no proof-reading. no spellcheck. just word vomit.

I wish I could pin point the moment I fell in love with music. Everything about it. One of the earliest photos of me as a child is sat on the living room floor with my dads massive headphones on plugged in to my fisher price tape deck. 

As I’ve got older, my love for music wrapped itself around my love of writing. The moment at sixth form where it suddenly dawned on me - faced with a UCAS application form - that I could combine the two and maybe actually make a living from it? It was some kind of epiphany. 

Somehow along the last six or seven years of my life, I got a little jaded. I’ve not hidden my dismay at how my dream career is slowly slipping past me as every graduation ceremony at every university in the country rolls around. But that’s okay. Because I still have my music.

I’m lucky. I seem to attach myself to these bands that get the ethos I so fell in love with. Bands that celebrate the unity - both on record and at shows - that music can provide. Bands who tell you all that you’re the same. Bands that don’t care if you were at their first show in a pub to ten people or whether you just happened to hear them on Radio 1 and kinda liked it and bought a ticket to a show.

What isn’t so lucky, sadly, is the surrounding fringes. There’s this horrible sense of elitism hanging in the ranks.

I see it at shows, the looks from 16 year old girls that just scream I’m stepping into a world I’m not welcome. Looking at the rest of the crowd at an All Time Low or You Me At Six show, for example -I’m definitely old enough to at least be their designated babysitter, if not quite their parent.

You’re not in the hustler club? Oh my god, you can’t really like All Time Low then?  What do you mean you’ve never seen this band before? Why are you even here?


I try and work it out sometimes. Tonight it’s kind of become apparent. The penny has dropped. Wherever we go to a show, whatever queue, whatever country? The common denominator as you walk along the line a few minutes before doors is that they all grip a copy of this weeks Kerrang in their hands.

James McMahon, the editor of the dear old pop-punk bible, has gone on a bit of a twitter-spree this evening. What it is to be a journalist. How you don’t just become a journalist and then sack it off for another job when it doesn’t pay off. It just reeks of the snobbery I see at shows every fucking week and it’s pushed me past the point of anger into pure disbelief.

Hey James - it’s really easy to say stuff like that, from the comfort of your nice comfy chair at your K! Towers desk.

I started my Journalism degree in 2005. I worked on my campus magazine and paper, banded together with some other course people and slogged it on a music website that physically/emotionally/financially drained every last one of us. It was a labour of love, one that went so deep that we knew we had to give it up rather than see it run in to the ground.

See, this funny thing happened. Somewhere between my Graduation ceremony and the inevitable piss up that followed, the recession hit hard. My local paper went from daily to weekly. Jobs that were up for application a week before suddenly disappeared and were replaced by ads for unpaid work experience. Unpaid. Ahh, that lovely little word I thought I’d escape once I had my degree.

So I thought fuck it. I’ll carry on. Get an MA that will stand me above the crowd when the recession starts to lift. Well guess what. It’s not lifted. Those job applications are still few and far between, and when they come along it’s not enough money to live on.

Ohhh I know, I know. Who cares about the money, right? I just want to write.

Life’s funny. Suddenly I had rent to pay. And council tax. Electric bills. Gas. Broadband. And all that free money they were throwing at me for the previous three years? Yeah. Suddenly they wanted it back.

You know in The Office, when Dawn talks about how she started off telling people she was a Children’s Illustrator who did some reception work on the side? Yeah. That became my life. Suddenly I wasn’t a journalist who worked in a bar. I was a full-time bar manager who tried to get her entire month’s time off all at once to try and run in the photo pit at Rock City for the weekend - for free, obviously - just to keep her portfolio up to date.

Hemingway is often misquoted around the internet about his incessant need to write. It’s something I always found myself relating to. It’s something most music journalists I’ve spoken to seem to have - and seemingly McMahon is included. I always respect people who understand that. Because it is a bit of a curse. But what annoys me is when use said curse as a reason to think they’re better than anyone else. 

