From the mind of..

Place your hand over your heart, and repeat after me.. I believe in melody, I believe in energy, I believe in pop punk. I am a man who is nearly 32 years old, and I do believe in melody and energy and its why I love pop punk. Some bands have this innate ability to make you flashback to moments in life. Woes are one of those bands. The Scottish quartet have invaded my ears and my mind over these past few months and in doing so, have used there slick powerful pop punk to remind me of lost summers with my friends. Those endless summers of pop punk and Drive-Thru Records, where we chased *unsuccessfully* girls, partied, talked to early hours, made mistakes but more importantly made memories. Woes have that killer throwback quality, but sound as relevent and new as other amazing bands like Wstr or Neck Deep. The band are super DIY too, interacting with their fans, handling production and recording duties aswell as writing huge songs like 'Worst Friend' and 'Be Alone...

So I wanted to write about something else personal to me. For most who know me, they will have known that for the last 10 years or so, I have been straight edge. For people who don't know what that means, basically straight edge is a practice originally started by the hardcore punk scene that sees purveyors abstain from drinking, smoking or drug use, in its most basic form. I was straight edge for quite a long time, up until recently, when I decided to break my edge and partake in alcohol. It has not been something I've taken lightly, I'd built a large chunk of my adult life on being straight edge and living clean. I realised just recently though that you can remain who you want to be, regardless of whether you subscribe to a lifestyle or not. Personally I was never the biggest drinker and probably never will be, truth is though that you do miss out on many social interactions and experiences by somewhat standing on the sidelines. My brother was particularly h...