bands – Tara Lepore

Let your hair down this festival season! (Or shave it off, whatever, no one cares)

June 8, 2015January 8, 2016 taraleporeLeave a comment

It has been in magazines since probably FEBRUARY.

“Get ready for festival season! This boho dress will have you partying until the early hours. Ted Baker, £250.”

For three months have I endured reading heartbreaking stuff about festival fashion. Festival beauty looks. Top tips for festivals. It makes me feel all weird, like laughing at something cause you thing it’s a joke, then receiving serious looks from french-brainded, bindi-stuck, chiffon-clad girls.

Such propaganda! It’s like these brands are trying to sell yet more shit to us on our (just above) minimum wages, with this promise that you’ll look like Kate Moss or Kendall Jenner (who was recently heralded as a ‘bad girl’ as she stuck her middle finger to a camera during Tyler the Creator at COACHELLA!) Rock n roll!

What’s weird about this pseudo-advertising is that, luckily, it’s not like this at all. Not at British festivals anyway.

In fact, some of the most stylish things I’ve seen at a festival include a mother dressed as Princess Leia holding her baby dressed as Yoda, a man in his pants and thigh high white leather boots listening to Bon Iver, of all things, and a man with his arms straight up in the air at the Stone Circle for like two WHOLE days, as he thought he was a milk bottle and didn’t want to toppled over (okay, I only heard about that one but still – if that’s not style, I don’t know what is.)

So here it is! I’ve milled over these ‘tips’ for the last three minutes and have deemed them worthy enough to be included in this (not so) extensive list.

1) Don’t wear white

This is more of a tip for general life. I don’t even think I will be able to wear white on my wedding day, since I hear there is usually cake, and a lot of wine. In an unintentional slip last week, I bought a gorgeous white knitted dress (think Stevie Nicks) intended for Glastonbury, and then proceeded spill Diet Coke on it as I took it out the bag to look at it. Just don’t wear white.

2) Wear white

Or better, do, and wear your stains with pride. My favourite ever Belle and Sebastian top has cider, wine, and beer stains down it, and I proudly wear it – telling disinterested people the Stories Behind the Stains, like they’re tattoos I got whilst travelling around the world or whatever. Be true to who you are. Without you, stains would know no life.

3) Break up with make up

Now I can’t reallly comment on this as I don’t really have a make up routine, bag, etc – but surely it’s a ballache putting make up on in a field right? Surely it is putting it on every day, right? (Stay with me.)

My usual argument to this is – there are no mirrors at these places – because if there were, people would find a way to do coke off them. You’re not even gonna see yourself all weekend – which makes the first mirror look at home even funnier! (Usual scream at the sunburnt, muddy-faced stranger looking back at you, with tiny eyes and huge pupils.)

Here’s something you could try out for the weekend. Come get us, boys! (NB: You won’t be able to get this off for weeks, so prepare yourself for shifty looks at work, as you swivel around on your chair scrolling through Facebook photos, deep into the comedown.)

Tara’s Beauty Look for Festival Season:

You will need:

1)Moisturiser with SPF (You can usually get this from your Mum’s drawer)

2) Glitter (A quid from Poundland. Or someone else will have it. Do it on budget and ask at the next tent. What? That’s like a quarter of a pint!)

1.Mix whole bottle of glitter with tub of moisturiser.

2.Apply twice daily.

Et voila!

Mucky-faced with the dirtiest nails under them acrilix

4) Snap happy

Not wearing make up is a suggestion that is often met with the response of people saying – but photos! I need to look good in the photos! Which is true, you have to look great in the photos.

Ways to looks great in the photos:

1)Do a Kendall Jenner and flip em one, girls. That way people will think you don’t care about your sweat patches, mascara-face and cider stains. It’s like we’re at Coachella!

2)Pull the most hideous faces possible, so you can be like “Haha! God, I guess I don’t look great when I pull such ugly faces! (as opposed to) “Haha! God, I must have been reeaaallly drunk in that one!” Make them ALL look bad. BE BAD.

