Robyn Writes

NaNoWriMo – Only The Insane Need Apply

It’s only the 4th of November, and already, NaNoWriMo has consumed my life.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is an event thought up by Chris Baty in 1999. It takes place from the 1st to the 30th of November. Out of the huge amount of participants (number in total), three out of six TBO writers (myself, fightclubsandwich and ninthandash) are taking up the challenge this year, and we’re already finding it difficult to hit the daily average word count.

You might be thinking “Wait, word count? What does that mean?” It means that you have to complete a 50,000 word novel (although they never frown upon more) in thirty days.

And now you see why we’re crazy.

In order to hit the goal, you have to write 1667 words a day. It’s not impossible, and I’ve been hitting that target or beating it over the last couple of days. In fact, in order to catch up, I wrote over 3000 words yesterday. But, this took me around two to three hours when I was meant to be doing a history essay. I stayed glued to my pen and paper instead of talking to my friends during lunch time. I know that during the course of this month, I will be staying up late into the night in order to catch up. The novel doesn’t have to be perfect, which is something that many NaNo writers stress about. After all, you can call NaNoWriMo the first draft. You’ve then got time to perfect it and turn it into that best seller. In fact, many NaNo writers have used their NaNo novels and become best sellers in America.

So, all of the stress and tears and self-deprecation for what? The gratification of knowing that you’ve written a novel. The feeling of completing something on such a massive scale in such a short time span is incredible. I’ve written a novel once before, but over the course of around a year. I couldn’t believe how I had managed to put so much effort, sleepless nights and cups of coffee into a piece of work. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be exactly the same with NaNoWriMo. Except with a few more cups of coffee and sleepless nights.

We all have our vices. Mine aren’t sex, drugs and rock and roll, they’re video games, caffeine and literature. So for the next thirty days, goodbye, free time and hello, unpredictable characters, a faulty plot and overstyled dialogue. I can tell I’m going to love every minute of it.

Review: My Preserver – Revolutions In The Head

To be honest, until I’d been handed the CD, I’d never heard of these guys. But as it is, TwoBeatsOff likes new music and well, it’s nice to write about stuff I’ve got no preconceptions or assumptions about. And of course, new bands are always a plus. So, I had to do a bit of digging. It turns out that My Preserver are tagged as ‘electro-rock’ on Last.FM by their listeners, which makes sense, and that they’re from London. Googling their record label came forward with nothing, so I’m presuming that debut Revolutions In The Head is in fact self released (which was then confirmed by their Facebook page), which fills me with a fair bit of joy – it’s always great to see bands do it themselves, particularly when those bands get shot to fame, much like My Passion, who are one of the UK’s hardest working bands right now. However, despite their similar names and circumstances, their music is nothing alike and My Preserver wear far less eyeliner. Instead, it’s time to let the music speak for itself and determine if My Preserver have that same edge in order to propel them to atmospheric heights.

Opening track, King Jesus is a great starting point, full of energy and excessively catchy. It’s the sort of thing you’d catch on MTV2’s former excellent afternoon slot, “Text, Drugs and Rock And Roll”, and reminds me a little bit of US band Acceptance, who have the same knack for creating riffs that get in your head. The Green Wash starts in a fairly similar way to the previous track, and perhaps here, some variety would have been nice. They’re certainly not the same song – The Green Wash is actually more interesting and shows more musical depth, deviating from the repetitive but effective formula of King Jesus, but is kind of let down by its length. Third track Terrorist slows the affair down with its piano opening, and a theme of religion and politics echoes through; while this isn’t a political album, there is certainly more depth here than in the average chart release. Meaning, you wouldn’t catch songs like this on the latest Vampire Weekend record. It’s a refreshing change to hear something more lyrically interesting than boy-likes-girl-and-writes-song-about-her in something that isn’t political punk.