I’m not better than anyone. I’m a girl who is irrationally in love with music in so many forms and wants to scream it to anyone who’ll listen. As long as I have my music I’ll be happy. Because I’m lucky to have any involvement in the music scene I’m in.

To be a part of the UK music scene at the moment - in any capacity - is something to be proud of. The bands coming out of our country are so passionate and talented, they make me prouder to be British than any football team could. And to be at the helm of - arguably - one of the most influential magazines in the country is a position to be envious of.

And I am. Believe me. Which is why James McMahon’s tweets this evening have riled me so.

I write because I love music. I write for free because at least it means I get to write. I would love it if I could get paid to write.

Don’t sit there and play the martyr when there are hundreds of us that would genuinely do your job for free. Don’t talk down to the people at your lectures who ask how to BE a journalist; just be grateful they turned up at all to ask the question. 

Maybe I’ve completely got the tone of these tweets wrong - as often happens with the internet. But there is such an air of elitism that surounds everything to do with Kerrang! these days that it’s hard to take it in any other way.

Lets just note that this is an editor who - when asked by my housemate why they wouldn’t do an online subscription like alt-press do in the states - responded with ‘but what about your free posters’.

PLEASE. You can’t lecture world/your feed about what it is to be a journalist, what constitutes real journalism and good writing when 75% of the current issue is given to either advertising, full page photography or fucking posters.

I’m 25. I don’t want a fucking poster. I want to know what my favourite bands are doing, when they’re touring, what prompted that amazing song on their new album, why their last album was shit, how the fuck he got that tattoo, why their drummer left. I want words. To read. To move me. To inspire me to write more of my own.

If nothing else I’m grateful that McMahon’s twitter-fest this evening enraged me enough to take to my keyboard. I just wish it was something positive from the magazine that would evoke such a reaction in the future.

You’re right, James. The best music writers are wizards. But the world isn’t like Hogwarts and we’re not all as lucky to sit in the position you do. So do us a favour and get down from your pulpit and pull the wand out of your fucking arse pleas. Go back to writing articles I want to read about bands I’m going to fall in love with. That’s what’s going to make me want to love your magazine again.

