Monday, 18 May 2015

Summary (Past Few Weeks)

I am horrendous. I know, I'm sorry. I am going to blame my finals again, I am also going to blame people though. Broad statement, potentially a bit of a dickish one as well, but why...WHY are people so unreliable?! I am going to be a one woman team. Or a weird version of Gollum that only relies on herself soon...

Anyways, just so you haven't all assumed I've died. If you cared... The past few weeks have looked a little like this...
It will be more than just updates soon, I promise. Pinky promise in fact.

1|| Superfood Salad at Jamie's Italian with Pops
2|| Masterclass with Lalah Hathaway at BIMM. She is a true inspiration.
3|| New Purchases. Both Necklaces are Regal Rose. A new fave!
4|| I am obsessed with Banana Ice Cream. Every morning.
5|| Morning well spent at Sky Garden with Tom Joy
6|| The amazing view minus us
7|| My best friends and I found a flat!!! YAY.
8|| One of the reasons they are my best friends...
9|| Uni work for daaaayyyyysss
10|| Lunching with my Boy at Moosh, Fulham. One of my favourite healthy go to's.
11|| Another shot of my ring and two chokers from Regal Rose
12|| The best work team at the best. Nandos, obviously.


More to come soon, I promise.


Much Love

Chloë Rona
XO

Sunday, 19 April 2015

Sunday Summery 19/04/15




1|| The one hot day we had this week and probably the only one we will have all summer..
2|| Music Technology lessons are the one. Especially now they're i this sweeeet ass room
3|| Spent a lot of this week not doing uni work and writing/recording songs instead, Oops.
4|| I may have done an oopsie. I bought Toga Pulla boots!! Poor bank account. Happy Chloë though! :)
5|| OOTD. Skirt - H&M last season (Link is a similar one). Top - Topshop. Boots. Toga Pulla
6|| Dinner date at the best restaurant in Hammersmith. La Petite Bretagne.
7|| OBSSESSED. Rihanna - Bitch Better Have My Money. I care not what you think. I love this song.

Sorry mine hasn't been a super exciting one. What have you done this week?

Much Love,

Chloë Rona
XO

Monday, 13 April 2015

Band Merch, Crackheads and George the Soldier.

I am the worst, I know, truly the worst.
I promised I'd post sooner than this, but I am just so busy!

But, now for the long awaited rant.
Band merchandise. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's the printed tees, hoodies, beanies blah blah... some get weird, so we will leave it at that.
At any gig you go to you will see a stall of clothes with their album cover, name or logo scrawled over it, they aren't that expensive, they tend to be cheaper than the average top you'd buy at Topshop and some of them, if done well, are actually pretty sweet, not the emo band tees you have in your mind. They tend to go down pretty well, but you will without fail, at any decent sized band's gig, get people selling fake ones outside. This annoys me. This will annoy any musician.

Point one. This is stealing, living off other people's success. Bands work their asses off to get to where they are and to built the brand they are, the march goes with this. They will usually have spent hours designing it themselves and it's not okay for someone to stand next to you with exactly what you've made, with cheaper materials and a few mistakes, and sell it cheaper. It's just as wrong as someone stealing your song, maybe not as annoying, but technically still just as wrong.

Point two. THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA. They genuinely think the bands on stage are minted. Let me just make one thing very clear, they are NOT minted. Unless you're going to see someone like Rihanna, Coldplay blah blah... Smaller bands like Architects, Letlive., Of Mice and Men...blah blah... will not be rich. All that equipment you see? Most of that is rented or endorsed.

Point three. Merchandise is where bands make most of their money when they're on tour. Yeah. Let that one sink in. Those tickets you're buying? That pays off everyone involved, the transport from venue to venue, the venue hire, food. It barely gives them any profit at all when they're at the stage of the bands I mentioned above. Obviously when you reach global chart topping level for a few years, that's when you rake in the money from gigs. So for these people to be stood outside, taking money from fans who love and support these bands, when it should be going to the band so they can afford to carry on touring for these fans. Well, you can see how wrong that is.

