What REALLY happened at Macaulay Culkin's Pizza Underground gig

A delicious "These Days" cover
from my Instagram

This weekend the Pizza Underground swept across the nation as part of Dot to Dot festival with their own special brand of novelty Velvet Underground pizza themed covers. I have since read a lot of media coverage which seems to be constructed from hearsay and tweets from people who said they were there (BBC, Manchester Evening News and The Mirror  online and The Independent paper used a tweet of mine which I put up the morning after) These guys are now topic of the current most read article on the BBC website, but I'm yet to see any media coverage from journalists who actually went. So I'm going to shed some light on the situation and let you know what actually happened at the Manchester gig.

My quote in the Independent 8-)

MYTH#1 - MACAULAY STORMED OFF - nah he didn't. I was really surprised to see how laid back and funny he was, he told some hilarious jokes, including my personal favourite "What's the difference between a pepperoni pizza and a boner? I haven't got a pepperoni pizza right now."  During the last song a couple dived on him and after being broken apart by a bouncer,  he quickly said bye to the audience and was promptly ushered off. The rest of the band followed after and it was the most abrupt end to a gig I've ever seen. The only negativity the audience received for their awful behaviour was from the bands "Nico" personality who said something along the lines of most of us were awesome, some of us were ass holes and I think she called us wankers at some point too, but that was fair as she seemed to be getting most of the beer thrown over her.
MYTH#2 - BAD VIBEZ - everyone seemed to be enjoying it except the pricks who were throwing shit. I was in hysterical giggles all the way through, I would say it was generally a weird, surreal but enjoyable experience. But every review I've read has had a fairly negative tone, focusing on how bad the band were (what the fuck were you expecting srsly)
MYTH#3 - GLASS THROWING - I saw about 4 or 5 drinks fly through the air during their 40 minute performance. 2 were definitely glass (which was foolish of Zoo to be serving drinks in glasses in hindsight) one smashed off the ceiling and rained shards and booze all over, another smashed against the back of the stage. These knobbish actions were met with boos from the crowd who wanted to have a good time, but not directed at the band at all. At no point were the band booed in Manchester. And I'd query just how bad it was in Nottingham too, there was no reports of shit going down at Bristol either. I guess you don't know unless you were there for sure.

GIRL RAP MOB PLAYLIST

To celebrate my favourite rapper/ artist/ queen cutie Kitty's new EP "Impatiens", I've put together a lil playlist of ladies who spit well on the mic. Feat. classics from Missy and Salt-n-Pepa and Kitty collaborations with Chippy Non-Stop and Riff Raff.

STYLIN' - Chavabilly

A slightly less classy variant of Trashabilly, this style speaks to me for many reasons. Mainly because of my massive love of female rappers (Kreayshawn, Awkwafina, Lil Debbie) my need to wear brights and yearning for a solid pair of trainers. Here's 5 Chavabilly Must Haves:

1. GOLD JEWELLERY - I'd say it's all in the accessories with this one, they've got to be bold and they've got to be gold. Not real gold mind, in fact the cheaper you can go the better, as long as you're not rocking the green skin too. I'd obviously recommend anything from the Extreme Largeness Street Style range.
2. BODYCON DRESSES - OK OK so a steady diet of saturated fat for as long as I can remember hasn't exactly given me a Barbie figure, but if I want to wear fucking Lycra, I'm going to wear fucking Lycra. Everyone else can deal with the garish leopard print and oversized florals stamped all over my lardy rolls, I feel good in shit that's skin tight.
3. TRAINERS - I got my Nike Air Max about a month ago and rarely wear anything else now. They're comfy, versatile and look hella flashy.
4. MAKE UP - I think this is where the rockabilly element comes in, I'm talking eyeliner wings so big they're gonna fly away and opaque red/ pink lippy. It's what's going to bring all that cheap shit you're wearing up a notch. Classic rockabilly hair also looks good too like beehives and bandanas.
5. YER SWAG - You can drink Lambrini, but make sure it's cherry flavour and out of a cup, not straight from the bottle like what you would usually do. You'll need to step up your twerk game from Miley to Major Lazer. You can still listen to hip hop but they've got to have a Tumblr, and maybe just stick to girl rappers that are feisty feminists. As a life rule.

