Outfit-ish post! Haven't done one of these in a while... Mainly because I've been wearing 2 dresses on a circulation as I knuckle down to some hardcore art/english/physics. I will post those up, but for now here is what I wore out last night. A 30s silk affair... I keep putting these tap shorts on & then taking them off, deeming them too short or too dressed up or too underweary, but they're so so lovely that when I put on this awesome night jacket thing I got in Glasgow it suddenly had crossed over from referencing underwear/outerwear into just plain wearing my pyjamas (if I was from the 30s...) Well, I liked it anyway, holey tights & all!

Sorry about the picture quality lately. My iPhone is better, but unless I have someone to hold it for me I can't use it on myself. The machines have turned against me again, all at once. A couple of weeks back I had an internet/laptop crisis, before that my camera wouldn't focus & I took that in to be repaired last week. Then today my sewing machine stopped working, kept having little hissy fits when I was trying to free-machine hipbones. So now that's being serviced. Hopefully my phone will keep going for another year because I've just renewed my contract after them not telling me it actually ran out in January & I could've been paying £15 less than I was. Why does everything have to break at once?

Is it just me?

On the way to a country walk with my Mother yesterday (which turned out to be a trek through torrential rain to a tea shop up a hill that was closed, as well as the first time I've ever been nuzzled by a horse who also nibbled my elbow) we stumbled across the relocated Bookbarn, where I pretty much died & went to heaven.

I'm heading back out there in the next couple of weeks because everything's a pound at the moment. But I found some wonderful, lovely, beautiful poetry books. Considering finding any which way to convert the covers onto fabric... Plus a book of logo's from the 20s & 30s which I was gonna give to Jay for tattoo inspiration, I think I could literally cover my body in these if I had any sort of meaning attached to any of them. The typography at least though is hella inspiring. I also finally found a perfect vintage anatomy book complete with lots of lovely bone/muscle/heart illustrations that I will (hopefully, eventually) be turning into prints on bags etc.

If you've never heard of the Bookbarn, they're basically a huge warehouse full of 2nd hand books that used to exist in Bristol next to where they film Deal or No Deal, but they had a ma-who-sive free book clearout (that I missed) & moved out to the countryside to recentre everything online like Abe. Basically, it's like those mythical warehouse's full of 2nd hand clothing I imagine to be dotted around the outskirts of America - but with books. I'm completely up for hunting out requests if there's something you've been looking for, just e-mail me: neonpeg@gmail.com, all I'll need is the price of the book & postage! Just because I like sitting on the floor reading weird "Jazz" poetry... so, yeah.

How was your Mother's Day?

SONG 19: THE FIRST SONG ALPHABETICALLY IN YOUR IPOD
A - CartelSuch an underrated band. I would suggest not starting with the second half of Q&A though, maybe the album Chroma, with Say Anything (Else), pop punk at it's finest. Warning, this track goes on forever so I would recommend searing for other mp3's or on spotify & listening to something else by them! It is pretty beautiful though...



SONG 20: THE LAST SONG ALPHABETICALLY IN YOUR IPOD @!#?@! - Motion City Soundtrack
I love this band & their new album has grown on me in the same way all the other ones. They basically chart the downfalls of lead singer Justin Pierre's life as he's battled with drug addiction, with an album coinciding with every rehab & recovery. There back catalog has helped me through a few of my own break downs & funnily enough even though my iPod contains a range from The Mouldy Peaches to Melt Banana, the two that came up in this are both sort of pop punk/band I loved when I was 15.






SONG 21: YOUR FAVORITE SONG
Breathe Easy - SugababesSo this probably isn't really my favorite song, but it's the only one I've ever given this label. I think when it comes to music I'm afraid of commitment like that because what I listen to is so dictated by my feeling/mood at the time. But it is a beautiful song & don't let the fact it's by the Sugababes put you off, it was the original lineup & once when I was younger I sung it to myself whilst walking up a hill to calm myself down because I was scared of heights.





SONG 22: A SONG THAT SOMEONE HAS SUNG TO YOU
Pretty Vacant - Sex PistolsSo I was thinking of doing another song but it's so very personal to me & that person that I didn't want to hash out the whole thing on the internet really. So this is what a co-worker sang at me at work the other weekend when I was stood with nothing to do. Pretty much sums up how I move through most of life.





