mid 20s?!! What have you actually achieved? What will you leave behind when you leave this world? Have you any ambitions or goals as an artist? What art have you actually created?

I finally have a funded opportunity to follow what I actually love doing however being in London right now and around a bunch of totally uninspiring people makes me want to head for the hills and relocate.

I came from a supportive, financially stable background. However when I left home at 18 I swore that I would never rely on or ask my parents for money. They have spent their entire lives (and continue to do so in their 60s) working so damn fucking hard. It is not my birthright to take their money. I forge my own path in life even if that means I can only afford a lower standard of living to my family's expectations.

It is only rich ponces on the current scene who can afford the latest threads, records, instruments and drugs who go round claiming to be flat broke. They are not artists and they are not cool. They are absolute losers who get mummy and daddy to pay for the warehouse apartment in London Fields.

THIS ISN'T AN ARTISTIC COMMUNITY. IT IS A WASTE OF SPACE FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO GET TRASHED.

I WANT OUT.

Saturday 29 May 2010

GOOD NAME

The most perfect song I've heard whilst drinking a bottle of Jamesons in the back of a van with a load of Finnish boys.



good name – william onyeabor












MP3 search on MP3hunting

Friday 28 May 2010

Neil Kinnock! I mean, Arthur Scargill! I mean....grrrrrr!



I have nothing to do with modern journalism and everything to do with literature...Except for this week that is; Loud & Quiet interview with Blue On Blue, i-D Magazine interview for The Birds & Nick Knight and an interview with The Independent about The George Tavern, jumble sales and the recession.

Official platforms to rant and rave...who would have thought.....I'm kicking myself for mentioning Neil Kinnock instead of Arthur Scargill in The Independent. BIG difference and hopefully they won't put that bit in. Those who know me will realise that this schoolgirl error has cost me a lifetime of lost sleep...Grrrrr.....

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Stick to your guns...


The last 2 weeks have been INSANE.

The day I finally decided to speak to someone professionally about what I can only assume has been a life long depression I always thought I would grow out of, I received a call offering me my dream job. I was about to give up hope on EVERYTHING.

The very day my entire life savings ran dry, I received my first wages from my new job. It felt like something somewhere was meant to be happening. I haven't felt like that in such a long time. I know there'll be plenty more dark days ahead at some point but hopefully I'll read this back and remember that there was a time when I felt like I had been SAVED.

I also received a pretty strange request to play bass in a T4 presenters punk band while being financially renumerated £200 a day. YES, A FUCKING DAY. I was shocked and intrigued at how these dark media forces knew about me and was also pretty proud of myself for saying a big, fat, resolute NO.

HOWEVER...

Me being me and with the old cogs turning at 120 bpm a minute, I am now questioning whether I would have said no if this offer had come by 2 weeks ago when I was at my wits end both financially and mentally. Would I have been so low that an offer of a TV stint and a lot of money would have seemed like the right thing to do? It pains me to say it, but I honestly don't know. I would like to think that I would have turned it down but I felt so lost that maybe I would've thought it was my saving grace. Anyway, I suppose it's all rather hypothetical and going back to what I started saying, it felt like that universe was dancing and that my new job at The George Tavern was meant to be for me and not some shitty telly band career.

THANK GOD.

Thank God that I literally did not have to sell my soul to get funds to allow me to continue to be an artist through every means a true artist should not have to take. That would have been something I could never have lived with.

In an interview with Loud & Quiet today in which we were asked about the London music scene, I didn't sound off about pretentious east London bands but the fact that the severe lack of financial support and encouragement for musicians is crushing to any band wanting to take music seriously. My Scandinavian and French musician friends live very comfortably as musicians and the way we live like dogs scavaging scraps is so pitiful. I should not be made to feel like 'dole scum' purely because I choose to dedicate my life to creating something pure which may seem 'unconventional' to the conventional 9-5 masses.

Anyway, this was meant to be a positive post and now it's turned into some sort of a rant!