What You Should Listen To This Week: THE AMAZING SNAKEHEADS

I'm such a blog slacker. I could say I've had a week off, but in all honestly I've either been
a) lazy (most likely)
b) doin shit with the fam
c) listening to The Amazing Snakeheads
Amphetamine Ballads is a very apt name for this album, it stimulates your senses and then you become completely hooked on it. This Glaswegian trio have been dominating my earphones for the last week or so with their growly bluesy rock and I love every track. You can hear licks of The Cramps and The Birthday party in songs like Nighttime and the rough croon of Tom Waits and Nick Cave in Every Guy Wants to be Her Baby. If you like the recent offerings of my other favourite scuzzy-rock band Fat White Family (former single of the week) then wrap your lug holes around this filth.

Woman Crush Wednesday: 5 Reasons Why I Love ReeRee Rockette

I found out about Rockalily Salon a couple of years ago when looking for different rockabilly blogs to contact for work. I was excited to find an alternative style hair salon that specialises in retro and vintage styles, but even more excited to read the salon owner's blog. I instantly subscribed through Bloglovin' so I can easily read it everyday and started following on Twitter and Instagram. Here's why I think she's one of the best bloggers around...

1. She's determined - Ree Ree blogs everyday. Not only does she magically manage to do that, she always posts read-worthy content, whether it's thoughts on business and marketing (one of her recent posts introduced me to Peek Test, which I found really useful) to hair tips and tricks. It's a blog that's appealing and readable for practically everyone.
2. She's inspirational - Her "fitspo" posts are amazing. I've always thought her dedication to healthy eating and exercise is so inspiring, she's disciplined yet realistic. it's usually just something like what she's having for tea or what route she's been running recently, but when you see her "now and then" weight loss posts, it's incredible how much these decisions she makes have changed her body! She also inspires me as a business woman, a feminist and a blogger!
3. She's always smiley - You only have to take a quick look at her Instagram to realise Ree Ree takes a lot of selfies. This is great for many reasons, but mainly because she's always smiling! It can really lift your mood when you're scrolling through an otherwise dull feed of other peoples boring snaps on IG and then you see a happy face, it's lovely and refreshing! 
4. She's diverse - Ree is well known for her Outfit of the Day posts and one thing that always stands out for me is how eclectic her taste is (and how many clothes she has, srsly this woman has the biggest wardrobe in the world!) She wrote a blog on Trashobilly about a year ago which I loved because it finally gave a name for something I consider to be my style (ish) and it summarized a whole range that Extreme Largeness did, so we did a blog post off the back off her! Her style can vary from full on rockabilly glamour to casual charity shop jumpers, but she always looks gorgeous!
5. She's intelligent - From what I've read of any of her thoughts and opinion style blogs, Ree Ree has this fantastic ability to really simply analyse something and eloquently articulate her view without it seeming over thought or verbose (unlike me clearly.) There's a quote in her piece titled "Creating our image and fighting our fears of style" which she discusses the beliefs we hold about different pieces of clothing and whether it symbolises who we want to be - "They're just clothes, and anyone can buy and wear them. Yet we create barriers for ourselves. A lack of confidence is so restricting!" I thought this was a straightforward yet punchy statement that I'll be carrying with me when considering something new.
6. BONUS - She has a super cute dog!
   

Fading hair with washing up liquid and bicarbonate soda

It works! I guess. The purple I had on my hair was Directions Plum, but I had a Bleach London "Washed Up Mermaid" which I was well keen to use, so I started the lightening process. My technique was to mix some washing up liquid with bicarbonate (baking) soda, get my hair wet and just rub it in. I left it on for half an hour each time I did it, and rinsed it off as normal. It was definitely most effective the first few times I did it, but it really really dries your hair. I use Lush Retread Conditioner and coconut oil on the ends of my hair, so it's just about back to normal. In the end I also ended up using a hair stripper and bleach, but this was a good idea to get most of the purple out.