♥ 22 notes
1 week ago
It’s amazing the little insignificant things that really make you realise how lucky you are. I’m currently sat with my coffee cup and a leftover stroopwafel and wondering how the hell I ended up going to Amsterdam last weekend. The answer is - as always - a band. It’s always a fucking band when it comes to me. I know I’m overly invested in my CDs, ticket stubs and mp3s far more than the average person who lists music as one of their interests on Facebook. It’s hard to explain it to people who don’t get it. When I got back to work today and people asked how it had been, I didn’t even know where to start telling them, so I just smiled and said it was amazing. I told them how lovely a city it is (it is, for the record!), how bizarre the red-light district is and how amazing febo is. But I didn’t even mention the parts that really excited me the most, because they just won’t get it.  My favourite albums of the last few months have really hit a chord with me. While my younger self just looked for a catchy chorus or a decent 4/4 drum beat, now my heart falls for the story of my life lyrics.  The wonderful Deaf Havana’s Fools and Worthless Liars could have been compiled from overheard snippets of drunken conversations between my friends and I over the last few months, as we all lamented our lack of prospects and our minimum-wage jobs. When I got my hands on that album, I spent a good three weeks with it on loop, finally grateful to have a band out there who understood what it’s like to be a twenty-something failure these days. I feel like I’m a part of a generation who was lied to. When I was at college, they sat us down and told us that if you go to university, work hard, persevere? You’ll get to where you want to be. So that’s what I did. I went. I studied. I worked. I walked out with a good degree with ambitions and dreams, straight into a world with no jobs in an industry that has crashed down around my feet. With every year that goes by, the chances of me falling into my dream job get slimmer and slimmer as yet another few thousand graduates fall out on to the streets. That fact is terrifying. Album opener The Last Six Years epitomises that feeling of failure to me. Those days where I trundled home at six in the morning from my lousy bar job to hear about my old course-mates getting up for their amazing new job at the BBC or some newspaper or other - that feeling of bitterness, that self-loathing? It’s all summed up in under three minutes of acoustic guitar. You keep going, and songs like The World or Nothing just hit even closer to the bone - how you hold yourself back so that you have an excuse for not going anywhere. How you go and get drunk just for something to do.  I had the same reaction when Young Guns released Bones last month. Towers (On My Way) is brutal in every possible respect, and while first single Learn My Lesson might be slightly more optimistic, those ideas of uncertainty and that you’ll never reach your own potential are all still there.  It says a lot about the UK music scene when - arguably - two of the country’s most promising acts feel the need to touch on these themes. And yet, those albums? Under the initial bitterness and frustration? They fill me with hope. Tracks like Bones make me feel like I can take on the universe if I put my mind to it. Songs like Dearly Departed make me realise I don’t need anybody else to get to where I want to be.  When Young Guns announced they’d be touring Europe with Enter Shikari, it was inevitable I’d end up going. So when we were faced with two options - to go 47 miles across the Humber to Hull or 470 miles across the Channel to Amsterdam - it was obvious which was the more sensible option.  I owe bands like that so much. Even ignoring the excitement of seeing a band live, I gain so much from those gigs. Some of my best friends are people I would never have met if it weren’t for going to shows. I’ve visited some of the most beautiful cities in the world now because of tours.  When I try and tell ‘normal’ people that, I just get blank stares. Looks of utter confusion - why would you go all that way for a gig? You’ve seen them before, why are you going again?! Nothing makes me happier than that room. I’ve said it before, but when the lights dim and the kick-drum starts? That’s it for me. The next twenty minutes/hour/three days are a giddy blur of singing and dancing and screaming and jager. It’s like Christmas to me. Except I don’t have to slave for hours over the stove, or argue with my dad about watching Eastenders. I tried to explain it to a friend once. I compared it to him following his football team on away days. He scoffed and said it wasn’t the same. I asked him how much of the city he actually saw on the day of the match. He said he didn’t, that he just put his iPod on during the train journey, got a taxi to the ground and then went home. I get to see the country - the world, even. I get to do it with the best people in the universe, and we do it to the best soundtrack possible. And most importantly? I get to discover things like stroopwafel. Cheers Young Guns. I owe you one.

It’s amazing the little insignificant things that really make you realise how lucky you are. I’m currently sat with my coffee cup and a leftover stroopwafel and wondering how the hell I ended up going to Amsterdam last weekend.

The answer is - as always - a band. It’s always a fucking band when it comes to me. I know I’m overly invested in my CDs, ticket stubs and mp3s far more than the average person who lists music as one of their interests on Facebook. It’s hard to explain it to people who don’t get it.

When I got back to work today and people asked how it had been, I didn’t even know where to start telling them, so I just smiled and said it was amazing. I told them how lovely a city it is (it is, for the record!), how bizarre the red-light district is and how amazing febo is. But I didn’t even mention the parts that really excited me the most, because they just won’t get it. 

My favourite albums of the last few months have really hit a chord with me. While my younger self just looked for a catchy chorus or a decent 4/4 drum beat, now my heart falls for the story of my life lyrics. 

The wonderful Deaf Havana’s Fools and Worthless Liars could have been compiled from overheard snippets of drunken conversations between my friends and I over the last few months, as we all lamented our lack of prospects and our minimum-wage jobs.

When I got my hands on that album, I spent a good three weeks with it on loop, finally grateful to have a band out there who understood what it’s like to be a twenty-something failure these days. I feel like I’m a part of a generation who was lied to. When I was at college, they sat us down and told us that if you go to university, work hard, persevere? You’ll get to where you want to be.

