Exams are over and with that the end of my time at the University of Sheffield is sadly nigh. Thought I'd talk a bit about one of the bands who really got me through what is always a gruelling and consistently dull period.
Firstly though I've in the past couple of days had to face the nagging realisation that what will in all probability be the best period of my life has reached its conclusion. University is everything it's cracked up to be and more and this should never be over stated. Faced with the grave question of what's coming next, some are as clueless as the next person while others are self assured and readying themselves to enter the world of full time work. Personally I would consider myself one of the inbetweeners - back off to mummy and daddy's to get what will in all honesty probably turn out to be a highly unstimulating job for a year before I return to the grind of full time education at Cardiff completing an MA in Journalism which will in no way guarantee me an immediate job. It's both exciting and panic-inducing.
For us history students our final semester consisted of a new and largely pointless module dubiously dubbed 'The Uses of History'. This module consisted of us questioning the entire releveance of our degree and how history as a subject can be 'applied' to the wider world. It's been a constant source of frustration to hear talk of the 'transferrable skills' aspect of the degree rather than just being left alone to pursue our own interests and we've constantly been fed the idea that history is most definitely not the be all and end all and that there are a variety of career options open to us which have absolutely nothing to do with History.
Looking back though, there has not been a single day in the past three years when I've questioned the 'usefulness' of what I'm doing and it's something which I will always look back upon with a smile.As pointless a musing as ever but one which I really felt I wanted to get down in some form.
Anyone whose seen the delightful French comedy The Intouchables (sitting comfortably in IMDB's top 100) will have heard a track called 'Red Lights' by the oddly-named Leeds music collective Vib Gyor (so named as it's an acronym of the colours of the rainbow). Vib achieved moderate success including airtime on BBC Radio's 1 and 6 but had difficulties and in 2010 two members Dave Fendick and Jonny Hooker broke away and formed Fossil Collective. Anyone who's been lucky enough to come across their music up until now will no doubt have been taken in by the lilting guitars and Fleet Foxes-esque vocals but to anyone unfamiliar, I speak of them in high terms.
Debut album Tell Where I Lie was released in April but their music had been doing the rounds for quite a while, an EP with lead single 'Let It Go' being issued in July of last year.While the album has yet to propel them to anything near the heights of the likes of Fleet Foxes, it has helped them achieve a solid following in the UK, two of which are friends of mine who went to see them play at Sheffield's Harley a number of weeks ago and were full of praise for the duo. These two even got a chance to speak to support act Joe Banfi, subject of the blog a couple of months back (plugging my blog on my own blog, who the hell do I think I am). I've linked 'Let It Go' along with another crowd-favourite, 'On and On'. These songs exhibit some of the finer strengths of the duo but the whole album is worth a listen and is great for annoyingly long periods of study to act as background music.
This album cover has to be the definition of epic.Cracking beards.
Away from Yorkshire, Birmingham's finest mood-rockers Editors are readying a fourth LP and I was shown a little sample of it the other day. This new track 'Honesty' is vintage Editors - soulful, emotional and a return to their guitar-led sound of albums one and two. The synths appear to have been ditched.
Cheers to all for reading and let's hope this hangover cures itself soon before death becomes a more readily available option.
Max
For us history students our final semester consisted of a new and largely pointless module dubiously dubbed 'The Uses of History'. This module consisted of us questioning the entire releveance of our degree and how history as a subject can be 'applied' to the wider world. It's been a constant source of frustration to hear talk of the 'transferrable skills' aspect of the degree rather than just being left alone to pursue our own interests and we've constantly been fed the idea that history is most definitely not the be all and end all and that there are a variety of career options open to us which have absolutely nothing to do with History.
Looking back though, there has not been a single day in the past three years when I've questioned the 'usefulness' of what I'm doing and it's something which I will always look back upon with a smile.As pointless a musing as ever but one which I really felt I wanted to get down in some form.
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Anyone whose seen the delightful French comedy The Intouchables (sitting comfortably in IMDB's top 100) will have heard a track called 'Red Lights' by the oddly-named Leeds music collective Vib Gyor (so named as it's an acronym of the colours of the rainbow). Vib achieved moderate success including airtime on BBC Radio's 1 and 6 but had difficulties and in 2010 two members Dave Fendick and Jonny Hooker broke away and formed Fossil Collective. Anyone who's been lucky enough to come across their music up until now will no doubt have been taken in by the lilting guitars and Fleet Foxes-esque vocals but to anyone unfamiliar, I speak of them in high terms.
Debut album Tell Where I Lie was released in April but their music had been doing the rounds for quite a while, an EP with lead single 'Let It Go' being issued in July of last year.While the album has yet to propel them to anything near the heights of the likes of Fleet Foxes, it has helped them achieve a solid following in the UK, two of which are friends of mine who went to see them play at Sheffield's Harley a number of weeks ago and were full of praise for the duo. These two even got a chance to speak to support act Joe Banfi, subject of the blog a couple of months back (plugging my blog on my own blog, who the hell do I think I am). I've linked 'Let It Go' along with another crowd-favourite, 'On and On'. These songs exhibit some of the finer strengths of the duo but the whole album is worth a listen and is great for annoyingly long periods of study to act as background music.
This album cover has to be the definition of epic.Cracking beards.
Away from Yorkshire, Birmingham's finest mood-rockers Editors are readying a fourth LP and I was shown a little sample of it the other day. This new track 'Honesty' is vintage Editors - soulful, emotional and a return to their guitar-led sound of albums one and two. The synths appear to have been ditched.
Cheers to all for reading and let's hope this hangover cures itself soon before death becomes a more readily available option.
Max
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