Less Than Three

Today I was busking, and a girl who'd been asking people for money down the street with a paper cup came and sat near me. She was homeless and kind of grubby looking and admittedly I felt threatened, because I have always been told to around people that look a certain way. Now I feel very guilty for making that judgement. But then she said she was just stopping to hear me play, and asked if I knew "The A Team" by Ed Sheeran.

I played it and it must have been awful. I forgot my capo yesterday so sang it four semi-tones down from normal but she was nice enough to stay and she sang along. Afterwards we talked about Ed Sheeran for a while and admitted to me that "The A Team" was her song, because she was homeless, she was an addict, and earlier on in her life she'd worked as a prostitute. And she was absolutely lovely.

Since being a kid I've been told to avoid homeless people in the street and things and that they're these grubby little human beings nobody seems to think of as humans.

But this was just a girl, who'd like everyone else struggled and had a song that was her comfort blanket, it belonged to her.

There isn't really a moral to this. It just was a part of the list of things that have happened recently that restored my faith in human nature.

I wrote a review of a really beautiful concert I went to a few days ago on here and the response has been so lovely. Those of you who have been retweeting and sending me things on Twitter, thank you so much. Your support has been incredible and I hope to meet you at lots of shows in the future I'm sure we'll all be at! Bo was absolutely "megatron."

Hope you're well, sorry this was not a proper blog,

Lizzie xx

Bo Bruce - Upstairs at The Garage, Islington - Thursday 16th August 2012
Small Warm Up Gig for V-Festival

The first thing you need to know about Bo is that if you're from the UK, you're likely to know her as the girl who came as runner-up on a TV talent show called The Voice, but she's not at all the commercialised sell-out we've come to expect from these things. Bo has been, and will be, writing beautiful songs for years. Her 2010 EP "Search The Night" recently reached #2 on iTunes, showing that she's already developed a fanbase that love her for the art she makes, not just because of hearing her sing some albeit brilliant cover songs on TV.

The Garage is a really small venue in Islington, its upstairs room last night was filled with candles. I arrived stupidly early, having dragged my French exchange sister on a train journey from Cheshire to London and found a place at the very front, about two metres from where the mic stand was poised, deciding to sit on the floor cross-legged and see if the people in the front row did it and everyone else would follow, something I've always wanted to try, and in a sense it almost worked.

Until the support act, Ben Montague, took to the stage, in which the small crowd of around 100 filling up the room. He makes what I would say is folk-pop music, and sang love songs alone with another acoustic guitar player, instead of the full band he normally plays with, but his more stripped back versions of songs had no trouble filling the room. At one point he actually asked the sound guy to turn down the volume, which someone commented was probably the first time a musician's done that on stage. He played brilliantly, the only fuck-up being when he thanked "Jo... wait, Bo!" for having him, and managed to have the crowd singing along during one song.. He's @ben_montague on Twitter, recently got playlisted by Radio 2 and you should definitely check him out.

A while past nine, it was announced that Bo was about to take to the stage and her band entered first: from what I recall a drummer, a guitarist and two keyboard players.* They played the instantly recognisable introduction to David Guetta's "Without You", which was Bo's audition song on The Voice, and she came on and started to sing.

Bo's voice, on stage, is one of the most beautiful and perfect I've ever heard. The only difference between her studio recordings and live performance is the lack of reverb. For those unfamiliar, Bo Bruce has the kind of breathy, "wispy" (a word my friend used to describe her, I quite like it) style of singing that's compared most often to Sinead O'Connor and Dolores O'Riordan from The Cranberries, using glottal strokes and mini-yodels, sliding into tiny gasps of falsetto at the end of a note.

Bo's second song was an original, the thoughtful and haunting "Behind the Gates", followed by "Fighting Arizona" which is also from Bo's EP "Search The Night", an offer of comfort and support to a friend stuck in the cycle of crime and drug addiction.

Then, she sang a gorgeous rendition of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill", this quiet and respectful three minutes of mutual audience understanding where there was no cheering, no singing along, but a kind of silence and communion.

"Black Ice" is beautiful, and admittedly I spent the entire time trying to watch what the keyboard player was doing as I've been sitting at the piano late at night attempting to scribble out sheet music for a whole week now. It's a song about a broken relationship, where Bo's gorgeous vocals soar in her upper range.

