Record of the Day: Willy Moon - I Wanna Be Your Man

I completely love this guy. He's a perfect mix of old and new. New beats mixed with that classic rock and roll sound... LOVE it. Great video as well.

Record of the Day: Don Henley - New York Minute

So, I had a pretty random Friday night... I went to see a friend play a gig in Clapham (she was AMAZING by the way - I'll be uploading some of her songs this week) and to my surprise Don Henley from the Eagles was there. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't OVERLY excited and yes, I acted completely uncool but whatever, I saw him. He had a little jam session for a few hours with about 10 of us in the room and it was insanely awesome. So in honour of the Don, I shall give you a classic written by the man himself. Sorry about the weird video, but the song is seriously amazing.

Record of the day: Don Henley - New York Minute (from the album The Edge of Innocence, 1989 - Geffen Record)

Record of the Day: Supergrass - Alright

It's soooo lovely and sunny today!! So I chose this song because it always makes me feel super happy and want to go outside and play, preferably on a beach :D

Record of the Day: Supergrass - Alright (1995, from the album I Should Coco)

Also here's my sunny day playlist! :D

Sunny Day :D http link

Sunny Day :D spotify link

My DJ Brother is a bit Awesome.

So my little brother has started doing some DJing and what do ya know, he's actually pretty good!

Here he is ;)

Here's his newest mix: http://soundcloud.com/joeiglesias/electro-trance-mix-1

AND have a little look on his new website!!

http://djglesias.weebly.com/index.html

Record of the Day: Walk off the Earth - Somebody That I Used to Know (cover)

So Walk off the Earth are a Canadian YouTube band who I absolutely adore. Luckily they were signed to Columbia Records just last month so hopefully we'll be hearing a lot more from them in the near future! But before then, you NEED to watch their video for a cover of Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know. It was only posted 2 months ago and yet the video has over 74 millions hits on YouTube! The video shows all five members using just one guitar and with this along with their other videos it's safe to say that they are a bunch of ridiculously talented people.

Record of the Day: Walk Off The Earth - Somebody I Used To Know (Gotye Cover)

I've also stuck in their cover of Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO because I can't stop listening to it! Go visit their YouTube site and listen to more of their stuff here!

Lazy Girl Movie Night: (500) Days of Summer

It's Friday night, so it's safe to assume I would be having a lazy girl movie night, god forbid I'd actually be out. And flicking through the channels I found one of my all time favourite movies - (500) Days of Summer :D I'm generally forbidden from watching this movie with other people now due to me incessantly saying "this is such a good scene!" before literally every scene, however tonight was spent with my baby brothers who did remarkably well at not telling me to shut the fuck up. Don't ya love 'em.

So, a surprising number of people have told me they thought this movie was 'depressing' but I absolutely don't see it. I can't tell whether my adoration for Zooey Deschanel is clouding my opinions here, but for me this is the most honest love story I've seen in a long time. Perhaps ever. I love that someone so derisive of the concept of love can inexplicably have her mind changed by one person. And not the person you think. It is indeed a story of boy meets girl and no it isn't a love story, but instead I think it's a real story of modern dating life, whereby each dating decision we make changes the person we become even and it doesn't matter that every person we date isn't the one we're meant to end up with. And blah blah blah - other crap I like about the movie that makes me sound smart.


But here's some actual stuff I like that makes the movie so fantastic:

1. Grown up Joseph Gordon Levitt
No secret that I was a bit in love with mini JGL in 10 Things I Hate About You and aside from 3rd Rock From The Sun and a bunch of other random crappy movies he did in the late 90s/early 00s, this was the first movie he'd done since 10 Things that I could appreciate! And he got soooo delicious as he got older...just ignore the sappy, clingy character of Tom Hansen (yeah I'm dead inside, whatever).


Baby JGL vs older JGL:

2. Chloë Grace Moretz as Tom's sister

How funny is she?! Best quote from her:

Rachel: Better that you find this out now before you come home and find her in bed with Lars from Norway.

Tom: Who's Lars from Norway?

Rachel: He's some guy she met at the gym with Brad Pitt's face and Jesus' abs.

3. The Dance Sequence
I don't think this needs much explaining. It's genius.

4. iKea
There's not been a single time I've been to iKea since watching this movie that I have not pretended I was sitting in my own living room with a TV that didn't work and being in my own bathroom with 40 sinks. Unfortunately, I'm normally with my mother, rather than JGL/someone equally as yummy...
5. The Entire Soundtrack.Sweet Disposition. The Smiths. Regina. Wolfmother. It is just brilliant.