The future is bright, uncertain, cold, hot and suspicious of change.

Saturday 15 May 2010

People who do nothing with their lives and vicariously try and live through yours

Musicians find their release on stage.
Mere mortals try and find theirs on a Saturday night.
I pity them.
I pity you.

Tuesday 11 May 2010

The Future

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can fly again.

I'm finally taking flight....

My new home:



Y E S

Saturday 8 May 2010

Cheer up Goth



It's easy to moan and complain about everything that's not right in the world and in my life but I'm now taking concerted steps to rant about the good, happy things in my life.

I had the most splendid evening tonight. I was a litle apprehensive about how Decasia would go in a new venue but it was one of the best nights in a long time, especially after the chaos and drama that my last club night ended in - a huge bitter bar brawl and people being mugged at knifepoint. Surely things couldn't get any worse than that? Thankfully they didn't.

The music was pure and dirty rock n' roll on vinyl only. Roots music that was originally banned and considered to risque for the then youth of the day. It was fun to play such an old school set and people were really into it.

The highlight of tonight was friends old and new coming along to support. It meant a lot. I've been struggling quite a lot socially with frequent panic attacks and an unwanted sense of disdain and detachment towards just about everything and everyone. However tonight I felt reconnected and and recharged. Old friends like D and M who I've missed so greatly and Tim who is a guardian angel that pays me a visit every time I am feeling so terribly low and manages to cheer me up to such a great high. Seeing him tonight reminded me of where I was a year ago when we recorded with him. The week we spent recording with him gave me a real confidence and love for what I was doing again. Tim is a real star, a real musician and a genuine artist.

I feel humbled and so thankful to know such renowned, legendary artists. Thank you, thank you, thank you.........

Friday 7 May 2010

Disappear

I WISH I COULD

Monday 3 May 2010

Desert Baby


My first ever holiday...a trip to Egypt when I was less than a year old. I am the blue blob being carried by my mother in these photos. I think the dust settled inside my blood as I have been fascinated with the place for as long as I can remember. Egypt is the country I have visited most in the world.

I hope to go back this year or next.

My family on the Great Pyramid



It's only when you look at pictures like this that you realise how vast the architecture is and how fragile we humans are. How did they do it?

Friday 30 April 2010

Bodies

Kick it
Cut it
Stab it
Bruise it
Lick it
Penetrate it
Hurt it
Bleed it
Discharge it
Hate it
Hide it

My body reacts so violently against yours. I don't understand why.

Sunday 25 April 2010

Ye Olde Arse


All of a sudden people want to take photos of us. By us I mean Blue On Blue. I'm thoroughly appreciative but one of my pet hates is having my photograph taken. I hate posing and being arrogant and so I look at posed photographs epitomising everything I hate. However, I love taking photos of everything around me so that makes me well and truly some sort of hypocrite. Possibly.

Anyway, our shoot with David last week was great - I absolutely adore the photos as they really document the band, our music and also our individual characters. Also I really wanted the shoot to be at one of my most favourite places - Shoreditch Church. We played two of our best Bird gigs there (one of those times being a massive stage invasion which was my most favourite moment on stage ever) and I spend a lot of time there when I am in one of my contemplative moods.

We've been asked to do another shoot this week and this time the photographer has chosen another reputable east end establishment - the infamous strip joint Ye Olde Axe on Hackney Road. I actually paid the rather low entrance fee of £3 and went there with two friends when I first moved to the area a few years ago. Now I've been to two strip joints in my time here on earth (the second being Sunset Strip in Soho which was £10 to get in), and both times I've initially been turned away for being a woman and then once in there, have been continually harassed to get my tits out by the punters. Also it kind of gets annoying when the strippers come swinging by for change all the time. I mean, even the ugly ones.

Anyway, Ye Olde Axe is not only full of eastern European and east end loverlees but also ghosts. Lots of them. Yep, it is well and truly haunted and therefore I'm going to have to take some lucky charms with me on the shoot. I don't own any but may buy a charm bracelet from Argos in advance.