Bo announced her "last song" would be "Charlie Brown", and I almost feel ashamed about the fact that it was one of my favourite songs of the night (actually, it was fantastic) because it was a cover. But the Coldplay song suits her so perfectly and it was the point in the night where confidence that had been wavering at the start had truly soared. The room was full of dancing and smiling, I felt this growing lump in my throat because I can't help but say that when she sings "Charlie Brown" it sounds like rainbows. I'm sleep deprived, inarticulate and slightly crazy right now but it does, it sounds like rainbows.

After calls for an encore, she played an absolutely gorgeous new song called "The Fall", with just a piano, which I expect will be on her new album in October. In the area I was stood there were several people in tears.

After the show, Bo was nice enough to take the time to spend a few minutes with each and every person who waited behind and I think of all the musicians I've seen she might be the one that shows the most care and trust in her fans. She hugged and kissed everyone and was lovely to talk to and very grateful (I brought her some cookies).

Everything about her is original and a work of art - the way she sings, writes, looks and moves about the stage, and I really think there's going to be such a wide market for this girl.

One of the only criticisms I have about last night is how few original songs she played in comparison with covers (although I know doing this is what helped her success) and I have a theory she doesn't quite realise how many people have heard of and love the things she writes, too. Having said that, all three of the cover songs she sang last night were completely perfect.

Bo's career is really just beginning to blossom - she has an album release planned for the autumn, and a UK tour in the winter planned. Intimate, tiny gigs are my favourite and I really recommend you go see her whilst shows are still this small.

***

*Please correct me if I got this wrong and you were there!

Declining Record Industry

This is going to be short because I'm exhaused but okay;

I read something today which made me really sad.

Last week Rihanna was at the top of the UK album chart. She sold less than ten thousand copies of her album "Talk That Talk" and that's the lowest sales figures the chart-topping album has had in over twenty years.

I don't know if this is because of downloads, and because it's so much easier to just collect the various singles and favourites of artists you like from iTunes now. I don't know if it's just because of what's being released at the moment. For years I have listened to people saying the concept of the album is dying and not wanted to believe it, but that's scary.

With the autumn we have new releases from Mumford and Sons, Amanda Palmer and Muse to look forward to, as well as a lot of others which I'll talk about as they come along.

I guess what I want to say is that it's really tempting to just save a bit of money and spent 79p a few times on the songs you've heard on the radio, but there's so much value and love in going out and buying a physical CD, having twelve tracks to ponder over, pouring over the little booklets inside CD cases. Music and the structure of an artist or band is so much more than just the three minutes that gets played on the radio.

We need to revive this somehow. I'm in if you are.

Albums for Summer

I've always been a lover of the album, having one piece of art, a physical CD to hold, where I get acquainted with and find things within every song, the knowing which next opening chord I'm about to hear in the seconds of silence between each track, picking out concepts that flow throughout a record and appreciating differences. I love reading the booklets inside an album. I know singles have their plus points, downloading from iTunes has its plus points (I feel guilty, I do it too, increasingly regularly) but I'll always treasure the concept of one, entire, physical CD and the talk of this being lost over the last few years scares me.

I think summer's possibly the best time of year for buying just a couple of entire records and getting your wear out of them, whether that's singing along with all your friends on a long car journey with the windows wound down or solitary bike rides and trips on the train.

Enough babble, here are some of my favourites at the moment.

"THE IMAGINARY EP" - IMAGINARY FRIEND
The first thing I need to admit about Jesse Epstein's music is that I usually like a song to hit me, hard, and this doesn't do that particularly. What it is is sweet, and soft, and fits summer perfectly. This record features guest vocalist Kina Grannis' delicate harmonies which suit the style of this music so well. It's playful, clean, acoustic pop music, and Imaginary Friend's lyrics offer comfort and reassurance, in songs like "We'll Be Okay" and "In My Sight", and can be more thoughtful and exploratory, such as "Chasing Ghosts". I don't think this is anything industry shaping, but it's honest, forward and really pretty.