3)Alternatively do just get so drunk you think the flash of the camera is a lightning bolt, and you’re the resurrection of Ziggy Stardust, who is a fictional character anyway, so maybe you’re just a recycled idea, and [continue this way of thinking, ideally with joint in hand – much more functional than a clutch bag, or whatever shit they’re trying to sell us in magazines]

There are solutions to all the problems if you sit and think about them guys. The best one’s will always be the candid ones, anyway – that one of you putting your welly on or pissing in a bottle. Or doing both. Ah, 15 days.

4) Factor 5,000,000

Now, here’s where I’m gonna assume the role of ‘Mum’, but sun cream is so important at places like this – it’s well worth preventing sunburn/stroke (much easier to prevent than trenchfoot, which we’ll come to later.) As glorious at that whole day of sunshine might seem, being all crispy, drunk AND sunburnt is total hell and makes you convert to drinking water over cider, and will make you say terrible things like “How about we all just chill here for a while and watch Ben Howard?”

Your friends will be literally horrified by this severely out-of-character behaviour and will consequently rush to the FRANK water stand to get your free water bottle filled up.

Then you, all sunstroked and floaty: “Is this vodka? I need vodka.”

Passing out from sunstroke is like failing your driving test for parking up on yellow lines – there are way cooler ways to do it.

5) Soak up the D. The vitamin D

Because after all, if we get sunshine, heaven is on Earth – and you’re already in.

6) Stuck in the mud

You’re going to get trenchfoot. Don’t Google it, but you will get it. With 15 days to go, it is worth booking an appointment with your GP now for when you get home.

Welcome to the silly season! Go forth and PLAY. — Welcome to the silly season, baby! Now ignore all my tips and just go PLAY.

“Can I write a piece about you now that you’ve made it?” – A review of Belle & Sebastian’s new record!

January 12, 2015January 8, 2016 taraleporeLeave a comment

(Caitlin Moran said something once about if you want to be a writer, you must learn how to be a writer on a treadmill, lest you will die from eating biscuits. I feel the same applies to a gap year.)

A still from the band's new video, Nobody's Empire. — A still from the band’s new video, Nobody’s Empire.

Hi hello hi! I haven’t written for around 2 months, but I’m back today for a specific reason- we have had the new Belle & Sebastian album unleashed to us, and I couldn’t help but take a listen, in the same way that I can’t help but eat another biscuit. It’s called Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, which we so do, and it’s released on Matador next week. I feel guilty, and ashamed as J pre-ordered the LP for me for Christmas, but I still couldn’t help but take a listen. In a way that a New Year often promises a feeling of fresh starts and beginnings, it seldom does compared to the excitement behind a new album, especially when it’s their ninth studio album, and the previous 8 have been highly regarded as ‘my jam.’

I saw them play in Paris, Halloween 2014, where they played some of the new material- much to the approval of myself and Ella, and these 2 or 3 European guys who we befriended for the night, quietly discussing beforehand which was our favourite B-side as we sat on the ground in our cardigans so we were near the front (we weren’t in cardigans but let’s just create the twee dream.)

The album opens with Nobody’s Empire, and although not initially loving it, I now really really rate it, especially as an opening track. I think I wasn’t listening to it at all at first, I was just playing it as background music, tossing my hair back like ‘Zzuuh, nothing will ever beat The Model, or whatever.’ But then I played it, thought about it, listening to the lyrics along with the lovely Marx-and-Engels-y piano, and decided I was into it, really hard. Essentially, an autobiographical song about the frontman of your favourite band, is the best thing ever in a fangirl sense. The song talks about Stuart’s struggle with ME, dealing with a chronic illness, lying in bed feeling all useless,

“I was like a child, I was light as straw
When my father lifted me up there
Took me to a place where they checked my body
My soul was floating in thin air”

Very cool. A great opening choice, it reminds me of Thunder Road, the notorious opener of Born to Run by Springsteen, with it’s storytelling-y, piano-y beginning, into a big sounding, life affirming sound as the song builds and builds. Also he sings, “If I had a camera I’d snap you now, cause there’s beauty in every stumble”, which makes me swoon- BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS STUMBLING, METAPHORICALLY AND PHYSICALLY.

