mexico city…so far :::
By warriorgrrl | July 1, 2009
I arrived in Mexico City on Sunday night and so far it’s been a blast. I’m hanging out with a great group of people, travelling all over the city soaking up the atmosphere and capturing the trip in video and photo form. I have a very cool job.
Highlights so far include: staying at the gorgeous Condesa DF hotel, eating cactus salads, drinking mojitos and caipirinhas in Habita’s rooftop bar and watching old school Addams Family episodes projected on the side of a building, grabbing breakfast sopes from a street vendor near the hotel, spending time at graffiti gallery Cavemen Did It First, travelling in a bicycle carriage, visiting the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo and watching full on Lucha Libre at Arena México.
More photos here.
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Topics: News, Photo Post, Places, Recommendations, Travel | No Comments »
new snippets on myspace :::
By warriorgrrl | June 26, 2009
Last night was wonderful. Brilliant music, great people and lots of wine. We raised a melancholy glass to the passing of the King of Pop and morris danced in to the early hours. Well, the boys did - I had a fine time watching.
I’ve just put some snippets of the new tracks on MySpace so have a little listen here and click here to order your limited edition CD. Big thanks to everyone who bought Three…Two…One last night - enjoy!
If anyone was wondering if the whole handmade-by-me-CD thing was genuine, this photo should prove it! There I was checking the final mix of the tracks before my Apollo soundcheck, just before I started burning CDs throughout the evening.
Hurrah for trusty laptop!
[Photo by Cat Munro]
Topics: Gigs, Music, News, Photo Post, She Makes War | No Comments »
apollo gig tomorrow! ltd edition cd pre-order! :::
By warriorgrrl | June 24, 2009
I’ve been working my fingers to the bone this past week finishing off tracks, designing artwork and putting together a little limited edition package to celebrate my involvement with The Apollo Project this month. It’s given me so much inspiration and I’ve met so many amazing people there that I wanted to mark my experience in some way, and what better than some new tunes and a load of video content?
Three…Two…One is set to feature at least three brand new recordings with the possible inclusion of a cheeky demo, high quality .mov files of all seven recent @warriorgrrl vBlog episodes, the promo video for Eye Spy shot in Brockwell Park in January and some PDF artwork as well as the signed, numbered 5×7″ cover art slotted in to a DVD case by my own fair hands - an idea pilfered from The Apollo organisers.
IF I DON’T MANAGE TO GET THE TRACKS MIXED BY TOMORROW…
This audio visual feast will be available to pre-order from me in person at The Apollo Project this Thursday 25th June, plus if you come along you also get to see me play live at 7.30pm (and yes, I will bring the ukulele again…) followed by the most eclectic night of music EVER featuring Lambeth Wind Orchestra, Crumbling Ghost and Djevara. The CD will be ready for shipping / local bicycle delivery on Tuesday 7th July.
IF I DO FINISH IT ALL IN TIME FOR THE GIG…
You can have the actual CD and everything, hurrah!
Three…Two…One is on sale for the princely sum of £5.00 and I’m putting 20 copies online for pre-sale via this link. Any copies not bought/reserved on Thursday night will join them, and when they’re gone they’re gone!
If you’re one of the lovely people who sent me Paypal sponsorship money your free copy will be winging its way to you very soon…smothered in kisses.
Topics: Gigs, Music, News, Photo Post, She Makes War, Travel, Video | 3 Comments »
punx-pacha-apollo + gig alert + video! :::
By warriorgrrl | June 13, 2009
Another busy busy week. I spent a very enjoyable day in the studio on Wednesday with Hal working on a potential track for the new Young Punx album, and it looks like some more awesome Han Hoogebrugge videos are going to be made soon - watch this space. I also get to go to Ibiza next month to sing at Pacha - it’s going to be amazing!
Thursday saw the first live music night at The Apollo and was an absolute triumph for the organisers. Brilliant musicians + a big friendly crowd = a fine time had by all. My lovely friend Lobelia was on top looping form as always and kindly invited me to join her in singing the gorgeous “The Sound Of A Breaking Heart”. Video to follow, and you can see photos here.