Info about the hauntings:
Ye Olde Axe, 69 Hackney Road
Undergoing major rebuilding work in the 1970's, the remains of two bodies were recovered from beneath it - the sounds that followed, coming from the building late at night convinced many the dead didn't appreciate being disturbed.

I really hope our experience won't be like that of the Happy Mondays on Most Haunted. I watched it over Christmas, haven't laughed that hard in YEARS.

Look Out It's In The Trees! It's Coming!



One of my favourites from our shoot with David.

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Deleting the past and erasing the future


Sometimes I look back on this blog and shudder with regret and embarassment. Did I really think and feel those things and why did I decide to share them?

Originally, it was just me, my thoughts, a dark night, cyberspace and the random fear/excitement that an unknown stranger may stumble across these confused words. It was my ethereal Dear Diary.

I am often torn between trying not to express myself and over-expressing myself. I am openly obsessed with confessional writers but did they too share these aching pangs of regret? I will never know.

The only year I decided to keep an actual diary ended up being the worst year of my life. Everything that could have gone wrong mentally, physically and with all my relationships did so in the most catastrophic way. I have never really ever gotten over that year. Every time I feel I have forgotten it, some vague wisp of memory floors me with the weight of solid unhappiness. When I go home to visit my parents, I know the diary lurks in my old bedroom, taunting me to open it up and relive those awful memories once again. Perhaps I should throw it away and hopefully I will feel cleansed.

As much as my own diary-writing experience was so horrendous, I do still believe that there is a beauty in confiding and enscribing your thoughts pen to paper and in your own keepsake. As much as I can write openly about my feelings, there are some thoughts, longings and fears that will always remain stashed away in my mind and never revealed. I suppose that gives me some solace.

I attempted to deal with my diary experience a few years ago relating to an exhibition I curated in July 2008 at Whitechapel Art Gallery about modern nostalgia. I interviewed some friends about why they chose to keep a diary. The only person whose answer I can find is Faris Badwan's below.

How long have you kept a diary for?
Since I was three, unwillingly at first.

What first made you decide to keep one?
I was forced to by my schoolteachers. Gradually began enjoying it.

Are these wholly private or have you shared these with others?
Some pages have been published.

Is your diary - a typical diary e.g. about your day, a log book of thoughts, lyrics, drawings or all of the above?
All, and I have different diaries with different content, themes, pen sizes etc usually being filled in tandem.

If it’s an amalgamation of all of them, have you thought about separating these out - a book of thoughts, a book of drawings, a book of lyrics?
Would it affect your personal thought process
reaching for a different book each time?

I carry three different books with me usually.


Is a diary merely another thought compartment, does it really help to express yourself or is it just a physical store of personal confusion?

I spend so much time waiting, in queues, on the tube...inevitably end up thinking a lot - writing down some of these thoughts helps me to focus and concentrate more and in turn generate more ideas.

Recently, a collection of drawings from your notebooks were exhibited in London. How did it feel to see the public react to drawings that came from a very private source?
With the kind of work I do - very little negative space - I feel people get overwhelmed and just say it’s good as a knee-jerk reaction. Basically no one said anything particularly insightful and therefore I didn’t feel that self conscious. If they had been more analytical maybe I would have felt more uncomfortable.

Would you publicly display any other creative work e.g. poems/lyrics etc?
Maybe.

Would you ever keep an electronic diary? Would it affect your ability to express yourself if you typed out your thoughts instead of wrote them?
Typing can be useful editing-wisebut it can never have the same character as hand-written notes or the same level of expression. It depends where the focus is, on the actual words or their meaning.

