@blitzlowin​ /cracks knuckles/ i do this for u. there is no order to this list, but here we go -

the jasmine throne - 2021, epic fantasy. fantastic. lesbeans. just gorgeous worldbuilding, and the main characters Priya and Malini are likeable and smart while they’re maneuvering around each other and the other moving pieces in a colonized country under the thumb of an empire that’s rapidly taking a turn towards war. the cover for book 2, the oleander sword, just dropped, and I’m dying.

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the luminous dead - 2019, scifi/horror. lesbeans, with even more emphasis on the morally grey aspects this time. absolutely fucking terrifying - the threats in this alien caves are very real, stacked with the psychological tension of having someone above control the caving suit that keeps you alive while underground for weeks at a time and the economic pressures of being trapped on a dead-end planet, leaving you no choice but to keep delving deeper...and deeper... 

again, the worldbuilding is insane. I reread it periodically and can never get over how well-paced the beats are. this is the kind of merch you get:

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iron widow - 2021, scifi/fantasy. the bisexual poly love triangle we’ve all been screaming about. I describe it as an inverse Pacific Rim, but you won’t get why until pretty much the final pages. all three of these have had morally dubious protagonists but in iron widow Zetian GOES OFF AND WE LOVE HER FOR IT. she’s chaotic furious. she’s unhinged in the best way. “May he stay unsettled.” the author themselves has described this as accidentally furry Dragonball Z with giant Pacific Rim robots and monsters, essentially. I have absolutely no idea what will happen with book 2 but I know it’ll be balls-to-the-walls insane (complimentary).

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the outside - 2019, cosmic horror scifi. lesbeans. humanity is ruled by AI gods throughout the stars, the angels are cybernetic post-human cogs in a repressive machine, and Yasira accidentally makes a scientific leap that invites in a disruptive, heretical, reality warping presence that destroys a space station. things spiral out of control from there. the second book didn’t hit as well for me (mostly because mysteriously it was half the length it needed to be? it goes from a novel to a sequel novella almost, so not sure what happened there) but the outside is 9/10.

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the world gives way - 2021. scifi. you will cry. like that’s it, it’s a short little novel written entirely to gut you. that is all.

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murderbot - scifi. I feel like everyone by this point has heard about/read murderbot by this point, but the fact is I can’t in good conscious leave it off a rec list. there are six books, now, a mix of novellas and one full length novel about Murderbot, and Martha Wells (bless her for this and for the Books of the Raksura, her series full of bi poly shapeshifters) apparently has a contract to write at least three more murderbot books so we’re set for life basically. Ms Wells has never let me down ever, in her life -

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the darkangel trilogy - 1982-1990. scifi/fantasy, though you may not realize the scifi at work at first. 

okay. okay listen. listen. hear me out. you read the first book description. it sounds like a traditional dracula hetero set up. Aerial and her mistress are kidnapped by the darkangel. it has an almost fairy-tale kind of logic to the magic system. it ends with Aerial literally exchanging her heart with the darkangel’s to save his life, causing him to fall in love with her. 

meredith ann pierce then spends the next two books deconstructing the consequences of that choice, as Aerial finds herself more and more estranged from the rest of the humanity-adjacent people of her world - including the darkangel himself - and becoming a sorceress whether she wants to be or not, inextricably linked to the sci-fantasy workings that keep their world turning under the light of a [spoilers] COMPLETELY IRRADIATED EARTH. ultimately she has to make a choice to give the darkangel his own choice back, and take up a responsibility that will leave her cut off from her humanity entirely but for one person who stays with her to the very end. meredith ann pierce’s meld of scifi and fantasy is what I aspire to - the worldbuilding is so subtle at first that you don’t even realize what’s happening until it happens. 

(do I like to imagine it ends on a slightly lesbean note because of that last part? maybe so...)

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tgcf/heaven official’s blessing - 2017, now being published officially in English starting with book 1 in December this year. putting the g in LGBT. before, I could have linked to the free online English translation, but everything has been taken down since it was licensed officially for publication. Xie Lian ascended to godhood 800 years ago, and through a series of catastrophes and extremely traumatic events was banished, ascended again, got banished again in even more disgrace, and spent the rest of that time wandering the world, luckless and alone, until he finally...ascended again. but the evil and mysteries that plagued him 800 years ago haven’t gone away, either. (MXTX also did MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the basis of the Untamed show.)

Gency kisses 40 plz

40. Tummy Kisses

Confession Time: My Bi agenda is still trying to get people into Baihu Genji/Valkyrie Mercy.

This is more ‘burying your face in fluff’ than ‘tummy kisses’ but eh. Consider this a continuation of the Aurora ficlet from last year.

------

The two adventurers made their camp on the east side of the mountain, partially to block the wind, partially to catch the first warming beams of the in in the next few hours. That light seemed an eternity away now, with all the darkness and cold and wind, but the fire was comfort enough in the meantime, and two troll skins stretched out on some long and crooked wooden boughs as a windbreak. Mercy had her wings wrapped around herself as she huddled close to the fire, a feathery mass from the chin down. Genji had his back to her at the edge of their camp, staring out at the mountains in the distance and the sharply glittering stars above them, his armor gleaming in the moon and fire light.

“So we’re not going to talk about it?” Mercy spoke behind him. Between the wind and way the snow muffled everything, any other person would have raised their voice, but she knew he could hear her.

Genji glanced back over his shoulder at her.

“The you-being-a-wind-spirit thing? The fact that it was your brother that left you in that state? Me dying but then... not?”

“I told you, you didn’t die, you just... froze,” Genji said with a slight shrugging gesture.

“Genji.”

“I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it,” Genji said in a huff before looking back out at the mountains.

“Me freezing or... everything?”

“You freezing is a part of everything!” said Genji swinging around to face her, “This--this isn’t something you just talk through like--like--a bad day or a confusing book! It’s---” he huffed and his shoulders slumped, “I don’t know... I found out what I was, but it wasn’t who i wanted to be...and--and I told you! I told you I was fine with just adventuring!” 

“But part of our quest was finding out who you were,” Mercy pushed up and shuddered in the wind as she stepped up next to him. 

“But what if I’m as bad as them?” Genji said quietly, “Deep down...” He felt something brush along the upper part of his back and saw that Mercy had stretched out one wing around him. 

“...I don’t think there’s a ‘Deep down’ with them,” said Mercy, looking out over the mountains, “They said so themselves: they blow on kings and paupers alike. Who you are--” she paused, thinking for a second, “You built up who you are by being around people. By caring about people. I don’t think the person I’ve come to know isn’t real just because he’s also a wind spirit.”

 “The way they didn’t care-- they just...” Genji trailed off again before flicking his ice blue eyes back at her, “And they were old. You could feel how old they were---Gods, how old am I?”

“I’m old too,” she bumped against him a little playfully.

He looked at her for a few seconds.

“You don’t take the form of a beast,” he said, quietly, “You don’t understand what it means to fear your true nature.”

“My nature reflects that of men, and there is just as much to fear there,” said Mercy, her wing weighing a little heavier on him, “All you can really do is be someone you’re content with seeing in the mirror.”

Genji drew in a long breath and huffed it out. “Valkyrie?” he spoke quietly.

“Yes?” she put a hand on his shoulder.

“...kill me if I become like them.” he said solemnly.

She gave his upper back a solid thump with her wing, prompting an ‘oof!’ out of him.

“Well you’re certainly as dramatic as them, I’ll give you that!” said Mercy with a huff, “I’ll make no such promise!”

“But--”

“Because it won’t come to that,” she said, letting the warmth ebb back into her voice, “I won’t let it, and you won’t either.”

Genji stared at her for a few seconds before glancing off, not rejecting her words but weighing them against his own fears.

“...I’m sorry,” Mercy said after a few beats, “i--I know this is you... and you wish it was happier... you wish it was kinder...but I think the choices you’ve made now show more about you than however many centuries you’ve spent as a wind.” 

Genji looked at her then, her fair face thin and weary in the wind and altitude. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Get some rest,” she said, touching the side of his face.

“Is that your way of saying, ‘I’m tired, come to bed?’” a near-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

“You didn’t freeze and thaw,” she replied, readjusting her wings around herself. 

“No, sleep sounds... nice.” The last word had barely left his tongue as sparkling, ice-blue light spiraled around his form, shifting it to that of a silvery tiger. At the first sight of the lights Mercy smirked and turned, walking back to the tent, and he padded through the snow behind her, letting the sharpened scents take his mind away and taking in the moment around him. Mercy was nestling into her bedroll as he slipped in the tent after her, curling up on his side, facing her. Mercy inched over close to him, before languidly laying her arm over his side and burying her face in his chest, surfacing as she drew a slow, sleepy breath. 

“For what it’s worth,” she said, her voice drifting off as he curled around her a bit more, “You’re the warmest wind I’ve ever known.”

So at the start of 2019, I made the resolution to read more books! I used to be a voracious reader as a kid, but between college and grad school I kind of...forgot how to do that? So I got myself a library card (clutch, tbh) and spent the year enjoying free books and audiobooks!

Below the cut are the books that I read with short reviews about them. They aren’t the only books I started, but the cool thing about a library card is that since the books are free, you don’t feel bad about not finishing them if you don’t like them! 

Take a gander, maybe you’ll find your next favorite read!

Brief summary, meaning my favorite books of the year: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, and An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green!

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes 7/10 IDK if I enjoyed this because of nostalgia or because it was the first book I borrowed with my fancy dancy library card but either way it was nice to read a first hand account of one of my favorite movies, written by an actor that obviously feels a lot of affection towards it. Snaps to you, Cary Elwes.

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo 7/10 I read it because it was Wonder Woman! She saves a girl who washes up on the shores of Themyscira and goes on an adventure to save her from ancient magic forces. TBH it wasn’t anything earth shattering but it was a fun, adventurous read and an entertaining story. Minus two points because Leigh Bardugo got paid to write fanfiction and I haven’t achieved that yet.

The Selection by Keira Cass 6/10 It was interesting enough to finish the audiobook, and I continued it because I was curious as to what would happen. It’s almost like a medieval AU of The Bachelor. But then the dreaded love triangle came up and I didn’t like where it was going so I didn’t finish the sequel. Entertaining enough, but not one I would go back to.

Wicked Appetite / Wicked Business / Wicked Charms by Janet Evanovich 6/10 Again, juuuuuuuust interesting enough for me to finish the audiobooks. It was the first audiobooks I got with ye olde librarie carde so that’s probably why I was so attached to finishing them. Also it’s about a girl that has magic baking powers, which is also probably why I wanted to finish it. She has to track down dragon balls or something I can’t really remember but it wasn’t bad.

Outlander / Dragonfly in Amber / Voyager by Diana Gabaldon 8/10 I LOVED Outlander, loved Dragonfly in Amber slightly less, and could barely finish Voyager. The series is about a British WWII nurse who gets sent back in time to 1793 Scotland and has to navigate all that mess. Jamie Fraser and eventually Fergus are the crown jewels of this story. Outlander was fantastic to me, it was interesting and funny and saucy and all in all a good story about time travel and the repercussions. There’s like, five more books in the series but again, I lost interest. I’ll probably go back and see what happens though cause I think Gabaldon brings in new characters.

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff 8/10 A book about women spies in WWII France?? Fighting the Nazis and falling in love and being heroes?? Loved it. The characters were real and the fear palpable. Minus two points cause the love subplot was a touch underdeveloped but who knows man war changes things.

