Favorite Things: Blood Red Shoes!

A month and no updates, what the hell is wrong with me?! Well, I have just the thing to make it up to you I swear. Laura-Mary from Blood Red Shoes' Favorite Things. Hailing from Brighton, England this intrepid twosome, comprised of Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter has created some of what I humbly feel to be the best rock music in recent memory. I had the distinct honor of seeing them live the other week at the Highline Ballroom, in what I'm about 90% sure was their first stateside show. Sorry to sound like just another run of the mill music writer. I really do love them a lot though. They have that ineffable spark of whatever the hell it is that makes me shut up and take notice and/or start dancing. Speaking of dancing that is exactly what the crowd at that show didn't seem to want to do much of. But screw them, I'll post a clip of the show at the end of this post so you can see just why not dancing, or in some other way moving around, was a knuckle-head decision. And without further ado, here are Laura-Mary's responses to our little questionnaire (and as a side note she chose not to answer all the questions as everyone this is sent to is welcome to do)....

Laura Mary
Band: hood

Book: what a carve up! by jonathan coe

Movie: harvey (with james stewart)

Color: red

Animal: penguin

Artist: benjamin shadbolt

Poet: samuel beckett

President/Prime Minister/ Royal Family member: hugo chavez

Food: aubergine (eggplant!)

Phobia: insects getting into your ears

Word: plinth

Place: paris

Musical Term: sforzando

Childhood toys: the ghostbusters house


Thank you so much Laura-Mary, and Steven if you by any chance read this we'd love to hear from you too! And as promised as your reward for reading the whole post heres a video of them playing their new single "its getting boring by the sea" live at the Highline Ballroom. You cant see Steven very well, but I'm rather impressed I was able to find a video of it at all. Appréciez.

Favorite Things Rewind: Mates of State

So this is a pulled article from an old "Static" issue that appears to be from Nov/Dec 2003 (I say appears because apparently they weren't into dating things back then at the station). At any rate they somehow managed to get replies from both Kori and Jason of Mates of State. The questions are written exactly as they were in the old zine, and without my updates and modifications, which also explains errors in grammar like "fictitious character" but ahh well. With that, keep in mind that both Kori and Jasons answers are circa 3+ years ago and will likely have changed somewhat since then.

First up, Kori:

Band:
no favorite.

Book:
The Red Tent. Anita Diamant

Movie:
Annie Hall

Color:
Lt blue or Red

Animal:
Siamese Cat

Artist:
Diane Arbus

Poet:
Auden

President (or Royal Family Member):
FDR

Food:
lemons

Phobia:
lots

Song of the moment:
Not Earned (Palomar)

Song of Your Own:
Separate the People

Fictitious Character:
"President" Bush

Word:
word

Place:
Huahini, Tahiti

Number:
4 or any multiple of it, esp 16

One Hit Wonder (song):
Come on Eileen

Childhood Toy:
tape recorder

Famous Quote:
you are what you eat

And now for Jason...

Band:
Too many good ones to have just one favorite

Book:
The Favorite Game by Leonard Cohen

Movie:
Wild Strawberries by Ingmar Bergman

Color:
Silver

Animal:
the Lynx

Artist:
Dali

Poet:
Auden

President (or Royal Family Member):
William

Food:
Shalimar

Phobia:
Failure

Song of the moment:
Baby- O's Mutantes

Song of your own:
Gotta Get a Problem

Fictitious Character:
Bugs

Word:
HMS. DBLCHBS

Place:
France

Number:
13

One Hit Wonder (song):
Outta My Head

Childhood Toy:
Ducky

Famous Quote:
Shit or get off the pot

Favorite Things: Tender Forever

Once upon a time WSVA had a zine. It was a paper zine, yknow... old skool. It was called Static. Xzyqunity basically is Static only with a cooler, more original name that has nothing to do with WNYU and is, of course, on the web. At any rate Static, it was recently discovered, used to have a feature called "Favorite Things" which was basically a short list of questions, "the kind of list that would be fun to read but not take up too much of their busy rockin' lives or scare them off." We've decided this was a brilliant idea and have begun to send out bands a slightly updated version of the original questionnaire. I'll be posting the reply's as I get them and possibly adding a few of the old ones cuz they can be really interesting.

So I'm really excited, cuz the very first response is from Tender Forever! (whom I have previously ranted and raved about)
Heres what she had to say....

Band: I LOVE CODY CHESNUTT!!!

Book: i started recently to read Middle Sex. I kind of want to say that it is my favorite one, like everything i do at the moment is better than what i was doing one month ago, you know what i'm saying?

Movie: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) by Steven Spielberg / Freaks (1932) byy Tod Browning


Color: i'm always looking for things that are not appearing natural. Surprising things. I guess the surprising colors are the NEON ones. Totally unnatural, abusive of your eyes but magical. I LOVE THEM.

Animal: my best friend Valerie. She has a band called Squeeze Me i Squeak. She is a tiny mouse. She is my favourite.

Artist: I love anyone that can take me out of reality. Anyone.

Poet: Calvin Johnson.

President/Prime Minister/ Royal Family member: It's hard to choose a favorite politician. They are not something i could ever make up my mind about. But if there was one it'd be Segolene Royal.

Food: cheese, cheese, cheese

Phobia: loneliness, no man's land

Song of the moment: Ain't got no / I got life of Nina Simone.

Song of your own: MAKE OUT

Word: "Enormément"

Place: Olympia, Washington / Sevilla, Spain / Bordeaux, France.

Venue: I love playing in unusual places. I think my favorite was the museum of communication in Charleston, South Carolina. It was amazing to play in the middle of old HUGE videos cameras and holograms and first jukeboxes.

Number: Billions.

Musical Term: When you're on tour, you hear so many of them that sometimes it gets hilarious to think back on what you said. Every sentence pronounced in the venue at soundcheck is surrealist. Also all the vocabulary that labels use, or booking agent or who ever is involved is supernatural. My personal favorite one is "JAM SISTER!"

One hit wonder (song): Women eye, "no" by Why?

Childhood toys: wood sticks, mud, plastic boots, motor oil, ponds, my brothers, my boyfriends and a frog.

Quote: "we never know" Calvin and i on tour in our van.