For me, Wilde’s ‘De Profundis’ is a massive inspirational piece of personal contemplation. Have you read published diaries of others? Have any particularly interested you and why?
A lot of the art I like has an obsessive quality to it, the desire to document everything, found objects etc. Raymond Pettibon, Egon Schiele, Marcel Dzama.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

The Beauty of Maps


Yes! Finally, an interesting TV programme made for the likes of me:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s3v0t/The_Beauty_of_Maps_Medieval_Maps_Mapping_the_Medieval_Mind/

Friday 16 April 2010

Keep it LOCAL

New favourite (and slighty granny) website:

http://www.parishregister.com/areamaps.html

I have a growing fascination with churches, particularly in my local area. This has made me slightly intrigued by people who run local archive websites. Gone are the days where you spot brown corduroy-loving, damp and slightly smelly people hanging about in libraries spending hours going through microfiche working out if they are related to Hattie Smythe or Florence Booth; you know, the type of people who lose sleep when they can't remember what The Hebridean Times headline was on May 13th 1856. Are these people hiding behind screens in their loft feeding curiously interested people like me strange and delightful facts and statistics over the internet? Do they check how many hits they have got every 15 minutes while dunking their hobnobs in their tea? I do hope so!

The creepiest thing about all of this is that I'm turning into one of those people.

As the days go by, I have less and less time for other people and therefore reluctantly have to put up with more and more time with myself. Ugh. I hate clubs as the few times I go to them, I come home feeling really empty wondering why I've wasted yet another evening feeling awkward and confused about who I am and who I am hanging round with. Challenging and stimulating conversations are getting less frequent and that deeply worries me. Who am I and how did I end up here? And more importantly, why am I feeling the need to google the etymology of Bethnal Green at 4am on a Saturday?

I have become rather too attached to London (despite threatening and considering a move far, far away on a weekly basis) and I want to keep it local. I get perturbed when I see new flats being built where a park used to be or seeing yet another 19th century church being converted into flats for the city boys.

However my thoughts and explorations are for me and for those who are equally interested in local history. I mean, there is going the other extreme and declaring everything shit, crap and useless to a bunch of imbeciles. For example, there is a massively annoying Facebook group called Secret London which has a whopping 5,757 fans. Do I really want to 'discover the hidden gems of London, join Secret London. Post great places to see in London, giving details of locating it.' No. FUCK OFF.

What are these 6,000 idiots discussing and revealing to each other? Are they arranging to go rambling in Richmond Park or talking about fresh new galleries on Redchurch street?

Here is a recent post:

'CALLNIG ALL SINGLE GIRLS AND GUYS - new Justin Lee Collins chatshow filmed in SE London, looking for people to take part in fun dating game next week. Get in touch asap jlcaudience@tigeraspect.co.uk' posted by Toby Brack.

Jesus fucking christ!!

Yes.

I know.

I need to move to Royston Valley...

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Path to Plath


I am back in my own bed tonight...the first time in over a month. I have missed my room but have felt so apprehensive to return to it. I don't know why, perhaps I have enjoyed flat-sitting much more than I expected. On a completely different note, I am beginning to worry about my (mis)use of prepositions. Being out of education and work for a couple of years has made me feel the need to dumb myself down. It is very bizarre. All those years of education wasted merely because I choose to keep company and activities in the evenings and not during the day. Tell that to the student loans company...

Anyway, old habits die hard and not having a TV (I've been watching it like a maniac over the last month; a decade of TV abstinence well and truly broken), has made me read again. That's why I like this messy, filled with musical equipment and nothing practical room! It makes me read, create and make music! It's good to be back...

I have been reacquainting myself with Sylvia Plath this evening and in particular, her poetry. It sounds like a truly cliched thing to be doing but my love for confessional poets like Plath and Anne Sexton are equal to my love for music. I identify with their words greatly but I feel uneasy at feeling easy with their volatile and uncomfortable subject matter. After reading the thesis on female poets and mental health, 'I Bask In Dreams Of Suicide', I unwillingly have in the back of my mind that I fit this female poets suffer from gloom and doom stereotype. I usually only write and create when I am down and I am unsure why I don't feel the urge to put pen to paper when I am happy. Those thoughts are no less worthy from sad ones. Perhaps I find them harder to express.

