London Pride. I was a first timer - In Finland you'd need to find your way all the way to Helsinki for that. This time I happened to be in the same city and happened to see someone post about it on Facebook in the same morning. I had no other plans so decided to go check it out. After all, I fully support equal rights for everyone - and really wanted to see Boy George and Corey Hart. I convinced my flatmate Hanna and her friend Seamus to come too! He got chatted up a lot while us girlies were left alone. The situation got rectified later on in Roxy Club where, to put it nicely, all the guys seemed to be lonely. Ugh, I again remembered why I don't go out that much. Funnily it doesn't take long to forget these things again.
There was only one entrance gate into Trafalgar Square which was a bit shit honestly. The queue was horrendous and moved reeeeaaalllyyy sloooowwlyyy. Yet there were at least three "exit only" gates. I didn't get to hear Karma Chameleon, either because he didn't sing it or he started with it and we weren't in the area yet. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me was heard. He was fabulous in his sparkly hat and strong eyeliner!
How awesome is he!
I was so ready for it too! Shame I missed the song.
Corey Hart didn't disappoint - Sunglasses At Night remix version was incredibly fun! For those of you who aren't so well educated about 80's cheese, he's the guy who invented duckface.
Then we popped into a pub for a drink and the table next to us invited us over in their company. Then we spotted some, apparently hot, lonely man in the table behind us and took him in. He'd been stood up by his friend and was stranded in this strange city all by himself. All the way from Italy, poor guy. We then proceeded to go find a club - wandered in the general direction of Heaven to notice that the queue was about 7 miles long - then came up with a plan B and found Bar 101 for a drink and then moved on to Roxy. Roxy was fun! Completely packed full which was annoying but the music was good! No standard club music, more indie rock and oldies.
Such a fun night! Great time was had by all, almost everyone hooked up with someone, love was all around. And bright colours.
I'm on my last month of interning! Well, kind of. Full time until the end of July and part time for August while I also (hopefully) earn some actual money. The sooner I find a job the better. I can't do maths and will be trouble with bank balances unless I start receiving a paycheck.
I met with a recruitment agent who specializes in helping Finns find jobs. Apparently we have a good reputation and the Brits have a bad reputation when it comes to employment so she's now marketing us as the amazing, intelligent super worker bees that we are. Fair enough, I'll take advantage of that if I can ;) Hire me, I'm Scandinavian! True Aryan as well, if that's something you value. I can't really pull the minority card though, so that's an obstacle. Or maybe I'll convert to lesbianism for the sake of getting a job. (Disclaimer: I do think it's a bit silly to use my nationality - or any other unrelated issue - for advantage in the job market.)
Then the interesting stuff: Indie Con, a "unique new conference devised for independent labels and artists", kicked off Thursday and went on until Friday lunch time. So, simply put, a day and a half little thingy.
Thursday was really useful and interesting for me as I'm leaning towards marketing and PR with my career aspirations. I can't really say any of it was really new, but I got some ideas that I hadn't thought of yet and got good reminders of things I know but have neglected lately. But as they say, repetition is the mother of learning. It was also great to get some validation as the things they'd done with their campaigns were very similar to ours. Builds confidence.
The first panel was about online marketing and fan engagement. We heard from five marketing professionals about their campaigns that they've recently done for their artists and how it worked. Most of them were quite new up and coming acts with small budgets which was great since that's where we're at. One presentation was about Prodigy's campaign around this year's Download festival and while interesting, I have a feeling I won't be doing promotions for bands that caliber any time soon.
Later in the day we got to hear from music journalists and how they wish to be approached by PR. No surprises here but nice reminders that we shouldn't be dazzled by shiny, pretty newsletters that are easy to send to entire lists of email addresses but to keep it simple and personal. I've always known that but have been ignoring it because it just is so much easier and more fun to create a pretty newsletter with beautiful colors and pictures than manually send normal emails.
Friday I went to listen to a more political discussion about US visa issues (which is incredibly unfair!) and quick visit to Google and illegal download sites. I never thought it'd be as interesting as it was. Touring in the USA is currently pretty much impossible unless you have a lot of money and influential friends where American bands can just trot over and do a tour. Going to the States to play requires months of paperwork; to first apply for a permission to apply for a visa, then apply for the actual visa which costs substantial amount of money. Then you need letters from respected members of the industry proving that you're a significant artist (this caused Adele some problems as she was such an overnight success that she didn't have a great back catalogue of achievements and press coverage). You might have convinced some journalists to feature you and your music, media might even love you but when you ask them to write a letter of recommendation as a favour to you, they probably don't have the time. It's a nightmare.
I really enjoyed these day and a half! I'll definitely go again next year. You should too.
It's been a while again! I've been busy and away and lazy. I went to visit friends and family in Finland in the beginning of June and straight from there I flew to sunny Spain for a friend's wedding. It was absolutely lovely!
First dance in action. My camera is awesome.
Last week I made a comeback to work to find that we have about a million new interns! They all are apparently mostly doing social media stuff, one of them is taking care of new releases and I'm still doing newsletters and press releases and bugging media people. All is well.
