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‘Cheers dude, urmm.. we’re all about rocking out and having a great time. We play fun time British pop rock, sometimes fusing different twists such as dance music and the 80′s into different songs.’ was the reply given by my latest band to download when I asked what they were all about. Saving Aimee, a Hertfordshire and truly British sounding band, recently released their debut album ‘We’re the good guys’, and amazingly fill the void in music between indie, punk, rock and dance. Fun time British pop rock brilliantly mixes solid vocals from Luke Quinn with guitar riffs and electropop that would make the best bands in the 80′s proud.

For anybody who played GTA: Vice City, you could believe that the songs We’re The Good Guys and Fresh Since ’88 would appear on the critically acclaimed in-game radio. The instant reaction would be to think of Saving Aimee as a cheesy pop band, but the depth of the vocals and the excitable music plants the band in a mixed bag of You Me At Six, Go:Audio, and Kids In Glass Houses, arguably topping the bag as the best and most excitable. Play Saving Aimee at any party, and you will not get a complaint from anybody. Music critics aren’t complaining either, as the band messaged me to tell me: ‘The press compared our last single ‘Fresh since 88′ as a revival of bands like Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Europe and Duran Duran. What a fu$king compliment.’ Even their replies are excitable.

The summary of the band is the summary of the music. Borrowing guitars and a van, they set across the country spreading their music, and it spread like wildfire. For over two years the name Saving Aimee has rung bells in peoples minds, and since the new albums release, they can finally spring to the forefront of minds and playlists. Download their music, and stick We’re The Good Guys on your Christmas list. Music can be found on Amazon, or downloaded from Itunes legally.

To quote Saving Aimee one last time, ‘Bon Appetite!”

Just a small post for today. As a small piece of advice for you all, when we learn more in our course, we know better methods of writing articles and it may make our older posts almost obsolete. If you pop back through the articles you’ve made so far and play around with it, you’ll have consistent work throughout the course.

In other news, I’ve found out that my blog’s been circulating Twitter and has been noticed on The Secret Handshakes fansite since my review of the artist. I’ll have to get more reviews going it seems. Excellent.

To kick off my first review, I urge you to download a rapidly growing artist called The Secret Handshake. In my reviews I’m simply going to nudge you in the direction of a band or artist and allow you to form your own opinions, while offering my general view in the hope that you will know what you’re letting your Itunes in for. (You wouldn’t want to mistake Paulo Nutini for N-Dubz, for example) The Secret Handshake is in all simplicity a man with an electronic keyboard, the hugely talented Luis Dubuc, and has to offer three full length albums and a couple of EPs and mixtapes.

The two main albums, One Full Year and the recent My Name In Lights, features electronica pop rock with soothing lyrics and upbeat music. All words used to describe the music gives an impression of a cheesy Eurotrash artist, but the depth of the lyrics coupled with the punk-esque dance style creates a lighter playlist to intersperse with your Bring Me The Horizon et al. ‘I Wish’, ‘Summer of 98′ and ‘All For You’ are such highlights, and ‘Little Song’ explains Luis’ ideas behind his creation amazingly.

So first I started with this simple beat and I even added a piano tune. But then I had to think of words that describe, the things i really wanna sing to you. So now I’m working on this melody and I think I can add a harmony, I just want for this song to come together. Then maybe you’d see what you mean to me’

This exemplifies such meaningful lyrics and an idea on how his music is created.

Luis’ voice is wonderfully imperfect, utilising small amounts of autotune to remove some slight tuning problems in his voice, but the simplicity of this coupled with the pureness of the music and beat makes each song a little classic that can sit on your laptop or Ipod, jumping on to lift any mood and gaining a great response from any passing listener. You will love this, and through each listen you will love this more, it’s perfect music for any mood or party. Albums are available on Amazon.com and Itunes, or downloadable through torrenting sites.

I’m not one to throw my toys out of the pram all too often, but this week marked a simple point that probably all groups should address but very few people would be willing to speak up on it. Not I, I’ll stick my head over the parapet and suffer the backlash which will probably just be ‘shut up’.