SONG 23: A SONG THAT YOU CANNOT STAND TO LISTEN TO
Magician's Assistant - Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius PipIt would've been too easy to pick a shitty radio pop song & tell you all the reasons I don't think that's music. But instead here's something I find extremely hard to listen to. It's about suicide & seeing Scroobius Pip preform this live put goosebumps all over my body, it's one of those songs that will make be quiet & contemplative even if I just hear it in the background somewhere. It doesn't take me to a great place, head space or past life wise & so I try not to listen to it that much.



SONG 24: A SONG THAT YOU HAVE DANCED TO WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND
Too Much Too Young - The Specials
Monster - Kanye WestThere hasn't been that much of a range on this list so here are two songs genuinely me & Jesus have danced our asses off too. I fucking love The Specials & I adore that this song goes on for hours simply making shit up. & monster is an epic song. I've written about Kanye West on the blog before, but there's something here about all the verses, especially Nicki Minaj's that puts all those men to shame.





SONG 25: A SONG YOU COULD LISTEN TO ALL DAY WITHOUT GETTING TIRED OF
Rio - Goldfinger

I can't say I'm the hugest fan of Duran Duran but no one does a cover like Goldfinger (their 99 Red Balloons & Just Like Heaven are my absolute favorite versions) but this song pretty much has everything, it's danceable, it has a hard rock mosh pit breakdown along the way & has mostly the lyrics "do do do-do do-do"

READ SONG 1-6 HERE. SONG 7-12 HERE. & SONG 13-18 HERE.
All images from weheartit.

I actually really enjoyed doing that. It was very cathartic in that way that music so often is, but to get it all out & write it all down was good. Self indulgent I admit, but I hope you liked it or at least found one song you haven't listened to in a while or newly love. It showed me how much having long term boyfriends when you're young can really fuck up the memories you have attached to music. Especially because most of the music I really love in a heart strangling type way was from when I was 14/15 with the person I was with for those 2 years, so obviously a lot of the memories & the music are connected. It's part of the reason I didn't let myself listen to the Smiths for so long, because someone I hated introduced them to me. But then if I got rid of all the music I have memories of attached to ex boyfriends or friends, like the jewelry I have from those people, I'd be left with no memories, no music & bare fingers.
Music's my imaginary friend

Dear Channel 4,

Oh how you love to toy with my emotions. On one hand employing lovely, moral compasses such as John Snow & creating Channel 4 news which for me (although ITN) has overtaken BBC in terms of news because watching Snow argue & have the ability to have an actual opinion is much more interesting than the bland impartialness of traditional BBC news. And then on the other you present a show like Lily Allen: From Riches to Rags which frankly oscillates wildly between love & hate for me. Love because of the clothes & because I've always had a big soft spot for Lily Allen, & hate because it's simply not fair that they have the ability to do it.

But then you have ability to create something great, & unplastic & showing all the wonderful things about fashion with a show like The Model Agency, that involves real people who are nice. I especially am fond of Aiden who remains all but silent with the occasional smile until he gets pissed off & then suddenly unleashes a tyrant of profanity. It is literally beautiful.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is how on earth can a channel produce both Supersize vs Superskinny Kids & the laugh-until-you-cry-every-time Friday Night Dinner? A complex perhaps most clearly put across in a show I'm still undecided about but always seem to see every week, 10 O'Clock Live. How how HOW can you put the genius of David Mitchell & Charlie Brooker at the same table as Jimmy Carr & fucking Lauren Laverne. I coped with her because at least she wore nice dresses (until last week) & you didn't give her that much to say, but having to fast forward through Carr every week is getting annoying. I never hated him before, I had a small fondness for late night 8 out of 10 cats, but here he is lost, juvenile & inappropriate. Why not let Krishnan Guru Murphy & the frankly lovely Faisal Islam from Channel 4 to have a go instead?

So close. Rant over.

Images of Vika Gazinskaya's autumn-winter 2012 show via Style Bubble.

Made my day

In a total daze, can't sleep after getting ramped up at practice & have no one to phone call as they're all asleep/at gigs/somewhere noisy. Dear internet, I love you.
See more here.

Tyrone Lebon