change is gonna come.

Saturday saw the day many Mancs had been waiting for all year. D Percussion!

after many stops and starts over the past 10 years, D Percussion developed into one of the biggest free music festivals in the whole of Europe. Saturday was unfortunately the "last ever" D Percussion due to money problems/lack of sponsors. it's a great shame and i'm crossing my fingers that next year or the year after there'll be a creation of a brand new free festival in Manchester that is just as good and filled with acts of such a wide variety.

on the day i managed to catch several performances due to my amazing sobriety. running between stages was a slight annoyance, especially when combined with those fucking cobblestones! there were some slight over-crowding problems, stage times running all over the place and bands pulling out which did make for a rather anti-climatic day in the end.
Lo-Fi-FNK were brilliant, as were The KBC and Twisted Charm (both of whom were my favourites of the day despite missing half of both bands' sets). The Whip were crowd pleasing, Van She had all the pissheads dancing away, The Answering Machine showed off their brand new drummer with their twee indie pop, Fear Of Music seemed to have improved immeasurably since the last time i saw them and The Sunshine Underground strode away with most people's musical hearts after an amazing performance.
i also saw a few songs by The Courteeners when i was looking for someone i'd lost earlier on. i don't get them? generic, much. they seem to have a massive following of your typical boy-in-checked-tshirt-and-jeans type. definitely not inspiring!

Lo-Fi-FNK - Heartache
Twisted Charm - Boring Lifestyles
The KBC - Poisonous Emblem

for my birthday i got a MacBook Pro laptop and have been enjoying looking at it in awe, ha ha.
as soon as we get our wireless internet sorted i'll post up the very first Fucking Dance Podcast! yaaay. now you'll get to hear my god awful voice and my sketchy GarageBand abilities. oh dear.

maybe not.

i was supposed to interview Twisted Charm today but it's been moved to next week.
Twisted Charm formed in London and make saxophone infused indie pop with synths and scathing lyrics about life in general. definitely a good thing.
i first heard about them ages and ages and ages ago when i heard 'London Scene?' on the radio and thought it was qualityyyy. since then Twisted Charm have recorded their debut album (released August 6th 2007) which is titled 'Real Fictional'. it's well worth a buy. almost all of the 'older' songs sound different and the new songs are just fantastic. the whole thing sounds so dated but simultaneously very very current.
i haven't seen Twisted Charm live (yet!) but they're playing D Percussion in August. very exciting!

Twisted Charm - Boring Lifestyles
(buy their singles here)

also, i've noticed a slight political turn in a few people's blogs lately! here's my contribution to the bandwagon.
last night i was watching Question Time and i was appalled. primarily at Douglas Murray's comments. i'm not going to get on my high horse about people like him, but honestly. it made me sick to think there are people with similar mindsets living and breathing in this world.
a big part of the programme was discussing whether or not the voting age should be lowered to 16 in the UK. it would be so much easier to say yes than to say no which is why i think a lot of people have said it is a good idea.
as much as i fully believe in democracy, i think lowering the voting age to 16 is a bad bad bad bad bad idea. first of all, some 18 year olds aren't well informed enough to vote let alone 16 year olds. all it will create is a section of society who have power and are likely to misuse that power. you'll just see 16 year olds voting with their parents, or voting for very extreme parties because they have not been informed properly. this obviously isn't the case for all 16 and 17 year olds, as i think (as a 17 year old myself) there are some 16 and 17 year olds who are more capable than some 40 year olds. however, the majority are not. end of story (i could go on and on and on and on but i'm lazy).

Help She Can't Swim - Sensitive Youth