Where do all the good unknown bands go?

Posted on by onewaytoeatanorange

I recently discovered the band ‘Parallel Dance Ensemble’. Reminiscent of The Tom Tom Club, featuring the strong female tones of Kiwi emcee Coco Solid and supported by Denmark hip-hop producer Robin Hannibal, I had ‘Graffiti Girls‘, ‘Weight Watchers‘ and ‘Shopping Cart’ on a constant loop for 3 days. I was in love, and was ready to get obsessed.

Imagine my disappointment when on beginning my cyber research I found that they hadn’t released anything for 5 years. My now-necrophilic obsession had nowhere to go; I was plunged into a grief which resulted in my taking yet another tour on the aural loop of their back catalogue (and accompanying remixes).

As with many failed relationships, this is part of a pattern. This is not the first time I have fallen for a band that failed to hit the big-time; I’ve flogged dead horses before. A 3-piece female R&B group called ‘JUCE’  became my soundtrack to December 2015, only to find that they hadn’t released a song since August 2014, and the closest I was going to get was the Juce C++ platform.

You could argue that this is just the nature of time, and that often people love bands from the past, not needing to know that they are still releasing. The next generation has been discovering Queen and The Beatles with no hope of a full live performance or new track for years. My issue? The recency of these bands – I am falling in love with subversive (slightly questionable but I’m trying to seem cool here) no-hopers; the ones who didn’t have what it takes; the musical runts in the litter. And what’s worse? They still exist. They could be writing music but for one reason or another it has anti-climatically ‘not worked out’.

Why do all these great song-makers not make it to the big time? Do I have horrendous taste in music? Do I just love unattainable love?

I think there is an element of the above, but also the fact that the music business is hard for those who are different. If you don’t fit a One Direction, X Factor mould, gaining a following, and let’s be honest that’s what makes the music business lucrative, is difficult. Often the most discerning ears listen from the shadows from a less fanatical stance, and will probably stream your music without spending a penny.

That brings me to the digital element – the unavoidable elephant in the room. For the industries that have benefited from the Internet revolution, there are as many that have suffered and whilst the Spotify/Soundcloud consumer wins, many musicians are now flailing their arms as they drown amongst the millions of other Internet-savvy voices also offering their music online.

It may be easier to record (at home in you bedroom with a microphone is enough) and share than ever, but it’s also harder to stick, and sticking is where it’s at.

Grey hair

Posted on by onewaytoeatanorange

I am profoundly interested in grey coverage. Not just that of my mother, and relatives over the age of 35, but shockingly for my 23 year old self.

Not content with going through what I like to think of as a second puberty in the baptism of fire that is adulthood (Uni doesn’t count) my body has crowned me with some early onset grey. The fact that this coincides with a leap in cup size makes this all the more confusing.

This does seem like quite the confession, but thankfully, I’m not alone. Well, I am when I tell friends who still have fresh colourful folicles à la their 13 year old self, but I personally know at least 2 other non-ironic grey hair bearers who can understand my pain.

Weirdly, I already dye my hair. So the fact that I have even found these hairs is shocking in itself. But they have managed to worm their way through my glorious blond highlights to the extent that on a recent visit my hairdresser dramatically cut the greys out of my head. Even he was shocked (he screamed). Brilliant.

So, solutions are:

  • Bleach all hair and suffer the consequences
  • Highlight my hair more regularly (expensive)
  • Dye my hair grey all over, ironically and to be ironic all in one
  • Not give a shit (and accept that I can only date men shorter, older or blind-er than me – actually quite a substantial pool)

Out of these options I have opted for number 2 and am still hoping on the 4th, but as with everything aesthetic should I care? Does anyone actually notice one or two greys? Is grey hair the final taboo and I am inadvertently the edgiest girl at the party?

I am surveying everyone I know for their thoughts. To be honest it can be a touchy subject – many of my male friends are looking down the barrel of male pattern baldness, so in terms of gender divide there isn’t one; if anything guys have it worse. Yet in society men’s grey is lauded, and often even preferred. ‘Silver fox’ ring any bells? That’s the office male dreamboat, not the respective female who will most likely have dyed her hair to emulate a more youthful appearance. I want to be a Silver Fox. ‘Foxy’ is surely a word that our sexist language labels females with anyway.

Let’s talk some benchmarks. Is this in any way normal? Well after scanning sites such as the reassuringly named onaverage.co.uk I have received the alarming news that ‘the average age that people turn grey is around when they’re 30 or 35 years old.’ So that must mean that I am a prematurely turning grey, by 7 years. The site also informs me that it takes 10 years to turn grey. So by 33 I could have full coverage. Great.

Nature gives us hair for about 23 years and then cruelly takes, or fades, it away. Or am I a butterfly shedding its vain colourful cocoon?

The ‘put off’ generation?

Posted on by onewaytoeatanorange

There is a new epidemic in British youth culture. Call it procrastination, call it laziness, but the trend of today’s have-it-all generation is that of delay.

Whether it be that second gap year, a masters, or a career change it seems that the twenty-somethings of today can’t, or just won’t, settle. Or at least not yet.

There are still those who decide to follow the traditional routes, and make their money in the City, or go through the GDL as they seek to become a lawyer, but many are looking for alternative careers and there is an air of confidence as they spend their time interning at a e-commerce start-up, or as one Cambridge Graduate friend is about to do, becoming an air hostess to travel the world.