A Conjuring of Light by VE Schwab 9/10 The third in the series starting with A Darker Shade of Magic. I loooooooved the characters in this story, the plot twists were exciting instead of annoying, and the way that she uses magic and secrets and reveals were perfection. And I actually really enjoyed the ending, which is surprising. Would read again.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green 9/10 A super interesting story about a mysterious sculpture that appears in New York and the subsequent fallout of crazy things that happen. I listened to the audiobook and the narrators were perfect, the story is fast paced and has good twists and the characters are super real and relatable and fallible. TBH I read it cause it’s John Green’s brother (I assume, I didn’t fact check) and he did NOT disappoint. Minus one point just cause I can’t bring myself to give out 10′s a lot.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer 8/10 Honestly? People shit on this book but I really enjoyed it. It’s fun and heart wrenching and an interesting take on the Cinderella story. One of these days I’ll finish Scarlet which is the sequel.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 6/10 Holy shit this was way more intense than I anticipated it being. It was a really good take on time travel and the way it affects people. Truth be told I never saw the movie, but this book was crazy and saucy and super interesting. I didn’t give it a higher rating just cause the time traveler knew his wife since she was six and that doesn’t sit well with me.

Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 7/10 Both the movie and the book were good, with all the drama and heartache of 1) being a teenager and 2) coming out to the people around him. Very poignant and emotional. Didn’t give it a higher rating just cause it wasn’t super memorable to me? But then again, that’s cause I’m a twenty-something woman and not a teenage gay boy so while it was beautifully written and definitely a very important book, it just wasn’t one of my faves.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly 7/10 More women in WWII! Now with all this boss historical fiction coming out I can definitely see why guys are so obsessed with WWII. Then again, I think I would be obsessed with any stories detailing how badass women are during the war. It covers stories from all sides of the war - including the Nazis - and makes it seem so much more real. I started reading the sequel but it wasn’t quite as interesting.

The Diviners by Libba Bray 8/10 A fun fantasy mystery set in 1920′s New York! With ghosts and demons and magic powers and flappers! I really enjoyed it and am currently working on the sequel. The jargon is what really gets me like it’s so Great Gatsby but better. Would recommend.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi 7/10 A patient recommended this to me. It’s about a girl imprisoned because she has powers and that is Dangerous. It’s of course a post-apocalyptic military state situation, and she’s trying to escape and low key start an uprising. A really good story with a really interesting voice to the main character. Like, this writing style was SO DIFFERENT and amazing, I’ve never read anything like it. I didn’t continue the series just because the voice was SO good and in tune that it kinda stressed me out.

Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald 6/10 An A+ concept about a ghost in the New York subway and the man who loves her. It’s an interesting take on a lil paranormal romance. I loved the lore and the historical setting (it takes place in like, the 40′s) and really paints a fantastic scene!

Berserker by Emmy Laybourne 8/10 Listen, this book was not something historians will be talking about for years to come. But it’s about a family of siblings who have magic Nordic powers and have to escape Norway and come to the US (which is in prime Old West time) to find their uncle. And they meet a COWBOY. It’s a story about family and love and also occasionally killing people because you have the blood of Odin or some shit and honestly? Catered directly to me.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson 8/10 A fun and cool murder mystery set in a special fancy boarding school. Maureen Johnson has been one of my faves for a long time and she did not disappoint with this! It’s about a girl obsessed with a murder at the school, and she transfers in so she can solve it. And the TWIST at the END? Great!

An Ember in the Ashes / A Torch Against the Night / A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir 9/10 Another 9 because I can’t bring myself to give a 10, though if anything this series would get it. The voices that Tahir writes with are INCREDIBLE and the story is nuanced and compelling and so good. It’s about a teenager trying to save her brother from prison, as well as a guy graduating from assassin school. I don’t wanna say too much cause I don’t want to spoil if anyone reads it but tbh if you only pick one series PICK THIS ONE. If you like fantasy and stuff of course.

The Huntress by Kate Quinn 8/10 Listen. Mystery solving New York girl, post war. Men hunting former Nazis. Bicon Russian girl who was in the Russian Air force. Do I really need to say more? A phenomenal story that takes place before, during, and after WWII, and the wide variety of stories happening during that time. Great if you love historical fiction!

Sourdough by Robin Sloan 8/10 Just like Berserker this book probably isn’t something they’re gonna teach in English classes. But it’s about a girl who works in robotics on proprioception (!!!) and then?? Starts baking bread??? AKA everything I love in life so, you know, once again a book catering specifically to me.

Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riorden 7/10 As always, Riorden delivers a phenomenal story with phenomenal characters. And it includes populations that aren’t often the main characters in literature - a homeless teen and a Muslim teen, to name two. I haven’t continued the series just cause I got distracted with other things, but I totally want to.

I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones 7/10 A grand adventure that takes place over the course of one night in Atlanta. When a riot breaks out, two girls who haven’t spoken or really know each other are pushed together and spend the rest of the night trying to survive and make it home. It demonstrates two sides of life, and how they’re the same and how they’re different. I listened to the audiobook, which had phenomenal readers.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee 8/10 A story about a spoiled rich bi boy who’s going on one final tour of Europe before he has to settle down and run his family’s estate. His best friend and his sister are with him, and of course everything goes to hell in a handbasket. But it’s a crazy journey and an excellent coming of age story.

In The Woods / The Likeness by Tana French 8/10 AMAZING murder mysteries! The first is about the murder of a kid in Ireland, and the toll it takes on the investigators and people around them. It has an amazing twist at the end, and even though it takes a while for them to solve the murder, it never gets boring. Same with the second one! It’s a crazy situation that would never happen in real life, but she writes it SO WELL that i don’t even care! I will probably skip the third one cause it’s about a character I don’t really like and also takes place in the past before all of this, but I do want to continue reading these!

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark 8/10 A great book of essays written by the voices behind “My Favorite Murder,” which is a hilarious and semi-informative true crime podcast. But they talk about more than just true crime in the book - in fact, it’s more about things that they’ve learned throughout their crazy lives. Super eye opening and also really entertaining, and I actually listened to it before I even listened to the podcast, so I feel like that’s saying something!

In Itself - a Quiet Thing

On Ignis' gentle nature and how a father selected his son's Hand.

It had been a generation since these exams were held. After all, Regis' father didn't think he needed an advisor--he had been so sure that he could crush the war before his son took the throne. Now, though.... Well, now his son would become the King of Light. And the Astrals knew that Noctis would need all the help he could get. 

Regis looked over the exam's agenda one more time. It was very rigorously scheduled--four straight hours of ceaseless testing. As for the exam itself, it covered a broad scope of topics...and was not only designed to be impossible to finish in the allotted time, but each and every battle simulation was designed to be unwinnable. Scores were to be disregarded--he and Clarus were to look at how the children answered. It was almost assured at least one of the thirty children in the testing room would break down from the pressure during the examination, and as if his council hadn't already ensured the stakes would be high they wanted Regis to pace the halls around the exam room so the examinees would see him on their breaks and get nervous. With a sigh, the king pondered the morality around forcing so much stress on children. Yes, an advisor would need to be level-headed but the children testing were no older than eleven--these were levels of stress he wouldn't recommend for most adults. A knock sounded at his office door and he called for Clarus to enter. "Your Majesty, it's time." "To terrify children?" Regis quipped, earning an eye roll from his Shield. "To test them under pressure." --- True to his council's expectations, the children were definitely rattled by his appearance. A couple of them bowed, one little girl paled so much Regis feared she would faint, and most of the rest began to murmur quietly among themselves. He was only in his dress shirt and suit pants, but the ring on his hand gave away his position--and these children were all Lucian, they would recognize him regardless. Regis was concerned, though, as he took a back hallway back to his office fifteen minutes later. He had only counted 39 of 40 children. One may have been in the bathroom, (nobody had broken down yet, Clarus had informed him earlier), but even with as safe as the Citadel was, having a child roaming about still made him nervous. How many times had Noctis wandered into exactly where he wasn't supposed to be? He took another step forward and felt it--the shooting pain in his knee--and he allowed his body to sink to the floor in order to take pressure off of the leg. An old injury to his knee some ten years ago would occasionally flare and render the ligaments useless...doctors assured him it would be nothing more than a minor inconvenience until he was seventy but he doubted they considered the strain of the Wall. Pushing his back against the wall, Regis had resigned himself to wait it out; either he would be able to bear weight on the knee in a few moments or Clarus or Cor would find him shortly. Some king, left to slump in the halls of his own palace.... "...Sir? Are you okay?" The accent startled him first, then the higher pitch of the voice, and Regis whipped his head to the right to find himself looking at a young boy who had knelt down beside him. He must have approached as he fell, but...why was there a child from Tenebrae in the Citadel? "I...I'm fine, young man. I just have a bad knee, it hurts sometimes." Seafoam green eyes sharpened at him, and Regis swore the child had to be mentally chastising him. "People that are fine don't sit on the ground without a reason." Something told Regis that this was his 40th examinee. "If I told you I would be fine, would you believe that, then?" The child nodded briskly. "Yes. Do you want me to get help?" "Ah...no. It's alright. What are you doing here?" The little face went from concerned to reassuring, and he patted Regis' much larger hand as a silent comfort. "I'm here taking a test." "Then shouldn't you be in your exam room?" "There was a question about Cosmogony on the test. They said we couldn't use the library but nobody said the mural was off-limits...I saw it coming in. Do you think I'll be in trouble?" Regis bit back a laugh at the honesty with which he'd just revealed his loophole. "Not at all. Maybe they should have given you more rules, hm?" Shoes clacked on the floor and he glanced up to see ever-vigilant Cor, face more drawn than usual. "Cor. I'm alright, come here and meet my new friend." The Crownsguard member approached, eyes swishing from Regis to the boy, and his perpetual frown deepened. "Hello." "This is my friend Cor," Regis said to his companion. "And I haven't gotten your name." "I'm Ignis, Ignis Scientia." The boy stood and extended his hand to Cor, who had to stoop to take it. He tugged at the soldier's hand and Cor cautiously leaned closer--Ignis whispered to him before turning back to Regis. "I have to go back to my test now. Take care." "He didn't ask for my name," Regis said as Cor knelt in front of him. "Didn't need to. Smart little guy." "Why do you say that?" Regis asked, wincing as the Immortal experimentally prodded his knee. "Told me to please help the king. Said he was trying to hide that he needed help."  Sighing, Cor looped Regis' arm over his own shoulders and stood, helping to support his weight. "Tell Clarus I want to see his exam," the king instructed. --- Ignis Scientia. A Scientia was a lesser member of his council, and the man had pulled him aside a few days prior. His nephew had recently come under his care, the boy's parents having been killed in an Imperial raid, and his nephew was interested in taking the examination to be the prince's advisor. Of course, he told Regis, his nephew was only six and he didn't expect him to score higher than the older participants, but, well...the boy liked puzzles and he was lonely. In the hallway, Ignis had shown himself to be gentle and clever, as well. Clarus was looking over the first section of his exam while Regis reviewed the second. "This equation is wrong," Clarus said, marking it. "...That's theoretical calculus and you and I both would get it wrong. And the boy is six." "The eleven year-old got it right." "And has had nearly twice as long to learn, Clarus." Regis looked up at the man. "An advisor needs more than sheer intelligence." "It is the first one he's missed out of 30," the Shield admitted. "I just want to make sure you consider the others as well, considering the boy charmed you." Regis continued to scan short answers (insightful, although it was jarring to see them in a child's handwriting) and check the answers for logic puzzles, already mostly decided when he turned to the next page and stopped. He read the lines twice before bursting into laughter, pushing the book to Clarus. Around 10:15 AM, I encountered King Regis in the hallway. Please make sure he sees a doctor about his leg. I'm concerned he's going to try to hide the injury. The Shield's eyes warmed at he looked at the writing. "And already primed to call a king on his shit, my friend." --- Where his uncle was beaming behind him, young Ignis was quietly subdued as he stood before the king. Regis couldn't stop the small smile that crossed his face when he saw the boy peering at his leg. "Ignis, do you know why I've called you here?" "Is it about my behavior last week, sir?" Regis frowned. "In the hallway? Whatever for?" "I didn't treat you with the proper respect, Your Majesty. Even though I knew you were...." "I was actually hoping you could enlighten me about that," Regis said. "Why did you act like you didn't know who I was?" Ignis darted his bright eyes to Clarus just behind Regis, to his uncle, to Cor at the entrance to the throne room. "...May I be honest?" Cautious. Considerate. Regis spared a glance to his Shield, who nodded. "Certainly, I ask for nothing less." "You were ashamed." Ignis is now staring at Regis' shoes, frowning. "When you fell, your face.... I thought it would hurt more if I recognized you." Clarus makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, a noise Regis has long since learned to associate with pride towards young Gladio. Cor is watching from the doorway, and Regis can see him mouthing "six years old" to himself. Clearing his throat, Regis replied. "That was very kind of you. I appreciate your...discretion." He's rewarded with a slow, soft smile in return. "You're welcome, sir." Regis begins to tell him about his score on the exam--highest overall--and is just about to praise Ignis on his clever solution to the Cosmogony question when his son's nursemaid hurries past Cor. "King Regis, sir! Noctis is...well, he's...." He knows the look on her face and sighs. "Another tantrum?" In hindsight, it shouldn't have surprised him at all when Ignis asked if he could follow. --- Clarus gingerly stepped out of the way of a teddy bear--in his rage, the young prince had inadvertently put a barrier around it, which meant impact would hurt. As his Shield made sure the other child was safely behind him, Regis watched from behind the doorway as Noctis sobbed out something he couldn't understand to the frantic maid. Ignis' eyes caught the light in that strange way again, and he silently stepped past Clarus and walked over to the red-faced prince, settling himself primly on the ground next to Noctis as he continued to cry. His son sensed the new person in the room and stilled for a moment, sniffling up at the other boy. "Hello," Ignis said, and Noctis began to shrink away. In return, Ignis leaned back so he was just a bit farther from the prince. "What's the matter?" Regis definitely hadn't been expecting his son--cheerful, usually, but shy--to reply. "...It's playtime," was all the four year-old offered. Ignis frowned at that, then looked at the toys that hadn't been thrown. Two cars and a track, a small pile of stuffed toys, two wooden practice swords. "Somebody was supposed to play with you?" "...Wanted Dad to," the smaller boy sniffed. "But he's too 'portant." "Well, I'm not too important," Ignis smiles. "I can play with you." "...Do you read?" "Yes." "Can we read stories?" "Yes," Ignis said again, rising and holding out his hand to the heir to the throne. Noctis took it. "But can you wash your face first?" --- A week later, Noctis smiles as he grasps Ignis' hand again--between both of his, this time--and Regis knows he's made the right decision.