So that’s what I did. I went. I studied. I worked. I walked out with a good degree with ambitions and dreams, straight into a world with no jobs in an industry that has crashed down around my feet.

With every year that goes by, the chances of me falling into my dream job get slimmer and slimmer as yet another few thousand graduates fall out on to the streets. That fact is terrifying.

Album opener The Last Six Years epitomises that feeling of failure to me. Those days where I trundled home at six in the morning from my lousy bar job to hear about my old course-mates getting up for their amazing new job at the BBC or some newspaper or other - that feeling of bitterness, that self-loathing? It’s all summed up in under three minutes of acoustic guitar.

You keep going, and songs like The World or Nothing just hit even closer to the bone - how you hold yourself back so that you have an excuse for not going anywhere. How you go and get drunk just for something to do. 

I had the same reaction when Young Guns released Bones last month. Towers (On My Way) is brutal in every possible respect, and while first single Learn My Lesson might be slightly more optimistic, those ideas of uncertainty and that you’ll never reach your own potential are all still there. 

It says a lot about the UK music scene when - arguably - two of the country’s most promising acts feel the need to touch on these themes. And yet, those albums? Under the initial bitterness and frustration? They fill me with hope.

Tracks like Bones make me feel like I can take on the universe if I put my mind to it. Songs like Dearly Departed make me realise I don’t need anybody else to get to where I want to be. 

When Young Guns announced they’d be touring Europe with Enter Shikari, it was inevitable I’d end up going. So when we were faced with two options - to go 47 miles across the Humber to Hull or 470 miles across the Channel to Amsterdam - it was obvious which was the more sensible option. 

I owe bands like that so much. Even ignoring the excitement of seeing a band live, I gain so much from those gigs. Some of my best friends are people I would never have met if it weren’t for going to shows. I’ve visited some of the most beautiful cities in the world now because of tours. 

When I try and tell ‘normal’ people that, I just get blank stares. Looks of utter confusion - why would you go all that way for a gig? You’ve seen them before, why are you going again?!

Nothing makes me happier than that room. I’ve said it before, but when the lights dim and the kick-drum starts? That’s it for me. The next twenty minutes/hour/three days are a giddy blur of singing and dancing and screaming and jager. It’s like Christmas to me. Except I don’t have to slave for hours over the stove, or argue with my dad about watching Eastenders.

I tried to explain it to a friend once. I compared it to him following his football team on away days. He scoffed and said it wasn’t the same.

I asked him how much of the city he actually saw on the day of the match. He said he didn’t, that he just put his iPod on during the train journey, got a taxi to the ground and then went home.

I get to see the country - the world, even. I get to do it with the best people in the universe, and we do it to the best soundtrack possible. And most importantly? I get to discover things like stroopwafel.

Cheers Young Guns. I owe you one.