Spencer, our lovably hilarious lecturer, spent his time pacing the floor discussing our short films last week, and amidst the jokes and more hand gestures than used in a deaf conversation, basically laughed at the idea of the horror genre, and the urban life ‘gangsta’ drama. ‘Ohh you wouldn’t do one of those’ he says, ‘This project is about making something we truly wanted to do’ he says. Excellent, thought I and the girl next to me, also in my group, this would be an amazing opportunity. My, rapidly more hairy, arse.

What did we make? An urban, drug dealing, down on her luck girl turning to crime, drama film. You name a cliche, we managed to stick it in. Did we get sirens? Yes. Was she a single mother with children fired by the big bad boss at work? Yes. Did we have fades to black and a voice over from the girl with a witty line to end it on? But of course! From the idea for cars used, to the idea for script when she bumps into an old college expellee who turns her to drugs, every cliche from every film known to man was loaded into a cannon and blasted into our plans.

I speak here a lot about plans, though not much about finished articles. That’s because Thursday has passed and I’ve yet to see one second of footage. Turning up for the planning, I thrust my rubber ring into the sinking Titanic of a project, and down it went with it. No amount of texts in the following days ever gave an answer to when I should be there, and I was lumped into the group of, ironically, the same girl who was there with Spencer, as people who were not needed. I’m assured I’ll still be credited, I’m assured they’re sorry for forgetting to tell me our lecture was, in fact, one hour earlier than normal.

I am assured, strongest of all these assurances, that this whole project was ultimately a waste of time and effort, and hugely look forward to getting on with my Journalism, the whole point of me being at this university.

Well, maybe not so much a life saver, I’ve not once heard of someone die of typo. However, having recently posted my first article which I checked and double checked myself, I went off to enjoy the student life of having some beers. It was only when my ever-loving girlfriend messaged me to say I’d made some errors and mistakes on my article that I noticed such basic problems. Because I drafted and then cut it, I had missed out certain words, pluralized for no reason and overused the word ‘and’ completely.

It’s now edited, and looking better than ever. I’d recommend getting someone close to proof read your work, the closeness factor because then they care that you do well and will look more than someone forced into it. I’ll be using the girlfriend (not in that way!) to check up more of my articles because she’s highly intelligent, and she wants me to pass.

Score!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=160047409378&ref=ts

This link, for all those with Facebook, is the new group for those taking Journalism at Level 1. Anybody can add this group, but people abusing it will be removed. Rachel Matthews is also available in the group, and discussions on advertising your blog, Journalist-only nights out, and the chance to meet new friends are all available here.

Moi et Charlotte Kerr are heading the group, any questions can be messaged to us at any time.

Urgh sums up my thoughts for the past week really. One big urgh. Firstly, I apologise, to all my media group and AddVantage module lot (Whom I’ve yet to meet). I’ve been extremely ill and bed ridden for the past week really, with worst patches being Wednesday and Thursday, and I’m really disliking this as I have a whole lot of flu and previously ate a whole lot of bacon. Swine flu, I don’t know. I’m not too willing to find out, having swine flu means people treat you like you have leprosy and run and hide when you come near. No fear for my little Priory Hall bunch though, they all have it. It’s their fault I do.

Blindman doesn’t though, interestingly. He will, he will.

But yes, frankly it’s annoyed the hell out of me. I’m usually a ball of energy and pinging around the place talking nonsense but now I’m forced to sit around and stare at Facebook (To pretend I’m interested in what some girl I met once in a pub who then added me like we were lifetime friends is crying about or whichever), or play Bejewelled. Bejewelled reminds me of an ex girlfriends mother, who instead of working for a living, she was all too happy to sit at home moving gems around and claiming benefits and dole instead. Lovely.

It has to be said, like mother like daughter on that one, but I digress.

I’m going to make another coffee, I need something to keep me awake after somebody set the fire alarm off last night destroying some bread in a toaster or whatnot.

