Surfer Blood – Astro Coast

If you haven’t heard of Surfer Blood, then JHEEZ get off my blog, you musically deprived reject. Joking. But seriously, they are pretty awesome. Yes, I used the word awesome – you know why? Because Astro Coast is such a surfery-summery album that I can just about get away with it, dude.
Astro Coast is a gorgeous album which ought really be played whilst looking at a beautiful beach or hot Californian surfers. Surfer Blood have 2010’s summer surf-rock sound down to a T – slightly similar to Local Natives, Girls and the Drums, but with a more upbeat, hippy vibes. Serious credit to Surfer Blood for making a non-crappy album in what has been a year of pretty crappy albums.
The entire album is brilliant, but in particular I recommend Twin Peaks and Harmonix.

Serotonin: false advertising.

Mystery Jets have produced some of the best indie-pop since the 90s, and their first two albums completely raised the stakes for other bands. But what is this? A third album? Ooh, thought MJ fans, looks promising. If the Mystery Jets were going to slip up on a record, surely it would be that difficult second album. Personally, I was not concerned that this album would be a flop until a friend of mine, who had found the album online, told me it was ‘generic indie shit’. Truth be told, he was pretty right.
The band seems to have taken a masterclass in ‘how to write a ballad’. The opener, Alice Springs, is so heavy in epic drums and catchy lyrics that is borders on a U2 or Coldplay-esque hit. The usual simple poetry in the Mystery Jets’ lyrics is drowned in easy-listening riffs and catchy song structure, and most songs lack significance. ‘Dreaming of Another World’, ‘Serotonin’, ‘the Girl is Gone’ and ‘Too Late to Talk’ are equally disappointing, and barely listenable.
It’s possible you might enjoy this dire record if you like easy listening ‘indie’, or have never really paid attention to the band before. It might even be bearable to put on as background music, if you can ignore the cheesy, repetitive lyrics and general boring performance on this album. I can only guess this record will be loved by Radio 1 and people who claim to like ‘new/underground/upcoming music’ (congrats on finding a ‘new’ band, since they’ve just produced their third album). Oh, and possibly middle aged men who like to pretend to be ‘down with the kids’, especially because some songs have a sort of failed 80s vibe. He’ll say ‘hey, they don’t often make ‘em like this any more’. Yeah, and I should bloody hope they never make ‘em like this again.
If you have to listen to anything off this album, I suggest the following tracks.
Flash a Hungry Smile



Melt



SATS rating: 4/10

Formspring Superiority

Formspring. What a lovely idea. 'Oh, people can anonymously ask me questions!'. With little hesitancy, I made an account on http://www.formspring.me/ a few months ago. I was one of the naive few thinking the worst I would get would be a few personal questions. 231 'questions' later, and I'm astonished at my naivety.

Yes, at first, questions were slightly offensive and rude. Some of them were interesting, I think simply because people had never really seen a formspring before and thought that somehow, in some way, I could find out who was writing on it.

"will you give rob trotter a cheeky footjob?
"how much for a standard fuck?"
"I heard you love flange sandwich's...also, if you're a vegetarian does that mean you can't munch on a cock, coz it's meat?"

Formspring is a prime medium for asking people weird, intrusive and creepy questions. The fact you can ask anything without the recipient knowing who you are opens up endless dimensions of possibility; should you creep them out, ask a genuine question, or offend them with abuse? The latter appears to be the most popular. Of all the people's pages I have visited, it appears the 'better known' you are, the more people are likely to call you a 'dirty slut' or perhaps ask you something charming like if they can 'stick it in you'.

"You have a jew nose :) along with peter nikolson"
"why do you think you're so amazing? When really you're pathetic"
"is it true you dreamt of phillipe bosher naked riding a horse through your bedroom window?"

The funny thing about Formspring is that it's a bit like blindfolding yourself and letting anyone you know say whatever they want to you. Whether this is hurling abuse, or interrogating your most intimate of business, they can pretty much say to you what ever takes their fancy. On the other end of the spectrum, there's those who choose to gruellingly compliment others through Formspring. Take my friend Ben - he's 17-year-old handsome fellow who plays bass in a band, who happen to have an adoring following of desperate 14-year-old girls. So when Ben gets a Formspring, he of course recieves lashings of bumlickery from these little darlings.

