Panic! At The Disco (with general update on life at the start)

     It's been a week and I have absolutely no idea what to write about, loads has happened but most of it boring everyday stuff so I don't see why that would interest anyone, including myself. Maybe I'll just run through everything quickly here at the start while I try to think of something interesting to write about. I'll just give everything an elongated sentence to explain themselves. I got an appointment to see a consultant about my wrist (remember? Weronika kicked me and I have a cyst I gotta get removed) but it isn't for two years so I have to go private which is shit, but means I might get it sorted soon enough. I had a meeting with the school careers guidance councillor  and I didn't hate it as much as expected, she did spend a lot of the time telling me how amazing I am and how my fairly good Junior Cert was a serious underachievement, which is always nice to hear (basically I could fucking amazing if I could be arsed, as far as I can tell). I was sick and that was horrible (still kinda am a little) but I got 3 days off school for it. Other than that my days have been spent on Tumblr and watching various videos and TV shows. There's a new show called 'Black Sails' which only has one episode out so far but it's pretty awesome, all about pirates and shit like that. My friend was trying to get me to watch it and she just said this " its got pirates and blood and lesbians, it's great" and I was pretty convinced after that point (I may have added the punctuation but other than that it's exactly as she said). I still don't know what to write about though.

     Okay, so I left it for a while and I'm listening to music so I just wanted to point out the brilliance of the line "I know it's sad, 

But I never gave a damn about the weather,
And it never a gave a damn about me"

Don't you agree? I'm not sure what it is about that line but I just really love it, there's not much else I can say about it except tell you to listen to the song which I'll stick in here somewhere. 

It's a really nice song, even if that line means nothing to you, you should listen to the song. On the topic of Panic! At The Disco (henceforth known as P!ATD because that's a long name, I'll mention it at the start of anything I write mentioning them but y'know, I'm lazy), I was listening to this song by them called Girls/Girls/Boys (not sure if its about a threesome or bisexuality but I think its bisexuality) and I had the video playing on full screen while I was doing whatever on my phone. The video features Brendon Urie naked (you only see him from the waist up) with a complete blank backdrop, so my mother walks in and glances at my screen right at the point where it decides to zoom in on his belly button. She just kinda backed out of my room looking slight confused and very disturbed, needless to say, I didn't leave the room for the rest of the evening. It's a good song, you should listen to that too, I'll stick it in here too.

So yeah, that's P!ATD, I'm going to go see them in the Olympia in May this year which is awesome. I should really talk about All Time Low cos they're the next gig I'm going to... I have plenty of time though, it's not till March (In about 55 days, I've been told). 

     Anyway, that's me, I should be on within the next week,
     Ruska

Ramble About Something, Probably Relating To The Strypes

     So I've been pretty awful about posting on this, I've wanted to and I've started writing a post on numerous occasions and left it unsaved and usually unfinished so I haven't posted anything for well over a month. I wish I had kept this up but I haven't, I'm gonna try to keep it up now, I probably won't manage but I will try.

     I'm on the bus to Cavan, somewhere between Cavan and Kells, due to arrive there in about 45 minutes. You may ask why on earth would anyone want to go to Cavan and if you're not Irish and aren't a fan of a particular Cavan born band who happen to be playing there this evening you may not even know of the existence of Cavan. Cavan is a landlocked county in the northern midlands of Ireland. As a Christmas present from my father I got tickets to this gig they're playing in Cavan Town Hall, my knowledge of these tickets weeks before Christmas and the fact that I didn't even get them on Christmas doesn't change the fact that Christmas presents they are. I'm quite excited, I haven't seen the Strypes in almost exactly a year (I just re-read what I've written and noticed that I didn't actually mention them by name before now but I can't be bothered to actually change it). This will be the first time I see them do a full electric set so I really can't wait. My dad's not too happy about having to go to Cavan or about going to a gig (he's such an old man, isn't he?) last time I saw the Strypes was with him too and he just stood there looking grumpy with his arms crossed, there were a load of bands playing that time and he only liked one of them (Ocho, check them out, they're not bad) and a comedian (David O'Docherty I think, he was brilliant). When the Strypes came on I tried to move towards the front and was quite successful except for the fact that my father pulled me back each time anyone got closer than a meter away from me and as anyone who has been to a gig ever (or just in a crowd) knows, people are packed in pretty close, eventually I managed to lose him in the crowd and I really enjoyed it even though they only played for twenty to thirty minutes or so.

