1. A Rocket To The Moon cover Travis McCoy’s ‘Billionaire’ and that, amazingly well!

(And don’t they just look pretty while doing so?)

2. Sam Cooke and ‘Wonderful World’ came on at work ever so randomly and I loved it.

3. All Time Low, the band I shot a couple of time for Buzznet, covered Lady Gaga.

4. Mumford & Sons are playing a show in Cologne in September. Trust me to be there.

Which songs do you love best when the sun is burning down on the world and the tiniest movement of your body makes you break into a sweat?

it has been a whole long while since I’ve really been into blogging and promises of a giveaway for the blogs first birthday were made but unfortunately broken as well.

Sometimes, life just gets too busy and while blogging and social networking is a rather huge part of my life, it had to take a minor spot on my list of priorities. As I said, both my parents have been to the hospital. It was nothing serious in the sense that it was life-threatening (my dad’s suffering from, well, it’s really hard to tell. His skin is really messed up and on most days, his hands and feet are covered in open wounds. And my mother has gone through with her final operation after her breast cancer treatment.); they’re both on sick leave and at home now.

Course work needed to be done as well in the form of a presentation on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And right now, I’m thinking hard about a topic for a term paper on ‘Truth and Religion’.

Work is an ever-present factor that’s putting a little stress in my life as well. With the World Cup going on, we’ve been super-busy. And now that the weather is just so much better, working in 37°C is torture.

Life hasn’t been all work and play though. June 18th until 20th saw five co-workers and I spend the weekend at the Hurricane festival, watching bands such as Billy Talent, We Are Scientists and Vampire Weekend take the stage. As I took a disposable camera with me, I have almost no visual evidence of the weekend apart from the view pictures I took with my mobile phone. Picture from the disposable thing we’re supposed to be put on a CD when I had them developed at the lab but somehow, that didn’t happen and I couldn’t be bothered to scan any of them yet.

It was an amazing weekend that ended on this tone:

A pair of very muddy wellies after the rain came down for ‘Vampire Weekend’.

Lovely, right? I was shivering the entire 6 hours until we jumped into the car and made the very tiring journey home on which I must have left my voice at the gas station that we stopped at.

Another thing that has been stealing my time for the past four weeks has been the World Cup. You see, I don’t care about football that is played in the national leagues. But when it comes to an international tournament, I love watching. For Germany, it was a great tournament and we had just as much fun watching the games over here as people must have had in South Africa (really, it’s already been four years since we hosted the thing?). Sadly, Germany lost to Spain last Wednesday, making it possible for Spain to win the trophy last night. At least we lost to the new World Champion, right?

A note on the game last night: Was that horrible or what? When it wasn’t boring, it was downright vicious and violent and as much as I was for the Netherlands taking the cup home, De Jong fouling Xabi Alonso in the way he did should have been punished with a red card.

Well, what have all you lovely people all over the world been up to? Have you been watching the World Cup as well? Have you recently be on any music-related outings? Tell me!

When Bloc Party put out their 2007 release A Weekend in the City, I sat and listened to it three times that very night and cried harder with each new song.

The lyrical work stunned me to no end and the instrumental arrangement just hit the right spot inside of me. People though the songs didn‘t fit the band; I found it sounded like a natural progression from their first record Silent Alarm.

If I told you now that it took another three years for a band to knock me off my feet and that they come from a pretty different field of rock, would you believe it?

These days, I find it tricky to buy full albums when you‘ve only heard one of two songs which are not single material. With Mumford & Sons‘ Sigh No More, I did no wrong though.

Reading about them on Twitter and listening to one or two live recordings of Winter Winds and Awake My Soul, I found myself intrigued enough to go as far as buying their CD on my recent trip to London. The city and tube stations being plastered with posters of their album cover did probably help in that decision too!

Sigh No More is plain and simple the perfect combination of a CD filled with slow, thoughtful songs, like White Blank Page and After the Storm, and sing-a-long numbers that command your feet to dance, especially singles Little Lion Man and The Cave.

The subject of the songs are of a great range: Some treat the infamous subject of love, break-ups and making mistakes and other goes as far as approaching the topics of death and our connection to God. The lyrics are never flat but well thought-out, encouraging the listener to go on an internal journey led by Marcus Mumford‘s voice.

And it‘s exactly that voice which should draw you into the spell of this fine band, if the lyrics don‘t do the trick for you. The singer manages to incorporate any kind of emotion into his voice: Sounding encouraging on Sigh No More when he‘s repeating Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you/It will set you free, he comes across as feeling completely at a loss during White Blank Page. And then there is Little Lion Man, oozing with regret.

One of the strongest, most impressive songs on the CD is Dust Bowl Dance an angry, exceptional piece of music that probably sums up the entire record best: It starts out slow, gaining speed which each verse, leading to an explosion of noise and sounds halfway through the song before ending just like it started. If it wasn‘t for the occasional piping up of the banjo, the song would almost lose it‘s folksy connotations and sound like a jazz piece.

Unless you completely dislike songs that make sense and have a deeper meaning under their pretty lyrics, hate the sound of banjos or despise London-based bands, there should be no reason for you not to give Mumford & Sons a chance and a listen!

picture taken from the band's myspace profile

There are bands who see the need to constantly change up the setlist for their shows and there are bands out there, who simply do not need to re-arrange their songs.

I‘m pretty sure there are people who are disappointed to find that All Time Low played the same show as they did in September, only on a bigger stage. But really? Can you be disappointed in a band like All Time Low?