5 U.K. Cities To Catch Great Live Music The very best British cities to hunt down homegrown musical talent. Cities U.K. Stephen Connolly | POSTED ON: August 16, 2019   The group, Mother Funkers, boogie down at Lakota, in Bristol. Photo Courtesy: Giulia Spadafora/Soul Media Musicians on tour are great, but nothing beats the floor-shaking reverberations of a crowd stamping for its hometown heroes. On my travels, whenever I catch a local artist playing a show the atmosphere around me completely changes. Instead of feeling like an unremarkable outsider, I suddenly feel the comfort of home, even if just for a couple of hours. The whole experience helps me see people in a new way—unguarded, open, and as familiar to me as old friends. For those keen on experiencing British music at its source, consider adding these U.K. towns to your bucket list and get to know the scenes—old and new. Visitors unaccustomed to the inconsistencies of British weather will be happy to know that good music can be enjoyed at all these places year-round at indoor venues, which will keep them dry and warm.   Manchester Although it can be hard to see beyond Manchester’s headline history of bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Oasis, arguably its biggest contribution to modern music was The Haçienda, a legendary nightclub. Throughout the 1980s, Manchester’s most important club was the de facto home of English dance music and the great populariser of the house sound of America. The city’s love affair with dance music remains central, but it’s now splintered into scenes that typify the diversity of Britain’s most linguistically rich city. Different sounds, different voices, and different cultures can be found across the town every night of the week. If hip hop is your thing, then the multi-talented LEVELZ collective regularly bring their raucous street knowledge to venues like YES (average price £12-15/Rs1,000-1,300), while on the other end of the spectrum, the much-respected trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra blends spiritual jazz with modern electronics at venues like Band on the Wall (£15-20/Rs1,300-1,700). For cutting-edge electronic music, try the dancehall flavours of the Swing Ting party at Soup Kitchen (£8-12/Rs700-1,000), or seek clandestine venues such as The White Hotel (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and Hidden (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) for the deep-digging selections of DJs and producers like Ruf Dug, the city’s own sonic cyberpunk. If it’s a full-on acid house experience you’ve come for then don’t miss Homoelectric(£12-20/Rs1,000-1,700), Manchester’s wildly hedonistic disco.   A busker lets his guitar gently weep in front of Big Ben. Photo By: Anatoleya/Moment/Getty Images Oxford With around six million visitors a year, Oxford is already high on many travellers’ wish lists. Guidebooks sing the city’s praises for having a historic heart where jumbles of elegant buildings cling to each other like lovers. However, in the rock and roll rooms underneath the dreaming spires, the city’s also been breeding bands like Ride, Supergrass, and the area’s most famous sons, Radiohead, since the 1990s—yet another reason to visit. For a city dominated by university life, perhaps it’s no surprise that the music scene in Oxford remains filled with clever young people with access to cheap instruments. To this day the town still thrums with intelligent indie rock bands such as Kanadia, MOTHER and Self Help. In recent years, by far the biggest band to come out of Oxford has been Foals, who’ve gone from house party gigs on Cowley Road to headlining arenas. The biggest players in town can be found at the 02 Academy (from £20/Rs1,700), while more independent sounds can be found at The Bullingdon (from £8/Rs700) and The Jericho Tavern (£8-15/Rs700-1,300), the latter being the fabled pub where Radiohead played their first show in their previous incarnation, On A Friday. If you’re in the mood for something less rambunctious the city also has a rich tradition of symphonic and choral music, fed largely by the presence of serious music students. Two good (and cheaper) places to start are the Oxford University Orchestra (£7-15/Rs600-1,300) and the Oxford University String Ensemble (£5-10/Rs400-850), both offering top-class talent. Glasgow At all turns, Scotland’s largest city keeps taking on its detractors and producing lively, life-affirming cultures that reject the narrative of the city as just a working class Edinburgh. From the hallucinogenic comic books of Grant Morrison to the caustic humour of comedian Frankie Boyle, Glasgow is filled with unapologetic outliers fashioning creativity in their own ways—its music scene being central to the city’s expressiveness. Glasgow’s been showing its pedigree for decades through massively popular acts such as Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand. It’s even responsible for one of the pop acts who dominated the British music charts in the 1980s and ’90s, Wet Wet Wet. Although, perhaps the less said about them the better. A fan savours the show and her bevvy at Manchester’s YES. Photo Courtesy: Jody Hartley Famous for the buzzing liveliness of its pubs, clubs, and locals, Glasgow is a place to find loud music and sweaty dance floors. A new breed of bands like Comfort and Hairband offer everything from industrial noise to melancholy pop music. They’re at their best in the city’s classic venues, from basement crowds of dive bar Nice’n’Sleazy (£5-10/Rs400-850) to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (£15-25/Rs1,300-2,150), labelled by some in the music press as “quite possibly the finest small venue in the world.” The Barrowland Ballroom (from £20/Rs1,700) is an unembellished temple of sound where the crowd bounces on the sprung wooden floor and the history of performers including David Bowie and Daft Punk fills the air. It all helps to create an atmosphere that makes it the favourite venue of bands including Metallica and Oasis. The city’s electronic music scene is no slouch either, with places like La Cheetah (£5-10/Rs400-850) and Sub Club (£5-10/Rs400-850), which are filled with the house and techno sounds of current favourites Denis Sulta and Jasper James. The uninitiated should pay a visit to Sub Club to see the DJ kings, Optimo, for a bit of insight into the importance of dance music in Glasgow. Bristol More than any other place on this list, Bristol’s music scene is the idiosyncratic result of its history. As one of the main slave trading ports in the 18th century, the population of this south-western city has long had significant influences from Africa and the West Indies. It was in the 1950s and ’60s, however, when immigration from the Caribbean expanded the already diverse population, that sound system culture made reggae and ska the default setting for house parties and street celebrations. The influence of those communities on the following decades of DIY post-punk bands like The Pop Group and hip-hop acts such as The Wild Bunch was critical. It was this bedrock of sound that led to the city’s biggest musical export, trip hop. In the 1990s, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky all represented Bristol with their beautifully strange, fiercely independent blends of gender and genre; rave and race. That’s a tradition that lives on today in the city that’s still regarded as a hotbed of innovation. In the 2000s, Shackleton and Appleblim’s Skull Disco label changed the course of dubstep with African polyrhythms, while today, Timedance, Idle Hands, Tectonic, and the Livity Sound imprints all continue to push the edges of underground bass music to psychedelic extremes. The best place to find electronic music is in venues like the hip, audiophile bar, The Love Inn (from £4/Rs350), or the darker, more diverse rave pit known as Lakota (£4-8/Rs350-700). For some of the biggest and most popular acts (from £15/Rs1,300), a connected set of abandoned warehouses voted as one of the best nightclubs in the world. It’s not all just dance music though because bands like Geoff Barrow’s (formerly of Portishead) Beak and current punk darlings, IDLES, are also pushing a different agenda. For guitar-based music get down to the cheap and cheerful Louisiana (£5-10/Rs400-850), a 140-person capacity venue that’s known as the place to find the next big things—The Scissor Sisters, Florence and the Machine, and The National all having made their Bristol debuts there. Alternatively, for everything from rock to classical head to the beautiful Colston Hall (£25-50/Rs2,150-4,300) where where past acts have included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Things get soulful at The Pickle Factory. Photo Courtesy: The Pickle Factory London Whether it’s via Eddy Grant’s stroll down Electric Avenue or The Kinks’ view of the Waterloo Sunset, most music fans have already met London, even if only through lyrics. More than any other city in the U.K., London’s polar mix of urban isolation and multicultural communion inspires and produces waves of new artists and important scenes. There’s something to suit every taste and budget, but if you’re interested in what’s really thrilling about London’s contemporary music culture, then it’s time to get away from the gargantuan stadium rock of the 02 Arena (from £40/Rs3,500). South of the river Thames you’ll find venues like Corsica Studios (£5-15/Rs400-1,300), and Rye Wax (£5-10/Rs400-850). In Shoreditch, to the north, there’s XOYO (£10-20/Rs850-1,700), while the east has the Pickle Factory (£10-15/Rs850-1,700). Varied as they are, all these places exemplify the kind of cross-pollination of musical styles coming out of the capital. Look out especially for the Rhythm Section record label’s parties, which bridge the gaps between house, techno, jazz, soul, hip-hop, and world music. Check the listings across the city and you’ll find a bubbling mixture that encompasses both live music and energetic, impromptu rave takeovers in bare-walled buildings. Particularly important in recent years years has been the south London jazz scene, which has flourished in established spots like Camden’s Jazz Cafe (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and the Hackney Arts Centre’s EartH space (from £20/Rs1,700). These are the places to head if you’re keen to see why artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Rosie Turton are cultivating so much love from a new generation of British music enthusiasts who pack the bars and clubs to hear their heroes play. (function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=440470606060560"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); http://cheaprtravels.com/5-u-k-cities-to-catch-great-live-music/?feed_id=9&_unique_id=5d5e1e4269e7c

