Friday Feature: Jamie Baywood's Getting Rooted in New Zealand

As you may have realised I'm still stuck in blogging limbo whilst I look after my mother (another two weeks to go) however travel writer Jamie Baywood has graciously offered to write a guest post for you all!

Jamie is a Californian now living in wedded bliss in Scotland. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her account of the start of her journey to find happiness: fleeing California and her ex-boyfriend for New Zealand, a country with 100,000 fewer men than women...but things never go as planned and it is going to take new weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs before she even gets close to finding what she is looking for.

Jamie has put together a soundtrack for her journey through New Zealand so that you can feel like you are living the adventure with her:

Getting Rooted with Jamie Baywood from rachel.yelding on 8tracks Radio.

1. Bitter:Sweet - The Mating Game
2. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
3. Santigold - L.E.S. Artistes (Brummer Remix)
4. Kids of 88 - Just a Little Bit
5. Naked and Famous - Young Blood
6. Kavinsky - Nightcall
7. College & Electric Youth - A Real Hero
8. Metronomy - The Look

Here are some of Jamie's reasons for choosing the tracks she did:

 

These songs I listened to a lot in California before New Zealand:

 

BiitterSweet – The Mating Game

Goldfrapp – Ooh La La

 

I listened to these songs a lot when I was about twenty-five and single in California. I was young and getting chased by a lot of guys – most I was completely uninterested in.

 

These songs I listened to while I was in New Zealand:

 

Santigold – L.E.S. Artistes

 

There are some lines in this song that really apply to how I felt when I first arrived in New Zealand:
 

What I’m searching for I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up 

What am I here for 

I left my home to disappear is all I’m here for myself

 

Kids of 88 – Just a little Bit
Naked and Famous – Young Blood

 

Kids of 88 and Naked and Famous were New Zealand bands I discovered during my time in there. I had the chance to go to a concert where they both performed. It was a great night.

 

I listened to while living in the UK after New Zealand:
 

Kavinsky - Nightcall
College & Electric Youth - A Real Hero

Metronomy - The Look

 

I can get obsessed with listening to movie soundtracks. Last year when I first moved to the UK and was living in Scotland I was obsessed with the Drive soundtrack. I listen to Nightcall and A Real Hero over and over. My husband also introduced me to Metronomy in Scotland.

 

*** 



Getting Rooted in New Zealand is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482601907

Jamie Baywood can be followed on:

Facebook.com/jamiebaywood
Twitter.com/jamiebaywood
Pinterest.com/jamiebaywood
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7069448.Jamie_Baywood
amazon.com/author/jamiebaywood
 

 ***

If you are a writer, musician, band, artist or movie maker and are curious about being a Feature Friday or if you know someone who you think would make a good Feature Friday please get in contact!

Friday Feature - Six downloadable remixes and a cover from Phoenix's Bankrupt!

Hi guys, sorry for the disappearance. Mum fell down a hole and broke her leg in two places so I've been looking after her. I'll probably be barely blogging for another eight weeks however I'll try my best to post when I can.

So anyway...back in April French electro indie rock band Phoenix released their latest album Bankrupt! To accompany Bankrupt! Phoenix allowed other indie and pop types to remix their singles. Some amazing music has come out of these remixes and the best thing is that the majority of the remixes are available for download for free via their soundcloud.

Phoenix have a massive following by those in the know however they're the kind of band whose singles rarely make it into the top 40 (even in France) so it's most likely that you either know everything about them or nothing at all. If you have encountered them it is probably via their single Too Young which appeared in the party scene in Lost in Translation.

Here are my favourite of the Bankrupt! remixes plus a cover:



You can do much worse than start your exploration of the noise pop genre than with the bouncing girlish glee of Sleigh Bells. They very much make this remix their own by replacing Thomas Mars' vocals with that of the instantly recognisable Alexis Krauss, returning him in the chorus to create a duet effect. It is sugary, pounding and menacing all at the same time.



You're in for a real treat with the Trying To Be Cool remixes as they feature four cracking versions, my favourites being Canadian DJ A-Trak's indie trance epic and French DJ Breakbot's super funky disco groove. All of the remixes are available to download apart from the one featuring R. Kelly and all the components are also available to download so that you can mix your own!



My favourite of the Entertainment remixes is by Blood Orange (aka producer Dev Hynes / Lightspeed Champion) featuring vocals by MKS (the three original Sugababes). It is a twinkling, dreamy, forlorn R&B indie mashup with MKS singing a soulful version of the song's chorus against distorted guitar riffs and Thomas Mars' echoing main vocals.



Saving the best till last is alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr's 'remix' of Entertainment. Despite advertising it's a cover not remix. No one from Phoenix appears in this version and the vocals and instrumentals are all reinterpreted by Dinosaur Jr. I find it absolutely beautiful and actually (don't shoot me) better than the original. It is slow burning, tortured, heartfelt, etc etc. It is the perfect kind of cover, the kind where the band has put their own style onto a song without losing what made that original song so magical and worthy of being covered in the first place. It's very different from Phoenix's electro pop take on alternative music but if you approach it with an open mind you should find it just as enjoyable as the original.

