After Hours

After dark is an amazing time. It's bewitching and exhilirating, but unfortunately it can be terrible and scary as hell, because we all know bad shit goes down at night. Reclaim The Night is an organisation that fights to take back the night from rapists and murderers and the rest because it's not right that we should be afraid of the dark. Find out more about their work, how to join one of their marches and other ways to get involved here: http://www.reclaimthenight.org/.

I love the night time. I find it so inspiring and I love to write (bad) poetry and short stories at night. But I do all of that inside, when I'd love to be sitting in a park writing by moonlight because I'm just too afraid. It is definitely time we take back the night.

(The following story should be read at night):

After Hours

Comme c’est curieux... How inaccurate is the phrase the dead of night? When here we are at that time exact to the nanosecond and yet so alive, alive.

This is night fall. When the sky sighs into purple then slips on black, the stars come out to play. Tonighttime we are letting our strikingly beautiful, horrifying imagination run away with you. We believe anything is possible and we are not scared when it all happens.

This is the witching hour. So named because it would stretch infinitely if the sun didn’t wake, shooing it away like the shopkeeper will come morning time to the homeless people sprawled on his doorstep. And we call this magic because we don’t have the words to say what else. Then the hour waits till light wanders off to start again, bewitching all still present with a temporary perpetual darkness.

There sits a girl, just metres away, on a bench. Her wild curls glow in the moonlight. She sings, wondering if her off-note could carry all the way across the world and back, then she stops abruptly. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to her. Hopefully. Our peace is slit by drunken cackling in the distance. It dissipates into a cold silence. So quiet she can hear you breathing. Shh quiet. Hold your breath and you might be able to hear her whisper.

“Would you like to know something? Of course. Here is a secret only a few fearless people know: there are stars in this city. But you have to go to the darkest, dirtiest places to see them. That’s where they’ll shine right through it all. Wink at you. Hold your glance. Stare you down. Not intimidating, but calm and comforting. You are watched.”

And we are, locked in by her fierce eyes, watching her watch us. She’s a clever one. She knows we’re here. She knows that everyone is a ghost at this time. She knows that this city will swallow you up and let you lie in the warmth of its body.

This city will swallow you up and the acid in its gut will burn you to crumbles.

Are you ready? Come on, Let’s go.

Feel like writing something? Enter the writing competition now!

Or spend the night in London/New York City with our list of AMAZING books and films that pull you into the heart of their cities.

[Images in this post are from: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/09/60-beautiful-examples-of-night-photography-2/ and http://bibliographic.net/les/2005/11/vics-good-for-seeing-stars-at-night.html]

A Recipe for Deliciousness

Sue is an amazing cook. Yeah, you don't know Sue, but that's irrelevant. The only thing that matters is her pudding recipe...

• Get a packet of Digestive Biscuits,100g butter, 1.5 pounds chocolate - I used a mixture of Galaxy and Bourneville, 1 pint double cream and a splash of alcohol -whatever you like.
• Crush the biscuits and bind with the melted butter. Press into a tin.
• Whip the cream until stiff.
• Melt chocolate and whip into cream with alcohol until well mixed.
• Chill overnight.
• To combat the richness it's really nice served with a fruit coulis and cream - made by blending fruit and serving it on the side.

Enjoy!
And let me know how it turns out...

Bring It Bitches.

So... Election, anyone?
As of today, it is on.
The politicians will be stepping up their bitchiness, desperately clawing each other down to get to the (or stay on) top. As if they haven't been doing that already...



Am I the only one freaked out a little bit surprised by all of David's (poor) pop culture references? American Idol? George Clooney? Shakira? I can only guess he's been spending way too much time channel-hopping on Sky looking for comedy material.

I can't vote, which sucks, so if you can vote then please don't waste it.
Unfortunately, the only kind of thing I'm qualified to vote in is my local Youth Parliament elections. Yeah, Youth Parliament's a real thing. Yes it is. Last school assembly we were forced to watch their campaign videos.

Highlights from the Campaign Videos- 

1.“Um, I want to reduce bus fares…” Yay! “…because, if youth can’t go outside then we’ll be bored at home and, uh, turn to crime.” Um, okay.
And then up pops that weird moving 3D Word Art everyone used to get really excited about using on PowerPoints in class presentations. It says: if U wan’t 2 B heard then Vote 4 ME. Agh, It’s like when local councils think their leaflets will better teach about chlamydia if they use the native “text language”, with random capitalization (only cool when John Green does it) and non-standard grammar thrown in just fo’ kicks.  Needs to stop.

