welcome to Mr G's room

I've just come home from a lovely few days staying with a few friends in Devon, a large proportion of which was spent watching the tv programme 'Summer Heights High' in its entirety....

If you've never seen it, it really is one of the funniest things you will EVER watch.

The rest of the stay involved the windiest, rainiest hour on Dartmoor that I'm sure has EVER been experienced by man, getting AS results, playing dance-badminton (so much more fun than the standard affair, darling) and having a celebratory post-results dinner in fancy dress... Oh, and spending pretty much all the time that we weren't WATCHING summer heights high singing the songs from it, namely this one:

aah. A nice few days.

Oh and before that I saw Inception. Most of my friends had already seen it when I finally got around to going, and had all enthused about it to me so I was a little worried it wouldn't live up to the hype... but it blew my freakin' mind, it was amazing. I spent about 2 hours after leaving the cinema thinking about it and working it all through so that I fully understood every detail. Gosh it was good.

Another thing Inception did was blast my crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt from that, a crush, to a little obsession I now have going on... expect a post dedicated to his beauty sometime this week... mmmm

Sorry this was a bit of a hurried post! I'll post more interesting stuff soon. Entertain yourself with Summer Heights High in the meantime. That's an order.

x

Something I'm diggin' right now...

..Mad Men.

(However straight a girl you are, I reckon it's impossible not to find Joan at least a little sexy.)

I love everything about this show. The storylines are gripping, the clothes are gorgeous and it's so beautifully shot.

Another thing:

That's a good read.

I read George Orwell's 1984 a couple of summer's ago and have been wanting to read more in that oh-so-cheery genre of distopian literature.. This is sufficiently different, but equally brilliant.

and ANOTHER thing I'm digging:

my new boots. uhuh.

x

ps. there was NO music or even MENTION of music in this post. Well until now..

Gasp. How bizarre.

don't let go

Thought I'd write a little about a current obsession of mine..

Hurts.

Eighties-throwback electro duo.

Stunningly good songs,

definitely eighties-inspired, as I said, but also so fresh-sounding somehow.

This song is beautiful,

and listen to that distant sax solo near the end.. Sheer genius, that is.

There's another video up on youtube for this song, an earlier one, which I love equally.. It's simpler, and shot in black and white. It was a hard decision choosing which video to post, but I decided on this one since it's apparently the "official" version. But if you liked the song enough to want to hear it AGAIN, click here to see t'other version.

Oh, and another thing that's beautiful? Lead singer, Theo Hutchcraft.

Boy oh boy, he's one fine looking man. That stare, it's piercing. Aah.

And his stage presence is, albeit a little bizarre, incredible. Always suited up, he carries a black lace handkerchief which he tends to play with idly during songs, along with a lot of hand gestures and eyebrow usage. A definite showman, in the best sense of the word..!

They also take an opera singer on tour with them, which I think I might have mentioned in my Camp Bestival round-up post but it is such a cool fact that it merits being brought up again. He stands, stock still, a little behind Theo and Adam (who does synths and guitar), blasting out backing vocals, often simply in octaves with Theo himself but really boosting the songs from the brilliance of their recorded sound to huge-sounding, epic live tracks. Don't underestimate them because they're only a duo.. the sound is big.

Wonderful Life - the video above - is their next single, and their album, 'Happiness', is released in September.

Here's another good'un, 'Better than Love'. Bit more dancy. Still excellent.

C'mon.. you know you want to look at Theo's sexy smoulder again. Mmhmm!

ta ta.

x

bicyclettage

This lot are brillo live.

Their lead singer is the most nervous man on stage I've ever seen, in terms of communicating with the audience... But it's in quite a sweet and endearing way.

They're Oxford lads, Stornoway, and I've been doing some work experience in Oxford this week, so I thought it would be appropriate to post this lovely song - especially since I've had it in my head pretty much EVERY morning for the last five days, 9:10 am, on the bus from Summertown to Jericho.

I'm not a human if you say I'm not

I've just wasted a good hour stalking Coco Sumner on youtube.

I don't know what it is about her, but she's sort of mesmerizing. And she's really good live too, compelling; it's kind of hard to look away! She tends to dance awkwardly - but in a terribly sophisticated and glamorous way - and say things like 'brill' a lot. She's just ever so cool.