However confessional writing is not for everyone and most people find it very hard to interact with. A friend recently sent me a message in regards to a photograph I had posted up on a blog: http://thequietriots.blogspot.com/2009/06/53-rhydypenau-road.html and said how he found it inconceivable that I could write so openly about such things. However for me, writing is the only way I can share a lot about myself whether it be imaginative, humorous, trivial or extremely personal. I find it very hard to do it through any other medium.

Anyway, I enjoyed the poem below this evening. 100% of the women I know think like this so that gives us a massive unity bond of MADNESS. Grrrl power and all that....

Mad Girl's Love Song
Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Howrah Station April 1988

I knew what he did was wrong.

The air was a vacuum of damp sticky heat, heavy hot breaths and persistent sweat with the large exasperated sighs of the heaving steam trains releasing even more hot air into the Kolkata skies. I saw you had your eyes on Dad as he confidently marched forwards holding my sister's hand, trying to part the crowds so we could follow through. Losing sight of them in this muddle of noise and confusion would have been terrifying. A cacophony of chaos, men and railway children.

You gripped my hand tighter as we approached the platform as the crowds got thicker, denser and closer.

It happened so quickly. In an overheated haze it felt wrong and I didn't like it. I didn't know which one of the million anonymous faces the innocence-stealing hand belonged to but now, twenty two years later, I clearly remember its hard, inappropriate grip.

I looked up at you when I wanted to cry. But I knew telling you would hurt you so much more than it had hurt me. I would rather be eternally haunted by the stranger in the crowd and for you to never know it happened. I should have been shielded with you by my side and Dad and sister in front of me. I should have been as safe as I was when I was in your womb.

But he still managed to touch me, Mum.

Thursday 18 March 2010

Bandit Queen


You think you're having a tough day when everyone disappoints you and you freak out about where the hell and who the hell to turn to in your life and then you realise there are always people with more troublesome, harsher, 'real' lives than yours and that you are in fact nothing but a total drama queen.

REALITY CHECKED...PHOOLAN DEVI
Phoolan Devi was a low-caste Indian woman heralded by the masses as an incarnation of the Goddess Durga. She rose from poverty, rape, abuse and degradation to infamy as an outlaw, avenging her honor, raiding the rich with her gang, and sharing the spoils with the poor. She was assassinated in a revenge killing in 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I remember catching Shekhar Kapoor's Bandit Queen film late at night in my early teenage-insomnia-leading-to-disturbing-film-watching-years and being shocked and fascinated by the movie. It was only a few years later when I was old enough to understand the severity of the social injustices demonstrated against her and the impact that her own decisions of avenging them made for both women and ethnic minorities. The horrific plight of one woman who did use violent means to highlight her cause spoke out for the millions of other women who faced and continue to face these ongoing social injustices that unfortunately are still deemed acceptable in countries like India; the ridiculously rigid fanaticism of the Caste system, child-adult marriages, the mistreatment of women as second class citizens and the shockingly disproportionate gap between the rich and the poor.

My father is Indian and my mother is Nepalese and although they have only lived in India for just under a year of their 30 year marriage, my parents are still made to feel actuely aware by first and second generation Indians in this country that they have married out of caste and it is still severely frowned upon. I doubt the views of a second generation immigrant musician female of mixed Asian parentage will ever be able to cause ripples or speak volumes but tonight, I light a candle for a woman whose life and death certainly brought some of these ongoing social injustices to the surface even for a short time; PHOOLAN DEVI.

Sunday 14 March 2010

What else should I be?