500 Days of Summer Soundtrack - http link
500 Days of Summer Soundtrack - spotify link

6. The Split Screen Scene

Film students all over the place have been trying to copy this little gem since the movie came out (just try and YouTube this, it's ridiculous). And yeah it's kinda depressing, but also completely realistic. Everyone has imagined how they hope highly anticipated events in their life are going to go, but let's be honest, they rarely live up to our high and often unreasonable expectations. And just by the way, (spoiler alert) I really don't think Summer was a bitch for not telling him she was engaged before she invited him to the party. Yes, it was a less than ideal way for him to find out, but she was only trying to stay friends with him...plus he'd totally invented their connection at the wedding, and possibly on many other occasions, in his head in my opinion! Rant over.




7. Paul's speech on his dream girl
So I've been known to cry at rather odd parts in movies, (the bit in the window in The Artist / throughout most Disney movies) and this Tom's mate Paul's little speech about love and his dream girl really got me on this one! It's such a small part of the movie but it stuck with me, perhaps because I still believe in the same ideal of love and fate that Tom believes in.. Anyways, it's just so adorable and real, and I love it. Here it is:

8. The blackboard in Tom's bedroom

How badly do you want a giant blackboard above your bed?! Where would I even go to get one of these?? I need one so badly for when a piece of paper just isn't fucking good enough.






9. The dramatic voiceover
I'm a sucker for a good voice over. Yeah he sounds like the x-factor-man/cliched-action-movie-trailer-voice-man but I think that just adds to the exquisite strangeness of the movie.


"This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story..."




and finally...


10. PENIS!!!
There are no actual penises in this movie. There is, however, a penis game. I've never been in a position to play this, but if anyone would like to join me in a park, library, shopping centre or restaurant I'm very up for it.

So there we go.


You should see this movie if you'd like to see: Zooey Deschanel playing a slightly altered version of the exact same character she always plays absolutely brilliantly, JGL in all his glory, some pretty awesome quirky-movie graphics, people shouting penis in a park and a confusing moment in a movie theatre with JGL and Zooey on screen speaking French...

(Pictures from: here, here, here and here :)

On the Big Screen: This Means War

Generally when I pay my £12.50 (what's happening to the world!!) to go to the movies, I absolutely require at least one hot person to stare at. It seems only fair as I have to stare at the mundane faces of office personnel all day everyday that during my outings I get something pretty to stare at. So I was super pleased during my last trip to realised I'd lucked out with two pretty faces, in the form of the oh-so-sexy bromance that is Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. LOOK AT THEM. All brooding...

I'll be honest these two were the sole reason I wanted to see the movie in the first place and I was not wrong in assuming that the best part of the movie would in fact be every moment the two of them were on screen at the same time. Not only that I went to see it in one of those giant screens which made their gorgeous faces even bigger! At times there was too much gorgeousness at once to take it all in.

Anyway, so the two of them play CIA agents or spy people or something, no one cares. They both fall in love with Reese Witherspoon and when they realise they set some ground rules, vowing that no girl can come between their bromance = so cute! BUT you guessed it, it like totally does come between them (shocker!) and they battle it out spy style. Despite the fact that the ENTIRE movie is full of cliches from both action spy movies and rom-coms (i.e. people hanging off buildings, Reese dancing in underwear in the kitchen whilst baking - I totally do that of course, cars exploding on a free standing highway etc etc) I really really enjoyed it! It's actually really funny, I laughed pretty much the whole way through. It ain't an Oscar winner obviously, but it worked for me and the rest of the movie theatre who also laughed constantly. I may even go so far as to purchase the movie when it comes out for sale on le DVD!

But what I loved most about it is how relatable it was to me. If I could only count the number of times incredibly hot spies quite literally beat each other up over me...ahem...

SO you should see this movie if you'd like to see: unbearably gorgeous men, beautiful women (Reese is looking fiooone), things blowing up, bad guys who you're not entirely sure why they're bad you just KNOW, Tom Hardy's extreme paintballing, Chelsea Handler being generally hilarious.

Photos from here and here.

Record of the Day: Flo Rida - Wild Ones (feat. Sia)

So I know it's not new news or anything but I'm totally in love with Sia. She's fascinating to me. I love that she looks absolutely nothing like how her voice sounds. I love that she's peculiar in one of those genius kind of ways. The song I absolutely love the most is 'Breathe Me' from her third studio album Colour the Small One and I've added a live version of this below because it's SO amazing. And I love the little collaborations she appears on every so often. My record for today is one of those, her newest feature on a record by Flo Rida. It's fun and the video makes me want to throw myself out of planes and things. Enjoy :)

Record of the Day: Flo Ride - Wild Ones (feat. Sia) (From the album Only One Rida (Part 2), for release in 2012)