Friday Feature - Margret Helgadottir

This Friday is another guest post by an author, this time Margret Helgadottir. It is about writing her character Iselin from her short story Shadow, self-harm and The Moomins and is part of the Impossible Spaces Blog Tour (if you click on the button you can read all the other posts in the tour - I shall be contributing two guest posts very soon too, though I'll tell you more about those as they happen).

Margret is an Icelandic-Norwegian writer who has travelled all over the world and has just started to write fiction in English. She mainly writes speculative fiction and is very much inspired by Nordic culture, climate and folklore. Shadow is about a young woman called Islelin who thanks to both nature and nurture has always felt isolated and different.When she meets freedom fighter of sorts, Berge, she is flung into an alternate, desolate world where lizard creatures, not humans, are the apex predators but could it be that in this hopeless future is where her salvation lies?

Margret with her copy of Impossible Spaces, one of the many publications she has stories printed in.

"I’ve had the image of Iselin in my head for a long time. Iselin is an old Norwegian female name that means dream or vision. Originally I wanted it to be more a chaotic and confusing horror story that travelled through visions and dimensions, with Iselin as the key factor. Then, as I started to write, a different narrative wanted to be told. This often happens in my writing. I’ve started to spend less time on the planning of my stories, because they often seem to have a life on their own. You asked me to take pictures of my notes. For this story I only had five small sentences, in Norwegian, and the only thing that I used was that Iselin entered an elevator on her way home late one night.

 

 

I’ve had the image of a scarred young woman who hides from the world, too scared to pop her head up, for a long time, and I’ve also played with ideas of how an outsider would react if suddenly almost all the people were gone and the person had no society to avoid. Would this encourage the person to take up more space in the world, and no longer fear being visible? You know, like plants do when you give them a larger pot and more earth. Their roots will stretch and they will grow larger and blossom. But if they’re forced to stay in the same tiny pot forever, they will remain the same size until they die, and maybe never blossom fully.

 

In hindsight, I see that the story about Iselin is a sad story about self-preservation. Iselin is a young woman scarred mentally and physically by her childhood. She’s been raised to not be a burden to her parents and has always managed on her own. As an adult, she’s been sucked into a vicious spiral: she shuns contact with people and they in return avoid her, leading to her feeling even more isolated and misunderstood so that she redoubles her efforts to stay away from people, and so on. Getting stuck in such a self-reinforcing spiral is much easier than people think.

Street art by C215 in Oslo that inspired Margret.

Iselin learned to keep all her emotions on the inside early on, so she wouldn’t provoke or disturb her parents. This has stuck with her. The emotions are locked up inside her and someone seems to have thrown the key far away. She suffers, but she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She tries to ease her pain with substitutes, like many people do when life gets unbearable or they want to escape their heavy thoughts. However, she does not resort to starving herself, drinking large quantities of alcohol, losing herself in drug-induced highs, or throwing herself from cliffs. No, Iselin works until she drops, and when that doesn’t help, she cuts herself with razor blades. Numb and exhausted, she drags herself from day to day, hoping no one will notice her, yet secretly longing to be seen.

 

The world sees only a stone face. Iselin has not only become a shadow of herself, she’s also a shadow in the world. She is like the shy, scared little girl in Finnish author Tove Jansson’s story The Invisible Child, from her book Tales from Moominvalley (1962). Because an adult made sarcastic comments about her, this girl became totally invisible. Under the kind care of the Moomin family, she became secure enough to act spontaneously on her emotions and this led to her gradually becoming visible again. The story about Iselin spins around the same ideas of invisibility. The guerrilla soldier Berge is Iselin’s tolerant, accepting and generous Moomin family. Berge is an old Norwegian name that means “to save”.

Ninny and Moomin play hide and seek in the 1990 Moomin animated series.

But Berge has his own scars and is in many ways a shadow too. Rachel, you pointed out that the idea of fate is very strong in the story. You said that when Berge rubs the glove he wears to hide his scales over Iselin’s scars, it feels as if they were meant to save each other from themselves. Thanks for this. You’re right. Berge and Iselin are both miserable and lonely lost souls who live in the shadows of their own worlds. It’s only when they follow their instincts—Berge when he goes to the office building, Iselin when she chooses to follow Berge—that they find the solution. Shadow is all about Iselin and Berge helping each other to come out of the shadows, but on a macro level, the story is about something else: lost souls and a mysterious helping hand from another dimension that responds to their unvoiced cries for help. At least I hope it became such a story. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide whether I have succeeded in this or not.

Street art in Oslo by AliCe Pasquini

So, Shadow evolved from an idea for a horror story to a tale about hope, about how it can be possible to spot the light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of how hopeless the situation is, regardless of how lost you feel. Follow your instincts; follow the good guys; be brave enough to step out of the shadows. There are many kind-hearted lost souls walking the streets, scarred from their own battles, who’d like to meet you."