Today’s youth have everything they could need – opportunities, information available at any minute of the day – and many are making the most of this, and their youth.

The title of this article suggests that this might in some way be a negative trend. However, I have to admit I am one of them. I have been working in a job for over a year, but as things stand that looks to change in the next year.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome started following you

Posted on by onewaytoeatanorange

This week I got a new Instagram follower. Yes, my social status grew and another lamb joined my flock – Irritable Bowel Syndrome started following me.

As I had recently been diagnosed as a sufferer of the almost sophisticated-sounding IBS-C (yes that stands for constipation), I had admittedly (and desperately) surfed the net for information on diets to combat the syndrome.  This research led me to follow (a maximum of) two accounts on the popular photo-sharing app Instagram,  where fellow sufferers were sharing helpful recipes which proclaimed to be Low FODMAP (see below for an explanation of this short term, fun-free diet)*. However, that did not soften the blow when I received the notification that ‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome started following you’ and realised that even on social media my condition / syndrome / complaint had begun its cyber pursuit.

To anyone who is unaware, IBS is shit. Literally. Whether you can’t go, go all the time, or have occasional but unexpected ‘attacks’, IBS can easily dominate your life. Even when you have it under control there will always be those foods that ‘don’t agree with you’. It’s boring, and actually very ageing.

At the sprightly age of 23 I finally had to admit that I have always had IBS, that gluten actually isn’t a friend of mine, that I was very likely to be in the midst of a powow with my (amazing and very youthfully-minded) Grandmother about our attacks, and the cherry (on the now banned) cake that I had to give up pints. Pints of lovely beer. I gave up beer for IBS. IBS was ruining my social life, on Instagram and in the pub.

After a year of a varying restrictive diet, attempts to follow Low FODMAP and to be told that it is not a long term option by medical professionals, I’ve finally found some kind of balance, aided by an expensive one-off consultation with a dietician and some equally expensive pro- and pre-biotics.

You can follow me IBS, but I refuse to follow you.

 

*The ‘FODMAP’ in Low FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligo-Di-Monosaccharides and Polyols

FODMAPs are osmotic (means they pull water into the intestinal tract), may not be digested or absorbed well and could be fermented upon by bacteria in the intestinal tract when eaten in excess.

The diet eliminates certain carbohydrates.

Breaking free from Facebook

Posted on by onewaytoeatanorange

‘Read at 21.03’ ‘Last seen at 22.56’

Not only does modern day living tinge any interaction with the 12 hour clock with quaint nostalgia, but regardless whether Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, or iMessage is your bag we are more connected than ever, and that makes our social lives faster, more dynamic, but also more anxiety-inducing.

We are all glued to our phones, ready for the next Tweet, Instagram post, or the Tinder date of our dreams. Yet this constant social ebb and flow can often become a deluge of information where you can end up feeling trapped. There is no excuse to miss your friend’s birthday party invitation, even if leaving the house is the last thing you want to do. You can’t accidentally miss that email that your boss sent you at 20.47, because you have e-mails on your phone. You are at the beck and call of everyone who has your contact details, which with Facebook can be as little as your name.

What’s worse? A day can be ruined when a friend, or let’s be honest potential amour, doesn’t reply to your casual, but perfectly constructed, witty message that ended with an offhand reference to a drink and a (now stark) question mark (thank God you didn’t put that ‘x’). This simple piece of punctuation aptly reflects the existential haze which hangs over your social life and weirdly reminds of the curve of the reaper’s scythe…(too far?) The silence is exacerbated by the ‘Read at 09.30’ that is apparently enough to warrant eating a whole bag of giant chocolate buttons at your desk. Fuck it, two. The efficiency of the platform, informing you with passive aggressive kindness that you are being ignored, makes you start to wonder if this is your life now – loneliness with only an automated message to remind you you are alive.

This inability to escape has just got more 1984 through the development of Google Chrome ‘Marauders Map’, whose name creepily allowed it to hide behind the child-friendly Harry Potter cloak, but actually used Facebook’s Messenger app to allow you to track any of your friends to an exact location. Although created by a soon-to-be Facebook intern this underlines our society’s obsession with technology, and the way that that know-how can turn sour. If it hadn’t been stopped the platform would have actually made every user’s favourite pastime of ‘Facebook stalking’ just that – stalking.

The thing is, as an avid stalker, I can waste many hours looking through the holiday photos of a girl I used to sit next to in English but no longer talk to, through human interest and a sick desire to compare our lives regardless of whether I come out the worse. Yet this is just. too. much. I don’t need to know where friends are. It would merely be another string of anxiety to my already fraying bow, which has already been tensed by the realisation that the temptation to track a friend’s location would definitely get the better of me.

So this brings me to my point, does social media actually have the power to make us bad friends? Voyeuristically following the lives and loves of acquaintances in silence (or with a rogue like here or there), or un-reading messages from good friends until we feel like it. As we are given the means to break through that final breach of trust – location – are we steadily un-learning how to communicate?

It seems like that is the case, but the lure of Facebook is that it taps into social human instincts so strong that it has managed to survive without suffering an en masse account deactivation cull. The reasoning seems to be that you may have to wait for    your friend to reply, but you can surf through your memories, or those of relative strangers, as you wait…or soon you will be able to find out where they are hiding (because they are hiding) like the pseudo-spy that you are.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still on there, but I’m watching, Facebook.