I do like that we now have new blood around here. Sometimes the office can get a bit quiet if all the other interns, who mostly are here 2 days a week, are gone. Now with this many new people I'm assuming such a day will never be again! At the moment most of them are quite scared and quiet but that should change once we get to know each other more.
Then I got hit by some annoying stomach flu and was out of the game for the better part of three days (and the previous weekend). The longest stomach upset ever! I was on a solid diet of yoghurt, bananas, white rice, coconut water and peppermint tea for about three days. Yum. When I felt well enough to have tasty food again I nearly went on a binge and made myself sick again (that was the plan) but ended up in a pub eating a sandwich and sipping wine. All went better than expected!
Now that I'm back in action we've been busy busy bees with promotion campaigns for a single 'All I Know' by iremembertapes. They're like the lovechild of Scissor Sisters and Joy Division. Makes me wanna boogie. As of yesterday (Thursday June 28) morning the track has been available on iTunes and other platforms worldwide! Get on it!
This post is about Eurovision Song Contest. If you don't appreciate the ridiculousness, hilarity and excessive use of glitter in ESC, stop reading.
Eurovision week is over. Congratulations to this year's winner, Sweden's Loreen with her song 'Euphoria'! And speedy recovery to all ESC drinking game players. To be honest, I was quite surprised by Loreen's victory. Normally these conventionally good quality songs that will go on to play at clubs and radio, don't succeed that well in Eurovision. Euphoria has already topped the charts in Nordic countries and now will no doubt do just that also elsewhere.
On the day of the second semi-final, Thursday that is, Eric Saade started trending on Twitter as soon as Norway had performed. The similarities between Sweden's last year's performance and Norway's show this year were incredible. The guys look the same, the backup dancers look the same - if you ignore the gender upgrade - and the songs could be by the same artist. Norway came in last in the final with only 7 points.
As Norway's poor performance showed us, it's not a good idea to resemble another (famous) artist too much. Yet this mistake is made every year. This year Italy's artist was clearly channeling Amy Winehouse and Denmark's girl sounded a lot like Alanis Morissette. Denmark only scored points from six countries, coming to a total of 21 points, while Italy did considerably better with 101 points and 9th place.
I am sailing, across the stage
The gayest show this year was Turkey, no contest! Their leather wearing seaman and his batman-inspired backup dancers managed to be exceptionally camp, even by the Eurovision standards. And then their capes transformed into an outline of a boat and made me giggle uncontrollably. Most fun this year, however, was Malta's little foot dance! They also had a pretend-DJ on stage. 0:55 is when the fun begins.
The UK's Engelbert "The Hump" Humperdinck came second to last with only 12 points despite his huge global success and large fan base. The BBC offers this as explanation: "Historically no-one who has opened the contest has gone on to win, as viewers often tune in late and miss the early contenders." which is of course complete bollocks. While he came across as sympathetic and sweet, his song 'Love Will Set You Free' (yes, really) was utterly boring, as the title would have you think. In this freak circus such a ballad will go unnoticed, unless it's Ireland. And even they've had bad luck lately. Of course, they've also had a turkey.
Speaking of Ireland, I liked Jedward's 'Waterline' much better than 'Lipstick' last year. The audience, however, seemed to disagree. I don't blame them, the whole reason even I watch this show is for the WTF-reactions and the exciting shows these artists throw at us. Seeing the same performers year after year is dumb and boring.
Special mention goes to Georgia for providing the most ridiculous performance, in the true spirit of Eurovision Song Contest! I would have definitely wanted to see them in the final.
Another special mention to the Slovakian Eurovision Hair Metal band with shirtless lead man. That should be a genre; it's a classic Eurovision song disguised as hard rock/glam metal. Listen to it and you'll know what I mean (ignore the beginning, it gets more Eurovision-y come chorus). Belarus also had a Eurovision rock band with members who looked like they jumped on the stage straight from the TV show The Tribe. Yep, "Eurovision rock" needs to be a genre. Not limited to only bands who've been in ESC.
The BBC commentators made this year so much better for me (that's where the headline for this post came from). The Finnish commentators have some good jokes and say funny things but hold back much much more than the guys at BBC. It was a joy listening to them. I'm also extremely happy to have learned about the existence of Dr. Eurovision! Isn't it marvelous! Academic expert, has a PhD in Eurovision. I don't know if that's incredibly cool or just incredibly ridiculous. Or both. Awesome dude either way.
The Great Escape came and went. It was a really fun weekend and even though interesting comments and statements were rare and everything the panels discussed I already knew*, I did still learn. And it was nice to notice that I really do know something about what I'm doing and even the top players aren't that much more knowledgeable, they just have the years of experience and reputation behind them. The thing where you put the knowledge into action and make something of it. This was more of a trial run though and next year, if I go, I'll get much more out of it.
*For bands to be ready for a label they need to practice, write songs, play gigs and have a fan base. If they want to work with a brand they should do their research and find a brand with the right image. Oh, and bands are brands too. All fascinating bits of information if you've never really been near anything music industry related and are a bit simple and clueless, but pretty self-explanatory to everyone else.