Track 2 is called Allie, supposedly the female perspective in which Stuart writes from for this album. I can’t possibly comment on this track as it opens with Stevie, ‘ba-da-da’ing, which is too much for a fangirl. You’re just like, OMG! It’s Stevie! And he’s ba-da-ing!

Anyway. What I can disclose about this song, what I like about it, is the same old, trusted B&S formula- which is all like, ‘Angry girl gets angry about things and we sing about it with pretty 60’s melodies and instruments.’ It just works, “You made a list of all your heroes & you thought about what they went through/ It’s much harder, much darker than anything that happened to you.” I can relate to that, I’m ashamed to admit. That frustration of being a teenager and wanting anything ANYTHING to happen to you, no matter what, it’s just something that will trigger you to move out, or write a song, or get a haircut. Kind of wanting to pursue the *ahem* struggle of something to get a story, if anything, out of it- but then in reality just sitting around in your pants eating Wotsits watching Netflix. Adolescence.

Next up, The Party Line! This is the first single released from the record, so if you haven’t heard it already, you probably already have in H&M or something. (I’m not denouncing them as sell-outs, I did actually hear this in H&M, and internally squealed, bopping my head in a nervous, twitchy sort of way for 3 minutes, probably looking like I’d shoplifted something.) I totally hated this song when I first heard it, and mourned the loss of my band- before the curse of the fangirl hit and I was like- HEY!! GUYS!! CALM IT! IT’S JUST A DIFFERENT DIRECTION!’ I thought it was too repetitive and tinny-sounding, and nothing *sigh* like Judy and the Dream of Horse *sigh*, but then I got over it, and now it’s my alarm. It dances me out of bed, every day. Favourite line goes to: “Where were you when I was king in this part of town?” I love the idea of fallen popularity, the more local the better; being ‘famous’ within the teenage population of your hometown. Just for wearing a cool leather jacket, shaving your head, etc.

The Power of Three is lovely, and Sarah is singing. The Cat With the Cream has some lovely, beautiful melodies with some sacred sounding strings. Enter Sylvia Plath is a total mess, and sounds like the Pet Shop Boys, but hey, I’ll probably love it by next week. The Everlasting Muse is a fantastic load of fun, with a Greek sounding chorus, a sound favoured by me and my friends, who happily danced to Zorba the Greek and Dominick the Donkey, on repeat for a long time on New Year’s Eve. Before I get quoted on that, it doesn’t sound remotely like Zorba the Greek, but hey, I am not equipped to write serious, proper album reviews. It just reminded me of NYE. This is a first listen, OK, guys.

Perfect Couples has the perfect (lol) Sympathy for the Devil sounding introduction, before it explodes into BASICALLY THE BEST PARTY SONG OF 2015. Maybe not a party party song, but the song to play as you set out the cheese before the party. It could so be in a musical. Oh, a Belle & Sebastian musical. They played this in Paris to a background montage of a very stylish, very choreographed scene of a living room party. It was all just très cool, bèbè.

The next song, Ever Had a Little Faith?, was so perfect for today, and is good, old fashioned B&S, with lyrics so perfect for rainy bus journeys, “Something good will happen, wait and see/ Do you spend your days second guessing fate?” & “Drop your sad pretence/ You’ll be doing fine, you will flourish like a rose in June.”

Aural proof new albums provide more hope than a new year ever could. (The last 3 tracks also exist for you to stream, along with all the above tracks I’ve spoken about, but I have a to-do list the length of my leg. Also, with my ideal album at 35 minutes, the running time of just over an hour is too much for my ears and their poor stamina)

Stream it here:

In other news, I’m glad Christmas is over, spent 4 nights in 2 different hotels in the past 7 days, was in Dublin last week, am in London twice this week and in Cambridge at the weekend to see First Aid Kit, again. Things could be worse.