♥ 17 notes
2 months ago
I know that I don’t treat music in the same way as most ‘normal’ people. I get that. I know that I get overly fixated on bands, on songs. When I buy an album I spend an age peeling off the plastic wrapper, turning through each page of the album artwork in turn, soaking in every lyric, every thank-you, every photograph. I know that isn’t the same for the masses. It’s no surprise that I take the break up of a band so personally. It’s a mourning process that mirrors a 14 year old being dumped for the first time. First, there’s disbelief. No, I say to myself. This can’t be happening. We were so happy together the last time I sang along to that album, why would they be deserting me now? For a brief while, I’m angry. They’re leaving me? Fine. I’ll listen to One Direction instead. I don’t need them. Even though they wrote songs that summed up how I felt better than I ever could have done in a hundred years. Even though their shows were the happiest I’d ever been, even though I owe them all of my friends and all of the best hangovers I’ve ever ha- It’s that moment the mourning starts. I surround myself in every bit of merchandise, play every album in turn. I flick through every photograph I took at a show, search You Tube for videos, look at the ticket stubs that are sat in the shoebox. It’s the equivalent of falling asleep wearing their t-shirt because it still smells of them. And then the doubt creeps in. What if it’s not just them who leaves me? What if every band I care about is going to disappear? What if they all sign in on Twitter one by one to call it a day? It’s this stage I find myself stuck in at 2am on Tuesday. See, the wonderful Francesqa have called it quits this evening, and I’m gutted. For a month solid this year, I fell asleep listening the rain on the windows and their We Lived EP.  I was lucky enough to see them a few times this year at silly pop/rock/punk festivals alongside some other awesome bands - so what if they all leave me, too? What if Young Guns scrap their new album before I get to hear it. What if Kids In Glass Houses’ tour was their last, as well? What if Mayday Parade don’t have the money to come back to the UK after all? Ryan already left Deaf Havana, what if they split up altogether too?! The problem with break-ups is that feeling of helplessness. When a band leaves you it’s almost worse than being dumped by a boy/girlfriend, because there’s no hope of closure. You can’t just ring up and ask what’s happened, if they’ll take you back. It’s the equivalent of being sent a text saying it’s not you, it’s me before they block your number and get a restraining order so you can’t ask them why. Now I’m dying to know, what’s going to happen to the unreleased and unfinished material. Are there side projects brewing? Will we ever be friends again?  It’s no secret. These are tough times to be in a band - album sales are at an all time low, attendance at shows is falling and money is tight. The number of bands who tour so constantly just to keep their name out there is unreal. The pressure it must place on inter-band relations as well as on friends and family back at home must be ridiculous. So I take them at their word -it really is them, not me. I didn’t do anything wrong; I bought the music, I went to the shows. And one day another band will come along and love me for the person I am. And maybe one day, we’ll be able to be friends again. I hope so. Reunion shows are fucking-A. 

I know that I don’t treat music in the same way as most ‘normal’ people. I get that. I know that I get overly fixated on bands, on songs. When I buy an album I spend an age peeling off the plastic wrapper, turning through each page of the album artwork in turn, soaking in every lyric, every thank-you, every photograph. I know that isn’t the same for the masses.

It’s no surprise that I take the break up of a band so personally. It’s a mourning process that mirrors a 14 year old being dumped for the first time.

First, there’s disbelief. No, I say to myself. This can’t be happening. We were so happy together the last time I sang along to that album, why would they be deserting me now?

For a brief while, I’m angry. They’re leaving me? Fine. I’ll listen to One Direction instead. I don’t need them. Even though they wrote songs that summed up how I felt better than I ever could have done in a hundred years. Even though their shows were the happiest I’d ever been, even though I owe them all of my friends and all of the best hangovers I’ve ever ha-

It’s that moment the mourning starts. I surround myself in every bit of merchandise, play every album in turn. I flick through every photograph I took at a show, search You Tube for videos, look at the ticket stubs that are sat in the shoebox. It’s the equivalent of falling asleep wearing their t-shirt because it still smells of them.

And then the doubt creeps in. What if it’s not just them who leaves me? What if every band I care about is going to disappear? What if they all sign in on Twitter one by one to call it a day?

It’s this stage I find myself stuck in at 2am on Tuesday. See, the wonderful Francesqa have called it quits this evening, and I’m gutted. For a month solid this year, I fell asleep listening the rain on the windows and their We Lived EP. 

I was lucky enough to see them a few times this year at silly pop/rock/punk festivals alongside some other awesome bands - so what if they all leave me, too? What if Young Guns scrap their new album before I get to hear it. What if Kids In Glass Houses’ tour was their last, as well? What if Mayday Parade don’t have the money to come back to the UK after all? Ryan already left Deaf Havana, what if they split up altogether too?!

The problem with break-ups is that feeling of helplessness. When a band leaves you it’s almost worse than being dumped by a boy/girlfriend, because there’s no hope of closure. You can’t just ring up and ask what’s happened, if they’ll take you back. It’s the equivalent of being sent a text saying it’s not you, it’s me before they block your number and get a restraining order so you can’t ask them why.