Record of the Day: NSYNC - Tearin' Up My Heart

MAN I LOVE THE 90S! And I have no shame in saying one of my fondest memories of the 90s was my obsession with boy bands. Waiting outside concerts for 16 hours in the rain, poster making, screaming hysterically, genuinely thinking I'd end up married to various members of various bands. I'm a huge cliche I know. In fact when NSYNC's No Strings Attached album came out I slept with it under my pillow for a week before my mother made me stop... SO to honour my love of the 90s, get out those denim jackets WITH jeans and some backwards caps and sing along to some NSYNC :D

Record of the Day: NSYNC - Tearin' Up My Heart (From their self titled album, 1997 - RCA)

Record of the Day: Darren Criss - Human

This song came up on my Spotify in one of the related artists sections, I listened as I was browsing and I fell a little bit in love. He's got an EP that came out in 2010 called Human and has recently signed to Sony BUT even more importantly he's Blaine in Glee! I have a (not so secret) obsession with Glee and in particular the Warblers (of season 2 when Blaine was involved...). But don't judge him based on that (if you're a Glee hater - shame on you) because this little EP is a few sweet, acoustic, Brushfire-style songs that you'd assume came from one of Jack Johnson's mates. It's good stuff :) I've added a playlist at the end for ya so have a listen.

Record of the Day: Darren Criss - Human (From the EP of the same name, 2010)

Darren Criss EP - http link

Darren Criss EP - Spotify link

Record of the Day: Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know

I'm not afraid to admit that I was wrong and so I would like to say that I was definitely wrong about this song... I didn't want to like it and I'm not sure why. I think it's because he's a weird guy and the videos pretty weird and I was hearing the song EVERYWHERE I went for like a week. BUT I've listened properly and on reflection I definitely judged too soon. The song's weird and the album's weird but it's GOOD weird. Peter Gabriel style weird, who is one of my favourite people in the world ever by the way so if I compare anyone to him I must be impressed. This song is is from his third studio album but I'm sure everyone's already heard it a zillion times on the radio. I've added a playlist at the bottom with his last two albums on because they really are rather good and it would be sad for him to be a one-hit wonder...

Record of the Day: Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know (From Making Mirrors, 2011 - Eleven: A Music Company)

Gotye - Spotify link to playlist
Gotye - http link to playlist

Record of the Day: Rick Derringer - Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

I watched Dazed and Confused (1993) for the 50th time the other day and I'd definitely forgotten was an AWESOME movie it is. And the soundtrack is even better (conveniently I have a spotify playlist of the soundtrack that I've put at the bottom of the post :D). You definitely can't go wrong with ZZ Top, The Runaways and War on one soundtrack. If you haven't seen it, shame on you, go watch it now, it'll like totes change your life and you'll wish, like me, you were a teenager in the 70s. I've put the trailer in here too because I love it so much.

Quote of the movie from Matthew McConaughey of course: "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

Soooo my record of the day is the first record on the soundtrack: Rick Derringer - Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo (From the album All American Boy, 1973 - Blue Sky Records)

Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (spotify link)

Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (URL link)



Record of the Day: Warrant - Cherry Pie

It's British Pie Week!! Hehe soooo to celebrate...have this (slightly offensive) song :D

Record of the Day: Warrant - Cherry Pie (From the album Cherry Pie, 1990)

Record of the Day: Earth Wind & Fire - September

This song ALWAYS reminds me of my mother. It's been her ring tone for a few years and it just IS her all over! Apparently she was a bit of a disco raver when she was younger (12 hour day parties and all that jazz). But to be honest, even if the 70s disco gene hadn't been instilled in me at a young age I still think I'd love this song! It's a classic and never fails to get people up and dancing like an idiot!

Record of the Day: Earth Wind & Fire - September (The Best of Earth Wind & Fire Vol. 1 - record during the I Am sessions, 1978)

Record of the Day: Dean Martin & Helen O'Connell - How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning?

Here's something lovely for a Monday morning! This song always puts me in a great mood to start the week - you really can't go wrong with a bit of Dean and some eggs with a kiss!

Record of the Day: Dean Martin & Helen O'Connell - How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning?



Scrummy Sunday: Red Velvet Cupcakes!

