Katie Morwenna

Advert, Lunar Youth & Hatcham Social @Hoxton

It shows how out of touch I am with the young that I originally thought that the music on offer last night at the Hoxton Bar and Restaurant was nu graze. Something to do with Lambing Live? I thought, optimistically. Will Kate Humble be there? I googled it, but found no results.

Well, first of all, it is nu gaze, not nu graze, so certainly nothing to do with revolutionary farming. Apparently it is a revival of the shoegaze scene of the early 90s. What was that, you say? I have no bloody idea, but I’m going to go for emo, because it certainly started off that way.

The gig started with a very young band called Advert. I am not 100% sure what they were doing up on that stage. I felt like a very old lady indeed, standing there with my white wine and my Ted Baker coat. “It’s just a load of noise, isn’t it?” I mean, they didn’t even sing, apart from in their last song where they chanted ‘Listen to the sound’ over and over again. Sorry guys, but I don’t really want to. The members of the band were pretty sweet though. They looked about 12, but I guess they must have been in their late teens. The one in the middle had this style:

Which I saw a lot last night, on both men and women. But, I guess the look and sound were working for him. When I left at 10:30, he was sucking face with a cute teenage girl, so maybe he’s not too worried about talent. ‘I’m in a band’ still works for me and I’m almost 30 so…

The second band was called Lunar Youth and I actually really liked them. There were a couple of really good tracks and they looked as though they were having a really good time. Especially the drummer. He was AMAZING. He looked like he was having the time of his life. Smiling and laughing and singing and drumming. That’s the way all band members should be! Also the bassist was hot.

The third band, Hatcham Social, who we were actually there to see, were great, apart from their backup female vocalist who looked as though she would rather be anywhere else in life but up on that stage. We had many back stories invented for her: She had recently arrived from Estonia with grand dreams of becoming a star, but instead was being forced against her will to sing at a small Hoxton bar; She was on crack or heroin and didn’t even know she was on stage; She had just broke up with the lead singer and hated his very essence, but didn’t want to miss out on her £50 stage fee; someone had killed her kitten; the list went on. Poor girl. I hope she feels better today.

Other than that, the band were great. The lead singer reminded me of a friend I had when I was about 10, with a bit of a curtain hairstyle, and the guitarist had one of those horrible teeny moustaches that I thought died out with the end of Movember (if you can’t grow proper facial hair, please don’t try), but they had fantastic energy. They were bounding around the stage having a brilliant time and it was really infectious. Soon the whole room was crowded with people, not exactly dancing (you can’t really dance to that kind of music, can you?), but bobbing up and down energetically at least.

Very good night for a Monday, even if I am completely knackered today. Hoxton -> Ealing = far, far away.

Next gig (planned, at least): Phoenix on the 30th. I am SO EXCITED.

Book review: One Day

What can I say? This book totally blew me away. It follows Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley, a pair who had a failed one night stand on the night of graduation from university. They don’t have sex, but they end up talking all night and spend the next day together. Each chapter follows them one year later - their relationships, their struggles, their obvious (to everyone but them) love for one another. It is a twenty year love affair which just draws you in so tight, I kept wanting to get back to them.

There is a quote on the back from Jonathan Coe, which is “You really do put the book down with the hallucinatory feeling that they’ve become as well known to you as your closest friends.” And it is so true. I feel as though I know them and I love them. Of course it is sad - you know from the first page it is not going to end in happily ever after, so I’m not giving anything away there. I just spent fifteen minutes crying into the book on the tube as I got to the last chapters. So moving, so well written. I just absolutely loved it. Buy it, borrow it, steal it, but read it.

One Day by David Nicholls

I am still in bed. This week has been completely knackering and has gone by so quickly. It’s been a really good week though and the next few days are looking pretty good too.

Monday - Stayed in. Ate salmon with polenta. Watched Eastenders

Tuesday - Went to see a flat in Bethnal Green. Celebrated British Pie Week by eating a steak and chorizo pie in the Camel off Roman Road. Decided to take the flat. I move in next weekend!