The reason I am making this point and rant is because at the Of Mice and Men gig I went to a couple of weeks ago. I went with one of my favourite humans, George. Little fact about George, he speaks his mind, very bluntly. 
So this woman selling Of Mice & Men merch was wandering up and down the queue telling everyone her stuff was £5 cheaper than what they were selling inside. Naturally George asked how much of the profit went to the band, to which she made up a random figure. Of course George told her she was lying and her response was 'You think you're doing the right thing supporting your band, how much have you paid for your ticket? You're stuck out here whilst they live like kings. How do you live? Do you live well?'

Firstly, that's an odd thing to say to someone you don't know, especially when they are obviously doing better than you as you are dependant on drugs (I know that is an unnecessary dig, but she annoyed me)

Secondly, one again, I really wish people wouldn't assume that because you are a band playing a sold out gig that you are instantly loaded and robbing people of their money. Okay, Of Mice and Men are probably one of the more successful. But bands from the UK that haven't broken into America yet, or the support bands still get these people lurking outside their gigs, and trust me those bands are NOT well off. The majority of them are probably still working a day job in Burger king just to pay for the tour.
The tickets you buy pay for everyone else pay check who is involved, the lighting, the venues, the sound... the profit is usually the merchandise. Yeah, now you see the problem. These people are taking away the bands only true profit.

I just think that this is definitely something to think about next time you go to a gig. DON'T buy the cheap FAKE merch from the crackheads outside to support their drug addiction, spend a fiver more and support the band you love so they can go on tour again!

Sorry, that really was a full on rant with no pretty pictures. But I hope you learnt something anyways! 

George was not harmed in the research for this blog post, but I suggest you don't try arguing with these people. They seem to get quite into the argument.

Much Love,

Chloë Rona
xo

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

This world it needs a cleansing. Remove all it's filth.

I had a pretty good few weeks for gigs, two of my favourite bands. Architects not long ago, of Mice & Men last week. Not complaining!

It was was at Brixton Academy, which I am sure anyone will tell you is such a cool venue. Sound is crazy and it just looks awesome, like a shakespeare style theatre. Admittedly, I spend a lot of time staring at that... especially when the support acts are a bit boring.
Sorry.... Amity Affliction are great on record, they're studio recorded stuff is good, but they are just boring live. I found myself wishing my phone still had battery so I could check my Instagram... that is a VERY bad sign.

Moving on to better things (I hate putting bands down), of Mice & Men are definitely ones to go and see. I missed them last time they were here and i was so gutted, I feel like I've filled a little gap in my life now. Austin Carlile, seriously, what planet are you from?! AMAZING front man. If you don't know, they have a couple of songs that he does literally nothing on, as he doesn't do any clean vocals (sang, not screamed). Some of their songs are just cleans, done by the bass player, Aaron Pauley, but Austin Carlile still drives the entire band whilst making no sound and just running around the stage like a mad man. Seriously, not one shit is given by him. Amazing.

I will just leave you with a few photos of the incredibleness.







Tomorrow I will try to write a post on my lunch break at work, as there is something VERY important I need to talk about and I think everyone who is a part of the music world, artists, fans, musicians, industry people alike, should ALL read. ESPECIALLY PEOPLE WHO STAND OUTSIDE GIGS SELLING FAKE MERCH. I wonder what this post could be about...hmmmm...! (Hence the title of this post)
So check back tomorrow or the day after, I should have it up.



Much Love,

Chloë Rona

Sunday, 29 March 2015

Sunday Summary 29/03

I am so sorry about the lack of posts recently, between finals, working to pay for my expensive taste and pretending to have some pathetic excuse for a social life... it's been a tad hard, I don't have a whole lot of interesting things for you to read about! I do post on Instagram a lot though, if I am annoying you with my slight ghosting on here, chloeronauk is my username :)

Anyway, I spent a week at my parents house to chill out a bit after my exams, and to prepare myself for the next round!




1|| Real Techniques Core Collection are AMAZING. I don't get paid to say that, I have wanted them for ages and they are worth it!
2|| So I dyed my hair two tone :) On it's way to being black and white... got to take it slowly though.
3|| Lunching with Mumma Bear
4|| The new love of my life. Finally bought an Alexander McQueen Bag.
5|| Go home and Mum takes naps ;) so chilled though!
6|| Mumma Bear. Lotta love.
7|| So good to spend the week with my little man.
8|| Entered back into London with a bang. Of Mice & Men at Brixton. 100%. Blogging this ASAP!