     I'm really just writing for the sake of writing now rather having anything in particular I feel the urge to share, there is one thing but I don't really want to think about it right now so I probably will in a few days, I really want to anyway so I'll talk to you soon. 

     Ruska

(Almost in Cavan now!!!)

Celebrity Influence

     So I thought I posted this, I wrote it and published it a few months ago but since I'm using the app it doesn't always publish and I don't notice that unless I look at the post again which I really don't usually do but I was bored so I did and happened to notice this, so here goes.

     I don't listen to pop much, some pop from the 60's and 70's but nothing much. I can name a few modern celebrities but honestly I just don't care about them. They're just people who get famous on minimal amount of talent and a lot of money, usually. I'm not saying this is always the case at all, some celebrities are, in fact, amazingly talented, I would name one but I don't know really. What pisses me off about celebrities is that some, not all, just a few, of them use their fame to influence people to have their views like Beiber about the abortion thing (see my rant about him) and various others who, again, I can't name. People like One Direction, for example, are pretty harmless as far as I know, they're just a boy band who are completely manufactured for the media of teenage girls between about 10 and 20 y/o. I'm not saying that only celebrities like these do it, in sure loads of great bands out there who try to force their ideas upon their fans. So, sure this might just be me whining about pop culture again but these celebrities are always being filmed or photographed so they should try be somewhat responsible with what they say. I very much doubt that there are all that many grunge bands or punk bands with as big a following as, say, Beiber or 1D do. This mainly because the media is only interested in these pop artists who bring in a lot of money for them. I dunno, I guess that's me now, please remember that I'm sick so if this isn't very coherent it might because of that.

    Ruska

Shangri La!!!

So I got the date wrong, Jake Bugg's new album didn't come out on Monday the 18th cos I'm listening to it now and it's Sunday. Clearly it came out on Friday or something, which does make a little bit more sense. I went into HMV on Saturday and it was there whic made me very happy. I'm not a hundred prevent sure about my thoughts on it yet, I mean I do like it a lot but there's a few songs there that I'm not sure about... Maybe they'll grow on me, maybe they won't. Either way there are some brilliant songs on it and I've listened to it a total of seven times since I got home yesterday evening, much to my dad's distaste. He does like the first album but he's much more skeptical about this one which is a shame but I don't care that much cos I do actually really like it.

There's the cover. 

I'm in a really good mood now. 

Anyway gonna go now,

      Ruska

 

In Defence of Jake Bugg

     There's some scandal about Jake Bugg which is basically (from what I saw on Tumblr) that he had sex with some fans of his, which I agree isn't the most amazing thing he could've done, but it is his choice and I'm pretty certain the girls definitely not objecting (why would you),  so why is this a scandal? Why are people making such a big fucking deal out of something like that? I mean think about, if there were hundreds upon hundreds of attractive people of the gender you're interested in (dunno of you're a girl or guy and then you could also be gay, I'm keeping the options open) declaring their love for you and throwing themselves at you, you'd find it hard to resist. Also he's 19 from my knowledge of teenagers they tend to be horny a lot [even more so the older they are, as in teenage-wise(does that make sense?)], I mean I know I am (god, I hope this won't be the time a parent or family member decides that they should look at the blog). So Jake Bugg is a teenager with a sex drive who fucked a few girls who were, as far as I know, about his age. Whatever, who gives a fuck, it's just stupid shit that's completely irrelevant to your life and doesn't actually matter. Sure there'll be a few idiots who complain about it but I don't care, not really. So, why the fuck am I writing this post then? Because of the fucking idiots that say stuff like 'I try not to let it bother me but I can't help but feel this sense of disgust when I listen to his music now' and other shit like that. I mean that's just bullshit, seriously think about it, why the fuck do his actions have any effect on his music (which is bloody amazing). I'm going to use Justin Bieber (I spelled that wrong again but apparently the iPhone can spell it now) as an example, I hate him as a person because he's a jerk and tries to force his beliefs on his fans ['I believe abortion is wrong and think all my fans should think so too', it's not word for word what he said but pretty much it (I can't remember quotes that well)] but his music are of no consequence to me, same as One Direction, I don't give a shot about th and I find their music vaguely annoying but they have nothing to do with me. So Jake Bugg, you either like his music, or you don't, simple as that. You could hate him as a person and be absolutely in love with his music and to be honest he probably doesn't give a shit if you don't like him. So just get the fuck off my dash with your bullshit. 