"How young would you consider dating?"
"kinda have a crush on you :("
"youre that cute blonde bassist from aty arent yoou? (:"

Above are a collection of some of the cringiest 'questions' on his profile. But even worse than this are the girls who try and have an entire conversation with him in anonymity. 'I like you but you don't like me bk :( :(' or 'Would you consider adding me on Facebook if you don't know me?' are typical questions which then get dragged out into conversations. Do these girls honestly think this will get them anywhere? Will he magically fall in love with their anonymous mystique?
CH: Oh Ben, I saw you've got a new girlfriend, where did you meet her?
BS: Oh you know, on Formspring.
THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

"why do you like to publicly humiliate people? Thats why people think you're a bitch by the way."
"If you want my honest opinion of you, this is it: you're mostly nice, prettier with blonde hair, funny. But sometimes you're just a twat: you're not honest with people, i never knew where i was with you, bit pretentious and you let your anger out too much"
"why are you so mean, you think you so superior to everyone else and always try to embarrass people and it's really nasty and rude and i dont like you one bit!"

My favirote Formsprings to receive are those that attempt some form of psycho-analysis. I know some people are upset by this kind, but if I am honest they just make me laugh. Pretentious? Superior? I'd like to think of how I act superior. I can't really recall striding around college in a cloak, kicking over common people and sneering at them. Nor do I remember any particular public humiliation, other than occasionally tripping someone up and laughing for days about it.

"You are on of the gammyest girls ever!"
"You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. Sound about right? "
"Would you rather run down your road naked shaking marracas with a sombrero and a strap on, or you fake tan yourself orange, dye your hair peroxide blonde and wear foundation on your lips for a month? :O "

So here's my advice on the Formspring front: if you're not afraid of hearing people's 'honest opinions' of you, in other words the worst they can think of to say about you, then go for it. Make your account. But if you take people's words to heart, I would strongly not advise you to jumping on the FS bandwagon. No matter how many good friends you are, or how much of a lovely person you are, someone out there will always have something against you. And that tempting little 'Ask' box gives them the perfect outlet to express their dislike; if you don't want to hear it, don't give them the chance.
Then again, you might not want to take my advice. I guess I'm just too 'superior' for Formspring.

Shook up

On Wednesday, I saw something that made me really think. It was a happy summery day, Amy's birthday, and we'd just enjoyed a calorific morning Subway. A man was sat outside Tescos in Egham, near my college. He was a big fellow and was wearing a blue t-shirt, and as we passed I didn't really think anything of him until he began to wave his arms. I nudged my friend Lauren and asked what she thought he was doing, and she made some comment about him looking like he was reenacting Shakespeare, with some over-dramatic hand gesture.

Now, please don't judge us at this point. What you have to understand is that there are strangely large amounts of tramps and general crazy people in Egham. On a daily basis, it is likely you will encounter at least one mad-acting individual on your lunch break, and it's best just to avoid them. So we took him to be another slightly mad Egham resident and carried on down the road. A few steps later, I found my self stopping and looking back at the guy - something in my gut told me this wasn't quite right.

We stopped and saw the man was shaking more. By the time we'd decided this man was actually at risk and we should go over, he was violently shaking and was about to fall on his side. At this point we panicked. One of my friends asked if there was anyone he could get for him, and he replied that his wife was inside, a 'big lady' called Sharon. That was all he could say, he was so violently shaking that it was clearly a huge effort for him to speak.

As four teenage girls with absolutely no experience with people with medical problems, we had no idea what to do. Luckily one other woman came over and stayed with the man while we attempted to find his wife - this involved making two customer announcements and running round Tescos asking all 'big' ladies if they were Sharon. This could have been a slightly funny situation, but the pure panic and fear that this man could be going through anything at all was what spurred us all to keep searching. No Sharon materialised, so the most we could do was to stand by the man and try and help the woman who had come over earlier and a PE teacher from college, who had also joined our little party.

As the situation progressed, a few useless Tesco staff came out to see what was going on - not to help, just to watch... There was some talk of first aid staff, but none materialised, just a few louts in blue uniforms stood about. This is one of the things which angers me - they could have got him water, blankets, a pillow or anything which could have helped. Did anyone do this? No. They stood around, just as useless as us, but less keen to help the poor man.

At last, 'Sharon' appeared and came to her husband's side. 'He's got a brain tumor', she explained, 'and this happens a lot'. As she dealt with him, I whispered to one of my friends 'I think we'd best leave', and we carried on down the road toward college, our days completely changed from what we had witnessed.

The thing that scared me the most about this whole ordeal is how few people stopped to see if this man was okay. Out of all the people on that highsteet, four inexperienced girls were the only ones who stopped to see if this man was okay. Later, when the woman and PE teacher came, I was still disgusted. Surely at least one of those passer-bys would have had more medical knowledge than we did, and would know how to deal with this man better than we did.
As drastic as it seems, this experience has changed my outlook on things - I now fear for what might happen to me in the future. Hopefully karma will take pity on me, but I'm still crossing my fingers that if I ever get a brain tumour and have a seizure in the street, people will do more than walk past me or stand and stare.