EEK. That was fun. A completely impromptu jam turned into Samir (Kurt) and I (Dave) forming a Blue On Blue spin-off, well, a Nirvana tribute band to be precise, NOVANA!
http://www.myspace.com/hellonovana

Now this got me thinking about something that I have managed to completely avoid in my entire music-loving life, the "art" of tribute bands. The Rollin' Clones, Red Not Chili Peppers, Nearvana...the list is endless. I've never seen a tribute band play but after a bit of YouTubing ( I believe that this is a new 21st century verb, correct?), I'm really intrigued by how far and seriously some people take it! Samir asked me if he should bleach his hair and this made me question my own commitment to this project. I replied by asking his advice on whether I should have a sex change. I mean, I have always said in the past that I would go to any lengths for music....In fact, make it 7 inches.....

A few of my favourites below:
Korean Killer Queen band!


Guns 4 Roses


Jimi Hendrix Experience

Thursday 4 March 2010

Proud of my roots. But who am I?

I don't have a place that I'm from or a family home that generations of my family have lived in for years. I am a nomad born and bred and this continual sense of restlessness will fill my bones until I die.

Being born of mixed Asian parentage and living a life which took me across all towns and borders shaped my tendency to make new friends quickly and throw all sentiment and longing out the window. I have never lived anywhere for longer than 2 years and went to 15 schools. So when people ask me where are you from, I look at them and say "London. The east end to be precise."

I've lived in London for 10 years and in the east end for almost 10 years. I've lived in Mile End, Stepney Green, Bow and now Bethnal Green. I love it here. It is my life and it is my home. I still have uncontrollable urges to travel the world but I feel London will always be my home. I came here seeking an education and to find and establish my own creativity as well as meet other like-minded souls.

Lately I've been exploring it a lot more than I used to. I spend days off going to museums, churches, anywhere....In particular, I have started exploring the east end more. There are fantastic buildings here - old and new - and I want to document them and learn about their history. I am proud of the east end's historic and cultural roots and feel it is something that should be shared hence I have started doing more local themed club nights like Blackchapel and Victorian Punk which was inspired by Clement Attlee's 'In Limehouse' poem.

Anyway, here are some photographs from my little walk around my neighbourhood today:

Steeple Court formerly St Bartholomew's Church
Bethnal Green, St. Bartholomew, Coventry Street (Essex, later Buckurst Street) [1844] 1941 Bomb damage, re-opened 1955. United to St. Simon Zelotes 1978. Church closed 1983, converted to flats.


St Bartholomews Gardens



The second church, dedicated to St. Bartholomew the Less, is situated in Lamb's-fields, at a short distance from the Mile-end station of the Eastern Counties' Railway. Like St. James's Church, it is in the early English style, with lancet-headed windows; the material, light brick with stone dressings.
Extract from Illustrated London News", 8th June 1844

Orion House, Coventry Road


Three Colts Lane

Saturday 30 January 2010

Inadvertently the talk of the town....

Those that are close knew for a while that the end of The Birds was nigh....I didn't really want to go into details on the Bird blog but have every right to vent here...

I meant everything I said about enjoying the live gigs and experiencing some seminal opportunities. However I just don't have the energy for The Birds anymore and I am someone that can't be a shadow in whatever I do...It's all or nothing and if I feel nothing then it's time to walk away.

My major gripes are probably shared experiences of many new bands - the constant lack of funding impinges on most opportunities, 'industry' people who claim they can help but are only great at blowing smoke up your ass and by the time you realise their shortcomings it's too late to repair their destruction of your soul and creativity. The realisation that other priorities within the band were taking over or even the band not being everyone's priority from the start. We should all have been honest with each other from the start rather than misleading your friends. That's pathetic and unforgivable.

Photoshoots and interviews always would take up more time than writing music. People constantly saw us as a 'fashion' band and that terrified me. I hate the way I look and being reminded of it in every opening line of a review 'red lips, fringes, fishnets' stereotyped me into a person I certainly was not and would never be. I am a MUSICIAN. You know that you're not in a real band when the music become secondary. We were not writing or rehearsing anywhere as much as we should've done considering it was a full-time project. That made me so sad and frustrated hence I started outpouring this frustration in what has now become Blue On Blue. Starting afresh really made me realise how numb and unhappy I was feeling in The Birds. The ultimate straw was playing New Years Eve with both ORAL ORAL and The Birds. I loved the ORAL ORAL gig so much but The Birds gig was a complete disaster. It was such a shame....