5 U.K. Cities To Catch Great Live Music The very best British cities to hunt down homegrown musical talent. Cities U.K. Stephen Connolly | POSTED ON: August 16, 2019   The group, Mother Funkers, boogie down at Lakota, in Bristol. Photo Courtesy: Giulia Spadafora/Soul Media Musicians on tour are great, but nothing beats the floor-shaking reverberations of a crowd stamping for its hometown heroes. On my travels, whenever I catch a local artist playing a show the atmosphere around me completely changes. Instead of feeling like an unremarkable outsider, I suddenly feel the comfort of home, even if just for a couple of hours. The whole experience helps me see people in a new way—unguarded, open, and as familiar to me as old friends. For those keen on experiencing British music at its source, consider adding these U.K. towns to your bucket list and get to know the scenes—old and new. Visitors unaccustomed to the inconsistencies of British weather will be happy to know that good music can be enjoyed at all these places year-round at indoor venues, which will keep them dry and warm.   Manchester Although it can be hard to see beyond Manchester’s headline history of bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Oasis, arguably its biggest contribution to modern music was The Haçienda, a legendary nightclub. Throughout the 1980s, Manchester’s most important club was the de facto home of English dance music and the great populariser of the house sound of America. The city’s love affair with dance music remains central, but it’s now splintered into scenes that typify the diversity of Britain’s most linguistically rich city. Different sounds, different voices, and different cultures can be found across the town every night of the week. If hip hop is your thing, then the multi-talented LEVELZ collective regularly bring their raucous street knowledge to venues like YES (average price £12-15/Rs1,000-1,300), while on the other end of the spectrum, the much-respected trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra blends spiritual jazz with modern electronics at venues like Band on the Wall (£15-20/Rs1,300-1,700). For cutting-edge electronic music, try the dancehall flavours of the Swing Ting party at Soup Kitchen (£8-12/Rs700-1,000), or seek clandestine venues such as The White Hotel (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and Hidden (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) for the deep-digging selections of DJs and producers like Ruf Dug, the city’s own sonic cyberpunk. If it’s a full-on acid house experience you’ve come for then don’t miss Homoelectric(£12-20/Rs1,000-1,700), Manchester’s wildly hedonistic disco.   A busker lets his guitar gently weep in front of Big Ben. Photo By: Anatoleya/Moment/Getty Images Oxford With around six million visitors a year, Oxford is already high on many travellers’ wish lists. Guidebooks sing the city’s praises for having a historic heart where jumbles of elegant buildings cling to each other like lovers. However, in the rock and roll rooms underneath the dreaming spires, the city’s also been breeding bands like Ride, Supergrass, and the area’s most famous sons, Radiohead, since the 1990s—yet another reason to visit. For a city dominated by university life, perhaps it’s no surprise that the music scene in Oxford remains filled with clever young people with access to cheap instruments. To this day the town still thrums with intelligent indie rock bands such as Kanadia, MOTHER and Self Help. In recent years, by far the biggest band to come out of Oxford has been Foals, who’ve gone from house party gigs on Cowley Road to headlining arenas. The biggest players in town can be found at the 02 Academy (from £20/Rs1,700), while more independent sounds can be found at The Bullingdon (from £8/Rs700) and The Jericho Tavern (£8-15/Rs700-1,300), the latter being the fabled pub where Radiohead played their first show in their previous incarnation, On A Friday. If you’re in the mood for something less rambunctious the city also has a rich tradition of symphonic and choral music, fed largely by the presence of serious music students. Two good (and cheaper) places to start are the Oxford University Orchestra (£7-15/Rs600-1,300) and the Oxford University String Ensemble (£5-10/Rs400-850), both offering top-class talent. Glasgow At all turns, Scotland’s largest city keeps taking on its detractors and producing lively, life-affirming cultures that reject the narrative of the city as just a working class Edinburgh. From the hallucinogenic comic books of Grant Morrison to the caustic humour of comedian Frankie Boyle, Glasgow is filled with unapologetic outliers fashioning creativity in their own ways—its music scene being central to the city’s expressiveness. Glasgow’s been showing its pedigree for decades through massively popular acts such as Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand. It’s even responsible for one of the pop acts who dominated the British music charts in the 1980s and ’90s, Wet Wet Wet. Although, perhaps the less said about them the better. A fan savours the show and her bevvy at Manchester’s YES. Photo Courtesy: Jody Hartley Famous for the buzzing liveliness of its pubs, clubs, and locals, Glasgow is a place to find loud music and sweaty dance floors. A new breed of bands like Comfort and Hairband offer everything from industrial noise to melancholy pop music. They’re at their best in the city’s classic venues, from basement crowds of dive bar Nice’n’Sleazy (£5-10/Rs400-850) to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (£15-25/Rs1,300-2,150), labelled by some in the music press as “quite possibly the finest small venue in the world.” The Barrowland Ballroom (from £20/Rs1,700) is an unembellished temple of sound where the crowd bounces on the sprung wooden floor and the history of performers including David Bowie and Daft Punk fills the air. It all helps to create an atmosphere that makes it the favourite venue of bands including Metallica and Oasis. The city’s electronic music scene is no slouch either, with places like La Cheetah (£5-10/Rs400-850) and Sub Club (£5-10/Rs400-850), which are filled with the house and techno sounds of current favourites Denis Sulta and Jasper James. The uninitiated should pay a visit to Sub Club to see the DJ kings, Optimo, for a bit of insight into the importance of dance music in Glasgow. Bristol More than any other place on this list, Bristol’s music scene is the idiosyncratic result of its history. As one of the main slave trading ports in the 18th century, the population of this south-western city has long had significant influences from Africa and the West Indies. It was in the 1950s and ’60s, however, when immigration from the Caribbean expanded the already diverse population, that sound system culture made reggae and ska the default setting for house parties and street celebrations. The influence of those communities on the following decades of DIY post-punk bands like The Pop Group and hip-hop acts such as The Wild Bunch was critical. It was this bedrock of sound that led to the city’s biggest musical export, trip hop. In the 1990s, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky all represented Bristol with their beautifully strange, fiercely independent blends of gender and genre; rave and race. That’s a tradition that lives on today in the city that’s still regarded as a hotbed of innovation. In the 2000s, Shackleton and Appleblim’s Skull Disco label changed the course of dubstep with African polyrhythms, while today, Timedance, Idle Hands, Tectonic, and the Livity Sound imprints all continue to push the edges of underground bass music to psychedelic extremes. The best place to find electronic music is in venues like the hip, audiophile bar, The Love Inn (from £4/Rs350), or the darker, more diverse rave pit known as Lakota (£4-8/Rs350-700). For some of the biggest and most popular acts (from £15/Rs1,300), a connected set of abandoned warehouses voted as one of the best nightclubs in the world. It’s not all just dance music though because bands like Geoff Barrow’s (formerly of Portishead) Beak and current punk darlings, IDLES, are also pushing a different agenda. For guitar-based music get down to the cheap and cheerful Louisiana (£5-10/Rs400-850), a 140-person capacity venue that’s known as the place to find the next big things—The Scissor Sisters, Florence and the Machine, and The National all having made their Bristol debuts there. Alternatively, for everything from rock to classical head to the beautiful Colston Hall (£25-50/Rs2,150-4,300) where where past acts have included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Things get soulful at The Pickle Factory. Photo Courtesy: The Pickle Factory London Whether it’s via Eddy Grant’s stroll down Electric Avenue or The Kinks’ view of the Waterloo Sunset, most music fans have already met London, even if only through lyrics. More than any other city in the U.K., London’s polar mix of urban isolation and multicultural communion inspires and produces waves of new artists and important scenes. There’s something to suit every taste and budget, but if you’re interested in what’s really thrilling about London’s contemporary music culture, then it’s time to get away from the gargantuan stadium rock of the 02 Arena (from £40/Rs3,500). South of the river Thames you’ll find venues like Corsica Studios (£5-15/Rs400-1,300), and Rye Wax (£5-10/Rs400-850). In Shoreditch, to the north, there’s XOYO (£10-20/Rs850-1,700), while the east has the Pickle Factory (£10-15/Rs850-1,700). Varied as they are, all these places exemplify the kind of cross-pollination of musical styles coming out of the capital. Look out especially for the Rhythm Section record label’s parties, which bridge the gaps between house, techno, jazz, soul, hip-hop, and world music. Check the listings across the city and you’ll find a bubbling mixture that encompasses both live music and energetic, impromptu rave takeovers in bare-walled buildings. Particularly important in recent years years has been the south London jazz scene, which has flourished in established spots like Camden’s Jazz Cafe (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and the Hackney Arts Centre’s EartH space (from £20/Rs1,700). These are the places to head if you’re keen to see why artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Rosie Turton are cultivating so much love from a new generation of British music enthusiasts who pack the bars and clubs to hear their heroes play. (function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=440470606060560"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); http://cheaprtravels.com/5-u-k-cities-to-catch-great-live-music/?feed_id=8&_unique_id=5d5e1e3f34eef