     Also I can't help but wonder how this came out, did the girls boast about it online or something? I kinda doubt he did it himself and I guess it'd be a pretty big bragging right to have but could you not just do it among your friends rather than put it on the internet where anyone can find it and blow it out of proportion like was done here, I mean come on. Didn't they see this coming? Whatever, I'm done, I'm just gonna ignore the bullshit, got me pretty pissed off though, needed to rant a little. So I'll leave you with a picture of the lovely Jake Bugg. 

Tschüss, 

Ruska

The Strypes (and other stuff about my life right now)

     I know I talk about them a fair bit now but I'm ridiculously excited about the Strypes album that's combing out this Friday. It's called Snapshot and is being released earlier in Ireland than, I think, anywhere else, for obvious reasons (they're from Cavan). They're playing at midday at the reopening of HMV on Henry Street and I've received permission to bunk off school (I call it mitching but I dunno if anyone else does). It's times like these that I really appreciate how great my mum is, I can't tell my dad though because he would be fairly pissed about it. 

     I dunno if anyone actually reads this blog, I've stopped checking the stats because I'd become slightly obsessive over them, the whole not posting much all summer probably didn't do it much good... Weronika has basically stopped writing for the blog for a few reasons so its basically just me now, she's started writing a book apparently so that's taking up a load of her time, that and her mad exercise regime coupled with the start of school just leave her without a whole lot of time. I don't have all that much time either with me being in 5th year (second last year of school) and getting loads of homework but I've got the weird 3-4 hours of sleep a night thing going on so I've got most of the night to write and read and shit like that. 

     Anyway, back to the Strypes, if anyone who lives in Dublin and isn't busy in the middle day and has a vague interest in that kind of music reads this blog I recommend you come along, it's a music shop so I presume it's free to get in and it's really good music (and it's HMV!!) So yeah, that's about me 'cept for the fact that I got an iPhone and am typing this on it nothing much is new.

     Cya,

     Ruska 

Live music and other things vaguely related to the topic

     In relation to live music I almost don't care what the music playing is like, as long as there's energy behind the playing of the music it doesn't bother me about the music itself, very much. Obviously the better the music, the better the gig, that's just logic. I also like to know the music, again not necessary but it tends to help. Then again I've been at so many gigs with bands I'd never even heard of and they've been amazing. What I would consider as the best gig I've ever been to was just recently, on my birthday, I went to see Nine Inch Nails at Belsonic in Belfast. That was an amazing gig and I had never listened to their music beforehand, now I'm a big fan, or at least a moderately big fan. Where you are really effects your experience, if you're right at the back and unable to see its going to be a bit shit, likewise if you're right at the front it'll be amazing. For example, a few days before my birthday we went to see Regina Spektor in the Olympia in Dublin, downstairs there is standing and the balconies are seated and further away from the state. Now both me and my mother were fairly tired that day and Regina's soft and pretty slow music added with the far away seats with very little sight of her just had us falling asleep halfway through the show. We left early and I felt ridiculously guilty even though we only left about two or three songs from the end. Needless to say I haven't listened to her music since. The Strypes are another example of an amazing gig but I think for me that was solely for the music, as I am a pretty big fan. On the topic of the Strypes, they're releasing their first album this Friday (only in Ireland though, England gets to wait till Monday) and they're playing a gig on Friday at midday at the reopening of HMV on Henry street, that combines my two favourite things in the world, ever.  The Strypes and HMV in one and near me too!!! Unfortunately it's a school day and I very much doubt my mum will allow me to skip school for that :'( 

Ruska

Aram Zam Zam

      Hello my dear munchkins, I have come to a decision to entertain/torture you with a song. My cousin showed it to me a while ago and I still have it stuck in my head, just like her whole class who discovered the song on YouTube. I hope this releases strong emotions in you, whether it's joy or pain, I don't really care. Have fun and Aram Zam Zam Aram Zam Zam...