Thanks for staying with me, if you did (which if you’re reading this- you did! So like, uh, thanks!)

T.A.L x

“I have a lot to learn & I’m starting tonight”

June 3, 2014January 8, 2016 taraleporeLeave a comment

I am feeling pretty excellent today, not in a really loud and shouty way (actually, I am always doing things in a particularly loud and shouty way) – yet I mean I was able to come home this afternoon and sit in a very cool room in my underwear and listen to the whole of First Aid Kit’s ‘The Lion’s Roar’ and Paul McCartney’s ‘Ram’ and not feel frustrated or hungry or crave a cigarette etc, instead just listening to the layers of instruments and thinking, ‘Yes. This is not bad at all.’ (BTW: My dad listened to The Lion’s Roar last night from start to finish and claimed it was the best album he’d heard in 10 years, apart from Fleet Foxes, well, duh.)

It was around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and after ringing a couple of friends I padded about the house for a few minutes, thought to myself ‘Jean Paul-Sartre once said, Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do-‘ and progressed to sit about just as Sartre would want. It reminds me of the time I auditioned for Drama Centre & the little old man asked me what I knew about existential writers (with a smug little smile) and I just said that quote, and smiled. I can’t remember if my audition slot was around 3pm, but my, what a line if it was. I wonder sometimes how I didn’t get a place.

I’ve just got back from a walk with my mother, which is very rare. We only walked the public footpaths around where we live but she still claims she’s never walked it before. When I said, ‘Seriously! I always walk round here.’ – or pointed to a riverbank where I once sat and read Beth Ditto’s autobiography in a whole afternoon (true story), she simply said ‘No you didn’t. Don’t lie’ and carried on walking, complaining of her hay fever and suffering her bad case of hypochondria. I love her very much but I think sometimes it is hard for us to be open with each other. It must be hard to see me growing up as I’m her youngest, and I think my incessant chatter about travelling and my gap year and continuous weekends stumbling home drunk (usually at 7am) is making her miss her youth a little. Still, she rocks and is my rock etc etc.

Meanwhile, I am luckily back into writing in the most frequent way for months; aiming to write for at least half an hour a day- with many of those half an hours spent scribbling, ‘HmMMM??!! What shall I write today??!?’ and then BAM!! Half an hour is up and I am a writer.

Also: reading:

‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ by Hunter S. Thompson, something discovered on the endlessly delightful Brain Pickings

Most delightful dedication ever written. Bob Geiger, I love your work (for reasons that need not to be explained here.)

Greatest chapter titles.

& Ralph Steadman’s iconic illustrations (which are sooo tattoo worthy.)

Listening to lots of things, also:

Finally,

I promise I am done now. Thank you for reading, and for your patience.

“She’s the colour of a magazine”

May 31, 2014January 8, 2016 taralepore1 Comment

– something I wrote about Suede, and glam rock, to help aid and justify a delicate day after the night before. Also, I’ve been meaning to write something on here for the past few days as I realise some of my friends are now looking at this! Hey! How you doing!

I am so surprised I am even able to write this right now. It is half past 4 and all I’ve done since returning home this afternoon is sit very still, occasionally scribbling something down in my notebook, such as ‘I am going to have a cup of tea and then I will read Othello.’ Turns out Othello is pretty long and written in a form of jibberish. Writing down these little affirmations in the hope that I will be inspired to start getting on the productivity thing- whereas in fact I feel much better about myself today lying on my bed, half asleep, half-chewing my gum from last night, coming in and out of naps.

The other day at the gym I was absolutely sweating and beaming out all the endorphins imaginable, and I had a really clear thought where I went, ‘Suede!’ I’ve never written anything about Suede, (except tiny pleas/love letters and explicit drawings of Brett Anderson) so I thought it was good if I could explore them through my writing in order to discover the undiscoverable and unexplainable magic of the whole thing, man. (I am still feeling pretty baked.)

Aside: (I was listening to Suede earlier to rekindle the old obsession, but as I write this I am listening to none other than 3 Feet High and Rising, the best album ever recorded. This had to be mentioned.)