5 U.K. Cities To Catch Great Live Music The very best British cities to hunt down homegrown musical talent. Cities U.K. Stephen Connolly | POSTED ON: August 16, 2019   The group, Mother Funkers, boogie down at Lakota, in Bristol. Photo Courtesy: Giulia Spadafora/Soul Media Musicians on tour are great, but nothing beats the floor-shaking reverberations of a crowd stamping for its hometown heroes. On my travels, whenever I catch a local artist playing a show the atmosphere around me completely changes. Instead of feeling like an unremarkable outsider, I suddenly feel the comfort of home, even if just for a couple of hours. The whole experience helps me see people in a new way—unguarded, open, and as familiar to me as old friends. For those keen on experiencing British music at its source, consider adding these U.K. towns to your bucket list and get to know the scenes—old and new. Visitors unaccustomed to the inconsistencies of British weather will be happy to know that good music can be enjoyed at all these places year-round at indoor venues, which will keep them dry and warm.   Manchester Although it can be hard to see beyond Manchester’s headline history of bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Oasis, arguably its biggest contribution to modern music was The Haçienda, a legendary nightclub. Throughout the 1980s, Manchester’s most important club was the de facto home of English dance music and the great populariser of the house sound of America. The city’s love affair with dance music remains central, but it’s now splintered into scenes that typify the diversity of Britain’s most linguistically rich city. Different sounds, different voices, and different cultures can be found across the town every night of the week. If hip hop is your thing, then the multi-talented LEVELZ collective regularly bring their raucous street knowledge to venues like YES (average price £12-15/Rs1,000-1,300), while on the other end of the spectrum, the much-respected trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra blends spiritual jazz with modern electronics at venues like Band on the Wall (£15-20/Rs1,300-1,700). For cutting-edge electronic music, try the dancehall flavours of the Swing Ting party at Soup Kitchen (£8-12/Rs700-1,000), or seek clandestine venues such as The White Hotel (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and Hidden (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) for the deep-digging selections of DJs and producers like Ruf Dug, the city’s own sonic cyberpunk. If it’s a full-on acid house experience you’ve come for then don’t miss Homoelectric(£12-20/Rs1,000-1,700), Manchester’s wildly hedonistic disco.   A busker lets his guitar gently weep in front of Big Ben. Photo By: Anatoleya/Moment/Getty Images Oxford With around six million visitors a year, Oxford is already high on many travellers’ wish lists. Guidebooks sing the city’s praises for having a historic heart where jumbles of elegant buildings cling to each other like lovers. However, in the rock and roll rooms underneath the dreaming spires, the city’s also been breeding bands like Ride, Supergrass, and the area’s most famous sons, Radiohead, since the 1990s—yet another reason to visit. For a city dominated by university life, perhaps it’s no surprise that the music scene in Oxford remains filled with clever young people with access to cheap instruments. To this day the town still thrums with intelligent indie rock bands such as Kanadia, MOTHER and Self Help. In recent years, by far the biggest band to come out of Oxford has been Foals, who’ve gone from house party gigs on Cowley Road to headlining arenas. The biggest players in town can be found at the 02 Academy (from £20/Rs1,700), while more independent sounds can be found at The Bullingdon (from £8/Rs700) and The Jericho Tavern (£8-15/Rs700-1,300), the latter being the fabled pub where Radiohead played their first show in their previous incarnation, On A Friday. If you’re in the mood for something less rambunctious the city also has a rich tradition of symphonic and choral music, fed largely by the presence of serious music students. Two good (and cheaper) places to start are the Oxford University Orchestra (£7-15/Rs600-1,300) and the Oxford University String Ensemble (£5-10/Rs400-850), both offering top-class talent. Glasgow At all turns, Scotland’s largest city keeps taking on its detractors and producing lively, life-affirming cultures that reject the narrative of the city as just a working class Edinburgh. From the hallucinogenic comic books of Grant Morrison to the caustic humour of comedian Frankie Boyle, Glasgow is filled with unapologetic outliers fashioning creativity in their own ways—its music scene being central to the city’s expressiveness. Glasgow’s been showing its pedigree for decades through massively popular acts such as Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand. It’s even responsible for one of the pop acts who dominated the British music charts in the 1980s and ’90s, Wet Wet Wet. Although, perhaps the less said about them the better. A fan savours the show and her bevvy at Manchester’s YES. Photo Courtesy: Jody Hartley Famous for the buzzing liveliness of its pubs, clubs, and locals, Glasgow is a place to find loud music and sweaty dance floors. A new breed of bands like Comfort and Hairband offer everything from industrial noise to melancholy pop music. They’re at their best in the city’s classic venues, from basement crowds of dive bar Nice’n’Sleazy (£5-10/Rs400-850) to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (£15-25/Rs1,300-2,150), labelled by some in the music press as “quite possibly the finest small venue in the world.” The Barrowland Ballroom (from £20/Rs1,700) is an unembellished temple of sound where the crowd bounces on the sprung wooden floor and the history of performers including David Bowie and Daft Punk fills the air. It all helps to create an atmosphere that makes it the favourite venue of bands including Metallica and Oasis. The city’s electronic music scene is no slouch either, with places like La Cheetah (£5-10/Rs400-850) and Sub Club (£5-10/Rs400-850), which are filled with the house and techno sounds of current favourites Denis Sulta and Jasper James. The uninitiated should pay a visit to Sub Club to see the DJ kings, Optimo, for a bit of insight into the importance of dance music in Glasgow. Bristol More than any other place on this list, Bristol’s music scene is the idiosyncratic result of its history. As one of the main slave trading ports in the 18th century, the population of this south-western city has long had significant influences from Africa and the West Indies. It was in the 1950s and ’60s, however, when immigration from the Caribbean expanded the already diverse population, that sound system culture made reggae and ska the default setting for house parties and street celebrations. The influence of those communities on the following decades of DIY post-punk bands like The Pop Group and hip-hop acts such as The Wild Bunch was critical. It was this bedrock of sound that led to the city’s biggest musical export, trip hop. In the 1990s, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky all represented Bristol with their beautifully strange, fiercely independent blends of gender and genre; rave and race. That’s a tradition that lives on today in the city that’s still regarded as a hotbed of innovation. In the 2000s, Shackleton and Appleblim’s Skull Disco label changed the course of dubstep with African polyrhythms, while today, Timedance, Idle Hands, Tectonic, and the Livity Sound imprints all continue to push the edges of underground bass music to psychedelic extremes. The best place to find electronic music is in venues like the hip, audiophile bar, The Love Inn (from £4/Rs350), or the darker, more diverse rave pit known as Lakota (£4-8/Rs350-700). For some of the biggest and most popular acts (from £15/Rs1,300), a connected set of abandoned warehouses voted as one of the best nightclubs in the world. It’s not all just dance music though because bands like Geoff Barrow’s (formerly of Portishead) Beak and current punk darlings, IDLES, are also pushing a different agenda. For guitar-based music get down to the cheap and cheerful Louisiana (£5-10/Rs400-850), a 140-person capacity venue that’s known as the place to find the next big things—The Scissor Sisters, Florence and the Machine, and The National all having made their Bristol debuts there. Alternatively, for everything from rock to classical head to the beautiful Colston Hall (£25-50/Rs2,150-4,300) where where past acts have included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Things get soulful at The Pickle Factory. Photo Courtesy: The Pickle Factory London Whether it’s via Eddy Grant’s stroll down Electric Avenue or The Kinks’ view of the Waterloo Sunset, most music fans have already met London, even if only through lyrics. More than any other city in the U.K., London’s polar mix of urban isolation and multicultural communion inspires and produces waves of new artists and important scenes. There’s something to suit every taste and budget, but if you’re interested in what’s really thrilling about London’s contemporary music culture, then it’s time to get away from the gargantuan stadium rock of the 02 Arena (from £40/Rs3,500). South of the river Thames you’ll find venues like Corsica Studios (£5-15/Rs400-1,300), and Rye Wax (£5-10/Rs400-850). In Shoreditch, to the north, there’s XOYO (£10-20/Rs850-1,700), while the east has the Pickle Factory (£10-15/Rs850-1,700). Varied as they are, all these places exemplify the kind of cross-pollination of musical styles coming out of the capital. Look out especially for the Rhythm Section record label’s parties, which bridge the gaps between house, techno, jazz, soul, hip-hop, and world music. Check the listings across the city and you’ll find a bubbling mixture that encompasses both live music and energetic, impromptu rave takeovers in bare-walled buildings. Particularly important in recent years years has been the south London jazz scene, which has flourished in established spots like Camden’s Jazz Cafe (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and the Hackney Arts Centre’s EartH space (from £20/Rs1,700). These are the places to head if you’re keen to see why artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Rosie Turton are cultivating so much love from a new generation of British music enthusiasts who pack the bars and clubs to hear their heroes play. (function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=440470606060560"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); http://cheaprtravels.com/5-u-k-cities-to-catch-great-live-music/?feed_id=7&_unique_id=5d5e1e3bf2055

America, armed and dangerous - Part 5

I will spend several posts analyzing this wonderful article by “The Week” - http://theweek.com/articles/731863/america-armed-dangerous

This post will focus on the third paragraph:

“Would tighter gun control laws reduce America’s unparalleled levels of gun violence? Here’s everything you need to know:

What have they proposed?

The most popular proposal — one supported by 85 percent of gun owners — is to expand mandatory background checks to all firearm sales, not just those involving licensed dealers, to make it harder for criminals and the mentally ill to buy firearms at gun shows or directly from individual sellers. Currently, 1 in 5 gun sales is completed without a background check. Two other possible measures are barring gun sales to people who have been arrested for domestic violence and barring sales to those on terrorist watch lists; both are opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) on due process grounds. Democratic lawmakers have tried without success to outlaw high-capacity magazines, which enable shooters to fire as many as 100 bullets without reloading, after they were used in the massacres at Newtown, Aurora, and Las Vegas. But all of these proposals, as well as proposed bans on assault-style weapons also recently favored by mass shooters, have been blocked by gun rights advocates.

Background Checks

Ah, Yes, the “gun show loophole”.  Except, it is not a loophole and not directly related to gun shows.  Currently, all firearms purchased through licensed dealers are required to go through the background check process.  It is only private sellers (those who do not make a living selling firearms) who do not have to do the process.  This is not a “loophole”.  It was intentionally written into the original law as a means of allowing transfers among private individuals.  And the only thing it has to do with gun shows is that some sellers at gun shows are private individuals selling their own firearms. This has not stopped the anti-gunners from making wild claims about sales with no background checks, including the tried and true “40% of all guns sales occur without a background check”. Many, such as Hilary Clinton have gone even further, saying that this 40% was mostly online and at gun shows.  This article:  http://www.factcheck.org/2013/03/guns-acquired-without-background-checks/ covers this claim very well stating that:

Both of those statements were based on a single 1994 telephone survey on private gun ownership conducted by the Police Foundation and funded by the Justice Department. The survey asked the 251 participants who had acquired guns in the previous two years, “Was the person you acquired this gun from a licensed firearm dealer?” The answer choices were “yes,” “probably was/think so,” “probably not,” “no/definitely not,” “don’t know” and refuse to report. Cook and Ludwig found that 64.3 percent of those surveyed (Table 3.14) said that they had purchased or traded for a gun that came from a licensed dealer or “probably” did. The 40 percent figure comes from assuming that the remaining 35.7 percent — which has been rounded up — did not.

At least in this article, they have reduced it to 1 in 5, a claim for which I can find no real supporting data. One problem with all of their alleged surveys is that they call people and ask a question.  But, how do you know people are telling the truth, for starters? And, who in their right mind would give out information like this to a random caller?  I certainly would not.

And, finally, where is the hard statistical data showing that private, no background check, sales are a real issue?  How many crimes are committed with these weapons?  We already know that out of nearly 35,000,000 annual deaths and non-fatal injuries in this country, only 122,000 have anything to do with a firearm (CDC WISQARS System, 2015, fatal and non-fatal databases). How many of these were a private sale, no background check, firearm?

 Excluded Individuals

Two other possible measures are barring gun sales to people who have been arrested for domestic violence and barring sales to those on terrorist watch lists; both are opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) on due process grounds.

Imagine that, due process concerns with regards to losing a constitutional right merely on the basis of being arrested for something, but not necessarily being convicted.  And we all know that the wonderful terrorist watch list is foolproof. Just ask Congressman John Lewis, 6 year old Alyssa Thomas of Ohio, Brigadier General James Robinson, Former US Attorney James Robinson, and 3rd Grader James Robinson. (see a pattern?).  Yes, by all means, let’s use this list as a means of stripping Constitutional rights from our Citizens.  Now, many anti-gunners would, and do, argue that the “minor inconvenience” to “some” individuals is acceptable, and the price of making everyone much “safer”.  So, is that where we are at now?  Create the illusion of safety by stripping away our constitutional rights?

That damn NRA and it’s due process concerns…………

 High Capacity Magazines

Amazing that this tired argument continues to be made by the anti-gunners.  Here is an excerpt from my book regarding this issue.  I am referencing the congressional testimony of Mr. David Kopel:

With regards to "high capacity magazines,” Mr. Kopel addressed that as well.  “It is inaccurate to claim that magazines holding more than 10 rounds are ‘high capacity’. Rather, they are standard for a vast number of handguns, and for many rifles.”

This term is completely fabricated in order to create the illusion of wrongdoing by firearm owners, and to scare the general public.  The problem for the ASAAs here is that their core argument has no basis in fact or reality, so they have to try any tactic that they can brainstorm. In this case, that the Second Amendment only recognizes muzzle-loading muskets.  They argue this because they do not want anyone to own a multi-shot weapon, or any weapon that can hold "a lot" of ammunition.  They argue that multi-shot rifles and "large capacity" magazines make it too easy for someone to kill a lot of people in a very short period of time.  They don't argue that mass shootings will be stopped, only that fewer people will be killed when they happen.  First, we have already shown, with factual Department of Justice data, that rifles of any kind are rarely used in homicides; only 323 times, in fact. Second, after the expiration of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban, here is what the Department of Justice said regarding "high capacity magazines" in their 2004 report:

It is not clear how often the outcomes of gun attacks depend on the ability of offenders to fire more than ten shots (the current magazine capacity limit) without reloading.36

In other words, it happens so rarely that they cannot even draw any conclusions.  

