Eurovision 2013

Seeing as my attempt to liveblog the BRITs went so "well", I will be spending my very worthwhile Saturday night talking here about the Eurovision song contest in fifteen minutes! You can follow along right here for sarcastic comments that won't quite compete with Graham Norton's, to support Bonnie and indulge in kitsch pop music as if we haven't all been listening to Daft Punk for the past month.

20:03 The first injection of ridiculousness of the evening as a caterpillar becomes the "Eurovision butterfly", making its flight to Malmo. This is Benny and Bjorn's new Eurovision anthem, "We Write the Story", and the theme of this year's contest (something I wasn't aware existed?) is "We Are One". I don't know if any of you just caught Dave Grohl and Taylor Swift parading along the walkway.

20:07 BONNIE.

20:08 This reminds me slightly of Les Mis. Upset already.

20:09 Unsure whether the presenter's dress is bright enough. It makes me incredibly sad that Sweden's "top comedian" is a patronising air hostess.

20:13 She said "MAY THE BEST SONG WIN" and all it made me think of was "MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOUR."

20:17 FRANCE - Amandine Bourgeois performs "L'Enfer et Moi". This girl is the winner of a Pop Idol format show, and whilst she's certainly got a great voice and there's something courageous about entering with a rock song this just isn't ridiculous enough to still be memorable to voters in three hours time.

20:19 LITHUANIA - I really like "Something", by Andrius Pojavis, partly because it reminds me of Duran Duran a lot, definitely high hopes for this one.

20:22 MOLDOVA's entry is "O Mie" by Aliona Moon, who came eleventh last year as a backing musician. A song that's, honestly, just very forgettable but the wearing the whole of space and time on her dress is certainly going to help Moon along.

20:26 FINLAND are hotly tipped to win this year with "Marry Me" by Krista Sigefrids, which is just a really well constructed, gloriously catchy bubble pop song. Watch out for controversial lesbian kiss towards the end, supposedly a protest against Finnish governments views on same-sex marriage (and just incredibly badass)

20:30 SPAIN's entry is  "Contigo Hasta El Final" by ESDM, and this is sounding very un-Spanish, sad to hear someone's voice crackling and breaking with nerves but the staging/parade/lanterns are distracting enough.

20:34 Roberto Bellarosa won BELGIUM's version of The Voice, this is "Love Kills" and its writer has worked with One Direction and Little Mix. His facial expressions and the choreography are adequately tacky and it's just a very catchy pop song, I won't be surprised if this is a winner.

20:38 ESTONIA, with "Et Uus Saaks Alguse" by Hannah, who is another reality TV winner from their show Estonian Idol. I like seeing so many acts singing in their own language and not English, and this is a nice song but just not the amount of dancing or glitter that I expect from the Eurovision.

20:41 Alyona Lanskaya's entry for BELARUS with "Solayah", I am loving this already. They changed this from the original song to more of a "dance track", which may or may not have been a bad decision. I love the giant disco ball in the middle of the stage because it's so unnecessary, and this dance routine reminds me of the Inter-House Dance Contests from my high school, megalolz.

20:46 MALTA with Gianluca (a doctor, so at least he has a plan B!) with "Tomorrow". This is a sweet song and very reminiscent of Jason Mraz. May just be a winner, though I'm glad he isn't my doctor with that creepy grin.

20:50 RUSSIA's entry is "What If" by Dina Garipova, who won The Voice over there last year (there's definitely an overriding theme!) and this big ballad is tipped to win, although I don't think you can really beat their last year's entry of old ladies baking cookies on stage. You just don't know. You just don't.

20:52 DRAMATIC KEY CHANGE

20:54 GERMANY have pulled Cascada out of the dungeon, whose entry has been accused of ripping off last year's winner - this is "Glorious" and I agree it's basically last year's winning song, except with more glitter and there's big steps so they're bound to win. Such an energetic performance though.

20:58 ARMENIA have never won but the fact that Gor Sujyan and Dorians' entry "Lonely Planet" was co-written by Tony Ionni of recently reformed Black Sabbath should definitely contribute towards their votes. However if you don't know better, it's really just another man with a beard in jeans looking like he doesn't care whether he wins or not. I'd comment on how it's stupid that the drummer's wearing sunglasses indoors but it looks pretty fucking bright in there

21:03 Swedish comedy is about as funny as being shot in the foot.