Goodbye my munchkins,

Your master, Weronika

Green Day

     These guys were going to have to come up eventually. Anyone who knows me, knows that I went through a phase of obsessing over them. Now don’t get me wrong, I still love them but I’m over that phase of thinking that everything Green Day related is amazing because some of the stuff they do is just really shit. I’ve come to a point in my life where I’m happy to listen to a variety of music, I used to just find a band I liked and listen them to death and I almost did that with these guys. So anyway, onto the band, Green Day consists of four members: Billie Joe Armstrong; Tre Cool; Mike Dirnt; Jason White. Jason is the newest addition to the band; he played back up guitar for years when they were touring and was included in their most recent releases. Tre Cool (not his real name, obviously) joined after their first drummer left to go to college (I think they were about 19). Mike and Billie Joe are both original members of the band. They got really huge on releasing their second album, Dookie, in 1994, which is their best to date. They've released eleven albums so far, which are all fairly good bar their last three. They just recently released a trilogy, the albums are creatively named ‘Uno’, ‘Dos’ and ‘Tre’, which I think on their part was not a good idea. Within the three albums there are a few really good songs but also loads of awful ones, I think they could've made one reasonably good album out of the three. My favourite album was the one that was released 3 years before I was born, Dookie. I also love Nimrod and Insomniac but Dookie is definitely the best album they have. I’ll include my favourite song by them down there, please give them a listen if you somehow don’t know their stuff already, you never know you might like them. Oh and just to clarify they aren't really punk these days, more pop-punk. I could go on about because, as I said earlier, I used to obsess over them but I'm not gonna, that's what Wikipedia is for. I've given you my opinions on them and probably will give more at some point but that's it for now.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Music Taste Again

     This is another post on music taste but this time by a different author. I can't really describe my music taste as I don't know what to classify as what genre. Although I think I can say I'm mostly into rock, I'll just name a few bands and songs and stuff.
     My music taste derived from my dad, like Ruska's. It all starts with him listening to something, I start liking it and want it. That's how I started listening to most the bands I like. Of course, there were others which I got to know from my friends.
     Bands I like include; Guns 'n Roses, Skid Row, System of a Down, Papa Roach, My Chemical Romance and 100 Monkeys. Those would be the main ones, however there is a lot more.
     Some times I might just like a song or two by a certain artist. This happened recently with a song by Pain. I have never heard any of their songs before but this one; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPww8cRQv1o which is called 'Shut Your Mouth' grabbed my attention. I really liked the video to it too.
     I also have a liking for songs in other languages. While I mostly listen to songs in English, I listen to some Polish ones and particularly enjoy German ones, such as that from Rammstein. I also Recently found a song in Spanish which I really enjoyed. It's played by a Finnish band called Apocalyptica. Usually they don't have vocals, however sometimes get guest performers to sing. The song 'Solo Tu'; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4kc87gqVnc, is sang by Erik Canales and it's one of the best songs I've heard by them.
     Finally, I don't really hate any type of music. Obviously there is music I wouldn't listen to such as Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber. However, I don't actually have a problem with it. Sure it might get on my nerves when I hear it but if people like it then what's the problem? I don't expect everyone to like the same music as me and I respect their choices because in my opinion all music is good as long as it means something to you or gives you something. To be honest, sometimes I don't mind hearing some pop songs because they're catchy and upbeat, of course I would never turn them on myself.
     That's it from me, feel free to tell us about your music taste and what bands/songs you like in comments or on out email; themunchkinblog@hotmail.com.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Your master, Weronika

Music Taste

     My music taste is kind of weird I like anything from Punk to 60’s and 80’s Pop. Much of my music taste originally derived from my fathers, ‘cept the punk stuff, but I guess in a way it did come from his music. It was thanks to him that I began to listen to Green Day, who aren't really punk anymore, and because of that I decided to listen to other punk stuff. Over the last few months I've really broadened my music taste. When I was younger I would decide that I liked one band, or sometimes maybe two, and listen to one or two CD’s on repeat until I grew so sick of them I couldn't stand listening to them at all, which is a shame because I did like some decent music occasionally. Nowadays, I listen to a huge variety of music so I no longer get sick of it. I think this started when I started to get sick of Green Day and Nirvana, both amazing bands, so I decided to mix it up a little bit so I could still listen to them without wanting to shoot somebody.

     What I listen to now is anything really, actually no, that’s a lie. I have this big list of genres that I don’t like very much. Some of them I hate, like modern pop and jazz, whereas, some of them I just don’t much enjoy, like reggae or metal. I could give a long list of genres of music I don’t like, but I’m not going to. I could also give you an equally long, possibly longer, list of genres in music that I do like, but I’m also not going to do that. I like various genres of rock and random other stuff. I made this wallpaper with a few of my favourite bands on it; I’ll post that up somewhere in this post, I guess.

     I’d just like to back up Weronika’s last post about ‘Bagels’ (the band). Read that and check them out please!!!  