Send Margret your love via her blog http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com and also on twitter @MaHelgad.

Also if you are a goodreads user / reviewer you can win a copy of Impossible Spaces here!

Pretend Friday Feature - Daria's High School Reunion

My copy of Photoshop (the program I draw my graphic stories on) had a massive malfunction today to the degree that I am far too depressed to review a Minx graphic story this Friday or even do a Friday Feature (two days worth of work lost FOREVER ;_;).

So here's a cool mock trailer created by Aubrey Plaza / College Humor for you Daria / mumblecore / indie film fans:

 

Regular service will return next week....maybe.

Friday Feature - Nerdy Girl / Cecil Seaskull

Can you remember two weeks ago? I reviewed Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's Plain Janes graphic novel series and we discovered that along with being a Young Adult author Cecil was also an indie rock performer sooooooo...this week's Friday Feature is Nerdy Girl / Cecil Seaskull an 1990s indie rock singer and her band from Montreal, Canada.

 

When I first heard Nerdy Girl I had to get the calculator out to work out how old Cecil was when she recorded with them, she has the sweetest most innocent voice. I was amazed that she was in her late twenties! And actually when you listen to the lyrics of Twist Her you realise that these are not sweet songs, they are about confused love, stealing boyfriends, drugs and self-loathing. Combined with her young voice her songs become wonderfully teenage (and I do mean that in a good way) full of hormones and hope and depression and uncertainty. Cecil describes her sound as 'twee' and it does indeed sound unmistakably 1990s indie like a less trippy Mazzy Star, The Cardigans, Dressy Bessy, Go Sailor etc. If I had to recommend an order of listening it would be listen to Cecil's band's album Twist Her before seeking out her solo effort Whoever. Twist Her has definitely aged better than Whoever. It is more accessible, more polished more varied and very easy to listen to. That is not to say that Whoever is not without merit, for instance I very much enjoyed listening to Sweet Girl.

 

 

Where will I have heard her before?

You're much more likely to have encountered Cecil in her guise of Cecil Castellucci, a very successful Young Adult author. You can read my review of her Plain Janes series here.

Featured Song: Anne Eliot

Where can I hear more?

Nerdy Girl released some 7" and 10" EPs but the only album that is easy to access these days is their 1997 album Twist Her via iTunes. Cecil Seaskull's 1998 album Whoever is also only available through iTunes.

What is her website?

http://castellucci.wordpress.com/

Next week: We'll return to the Minx Reviews

Friday Feature: Toby Stone and Aimee and the Bear

Today we'll be going into the mind of an author as Toby Stone shares with us how he creates a writeable concept for a full length novel. He'll share with us how he develops an idea (and how to beat that big nasty, writers block) as well as read for us an excerpt from his debut novel, dark fantasy Aimee and the Bear.

Aimee and the Bear is the story of little girl Amy, who, when her mother's cruelty gets too much travels with her teddy bear to the Other Place - a world where teddies become real bears, children attend the Night School to escape whatever it is they face at home, Amy becomes Aimee, and there’s magic in the air. But the Other Place is in danger - the Witch has awoken, and Amy must find the courage to save her baby brother before it’s too late.

Don't take it from me though, hear it from Toby himself as he reads an excerpt especially for Enchanted Blogging:

And now Toby on coming up with workable ideas, writers block and upset spiders:

"For me, ideas for novels never come in ones. If an idea has enough about it to reach a format of 300 plus pages, it normally needs to merge with several other ideas, which forms a kind of molecule of attached concepts (they're the atoms, in this weak analogy). The best way to give an image of this is with one of my novels - the novel I hope to be my next full length publication. About seven years ago I thought that if anything is likely to be psychic it is probably a spider. There is something both misanthropic and powerful about them and psychic-arachnids chimed with me. This then festered in my brain until the thought that spiders are the victims of domestic violence joined with it, and I reckoned that a psychic spider might try to stop these abuses. Finally, the extra idea - that the best way for a psychic spider to stop domestic violence would be to take over a television station and broadcast to humans - came to my mind.

Once there are enough elements to the macro-idea, it gains a momentum that will carry it through 70 odd thousand words (in this case, very odd indeed).

I tend to take settings and occurrences I know / have experienced / other people's experiences and jumble them into an unrecognisable(ish) morass for the minutiae and detail of the novel. This informs the bricks and mortar (and roads, and parks, etc...) environment as well as little things that happen in the book (television extracts, music interludes, snippets of conversations, bus rides, and so on). The characters tend to write themselves in. They are normally relatively blurry and then, through the writing of the book, take a clearer form.

I see the plotting of the novel as a map with vast areas of unexplored territory, and ponds / glades of vivid detail. So, I see scenes that I am heading toward and (often) the end itself in colour, but have to fumble through the dark until I reach them. I'll take hot baths, long walks, and lots of alcohol / caffeine (and a fair amount of music on Spotify, at high volumes) in order to cough up scenes and keep the momentum (across the map) going.