2.The girl who raged about banning underage sex and alcoholism (Know. Your. Audience.), earning the crowd's observant and oh-so-witty comebacks e.g. “Just ’cos you can’t get any, fatty.”

3.“Vote for me because I have the dominant allele for effort”. A biology joke! Ahh. My vote: it's yours.


I can only hope the adults will do it better. But after watching an entire session of the House of Commons in which all the MPs were just sitting around jeering and booing at one another (what is with that?!), I'm not so sure that they could.

Maybe this vid right here isn't so far from the truth...

Rodarte x JOYCE (+ Maggie Cheung)

Collaborations are awesome. This is just a fact.
Particularly so is the collaboration between Rodarte, Maggie Cheung (actress) and JOYCE (a boutique based in Hong Kong), which has resulted in a short film- beautifully short by Wing Shya and accompanied by a compellingly haunting melody courtesy of  Peter Kam. Most importantly however, is the fact that, for every view the short film gets on YouTube, JOYCE donate HK$1 to UNICEF.
So watch it now! Enjoy the designs in this spellbinding piece while feeling good about yourself for helping those less fortunate...

A Letter To... My Schoolmates

Send in a letter about something you want to get something off your chest.
(After the sweetness of my last post, I suppose it's time balance that out. Don't take this too seriously if you go to my school and have somehow found your way here)

Dear Schoolmates,

There are so many things I’ve always wanted to tell you. I just didn’t know how to put my feelings into words. I wish we could have gotten along better, spent more time together. Maybe then I would have had the courage to say all these things that have just been burning up inside me. I’m writing to you now because it's hurting too much to keep this from you. I'm writing because I can't take the thought of saying this out loud and I don't know any other way to let you into my heart. I hope you understand and know that I will always love you*. Here goes…

The thing is, Uggs are not the only shoe. I’d go on to say please stop constantly fucking up your outfits with this boot, if it wasn’t for my next point which is-

Abercrombie and Fitch, and Jack Wills are not the only two stores in existence. There’s a whole world out there. I’d be happy to show you.

Twilight and New Moon, the books and films, were not that good. Robert Pattinson is also not that hot. You totally saw him in Harry Potter and you didn’t give a crap about him then so why now? It’s because you’re projecting your fantasy of a dating hot, pasty 107 year old boy onto him, that's why. And don't you think that’s kind of weird? So please stop wearing hoodies that say “Property Of Edward Cullen” and ink tattooing yourself with the words “Bite Me”. You’re making all the sane people feel deeply uncomfortable.

I wish you would stop pretending to be more drunk than you actually are at parties just so you can kiss that guy your friend likes and do c-raaaaaazzzy things so you can have “great” stories to tell on the next school day. More than that, I pray you stop talking about what a wild night you had and how wasted you got, ’cause everybody knows you only had half a drink.

Listen carefully: "gay" is not an insult. Don't make me slap you.

I know we’re in an all-girls school, but you don’t have to gain respect by talking about boys like you’re an authority on the subject. Going on about how much easier they are to hang out with than girls because they’re "so much more chilled out" is just insulting given that your audience is entirely composed of girls. It’s also plain stupid since we've all seen that you're that girl - the one who acts annoyingly flirty when hanging out with guys, which simply makes them want you to piss off, ’cause they’re trying to chill out here, alright?

Schoolmates, I'm sorry to end on such a sad note, but there is one last thing that I need to tell you because it's weighing down on me so heavily I fear it may crush the last breath out of me if I don't say to you now: please stop deluding yourselves that omfg Skins is just sooooo amazing cos its just like a breath of fresh air on british tv you know i mean like it just actually represents the lives of us teens and its like totally not afraid to show what we get up to....  Um, WHAT THE F---?!! Seriously guys? Seriously. As much as I loved Skins (series 1 & a bit of 2), it does not represent your life, don't lie. If you lived in that world you would not be sitting on your ass on a thursday night watching fictional kids have a wild time, you'd be coked up somewhere getting wild yourself. And y'all know it.

*not all of you. And not always for some of you.

Six Sweeteners

 Because this world should be more delicious like patisserie.

1. Draw someone without them knowing. Give them that drawing. It’s nice to know someone is paying attention to you when it’s so easy to feel invisible in the world. But try not to be too stalkerish about it, okay?

2. Smile at people until at least one person smiles back, even if said person’s a crazy.

3. Give that food you know you’re gonna end up wasting to your local soup kitchen. Better yet, go out and buy them some Krispy Kreme doughnuts for desert.

4. Find something you like about a person you’ve never really talked to and tell them.

5. Make someone a mixtape of your favourite music of the moment for no good reason. Maybe even leave the mixtape (with a note attached) somewhere an unknown person is likely to pick it up.