So, let’s begin with Exhibit A.

Beautiful, androgynous Brett. I saw Suede last winter in Nottingham with my dad and he still has that compelling, captivating stage presence that just makes you hooked on his movements and the lyrics he’s singing, (Brett Anderson, not my dad.)

I searched his Wikipedia page in order to unravel the mystery a little for the sake of the blawg, and the anonymous and undderated writers of Wikipedia summed him up, perfectly: “[He] combines Morrissey’s homoerotic posturing with David Bowie’s glam theatrics”

I love the band because when listening to them, feeling a bit regretful and lousy, they manage to translate every bad decision I’ve made into something beautiful and otherwordly, + *spoiler alert*AND THAT IS THE BEST THING WITH GLAM ROCK!!!*

Bowie, Bolan – it’s all about glitter, glitter in excess, excess, theatricality, making mistakes but turning those bad feelings into something else. It’s about saying, I’m gonna put on a show for you guys because life can be humdrum and monochrome at the best of times so we may as well make a big deal of it. Then, all of a sudden: pastel colours look simply washed out- what you thought were neutrals ‘beiges, creams, whites’ are replaced with the real essentials: ‘leopard print, sparkly silver, red, shiny black’ – and bam! You are in a good place, amongst friends.

Digressing (as per), but for me, the way DB wrote Starman ‘which had shaken everyone with its somewhere-over-the-rainbow chorus…’ – as Morrissey puts it in his Autobioraphy as well as ‘he is a Wildean visionary about to remould England’ – which always makes me smile as it’s lovely to see how musical influences all link together. (really digressing now)

I suppose Morrissey is not totally regarded as a glam-rock icon, but he was intrigued with the ambigious sexuality of the movement with Bowie, T.rex and particualrly the New York Dolls for instance. He also adored the gender-less nature of Patti Smith, and writes of her chef d’oeuvre, Horses, ‘[it] told me that, however heavy-hearted and impossible you might feel about yourself, you can still bestow love through recorded song.’…The fact that you don’t look like a pop star in waiting should not dishearten you because your oddness could be the deciding wind of change for others.’

The first Suede album I came across was ‘Coming Up- my dad handed me the CD and said, “listen to Track 9”, and I did- for a very long time over & over and it has actually inspired a lot of my little writing pieces over the last few years.

“Oh, we are young and not tired of it, we are young and easily led , oh – with all the kids getting out of their heads.”

I am growing sleepier (you don’t even know how long its taken me to write this post – today has been very delayed and mellow) – so I will leave you with a few more songs to hear, if you can handle the barrage on all of the senses.

“Shaved heads, raveheads, on the pill, got too much time to kill.”

“What does it take to turn you on now he has gone?”

“Sunshine will blow your mind, and the wind blow your brain.”

So good, so good.

Oh, so good.

“All I do is play the Spaceball Ricochet”- a love letter to Marc Bolan

May 17, 2013December 1, 2018 taralepore3 Comments

“Your diamond hands will be stacked with roses/And wind and cars and people of the past”

A couple of days ago, I wrote about post about Belle & Sebastian’s Tigermilk. Scroll down. The record blu-tacked next to it on my wall, however, possibly means a little more to me- (hence the central position of it.)

T.Rex, like The Beatles, were a band I came to know through going to see a tribute band with my papa- and both have been groups who’ve pretty much been at the forefront of everything I’ve ever listened to, since I’ve been able to actively make choices in what to listen to (apart from Steps, who really were the first band if I’m honest, but for the sake of the post- let’s be cool and pretend that wasn’t the case.)

An extract from my diary from the day I devoted the rest of my life to The Beatles, reads:

I HAD TO write, I have just realised the most important thing in the life. The People. Imagine the world without shit like WAR?!! There will be a feeling among the world like the time in the room with the Bootleg Beatles playing All you need is LURVE when everyone stood UP and drifted into their own world full of daises and rabbits and lollipops. I am going TO SPREAD SOME LOVE AND PEACE AND TRY TO SAVE THE PEOPLE ON THIS EARTH! peace. I just hope that a peace resolution will START so I can live in a world of harmony and tranquility.