Once I've finished, I will edit for years. The form of the book in my mind will then change, morphing from a map to something like a tower block where I can see all the storeys of my novel quite clearly in my mind (because it is already written) and, say during a long walk, I will 'travel' up and down the length of the book searching desperately for flaws, sentences that don't work, etc. For some reason, I can sort of 'feel' sections which are weak(er than the rest). Weirdly, I love editing, and find it hard to let go.

I don't really get writer's block (jinx!). I normally have several books on the go (each somewhere in the above process) and will simply churn from one to another if I reach what feels like saturation with one. Saying all of this (and my apologies, it is a lot) the most important part of the writing process, for me, is the writing. If any of the above ways of going about this isn't working, I'll stab it to death and hide it under the patio. Getting to the end of the book is the most important thing.

Why did I choose a female character? After all, I am (the last time my wife checked) male. Mmmm... I'm not sure I did. Scanning back up what I said above, it is worth adding that when the ideas / concepts clump together, they sort of come with a hazy character attached. In the writing of Aimee and the Bear one of the original atoms of the idea was of a child cuddling a teddy bear that granted her the ability to travel to a fantasy world. At its conception this came with the internal Polaroid of a young, brunette girl cuddling a brown, bead-eyed bear. It is blurry, shifting, vague but, like DNA, it is a marker that seems to determine everything that follows. And what followed was, in the main, smooth, although (given the content of the book) really quite emotional. I love writing, and I loved writing this novel, despite its darker surfaces (and I'll not even mention the depths). I'll be lucky, I think, if every one of my novels makes me feel the same way.

And as Toby mentioned in his video reading, here are some scans of his notes so that you can really get inside the inception of his ideas (click each image for a larger view):

I think we can all agree Toby has been an epic host for today so please send him lots of love via twitter @tobystone1 and find out how you can buy Aimee and the Bear here.

***

If you are a writer / musician / artist and would like to be featured on Enchanted Blogging please leave me a comment!

(Late) Friday Feature - St Lola in the Fields

This week's (slightly late) Friday Feature is St Lola in the Fields a singer/songwriter due from Nashville, USA. Their album High Atop the Houses and the Towns is a combination of playful pop and absolutely beautiful, slow ballads featuring Cindy's soulful voice over just a piano (and sometimes strings). The pop songs are grown up but quite standard but the slower, graceful, heartfelt songs such as 'Don't Say' which is full of regret and understated emotion are just beautiful and make St Lola in the Fields a must listen.

 

 

 

Where will I have heard them before?

Cindy and Jeremy are both successful solo artists as well as write for other people. Cindy also performs modern Christian popular music under the name Cindy Morgan. Their single Hold Me appeared on TV series Pretty Little Liars and Don't Say appeared on One Tree Hill.

Featured Song: Don't Say

Where can I hear more?

St Lola's first release was an EP called Little Breaks/Little Bends (2008) but good luck trying to get it out side of the USA! Luckily the majority of the songs appear on their 2010 album High Atop the Houses and the Towns. You can listen to some of it here and download an acoustic version of 'He's in Love' here. You can get High Atop the Houses and the Towns from iTunes and Amazon.

What is their website?

http://stlolainthefields.com/

Next week: Friday Feature is going to take a little break whilst I do the Minx reviews!

Friday Feature - Saint Motel

This week's Friday Feature is Saint Motel an indie pop band from Los Angeles, USA. If you could distil pure fun into music you would get Saint Motel. For example take single 'Puzzle Pieces'. It is like a salsa party in a song. The piano bounces along which is then matched by the playful pace of the rest of the band and finally A/J Jackson's powerfully seductive crooning of knowing lyrics (I think I might be in love with his voice). By the time he reaches the chorus you WILL be singing, "F-f-f-face of puzzle pieces WOO!" if not dancing around your room. Ditto for the rest of the songs on the album Voyeur be they playful like 'Puzzle Pieces', smooth like 'Benny Goodman' or a pure anthem like '1997' - they were designed to be sung along to. They were designed to be danced to. They were designed to be swept away on a musical cloud of ecstasy to...

 

 

Where will I have heard them before?

Saint Motel have toured with bands including Band of Skulls, Nico Vega, Imagine Dragons and Races. They have also started holding an annual Valentines concert called The Zombie Prom.

Featured Song: Puzzle Pieces

Where can I hear more?

You can hear all of Saint Motel's album Voyeur on their soundcloud where you can also download their single 'Benny Goodman' for free.

What is their website?

http://www.saintmotel.com/

Next week: We'll continue the saint theme with St Lola in the Field

Friday Feature - Bad Veins

This week's Friday Feature is Bad Veins an indie pop project by Ben Davis from Ohio, USA.

 

A few years ago I found this indie pop group called 'Fun.' At some point I was going to Friday Feature them (I was being lazy about it) but before I knew it they were singing with Rhianna, UK number one and basically no longer undiscovered...I'd missed my chance. I'm not letting that happen Bad Veins! These guys are destined for greatness - how they are not madly rich and famous yet I don't know.