6. Sing aloud in public. People need to know it’s okay to act like you’re in a musical once in a while.

Do Something Brilliant, or maybe just so-so (part 1/2)

I suppose you'll have heard about Chile. And before that, Haiti. And many other disasters before that (if not, then stop pissing around and pay attention to the news once in a while, yeah?).
Perhaps like me, it makes you want to do something to help them. Maybe something more than just donating £10 (or less, you cheapskate) online? Well, how about setting up a charity gig?
(Haha, I just read that back and realised how much it rings like a bad advert...)
Anyway, I'm here to help you raise money and enjoy music (and meet bands, the best part of organising this kind of thing, I suspect. Other than the rewarding feeling of doing something good of course). So a while back I was determined to set up a charity gig for the Amnesty International Youth Group I used to run. That dream died fast. Mainly due to my laziness but whatever. Anyway, when I was all about that I got plenty of good advice on how to go about setting up a live musical event from Rob Alderman of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang nights. The back and forth emails between us are below, no point in letting that all this knowledge go to waste, huh?

Dear Rob,

My name is Zita[....]and I run the Amnesty International Youth Group at [my school]. We want to hold a benefit concert in aid of Amnesty. I love a lot of the amazing bands/artists you've had at your KKBB nights such as:

New Cassettes
Lightspeed Champion
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Johnny Foreigner
Pete and the Pirates
and The Holloways (even though they haven't performed yet)

and I would greatly appreciate it if you could give me some information on how to go about booking these bands and how much it would cost?

Thank you very much for your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Hi Zita,

Sounds like a cool idea!
With all of the bands you listed (except New Cassettes), they have an agent which is the person you'll need to contact about gigs. Most agent details (usually an e-mail address) can be found on the myspace or website of the band. There are 3 or 4 main agencies - Primary, WMA, ITB and Coda but there are others out there too.

So, contact the agent who looks after the band. They'll usually want details of the gig (where it is, what date, what capacity the venue is etc etc) so I'd put this in the first e-mail to stop e-mails going back and forth. When you first e-mail them, I wouldn't mention any money, it's best first to see if the band are available. Also, do a bit of research into the band you're booking (i.e. do they already have a gig on the date you want them? Will they suit your target audience?). This all helps when contacting the agent. To warn you, agents can be quite blunt. They obviously get hundereds of e-mails every day asking for bookings so often reply with a quick yes or no and quick explanation (sometimes not even that much). Also, it's probably worth writing out a list of a good 20 bands and split them into first choice bands, 2nd choice etc. I'd e-mail maybe 3 or 4 in the first instance as not all agents will reply...you don't want to throw all your eggs in one basket and wait to hear back when a reply may not be forthcoming.

Once you've e-mailed, if they e-mail back (and the band are available), they'll ask for an offer. As you're not a "regular customer" to them, this may be a slightly higher price than other promoters that often use them to book bands. It's difficult to judge the price of a band these days as cost has gone up. It's difficult for me to say what you could offer without knowing your budget so maybe if you e-mail through your budget and the bands you're thinking about, I can give you an idea of where to aim for.

Once the offer has gone back, if they accept, you'll then go through the stages of having a contract which will need signing and returning. Also, by law, you'll need to fill out a Terms of Business with the company you're booking through as, legally, they must do this to deal with you (this will all be sent to you). They often ask for 50% of the fee to be paid as a deposit also.

When thinking about your budget, don't forget to add everything in. Most bands charge VAT and will want a rider (food and drink), which, on average, can cost about £50-£100, depending what they're asking for. Add sound equipment, sound man, lights, staging etc to that just to make sure you're budget can cover the gig.

Bands also will send through a tech spec with their rider. This details what sound equipment they expect to use when playing. They can be quite particular about what sound equipment they use so, if you plan to book a bigish band, make sure you're not using cheap equipment because otherwise the band can refuse to play or you will have to hire the equipment they request (we learnt this the hard way) and you can lose the deposit as it is your responsibility as a promoter to make sure the venue meets the requirements in the contract.

Sorry for the essay. I don't mean to bombard you! Just a lot more than you realise to think about when you book a band of certain level.
I hope it is of some help.
Feel free to e-mail me on this address again for help. It's good to see people getting up and doing something cool for the music scene around these parts!

Good luck!
Rob

Do Something Brilliant, or maybe just so-so? (part 2/2)

By The Way: THIS IS NOT A COMPREHESIVE GUIDE. But I'm sure you know that already.
(Also, do not take the bands and artists I mention here to be indicative of my music taste. Many I still love, but I have grown and changed.)

