Birmingham: Team Los Campesinos! (The miraculous twenty second post)

On Saturday I went to a Los Campesinos! gig in Birmingham with my friend Dominic and cousin (ish) Sarah (funtimes). It was fantastic. I ended up with a vinyl of one of their albums, and a band T-shirt. I shall now recount the epic (or not so epic) tale of musical adventuring.
On Saturday morning I woke up at seven. "Seven O'clock on a Saturday! Really?" I hear you cry, but I did wake up at seven on Saturday. Sarah arrived at 8:30am and we proceeded to get very excited for the day to come. Dominic arrived on time at 9:45 with his mother to pick us up and take us to the train station. There was a rather awkward moment when Sarah thought a man in the street packing his car was Dominic's father, and she attempted to put her bags in the back of his car. However, we soon pulled her away from the scene of the disaster, got into the correct car, and drove to Tamworth train station. After arriving in Birmingham and walking the short distance to the bullring shopping centre we were astounded by the enormity of Birmingham. The shopping centre was massive, and had every shop imaginable. Us small town country kids felt a little out of our depth in the big city. So we walked to the frozen yoghurt stand, bought some froghurt and found our bearings. After shopping for a while, talking to a hobo, and looking for somewhere to eat we decided it was a rather warm day; the glass that the shopping centre's roof mainly consisted of was also having a greenhouse effect on the rest of the building. So, we decided to explore Birmingham a little, and we ended up looking in some more interesting shops. We headed back to the Bullring for some tea at Pizza hut (free refill drinks and free salad bar? yes please!) . Sarah, Dom, and I then set off for the concert. We found the Rainbow Warehouse where the concert was being held thanks to Sarah's map (thanks Sarah)! The concert was opened by a band called Tall Ships, who were rather good. Then Los Campesinos! came on and we were right at the front, touching the stage, a meter from the band! If you've never heard anything by Los Campesinos! then the video at the bottom is one of their better songs. We had to leave a touch early to catch the train, however we only missed two of their songs! Eventually, after a train ride filled with drunken Brummys (not a pleasant sight or sound) who were only one pub in, we made it back to Tamworth and then back to Dominic's house where we crashed until morning. A good time was had by all!

Friends 1: Callum Webster (The miraculous twenty first post)

My friend Callum Webster has suggested I start writing posts about my new friends. So, I have decided to begin with him! Webster is undoubtedly a very cool guy. Here are some quick facts about him: he's very tall, he's very thin, he's very loud, he's very entertaining, he's really not afraid to offend, his five minute long rants leave us in tears as we attempt to recover from the fits of laughter we are in, and he's also not afraid to befriend the strange new guy from a distant land who has a beard, which is how I met him. I was sitting in one of my first free's of a new school year in a brand new school, when he and his group of friends sat down with me. He decided that it would be quite cool to keep hanging around with me (for reasons I don't understand still to this day). So, he proceeded to find me every free from that point on and make a point of chilling out with me. This was incredible, as I never was very good at making new friends. The fact that this dude had gone out of his way to befriend me actually quite touched me. Steadily I became part of his brotherhood of friends. I steadily grew to love this guy; his antics never failed to make me chuckle, and he always had something positive to say about me. Callum Webster is many things (things I do not have time to write in a single blog post). However, to me, the most important thing is that he is the guy who came and sat with me on my first day in a new place where I felt strange, and showed me that I wasn't the only strange person around school.

Geekathon (The miraculous twentieth post)

This post is truly miraculous. I went to the Geekathon on friday night and lived to tell the story! Geekathon was a sponsored charity fundraiser for a childrens charity known as "Child's Play". We were sponsored to play 12 hours of video-games overnight. So at 7 pm an hour before the games began TVs, laptops, PS3s, Xbox 360s, PS2s, Nintendo Gamecubes, and Nintendo Wiis were unloaded and ready to go for eight O'clock. My own set up was rather easy as it merely involved getting my laptop out, plugging in a mouse and headphones, and turning the thing on! So after pulling a 2L bottle of Dr. Pepper, 2 six packs of coke, a bag of Doritos, and two bars of chocolate I was all ready to go. My game of choice was Mass Effect 3, which had come out on the day of the Geekathon! A fantastic game I would have been satisfied merely with the introduction of the game alone. It was well worth the wait, as I had pre-ordered it in November 2011. I cannot think of anything better to have spent 12 hours playing. However, twelve hours of playing didn't even dent the content of the game! I give honourable mention to who I believe to be some of the best gamers of the night. The people who played guitar hero for a good 7 hours. Their skill frightened me. I was unable to believe their ability to play, not only as individual gamers, but as part of a full gaming band. Also, Josh Carr walked up to me while playing a song on guitar hero on a console on the opposite side of the room. No one should be able to play blind on hard! Another honourable mention has to be to the guy who set up his consoles next to my laptop and played Pacman championship edition. His inhuman reflexes were truly mind blowing. Also, he kept me topped up with galaxy minstrels. All in all, Geekathon was a huge success. Kudos to Josh Carr, who's idea it was.

Musics 2: Faint Not by Jenny & Tyler (The miraculous nineteenth post)

I was scrolling through my emails on Wednesday when I came across an email from a download site I am subscribed to known as NoiseTrade (http://noisetrade.com/). NoiseTrade offer "Thousands of albums. Completely free. Completely Legal." The vast majority of the albums are from more obscure artists, and many of the albums are rather good. The email I received on Wednesday was advertising a free album download for Faint Not by Jenny & Tyler. My friend Dorothy had introduced me to Jenny & Tyler a while back, and I liked them a lot, so instinctively I downloaded the album. This was a very good decision on my part. So I would like to do the same thing my friend Dorothy did many months ago, and introduce you all to this fantastic musical duo.
Jenny & Tyler are a folk/folk rock duo who operate out of Nashville Tennessee. The fact that they are married contributes greatly to the quality of their music and this comes across clearly in Faint Not giving the album chemistry and a fresh sense of direction. The album is filled with sweet folk ditties such as "This Is Just So Beautiful", and big folk-rock anthems like the title track "Faint Not"."Holding on to Hope", "Carry Me" and "Through Your Eyes" are poignant and lyrical, whereas "Song For You" is reminiscent of the band The Swell Season. These different styles come together to form a well balanced, and beautifully formed album, which is both exciting and moving. If that isn't enough to convince you that this is an album well worth having in your music library, the fact that this album is free and includes 3 bonus songs, recorded live at Peptalk Studios, should definitely be motivation enough for you to download the album for yourself. Click this link for the download page for Faint Not by Jenny & Tyler: http://noisetrade.com/jennyandtyler. Here is the video for one of my favourite songs from the album: