Erica

So, Ericaaa!! You’re first up :P

Thanks for everything this year! It’s been a laugh! You’re the only person that has put up with me for a whole 11 years! So you really do deserve a medal. We’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember and I wouldn’t change anything! Thanks for helping me with school work – like Science and Psychology hehe :P!! And being my ‘opposite’ twin! I really hope 2012 is amazing, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

Christmas

Hello people! I hope you’ve all had an awesome Christmas, I sure have! A lot has happened and I feel like I’ve been kinda busy, so I’m sorry for the lack of posts this December. To finish off the year on my blog, I’ve decided to write a few paragraphs to people that have shared this year with me, and to musicians that have inspired and helped me throughout 2011! I’ll also do a small list of my 2011 soundtrack. Thank you for reading and I hope you keep on with me throughout 2012!! :D

Friendship

Hey people!! I’ve had the most amazing few days!! Firstly, we broke up for Christmas which is awesome in itself. And then on Saturday I had a Christmas Party with a few of my friends. It was so lovely and they’re all fantastic! They bought crackers round and we had our secret santas; it was a great night! I also ate this horrible chilli sauce which was concentrated chilli and one teaspoon was meant to make a whole curry hot? and I just licked the whole teaspoon. It was crazy! I ate like five ice cubes and half a tube of Ice cream and my mouth was still burning.

Feeling really happy at the moment. Everything seems to be going right for once! I have an amazing set of friends that are there for me, and I really can’t imagine life without them. I’ve kinda struggled my way through the first three years of High School with one true friend, but now I’ve fell upon this group of awesome people and yeah! I feel really lucky to know these guys. The sad thing is though is that next year we all leave school, and we’re all going to different places so I don’t know what’s going to happen there. Its kinda upsetting to think that I’ve finally found truly amazing friends and within a year of knowing them, we’re all going to be separated! We must keep in touch.

Anyway, enough of the friendship rant, Tim Burgess got back to my e-mail! So, all of today I’ve been literally on the ceiling. He is such an inspirational person to me and his music plays a huge part in my life right now, so to get the interview back from him was amazing. He is my idol, so yeah, been buzzing all day!! The interview will be featured in my second fanzine, and an interview with Joseph Coward will be featured in my first! So everything is really exciting.

Joseph Coward is amazing too. Have been talking  to him via Facebook a lot recently and he is awesome! He never fails to cheer me up these days! He is bringing out a new video for his single ‘If you want to get going get talking (to me)’ which I actually can’t wait to see!

Thanks for reading, I’ll keep you posted on Joseph’s Video teehee!

Me suffering from the chilli ...

Bad dreams at Christmas? Not while The Charlatans are around!

So, I’ve wrapped my Christmas prezzies and written my cards (just need to send them off). So I think I’m ready for x-mas! It’s my last day in school tomorrow, and only half a day too which is awesome. My sister is home from uni now as well so everything is really good at the moment. Though times are emotional I guess. Last little bit in my school and doing all these exams. It’s kinda a hard time!

I keep having all these weird dreams too. They’re all about death and like … nothing happening once you die. And then I wake up and keep thinking angels are around my bed and I kinda see their shadows on the ceiling. It’s weird!!  Their wings are like huge and they seem to be over my bed? I don’t know. I had a dream about Joseph Coward the other night too. That was good. It was an O’Genesis gig and we got to talk to Joseph all night. Hah, if only dreams were true!

Music for tonight has to be The Charlatans. They are the soundtrack of my life at the moment (well, have been for around three years now?) and I can’t seem to get enough of them! I also love Tim’s solo album too. And his song ‘We all need love’ is so beautiful! So check him out and check them out, seriously … they are amazing!

The Charlatans

Tim Burgess

Joseph?

Just thought I’d post this!  I like the picture, though when I first looked at it I thought there was something wrong with his face, then I realised the paint haha! But yeahh! Joseph Coward! I was having a mini rave to his song ‘Eating The Rude’ today. You should check it out!

Supermarket, Christmas, Fanzine?

Heyy, It’s been a while guys! I’m so sorry, I said I’d try and post more often it’s just I’ve had tons of mock exams and revision; it’s been crazy! I have soo much to tell you people too!

Firstly I got lost in a supermarket. Which is highly embarrassing. My mum sent me walking around to find some random food and I went and got it. Then when I turn back round my mum is nowhere to be seen. So I think right, I’ll walk down the aisles and I’ll eventually bump into her! But no. I was walking up and down for ten whole minutes searching for her and she was actually nowhere. So I thought I’d ring her! But I forgot to take my phone hm? So yeah! It was kinda an epic fail. So I went to this guy who worked there and like, I was taller than him, and I just went ‘I’ve lost my mum’. He kinda looked at me as if I was taking the mick. But then I think he realised I was being serious. So he took me to the front of the shop and we started on our treck looking for my mother. He got me to describe her too! And he even asked if she had a trolley or a basket! Haa it was so embarrassing! I did find her eventually and she kinda didn’t believe me that I had been through this mass struggle to find her. It was an entertaining night!