I don't know what the future holds but I am excited to be rid of old chains and very careful of chains that come in the forms of snakes in the future. Blue On Blue will not be working with industry people in any capacity unless they are trusted 100%. If there is even 1% doubt then follow your instincts and RUN AWAY. Don't let people take you for a ride that kills everything you have strived so hard to achieve. I know who all these people are and I'm watching their game and already laying bets on which acts they will go on to fuck up. Rather you than me.

Saturday 23 January 2010

The first hit is the deepest....



I see we will still be friends this year....

Friday 15 January 2010

Scars Upon My Heart


My book finally arrived today. I was hoping I'd be leafing through its pages over Christmas, buried in thought and inspiration but alas the weather has taken its toll on the mail and it only arrived this morning.

'Scars Upon My Heart' is a compilation of Women's poetry and verse written during the First World War. I have a large affection for the First World War. I remember being 13 and in an English lesson. Until that point, I had been academic but felt no passion for anything. Learning for me was just to pass exams but there was no light inside me that was switched on by the propensity to gain knowledge. Like how I feel about most things in life, I just felt numb.

Anyway, in this particular English lesson, Mrs Saunders (an inspiring, lovely lady whose husband had committed suicide a few years before and who used to spend many a lunchtime confiding to me and in turn I would tell her about my frustrating constant sense of awkwardness and low self-esteem) told us we were going to delve into First World War poetry. Books were handed out, page numbers set and off she went, giving us a brief introduction to each writer's personal story and then read us his work.

I just remember wanting to cry. I felt like someone had dropped a shelf of books on my head and it was too overwhelming for me. I felt...something.

When I was younger, my father worked in the Middle East for a few years. I lived in Saudi Arabia from the age of 8 to 10 and a half. I have extremely happy memories of the place until on one fateful day, we watched the news and heard that Saddam Hussain had invaded Kuwait, our neighbouring country. Our world was turned upside down. All we learnt at school from then on was what to do if there was a bomb alert or a chemical gas attack. MRE's (meals ready to eat) were dispensed by the box load to families like us. We were told to tape up our windows, stock food, water, clothes for we were entering a war.

Before we fled to England, we stopped going to school. Nothing was open except the hospital and that meant my dad still had to go to work everyday. I lost perhaps a year of education. Once the war was over and my father joined us, we moved back to England. Started school and life was back to normal again. We just coped and got on with it. However I never really told people about this experience nor talked about it. It sat there wedged in a space in my head and reading the words of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke just unleashed a rotten, displaced memory.

I look at that English lesson as a pivotal point in my life. Firstly, I had shared purely through reading the words of others, my own war burdens. It is hard to share them in a different country with children whose only relation to my experience was watching it on the BBC News. I suppose in that regards, civillians of the First and Second World Wars all went through their experiences collectively. I was this small sore thumb; lost, confused, nomadic and with a completely solitary experience of war.

Secondly, the words of these poets sparked what has now become my life long love of literature, poetry and prose. I am an avid reader and writer and words are my life. I realised I had a passion that day and that felt like an achievement. I found the love of my life who I have always remained in love and faithful to.

I can't wait to get obsessed with my new book. I shall keep you informed of my progress.

Tuesday 12 January 2010

The Entire Works of Shakespeare...For free....On your phone??!!

I'm not really into technology and snazzy gadgets. I like pressing buttons but I think that's more of my OCD make up rather than technical curiosity.

I've had an iPhone for almost a year and a half. I found out from a friend on New Years Day that you can download loads of free apps. Yes, I had no idea before that point.