More sculpture making with Miles Gavin

So my classes with Miles have been continuing over the last few weeks but because I've been a massively lazy blogger recently I've not been posting progress. BUT how it has progressed! I have really fallen for this medium and I'm already looking at future projects based on what I learnt with Miles.
I did a few more sketches so I could get my colour right and look at all the details I wanted to include (eyelashes, ribbons, and gems)

We then made the basic structure of my cat which involved Miles using a laser saw! It was way too threatening for me to do on my own so he covered that part. I'm sorry but I just don't trust myself with an electric saw or any power tools, I would be a danger to myself and anyone in the surrounding area. I then made this weird looking featureless cat thing and whacked a load of resin all up on it. MIlliput is a versatile 2 part modelling resin which dries in about 45 minutes and goes rock solid.

The next session we carefully put together the facial features, I wanted to give it big bulgy anime style eyes and they are literally the majority of it's face. The face-making process wasn't challenging at all, but you do have to consider little details what you wouldn't normally think about like eyelids and creases on the nose and where whiskers go, but these little details are what really makes the piece what it is. And a stuck a cute little heart gem right on its forehead too.

In the latest session we did some painting! The cat is spray painted all over to create a smooth quick-drying finish. Then the details are painted using a really fine brush. I've somewhat obviously opted for pinks and blues cuz, well, pink cat. This was all done in a step-by-step guide instructed by Miles which had obviously been perfected over his many years of painting animal faces. We then whacked on a layer of spray varnish and my kitty was all shiny!

I'm loving my cat's Sphinx type look but it's all lumpy and bumpy so it'll be getting a nice layer of fur in our last session next week!

What You Should Listen To This Week: TODD TERJE

This morning was like any other Monday morning in Manchester, grey, snotty and depressing. So when walking from the train station to work, I decided to brighten it up by delighting my ears with the electronic sounds of Todd Terje's latest single Delorean Dynamite. This fantastic jam sounds like the love child of the Knightrider theme and your favourite '80s video game. For a man who has a recipe for "disco dough" on his website, he knows how to mix tunes as well as he mixes... dough. In the marvellous way that shuffle works, it rolled nicely into a newly discovered Neil Young gem Sample and Hold (I've been slowly getting acquired to him over the last year) that song is basically Kavinsky before Kavinsky. Then I wanted to listen to the Drive soundtrack, which I have on delicious lemon yellow vinyl. Anyway, based on Todd's offering, I'm looking forward to listening to the amazingly titled "It's Album Time" soon. 

Speaking of really '80s things, my little brother came back from Japan last week and he went to Disneyland one night and saw this amazing Michael Jackson film in 3D...

Have you seen TK Maxx's "My Style My Size" campaign?

I was doing some research at work yesterday looking at online retailers and was delighted to discover TK Maxx have their stuff online. Working in e-commerce and website design I always pay attention to what's on the homepage and calls to action prompted by retailers for their customers. But I thought their choice of "My Style My Size" was a bit odd. I'm assuming it's based on shopper research and how their customers browse by size, but I feel that it conflicts with their other super positive something-for-everyone be-unique-and-individual image. Although I get it's still promoting clothes for all shapes and sizes, plus the phrasing personalises the shopping experience, but I feel like it's forcing me to pigeonhole myself by what size I am, and why should I be defined by my size? Who says that the pieces that are in my size are my style? Why isn't there a one size option, surely it's more satisfying to browse what you like than what will fit? I'm just seeing "this is what fits you, this is what you have to buy." And obviously I understand you're only going to buy something if it fits you, but you can take inspiration from things you like that don't! This prominent size restricting browsing is also only implemented to Women's Clothing too?! Are men less likely to browse by size? I liked this post I saw the other day on the Nikki Lipstick blog and I'd love to see more "one size" options on websites. This would reassure me that everyone is getting every piece available and won't make me feel restricted by what's on the label.