Dancing With Bricks is as danceable as its title suggests, but not as impressive as You Know Something I Don’t Know which follows it. This is the best song on the album by far – it’s aggressive, it’s got one hell of a synth solo and fully displays Plowright’s potential vocal talent. Not to say that the vocals are awful for the rest of the album, because they aren’t, but often, when vocals should be more forceful than they are, they turn out a little whiny. It’s okay though – the Americans were doing it before these guys and got away with it. Puzzles is a slow, burning affair, driven by the simple but beautiful underlying guitar riff. It slowly builds and lifts, ending on an echoey note. Children Of The Capitalists is more of the same – synthy synth, distorted guitar, etc, but has some interesting backing vocals in the form of what sounds like actual kids. Guys With Spikes is again, let down by its length – with this kind of stuff, a song over four minutes can be sort of pushing it, and has some very repetitive keyboardy drone before the guitar solos kick in. Otherwise, it’s a perfectly good song, and fits well with the rest of the album’s tone. Change The Blue Bag brings the excitement levels up again and is again, very very catchy. It’s Just A Game is a bit too similar to a few of the other tracks on the album, but is fun all the same. Finisher Loose Change has echoes of Muse in it, especially in the way that it attempts the grandiose. While it’s not the best finisher – the best song on the album should always be reserved for this – it certainly does represent what is best about the album and shows potential for the next release.

Although generally this isn’t my kind of music, I can certainly see that My Preserver have grand ambitions. You don’t attempt music like this if you don’t. While I enjoyed the album, I found it to be reasonably repetitive, which was a real shame. There are moments of brilliance and then… back to the same formula. On the whole, it’s quite similar musically to a lot of bands who came out around the mid 2000s, if not lyrically. It’s almost like the album wants to be its influences, when it doesn’t need to be. It doesn’t stand out like it should and doesn’t stand up to the shuffle test – when I put my iTunes on shuffle and it came up, I had to look up who was playing, I couldn’t guess who it was on my own. And while I may have over 7000 songs on my iTunes, I can certainly tell if it’s something spectacular.

It’s a great attempt for a debut and I’d like to see what happens next for My Preserver. It’s certainly worth checking out if you happen to like chunky synths and some fun guitar. The suggested genre on my iTunes was ‘alternative and punk’ and well… I suppose it is alternative. But next time, let’s hope it’s a better alternative to what’s on offer instead of just blending in.

3.5 out of 5 high fives!

Review: My Passion – Corporate Flesh Party


Is the ‘Kerrang!’-friendly quartet worth all the hype?

In order to appreciate this album for its creative merits, you must clear your mind of any preconceptions; of any memories of rabid fans or luminous merchandise. My Passion are a band who are inevitably going to be judged by their appearances, and it’s understandable as to why. The Hertfordshire collective are slick, stylish and very, very easy on the eye- but are they all eyeliner and no substance? Their debut album ‘Corporate Flesh Party’ tells us all we need to know.

Corporate Flesh Party opens with the rich and surprisingly heavy offering that is Crazy and Me; a particularly catchy number with a killer bassline. Between each verse is a suitably beefy musical interlude that can’t help but get you moving, or at least tapping your foot. This catchy little ditty also showcases some particularly impressive changes in dynamics, tempo and a subtle and not unpleasant appearance of some mild synths. All in all, a good, upbeat, fun opener.

Although ‘Crazy and Me’ is an inevitable crowd-pleaser, it is within such self assured tracks as Play Dirty that My Passion come into their own. With a particularly impressive mix of synths and raw guitars, they create a memorable, danceable tune with a metal edge. ‘Play Dirty’ boasts a distinctly original sound that I can’t help but find compelling. Although their frequent use of synthesisers can’t help but draw comparisons with such outfits as Enter Shikari, the prominent use of synthesisers is where such similarities end. ‘Play Dirty’ is polished and honed in each element- the dual vocals between their sickeningly multi-talented drummer Jonathan Gaskin and vocalist Lawrence Rene are flawless and incredibly effective in creating a suitably high-energy vibe. Day of the Bees is the second promotional video from the record and is indeed one of the more radio-friendly offerings from the album. Once again, My Passion deliver a suitably fun, synth driven attack that keeps the listener on their toes with an impressive off-beat, bouncy rhythm. ‘Day of the Bees’ proves to be more electro and poppy than the other tracks on ‘Corporate Flesh Party’ but any element of superficiality on this track is swiftly counteracted by some rather fetching screams and powerful breaks in dynamics and the band really deliver on the choruses with a particularly effective use of both vocalists. Never Everland is a surprisingly heavy song, with an introduction of light synths quickly evolving into a far heavier, faster mix. Never Everland also sees the appearance of more variety on the part of Rene, as he introduces more raw, harder features to his vocals. Although ‘Never Everland’ is a very enjoyable track, by now, any listener will have noticed that although My Passion can indeed do music, their lyrics leave a little to be desired. If what you look for in a band is profound, poetic lyrics, I’m afraid you won’t find it with this band, but on the other hand, if you want catchy, fun songs that are great to dance to and will most probably remain in your head for most of the day, then ‘Corporate Flesh Party’ is your sort of album. Personally, as soon as I heard the words ‘clap-trap rubbish’ set to music, I was sold.