After my first taste of the Live At The Apollo stage I’ll be performing a set there of my very own tomorrow night as part of the Sunday solo night. I’m on at around 9pm and other acts include The Sneezy Ts, Stephen Evens, Rob Moore and Paul Glass. I do hope not to be the only girl, but I’m sure the boys will all be great - I’m really looking forward to it. Warning - I might play battle ukulele.
In more dance music related news - the song Hal and I co-wrote with Redroche has just been signed by Ministry of Sound in Australia - excellent news! I’ll let you know more when it’s available to buy, but until then check out this video of us creating the track:
Back to planning my adventure travelling around Japan next month - any suggestions for must-see places? Am currently thinking Tokyo - Kyoto - Nara - Osaka - Mount Koya - Osaka - Tokyo. I can’t get a Japan Rail Pass because I’ll be there with a work visa…dammit!
Topics: Gigs, Music, NaNoWriMo, News, She Makes War, The Young Punx, Travel, Video | No Comments »
barcelona-paris birthday, apollo and @warriorgrrl vBlog ep 07! :::
By warriorgrrl | June 8, 2009
Best. Birthday. EVER! I’m just sorry I don’t have photos to share of me raucously celebrating the stroke of midnight on the 1st of June in the small, otherwise quiet bar on the Barcelona-Paris train, my boyfriend and our lovely new travelling companion Chris singing Happy Birthday to me at the top of their voices and the barman proudly offering me a birthday bar of chocolate (with a picture of a train on the wrapper, of course) before I grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks shouting Happy Birthday to you too! Trying to clamber silently in to the top bunk of a very small compartment full of sleeping French ladies ten minutes later was quite amusing, after which a tipsy tweet escaped from my fingers before I passed out cold: Officially. Grown. Up.
I’m not sure about that, but after a wonderful sunny birthday spent cycling around Paris, eating amazing vegan food (in Paris! Yes!) and lounging in secluded parks (all thanks to the marvellous Cathy) it’s been back to work for me with lots of filming, editing and project planning for the coming weeks alongside milking the whole birthday thing dry with a day of drinking fizzy wine, eating chilli and getting my supertalented musical friends to perform in my living room. These things have to be done!
I’ve also found myself caught up in a brand new arts project happening right round the corner from my house: The Apollo Project. I made a vBlog episode based on last Thursday’s launch night (see below) and have been volunteering in the daytimes to help keep the shop open for visitors between 10am and 10pm every day this month. There are great events happening all the time and the space is pulling all kinds of interesting, creative people together so it’s a vibrant hub of inspiration for me at the moment. I feel very lucky to be able to get involved in any way.
Please read my Qype blog post about the Apollo Project here, check out their website for the full story plus up to date events listings here, and watch my video right here:
And how are you?
Topics: Music, News, Photo Post, Places, Ramblings, Recommendations, Serious Shit, Travel, Video, Video Blog Posts | No Comments »
festival season + @warriorgrrl vBlog ep 06 :::
By warriorgrrl | May 18, 2009
Festival season has begun! I’m trying to get out to more gigs these days. Even though things like distance and weather and being crushed in hordes of people tend to put me off, I’m looking forward to the next month of music.
I might not be a Glastonbury girl any more (where did the good lineups go?) but I’m setting my sights on Europe and a lovely trip to Barcelona for Primavera Sound. Am very excited about seeing Sonic Youth, Throwing Muses, Bowerbirds, Bat for Lashes, Shellac, My Bloody Valentine, Jarvis Cocker and my brand new favourite band Agent Ribbons plus I get to sleep under the stars outside the city at a campsite with a swimming pool! And then in June it’s Download!!