"SCIENCE AND FAITH" - THE SCRIPT
The Script are in an awkward place, with music that's a little too "indie" for the "mainstream" and vice versa. I recently re-approached their music, I was a fan in 2008, when their debut album "The Script" came out. A three piece sort-of rock band from Dublin, what I admire about Danny O'Donoghue, Mark Sheehan and Glen Power is that although what I guess they're known for doing best is a really kick-ass break-up song everything they do is an experiment. There's talk about whether their next release "#3" this autumn is going to be too commercial (the single that's avaliable to hear at the moment is a collaboration with Will.I.Am) but I'm not worried about this, this is just another step in a lot of different directions that they're willing to take.
"Science and Faith" in my opinion is better than their first album, though lyrically both are based around love, exploring it and, often, losing it. It has so much atmosphere, particularly "You Won't Feel A Thing" which really impresses me. The lead singer has a great voice, the guitarist isn't afraid to attempt rapping (see "This Is Love") and songs like "For The First Time" and "If You Ever Come Back" are the sort you can't help but sing along with, the kind I imagine audiences fill venues with along with the band. It finishes with, "Exit Wounds", which draws in the chant:
"Loose your clothes,
And show your scars,
That's who you are."

"THE HEAD AND THE HEART" - THE HEAD AND THE HEART
There's a song at the end of "The Head and the Heart" called "Heaven Go Easy On Me" and I don't want to say it's changed my life, but it's certainly been there at a lot of shaping moments. But most of all I think of it as a song that I listen to on landing planes when I'm coming home, and this has happened three times now. The words of this one really get to me.
The Head and the Heart are full of spirit, originality and, well, heart, and their music is completely beautiful. "Cats and Dogs" and "Couer d'Alene" are an energetic opening medley, "Ghosts" as playful and lively but in a minor key and the softer songs like "Down in the Valley" and the infamous "Rivers and Roads" are lovely, and haunting. Their music and their brilliant lyrics linger in your thoughts long after the song is over. Perfect for long drives.

Regina Spektor - Wednesday 4th July 2012 - O2 Apollo, Manchester


I consider Regina Spektor one of the first musicians that I discovered for myself. It was when I was eleven or twelve years old, and I'd just gone into high school, that I was really starting to find music for myself, not just from other people. There had been the pop music my friends listened to, and my dad had always played me his favourite records - Queen and Fleetwood Mac and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but when I heard Regina Spektor's "Fidelity" on a TV show and went to listen to more of her music she joined Paolo Nutini and Scouting For Girls in the first music that, to my younger self, was really mine.

Last night, at the O2 Apollo in Manchester, I went to see Regina Spektor play for the first time, kind of in a madcap rush after only planning it a few hours before.

Spektor opened by walking onto the stage and calling out a vaguely surprised "Hi!" to the audience; the old converted cinema almost completely full. She stood still and began singing, "Ain't No Cover", completley acapella, tapping the microphone with her fingers for percussion and, other than that, her huge and powerful vocals carried the melody. And throughout the night, when she played piano and when she was accompanied by the drummer, cellist and keyboard player that made up her band, her voice was what led the music, never drowned out or lessened.

Because she doesn't just sing, her voice is an instrument in so many ways - she plays with it, makes drum noises for percussion, adds whispers and draws gasps for breath.

Highlights included the lively and thoughtful "On The Radio", playful "Dance Anthem of the 80s", songs from Regina's new record, especially "Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quittez Pas)" and some of the slower and more pressing songs, like "Eet" and "Blue Lips". She sang "Call Them Brothers", a duet with Only Son/Jack Dishel, who played guitar and had opened the show for her. He's also her husband.

After "Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quittez Pas)", Regina Spektor apologised to the audience and said that she'd hurt a bone in her throat - this had been going on for a few songs, and she went off stage to see what was wrong, in which she told the crowd, "Talk amongst yourselves about something interesting." There was a kind of hilariously awkward ten to fifteen minutes in which everyone waited for an announcement, how serious things were or whether the rest of the show would happen.

But after a wait, Spektor came back, playing a further six songs. Earlier in the show someone had been calling out for her to play "Fidelity", to which she replied that she hadn't rehearsed that one, muttering, "I write them, I forget them..." So when she played those opening chords of "Fidelity", a cheer erupted.

She closed with "Samson", which was so stunning and soft and left, taking an elegant bow.

Regina Spektor's hands dance with the piano. She's kooky and bright as the melodies and the lyrics she writes, and I can't help but say that everything about her dreamy yet ladylike persona reminds me of a Disney princess.

She still has some dates to play on her European tour, and her new record, "What We Saw From The Cheap Seats", is absolutley brilliant.