21:05 Anouk singing "Birds", she's singing for THE NETHERLANDS and a huge star over there and in other countries. I totally understand all of the Lana Del Rey comparisons. This actually might do really well, I can't tell at all.

21:10 ROMANIA -  ALL best Eurovision performances start with a strobe effects warning and "It's My Life" by Cezar is looking to be a typically excellently kitsch performances. This guy is decidedly Count Dracula and Freddie Mercury's lovechild. A woman dancing and spreading gold. I love this. This is the best one. The BEST ONE.

21:14 UNITED KINGDOM, Bonnie Tyler sings "Believe In Me". I sang her song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in school aged 10 because I was a massive loser, so Bonnie is totally my homegirl. First time I've heard this song and it's actually not bad, her voice is fabulously gravelly and she's just really charismatic on the stage. C'mon guuurrrl.

21:18 This is Robin Sternberg singing "You" for SWEDEN. He's a good singer, very Gary Barlow/boyband-ish, and this guy was actually a runner up by a narrow margin on Swedish Idol.

21:23 ANOTHER "Idk beard" man from HUNGARY, this is "Kedvasem" by ByeAlex. This is nicely unpretentious and not sung in English, which is always a brave move.

21:26 One of the bookie's favourites, this is DENMARK's entry "Only Teardrops" by Emmelie De Forest, this is already in the charts and I actually really like this. Her voice is unusual and she reminds me of Diana Vickers from The X Factor a few years ago with "the claw" dance move, it definitely has the "Eurocamp dance club" feel.

21:30 ICELAND: This is Eythor Ingi with "Eg A Lif": this guy's played Rif-Raf in The Rocky Horror Show before which I can totally picture, Graham Norton said that Icelandic is not a language of love but LISTEN TO SIGUR ROS. You can tell this guy's a musical theatre star in his diction, but this song lacked the rousing chorus it needed.

21:35 Farid Mammadov with "Hold Me" for AZKERBAJAN, who hosted last year. The composer has written songs that have won before, and the dancer in the box is obvs symbolising his tortured inner self which is fab. Also the woman in the red dress is totally significant. Ok the box is full of lottery tickets.

21:38 GREECE's song is called "Alcohol Is Free" which makes me laugh no end, this is Koza Mostra feat. Agathon Iakovidis. I love this already, they're like Greek folk rock which makes them pretty much Mumford and Sons, surely yes? They may actually win, having a genuinely great and really happy track, as well as with the benefit of the sympathy cote.

21:42 UKRAINE, in which Zlanta Ognevich is CARRIED ONTO THE STAGE BY A SEVEN FOOT MAN before singing "Gravity" which is a really rousing disco track reminding me in ways of Shakira. Ukraine are typical tack-fest Eurovision entry every year (and kind of a winner in my eyes).

21:46 Margo Mengoni is singing  "L'Essenziale" for ITALY, and he won The X Factor over there. This song has spent 8 weeks at #1 and very realityTVwinner-esque with a faux rock backing and string arrangement he clearly didn't write. Loving the skipping though, the following he has already might just save the day.

21:51 This is NORWAY's entry, "I Feed You Love" by Margaret Berger, a bad electro dance track that just seems really forgettable, though it's actually favourite to win. She is kind of like Daeneyres though.

21:54 GEORGIA's entry, "Waterfall" is performed by Nodin Taschivili and Sophie Gelovani, and composed by one of the writers of last year's winner "Euphoria". Just a very nice duet, but lacks, again, that catchy chorus and touch of crazy that the Eurovision demands.

21:18 The final entry is IRELAND; tonight Ryan Dolan is singing "Only Love Survives". The double leather is terrible, the fact this song's already charted in Sweden will help the votes and this is the kind of giant dance number we normally expect from Ukraine etc. Odds of it winning aren't high, but I wouldn't be surprised.

22:05 Going to get more wine instead of sticking around for the voting, but I predict Norway or Finland to win I guess? Though would love Malta because I am a sucker for cutesy ukelele songs, and I secretly loved Bonnie negl.

Goodnight internet xxx

"Fight For Your Right"

"(YOU GOTTA FIGHT) FOR YOUR RIGHT (TO PARTY)" - The Beastie Boys

Have had this in my head all weekend, which is hilarious considering that it consists of babysitting, working, getting ready for exams and drinking cheap wine by myself. Not very badassgangstathug at all.