Last Friday I dipped my toe in the festival rainbucket with a trip down to my beloved Brighton for The Great Escape. I was disappointed not to be able to join in the festival spirit by seeing a load of bands in different venues - it’s hard to do that when a) torrential rain is spitting in your face b) mad gusts of wind are trying to knock you over c) all the bands you want to see are playing at the same time and d) there are queues round the block for all the gigs. I did get to see Metric though, which was the whole point, and was very impressed by Marnie Stern too.
It made me start video blogging again too, look:
Check out this excellent Agent Ribbons documentary too, I can’t wait to get my hands on the new material:
Topics: Blogging, Music, Places, Recommendations, Video, Video Blog Posts | No Comments »
things you should know :::
By warriorgrrl | May 14, 2009
THE SHORT VERSION: please buy Carina Round’s new EP - it’s absolutely brilliant, only costs £3.95 in the UK and will support a woefully under-recognised British artist. Seriously - buy it now!
THE LONG VERSION with photos and everything: Let me take you back to 2004 and the weird downtime days just after Christmas. I’d just come back from visiting my family in the countryside and was mooching around looking for things to do. The early, quiet days of a freelance career - lots of time on my hands!
She Makes War had been recently christened - a nameless entity for 6 months previously, things were starting to shape up. We were still a duo after months of trying to find a dedicated guitarist but were forging ahead regardless and had studio dates booked. I was spending a lot of time trying to find inspiration, trying to find reasons to make original music, reasons to try and do something interesting.
Two friends gave me CDs for Christmas that year, and as I hung out in my room thinking about lyrics and guitar parts I started listening to them. “Spend The Night” by The Donnas almost made me want to give up then and there. All the strutting, empty sentiments and the boy-rock-by-numbers music couldn’t have been further away from what I was trying to conceive of doing with my own songs and the effect on me was so strong I remember prying the CD out of the player and sitting on my bed, literally head in hands, wondering why I was even bothering trying to be in an all-female band if this was the best we could be. [as it happened six months later SMW was my solo project so I needn't have been so worried]
Time for a break from all this thinking, I decided, chucking the Donnas album in the bin and putting the next CD in to play while I checked my emails. And then I heard a song called “Shoot” for the first time. I don’t think I’d ever been so utterly blown away by an album since hearing “The Bends” in 1995 (I rented it from Bury St Edmunds library on cassette), and spent the rest of that day listening to “The Disconnection” over and over while I found out all I could about its mysterious creator, Carina Round. She was only a little older than me, it transpired, she was from Wolverhampton, this was her second album, she made brilliant music with an amazing voice and yet no-one seemed to know who she was.
Since her third album “Slow Motion Addict” came out I’ve seen Carina perform four times, became brave enough to say hello to her at the shows and even ask to be allowed to review and take photographs at the last one as part of my tell-everyone-about-Carina-Round quest. That solo gig was the most special of all for me as I stood mere metres away from this woman possessed, tenderly strumming her acoustic guitar one moment and raising the roof with a banshee wail the next. It was phenomenal and I have the review and photos to prove it.
Last year I visited LA on the Tricky tour and invited Carina to our gig at the Henry Fonda. I ended up spending a glorious California day with her and Dan Burns and have very fond memories of jamming on the beach, eating amazing vegan sandwiches and cupcakes and having inspiring whiskey-fuelled conversations with both of them. It’s rare to get a opportunity to spend time with a fellow musician you have so much respect for so it was all very wonderful.
This all made Tuesday an extra special and very exciting day - the release of Carina’s brand new EP “Things You Should Know”. Having left Interscope last year to go it alone, she’s worked tirelessly to create five stunning, emotional new songs, superbly produced by Dan Burns and released independently of a label, yay! Various packages are available to fans, some including special live performances - find out more here.
Carina Round’s music has been with me for most of the life of my solo project, and as I continue on the interminably slow journey towards completing and releasing my debut it’s at turns inspiring, challenging and comforting. I’m lucky I found her so early on - it’s high time you got in on the act. Buy “Things You Should Know” here right now.
Topics: Music, Photo Post, Ramblings, Recommendations, She Makes War | 1 Comment »