Then I’ve been getting all Christmassy! We now have all the decorations up and it’s so lovely! I have this advent calendar and its Cadburys so it’s really awesome! And now it’s what .. the 14^th? And I’ve only had 5 designs! Me and my mum are waiting for a drum to come up but there hasn’t been one. I think they’re all just the same designs from now on haha. Have any of you guys had a drum? Or are they just not in advent calendars this year?

Plus!! I’ve been writing my fanzine and it’s almost finished! I’m really excited about it. There is an article on O’Genesis and an interview with Joseph Coward. Then there is some of my thoughts and feelings on some songs, kinda like a review page! And a bit about David Lynch (As that’s the charity I’m aiming it to be dedicated towards). So it looks really cool! And I have a name for it and a little logo! Haha, sorry people! I get excited about things like this. But yeah, I’m hoping to send it to Joseph himself which is amazing, and I wanna try and get it in a few shops … So I hope it turns out good!

Thanks guys for reading and sticking with me through my ‘unposting’ days! It’s almost the holiday so I hope to post a little bit more often. And my exams are over now too so I have all the time in the world to write these blogs … well kinda! Hehe I’ve been drawing a lot recently too so I hope to post some of that up. My little cartoons of the people in O’Genesis haha! Crazy days!

Thanks x

Tom Caulfield

So, I’ve been trying to find new and exciting musicians over the past few weeks and I completely failed. Then on my twitter, this dude started to follow me. I looked at his profile and it said ‘‘Singer, songwriter, guitar player, nuisance. Keeping it real since 1982’’. I mean, what more of a coincidence? I totally checked out his website (http://tomcaulfieldmusic.wordpress.com/) and found that I hadn’t failed at all! This was the new and exciting musician I had been looking for.

When ‘tweeting’ him he turned out to be a really nice guy! I asked if I could interview him for my fanzine, that I’m currently writing, and he agreed to do it. So, here it is! My interview with Tom Caulfield. Enjoy, and check out his music!

Tom Caulfield

1.      Who are your inspirations and why?

There's many. Too many to mention now for certain, but respectful
nods have to be given to Dylan, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Woody Guthrie,
among many others. All for the same reasons, of course, that they've
pursued their own paths without ever playing the game, without ever
sanitising their own visions. It's heartening to see that.And Woody
paricularly for using music as a form of nourishment. Read "Bound For
Glory", you'll see what I mean.

2.      Have you ever been in a band?

I've been in many bands, yeah. Played all sorts of things, blues,
country, rock'n'roll, soul music. I've been doing this a long time.
The best name any of the bands ever had was "The Cake Police". Christ
knows what made us think of that. I still am in a duo occasionally
doing indie covers acoustically, Dirty Bristow and Lucky Pierre. If
you don't know what that means, I'm not going to tell you.

3.      If you were in a band, why did you become a solo artist?

It's a long story, and I'll cut it short. I've always written
songs, as far back as I can remember - or as long as a I want to.
Never really used them in the bands I was in though, it was a thing I
did for myself, like a dirty little secret. Anyway, I lost a job, a
girlfriend and a band all at the same time, tough break. So I started
to go busking, all the time. Needed the money. As a result of that,
I'd get offered solo gigs. And once I was comfortable with that, I'd
be slipping in songs that I'd written. And thus, I became a solo
artist.

4.      When did you start writing songs and do you still have the first one you wrote?

I can't remember the first song I wrote, but even as a child I used
to write funny little poems and rhymes about the teachers at school
and suchlike. They're probably not that funny now, but I liked them at
the time.

5.      Have you always had a love for music?

I have. Even before I held a guitar, the sound to me was the
coolest thing in the world. Still is. Still can't hear, say, John Lee
Hooker without a shiver of excitement.

6.      When you were younger, is producing music what you wanted to do?

I've never given it that much though. Basically, it's what I do,
and that's that. I can't imagine it not being around, not being a part
of me.

7.      Who is the musician you’d love to meet and why? (Alive or Dead)

I have to be honest, there's nobody. You should never meet your
heros. What if they turned out to be a dick?

8.      What can we expect from you in the future?

There's only one dead certainty to expect from me in the future,
more music. Expecting anything else would be futile. And besides, who
wants things to are expected?

9.      You’re currently writing a new record … what sound are you aiming to get through in this?

Well, the last record was just me and an acoustic guitar, so this
one's a lot fuller. I'm playing a lot of instruments, and drafting in
friends for things that I can't play. There's fiddle on there, there's
bass, drums, there's banjo, harmonica, glockenspiel...yeah, it's
bigger.

10.  What is the record going to be about?

There does seem to be a lot of motion in these songs, people
leaving, arriving, escaping. But that said, there's a little hymn to
domestic bliss as well. There's an Armageddon song, too.

11.  Who would you recommend people to listen too (any up and coming bands/solo artists)?

My best advice would be to get amongst their localities and find
people doing this that aren't on the radio. If you're in a pub and see
someone play their own song, buy the CD. It won't seem much to you,
but it'll allow them to keep chipping away at this for a little
longer, at least. That's my advice, and I'm sticking with it.

12.  If you weren’t where you are now, what would you be doing?

I honestly have no idea. I'd probably be dead. Or drunk. Or dead drunk.