Bands Good Enough for Me to Pay to Advertise Them

I really like music. Like, loads, yeah?  When I first joined Blogger, I followed several people without really reading their stuff as a way into the community.  As it turns out, the vast majority of Blogger seems to be fashion blogs; something I have little to no interest in.  However, amongst a load of floral print dresses, a segment of leftie politics and a few recipes dotted around the place I found one post,  on Hipster Musings, about T-shirts.  I really enjoyed it, and here's my cheap imitation (the closest thing you'll ever get to a fashion post from me):

  I really really like Wild Beasts.  I like this shirt because I like Wild Beasts and I think it's quite cool - but it doesn't really mean anything, special or otherwise, to me.  Should it?  I wear it to gigs a lot, I think.  There's two slightly annoying things about it - the bit that says Wild Beasts is really small and usually folds over, as well as it being oddly long yet snug It's just an odd shape and I have no idea why.  This was on offer online - so I OBVIOUSLY SNAPPED it up. My favourite Wild Beasts album is Smother, but song-wise it has to be All the King's Men which is an absolutely cunting tune.

                                                                

I bought this at a market in a French castle several years ago, just after I passed my massive RHCP stage. I'm not sure I really like them that much any more, but it's a nice piece of bed-wear nonetheless.  I think it's a girl's fit, but I'm not sure.  Favourite chilis song is probably Otherside, but I've always had an unexplained soft spot for Fortune Faded. 

                                                                 

Look See Proof were, for quite a while, THE cool local indie band.  They headlined, I think, or at least played at, my first local gig; for a while they looked like they might actually make it; their farewell show was the pinnacle of an era of my life.  All that said, I didn't own this shirt then.  Sometime about two years ago mum came home bearing this as a gift.  She'd found it in a charity shop, which seemed pretty apt given my quick transition from change from club night indie wanker wannabee to charity shop jumpers, books and vinyl loser.  Their best song was Casualty but Discussions and Local Hero were stonkin', too - my favourite was always this one which began with an S which I can't quite recall. EDIT: found it!

When they split up, they released a free internet EP which I can promise you is still amazing.  Ever now and again I find it on an old computer and overplay it for a month before promptly forgetting about it again.

(I'm listening to them now. NOSTALGIA. Only bands from that time of my life I still really like are Guildean Gang, Spiked and Model Horror.  I'm well over Rosalita.)

                                                               

     

This is a relatively recent purchase - The October Game are one of those bands that don't play 'my kind' of music, but are fairly incredible live and good enough that I like them nevertheless.  Think they're a bit of a music geek's band.  It's too small, but I bought that size because trying it on I had another shirt underneath and the creepy guitarist selling it was giving me a funny look.  Found out when I got home it had gaffa tape from display still attached to it and oil stains at the bottom :( Still, it's an alright shirt, and they're a good band. Just listen to this and see how fantastically cool this is!  People like Zoe from ladybirdlikes will proper love that second link.

                                                                

I don't really like New Found Glory, to be honest, but I got this shirt with the only money I spent on a free day out for a friend's birthday (I can never thank Esther McNeil and her lovely mum enough) which was an evening in Leicester to see Paramore play (supported by NFG, Kids in Glass Houses and another band I've forgotten the name of. Conditions?) at the De Montfort hall. Great night, and this shirt looked really cool. I still wear it pretty often - the print's just 'New Found Glory' written loads of times in loads of different styles, by the way.

                                                                 

Bought this years ago but still love it. I don't wear it very often - I don't really like wearing black shirts, not sure why - but the band (Spiked, obviously) only get better and, excitingly, two thirds of them are proper besties of mine.  The other third apparently used to go to the pub with Yannis from Foals all the time, but *clutches, grabs a straw* he's probably a dick and I <3 Sian and Lauren so fuck them! What is it about assonance that you always have to put monosyllabic names first?  Anyway, yes, had for years, bit small now, love it, amazing family at the heart of the properly brilliant band.  Best song is reeeeeallly difficult, I like their new EP 'Machines Please' too much to choose, really, but out of songs I can link you to I'm going to pick Good with Dollar.  If you don't like pretty heavy stuff (and I don't, really, it's just Spiked and Hold Your Horse Is) Casio Kid remixed their song What's This? which is ace too. 