Wednesday - I had dinner with my mum’s best friend in south London. She is lovely and on

Thursday - she made me tea in bed for breakfast! How nice. Then it was out to a triple-whammy leaving do. Held in a lovely Pimlico pub, it pretty quickly turned in to a drunken 14 year old love-in (“You are so amazing at your job. I love you guys, you are amazing.” etc)

Friday - I didn’t think I would make it out at all, but ended up having wine at BamBou, followed by too many strawberry and apple bellinis at Roka, followed by dancing in Jerusalem, which seems to be a meatmarket seedy bar, but they played Beyonce and Tik Tok so I was happy

Tonight - Birthday drinks in Kings Cross

Sunday - Lunch in Notting Hill

Monday - Dag for Dag gig in north London somewhere. I have never heard this band, but my Swediish friend is a big fan and she generally has good music taste so I’m sure it’ll be fun. I would Spotify them but my Spotify doesn’t work with the dongle!

Phew. That’s a lot of activity. Hopefully next week will be a little calmer. My liver and arteries probably aren’t having as much fun as I am!!

Book review: Nocturna

My Spanish is not good. I was never fluent, but I lived in Mexico for 5 years and I took IB Spanish, which involved a lot of reading and a lot of talking, so I was pretty capable. Over the past 10 years, however, it has totally deteriorated. I can’t even speak to people I know who speak Spanish in Spanish because I am so embarrassed about my accent and lack of ability to conjugate verbs.

But I am determined to improve! So, I decided to read a book in Spanish.

Nocturna is called ‘The Strain’ in English and is by director Guillermo del Toro. One night a plane lands at JFK airport and as soon as it touches down, it stops. The lights go off, the engines die, it stops on the landing strip, and no one is responding to radio messages. A team goes in and finds all but four of the passengers dead. The corpses are distributed amongst the four biggest hospitals for analysis. Was it a virus? A deadly gas? A terrorist attack? The event seems impossible.

Then, when the autopsies begin, everything seems even more unlikely. The bodies are still growing, internally. New organs are developing like a cancer, growing over the heart and throat, taking over the bodies. Then when night falls, even those bodies that have been sliced open from end to end in the autopsy start to get up and walk again.

This is a story about vampires. I had heard that the writing wasn’t great, but as I only understood 90% of the words, writing style was really the last thing I was thinking about! I found the first 2/3 utterly gripping, but I had started to become quite bored by the end. Just kill them already! I kept thinking. But still, a good premise with some truly creepy vampires and best of all, I READ THE WHOLE THING IN SPANISH! Now to look up the 10% of words that are underlined…

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Isn’t it awesome when you get in the shower and half way through washing your hair, all the tiles fall off the wall? Yeah, that’s rillyrilly fun.

Looking for Eric

Last night, in a bid to cheer myself up, I went to a friend’s to watch a DVD. I had recently been sent a care package from a friend at Icon, and had a number of good films to choose from. Looking for Eric looked like the most uplifting, so we watched it.

Ok, so the package has lots of pictures of people smiling and lot of quotes like “The feelgood movie of the year”. But make no mistake, my friends, this movie is very very depressing. It’s about a man in Manchester who lives with his two stepsons because his second wife left him and abandoned them. His eldest stepson is involved with a local thug and is getting himself in way over his head. The younger stepson is obsessed with porn and music videos full of guns and violence. Meanwhile, our Eric is still in love with his first wife, who he left twenty years ago. He is also obsessed with footballer Eric Cantona who, on night while smoking a joint, he starts to see in his bedorom and chat with.

Yes, eventually things get better, and yes, there are some laughs, but this was a ‘Broken Britain’ movie if ever I saw one. The way that Eric and his stepsons rid themselves of the gangsters is funny, but also really awful!

Still, it is a good movie, even if NOT AT ALL what is being sold on the tin. Seriously, all of the smiling images from the back cover are from the last 5 minutes of the film (literally).  I guess they thought it wouldn’t sell if they didn’t position it as an upbeat, The Fully Monty, kind of film?

Looking for Eric