Girls Get Busy!

I also got a chance to take a photo of mine and Lydia's matching tattoos!

I love having a matching tattoo with such an awesome lady!

Goldsmiths Ladyfest

On Thursday it was the annual Ladyfest week at Goldsmiths and me and Lydia were invited along to the band night to dj, something neither of us could pass up on!

Being the dj is equal parts terrifying and exciting, you get to be in control of what everyone is listening (and hopefully) dancing too, so it's always fun to slip in a few things they might not be expecting and it's a great way to get loads of people to listen to unheard of bands that you love! When I dj at Girl Germs I'm always pretty sure people are going to like the stuff I play, so Kathleen Hanna screaming or Kat Bjelland yelping always go down well. But when your in a room full of people at someone else's event, you're not always so sure what's going to go down well, and it didn't help that it was at Goldsmiths where everyone is far too cool...and that seems to be how it went down, there was a lot of foot tapping and smiles but no one broke out any crazy moves, even to Deceptacon!

Even for the lack of dancing it did seem like people enjoyed our set and we got lots of people asking what the songs were.

But, on to more important things, the bands! First on were the bracelettes who played super fast but were just as cute, kind of like a Japanese Ramones!

 

Then it was Pens who I'd heard a lot about, not all good...but that was definitely proved wrong. They looked cute as a button, like the cast of Sweet Valley High, and they sounded bratty and like they just didn't care in the best way possible. I think the thing I liked most was that they looked like they were having an awesome time and that just made them sound great even though they didn't have the best instruments...I think that's my favourite thing about what seems to be a mini grrrl band revival, it's so inspiring seeing girls forming bands cos they can and want to and not taking themselves too seriously like the endless poser-indie-boy-bands you always see. 

                      

Next up it was Wet Dog. If you don't already, you need to have this band in your life. They were just so amazingly cool, like really blasé and confident, but really bouncy and excited at the same time! By the end of their set I had declared my love for the drummer! They had a really unique sound, jangly and angular, but also fluid with the three vocals and all the in instruments rolling off each other. They are way too heard to describe, I guess you could say they sounded like the Au Pairs, Raincoats and Slits... but just go just listen to them!

 

The last band were Veronica Falls who I think sound like the perfect jangly apocalyptic pop band. Some of the guitar riffs are just absolute perfection. But even though I think they sound wonderful, they just seem to fit the night, either they've taken the aloof hipster thing too far, or they were just bored. They didn't seem to have a clue what Ladyfest was about, or really care. Maybe it was all the boys they have in the band (ha!). Either way, their attitude made me like them a little bit less.  

                      

It was really inspiring to be in a room filled with so many different and awesome ladies (and gents!). I just wished every gig I went to was as good and lady-friendly.

Saved by Zines

 

image by moirabot 

Just lately it's felt like my life has been crumbling away from around me.

January is never a great month, it's cold, it's grey and the thought of a whole new year ahead of me tends to terrify me rather than inspire me (at least in January anyway, all January makes me want to do is sleep). I usually just try and see it through until the 27th which my birthday and then it's February. For me it feels that when I've had my birthday the year begins, I always make a new years resolution list on 1st February.


But this year, by the second week of January I had been evicted and I no longer had a room to hibernate in. I was given a weeks notice by my landlord to move out, so by the time I had realised what was happening I was unpacking my bag of things in Dan's room.

I don't really know why, but where I live, and having somewhere I like living and feel comfortable has been a really important thing for me my whole life. I've always felt if I have a place I can feel safe and have my things around me I can use it as a base to do anything I want to do. And when it all gets too much I can hide myself away in there.

I really enjoy living with Dan and being able to see him everyday, and I am really grateful to Les and Crissi (who own the house) to let me stay there. But that's the thing, I'm staying there rather than living there. And I guess it makes me sound a bit precious, but not having somewhere that I can call my own really started to get to me. Mixed in with what feels like the utter hopelessness of trying to find a new place, I felt like the year was never going to really get started for me.

On the 13th of February it was the alternative press fair and I went along and picked up a few zines from Tukru. When I got home I devoured them all in minutes, just reading words that echoed my own feelings and thoughts written by girls just like me made me feel so much better. It made me so much happier to know that other people were feeling the way I was, and were managing to do something productive and creative with it.

I've been working on the second issue of Pillow Talk for about three years. Yeah, three years. I've finished it about 10 times, but everytime just ripped it up. But suddenly after reading all these amazing zines I was finally inspired enough to finish and feel I had said something worthwhile. And my sudden need for anything zine related has spurred on a few other things, like me and Lydia are making a women and tattoo contribution zine and I travelled down to Brighton to go to the Zine fest there.

So this year will be the year of the zine!

image by sarah mcneil

Home

My parents think I should leave London and move to Cambridge. Get myself a nice job and a nicer little house. When I was walking around Cambridge yesterday the idea seemed so tempting, there were hundreds of people on bikes, cobbled paths, lovely shops and beautiful parks. It would be cheap(er) and I would be near my family.

Sometimes I wonder what I am actually staying in London for. Slowly, I think I am beginning to realise that London isn’t paved with as much gold as I thought it was. I love that there is so much to do here, but surely things happen outside of London.

At the moment I am living in my boyfriends room and will probably end up lodging somewhere, and I work as a temp. I am completely on the fringe. No real home, no real job, and no real money…so I can’t even really afford to do the things London can offer me.

But I can’t leave, I can’t give up that dream that got me out of my smalltown. I can’t leave Dan. As sad as that sounds, but I just can’t. As much as I don’t want to rely on someone else, I want him around. I would be so lonely, so surely that would take away the fun of moving somewhere else.

I want somewhere to feel like home, I’ve moved boroughs just about every year I have been in London so I have never really got to know one. And I left the town I grew up in when I was 8 to an even smaller town, so neither of them felt like home.

I don’t know what I really want or where I want to belong.