                                                                

I've seen Fiction once.  They're not actually that good - they're not bad at all, just quite, not that, good - but the combination of really liking their shirt, really enjoying Klaxons (who they were supporting), and Klaxons having 'meh' shirts made me get this as a memento.  I'm not sure why I like it so much, I just really love the design... it's an owl, man! Trouble with wearing it underneath a white shirt (as you do at school etc) is the orange eyes look a little bit like a tea stain and you get a lot of remarks.  I wear this all the time.  Best song... not sure.  I think there's a car advert on at the moment which uses one of theirs, so that's ruined their cool, but they're toured with Klaxons, Warpaint, and soon Metronomy, so that's not too bad at all - there's a song called Phyllis which you can get for free which is pretty good... Ooh, just googled them, this is a song called Parakeets. It is good. 

(that was a lie. I had not listened to it when I linked.  However, I have heard 1:17 of it now, seems alright)

                                                              

Big big love for the Hives shirt! Bought this at Wireless, during a Pulp song, because they were so good.  I think that they are second only to Blur in my 'best live bands' list they were just that good. £20, which is twice what you should pay for any good band tee, and I still didn't have the sense to not take this wonderful white shirt to Reading this year.  IT IS STILL MUDDY.  I don't regret a penny of that twenty, though.  Great band, great shirt which gets me occasional high fives from strangers.  As I tweeted last night, they're very much a listen to LOADS for half a year then forget about for 18 months before a prompt rediscovery and half-year LOVE (repeat) kind of band, great for angry teens, frustrated fathers and nostalgic nannies alike.  It's a fairly obvious choice but this is probably their best song, although this or this would be my favourite.  For the second 'this' link, skip to 6 mins in and watch the PERFECTLY timed guitar drop over and over again and marvel, like I did, for days.

  Stax are a record label, not a band, I know, but I like Northern Soul and I got these and the Kinks shirt whilst Andrew got The Beat's Stand Down Margaret and The Who's My Generation tees.  They're pretty darn coooooooooooool, no? No, thought not :(

KINKS SHIRT WHICH DAD GOT OFF DAVE DAVIES FROM THE KINKS WHO HE USED TO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO DEFINITELY DESERVES CAPITALS. IT'S TOO SMALL AND I'VE HAD TO PASS IT ON TO THIS LOSER BUT STILL OH MY WORD A PROPER OLD KINKS SHIRT

Well I seem to have drifted into chatting about music, not fashion there, but to be honest thank God for that! The layering shirts over one another thing didn't look as funny as I thought it might :( 

I apologise for the big gaps between blogs now but I've been enjoying real life a lot recently and now I'm back want to ease myself back into the swing of things.  To be honest, I do harbour a bit of an ambition to be all that I'm not on Twitter - occasionally brilliant, and that's it, rather than quite good or okay a lot of the time.

Next week I'm going to attempt a return of my walking blog, maybe talk about my 'goals' list which I carried on updating whilst I was away, and hopefully do a vlog! It's nothing interesting, just, like, a guided tour of my room, but I thought it'd be interesting to compare with another when I move into Colchester for uni - also, Laura's meant to be doing one too, so that'll be a laugh I guess. See you then x

(did you notice? New glasses! I am really happy with them)

Who I really want a shirt of: Blur.  The Beautiful South.  Metronomy.  Gaga (tho' I bet she has no nice ones).  Libertines.  Bombay Bike Club (who do amazing jumpers too).  A good Pulp one.  The Smiths.  Los Camp! (more than the one I have ordered).  Foals.  Gorillaz.  Laura Marling, the Beach Boys, Biffy Clyro.  Copy Haho.  The Clash, the Cribs, Flight of the Conchords.

You?