555 memories

555 saved my life, no joke literally. There I was an awkward 16 year old discovering what the Leeds DIY scene had going on. Up and til I stumbled across 555 I though Leeds was just about bands that sounded like Slint or The Jesus Lizard, experimental noise bands or bands that were just well, bad. (Obviously I was hanging out with beard stroking students who liked Slint at the time)

Somehow I ended up at the 555 christmas party downstairs at The Royal Park, in the space of 2 hours I witnessed the shambolic electropoppunk of Steward, the quiet murmerings of Empress and Halkyn, the wonders of Hood, the absurdity of Remote Viewer and Saucer, the Beachbuggy offshoot that I always preferred to Beachbuggy. Maybe I look back with rose tinted specs, but that show blew my mind, this was music that resonated to me, had heart, was punk rock and being made by people in Leeds.

After that I would make the effort to go to as many 555 shows as I could, buying the records and listening them on the living room stereo. I made friends with the bands (as much as I could being the awkward teenage idiot that I was!), bonded with Richard Hood over a mutual love of They Might Be Giants, found out that Stewart and Nicola worked at my old primary school with a load of my school friends, Steward also played my 19th birthday party (I have a photo somewhere of Stewart playing the classic Hello Kitty guitar with one of those quality control stickers proudly stuck on it, must find that...)

I guess then I kinda lost track of what was going on with 555, I went to Uni, Stewart moved to the US and without it being on my doorstep I lost track. I loved the Kanda and Origami records but I guess I never felt the Boyracer love as much as the Steward stuff (what can I say, I'm a sap for drum machines and B52s samples!).

I got a load of 555 vinyl through the post the other day after deciding to make the most of my last few pay checks before skint studentdom (yep, records are more important than food!). Listening to the albums, even though they're recordings from 8-10 years later, the 555 'sound', if you can call it that still rings through and I felt 16 again. I smiled with glee at the cardboard screen printed sleeves of the Huon and Bright Lights records, this reminded me of the first time I played the Empress album and marvelled at the hand painted cover. This took me to rummage through my record collection and skip round my bedroom (the record needle on my living room stereo finally broke the other week) to records by The Aislers Set, Andrew Beaujon, Steward and Hood (as much as you can skip to Hood...).

555 is my kinda indiepop, it's punk rock, it's electro, it's indiepop for people who've never been indiepop. With it's lathe cuts, hand painted sleeves, and minimalist approach to liner notes it's the ultimate DIY. 555 make me glad I grew up in Leeds, and not somewhere a lot worse like Mansfield. Punker than you since 1992? Hell yeah!

Essential 555 listening...
Hood - (the) Weight
Steward - Goodbye To Everything You Love
Empress - debut LP
The Aislers Set - The Last Match
The Aislers Set/The How split 7
Bright Lights - Drunker than you since 002
Cheap Red - S/T

555 Records
555 Mailorder

word up

Ok so in recent days I've felt an urge to start writing a blog, lord knows why anyone would find my witterings interesting (though some band apparently find me hilarious...) but hey here it is. I guess the last time I felt the urge when I moved to London some five (lordy) years ago, so I guess it's some sycophantic urge to document my life in some way or another. I'm going through a bit of a change (no not that one, I'm only 28!), with ten, (crikey ten!) days left of work, and then pending unemployment and studentdom looming. Regardless of what happens, I am deliriously excited about...

A about not working
B about being really busy with school stuff
C about meeting lotsa cool people at Goldsmiths where I'm going.
D about new musical projects and Music For Girls, the super cool disco I'm gonna be djing at.

Things I am not going to miss about work

1. Sexist builders - doesn't happen that much as generally people are very nice to me, I do find that people try to undermine my authority as I'm a young female which annoys me a lot, but if they want to play the macho man, I'll let them, "look at you the big boys talking over the short quiet indie kid, aren't you hard?"
2. Hard hat hair - trust me ladies it SUCKS
3. Knackered hands and nails - how can you keep yr hands in any nice state when yr on dirty building sites lifting heavy things? There is really no point in going for a manicure either!
4.... and other stuff which maybe I'll talk about another time.

I did do some cool stuff at my job, and there was lotsa stuff I enjoyed, computer modelling rocks! I got forwarded an email from Yusef Islam (I know his email address, get me drunk and I'll tell you it) once, I almost saw Shakira, I saw stuff from the Parthanon that visitors to the British Museum don't see and went to Belfast too (the one cool work trip I went on, we went to see Caribou on our night off!). And I've got to work on some awesome big projects, but really, the dirt and the manual labour killed me and if yr not really wanting to progress career wise that's what you end up doing.

Like Hank Moody, I hate the word blog, and I detest the word blogger, everyone seems to be a model/blogger, I'm sorry but when did blogging become something that 'trendy' people did? I'm personally taking back the role of the blogger and returning it to the nerds. And there's not even just blogs, there's fashion blogs, cooking blogs, music blogs, no one calls things websites any more, maybe I should call this a website and not a blog, though I guess it's a blog... fucking hell!

The name Sable Nights is the name of a flower that I saw in Kew Gardens the other day, I liked it as I thought it sounded like an Au Revoir Simone song title. The Sable is also incredibly cute (see the picture above!), I want a pet Sable! I realised just now that as there's a porn star called Sable that there will probably be people looking for this in the hope of seeing some naked ladies, god I'm such a muppet! There will be no naked ladies on this blog, maybe naked men, hmm I dunno.