 

First of all don't get scared by their name. They sound like a gangsta rapper or possibly a death metal band but it's just an anagram of Ben Davis. Bad Veins' music is ridiculously catchy - every song on their second album, This Mess We've Made is sing-along-able - an album which very unusually (in my opinion) doesn't have a single dud song on it. The majority of the album is upbeat, dance-around-the-room, indie pop with an electro finish. There is also the more serious song such as haunting, menacing (and honestly amazing) 'If Then' which makes for good contrast. Everything is then rounded off by the slower paced, brassy farewell song, 'Not Like You'. I'd wager, however, anything would sound endearing, passionate, emotive and powerful if Ben applied his lyric and vocal skills to it. If you are a fan of bands like Fun., The Feeling and Hellogoodbye you will LOVE Bad Veins. Honest.

 

 

Where will I have heard them before?

Bad Veins won the first ever Target Music Maker Award at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Since then they have toured extensively with acts including Two Door Cinema Club and We Are Scientists.

Featured Song: I Turn Around and If Then

 

Where can I hear more?

You can listen to all of This Mess We've Made on their soundcloud as well their EP Outliers and first album Bad Veins, where you can also download track Don't Run for free. You can then download the rest via iTunes and amazon etc

What is their website?

http://badveins.net/

Next week: Saint Motel

Friday Feature - Rebecca Sugar

For my first Friday Feature back from Japan I really wanted to write about a Japanese musician but the honest truth is I was so busy making wasabi and taking naked public baths that I didn't get to buy any music! Luckily in Hong Kong I did hear some really cool music - not by a hot Hong Kong band (unfortunately) - but the epic songs written by Rebecca Sugar for Adventure Time!

Adventure Time is an American comedy fantasy animation about the RPG-style adventures of Finn the Human and Jake the Dog. One of the storyboard artists is Rebecca Sugar who also writes many of the songs performed in the series, in particular those sung by Marceline the Vampire Queen (and Marshall Lee her gender bender character in Fiona and Cake). She is basically epic. So here are some of Rebecca's demos accompanied by her concept and storyboard art:

Gummedup / Warmedup

I'm Just Your Problem

Tropical Island

 

Susan Strong

 

Marceline's Song

Fiona and Cake

Good Little Girl

And because I love the 'Bad Little Boy' episode (the second Fiona and Cake episode) SOOOOO much here is the final version of Good Little Girl:

I love Fiona. She is blonde and curvy but so not a bimbo (kind of like me...a little bit...maybe...). I hope there are many more Fiona and Cake episodes! She has the potential to be a wonderful role model.

Anyway you can watch all of Rebecca's demos here and enjoy more of her magical world here.

Next week: Bad Veins

Friday Feature - It Came From Japan / Dancing After 1 A.M. / Coba-U PUNK

What do you think of when you think of Japanese popular music?

Probably this huh?

Yeah I actually can't listen to it. I mean I get why people like THIS video (heh heh heh) but I find it really hard to like the music style...which upsets me because I love Japan. The idea that I couldn't cope with their shrill-pitched, fast-paced, over-worked, sugar-coated pop music made me gutted. I seriously tried to like it. I did. Every so often I'd find something more indie or acoustic but I really had no idea what to look for. I came to the conclusion that if was picky with British pop then I was never going to like the (dare I say it) more generic sound of J-pop...

Then It Came From Japan entered my life.

It Came From Japan is a British pod-cast featuring the best indie, rock and punk from the Japanese underground music scene. Though each pod-cast usually features a full range of styles most of the music (whether acoustic, punk or electronic) is easy on the ear with only the odd more experimental track for hard-core fans.

It is a little hard to pick out certain musicians that the pod-cast features as It Came From Japan features so many however I was very lucky to win from them a copy 'Dancing After 1 A.M.' by Call and Response Records which nicely sums up the edgier side of the music they play.

'Dancing After 1 A.M.' has a strong indie punk feel and is a complete roller coaster ride. For every calm melodic track such as Dance by MIR is an abrasive sound clash such as I Want More (Massive) by POP-OFFICE. Even though I don't like the more dissonant music I still love the compilation and fully recommend it to anyone who, like me, was giving up on Japanese popular music. It is raw, it is rough, it is fun and it is anti-pop at its best! You probably won't like every track but there will definitely be at least one artist you will want to hear more of. Ditto for It Came From Japan. After listening to one of their pod-casts featuring Coba-U's creepy cover of the Talking Head's classic Psycho Killer I downloaded her whole PUNK EP (available from iTunes UK...don't expect much punk on it though...it's mostly a chilled out slightly poppy homage to New Wave and a very easy and enjoyable listen).

Best of all, if you like the music featured on It Came From Japan and by Call and Response Records, most of it is available to buy (It Came From Japan has a great list on each pod-cast page for how you can find out more about the featured artists and their music) and both companies bring bands to tour the UK!