Rob,


Thank you so much for the "essay"! It has been very helpful in making me realise what goes into planning a gig. You are right, booking a band takes WAY more than i realise (I admire you greatly).
Its a lot more confusing, complicated and generally difficult and expensive sounding than I realised, but I'm still going to try to do it because it could be great, and its for charity too...

So I hope you don't mind if i ask you a few more questions.
I have a very long list of mostly indie bands and artists who I was planning to ask, and I actually emailed some of them before I received your email back, so I wish I had waited.
Some of them were just "NO"s but some had explanations which was nice.

I am being considered by:
Johnny Flynn
The Metros
Lo-Fi Culture Scene
Athlete

but they all want "more details"!
but I still haven't got emails back from:
Pete and the Pirates
The Holloways
Gold Teeth

and I have yet to contact:
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
TV On the Radio
Laura Marling
The Whip
The Courteeners
Noah and the Whale
Crystal Castles
Golden Silvers
...and some others.

So before I send emails out to any of the other bands on my list please could you help me with these questions:

1. I was going to hold it in the school hall, which is a very nice place for a school but it does only fit about 600 standing. Do you think the bands will refuse to play for only 600 people?
Would it be better to hire a local venue? (like the [...] which can take 1000 people standing. and has had bands like Hadouken and Foals playing there).

2. The Lo-Fi Culture Scene's people said that they would cost "a couple hundred". does that mean just £100-200 for the band, excluding the "rider" and the equipment.

3. Do I have to BUY their equipment? Are you kidding? Can't they just bring it them selves... How much does equipment cost?
4. When you say "sound man" would that be a sound man that they brought with them or one that I would have to hire?

5.Please please please guesstimate what it might cost altogether (excluding food and drinks for the audience).

6...Can I hire a "promoter" or someone to do all this for me? But then again they would probably cost hundreds as well.

7. Will the agents that have replied be a lot less inclined to agree to a gig if I don't reply straightaway giving them these elusive "more details" that they speak of?

I know you are probably extremely busy booking bands for KKBB, so please just reply whenever you can.
Thank you very much

Zita,

I'm happy to help. I'll try and answer all of your questions...

More details will be what I said before. Say what the event is for (charity wise), where it'll be held, the capacity of the place etc. etc.
1. 600 is fine. Our capacity is 250 upstairs and about 400 down so 600 should be plenty for what you're aiming for. But, the Civic probably has a good quality PA in place to use for gigs so may be worth giving them a shout to see if they are open to hiring out the venue and at what price.

2. Sound like £200 flat. They may then ask for rider on top. Not sure if they are a big enough band to be VAT registered so I'd guess at £200 + rider

3. No no! Not buy haha. I'm talking as in the PA system. They will bring their own guitars/amps/drums etc but you'll be providing the PA system for them to play through.

4. Most venues have an "in house sound man" who does the system. Bands the size of Lo-Fi Culture Scene wouldn't have their own sound man so you'd need an experienced sound man to sound check them. Bigger bands (such as The Holloways and Pete and the Pirates) will have their own sound men but this is never confirmed until after the band are booked and a fee agreed.

5. All depends on the band really! Athlete will be very expensive I imagine. Difficult to guess but I'd say close to the £2000 mark (possibly more). It really is difficult to say but I think you have to judge it against your budget. So if Lo-fi Culture Scene are saying £200, Holloways will be more than that...sorry, I know that's vague but it really does vary and also depends on what the agent is holding out for!

6. You could try and involve a local promoter. Find out who promotes the gigs at the [local venue] and see if they'd be interested in helping out. Remember, it'll help their profile as well.

7. Try and reply asap. They tend to lose interest/forget things easily! Just try and keep the replies quick and readable so they're not looking at a massive bunch of text!
Any time, any time. As I say, it's nice to see someone getting involved in promoting. And don't let what I wrote above, put you off. It's tough but it can all come together with hard work and a bit of negotiating!

Keep at it!
Rob.

This Is Where You Belong

MISSION STATEMENT:
Love and discover music, film, art, fashion, literature and the like. Have triple chocolate cookies, innovation and find inspiration. Do not wait for anyone else to do things for you - we are the ones we've been waiting for. Keep your eyes on what you want and get it, but don't forget what's important, and don't forget to give to others.

This is just the start. One day THIS IS WHERE WE BELONG will be a  website, a magazine, a string of live events, an empire (a charitable one).



CONTRIBUTORS: Hannah Marshall.

Drop me a line (zita.thisiswherewebelong@gmail.com) if you want to contribute to the blog or to the printed mag, want to help out with the site design, want to suggest an article idea, want to send love or anything. I promise to reply asap.

This Is Where You Belong.

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