Recommendations: April 2013

"Fools" - Lauren Acquillina
"Those hardest to love need it most." - a pop song that's beautiful, clean and refreshing, seventeen year old Lauren found fame through the BBC Introducing programme, was recently playlisted by Greg James and though she's being constantly compared to other female singer-songwriters, her sound is so special. Check out her EP, also titled "Fools".

"April" - Imaginary Friend
Imaginary Friend has been releasing tracks every Tuesday from his upcoming album "Fire Escape", due for release on the 14th of May. "April" continues that base of Jesse Epstein's blanket-soft voice, and minimal, acoustic instrumentals that we hear through his debut release "The Imaginary EP". It is lyrically that you can feel how he's matured.

"Riceboy Sleeps" - Jonsi and Alex
A truly unique sound, lyricless, emotional and ambient, this album swirls and dives about the head. Music to read, to walk, or to just close your eyes and breathe to.

"The Expats" - Chris Pavone
A novel in which an ex-CIA officer retires to Luxembourg with her husband, but is unable to commence a quiet life. If I'm honest, I thought there was a lot wrong with this book, only beginning with Americans who act like "Europe" is one country. But it's full of twists and turns, sometimes which you'll predict from the start and groan at and others you just don't see coming

"The Wasp Factory" - Ian Banks
Ian Banks sadly passed away recently, and "The Wasp Factory" has always been one of my favourites - the story of Frank, a lonely and violent teenager. It's just bizarre, revolting, dramatic, and with an extraordinarily unpredictable ending.

Camden Lock Market
Nothing revolutionary at all but I'd never been before a trip to London this month, and spent the most perfect Sunday morning there by myself. An Aladdin's cave of gorgeous vintage clothes, mismatched jewellery, old records, falafels and all that you can imagine.

When Brave Bird Saved

"WHEN BRAVE BIRD SAVED"
A short film by Fred and Nick, soundtracked by the first four tracks from Laura Marling's new album Once I Was An Eagle.

Marling is one of my absolute heroes: she is beautiful, the calm and the storm, and her gravelly voice goes from the softest whisper and to the harshest bellow in instants. I want to hold back everything I have to say about the music from her upcoming release until Once I Was An Eagle is out, but it's sounding exceptional so far.

I've always loved it when films are released alongside albums, ever since The Wall, endorsing each song as a concept, as stories and pictures as well as sound. This one is no exception, illustrating all of those themes of shadowy rooms and empty streets, sex and dark romance, that are found in the lyrics of Marling's music. And Laura herself has clearly grown so much in confidence and songwriting ability, from the accomplished but shy seventeen year old appearing in the charts in 2008.

When Brave Bird Saved is eerie, and oddly ethereal, bringing together music and art and also dance, in the most gorgeously creative ways. Laura Marling is lovely, playing the role of that narrator she so often sings as; terrifying, simultaneously a lost girl and a wicked queen.

You can watch the full version of When Brave Bird Saved here, and Once I Was An Eagle is due for release at the start of May.

Re: Boston

You take love where you can get it. You feel where there's space.

I saw a Facebook status, from a boy I used to go to school with, early on Tuesday morning, after everyone had heard about the attack. He was talking about a picture he'd seen on the internet - a man being hurried away in a wheelchair, both of his legs blown off, and saying that it was "sick" and "disgusting" that the photographer had stopped to capture that. He said it was insensitive. I disagree. I think we need to be sensitised, to a point.

Warning: very, very graphic, haunting, disturbing. But the picture is here.

Twitter, of course, was very different to Facebook in reaction. It thrives at a chance to reach out for connection, it makes everything oddly human. Billy Baker, a reporter for the Boston Globe, was posting updates in the moment, the kind that you just don't feel in that same way when they come from the "big news", the anonymous TV and radio sources.

You hear "2 dead, 22 injured" and it doesn't mean a thing. it is a statistic, it doesn't seem like humans, each one of those doesn't sound like a life. But pictures do, and stories do - the one man rushing to call his mom, the Chinese student that was killed, a woman with a phone running to get home.

In primary school, we held a two minutes' silence every 11th November for Rememberance Day. They told us "Remember them". As a little girl, I spent those two minutes wringing my hands, stealing glances up and around, wondering why I couldn't feel as sad as I was being told to be. It made me so very guilty, but I felt so distant. It was a number. It was blearly photographs on PowerPoints in the assembly hall. Delicate paper poppy badges sold in grass green boxes, by the chosen Year 6s with the smartest ties. As I got older, I started trying to create a character in my head. If there was one of these great anonymous soldiers in my head with a name, and hair, and a family and pets, would it feel real and could I mourn?