What You Should Listen To This Week: BAD GRAMMAR

I was first introduced to jazzy shirt wearing Manc two piece Bad Grammar when I saw them supporting Giant Drag at Deaf Institute last year. I loved their excited happy vibe and grunge-pop sounds, so I bought one of their rad shirts and saw them again supporting Future of the Left with The Wytches at Soup Kitchen which was an incredible gig. So I'm chuffed that I can now listen to more than the 2 songs that were on Spotify, they've upped their game and added four whole new songs, packaged as their new EP Forced Fun. Also available on Soundcloud and Bandcamp.
Check their "LADS ON TOUR LADS ON TOUR LADS ON TOUR #LADSONTOUR" style video for Temper Temper

Bad Grammar on Twitter
Bad Grammar on Facebook

Encountering Corpses: Jewelled Skeletons & Getting Pissed at Church

Paul Koudounaris (from Heavenly Bodies)

I was introduced to the personality and charm of Paul Koudounaris before his beautiful photography, when my bestie Jessica informed me she was talking to a dude from LA online who's obsessed with cats and has a house full of taxidermy and I would love him. I initially dismissed it as Jess being her weird little self as always. But when browsing tumblr and Paul's Heavenly Bodies work came up on my dashboard with 12,000+ notes attached, I realised it was something more special than just being weird. Soon after his book release I was reading articles on Vice, seeing more of these images being shared around online and met his lovely friends from LA Mike Odd and Sugarpie (who came over for Rebellion Festival and seemed to enjoy the tacky horror of Blackpool more than anyone who's ever been to Blackpool.) All the while I was becoming more intrigued about this mysterious photographer.
So I was obviously very excited when Jess started to put things in motion to get Paul's photography exhibited in Manchester. She put Helen Malarky in touch with him, (Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research project manager at MMU) and plans were forming to hold the Encountering Corpses exhibition at Sacred Trinity Church. I got my tickets for the opening night in January, it sold out quickly and soon everyone I knew wanted to see this work.

  

The exhibition consists of 12 large scale photos of charnal houses and jeweled skeletons which Paul had taken around Europe, part of his 2 published works Heavenly Bodies and The Empire of Death. The was also a small sectioned off room showing the work of MMU's Sue Fox. Sue gained access to autopsies, mortuaries and crematoriums to create Post Mortem, first published 17 years ago, creating graphic images of limbs and corpses with a sort of soft harsh-ness. The church was also scattered with pieces by community artists in response to the exhibition and soundtracked by the murder ballads of Lee Mellor. We also had some magnificent skull cake from the gorgeous Annabel de Vetten of Conjurers Kitchen (who got very excited about the Frida Kahlo skirt I was wearing and stuck stickers on my boobs.)

Sacred Trinity Church

Skull cakes by The Conjurer's Kitchen

Cake cushion with chocolate skull

Me and Paul Koudounaris

The following night we went to a goth club night at the church which was... interesting. The idea of a club night which was in a church near my flat and bring your own beer (obvs churches don't having alcohol licenses so they just trust you to drink responsibly) was very intriguing. What with me not being a massive goth I didn't know much of what was being played, but they did lay down some Huey Lewis and the News! And there were UV lights, weird dressed up child skeletons, and we were getting pissed in church.
  ENCOUNTERING CORPSES RUNS 28TH MARCH - 10TH APRIL MON-FRI 10AM-4PM

Mother's Day Cross Stitch

Happy Mother's Day! Mama Buttons enjoys my cross stitches so I made her a "HOME is where the MUM is" one. It was fairly simple to do (always struggle with centering though!) Got the inspiration from Pinterest when browsing mum/ daughter quotes. They're always so horribly naff though, I really hate it when people take these random objective quotes that someone else has anonymously written and layered it over some twatty image and everyone's like ERMAHGERD THAT'S SO ME (classic example, "Keep Calm and..." or Tumblr blogs like justgirlythings, bleugh)

Another classic Mother's Day
cross stitch from a few years ago...
still in the kitchen!