Now I’m dying to know, what’s going to happen to the unreleased and unfinished material. Are there side projects brewing? Will we ever be friends again? 

It’s no secret. These are tough times to be in a band - album sales are at an all time low, attendance at shows is falling and money is tight. The number of bands who tour so constantly just to keep their name out there is unreal. The pressure it must place on inter-band relations as well as on friends and family back at home must be ridiculous.

So I take them at their word -it really is them, not me. I didn’t do anything wrong; I bought the music, I went to the shows. And one day another band will come along and love me for the person I am. And maybe one day, we’ll be able to be friends again.

I hope so. Reunion shows are fucking-A. 

♥ 9 notes
5 months ago
Everyone has that band. That band you’ll defend to the death. That band whose new album you’re almost nervous to listen to incase they’re not your band anymore. That band that you just click with, for some reason - because they’re from your town, maybe. Or they write lyrics that could be from your diary. Maybe just that they made you smile and dance when nobody else could.  In the case of my housemate, that band was Cobra Starship. By her own admission not the greatest band in the world, but they got more promotion from her drunkenly telling DJs to play Guilty Pleasure than they ever got from any UK PR company.  When they released Hot Mess back in 2009, she tried so hard to convince me they weren’t selling out. Last month, I watched her sad little face as she deleted their new offering Night Shades from her iPod as she swore that she would never listen to it again. I felt sorry for her. Because I’ve been far luckier than that.  When I was sent to interview Kids in Glass Houses about four years ago, I could never have imagined how important a bunch of Welsh boys would become to me. Back then, they were riding on the coattails - Aled’s words, not mine - of one EP, relentlessly touring and playing to anyone who’d listen. As we sat over an hour long Connect 4 tournament, I realised that this was more than a band I quite liked to listen to on long train journeys. They were it. They were mine. The way Aled spoke about touring, about music in general, I just knew they were a band that just got it. And that’s never gone away.  I have seen that band play in every conceivable setting; sold out main rooms, arenas, festival tents, acoustic sets to a dozen people… and it’s always given a hundred per cent. Every show is followed by hours in drizzly car parks, smiling for photos and signing ticket stubs for even the rudest of seventeen year olds. Not long after I first met them back in 2007, KIGH signed to Roadrunner. I was so pleased for them, thought that this would be the moment they became household names. I waited for them to get shoved on the Radio 1 A-List so I could complain about how everyone was so slow jumping on the bandwagon. I was ecstatic for them. This year, they released their third full length, In Gold Blood. Without a doubt, it’s the greatest album they’ve put together, and in a year that has been chock-full with awesome British music, they’ve definitely made it into my Top 3 albums of the year with it. And yet? And yet they’re strugging.  A piece of my soul dies every time the jukebox at work starts playing Cobra Starship’s new single; it’s a piece of sell-out, radio-appeasing, auto-tuned shite. My workmates are the first on the dancefloor when it comes on on a Friday night, and yet when one of them picked up my iPod the other day and listened to In Gold Blood for a couple of minutes, they had to ask who I was listening to.  The sad thing is, it’s not just Kids in Glass Houses. There are dozens - hundreds, even - of hard working, amazing bands out there who should be rolling in it. They’re not. I have friends in bands who sleep in their van and brush their teeth in supermarket toilets for a week just so they can tour. I go to shows and see bands sell merch at half price just so they have enough cash to buy food that night and fill the van with petrol.  I think my point here is that if you love a band? Buy the music. Tickets to shows or t-shirts aren’t enough. They’re not what the record label look at when they’re deciding if they’ll fund another album cycle.  We’re all told how scarce money in these days. But I look around at kids with iPhones and designer clothes and wonder where their priorities lie. I get that not everyone gets as irrationally involved in music as I do, but when I see them tell a band that they changed their life but they illegally downloaded their album? I get pissy.  Christmas is coming. The amount of awesome albums you can get in HMV on 2 for £10 is unreal; please treat someone. Share your musical wisdom. And for the love of god if you can spare £4.99 go pick this album up. Because if I have to lose this band, I’m not going to be held responsible for my actions for a good six months to follow. 