I wish I could say that I made that up, but unfortunately I actually wrote that once.

But for now, let’s think about T. Rex.

I watched the tribute T.Rextasy- and, of course- being an impressionable 10 year old, surrounded by 40-somethings all singing along to Hot Love (na na na na na na na) I peered about and thought, HEY! This band must be good! There are all these paunchy middle aged people really having a good time! And, although I didn’t know it at the time, I was doomed, as now I would love the music that our Dads listen to, at the age of ten. I was a 10 year old paunchy middle aged man.

Alas, the glittery, shimmering frontman that is Marc Bolan doesn’t make you feel like that. Bolan has the power to take you out of your frumpy little self, and place you into a world where you can do anything, be anything, say anything. His lyrical style is simple, and often nonsensical with favourites such as these:

I could never see/The cosmic sea/Was like a bumblebee
Me I funk/But I don’t care/I ain’t no square with my corkscrew hair
I have never never kissed a car before/It’s like a door

But I still love him. I love him cause of the flamboyance and the ability to make anything sound sexy and wonderful in its own right. Amongst the ‘silly’ lyrics, he really wrote some stuff that tugs at my old and battered heartstrings including one that inspired the name for this blog.

You diamond browned hag/You’re a gutter gaunt gangster
Book after book/I get hooked everytime/The writer talks to me like a friend

Oh, Marc. *breathes as he does towards the end of Get it On*

Bolan is often compared to Bowie, they’re both similar- yet I can appreciate them in their own ways. Bowie had more of an artistic vision, whereas baby Marc wanted to be famous. And he got really, really famous. The rise of T.rex is often likened to the early stages of Beatlemania, and well- OBVIOUSLY, because have you seen this guy work a stage? REALLY THOUGH? REALLY MARC, YOU’RE KILLING ME

T.rex will ALWAYS remind me of being in my early teens, it’s theatrical and fun and sexy and really, really good music to get ready for a party to, (and then go to the party and still play it all night, slut-dancing with your friends to ‘Well you can bump and grind, if it’s good for your mind’)

However, The Slider as an album means more than the CD of hits, because it sounds so complete, so right, and most of the songs were single releases anyway, so one’s thirst for glam-pop is satisfied.

I would happily travel everywhere listening to this album on a loop, and Ballrooms of Mars maybe is one of the best songs I will ever hear. Oozing with drama (and glitter)

The BEST thing I ever found one day when trying to rearrange LPs is this:

Dad’s graphic/calligraphic artwork on ‘Ride a White Swan’ was drawn when he was 12, which we always joke about as we pretty much heard their music at the same time, so in that respect this band means a lot to me too.

The Slider was all I had to listen to for a while, it was so playable and interesting I only needed that (before I started to listen to Electric Warrior more a few years after- which, is- hjdfkadjh) Like Springsteen’s Born To Run, sometimes you only need one album to listen to- because it just does everything. 100% pleasure.

And finally, my favourite ever quote ever said by anyone, which I apply to my day to day life:

“Rock n roll is a bitch, and you’ve got to come on that bitch” Marc Bolan

Change the words Rock n roll to ‘life’ and you’re guaranteed to have a good time.

Rock on

T X

❤❤❤ Discovering OLD music (by old I mean stuff from 2008 that you’ve got too good for..((btw you’ve haven’t))) ❤❤❤

April 22, 2013January 8, 2016 taralepore1 Comment

Can I please write a post? Please!! Please?! Okay, now I’ve started so I’m going to do it, even though I’m supposed to be revising vocabulary about ‘holidays’ in French, but then I started to search bands who are playing *Glastonbury*, (that was yesterday’s good news!! AAH!)- which led on to trawling through my old iTunes library (which is the greatest thing to ever do when you feel sad, and stressed and ~~like your life is only a string of people who don’t call back whilst eating a packet of biscuits at a time)~~

So, basically- I accidentally stumbled upon No Doubt’s ‘Tragic Kingdom’ which I am STILL LISTENING TO NOW, and I’m smiling and mouthing all the words, (although just then I mouthed ‘mouthing all the words’ because I got confused and my brain is slowly grinding to a halt. Tadgggahaqw.)