So I had a fairly busy weekend entertaining my old housemate from university who I haven't seen in aaaaages! We did lots of touristy things as is required when people visit London and one of my favourite things to take people to is the food court in Harrods! My visitor this weekend, like me, fully appreciates marvellous food in all it's glory and we had such a lovely time yesterday! My favourite purchase there was one of their mini red velvet cupcakes and I cannot begin to explain how amazing it was. Here is me about to eat it in one bite:

They're so cute and tiny! I especially love red velvet because they're not too sweet because of the cream cheese frosting and they always look so fancy with the red sponge! The recipe I use to make them myself is from one of the Hummingbird Bakery cookbooks (if you haven't been to a Hummingbird Bakery yet then I suggest you find one immediately! There's 5 in various places in London. If you don't live in London, I apologise for your misfortune, but you can buy the book and make the cakes yourself! You may buy them here!) This recipe is literally heaven in cake form. To start, preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F and you'll need a 12-hold cake tray and some pretty cake cases (here is where I buy a lot of mine. I actually really like the silicone ones because you can use them again but there's lots of cute themed ones too :)

1. Put 60g of butter and 150g of caster sugar in an electric mixer (or use a handheld whisk OR use a good old fashioned wooden spoon and get those guns out!) and whisk together until light and fluffy. Turn the whisks up to a higher speed or move your arm faster, slowly add one egg and beat until everything is mixed well.

2. In another bowl mix together 10g of cocoa powder, 20ml red food colouring and ½ tsp of vanilla extract to make a thick paste. Add it to the butter mixture and mix well until it's all red. Turn the whisk down to a slow speed and slowly pour in 60ml of buttermilk. Then add 75g of plain flour and mix well. Repeat this again, adding 60ml of buttermilk and another 75g of plain flour, mixing well until it's all yummy and velvety!

3. Finally add ½ tsp of salt, ½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda and 1½ tsp of white wine vinegar (I know it's weird but have faith). Then turn up the speed again and mix for a few more minutes.

4. Spoon the mixture into the cake cases (I actually like to use a little ice cream scoop because then the cakes are all the same size and shape!) Make sure the cases are about two thirds full. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the sponge is all bouncy. Then leave them to cool on a cooling rack.

5. For the cream cheese frosting, beat 300g of icing sugar and 50g of unsalted butter, with a whisk or by hand. Add 125g of cold cream cheese and mix well until is it light and fluffy which normally takes about 5 minutes. Don't over mix it because it will become too liquidy. When the cakes are cold you can spoon some frosting on top or use a piping bag to make them look all pretty. Edible glitter or red sugar sprinkles looks nice too (here's where I get my edible glitter! FYI put it just before serving the cupcakes because it melts really quickly and goes into the icing!)

Happy Baking!

Pay Day Purchase: T-Bar Peep Toe Black Platforms

I wish I felt more guilty about buying these but they're so amazing I just can't! I've sacrificed eating for this week (had to be done) in order to buy these as well as the blouse I purchased yesterday but I think everyone would agree with me when I say it was absolutely the right decision! They were only £27.99 from New Look - FYI they have looooads of great platforms at the moment, I wanted them all.

I love these so much I want to sleep in them...

Record of the Day: General Fiasco - Don't You Ever

For a change today's record is sparkly and new (it's not even out yet omg). It's by General Fiasco, a lil Indie band from Northern Ireland. Radio 1 has been a bit in love with them for last few years and they released their first studio album in 2010. This is their new single from a "TBC" album. It's a nice bit of generic indie - with some pretty funky guitar solos thrown in. Enjoy :)

Record of the Day: General Fiasco - Don't You Ever (2012 - Released March 4th)

Pay Day Purchase: H&M Black Patterned Blouse

In my current position as intern/slave girl for the company I work at, I obviously have very little disposable income. Enter my new best friend - H&M! I seem to own half the shop, but it's all good stuff! So this week I bought myself this yummy black patterned blouse for only £14.99! I seem to have an obsession with sheer blousey things at the moment...

Record of the Day: The Monkees - Daydream Believer

Unfortunately it's another sad time for music lovers...

Davy Jones of The Monkees sadly passed away yesterday. For those unfamiliar, The Monkees originally began as a band purposely made for a TV show of the same name and was never meant to be than light entertainment and a hit-single generator. However, the band went on to do much more. It was better TV than it should have been during a time of formulaic domestic sitcoms and wacky comedies.Although at the beginning, the band were given limited performing and production opportunities they eventually fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band's name. Even though the show was cancelled in 1968, the band continued to record music until 1970. The Monkees had a number of international hits, which are still heard on pop and oldies radio stations around the world. These include '(Theme From) The Monkees' , 'Last Train to Clarksville', 'I'm a Believer' and 'Daydream Believer'. Their albums and singles have sold over 65 million copies worldwide. Whatever they were meant to be, they became artists in their own right and the 'chipper Brit-pop presence' of Davy Jone was a big reason why they were able to produce music that was commercial, wholesome and still impressively weird. Davy Jones continued to perform throughout the last forty years both solo and with various incarnations of The Monkees. As a lover of anything and everything from the 60s, I can safely say it's the end of a very brightly coloured, swirly era.

Here's my record of the day: The Monkees - Daydream Believer (From The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, 1968)