Assaults Weapons Ban

Another excerpt from my book:

So, once again, we find the ASAAs stretching the truth in trying to push their agenda.  This 1988 quote from the anti-gun group, Violence Policy Center, explains "why,” when it comes to rifles:

“Handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”31

Please note that they specifically use the term "public's confusion.”  This statement clearly recognizes that they know that the term "assault weapon" is a fabrication, and they are clearly intentionally playing on false public perception in order to accomplish something.  They are lying to you, and admitting it!  How much more transparently disingenuous can the ASAAs get than this?  

When the 10-year sunset clause on the 1994 "assault weapons ban" kicked in, and the ban expired in 2004, here is what a 2004 Justice Department Report said about it:  

“Should it be renewed, the ban's effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. [Assault weapons] were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban”.32

Nevertheless, in 2013, Senator Feinstein tried to bring back the "assault weapon" ban, with the grossly misleading sub-title: A bill to ensure proper regulation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices 33

And now, in 2017, they are back at it again.

I will note that despite the recent rash of shootings using semi-automatic rifles (not “assault weapons”) this information still holds.  Both mass shootings and shootings with rifles are, still, rare in the big picture and their proposal will do nothing to meaningfully reduce that already statistically insignificant number of 122,000 annual firearm related deaths and injuries.

 Well, that concludes my analysis of paragraph 3.  Stay Tuned!

“These Are My Guns” - www.sunandseapublishing.com

Skeleton Title: Chanel

Character Name: Mei Cheng

Faceclaim: Lucy Liu

Age: 40

Pronouns: She/her

Biography:

You’re dying.

If Mei were to begin the story of her life, she’d start there. A doctor’s appointment, a nurse’s grim expression, a hand reaching down to hold the tips of her fingertips before she pulled it away. In her younger days, Mei had been an open book. She’d cried freely, openly, before she’d gotten into the fashion industry. The nurse didn’t see her cry.

Huntington’s disease is a genetic disorder, her nurse had started, presumably because the doctor had been called away to another emergency. It affects about 30,000 people in the U.S… affects movement and speaking capabilities… usually starts progressing when people are in their forties…

She hadn’t been paying close attention after that, mostly because the blood had rushed so harshly to her ears that she couldn’t hear anything. To be precise, she was thirty-nine years old, about to be married--married--living a life of unfortunate happiness. She was in the prime of her career. About to be promoted to editor-in-chief. It was no wonder Kendra had noticed such changes in Mei’s mood, the nurse continued, since the first symptoms of the disease were depression and personality changes. In a quiet voice, the nurse had asked if she had any children and if she should alert them. Kendra’s jaw set. Mei shook her head no.

A few weeks earlier, she laid in bed for several hours as Kendra tried, in vain, to get her dressed to go to work. She wouldn’t move. A few days earlier, Mei snapped and threw a few of her engraved plates onto the tile floor, shattering them instantly. A few months earlier, Kendra had proposed, right on the front steps of the restaurant they’d had their first date.

Their love had been slow and steady. They’d lived together for eight years, roughly, just when Mei’s career began taking off. Kendra led a hectic life, too; she was a senior attorney in a Manhattan law firm. Mei still remembered the sound of her voice when she breathed her name on their bed. She remembered the sound of her voice when she was angry, especially following the diagnosis. Kendra’s apathetic expression when she’d told Mei she was done, that she couldn’t stick around and watch Mei die. There was no wedding, just Kendra’s boxes loaded into a U-Haul, ironically leaving Mei behind forever.

Mei had forced herself to block it out. She could understand Kendra’s reasoning, on some level. Kendra wasn’t meant to watch her wife die as a caretaker, a gravedigger. She deserved better.  

Now Mei has to bear it alone. Sometimes she can feel the time tick away, like the second hand of a clock, every time her hand shakes or she says a word wrong. If only she could turn it back.

If only she could turn it back to her twenties, fresh out of Vanderbilt business school, smile bright and hair shiny. She had so much time. She’d juggled a Vogue internship in her senior year and was offered a position at Runway in the spring. It was just in the finance department--she struggled to get ahead, get into the right meetings and meet the right people. It had seemed so hard, before she was dying.

If only she could turn it back to her high school days, when she had all the direction and all the future in the world. Her mother had died when she was fifteen, but Mei had pushed through it, shoved it down so thoroughly and heartlessly that sometimes she wondered if she’d ever even had a mother. Death was not on the agenda when she was fifteen, not when she had so much to do with her life.

If only she could turn it back to the day her parents had first met--her father, a Chinese immigrant, working as a waiter at a restaurant across the street from her office; her mother, a successful executive. Mei was told he’d watch her order her favorite soup every day at their front counter, dreaming of the day when they might finally speak. Late one night, Mei’s mother came in to chat with him about her day--a botched deal with one of the biggest shoe factory owners in the United States. She became a regular late-night visitor. Always came in after the sign on the door clearly read closed. Mei had been told they married two months later.

Maybe if they hadn’t met, Mei wouldn’t have been born. Maybe her mother wouldn’t have had an aneurysm at thirty-five, before she’d started showing symptoms of Huntington’s disease. Maybe Mei wouldn’t be lying in an ambulance after a botched suicide attempt because life had seemed so pointless with a diagnosis like that. Mei wouldn’t be swirling wine around in a glass, flipping through the pages of the Book and trying to focus on anything but the ticking time bomb inside her brain. Mei wouldn’t be sitting in her office, squeezing her hand into a fist and then releasing it, wondering when she wouldn’t be able to do that anymore.

It changed her. Before, they called her the Captain--strong-willed, supportive, unyielding. She wasn’t sure what they called her anymore. She could feel herself growing colder, harsher, easier to dismiss. Now, they fear her. Now they avoid looking at her in the eye, too terrified of the consequences of her next furious outburst.  

Sometimes interns would enter her office, hearing the name Mei and thinking she must be soft and sweet, because a name like that is soft and sweet, only to find out Mei has never been either of those things. Her brain function might be degenerating, but her job is what she has left, and her brain sharp while she has the time. Even through the company makeover, the remodel, she persisted.

She’s going to run the magazine the way it needs to be run, before she finally dies for good.

Interview

What do you want most in life?

“What do I want most?” Mei asked. She knew what she actually wanted, and it was life, for forty or fifty more years. Life with her true love, life with her job, life with everything she’d ever wanted. But this wasn’t something she was willing to say aloud, and it certainly wasn’t something she wanted to tell an interviewer. “Success.” That was sort of true, and definitely what she’d settled for. If she couldn’t have life, she’d have success. It was what she’d been chasing for who knew how long. A reasonable goal, and a reasonable lie. She sat back in her chair, satisfied.

Bill Cunningham, internationally-known fashion photographer, once said that “fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.” Would you agree or disagree?

“Yes,” Mei said, frankly and thoughtfully. “But only to a certain extent. Armor suggests that fashion protects you. Fashion doesn’t protect you; it’s a flimsy holograph, the image you present to the world. It can’t protect you any more than anything else, whether it’s money or a good family or a good reputation.” And she knew damn well a good reputation was no armor.

“Everything about fashion,” she continued, her voice flat and uninterested, “is just an illusion that can be shattered like glass. Sure, you need it to survive the reality of everyday life. Fashion gets you jobs, friends, lovers, opportunities. But fashion is only one piece of the puzzle--and should people see beyond the clothes you wear, should you use fashion as your only image, it falters. So, yes, it does help us. But does it protect us? No, of course not. And it’s naive to believe otherwise.”

Fashion is a cutthroat industry; sometimes you need to do whatever it takes to get ahead. Are you prepared to do that?

This one made Mei pause. She hadn’t been asked a question like that since business school, when a lecturer had suggested anyone who wasn’t willing to do anything to get ahead might as well pack their bags and go home right now. True success, he’d said, is cutting people down to make yourself look better, and that’s just the name of the game. She’d resisted it for a long time. Longer than a decade.

“Do you know how I got promoted to editor-in-chief?” she asked the interviewer, playing with the dangling tennis bracelet on her left wrist. “My fellow editor, Joe, had been working here longer than I had. Good man. Very resourceful, knew everything about the business. One day he had the opportunity to bring in a very young, very fresh model into a photoshoot for Versace, a pet project of his. I persuaded Gianni to come to the shoot to see the great work Joe did. An hour before the shoot I gave the model a few bottles of tequila--she’d been a pretty big partier and a risky hire--and she vomited on one of Gianni’s custom-made twenty-thousand dollar Swarovski crystal gowns. Twice.” She quirked a smile. “Gianni was furious, and I was promoted to editor-in-chief. Joe got demoted to creative director, and eventually left for a position at Marie Clare.” She cleared her throat. “So when I say I will do anything to get ahead, I mean it.”

Anything else?

N/a

5 U.K. Cities To Catch Great Live Music

The very best British cities to hunt down homegrown musical talent.

Cities U.K. Stephen Connolly | POSTED ON: August 16, 2019

  The group, Mother Funkers, boogie down at Lakota, in Bristol. Photo Courtesy: Giulia Spadafora/Soul Media

Musicians on tour are great, but nothing beats the floor-shaking reverberations of a crowd stamping for its hometown heroes. On my travels, whenever I catch a local artist playing a show the atmosphere around me completely changes. Instead of feeling like an unremarkable outsider, I suddenly feel the comfort of home, even if just for a couple of hours. The whole experience helps me see people in a new way—unguarded, open, and as familiar to me as old friends.

For those keen on experiencing British music at its source, consider adding these U.K. towns to your bucket list and get to know the scenes—old and new. Visitors unaccustomed to the inconsistencies of British weather will be happy to know that good music can be enjoyed at all these places year-round at indoor venues, which will keep them dry and warm.

  Manchester

Although it can be hard to see beyond Manchester’s headline history of bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Oasis, arguably its biggest contribution to modern music was The Haçienda, a legendary nightclub. Throughout the 1980s, Manchester’s most important club was the de facto home of English dance music and the great populariser of the house sound of America. The city’s love affair with dance music remains central, but it’s now splintered into scenes that typify the diversity of Britain’s most linguistically rich city. Different sounds, different voices, and different cultures can be found across the town every night of the week.

If hip hop is your thing, then the multi-talented LEVELZ collective regularly bring their raucous street knowledge to venues like YES (average price £12-15/Rs1,000-1,300), while on the other end of the spectrum, the much-respected trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra blends spiritual jazz with modern electronics at venues like Band on the Wall (£15-20/Rs1,300-1,700). For cutting-edge electronic music, try the dancehall flavours of the Swing Ting party at Soup Kitchen (£8-12/Rs700-1,000), or seek clandestine venues such as The White Hotel (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and Hidden (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) for the deep-digging selections of DJs and producers like Ruf Dug, the city’s own sonic cyberpunk. If it’s a full-on acid house experience you’ve come for then don’t miss Homoelectric(£12-20/Rs1,000-1,700), Manchester’s wildly hedonistic disco.

  A busker lets his guitar gently weep in front of Big Ben. Photo By: Anatoleya/Moment/Getty Images

Oxford

With around six million visitors a year, Oxford is already high on many travellers’ wish lists. Guidebooks sing the city’s praises for having a historic heart where jumbles of elegant buildings cling to each other like lovers. However, in the rock and roll rooms underneath the dreaming spires, the city’s also been breeding bands like Ride, Supergrass, and the area’s most famous sons, Radiohead, since the 1990s—yet another reason to visit. For a city dominated by university life, perhaps it’s no surprise that the music scene in Oxford remains filled with clever young people with access to cheap instruments. To this day the town still thrums with intelligent indie rock bands such as Kanadia, MOTHER and Self Help. In recent years, by far the biggest band to come out of Oxford has been Foals, who’ve gone from house party gigs on Cowley Road to headlining arenas. The biggest players in town can be found at the 02 Academy (from £20/Rs1,700), while more independent sounds can be found at The Bullingdon (from £8/Rs700) and The Jericho Tavern (£8-15/Rs700-1,300), the latter being the fabled pub where Radiohead played their first show in their previous incarnation, On A Friday.