AND this, her newest single, is ace.

All the tracks she played live at Latitude sounded great, so I'm looking forward to the album 'The Constant' which I think is set to be released at the beginning of October. It's been hard for her to get away from being labelled simply as 'Sting's daughter', but her band and her have worked really hard to get their cult following through their own merit. Obviously being the daughter of a megastar gives one a leg-up in life, but I think she has managed to obtain success for herself now.

And this one really captures her innate Coco-ness.

Ah. Girl crush. WATCH IT!

laters kids

x

simply the best (ival)

Excuse the terrible post title... I couldn't resist.

Here are a few choice snaps from camp bestival, taken with the new camera.

If you can see that his fingers read "Chipmunk"..... It was ironic. I swear.

Summer Camp

Lissie

Stornoway

Lad humour

George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic

Hurts

Ellie Goulding

Kassidy

Friendly Fires

yay!

So another good weekend. Bumped into the lead singer of Stornoway outside the dance tent and had a quick chat with him, which was cool, and also went and met Kassidy after they played an unbelievably under-audienced set at the bandstand. They really are epic, in a year I reckon they'll be massive. And such nice guys too!! aah.

Musical stand out acts:

Kassidy - I've gone on enough about them over the last few posts I guess. But they're just BRILL!

Lissie - man that girl has a crackin set of pipes. Best voice of the whole weekend. Dayummm she can sing.

Ellie G - also has a brilliant voice but in a very different way to Lissie. The sort of tremor in her voice which you notice on her records is more prominent live, which is definitely a good thing, it's what makes her unique among so many good female artists around at the mo.

Madness - funsies. One for the oldies but still, so many classics.

Hurts - really really awesome live. They take an opera singer on tour with them which doesn't sound like it would work, but it really does!! Can't wait for their album; I think it comes out in september.

Friendly Fires - what a way to finish the weekend. Just brilliant... and their lead singer's dancing is superb. If a little reminiscent of some sort of gay burlesque club.

Other highlights include.. lots of juggling and diablo at the circus skills area in the children's field (which was probably only designed to cater for the under 13s.. but meh), very cheap tea and toast, mucking around in the dressing up tent, a wee bit o' dubstep, wearing the £5 ball gowns I've mentioned before which we bought at Latitude - albeit only for a few hours! - singing happy birthday to James at the campfire with a load of strangers, seeing an 8 year old do a rather too true to the original (dance move wise) kareoke version of gaga's bad romance, the human jukebox, the silent disco, learning ballet from angelina ballerina, colouring in, and free drinks and crepes on my birthday. Noice.

17

Hello hello.

I had a lovely lovely birthday, so thank you to those super cool people I spent it with!

Here is the promised post of seventeen-ish songs.

I swear there are no really good songs about 16, or 18 for that matter.

Maybe seventeen is a particulary inspirational age(/number)? Who knows.

The newbie:

This track was not, in the end, included on Marina's album, although she has said in emails to her mailing list (yeah, I'm that cool) that she wished it had been. But it was one of my first faves by her - it was included on her first little EP, 'the crown jewels' - and she does it so well live.

The one that I-quite-like-even-though-it's-apparently-not-cool-to-like-KOL-any-more:

Yeah.. I like the song ok? In fact I don't entirely detest the entire album even though the opinion of many seems to be that it blew. But meh, what do I know, eh?

The one that got recommended :

Thank you Meagan!!

The one which isn't-technically-about-the-AGE-seventeen-but-meh-what're-you-gonna-do-about-it?!:

Seventeen Hands - the Maccabees

I love this song.. I love this band. yay.

And a really nice video by someone called Electric Kedgeree. Actually I think it's two people.. I'm not sure. But it's nice, well done them/her/whatever!

And finally, the classic:

Well, it's gorgeous and beautiful and thought provoking and lovely, and makes me feel all sad-happy.

Sad-happy. Yeah.... that is a real emotion, alright?!

Ok, I'm done now!

Sorry for the song overload.

Remember I love you all... and I will post about les camp bestival escapades very soon.

x