We need social media because we need each other. The feeling of loss of an individual is stronger than surrealist statistics and numbers, that we're told are shocking and terrible. They aren't until you see it, and you hear it. And then it is. And then it is.

The coming together of everyone, those tweeting helpline numbers and those in Boston offering water and electricity from their homes to strangers made me think about how amazing humanity is, given the proximity to reach out to each other. The worldwide level of support made me thing of the London riots last year. And it made me wonder about 9/11, and what if this was around then, and then was reminded of a woman I met recently who was telling me about all of her ideas about if Twitter had been around during the Civil Rights movement. It goes on.

It's just incredible how we come together in crisis, through love. Internet or no internet. And it's such a strange feeling that it takes something so terrible and upsetting to make this happen. It's so confusing to be filled with anger, disappointment and misanthropy.

and to be, at the same time, very, very grateful.

Recommendations: March 2013

At the start of last month, I was in London for an event called Moxafrica, hosted by the Telegraph's Neil McCormick, to raise funds for tuberculosis solutions in third world countries. It brought together some incredible artists, some up and coming like Bo Bruce and Buckshot Soup, and others that have already expienced large scale success: David Gray, Gabriella Cilmi,  those you hear of and remember songs you loved. As well as it being a great cause, I got to hang out with friends I've met through Twitter and through this blog, which is strange and magical and makes me incredibly happy, because people are lying when they tell you the internet is a waste of time.

I spent St Patrick's Day losing all my dignity, an incredibly "mainstream" evening as my friend put it - appropriately enough, I went to hear Irish rock-pop balladeers The Script grace the MEN, a night of catchy love songs and happiness.

Other things I bought, heard, loved:

"Moranthology" - Caitlin Moran

This book is collection of  Times columnist Caitlin Moran's best work - she is "the first journalist to prove Lady Gaga isn't a man". Musings on music, travel, hair, and an incredible meeting with Paul McCartney, Caitlin is sassy, smart, hilarious and inspires me no end.

"The Next Day" - David Bowie
It's safe to say I'm going through a bit of a Bowie phrase. I lost my Labyrinth-watching virginity today, better late than ever, it is bizarre and insane and perfect. His new album "The Next Day" is a perfect continuation of his career. I love the sound of his voice now, the audible sense of his having aged, grizzly and soft, yet this album makes connections to his older work whilst still managing to be gorgeously refreshing and unobvious. Lyrically, it's a complete adventure. "The Stars Are Out Tonight" and "Dancing Out in Space" are personal favourites of mine.

Piccadilly Records, Manchester
I spend a lot of time in Manchester but had never been here until stumbling across it a few weeks ago, which was such an uplifting surprise after finding out that same day the main HMV over there is closing. This little shop seems untouched by the death of physical CD crisis, and it's run with so much love and care. Browsing through their shelves, each album has a little hand-written note with a description, an opinion. Chances are, they won't have what you came in looking for. And chances are, before you leave, something else will find you.

"There Will Come A Time" - Noah and the Whale
The first taste from Noah and the Whale's fourth studio album, to be released in May, shows a continuation from the less folk-driven and more American influences of 2011's "Last Night on Earth". A simple  chord progression, it is cheerfully refreshing and nostalgic, "There will come a time when you will need your friends, tonight." Check out their website for upcoming tour details.

The Magic Numbers

... played at the event in Islington I talked about, a band I used to listen to a lot when I was younger. They are two pairs of siblings, making rock-pop that is very much driven by voice and harmony, which transfers beautifully onto a live setting. "Morning's Eleven" is a great one of theirs if you haven't listened to them before.

"if you wanna cut yourself, remember that i love you"

"LOOSE LIPS" - Kimya Dawson

I will not lie: I discovered folk-punk because, like most people, I saw the movie Juno. It is all about the lyrics with Kimya Dawson, and her music is just the perfect soundtrack to that film - it is youthful, confused, simple, charming.

"Loose Lips" moves fast. It's chatty and smart, it's just about angsty teenage years, and politics, and friendship. A chant of "We won't stop until somebody calls the cops, and even then, we'll start again, and just pretend that nothing ever happened", simple chords on an acoustic guitar, it's so gratuitously minimal and peaceful, and words like a comfort blanket.

And another thing, love Kimya Dawson or hate her, her Twitter is definitely one to follow. She's hilarious, and smart, and has a lot to say about life, love, the music industry, and sometimes tweets in haikus. Perfection.