Oh look, a play on words! Isn’t Dudley so clever?

This topic is my thoughts on disabilities, to which all may scream ‘Why! That’s such a controversial and emotional topic!’ Well quite simply, I’m brave enough to put my reputation on the line with this one, as my thoughts on it are probably worth a read. I have a new friend in university who has tunnel vision, which basically is a blindness problem that means you see like you were looking through a cardboard tube, and therefore finding things is rendered almost impossible. Walking at night is difficult, and finding your way in a club is, I assume, like me pinpointing a star in the sky and walking to it. I can’t phsyically imagine not being able to see, and my feelings on how hard it must be couldn’t match the reality of the subject.

Which is why we find it hilarious.

Our group of friends can move this guys food as he eats it, and when (For privacy reasons we shall rename him Edvardo) walks down the hall we stack things in front of him. We’ll duck and hide, poke him in the face, dance round him; you name it, it has been done. However, in a real situation, we will call out where bollards are at night, and link with Edvardo during a pub crawl, or just simply get him to follow our finger to something we’re trying to point out. I think the point I feel on the subject is that with this, and any disability, you can fall too easily into a trap of ‘look after the disabled and make sure they’re happy’ and wrap cotton wool on an entire subject, whereas real social living with the same pranks and the same silly jokes actually makes the situation a whole lot better.

Edvardo is not a disability statistic, not something to wrap up and look after, he’s a freshers student. One that’s going to be getting wasted and enjoying university like, if not more than, everyone else.

As the title implies, grammatically incorrectly of course, I have been at university for a whole week. It’s shot by, to be completely honest, it only seems yesterday that I was wandering through the maze that is Priory Hall, looking lost and sweating more than obese hairy fifty year old males who feel it wise to get topless and sunbath in the most publically viewable area whenever the British sun decides to merely poke its little head around a cloud. Now I am one week older here, and I still wander around the maze, but normally because I am quite heavily intoxicated.

It’s in no way something to be proud of or brag about, I feel. Too many people here, though none of my friends I can be proud to say, can be heard stating that they’ve ‘not stopped drinking all night and morning’ or were ‘so wasted they pissed in their sink’. Drinking was once a social act, we arrived at a pub to gurgle down some pints, laugh at the drunks and overtrying girls, and play some pool or reminisce (and I realise how old I sound there, I simply mean to discuss recent events). Pubs are not, however you word your argument, a place to get so wrecked that you’re blind, start on a man bigger than you, smash a window in anger and lose half your belongings in the gutter you crash in.

But I digress. The week has been endless fun, and the lectures have occasionally touched on interesting in a midst of boring induction waffle, but I understand this information has to be said or we’ll all be headless chicken dancing by the middle of October. I couldn’t ask for a more social block in Priory Hall, and the only thing I need to improve on is doing my work.

Oh look, I am.

‘You spend the first year making lots of friends, and the next two trying to get rid of them.’

This is the one thing I really bothered remembering of my fathers endlessly recycled stories and quotes. A description of the social networking (no, not Facebook for once, though it appears the group opposite me decided to spend £3200 of tuition fees staring at the worlds worst collection of ‘fit’ chavs on that site instead of actually working) that appears in university in the way of friendships. I currently have a small group of regular people I talk to, both in my course and in my hall, with just one crossing over to both sides who mothers me and feeds me because I came here with as many items of food as an Etheopian child. I have a mostly blind guy to help out, who is the basis of most practical jokes, a couple of posh southerners and a girl with a laugh that sounds like a hyena on acid. Being stabbed.

It’s fun though, endless entertainment has come from these few days. I, in myself, know who will stay and who will go, and can easily predict who will argue with who. I’m good with body language, and really good at psychological analysis of people, and therefore can work out who will go where and who Emily will shout at first. The best part; they tolerate my humour and they like my friends and girlfriend, so I live in hope that next year I won’t be running and hiding from everyone (except the blind guy, I simply have to be quiet).

But my God, that laugh will be the death of me/her.