So, guys, it’s March. The third one of the months. It’s the
month which, for those of us in the UK, USA and Australia, is Women’s History
Month. I am a woman, a woman in favour of the world acknowledging the
importance and equality of half of its population.
Therefore, as this is a music blog, I’m going to be doing
some stuff about women in music over the years. For instance, the first female
composer to be honoured in the UK was Ethel Smyth in 1922. Janet Knapp became
the first female president of the American Musicological Society in 1975. The
International Alliance for Women and Music was founded in 1995.
Obviously, I’m going to do some more specific stuff, but
there’s some general trivia for you, just in case.
Aspirations (Alex Ramos – vocals, Mark St. Pierre – vocals,
Chaz Bentley – guitar, Dylan Bradberry – bass, Kyle Daniel – drums) are
apparently a ‘melodic post-hardcore’ six-piece from Atlanta, Georgia. I have
high hopes for this because, looking at my iTunes, despite the fact that I and,
I think, a large amount of the general public aren’t entirely sure what post-hardcore
is (“Post-hardcore is a genre of music that developed from hardcore punk,
itself an offshoot of the broader punk rock movement” – Wikipedia), I have a
lot of post-hardcore on my iPod.
There’s only one song on their facebook (and it’s the only
one I can currently find elsewhere) – Restoration - but it’s a good song, I
really like it. To me – and I know fuck all about the technical side of music –
it at least sounds like they really know what they’re doing. Plus, there’s
screaming, and I love screaming. I wish I could scream. The song reminds me of
Of Mice And Men, We Came As Romans type stuff, and that’s generally not a bad
thing, ‘cause OM&M are one of my favourite bands. I’ve already re-listened
to this a few times while writing this post, and were I able to find any other
songs, I would love to listen to them. I am all over this, I’ve got the
new-band feeling. Excuse me while I abseil down into the fandom before the main crowd gets here.
Aaaaaaa this is awesome, I just wish I could find more
songs, aside from the teaser for Remember When (that’s the most dramatic
entrance of the word ‘ugh’ ever, I need someone to make a gif out of that).
I only knew what a Harlem Shake was a few days ago. You Me At Six did one and it was awesome. THE BEST HARLEM SHAKE IN THE WORLD
(I can't get it to show up as a proper video grrrr)
Now, I think you may have noticed by now that I'm a bit of a fangirl. So, can you perhaps imagine what I did when I saw that.
It's got Pierce The Veil. It's got Of Mice And Men. It's got Sleeping With Sirens. It's got All Time Low. It's got horse masks. It's got weird dancing and Vic pretending to get off with himself and Tony and Alan guitaring and Austin thrashing about and just
;slgkajkj;fkajs;dklmasfkmalmfmd;lfamdf;
FEELS
I LOVE BANDS
I LOVE THOSE BANDS
THEY DID A DANCE
I LOVE THEM
BANDS
ALWAYS
BANDS
I LOVE THEM SO MUCH I REALLY JUST BANDS I NEED BANDS
THANK YOU SOUNDWAVE
THIS IS WHY FESTIVALS HAPPEN
(I am very professional please pay me to write this kind of stuff more often)
Off their album Hold Me Down, and it's one of the songs that got me into them during my 2011 sessions of watching Kerrang! TV until 3 in the morning. So going to learn this if I ever manage to learn guitar properly.
I don't care if it's irrelevant and I don't care if it's a bit late in the day, self harm is a very important issue and one close to me. A lot of people think it's just your sort of archetypal 'emo' that self-harms, and that they'll do it as some kind of extremely melodramatic form of temper tantrum whenever they don't get their own way.
It's not. Self harm affects a much wider variety of people than that, and it's a lot more serious than that. It's not just cutting, either, a lot of things come under the term 'self harm'. Hitting, burning, breaking bones, pretty much anything they can find. It's not as a temper tantrum, it's a serious issue caused by the anguish brought on by various mental disorders or other trauma. People do it for a lot of reasons; a cry for help, to seek control, to punish themselves, or just because they need the pain to feel calm and real.
If you see someone with cuts or burns, don't ridicule them, you don't know what they've been through. They're very upset and they need your help and compassion. Let them know you're there for them, but don't go spreading it around. If you feel like you can handle what they might tell you, then let them know they can talk to you, and if not, help them find a doctor or psychologist - there are a lot out there, because self harm affects 400 out of every 100,000 people in the UK, and that's just what we know from the people who've come forward, and that takes a lot of strength. There are so many more out there who are afraid to come forward because of how people react towards self-harm and how they'll be judged.
If you self harm or know someone who does, check out these sites: S.A.F.E. (for the US) Befrienders (International) NSHN (UK) Harmless (UK)
There's even more than that out there - there are always people willing to help you.
Here, have a song - Hold On Till May by Pierce The Veil feat. Lindsey Stamey
A Mistake Undone is the first band on my long list I have compiled. I’m not sure
what you actually get if you undo a mistake, but let’s assume for now that the
answer to that is three people – P.D. Hewitt (vocals, guitar, piano), Bailey
Luce (bass) and Brandon Nick (drums) – from Indiana, whose influences are listed as, amongst
others, Panic! At The Disco, Rise Against, Tonight Alive, Mayday Parade and
then also . . . Tonight Alive again. That’s a relatively wide range of influences, of
which I greatly approve.
They’re an alright band, and they sound like they could be
really good with some practice. Their songs are good, but they still sound very,
very new and a bit unsure of themselves on the songs I can find. Their song
Run Away seems to be the main one, and it’s ok, but the singing varies a bit
between shy and something a little bit like Tom DeLonge. Don’t get me wrong, Tom DeLonge is good, it’s just
a little bit unnerving when he momentarily possesses people.
Aaargh, I don’t like saying bad stuff, because they are a
band that sounds like they could be really good, but I suppose I need to do
constructive criticism (but what do I even know about music, I can’t even play
an instrument). They just need to practice and get more confident and relaxed.
But over all, they are good, and their two songs that I managed to find are growing on me.