If you’re in the mood for something less rambunctious the city also has a rich tradition of symphonic and choral music, fed largely by the presence of serious music students. Two good (and cheaper) places to start are the Oxford University Orchestra (£7-15/Rs600-1,300) and the Oxford University String Ensemble (£5-10/Rs400-850), both offering top-class talent.

Glasgow

At all turns, Scotland’s largest city keeps taking on its detractors and producing lively, life-affirming cultures that reject the narrative of the city as just a working class Edinburgh. From the hallucinogenic comic books of Grant Morrison to the caustic humour of comedian Frankie Boyle, Glasgow is filled with unapologetic outliers fashioning creativity in their own ways—its music scene being central to the city’s expressiveness. Glasgow’s been showing its pedigree for decades through massively popular acts such as Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand. It’s even responsible for one of the pop acts who dominated the British music charts in the 1980s and ’90s, Wet Wet Wet. Although, perhaps the less said about them the better.

A fan savours the show and her bevvy at Manchester’s YES. Photo Courtesy: Jody Hartley

Famous for the buzzing liveliness of its pubs, clubs, and locals, Glasgow is a place to find loud music and sweaty dance floors. A new breed of bands like Comfort and Hairband offer everything from industrial noise to melancholy pop music. They’re at their best in the city’s classic venues, from basement crowds of dive bar Nice’n’Sleazy (£5-10/Rs400-850) to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (£15-25/Rs1,300-2,150), labelled by some in the music press as “quite possibly the finest small venue in the world.” The Barrowland Ballroom (from £20/Rs1,700) is an unembellished temple of sound where the crowd bounces on the sprung wooden floor and the history of performers including David Bowie and Daft Punk fills the air. It all helps to create an atmosphere that makes it the favourite venue of bands including Metallica and Oasis. The city’s electronic music scene is no slouch either, with places like La Cheetah (£5-10/Rs400-850) and Sub Club (£5-10/Rs400-850), which are filled with the house and techno sounds of current favourites Denis Sulta and Jasper James. The uninitiated should pay a visit to Sub Club to see the DJ kings, Optimo, for a bit of insight into the importance of dance music in Glasgow.

Bristol

More than any other place on this list, Bristol’s music scene is the idiosyncratic result of its history. As one of the main slave trading ports in the 18th century, the population of this south-western city has long had significant influences from Africa and the West Indies. It was in the 1950s and ’60s, however, when immigration from the Caribbean expanded the already diverse population, that sound system culture made reggae and ska the default setting for house parties and street celebrations. The influence of those communities on the following decades of DIY post-punk bands like The Pop Group and hip-hop acts such as The Wild Bunch was critical. It was this bedrock of sound that led to the city’s biggest musical export, trip hop. In the 1990s, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky all represented Bristol with their beautifully strange, fiercely independent blends of gender and genre; rave and race.

That’s a tradition that lives on today in the city that’s still regarded as a hotbed of innovation. In the 2000s, Shackleton and Appleblim’s Skull Disco label changed the course of dubstep with African polyrhythms, while today, Timedance, Idle Hands, Tectonic, and the Livity Sound imprints all continue to push the edges of underground bass music to psychedelic extremes. The best place to find electronic music is in venues like the hip, audiophile bar, The Love Inn (from £4/Rs350), or the darker, more diverse rave pit known as Lakota (£4-8/Rs350-700). For some of the biggest and most popular acts (from £15/Rs1,300), a connected set of abandoned warehouses voted as one of the best nightclubs in the world. It’s not all just dance music though because bands like Geoff Barrow’s (formerly of Portishead) Beak and current punk darlings, IDLES, are also pushing a different agenda. For guitar-based music get down to the cheap and cheerful Louisiana (£5-10/Rs400-850), a 140-person capacity venue that’s known as the place to find the next big things—The Scissor Sisters, Florence and the Machine, and The National all having made their Bristol debuts there. Alternatively, for everything from rock to classical head to the beautiful Colston Hall (£25-50/Rs2,150-4,300) where where past acts have included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Things get soulful at The Pickle Factory. Photo Courtesy: The Pickle Factory

London

Whether it’s via Eddy Grant’s stroll down Electric Avenue or The Kinks’ view of the Waterloo Sunset, most music fans have already met London, even if only through lyrics. More than any other city in the U.K., London’s polar mix of urban isolation and multicultural communion inspires and produces waves of new artists and important scenes. There’s something to suit every taste and budget, but if you’re interested in what’s really thrilling about London’s contemporary music culture, then it’s time to get away from the gargantuan stadium rock of the 02 Arena (from £40/Rs3,500).

South of the river Thames you’ll find venues like Corsica Studios (£5-15/Rs400-1,300), and Rye Wax (£5-10/Rs400-850). In Shoreditch, to the north, there’s XOYO (£10-20/Rs850-1,700), while the east has the Pickle Factory (£10-15/Rs850-1,700). Varied as they are, all these places exemplify the kind of cross-pollination of musical styles coming out of the capital. Look out especially for the Rhythm Section record label’s parties, which bridge the gaps between house, techno, jazz, soul, hip-hop, and world music.

Check the listings across the city and you’ll find a bubbling mixture that encompasses both live music and energetic, impromptu rave takeovers in bare-walled buildings. Particularly important in recent years years has been the south London jazz scene, which has flourished in established spots like Camden’s Jazz Cafe (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and the Hackney Arts Centre’s EartH space (from £20/Rs1,700). These are the places to head if you’re keen to see why artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Rosie Turton are cultivating so much love from a new generation of British music enthusiasts who pack the bars and clubs to hear their heroes play.

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source http://cheaprtravels.com/5-u-k-cities-to-catch-great-live-music/

5 U.K. Cities To Catch Great Live Music

The very best British cities to hunt down homegrown musical talent.

Cities U.K. Stephen Connolly | POSTED ON: August 16, 2019

  The group, Mother Funkers, boogie down at Lakota, in Bristol. Photo Courtesy: Giulia Spadafora/Soul Media

Musicians on tour are great, but nothing beats the floor-shaking reverberations of a crowd stamping for its hometown heroes. On my travels, whenever I catch a local artist playing a show the atmosphere around me completely changes. Instead of feeling like an unremarkable outsider, I suddenly feel the comfort of home, even if just for a couple of hours. The whole experience helps me see people in a new way—unguarded, open, and as familiar to me as old friends.

For those keen on experiencing British music at its source, consider adding these U.K. towns to your bucket list and get to know the scenes—old and new. Visitors unaccustomed to the inconsistencies of British weather will be happy to know that good music can be enjoyed at all these places year-round at indoor venues, which will keep them dry and warm.

  Manchester

Although it can be hard to see beyond Manchester’s headline history of bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Oasis, arguably its biggest contribution to modern music was The Haçienda, a legendary nightclub. Throughout the 1980s, Manchester’s most important club was the de facto home of English dance music and the great populariser of the house sound of America. The city’s love affair with dance music remains central, but it’s now splintered into scenes that typify the diversity of Britain’s most linguistically rich city. Different sounds, different voices, and different cultures can be found across the town every night of the week.

If hip hop is your thing, then the multi-talented LEVELZ collective regularly bring their raucous street knowledge to venues like YES (average price £12-15/Rs1,000-1,300), while on the other end of the spectrum, the much-respected trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra blends spiritual jazz with modern electronics at venues like Band on the Wall (£15-20/Rs1,300-1,700). For cutting-edge electronic music, try the dancehall flavours of the Swing Ting party at Soup Kitchen (£8-12/Rs700-1,000), or seek clandestine venues such as The White Hotel (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and Hidden (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) for the deep-digging selections of DJs and producers like Ruf Dug, the city’s own sonic cyberpunk. If it’s a full-on acid house experience you’ve come for then don’t miss Homoelectric(£12-20/Rs1,000-1,700), Manchester’s wildly hedonistic disco.

  A busker lets his guitar gently weep in front of Big Ben. Photo By: Anatoleya/Moment/Getty Images

Oxford

With around six million visitors a year, Oxford is already high on many travellers’ wish lists. Guidebooks sing the city’s praises for having a historic heart where jumbles of elegant buildings cling to each other like lovers. However, in the rock and roll rooms underneath the dreaming spires, the city’s also been breeding bands like Ride, Supergrass, and the area’s most famous sons, Radiohead, since the 1990s—yet another reason to visit. For a city dominated by university life, perhaps it’s no surprise that the music scene in Oxford remains filled with clever young people with access to cheap instruments. To this day the town still thrums with intelligent indie rock bands such as Kanadia, MOTHER and Self Help. In recent years, by far the biggest band to come out of Oxford has been Foals, who’ve gone from house party gigs on Cowley Road to headlining arenas. The biggest players in town can be found at the 02 Academy (from £20/Rs1,700), while more independent sounds can be found at The Bullingdon (from £8/Rs700) and The Jericho Tavern (£8-15/Rs700-1,300), the latter being the fabled pub where Radiohead played their first show in their previous incarnation, On A Friday.

If you’re in the mood for something less rambunctious the city also has a rich tradition of symphonic and choral music, fed largely by the presence of serious music students. Two good (and cheaper) places to start are the Oxford University Orchestra (£7-15/Rs600-1,300) and the Oxford University String Ensemble (£5-10/Rs400-850), both offering top-class talent.

Glasgow

At all turns, Scotland’s largest city keeps taking on its detractors and producing lively, life-affirming cultures that reject the narrative of the city as just a working class Edinburgh. From the hallucinogenic comic books of Grant Morrison to the caustic humour of comedian Frankie Boyle, Glasgow is filled with unapologetic outliers fashioning creativity in their own ways—its music scene being central to the city’s expressiveness. Glasgow’s been showing its pedigree for decades through massively popular acts such as Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand. It’s even responsible for one of the pop acts who dominated the British music charts in the 1980s and ’90s, Wet Wet Wet. Although, perhaps the less said about them the better.

A fan savours the show and her bevvy at Manchester’s YES. Photo Courtesy: Jody Hartley

Famous for the buzzing liveliness of its pubs, clubs, and locals, Glasgow is a place to find loud music and sweaty dance floors. A new breed of bands like Comfort and Hairband offer everything from industrial noise to melancholy pop music. They’re at their best in the city’s classic venues, from basement crowds of dive bar Nice’n’Sleazy (£5-10/Rs400-850) to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (£15-25/Rs1,300-2,150), labelled by some in the music press as “quite possibly the finest small venue in the world.” The Barrowland Ballroom (from £20/Rs1,700) is an unembellished temple of sound where the crowd bounces on the sprung wooden floor and the history of performers including David Bowie and Daft Punk fills the air. It all helps to create an atmosphere that makes it the favourite venue of bands including Metallica and Oasis. The city’s electronic music scene is no slouch either, with places like La Cheetah (£5-10/Rs400-850) and Sub Club (£5-10/Rs400-850), which are filled with the house and techno sounds of current favourites Denis Sulta and Jasper James. The uninitiated should pay a visit to Sub Club to see the DJ kings, Optimo, for a bit of insight into the importance of dance music in Glasgow.

Bristol

More than any other place on this list, Bristol’s music scene is the idiosyncratic result of its history. As one of the main slave trading ports in the 18th century, the population of this south-western city has long had significant influences from Africa and the West Indies. It was in the 1950s and ’60s, however, when immigration from the Caribbean expanded the already diverse population, that sound system culture made reggae and ska the default setting for house parties and street celebrations. The influence of those communities on the following decades of DIY post-punk bands like The Pop Group and hip-hop acts such as The Wild Bunch was critical. It was this bedrock of sound that led to the city’s biggest musical export, trip hop. In the 1990s, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky all represented Bristol with their beautifully strange, fiercely independent blends of gender and genre; rave and race.