Much Love,

Chloë Rona

Sunday, 22 March 2015

Fuck it, I'm a dreamer and I'm dreaming on.

For anyone who doesn't know, yes, I sing more electronic stuff now, but you can't forget your roots.
I've always had a weird music taste, Electronic, Metal and R&B kinda being my go to favs. Which covers everything a bit... Basically I am easily pleased, apparently!

That's a lie, I'm not easily pleased, I am so fussy with bands/artists I actually like in those genres. Especially in Metal, because my God, do you get some shockers... I can't stand the winey singing stuff. Not to say it's bad, just not quite my thing anymore :) I also can't deal with overly heavy stuff, because I'm a bit of a pussy, let's be honest. So I just like a happy medium. So Architects, sit kinda perfect! And, that's exactly who I'm writing about...

So, most important people first, the vocals (I AM JOKING), Sam Carter... where do I start, how do you do that?! How do you get through an entire gig without messing up once?! It's not even just him, that whole band are so so on point. Perfect balance of serious and pissing about as well... gotta have a bit of fun really, can't be dealing with bands that take themselves too seriously! Saying that though... I am going to have to rant in a bit.. prepare yourself.


Roundhouse, immense. Architects, obviously immense.
They put on a show, perform well, connect with the crowd, they tick all the boxes. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t do their usual moaning. Sorry guys, but you don’t half moan in interviews. My only bit of sceptisism was that they would do that on stage, but thank God, there was none of that, they were pretty much the opposite, super appreciative and blown away as it was their biggest show to date, and their tour finale.



BUT. Here comes the rant... So, my Boyfriend, Will, told me the other day about an interview they had recently. with VICE, which you can read (here). I do agree with them that music needs to be sending a message and not just about insignificant nonsense, but insignificant nonsense is still quite nice sometimes if you just want to mentally chill out and turn off. I definitely think they should do a bit of research before saying Of Mice & Men are screaming about home cooked dinners, maybe then they might think before they speak, as the song is actually about Austin Carlille’s Mum, who passed away when he was 17. (Read Here) Just seems a whole lot like putting other people down to justify what you’re doing?
I actually did an essay recently on what other people in the music industry see as musicians and how confused the whole industry is, it was super interesting, when I get my grades back (if they’re good) I might tell you about it. But something that stood out to me was something that my friend and Will said in the surveys they did for me. ‘If you’re moaning about what someone else is doing then you’re not putting enough time into what you’re doing. Why does what other people do effect you?!'
Saying all that though, I would still definitely recommend seeing them live if you have the chance. They are decent guys and good musicians, they just need to cheer up a bit and maybe not lay into other people so much!



But again, put that aside, Architects are AMAZING. Too many bands/artists are too quick to fire insults, not just them, it actually pained me to say anything bad about them.

Much Love,

Chloë Rona

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Sunday Summary 14/03

Hey Hey!

I know it's Tuesday (still Monday for me, because I am still awake...SHOCKER). But it is exam week, my timetable is crazy, I am only just managing to do a weekly update now, that is all I have time for!! I'm sorry! Trust me, I'd rather be writing a blog post than an essay...


So I'm just going to quickly pop up a couple snaps of my favourite moments this week.




1|| My Pops enjoying the size of his coffee a bit too much at Le Pain Quotidien 
2|| The amazing Vegan Coconut Chia Pudding at Le Pain. (I went Vegan for a couple weeks, Post to come)
3|| OOTD. Leather Jacket & Jumper - AllSaints. Bag - Urban Outfitters
4|| Architects @ Roundhouse were on point (Post to come.)
5|| Exam week. Killer. Technology remix of a Moby track I was working on.
6|| My beautiful new MacBook Air 11", kitted out with a Michael Kors Sleeve & Alexander McQueen "Savage Beauty" Background
7|| Last but DEFINITELY not least. George, my housemate, not coping very well with exam week.


Much Love,

Chloë Rona
XO

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