Featured Song: Collapsing New Buildings by Extruders

 

What are their websites?

http://www.itcamefromjapan.co.uk/
http://car-records.blogspot.co.uk/

Next week: I'm going to be on holiday so you get the day off ;-)

Friday Feature: The Avett Brothers

This week's Friday Feature are The Avett Brothers a folk rock band from North Carolina, USA. Though folk rock like last week's Dry the River they have a fresh spin on the British folk inspired sound made so popular by Mumford and Sons. Coming from America The Avett Brothers have access to other folk genres such as country, honky tonk and bluegrass. Combine this with their completely acoustic sound featuring a heavy use of lower register string instruments (Scott Avett on banjo, Seth Avett on guitar, Bob Crawford on double bass, Joe Kwon on cello and Jacob Edwards on drums) and listening to them becomes a mellow yet passionate and soulful experience.

Where will I have heard them before?

"If It's the Beaches" was featured in Season 2 for the television series Friday Night Lights. "Kick Drum Heart" featured in MTV's World of Jenk's and with "Slight Figure of Speech" also featured in comedy-drama series Parenthood. "I and Love and You" was featured in comedy series Men At Work and teen drama One Tree Hill. "Live and Die" appeared in the 2012 comedy film This is 40.

Featured Song: Laundry Room

Where can I hear more?

The Avett Brothers sometimes feature on music samplers and in Paste magazine however there are ten years of their music for you to explore: seven studio albums, three live albums and four EPs. All of these are available to buy via iTunes and if you prefer hard copies the most easy to lay your hands on are The Carpenter (2012) and I and Love and You (2010).

What is their website?

http://www.theavettbrothers.com/

Next week: It Came From Japan...!

Friday Feature - Dry the River

This week's Friday Feature is Dry the River a folk rock band from Stratford (London), UK. You'll know the sound - it's the Mumford and Son's sound - yet though Dry the River weren't the band to make the sound big they still own it. Peter Liddle's lead vocals are beautiful - pure, gliding and lilting - delivering often deep and complex lyrics soulfully. He is supported by tight backing vocal harmonies and almost completely acoustic instrumentals. And what a variety of instruments they are! Songs include everything from the obvious guitar to the mandolin and tenor horn! This combination of acoustic / orchestral instruments and almost angelic vocals results in one track being a playful take on traditional folk to the next being a ballad absolutely throbbing with heartfelt passion.

 

 

Where will I have heard them before?

After the release of their first single, the absolutely beautiful No Rest, in 2011 Dry the River have appeared at every big UK festival possible! In 2012 they continued touring, this time doing the world wide festivals. Throughout 2011 and 2012 they appeared on all the British 'best of new talent' lists.

Featured Song: The Chambers and the Valves (cutest idea for a video I have seen in ages!)

Where can I hear more?

No free songs at the moment. Their first album is called Shallow Bed and is available to buy as a hard copy and download. If you find you love Shallow Bed you can then buy the acoustic version of it but as download only. A second album should be coming very soon!

What is their website?

http://www.drytheriver.net/

Next week: Let's continue the folk sound with The Avett Brothers.

Friday Feature - La Sera

This week's Friday Feature is La Sera is an indie pop band from Los Angeles, USA featuring vocals from Katy Goodman of Vivian Girls. La Sera's sound is much gentler than that of Vivian Girls. Their first album La Sera in particular is a dreamy affair, seeking inspiration from 1950s and 60s pop but even more bouncy second album Sees the Light is filled with summery instrumentals, a touch of reverb and Katy's gentle, breathy, flowing vocals. Listening to La Sera is like all the fun of a midnight beach party but without all the sand getting in your shoes.

 

Where will I have heard them before?

Katy is a member of punk rock band Vivian Girls.

La Sera spent the majority of 2012 touring, including opening for Father John Misty.

Featured Song: Devils Hearts Grow Gold

Where can I hear more?

You can sample two songs on La Sera's Hardly Art page and another two on their last.fm page. You can then download their two albums La Sera (2011) and Sees the Light (2012).
 
What is their website?

http://iamkatygoodman.com/
http://www.hardlyart.com/lasera.html

Next week: Because I'm enjoying them so much...Dry the River

Friday Feature - Graphic Novels for Female Readers 3: Wet Moon

This week is my last (for now) graphic novel for female readers, Wet Moon by Ross Campbell. Wet Moon is a series of graphic novels set around the eponymous college town featuring the trials and tribulations of the young adults (mostly female, mostly into alternative cultures) who live there.

Though Wet Moon features an ever widening ensemble cast much of the action rotates around eighteen year old Cleo Lovedrop. Cleo is still getting over ex-boyfriend (and ultra broody love of her life) Vincent when she bumps into screamo chick Myrtle. They quickly become attracted to each other and Cleo must work out if she is gay, bi or just going through a phase whilst still trying to get over Vincent. Things start to get complicated when Cleo's sister falls pregnant by someone very familiar, Myrtle turns possessive and Cleo realises she'd much rather have a relationship with childhood best friend Mara. Then there are the 'Cleo Eats It' posters posted all over town, the mysterious almost magical Fern, the FBI guy with the monkey, a mysterious slasher, a masked vigilante and the weird stain on Cleo's bedroom floor.