That’s a tradition that lives on today in the city that’s still regarded as a hotbed of innovation. In the 2000s, Shackleton and Appleblim’s Skull Disco label changed the course of dubstep with African polyrhythms, while today, Timedance, Idle Hands, Tectonic, and the Livity Sound imprints all continue to push the edges of underground bass music to psychedelic extremes. The best place to find electronic music is in venues like the hip, audiophile bar, The Love Inn (from £4/Rs350), or the darker, more diverse rave pit known as Lakota (£4-8/Rs350-700). For some of the biggest and most popular acts (from £15/Rs1,300), a connected set of abandoned warehouses voted as one of the best nightclubs in the world. It’s not all just dance music though because bands like Geoff Barrow’s (formerly of Portishead) Beak and current punk darlings, IDLES, are also pushing a different agenda. For guitar-based music get down to the cheap and cheerful Louisiana (£5-10/Rs400-850), a 140-person capacity venue that’s known as the place to find the next big things—The Scissor Sisters, Florence and the Machine, and The National all having made their Bristol debuts there. Alternatively, for everything from rock to classical head to the beautiful Colston Hall (£25-50/Rs2,150-4,300) where where past acts have included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Things get soulful at The Pickle Factory. Photo Courtesy: The Pickle Factory

London

Whether it’s via Eddy Grant’s stroll down Electric Avenue or The Kinks’ view of the Waterloo Sunset, most music fans have already met London, even if only through lyrics. More than any other city in the U.K., London’s polar mix of urban isolation and multicultural communion inspires and produces waves of new artists and important scenes. There’s something to suit every taste and budget, but if you’re interested in what’s really thrilling about London’s contemporary music culture, then it’s time to get away from the gargantuan stadium rock of the 02 Arena (from £40/Rs3,500).

South of the river Thames you’ll find venues like Corsica Studios (£5-15/Rs400-1,300), and Rye Wax (£5-10/Rs400-850). In Shoreditch, to the north, there’s XOYO (£10-20/Rs850-1,700), while the east has the Pickle Factory (£10-15/Rs850-1,700). Varied as they are, all these places exemplify the kind of cross-pollination of musical styles coming out of the capital. Look out especially for the Rhythm Section record label’s parties, which bridge the gaps between house, techno, jazz, soul, hip-hop, and world music.

Check the listings across the city and you’ll find a bubbling mixture that encompasses both live music and energetic, impromptu rave takeovers in bare-walled buildings. Particularly important in recent years years has been the south London jazz scene, which has flourished in established spots like Camden’s Jazz Cafe (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and the Hackney Arts Centre’s EartH space (from £20/Rs1,700). These are the places to head if you’re keen to see why artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Rosie Turton are cultivating so much love from a new generation of British music enthusiasts who pack the bars and clubs to hear their heroes play.

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5 U.K. Cities To Catch Great Live Music

The very best British cities to hunt down homegrown musical talent.

Cities U.K. Stephen Connolly | POSTED ON: August 16, 2019

  The group, Mother Funkers, boogie down at Lakota, in Bristol. Photo Courtesy: Giulia Spadafora/Soul Media

Musicians on tour are great, but nothing beats the floor-shaking reverberations of a crowd stamping for its hometown heroes. On my travels, whenever I catch a local artist playing a show the atmosphere around me completely changes. Instead of feeling like an unremarkable outsider, I suddenly feel the comfort of home, even if just for a couple of hours. The whole experience helps me see people in a new way—unguarded, open, and as familiar to me as old friends.

For those keen on experiencing British music at its source, consider adding these U.K. towns to your bucket list and get to know the scenes—old and new. Visitors unaccustomed to the inconsistencies of British weather will be happy to know that good music can be enjoyed at all these places year-round at indoor venues, which will keep them dry and warm.

  Manchester

Although it can be hard to see beyond Manchester’s headline history of bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Oasis, arguably its biggest contribution to modern music was The Haçienda, a legendary nightclub. Throughout the 1980s, Manchester’s most important club was the de facto home of English dance music and the great populariser of the house sound of America. The city’s love affair with dance music remains central, but it’s now splintered into scenes that typify the diversity of Britain’s most linguistically rich city. Different sounds, different voices, and different cultures can be found across the town every night of the week.

If hip hop is your thing, then the multi-talented LEVELZ collective regularly bring their raucous street knowledge to venues like YES (average price £12-15/Rs1,000-1,300), while on the other end of the spectrum, the much-respected trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra blends spiritual jazz with modern electronics at venues like Band on the Wall (£15-20/Rs1,300-1,700). For cutting-edge electronic music, try the dancehall flavours of the Swing Ting party at Soup Kitchen (£8-12/Rs700-1,000), or seek clandestine venues such as The White Hotel (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and Hidden (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) for the deep-digging selections of DJs and producers like Ruf Dug, the city’s own sonic cyberpunk. If it’s a full-on acid house experience you’ve come for then don’t miss Homoelectric(£12-20/Rs1,000-1,700), Manchester’s wildly hedonistic disco.

  A busker lets his guitar gently weep in front of Big Ben. Photo By: Anatoleya/Moment/Getty Images

Oxford

With around six million visitors a year, Oxford is already high on many travellers’ wish lists. Guidebooks sing the city’s praises for having a historic heart where jumbles of elegant buildings cling to each other like lovers. However, in the rock and roll rooms underneath the dreaming spires, the city’s also been breeding bands like Ride, Supergrass, and the area’s most famous sons, Radiohead, since the 1990s—yet another reason to visit. For a city dominated by university life, perhaps it’s no surprise that the music scene in Oxford remains filled with clever young people with access to cheap instruments. To this day the town still thrums with intelligent indie rock bands such as Kanadia, MOTHER and Self Help. In recent years, by far the biggest band to come out of Oxford has been Foals, who’ve gone from house party gigs on Cowley Road to headlining arenas. The biggest players in town can be found at the 02 Academy (from £20/Rs1,700), while more independent sounds can be found at The Bullingdon (from £8/Rs700) and The Jericho Tavern (£8-15/Rs700-1,300), the latter being the fabled pub where Radiohead played their first show in their previous incarnation, On A Friday.

If you’re in the mood for something less rambunctious the city also has a rich tradition of symphonic and choral music, fed largely by the presence of serious music students. Two good (and cheaper) places to start are the Oxford University Orchestra (£7-15/Rs600-1,300) and the Oxford University String Ensemble (£5-10/Rs400-850), both offering top-class talent.

Glasgow

At all turns, Scotland’s largest city keeps taking on its detractors and producing lively, life-affirming cultures that reject the narrative of the city as just a working class Edinburgh. From the hallucinogenic comic books of Grant Morrison to the caustic humour of comedian Frankie Boyle, Glasgow is filled with unapologetic outliers fashioning creativity in their own ways—its music scene being central to the city’s expressiveness. Glasgow’s been showing its pedigree for decades through massively popular acts such as Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand. It’s even responsible for one of the pop acts who dominated the British music charts in the 1980s and ’90s, Wet Wet Wet. Although, perhaps the less said about them the better.

A fan savours the show and her bevvy at Manchester’s YES. Photo Courtesy: Jody Hartley

Famous for the buzzing liveliness of its pubs, clubs, and locals, Glasgow is a place to find loud music and sweaty dance floors. A new breed of bands like Comfort and Hairband offer everything from industrial noise to melancholy pop music. They’re at their best in the city’s classic venues, from basement crowds of dive bar Nice’n’Sleazy (£5-10/Rs400-850) to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (£15-25/Rs1,300-2,150), labelled by some in the music press as “quite possibly the finest small venue in the world.” The Barrowland Ballroom (from £20/Rs1,700) is an unembellished temple of sound where the crowd bounces on the sprung wooden floor and the history of performers including David Bowie and Daft Punk fills the air. It all helps to create an atmosphere that makes it the favourite venue of bands including Metallica and Oasis. The city’s electronic music scene is no slouch either, with places like La Cheetah (£5-10/Rs400-850) and Sub Club (£5-10/Rs400-850), which are filled with the house and techno sounds of current favourites Denis Sulta and Jasper James. The uninitiated should pay a visit to Sub Club to see the DJ kings, Optimo, for a bit of insight into the importance of dance music in Glasgow.

Bristol

More than any other place on this list, Bristol’s music scene is the idiosyncratic result of its history. As one of the main slave trading ports in the 18th century, the population of this south-western city has long had significant influences from Africa and the West Indies. It was in the 1950s and ’60s, however, when immigration from the Caribbean expanded the already diverse population, that sound system culture made reggae and ska the default setting for house parties and street celebrations. The influence of those communities on the following decades of DIY post-punk bands like The Pop Group and hip-hop acts such as The Wild Bunch was critical. It was this bedrock of sound that led to the city’s biggest musical export, trip hop. In the 1990s, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky all represented Bristol with their beautifully strange, fiercely independent blends of gender and genre; rave and race.

That’s a tradition that lives on today in the city that’s still regarded as a hotbed of innovation. In the 2000s, Shackleton and Appleblim’s Skull Disco label changed the course of dubstep with African polyrhythms, while today, Timedance, Idle Hands, Tectonic, and the Livity Sound imprints all continue to push the edges of underground bass music to psychedelic extremes. The best place to find electronic music is in venues like the hip, audiophile bar, The Love Inn (from £4/Rs350), or the darker, more diverse rave pit known as Lakota (£4-8/Rs350-700). For some of the biggest and most popular acts (from £15/Rs1,300), a connected set of abandoned warehouses voted as one of the best nightclubs in the world. It’s not all just dance music though because bands like Geoff Barrow’s (formerly of Portishead) Beak and current punk darlings, IDLES, are also pushing a different agenda. For guitar-based music get down to the cheap and cheerful Louisiana (£5-10/Rs400-850), a 140-person capacity venue that’s known as the place to find the next big things—The Scissor Sisters, Florence and the Machine, and The National all having made their Bristol debuts there. Alternatively, for everything from rock to classical head to the beautiful Colston Hall (£25-50/Rs2,150-4,300) where where past acts have included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Things get soulful at The Pickle Factory. Photo Courtesy: The Pickle Factory

London

Whether it’s via Eddy Grant’s stroll down Electric Avenue or The Kinks’ view of the Waterloo Sunset, most music fans have already met London, even if only through lyrics. More than any other city in the U.K., London’s polar mix of urban isolation and multicultural communion inspires and produces waves of new artists and important scenes. There’s something to suit every taste and budget, but if you’re interested in what’s really thrilling about London’s contemporary music culture, then it’s time to get away from the gargantuan stadium rock of the 02 Arena (from £40/Rs3,500).

South of the river Thames you’ll find venues like Corsica Studios (£5-15/Rs400-1,300), and Rye Wax (£5-10/Rs400-850). In Shoreditch, to the north, there’s XOYO (£10-20/Rs850-1,700), while the east has the Pickle Factory (£10-15/Rs850-1,700). Varied as they are, all these places exemplify the kind of cross-pollination of musical styles coming out of the capital. Look out especially for the Rhythm Section record label’s parties, which bridge the gaps between house, techno, jazz, soul, hip-hop, and world music.

Check the listings across the city and you’ll find a bubbling mixture that encompasses both live music and energetic, impromptu rave takeovers in bare-walled buildings. Particularly important in recent years years has been the south London jazz scene, which has flourished in established spots like Camden’s Jazz Cafe (£10-20/Rs850-1,700) and the Hackney Arts Centre’s EartH space (from £20/Rs1,700). These are the places to head if you’re keen to see why artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Rosie Turton are cultivating so much love from a new generation of British music enthusiasts who pack the bars and clubs to hear their heroes play.

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