Everyone has that band. That band you’ll defend to the death. That band whose new album you’re almost nervous to listen to incase they’re not your band anymore. That band that you just click with, for some reason - because they’re from your town, maybe. Or they write lyrics that could be from your diary. Maybe just that they made you smile and dance when nobody else could. 

In the case of my housemate, that band was Cobra Starship. By her own admission not the greatest band in the world, but they got more promotion from her drunkenly telling DJs to play Guilty Pleasure than they ever got from any UK PR company. 

When they released Hot Mess back in 2009, she tried so hard to convince me they weren’t selling out. Last month, I watched her sad little face as she deleted their new offering Night Shades from her iPod as she swore that she would never listen to it again. I felt sorry for her. Because I’ve been far luckier than that. 

When I was sent to interview Kids in Glass Houses about four years ago, I could never have imagined how important a bunch of Welsh boys would become to me. Back then, they were riding on the coattails - Aled’s words, not mine - of one EP, relentlessly touring and playing to anyone who’d listen. As we sat over an hour long Connect 4 tournament, I realised that this was more than a band I quite liked to listen to on long train journeys. They were it. They were mine.

The way Aled spoke about touring, about music in general, I just knew they were a band that just got it. And that’s never gone away. 

I have seen that band play in every conceivable setting; sold out main rooms, arenas, festival tents, acoustic sets to a dozen people… and it’s always given a hundred per cent. Every show is followed by hours in drizzly car parks, smiling for photos and signing ticket stubs for even the rudest of seventeen year olds.

Not long after I first met them back in 2007, KIGH signed to Roadrunner. I was so pleased for them, thought that this would be the moment they became household names. I waited for them to get shoved on the Radio 1 A-List so I could complain about how everyone was so slow jumping on the bandwagon. I was ecstatic for them.

This year, they released their third full length, In Gold Blood. Without a doubt, it’s the greatest album they’ve put together, and in a year that has been chock-full with awesome British music, they’ve definitely made it into my Top 3 albums of the year with it. And yet? And yet they’re strugging. 

A piece of my soul dies every time the jukebox at work starts playing Cobra Starship’s new single; it’s a piece of sell-out, radio-appeasing, auto-tuned shite. My workmates are the first on the dancefloor when it comes on on a Friday night, and yet when one of them picked up my iPod the other day and listened to In Gold Blood for a couple of minutes, they had to ask who I was listening to. 

The sad thing is, it’s not just Kids in Glass Houses. There are dozens - hundreds, even - of hard working, amazing bands out there who should be rolling in it. They’re not.

I have friends in bands who sleep in their van and brush their teeth in supermarket toilets for a week just so they can tour. I go to shows and see bands sell merch at half price just so they have enough cash to buy food that night and fill the van with petrol. 

I think my point here is that if you love a band? Buy the music. Tickets to shows or t-shirts aren’t enough. They’re not what the record label look at when they’re deciding if they’ll fund another album cycle. 

We’re all told how scarce money in these days. But I look around at kids with iPhones and designer clothes and wonder where their priorities lie. I get that not everyone gets as irrationally involved in music as I do, but when I see them tell a band that they changed their life but they illegally downloaded their album? I get pissy. 

Christmas is coming. The amount of awesome albums you can get in HMV on 2 for £10 is unreal; please treat someone. Share your musical wisdom. And for the love of god if you can spare £4.99 go pick this album up. Because if I have to lose this band, I’m not going to be held responsible for my actions for a good six months to follow. 

♥ 73 notes
5 months ago