Wet Moon's a little like a sub-culture soap opera. Every character has a story, no matter how grand or small, and whatever happens ends up being everyone else's business. My friend compared it to a load of gothic girls being bitchy about each other...and it kind of is...but then that's what teenage girls do. What she means is Wet Moon is as much about creating characters and an atmosphere as it is telling a story - its focus is much more on dialogue and the everyday life of the town than it is fast moving storylines. It will appeal much more to young women already into or accepting of sub-cultures than someone who isn't as to be 'normal' is to be the odd one out in Wet Moon.

The best thing about Wet Moon for me is that Ross Campbell never exploits his characters. It would be so easy for a graphic novel about gothic girls to be aimed squarely at over-sexed male readers looking for a quick you-know-what but instead he rises above it and creates a world anyone open to it can enjoy. His cast is all encompassing - characters come from all races, all sexual orientations and all body shapes. Some are inherently cool, some are geeks and some are complete mysteries. Campbell doesn't take the obvious root of making his gay characters' storylines about being gay - refreshingly (apart from Cleo) the majority of the gay characters' storylines are those anyone could go through with being gay being as incidental as the colour of their hair. Ditto for body shape. Characters such as Fern and Zia are disabled but Wet Moon never becomes a freak show and they are depicted as so much more than their missing limbs. The same goes for curvy Audrey - she could easily become 'the fat girl' - but is instead a radiant, gentle, blabbermouth and moral compass. Indeed it is because Wet Moon is a town where unique is the norm that so many of the characters' beauty is so easily accessible. I am especially fond of main character Cleo. She is by no means perfect - she can be two-faced and flaky - but we share the same body shape (short and curvy) which I can promise you is not what your average comic book heroine looks like!

Of course we would not know what Cleo and here friends looked like without the art. Campbell's style finds a wonderful balance between detail and decay, embracing the grayscale of the indie graphic novel medium. All his characters are gorgeous without being gratuitous. I'm not going to lie - I find his style one of the most unique and beautiful I have encountered - I truly find it a feast for the eyes. I really hope one day I'll be lucky enough to write for him!

Campbell starts the first few volumes of Wet Moon in a more realistic style then between volumes three and five become more cartoon-like (Cleo's eyes in particular become very large) and in volume six he returns to his original style. Despite the change in style neither to me is better than the other. As a Batman reader I'm used to characters being drawn in multiple styles and though I must admit I prefer Campbell's more realistic work I completely appreciate the effort and love put into his more cartoonish style.

Wet Moon is the perfect place to go if you're searching for someone to relate to as there really is someone there for everyone. I only ever read Wet Moon in the bath. Bath time is my escape from the stresses of the real world. Likewise Wet Moon is the place I go when I want a relaxing escape. I can spend hours exploring its strange streets and breathing its originality in...well until the bath water goes cold and it's time to face the real world again.

You can find out more about Ross Campbell, Wet Moon and his other works here.

Everyone in Wet Moon likes Bella Morte so here is a song by them!

Next week: We return to music with La Sera!

P.S. - did you enjoy this series? Would you like to see more recommendations? Are there any graphic novels in particular you would like to see featured?

Friday Feature - Graphic Novels for Female Readers 2: Minx



Minx was an imprint of DC Comics for teenage girls but sadly only ran between 2007-2008. It was aimed at intelligent and creative young women who enjoyed manga and indie graphic novels but felt too intimidated to read more mainstream American graphic novels such as Batman or Wonder Woman. Unfortunately due to factors such as mainstream booksellers placing Minx graphic novels with the 'boys comics', manga readers often shunning manga-style comics and the majority of Minx's creators being male the whole 'alternative graphic novels for young women' idea was considered not worth the trouble and Minx was cancelled.

To begin with each Minx graphic novel was a one-shot (single issue comic) though sequels were planned. The protagonists were always female (high school - college age) with their stories often being slice of life (though some had fantasy elements) sometimes featuring romance and always featuring personal growth. Though aimed at teenage girls the stories were never sugarcoated with the aforementioned life lessons often coming the hard way.

Due to the desire to attract readers of manga and indie graphic novels each book was A5 in size with a colour cover and greyscale pages. At the back of each book were samples of other Minx titles and three pages of blank panels to draw your own comic.

The Minx graphic novels were:

• The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg - the artistic exploits of a group of high school misfits all called Jane.
• Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel - a young martial artist learns that there is much more emotion involved in the art of giving than just passing an object from one person to another.
• Clubbing by Andi Watson and Josh Howard - a city goth discovers a sleepy village's creepy secret.
• Good as Lily by Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm - a girl encounters three different versions of herself.
• Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey and Aaron Alexovich - a young blogger learns you shouldn't write up every thought that pops into your head unedited.
• Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich - a 23rd century girl investigates the suicide of a friend she has only met on the internet. 
• Burnout by Rebecca Donner and Inaki Miranda - a young girl literally plays with fire when she starts dating a new boy.
• Water Baby by Ross Campbell - a surfer girl who lost her leg goes on an ill-fated road trip.
• The New York Four by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly - explores both the glamour and loneliness of moving to the famous city that is New York
• Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston - a sheepish girl creates a new persona for herself during the summer holidays as a performance artist but learns glamour is subjective.
• Token by Alisa Kwitney and Joelle Jones - when a single father starts to date his secretary his already awkward daughter vents her feelings of rejection and frustration by taking shoplifting lessons from a handsome stranger.