     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Here you go:

Bagels!!!

      A while ago Ruska wrote about this band called 'The Strypes'. Well now I'm going to write about this great band called 'Bagels', yes 'Bagels' without 'The' in front of it. They're an upcoming band and busk on the streets of Dublin but they're still amazing.
     The band consists of four guys: Adam, Ciaran, Jack and Jamie. They have some of their own songs which is great, you can check them out here; https://soundcloud.com/#bagelsband-1. Also, you can find them on facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/BagelsBand?fref=ts. Check them out and give them your support.
     They were recently taking part in the 'School of Rock' competition organised by Phantom 105.2. Tons of bands took part and 'Bagels' got to the finals. Here's the link to their final performance for the competition in the Sugar Club; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuG3RAAtTbY. Unfortunately, they didn't win, however still got into the best six in Dublin. I think that makes them worth listening to.
     Now for all of you that still aren't convinced, I must say they're four sexy boys. If you don't believe me you might want to watch them play on youtube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwMOCC6kwl0 (link to one of the songs they played while busking)
     Finally, for any of you munchkins living in Dublin or going there, you can see them play every Saturday in Temple Bar for The Never Alone Collective. It's a great cause and aims to help teenagers and prevent suicide. Also, you can find them busking (also on Saturdays) somewhere along Grafton Street. They're really good and have fun playing so once again, check them out, it really is worth it.
     Goodbye my munchkins
     Your master, Weronika

Eurovision 2013

     The Eurovision this year was held in Mälmö in Sweden. There are six countries which automatically get through every year, they are: UK; Germany; Italy; Spain; France and the winner of the previous year's Eurovision. Other than that there are 33 countries which take part in the semi-finals on the Tuesday and Thursday before the final (Saturday). Some of them were fairly uninteresting but a few really stood out, the Greeks, for example, had a song called 'Alcohol is Free' which was probably one of the best songs to get into the finals. Whereas Finland had this fairly atrocious song called 'Marry Me' but it got votes because of the twist at the end, which was actually kind of nice. But the song itself was fairly awful.
     One of the most interesting songs to get into the final, though, was Romania, with their song 'It's My Life', it had almost naked men, and one woman, a male opera singer who sung higher than any girl I know can and he was in a dress, he only got 65 points overall though and was stuck down in 13th place.
     I feel the need to talk about both first and last place because they must have been a special sort of something to have gotten that result. In first place was Denmark, who had won before all the votes had been counted, so you'd think they were fairly amazing, right? They really weren't, they were the typical Eurovision type of song without quite being Euro-Trash and that's why they won. They entered with a song called 'Only Teardrops' and got 281 points, only two of the 39 countries voting didn't give them anything. Here in Ireland we gave them 12 points. Ireland on the other hand were the definition of Euro-Trash, we had shirtless men beating drums and dancing around, all with identical Celtic tattoos, our singer, Ryan Dolan, was dressed almost head to toe in leather and we had a female background singers, who really weren't concentrated on. Our song was called 'Only Love Survives', cheesy as hell, only got us a total of five points. The fact that England, our only neighbours, gave us one point proves how bad we were. We were kind enough to give them seven points anyway.
     My favourite song in the entire competition, though, was the Montenegrin song 'Igranka'. It was a hip-hop song, which is to be honest one of my least favourite genres of music, but in Eurovision it's all about the show and they had a pretty amazing one. The band 'Who See' consisted of three people, one woman and two men. The woman was dressed fairly normally, for Eurovision that is, while the men were in space suits. The entire show was pretty amazing but, unfortunately, Montenegro only got 41 points, and came twelfth out of the sixteen in the first semi-final. Here's the official video, not quite the same, but you get the idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BmHI_57vJk
Goodbye my munchkins,
Ruska

The Strypes

     So there's this band from Cavan, in the midlands of Ireland called the Strypes. They are about 15 or 16 years old and have already got a record deal with Mercury Records and have released an EP 'Young, Gifted and Blue' a few months ago. I saw them October in this tiny little cafe called the Little Green Cafe. They were doing an acoustic set of about 5 songs and there were only about seven people in there. A few weeks later they began to get well known around both England and Ireland. I saw them live again in December or January in a bigger venue, it was an amazing gig and I really love their music and think that you should listen to it. So that's me I think, I've included one of their more recent singles 'Blue Collar Jane' so give it a listen.

Goodbye my munchkins,
Ruska