This album just sounds SO RIGHT all the time, because it heaved me out of a time when all I listened to was folk or really cutesy whispering female singer-songwriters- and then the Goddess that is Gwen Stefani plays through my stereo- firstly hearing ‘Just a girl’ on the radio, and then followed by the rest of ‘Tragic Kingdom’. I’m not a massive No Doubt fan, I don’t own any of their other music- this sufficed.

I was stuck in a twirl of listening to quiet, shuffly, acoustic female singers- and I’d recently got a guitar for my birthday so this was good in some ways, but sometimes, I felt a bit like the folk stuff I REALLY liked was Bob, and Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen which I couldn’t really sing without feeling a bit like a *dude*. (apart from Neil Young, I can imitate his beautiful falsetto immaculately)

So, this album basically just said to me, “Erm, what are you doing??? Stand up and start shouting!! Go crazy! You’re angry right?!??! You should be!! SHIT happens every day!!! RARGH RARGH!!” CUE me singing to Just a Girl, a few weeks later after playing it over 100 times : I’VE HAD IT UP TO…HERE!!! (with the gesture of the hand above my hand, just to emphasise how far I’d had it up to)

Let’s just take a moment to study everything about this video. It’s gonna make you want to smash up a car, crop the shit out of old tees and FILM.

I probably began listening to this album in 2009, and I don’t feel the same about it as I did then. I think it’s difficult to repeat the initial excitement you get when you first hear a band (although not in all cases, my infatuation with Suede has stuck with me for a long, long time now. I just have the biggest crush on Brett Anderson *new tribute post ideas*)

I don’t think you should feel bad when you feel like you’ve ditched a band a bit. I mean, I still COMPLETELY love this album, but I don’t want to listen to it as soon as I get in from home right up until I go to bed. If this is making you nod your head and go ‘I totally hear ya, grrl’ I’ll direct you to the queen, Tavi Gevinson- who can pretty much summarise this where I can’t even skim the surface. She talks about Bob Dylan, and finishes it with:

I take comfort in knowing that it’s OK, then, for me to change too, and that, when I need to, Bob Dylan will find his way back into my life as needed. As long as I can put on one of his records, I can always find home.

As much as I admire Gwen as a style icon, I feel like No Doubt helped me to discover new music, and that’s why I love music so much- one things leads to another and it’s like an AMAZING NEVER ENDING FAMILY TREE OF ONLY COOL RELATIVES AND AUNTS (imagine that.) It’s like Joni Mitchell’s Blue is still one of my favourite albums ever ever ever, but it helped me through something really emotionally draining- so now when I listen to it, it doesn’t feel the same- but it means more because I can listen to it with a new perspective of new-found WISDOM about emotion and stuff. I’m really spewing out the shit tonight! Stay with me! Let’s hug!

Whilst I slowly rock myself on my chair, repeating Iwilldoworknow Iwillstarttoworknow, and compose my thoughts on how to turn around this post, gander at some fabulous bindi work from Gwen.

I'm going to try this hairstyle at school tomorrow — I’m going to try this hairstyle at school tomorrow

AND HERE’S ME TRYING IT OUT:

HERE’S ME ACTUALLY TRYING IT OUT FOR REAL AT LAST YEAR’S LATITUDE: (It was really boring and I had a really bad time)

Just wear whatever you want as long as it breaks every fashion rule you’ve ever thought. For extra research into riot grrl inspiration, I cannot recommend this HIGHLY ENOUGH:

Try it out! Obviously you’re already wasting your time on the internet (har har har feeling v.self deprecating tonight!) so revel through your old music collection and marvel how that one time you were crying over a boy/girl to the Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah is a thing of the past, and you’ve got over it (hopefully. If not, pull yourself together. That was 2006.)

Follow me on @taralepore!

. X

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