Winter for Lovers is a real prize find. While the upbeat, danceable tunes cater to an excitable, live audience, it is with songs such as this that My Passion really showcase their versatility as musicians. ‘Winter for Lovers’ shows a different side to them; a more sensitive, considered, mature side, which really should rear its head more often. Although songs of a slower pace are few and far between on this album, when they do appear, they certainly impress. Once again, the song is weighted towards the chorus, but it doesn’t undergo so many sudden or severe changes in order to get there. Winter for Lovers also possesses some of the most appealing and least odd lyrics of the album, so much so that it even enters understandable territories. Hot in the Dolls House provides a sudden, slightly jarring change of pace and re-entry into the world of ‘live’ My Passion. ‘Hot in the Dolls House’ was in fact, their first demo and, despite this, has aged particularly well, proving itself to be one of the stronger tracks on the album. This track is a particularly self-assured effort with a strong and masterful mix of strong synths and heavy guitars which builds to a fabulous, authentic, raw chant of “No Picture”. Even the outro of this song is bound to get anyone’s heart beat racing that little bit faster. As with ‘Winter for Lovers’, After Calais is another departure from their usual heavy sound. ‘After Calais’ is far more down tempo and unexpectedly delicate, especially considering the nature of the song it follows. The heavier elements of My Passion are put aside for the duration of the track, and a more experimental and softer avenue has been taken. Although putting this ‘wild card’ of a song on the album could be seen as a bit of a risk, it’s a risk that has certainly paid off. After Calais also features some wonderfully clear vocals from both drummer and vocalist which one can only hope will be featured in a greater capacity in the outfit’s future work. Thanks for Nothing is another polished and surprisingly heavy demo from 2009 and most certainly bears the best and most effective use of synths on the album. From a deceptive introduction, heavy verses soon build into clear synth breaks and pounding anthemic chants. There really aren’t enough superlatives to describe the technical mastery in this brief song. The gloriously titled The Fabulous Blood Disco is, initially at least, reminiscent of the famous ‘blood-shower’ club scene in Blade. Despite the wonderfully over-the-top title, this is one of the rather more straightforward and lighter mixes on the album- providing a far milder electro/rock blend. In relation to the rest of the album, I’d say this was one of the weaker tracks, yet that is not to say that it’s bad, it just lacks many of the original qualities found in the rest of the album. Saying that, I’m sure that it’d be far more memorable in a live set. Plastic Flesh Garden is yet another surprising offering, beginning rather down-tempo, as with ‘Winter for Lovers’ and ‘Calais’, and quickly building into something far more upbeat and visceral (in parts, at least). Once again, conflicting elements blend seamlessly together for the choruses and through a swift increase in tempo, and the addition of some more aggressive vocal stylings, My Passion demonstrate the distinct sound that has brought them such a dedicated following. The final track of ‘Corporate Flesh Party’ is the oddly titled Vultures are People Too. It’s a painful cliché to say so, but they really have saved the best ‘till last. This track is my personal favourite of the entire album; I’d even go as far as to call it a musical triumph. ‘Vultures are People Too’ is a real creative explosion, with each member proving their worth through a perfectly crafted outpouring of their individual talents. The song is weirdly beautiful, with odd lyrics that somehow fit with the fluid musical stylings perfectly. It features an odd mix of styles and techniques that really shouldn’t meld together that well, but everything seems to come full circle into a perfect mix. For a four minute song, it is surprisingly diverse and certainly gives the impression of being an epic piece of work. The strange, almost a cappella ‘outro’ proves to be a perfect and suitably haunting end to the album.