May and June Recommendations, 2012

RAE MORRIS

I first saw this girl opening for Noah and the Whale back in March, and though all I’d seen of her was a few Youtube videos and hadn’t known she was the support act, I recognised her straight away because, with her wild brown ringlets and easy-to-lag-around keyboard she plays, Rae Morris is sort of iconic. She has an impressively ginormous voice and powerful set of lungs but when she stopped to express her awe at the size of her audience, a full to the brim Manchester Apollo, she spoke softly and shyly.

This song, “Don’t Go”, is particularly lovely.

BEN HOWARD

When I first listened to Ben Howard’s, “The Fear” I got this feeling that I’d heard it before. I don’t know if it was because I’d heard it on the radio or on a film or something, but it’s full of familiarity, springing from a minor key in the verses to an energetic, freely guitar strumming chorus, both the song’s structure and Ben Howard’s style of playing guitar remind me a lot of Mumford and Sons, which is never a bad thing. His record “Every Kingdom” is really unique, and full of references to nature, the stars, the forest and the ocean.

He’s also done this brilliant and hilarious cover of “Call Me Maybe”.

ANGUS AND JULIA STONE

Angus and Julia Stone are no brand new discovery of mine, neither are they unheard fof. Isaline, my French exchange sister, introduced me to Angus and Julia Stone last year and I recently bought their album “Down the Road”. I guess they make folk music. They’re Australian, a brother and sister, and really talented both separately and together, and their music and lyrics are the kind that sounds like home: it becomes the place that you are when you listen to it, whether that’s cycling on a spring morning, driving down the M6 late at night or just laying in bed when it seems like the whole world is quiet.

I couldn’t choose which song to post, because it’s all good, particularly “Big Jet Plane”, “Devil’s Tears” and “Santa Monica Dream” but this unique cover of “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease is really cool.

***

I'm sorry for absence recently, and I should be back to writing much more frequently.

Hope all's well your end

- Lizzie x

Coming to Visit

So one of my friends was in hospital last week, for a while. I went to see her and brought her flowers and some books to read and things, and so did a lot of other people, and from what she's said to me about it she was hardly ever alone.

It wasn't anything death threatening but I found it really reassuring how much they all seemed to take care over this, especially seeing as as a group I don't really feel like we do see each other out of school but not very much (something which has its negative and positive points). It was nice, and none of us have ever been in situations like this, it was nice how devoted everybody seemed to be. But I can't help but wonder if it would be like that for everyone in the group, if they were ill, if it was someone else.

Today, for a few reasons, one which was a song, I started thinking about the visiting area in prisons.

It's something that's suddenly become really interesting, the environment in this situation. I think that people don't seem to know how to interact, because although you're talking with someone you know and you're used to, addressing the mundane little things that go on in your life, bringing in awkward smiles and forced jokes but it's still very there: the fact that only one of you is really able to participate in real life, at that time. That's sort of devastating and I can't get my head around it.

Obviously it's a situation I've never been either end of, and luckily. But it reminds me slightly of last summer, going to Manchester regularly to visit my grandfather as he was dying. And it wasn't definite and nobody ever addressed it but I think we all knew. Though his favourite thing to do during those times was just make a little conversation about my school and things, then watch sports on TV, normally golf or tennis. Maybe the best way to do things like this is to act as we always would.

Coming back to the first thing; my very well looked after friend who was in hospital, it made me think. Not that I'm planning on it, of course, but:

If I was in prison, would any of my friends come and visit me?

Because it's easy to associate yourself with somebody that's incidentally ill, bring them carnations and confectionery and hugs,  write all over their Facebook page how much you miss them and want them home. But prison is, obviously, completely different, because unlike illness committing a crime requires shame that some people have to share. Thinking about my friends, they fall into two categories: those that would want detachment from the situation, and those that just wouldn't find the time. And I don't particularly think that that makes them awful human beings.

The song I was talking about before, that made me think about all this, I've found out just now it's about somebody in rehab. But that fits in too: it's much easier to love and support somebody in a hospital ward to admit to yourself that they're a criminal, or a cocaine addict, or somebody to be ashamed of as well as them being your friend. The "Love 'ya babe, come home soon"'s probably don't extend that far. I feel the need to constantly reassure you that I'm not planning any of this, it's just something that really interested me: but if I was arrested, if I overdosed and went into rehabilitation, I can't help but thinking at least seventy percent of the people that I know would cut themselves off as soon as possible. And a little part of me doesn't really blame them, because it's hard to admit to yourself that the version of somebody that you love isn't the one that they always are. It's much harder to be on somebody's side if they're not what you can agree with, or be proud of.