Anyway, what I am most excited about is that you can download entire books and works! Shakespeare -plays, sonnets and poems all on my phone, baby! Same goes for Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle and I almost downloaded The Bible but forgot. You never know when Psalm 124 could come in handy.

Saturday 9 January 2010

London's Snoring...


Ugh

It's not the weather that's getting me down but London itself. The big bright city I always dreamt of living and studying in....10 years on and I'm sad to say that my love affair with this city is over.

Like most people who move here, I wanted to be at the crux of the music, art and culture scene. I wanted to watch the bands, go to the clubs, go the galleries that I read in the papers as a teenager. However there were teething problems a) It took me about 5 years to find it (all from one fateful day when I placed an ad for like-minded creatives to get in touch and as a result Soma Soma Scene started) and b) apart from a handful of friends who are actually doing things of interest, what the hell is going on in this town?! c) Pretty much my life received a much-needed spiritual overhaul when I entered The George Tavern and met the most gifted, inspiring, unsung heroes of modern culture.

I am sick of dull, over-priced club nights where the same 5 bands play in rotation. Of course I am a lover of music but the way it's presented and dolled up leaves me feeling less than enthused.

NYE Decasia was meant to be the last one but in the few days afterwards I had an influx of ideas in my mental inbox....things that just needed to be done or else I would die a very restless woman. It is these thoughts which I am now acting on and until they are satisfied, I will be extremely distracted by them.

I feel that most people move to London with very good intentions from a creative point of view. However in reality, it seems to me that most people are excited about the myth of London rather than actually doing anything exciting themselves. They want to make a 'name' for themselves in the easiest, quickest way possible otherwise anything else would take them away from their real perogatives. Most people just want to get drunk every night and sleep around. Infamy and vulgarity can only get you so far. There needs to be substance, substance and substance for without that creativity is dead.

At the moment, I feel like a woman possessed. I have never felt so driven in my life. I reach a personal milestone this year but there is so much that needs to be done beforehand....

Friday 8 January 2010

I get frantic without you...



I must always remember to keep you in my handbag.

Saturday 2 January 2010

New Years/New Purge


2 days into the New Year and I'm literally buzzing.

I feel excited and positive about the year ahead...I want this to year be different and better than the last and will do everything in my power to take control of my life and not let life control me. I'm going to make decisions and stick to them. The bane of my life has always been my inability to stick by decisions I've made. I'm sick of always questioning myself. It drives me insane. It is going to stop now.

I've started running and really enjoy it. It clears my head, body and lungs for an hour each day.

It's also the first Blue On Blue gig next week. I'm very excited. I have a set idea of what the live show is going to be like and I think it's going to work really well with the music. I also have a remix for Kurtz in the pipeline so it's good to be busy with cool music stuff.


I came across this really beautiful image of Meena Kumari today. I was actually looking at photos of Nepalese Kumari and then this came up. She was a beautiful Bollywood actress and poet and died when she was just 39 as she was a severe alcoholic. She had deeply troubled relationships and died penniless in a hospital.

I looked up some of her poems, unfortunately very few are translated into English. I've posted what I could find below.

You ask me, How do I live?
Night goes in begging and Prayers fill my morning
O lord! Living is not only breathing
My heart senses no more pain and eyes hold no more tears
Breakable dreams pierce my sleepless eyes like thorns
I, mad lover, spend my nights in such a way
Sorrow is my enemy and yet my heart longs for sorrow
Whenever there is some happiness in my life

It begins but I see no avail, no end
Often I don’t see his presence in my life
When someone is deeply in love with someone
one may get bad name but does not go in oblivion
Why should not I collect with laugh, the pieces of my broken heart?
Afterall not everyone gets the reward

Moon is alone and sky is alone
My heart goes alone on the journey
Day has brought the light but the hope is lost
My existence trembles alone
Is this the life ,
Where body and soul walk separately?
Though I found companion during my journey
But we kept walking separately
Far away on other side of that dim light
I see a small, closed and confined heart
It will wait for me for ages
After I walk alone from this world.