Unfortunately all the graphic novels only had single print runs and you probably won't be able to get them in a book or comic book shop anymore (I pretty much looted Forbidden Planet London...sorry guys) however you can still get them for reasonable prices from places like the Amazon Market Place and eBay.

I plan on reviewing each of the titles separately but if I had to pick one favourite it would be Emiko Superstar which features an extremely shy Japanese-American girl getting drawn to the surface glamour of an underground alternative performance art scene. Desperate to be cool for a summer she finds a way to join in but realises all that glitters isn't gold and that to maintain her fame she will have to compromise her morals...and I will leave the rest of that for its review!

I think it's a terrible shame that Minx didn't succeed. The reason more young women (or females in general) don't read graphic novels is because they don't feel many are aimed at them. This in turn creates a feeling that if a female IS interested in graphic novels she is being fake and doing it because that is what is cool with menfolk (which of course well all know is a load of guff). I sincerely hope that at some point DC does try Minx again...and when they do I want to be there writing for them.

Next week: We explore another of Ross Campbell's works further as the last (for now) of my graphic novels for female readers series!

Friday Feature - Graphic Novels for Female Readers 1: Ghost World

Maybe I've spent too much time with guys but it always makes me laugh when Rookie references Steve Buscemi and all the comments shout SEYMOUR! rather than MR PINK!

Who is Seymour? Seymour is a character from the 2001 film Ghost World starring Thora Birch and a young Scarlett Johansson as two bored teens floating around a completely average American town in that hinterland between high school and college. My friend Gina recommended the movie saying it was just like me. I watched it and was like, "You think I'm like Seymour?!" and she was like, "No...I thought you were like Enid...!" at which I blushed.

Ghost World the film is equal parts humorous equal parts snarky but with a bittersweet ending. It is essential viewing for any young woman uncertain about her future. Not because it will give her all the answers but because it will help her know she's not alone.

The main reason Gina recommended Ghost World to me was because it was based on an indie comic of the same name written by Daniel Clowes in 1997.

 

If you found the humour of Ghost World the film too dry and the characters of Enid and Rebecca too hard to empathise with then you will not like Ghost World the graphic novel as it is completely unfiltered. Though humour is there the tone is much darker, coming from the girls' sardonic view of the world and playing on cringy situations you know you shouldn't really laugh at. Think Happiness.

 

When together Enid and Rebecca have a tendency to be cruel, extremely potty mouthed, bitchy, judgemental and melodramatic. Separated they manage to be deceitful whilst displaying a vulnerability you cannot ignore or not understand even if only on a basic level. Sorry to ruin it for you boys but they are real teenage girls, warts and all.

 

Just like in the film Enid is playful and over the top, acting out to both get attention from 'normal' Rebecca (who she sees as her superior) whilst also trying to steal all attention away from her. It is an almost poisonous relationship as the more the girls stay together the more they realise it cannot last and that it won't be the end of the world when it doesn't. They judge each other as much as they judge those around them. They betray and lie as much as they support and defend. They begin to notice each other's flaws and as they grow into two different women they realise that they are flaws they are not willing to live with. As with their personalities it is a depiction of a relationship warts and all.

 

One of the differences between the film and the graphic novel some Rookie fans will shed a tear at is that there is no Seymour. By that I mean there is no single character called Seymour but there are various male characters who if put together make Seymour (mostly Bob Skeetes and Bearded Windbreaker). The story structure as a whole is much more episodic than in the film. It is a series of events, mostly unrelated, that when put together tell the story of two young women struggling and on the most part failing to find meaning and hope in their small town lives. Yet these events are not without charm or pathos. In one chapter Enid spends two pages telling Rebecca how great Daniel Clowes is (extremely surreal to say the least) only to meet him and find he is a weedy perv (perfect 4th wall joke).

 

Despite the episodic nature of the storytelling the girls' often mean jokes are not without consequence. The results of a prank call to Bob Skeetes make Enid feel incredibly guilty and are the begin of her realisation that she does not like the woman she is becoming if her world doesn't change. It are such bouts of conscience that make Enid the more likable of the two girls.

 

The artwork is simple and unfussy without looking lazy or ugly. No one is glamorous in Ghost World. Like everything else they are warts (in some cases giant tumours) and all. It is silly but one of the biggest pleasures I got from the artwork was the use of mint green.

 

In summary Ghost World is a story that finds its beauty in unflinching honesty and the recreation of the everyday. It is as brutal as it is wistful but has both in equal measure. There are no magic powers or happy ending. Only the future and what you make of it.

 

Next week: We continue exploring graphic novels I think all young female comic book fans should read by looking at the short lived DC imprint Minx.