Despite there being millions of gigs all through the weekend, we only saw a handful of them. Our own night took up all of Friday night and during the days we went to the conferences rather than watch some band we've never heard of. So we only pretty much had Thursday and Saturday nights to check out some live music.
On Thursday the highlight of the night was Kids In Glass Houses despite the front man's very geeky-in-an-uncool-way t-shirt. Come on, bands, look like a band! They had energy, they had attitude and they had catchy punk rock tunes. Their sound is quite American which for anyone who knows me is a sure sign that I'll like it. Very enjoyable to watch too. I really also liked the venue they were playing, Concorde 2. Magner's cider was only £3,80/pint which for a Finn is very impressive and exciting!
I'll just skip right to Saturday since I feel I've highlighted our bands' greatness enough already. I have nothing to add. They're great. They're always great. They even might have been a bit greater than before. And they look like bands. And they are: The Manic Shine, Violet Bones and iremembertapes.
Saturday we hunted down a band called Billy Vincent because someone knew someone who knew someone or something. They were instantly likable and their music made me happy. The last song really made the night. I'm a sucker for some violin and folky sounds, though, and may have let that affect my judgement. Not to mention that they looked good.
Such attractive lads
After that we headed down to a launderette with our new friends from The Icarus Youth to catch a band called The Computers. There we were climbing on washing machines and watching this amazing group of punkrock dudes ooze pure energy and thrills. They should, however, get some hairstylin' tips from Jedward; their cool rockabilly quiffs were pretty much ruined after 15 seconds into their set. That was very possibly the coolest gig I've ever been to!
It's been a while, sorry. Nothing worth reporting has really happened. Still promoting, still updating contact lists, still designing newsletters, still sending those newsletters out.
But this Thursday we will grab our backpacks, take our eagerness to learn, aim our concentration towards the speakers and unleash the excitement at The Great Escape festival in Brighton! On Friday we're putting on our The Animal Farm showcase and the rest of the time we'll go from conference to conference, one gig to another and take in as much as we can. This year's theme is DIY which is quite fitting as that is how things are done at the Farm.
It's going to be fantastic! I will obviously give a full report next week of how amazing it was.
I found a website for a company called City Academy who have musical theatre classes and singing classes and dance classes and such. I really really want to go to a musical theatre class! The beginners classes that last 6-10 weeks are between £200-300 so a bit much for my finances. Maybe I should try one of those online money raising sites and have people fund me! If even a handful of people would pitch in, it would help tremendously. I'm thinking of doing it around my birthday so there's that going for me instead of just randomly asking people for money ;)
I also had a quick meeting on Skype with my academic instructor and it seems that I will eventually graduate (I knew that, now it's just more real). My thesis idea was approved at this time, but it is just a vague idea still and needs a lot of work. And academic backing. I need to hit the library and start researching. Oh dear, soon enough I will have a degree and have to let go of my student-ness and need to find a grown up job with a grown up salary and grown up responsibilities. Scary thought!
Here's a very awesome video from our very awesome The Manic Shine!
The Animal Farm Club Night happened last night at the fabulous Zigfrid von Underbelly of Hoxton Square. It was a night of fantastic music, good wine and great company! I don't have photos (still happened!) because my camera battery is dead and my adapter for the plug is temperamental and refuses to work. Also because I'm lazy and haven't bothered to buy a new charger with an English plug. But YouTube has videos.
The first band to take the stage was The Counterpoints; new band from Reading releasing their first single April 30th. That's an exciting release as we're releasing five songs from five bands on the same day as a collaborative effort on everyone's part. Their music was good but stage presence is something they still need to work on a lot which isn't surprising for a new band; no one is born a master. Warning: the following song will get stuck in your head. That's an earworm if I ever heard one.
Next up was Red N Pink, two loud chicks from London town. To be honest, I didn't like them too much before. I thought they were a bit in-your-face trying too hard to be tough and cool. But seeing them live has now changed my opinion completely! They sounded great, were very comfortable on stage, interacted with the audience well and delivered a good show overall.
Then it was Violet Bones' turn. As always (she says based on two shows) they were fantastic! I liked them a lot last time but now that I have their album on my iPod and know all the songs, it was ever better. They have awesome energy, fun! The album is a great exercise soundtrack! Those kettlebells are getting it! Although it feels slightly wrong to be swinging them around while my iPod is blasting "let's get drunk and stay that way forever!" into my ears.
Wrapping up the night we had iremembertapes. and their fun electro-indie set and slightly homosexual dancing. We went to see them in St Albans the night before; a gig where no one in the audience remembers tapes. That was enjoyable despite some technical difficulties but last night was about 127 times better! They should definitely play more dancey clubs instead of standard rock gig venues; places where people will actually move their tush instead of standing and watching in admiration (to be fair, they're nice to look at). They're touring atm, coming back to London on Monday. Check out the website or this picture for all dates and go to a show! Here's their 80's influenced (as opposed to everything else) latest single 'All I Know'.
And here's a bonus tribute to some band who also played at St Albans and whose lead man reminded me of Corey Hart. The fact that I know Corey Hart and this song so well that random people remind me of it is probably a sign that I need to stop watching VH1's I Love The 80's. Then again, nah.
