COLOURS ALL LEAK

http://coloursallleak.wordpress.com/

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...

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.

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

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.....

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.

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.

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

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.........

Disappear

I WISH I COULD

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?

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.

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.

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.

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/

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...

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.)"

The highs and the lows and the I don't knows.....

I'M SICK OF THEM