ANYWAY, I saw this quote and all that kind of went out the window. I was thinking about just before I moved a couple of weeks ago, I heard a statistic about people having on average 8 houses in their entire lifetime. I'm 26 in July and I'm on my 10th! But none of them have really felt like "home" apart from where my mum lives (to be fair, she's also moved twice in the last 18 months haha) I love my weekly visits back home, even if I do have to sleep on the sofa and listen to my parents bicker about what to watch on TV! Tonight in stead of doing that, we all sat in the living room and chatted and caught my brother Joey in Cologne on FaceTime. My family are my best friends, they make me laugh, they're all different personalities and they're just happy people who are nice to be around!

Me & Mama Buttons
May 2013 (not drunk)

Today I'm thanking my mum for being tolerant. Tolerant of my many stupid hair colours and fashion phases, but still being seen outdoors with me. Tolerant of me having to sleep on the sofa for 2 months when I split up with my boyfriend and didn't have anywhere to live. Tolerant of the daft things that I say and do on a daily basis and still laughing. I've made a lot of bold decisions of the last few years and she has been nothing but supportive of any path I have chosen. I'm not a shining example of the perfect daughter, I don't have a degree or a "proper job" or a mortgage, but she's really proud of me and my 2 brothers. She's happy because we're all happy, and we're all happy because we've been raised happy. And for that I would say she's a pretty amazing mum!

Breadcrumb Trail

My knowledge of the post-rock band Slint was never vast. I own the Spiderland LP on record, which just has 4 dudes in water on the front and some song titles in a handwritten font on the back. The one fun fact I know is that Bonnie Prince Billy took that photo, but I only know that because he obviously gets credit. I've always loved Spiderland but in the same way that I love Explosion in the Sky's The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place or Mogwai's Come On Die Young. I guess I went through a post-rock phase and although I wouldn't say it all blended in together, I really liked everything I heard.
I missed the opportunity to see them live last year and Manchester's Albert Hall, and considering this was one of only rare UK gigs they did, I was pretty gutted. So when I heard about the film on Friday afternoon, I got tickets straight away. Me and Richard went down to the nearly sold out screening at the Cornerhouse that evening, which also included a Q&A from the director Lance Bangs.


Without giving too much away, I loved this documentary for the following reasons:

1. They were so fucking young - this was consistently emphasized throughout. Everyone who was interviewed from Steve Albini to Ian McKaye kept talking about how they were "just kids wanting to do something different." Which is what made the thing they did even more extraordinary. They got through their teenage years on a string of inside jokes and rehearsals while never taking themselves too seriously. 
2. It was slow and thorough but with messy qualities - I'm not sure how many other viewers I speak for when I say this and maybe I should have done a bit more research before I watched it, but I still barely have a clue who's involved with Slint because there were so many names being thrown around! The line up chopped and changed so many times between Maurice, Squirrel Bait and Slint and although I could have done with like a chronological timeline of what went down with those bands, I quite liked all the different perspectives and stories from all the musicians thrown together.
3. It's a beautiful watch - In between interviews with the band, producers and parents, you're treated to grainy film footage of car parks, old Super 8's of high school battle of the bands competitions, adolescent photos contributed by Will Oldham and videos of the band rehearsing songs from Spiderland in their basement before they were put to record.

Unfortunately it was cut short due to technical difficulties (there was an awkward 5 minutes or so where everyone was just sat listening to the film with no picture while Lance described the visuals.) There was then a short post-screening Q&A hosted by Everything Everything's singer Jeremy Pritchard. Lance discussed letters sent to the band regarding the note on the back of the Spiderland record requesting a female vocalist, the future of Slint and the possibility of him making a Neutral Milk Hotel documentary.
It's a fascinating, funny and gorgeous insight into the making of a fantastic record and the Louisville music culture it emerged from and I'm finding it hard to take my Spiderland LP off the record player now.

Single of the Week: Lowell - Cloud 69

If you're in the mood for some loud, punchy, girl-vocaled, bassy jams, check the new single by Canadian-based shouty-cheerleader Lowell. Plus the artwork is raaaaaad.

Manchester Bee Cross Stitch

My latest creative creation, a Manchester bee cross stitch for Miki's birthday. Fairly simple to do and based on a pattern I found online, would like to make them more often as presents!