Overall, My Passion are hard to pin down and label, as much as magazines would like to- heck, even the band themselves struggle to give a name to their sound. Considering the style of their songs changes so often, one can’t help but think that this is one of the features that’ll be first to go if big record labels get their hands on the band. At times, their sound is so diverse, it seems rather jarring, and subsequently, I should be calling out for consistency. But personally, I believe My Passion to be one of those special musical jewels that only comes around once in a blue moon, and they should be cherished for it. You aren’t supposed to understand, analyse or unpick My Passion (rendering this review slightly useless), just open your ears, close your eyes to their image and appreciate them for what they are- four incredibly talented musicians. Or, alternatively, look upon them as three wonderful musicians, and one drummer who has surely ripped a hole in time and space under the crippling weight of his talents. All in all, ‘Corporate Flesh Party’ is, to smack a label on it, a ‘must-have album’, whether you’re a goth, metalhead, punk, scene-kid, whatever. Chances are, those who swing towards the heavier spectrum of things will have to mark the album as a guilty pleasure – that won’t matter. My Passion are a force to be reckoned with and, if they keep their sound and don’t bend to the pressures of the industry, their 2010 offering should be mind-blowing.

4.5 high fives out of 5!

Live: Motion City Soundtrack – O2 Academy Birmingham 2, 28/3/10

This show almost never happened for me. As a planned birthday present for my father (because he is rad), I asked him whether he would like to go, seeing as he’d have to drive there. He initially said no, but about a week later, he popped his head around my door in the middle of a busy FF session and said ‘let’s do it’. So, being in the middle of FFXIII, I decided to wait until the morning to book tickets where I found, much to my chagrin, they were all sold out. Bummer. However, my dad is an absolute hero and got us tickets anyway, and I bought him some Jason Statham DVDs for his birthday instead. Everyone’s a winner.

I had a much less arduous journey on my hands this time, but we still ended up late, as is my family’s tradition whenever we attend anything. However, in the case of Jenny Owen Youngs, this wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Indie rock with a touch of country and the most irritating vocals I’ve heard in a long time. Even more irritating than the guy from Kyoto Drive the day before. The rest of the music wasn’t too bad – a little cliché, but on the whole, it sounded pretty okay. Just… bleh, those vocals! Something was dying up there. She had bitchin’ hair though. Do want.

With that out of the way, next band up, Free Energy were pretty sweet. Now, they had the most awful lyrics I’ve heard in possibly forever (“bang bang, pop pop”? What the, what the fuck?) but on the whole, they were good! An odd choice to support a band like Motion City Soundtrack due to their general hippie rock feel – doubly defined by the hair on show – but they had some seriously feel good songs. There’s too much negativity in rock music these days and we need bands like Free Energy to shake it up a bit. Lots of finger tapping, cowbell and an extremely skinny singer strutting across the stage. Possibly a throwback to the 80s, but let’s face it… they were the best decade.

I was pretty excited for Motion City Soundtrack to be coming out. Having listened to My Dinosaur Life a couple of times before the show, I knew that in the studio, they hadn’t changed at all. In fact, it was even an improvement on Even If It Kills Me, despite that being a brilliant album. It turns out that I was entirely right to be excited as Motion City Soundtrack are just great performers. My one lament is that Jesse didn’t have his bendy keyboard stand, but on a stage that small, I can see how that might not have worked so well. Asides from that notion, they were so good. They played one of the best sets I’ve seen any band play, with a shit ton of stuff from I Am The Movie (my favourite), including “The Red Dress”, which I never imagined would happen, and the rest of the songs came from across the board – in fact, here’s the setlist. The new material sounds great live, except the keyboard is a little lacking live, but I think that’s a problem to do with levels and seems to be consistent whenever anybody with a synth is playing anywhere. Justin still has crazy hair and is the perfect gentleman, and I wish to steal his Keyboard Cat shirt. One thing I really appreciate about Motion City Soundtrack is that they actually look like they want to be there – there were smiles all around the band and the crowd! It’d been four years since I’d seen Motion City Soundtrack, all the way back when Give It A Name was still being done in Birmingham, and in fact, four years since the band had toured over here. At the end of the night, Justin told us “it’s been far too long and I promise it’ll never be this long again”. Let’s hope not, because the UK needs Motion City Soundtrack.

