# 9

Season's greetings to all... fah lah lah lah lah, la la la la! Hope your goose is getting fat. I have forced myself to get an entry out before Christmas and New Year just because I'm hideously slow to update this. Plus I actually have a few interesting things lined up for 2010 and I wanted to relay them:





1.You can see my Kitsune Compilation review by clicking on this link and my Miike Snow Album here. Coming up with Contact Music I have out: Animal Collective's Fall Be Kind EP (hurray!), Lawrence Arabia and Kurt Vile's Childish Prodigy amongst a few others, will post links to everything next time.





2.The rather exciting news I can now confirm is that I will be featuring Spectrals for BBC Leeds in the New Year. Leeds-based Shoegaze/Pop, getting some well-deserved attention of late, check out his stuff at www.myspace.com/spectralspectral

Time for me to go, wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and I'll see you in the New Year. x

#8

Well I'm nearly back to full fitness after an unfortunate series of events. Tip 1: if you're falling down some steps, don't try to save your drink. Especially in the Brudenell, a two pound pint is not worth a fractured arm.

Tip 2: why not put safety first and test if you've made a full recovery like this?


(Photograph by Bart Pettman)

This is was Brainwashed festival, which will be my next article with the BBC. Contrary to my facial expression, (I think) I was having a good time. The man flying towards me is James Brown from Pulled Apart By Horses, which probably goes some way to explaining the look of terror.

So, to a large amount of business. Recent(ish) features which I have omitted to speak about (lazy or incompetent? probably both).

Simian Mobile Disco
Blacklisters/These Monsters Live for BBC Leeds
Castrovalva Interview/Feature for BBC as well...

More Recent include Dance to the Radio EP Vol 3. and Dizzee Rascal for Contactmusic.com

Popping up soon will be the aformentioned Brainwashed feature, the Cold Cave album - which is pretty amazing- and Miike Snow. Oh, and the new Kitsune Compilation along with a couple of other things that I will talk about later. Right now it's time for less chat and more actual work.

Mind how you go, and even if you're having a shit day - remember it could be worse. You could be stuck on an ice floe with a hungry bear for three days. Pretty resilient for a 15 year-old if you ask me!

# 7

Greetings! My latest from Contact, Temper Trap here and Japandroids here. Japandroids are fab. How can you not love them, just jook at those nice young men burn that drum kit!


Also on my radar are the stupendously mind blowing HEALTH. Since their album was sent to me my brain has been slowly liquifying and dribbling out my ears. Sorry for the visual but it's true! Find my review here.

Last day toiling in the fires of hell tomorrow! Hurray! Never mind about pesky impending unemployment, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I can always take up chain smoking and Jeremy Kyle. Compared to working in an office sponsored by The Change of Life where someone uses the word 'Fortuitously' at the start of every sentence, this looks quite attractive.

TTFN, Natalie x x x x

Favourites...

Who says having too much time on your hands is bad? All hail the geeks. x

# 6

I enjoy taking on so much, but it does feel like complete chaos sometimes.

So, I've got the following on the boil at the moment: some more BBC articles, including an interview with Castrovalva next week. Contactmusic ran my piece on Leeds Festival here and my Times New Viking and Julian Plenti album reviews here and here.

You can see my scribbles on the new Health album, the Japandroids and a couple of others on contactmusic soon. I'm changing jobs and applying for a couple of placements etc. so this may well be the last time I update for a bit.

Love Love Love.

# 5

Hello once more.

I'm finally back at work after what seems like one too many festivals. Four in seven weeks is quite enough for anyone, I feel. Showers and beds are massively underrated!

I've just got back from Leeds Festival, my review of which should be in Contact Music in the next week or so. I'll post it here when it's up. My review that I did for them of Le Route Du Rock in France can be found here. LRDR was a true pleasure to cover and for those who haven't been to Brittany, I highly recommend. It's beautiful and so laid back.

Before all this and somehow wedged between all the camping, I did a placement at The Metro in London. It was only a week but I was lucky enough to get this article published (see above). It's my first in print and I don't think I could be happier about it!

So to round up; I've got a few album reviews coming out for Contact within the next couple of weeks including Simian Mobile Disco, Times New Viking and Julian Plenti (Paul Banks from Interpol). I haven't done anything for BBC Leeds in a while, mosty because I've been so busy with everything else, but I'm going to try and sort out few more articles with them in the next few weeks. Watch this space.

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments about my work, you think more of it than I do! Love From Natalie xx

# 4

Apologies for neglecting this so badly, but I've been so busy. A month has gone by in what seems like a week!

Erm, so where do I start? Went to Benicassim (strictly hols, no reviews), which was hot and lovely apart from the 'hurricane' on the Friday (it was a bit of bloody wind really)... finally got to see TV on the Radio though! Absolutely amazing band, very special experience for me despite having to see them by myself, none of the other girls really like them like I do!
I got back and went straight down to London the next day to do some experience at The Metro- they're printing an article of mine sometime this month in the travel section.
So briefly, then. This is my BBC review i did for Chickenhawk for the Futuresound Leeds Festival Competition. It was an amazing gig, and rightly they ended up winning a place - well in lads!
Otherwise... this is the Toddla T review I did for Contact Music. He's probably the most interesting thing I've come across in a while... such an ace mish-mash of everything.

So off to Moor Fest in about 2 hours, and I'm happy to discover that the weather is going to be beautiful this weekend - I don't think it could possibly have been worse than last year's. And then I have a grand total of 3 days at home before it's off to France to cover Le Route Du Rock. Line-up includes My Bloody Valentine, Deerhunter and Crystal Stilts - if I'm lucky I may get to interview one of them so I'm really giddy. Will post up here as soon as I get time!

Ta, N xx

# 3

Here's my BBC feature on Stag and Dagger festival 2009, the most sonically pleasing festival to grace Leeds in some time:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/articles/2009/05/29/gig_review_stag_and_dagger_feature.shtml

# 2

A couple of reviews I did for Contact Music:

Scaramanga Six here

and Lucky Elephant here.

I've got a few more for that nice website that should be about in the next week. Including, amongst other things, Skanky Skanky by Toddla T. To be honest I did it on a bit of a whim, dubstep is hardly going to be my specialist subject on Mastermind!
But good result anyway: I think the album's pretty good. Or should that be bangin'? or filthy? God knows what the kids are saying these days.

In other news it's too hot to work today, so I don't plan to. Maybe some token photocopying to get me out of the office and away from The Wicked Witch of The West. Her voice is particularly shrill today, like a copper kettle on the boil. Bad times.

# 1

Now then. This is my latest BBC review:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/articles/2009/06/19/gig_review_josephs_well_feature.shtml

And my first censored article! I tried to plug a local indie label which I really like, but it apparently didn't suit the angle of the piece. Well, BBC, this is the another bit of the internet and I can do what I bloody well please here (Including writing graphic descriptions of whatever I want to do to Girls Aloud. Yikes.)

So, here's the world's biggest PLUG for Philophobia music. Not only did the lovely boys behind it give me some of my first articles when I started writing locally, but it's jam-packed full of nutritious muscial goodness, and the EP is a mere £3.