After all, they did follow up on Alex‘ promise to come and visit Germany again as soon as possible.

Dreading to go and see them play at the Live Music Hall in Cologne as the venue is known for bad acoustics, I was pleasantly surprised that their show still felt as refreshing, as passionately performed as the last time in a much small set-up and that the quality of their sound had even improved.

The bigger stage only served Jack with a bigger playground for his stage antics, which included climbing up Rian‘s drum kit, flinging himself on his knees and occasionally on his back and kicking his legs up as high as they allow.

Alex and Zack of course roamed around the stage just as much, chatting to the audience in between songs such as Poppin‘ Champagne and Jasey Rae.

Whereas the last time panties found their way on stage, it were bras this time. The guys could not help but comment on it, joking about not wearing a bra and not being forced into wearing one. And that was only one of the many stage banter moments.

The show was as much of a party to the band as it was to the audience – take the reaction to A Party Song for example: Instead of aimlessly jumping around, people were actually dancing.

But just as there was dancing, laughing and goofing around, there were a few minutes when everyone could recover. Alex played Remembering Sunday all on his own again. Technically, he wasn‘t singing on his own though: The audience helped out a big deal, all the while lightening up the hall with mobile phones and camera flashes.

As I expected (and wouldn‘t want to have had it any other way), the set ended with Damned if I do ya and Dear Maria.

After the show, I told my friend that I simply do not understand people who don‘t like going to shows. There is not much better than seeing a band perform their tracks live and actually sound like the record or even better. There is also not much better than seeing that people really do like what they are doing every night.

Some people love making music, some people live music. I guess with the guys in All Time Low, it‘s just both.

Note that my review has been cross-posted to my buzznet profile as well. You will find all my photos of the show there as well as they were taken for buzznet :)

(A major part of this article, I originally wrote 11 months ago, almost exactly to the day. Obviously, back then, Blink 182 had not announced their re-union then and they were just one of my favourite bands that I liked to listen to when I travelled to and fro to class. Everything still rings true though.)

It’s not only because of Blink 182’s song that I’ve been thinking about the matter of my real age and how old I may come across in interaction with other people.

Frankly, when I look at young women and men of my age, I sometimes wonder if it is them who are too serious about living their lives as adults or whether it is my perception and pursuit of life that is slightly out of line.

In eight weeks from today, I turn 24. If we believe one of the most influential rock bands of the current century, 2009, at the age of 23, must have been the hardest year for me yet.

Having left the better days of 16 behind to find purpose and direction at 17, no one apparently likes you when you are 23.

Of course, we shouldn’t take the lyrics too seriously and regard them with a certain sense of irony but just how much of truth is left behind witty words and snarky remarks?

Looking back on the years that have passed since I became an adult, turned 18 and graduated from high school, just how many aims can I have claimed to have reached?

To be honest, I did not have a lot planned for after school and maybe that already made me less mature at the time but the day I left school for good, I promised myself to go to university and do English studies as well as I spelled out the wish to one day live in London.
Guess what? Already at 21, I could cross both of my list of two. I can look back on a few years of studies and while I’m still so far from my degree, I already learned so much. As of now, I have fun part time job in which I just received a promotion and raise and I’ve gone to fend for myself abroad.

That is a lot more than some people of my age can say for themselves.

Still, a lot of my peers aret done with their degree while I couldn‘t decide for a long time just which course I wanted to stick to. Those who went to get an apprenticeship after school instead of attending university have long become full members of the working society. And some are even starting their own small families now and settling down.

What I see happening to a lot of the couples around is that they hardly ever go out anymore and if they do, of course, they are inseparable. They adopt a routine in which the only highlights are birthdays, the holidays and well – what else really?

My intention is not to call anyone out as boring, but call me crazy, naïve or immature –I believe growing up is not so much about settling down and who will be the first to pop a child.

Growing up means to show that you can handle life and all its odd moments gracefully and sometimes admit defeat. It means being mature about important topics like politics and religion, having your opinions about current issues and staying informed. But it also means never forgetting the fun in life while you are struggling to get yourself by in any situation.

My life would be pointless if I didn’t spice it up by going to shows and even if the bands are a current hit with people a decade younger than I, so what?

It doesn’t change the fact that those are good bands or the quality of the lyrics.
Look at Blink 182. They were popular with a generation of confused teenagers who all dug the ironic lyrics and urgent beats. Ten years on and any 30-something music critic will agree that Blink were one of the most innovative, influential bands in their genre.

Sure, the band members themselves have moved beyond the age of 23 and the band has split up and re-united recently but that doesn’t mean the lyrics were just a bunch of words at the time and have lost their meaning today. I can still identify with them (and sometimes wish oh so badly to be the girl at the rock show).

And thus, liking punk bands, going to shows and enjoying drunk nights out at the club doesn’t make me less of an adult.

I like to think that I have distinct opinions on politics and education and hey, I do religious studies at university, so somewhere inside I have a sense of right and wrong as well as a conscience.

I struggle to support myself and think about how to pay of the debt caused by my student loan. I pay for my own health insurance and enjoy other less outrageous activities like reading and cooking.

Just because I don’t want to start a family of my own until I’m at least 30 (or maybe never at all), I shouldn’t be called an escapist or immature.

Living life differently, that is what I do.

I keep myself balanced on my toes, so when life strikes hard I’m always prepared to stand back up again because I have things to look forward to.