Less Than Jake – O2 Academy Birmingham, 9/11/08 (a review by Ripper)

Now, I’m a Less Than Jake virgin. Wait, make that a ska virgin. It’s true! Of all the shows I have ever been to, I have never experienced a major band ska show. I’ve been to local ska shows, but around my area, that just means that the band’s attempting to be [spunge] and nobody’s skanking.

So, when I turned up to the Academy, in the pouring down rain, I didn’t quite know what to expect.

Also, I should mention here that fightclubsandwich was also at the show, and in between every band, me and my boyfriend searched in vain for her, believing that she still had pink hair. She didn’t tell us she’d dyed it back to black. So, we gave up in the end, until she came dancing over during LTJ’s set. We TBO girls really need to co-ordinate ourselves better.

For one of the first times in my life, I didn’t miss the support bands. First up were Imperial Leisure, a British band with a unique mix of ska and hip-hop. There were literally a sea of people skanking, and it was good to see a support band with so much… support! They were a lot of fun, but they’re potentially controversial in the way that ska fans will either love them or hate them. It’s definitely not traditional ska that Imperial Leisure are playing, but it works.

Beat Union were up next, and to begin with, I wasn’t enamoured. The type of bands they’ve supported in past put me off, the main one of these being Good Charlotte. I actually like GC, but they have a habit of playing with notoriously bad support bands (I think the main exception to that is Millencolin, who I actually preferred to GC when I saw them a few years ago). However, after a couple of songs, I was pleasantly surprised. Pop-punk with more emphasis on the punk, they played loud and energetically. Obviously influenced by the Police, they incorporated a more laidback style into some of their songs which worked well. They were my boyfriend’s favourite band of the night, and what pleased him even more was that they were local lads. Nevertheless, they played well and got the crowd going.

The third band on the bill was Pepper, a ska band hailing from Florida. Pepper are very much influenced by Sublime, and you can tell. Not that that’s a bad thing, though. Their laidback ska grooves were great, and it amused me greatly how every member of the band was wearing shorts in Birmingham, of all places. Their onset jokes were funny though crude. I found a lot of it funny, but when they started joking about weed, I wasn’t impressed. It doesn’t take much to stereotype ska fans, unfortunately, and they did it with ease. However, the songs were good and the brief cover of Bro Hymn by Pennywise went down well.

Finally, the band in question. Less Than Jake. fightclubsandwich and I disagreed on a few aspects of this show, but LTJ was one where we couldn’t help but to agree. They were awesome. It’s actually impossible to go to a Less Than Jake gig and come out with a frown on your face. I haven’t heard a lot of the new album, but the songs from GNV FLA came across as some of the strongest, as well as tons of classics from Hello Rockview, Borders And Boundaries, Anthem and even a couple of songs from even earlier were played. I was very pleased by the amount of Anthem material, because that was the album of 2003 for me, and songs where I actually knew the words! I’m abysmal when it comes to song lyrics. It was an extremely entertaining set. Bad jokes from the brass section! Heavy metal scream contests! Making fun of security guards! It felt good to laugh at a show again. LTJ’s sound was also incredible, making up for the bad levels in previous sets. Everyone was dancing, everyone was singing, everyone was having a good time. And that’s what a show should be like.

The truth is, whether you’re a Less Than Jake fan or not, it’s hard to deny that cheeky grin creeping up on your face when they’re playing. This band is essential for everyone, especially in a scene now dominated by depressing haircuts and suicidal lyrics. And hey, who doesn’t like trombones?