Tuesday 8 October 2013

Simon Neil and his Tattoos - A little update!

A report came on BBC Breakfast the other day about tattoos and whether policemen/women should be able to have them or not. I got talking to my Mum about different tattoos and why people get them and a name that kept popping up for me was Simon Neil.

Simon Neil is the AMAZING frontman of Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro whose entire top half of his body (excluding his head) is covered in tattoos and each one means a different one to him. Neil says he has about 30 tattoos all in all from lyrics to Di Vinci sketches. I thought I'd go through some of his best ones.
A Perfect Circle's Debut Album Artwork
from 2000.

For his 21st birthday, his girlfriend (now his wife) got him his first tattoo which was a reference to A Perfect Circle's debut album "Mer de Noms" and is the little symbol right at the bottom on the left hand side. Although he no longer considers himself a fan of the band, he says the tattoo still means a lot to him because it was from his wife.

Biffy Clyro's third album "Infinity Land"
artwork.
All members of the band have some kind of reference to their albums tattooed on them somewhere. I know Simon, Jim and Ben all have a puzzle piece tattooed on their left side of their ribs in reference to their 4th studio album "Puzzle" (which is personally my favourite) and a lot of fans also have this tattooed in the same place as a sign of dedication towards the band. Simon has the heart held in the hands of the figure on the front of "Infinity Land"'s artwork tattooed on his left arm.

Simon's mother's painting.
Taken from an interview from Radio 2.
To see the interview go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmJdfNXyl20
If you are a Biffy fan, you will know that Simon's mother, Eleanor, passed away in 2004 and that their single from "Puzzle", "Folding Stars" was written about their relationship with each other and said after the songs release "She really liked the quiet songs, so I wrote the song for her. It's the kind of song she'd like and although it was really tough to record, I'm immensely proud of it. it makes me happy when people say they connect with the song but I'm not sure if we'll ever play it live. Not any time soon, anyway". Since then he did perform an acoustic version of folding stars live at Wembley on their "Revolutions" tour without Ben and James (to see that performance go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE3S8S-gVRQ). Simon has one of his mother's paintings tattooed on his back in memory of her.

Simon with Brian.
Simon married his wife in 2008 in Ayr, where they live. Neil has been a Beach Boys fan all his life (he recently met Brian Wilson and interviewed him for NME as part of the heroes feature) and so his first dance with is wife was to "God Only Knows What I'd Do Without You". His most famous tattoo is the one on his chest which says "God Only Knows What I'd Do Without You" as a tribute to his wife.

I love Simon Neil's tattoos because they aren't pointless or to make a statement, the are each a small bit of the jigsaw of his life and mixed with his music, it paints a beautiful picture about his take on the world.



(08/10/13) This was the video I used for this article, Simon Neil does an interview with Jo Whiley for Radio 2. Hopefully this will give you a better view of what he was talking about!

The Subway Violinists - I Knew You Were Trouble.

This is one of the most annoying songs ever but surprisingly nice on violins. Rhett Price and Josh Holmes are awesome  musicians who busk on the subway in New York. Give them a listen and if you like them their album is completely free!

Album link: http://rhettprice.bandcamp.com/album/rhett-josh

Monday 7 October 2013

Sunday 6 October 2013

Laura Marling Gig Review.

00:20 Posted by Unknown , No comments
So then, here we are, my first review in 6 months. GASP!

If you don't know already, Laura Marling is one of the U.K's most talented and renowned folk musicians. On her fourth album, the 23 year old is on tour in the U.K again with just her guitar for company. 

This is a gig I was very excited about. I'm a bit of a Marling newbee as I have only admired her for about a year but honestly, she is one of the best musicians I have ever had the pleasure of listening to and needed to see her live.

And so, I booked two tickets for the Birmingham Symphony Hall.

I was incredibly lucky as the day of the concert coincided with the NUT strike and so my school was closed. It was nice to have a chilled build up to the concert with Josh and not feel that stressed feeling you get when you go to a concert after school whilst your homework sits on your desk.

So my mother drove us up and whilst we went to the gig, she watched that film about Princess Diana (which she says was crap, like I wouldn't have guessed!).

The venue was beautiful and I felt that we had amazing seats, right at the top. Although we were just about as far back as you could get, I really loved being able to look down on the person who has become one of my biggest idols.

Nick Mulvay was the support and he was brilliant. I can only describe him as Alt-J if they were just guitar and vocals and one guy. I don't think I've been so relaxed whilst listening to something before, I do think that he is one to watch in the future.                                                                                                                              

And so she began with the songs from "When the Bird was Saved" ("Take the Night Off", "I Was An Eagle", "You Know" and "Breathe"), her short film released just before the album as a preview, which were awesome but nothing compared to "Master Hunter" which followed it. Obviously, the song was so good that the guitar decided it had done it's work for the night as whilst she was tuning for her next song (which I think was "Ghosts") a string snapped. As a guitarist, I felt her pain and it was nice to see her frustration as it made me feel that even though she is one of my most loved and highly respected musicians, things still went wrong for her.

It wasn't the end of the world though because she had her old guitar on hand which she described as being a "grumpy old man" because she didn't really play it any more. A lot of people have described her as being shy because of comments like this but I put it down to not feeling too above her audience. In terms of stage presence, I would say she is one of the best I have seen because of it as although an amazing talent, there is also a lot of modesty there which I think is one of the reasons she doesn't do encores, though there may believe that that proves the opposite. Are people expecting her to prance around the stage like Mick Jagger?

So as I was saying, "Ghosts". She did a lot more of the old stuff than I thought she would (only doing about six songs off the new album) but I liked it because I had forgotten how good some of the old stuff was as I had focussed so much on the new album. From what I can remember, she performed: "Alas I Cannot Swim", "I Speak Because I Can", "Rambling Man" and "What He Wrote" from previous albums which was a nice contrast to the newer, darker stuff.

I do believe that even though it was just her and her guitar, this gig was amongst the best concerts I've ever seen because she still captured the audience just as much as a full band could. It was also wonderful to see such a diverse audience, from about 8-80, as it was nice to see in practice how music brings people together. I honestly didn't realise how popular Laura Marling was amongst all age groups. Truly wonderful.


Friday 4 October 2013

Let's catch up!

15:57 Posted by Unknown No comments
Good day,

Hope you had a nice summer and are having a pleasant autumn.

You may or may not know that I now do most of my bloggy stuff on Tumblr now rather than on Blogger. That is great and all but I realised recently that all I really do on Tumblr is find photos on Pinterest and shove them on there instead rather than write all that much.

I haven't written anything really since I turned 16 so I thought I would start it up again in between my A-Levels.

Over the summer, I had lots of fun. Now, one month into year 12, I have a lot more stuff to write about because I now do the four most important subjects to me in more detail and am learning a lot. For example, I have got really into poetry from the First World War because that is what I'm studying in English Lit, becoming more aware of how media works in, you guessed it, Media Studies and I'm becoming more informed about music and how the industry works through Music and Music Tech.

All in all, I feel that all for of my subjects go hand in hand with this and so I decided to give the blog a new feel. Although I will always be talking about music, I should also talk about other things that mean something to me like books and politics so that's what I'm going to do. This is now officially, if it wasn't already, a blog dedicated to the ramblings of me!

Thanks,

Ava Forbes.