So this morning I went in with an evil plan. Well, not so much evil...or a plan. More of a wish, and that wish came true!

I got into the office and was assigned more picture captioning. I'm getting the hang of this. It's also a great way to find out more about bands I don't really like or follow.

As you all (should) know, the festival of the mo is most definitely South By Southwest, held in Austin, Texas. A festival I would literally sell my soul to go to. Jamie Fullerton, NME's assistant news editor, has been avidly covering SXSW (follow him on Twitter for all the goss) and I basically had to caption the pictures sent over by his photographers. Take a look at them HERE.

I then cheekily asked the lovely Carol if she could sort out me going down to NME Radio and watch Metric perform live in the studio....which she managed!

Apparantly, a couple of weeks ago, when Little Boots did a live session for NME Radio, one of the work experience students got the chance to watch her live...and then 'harassed' poor Victoria Hesketh. So they now tend not to let students down there but Carol assured them I was a nice girl and would not try to maul Metric.

Soooo off I went down to the studio and kind of sat there for a while, eagerly awaiting my first glimpse of the beautiful Emily Haines, whilst being forced to listen to some awful Duran Duran sounding noise on air at the time. And then in she came with guitarist Jimmy Shaw. Wow. A pair of beauties, I tell ya.

After an interview with host Neil Cole, they then performed a heavenly acoustic version of 'Gimme Sympathy', which, no word of a lie, silenced everyone in the studio. It was surreal to see all these important radio people staring at the duo in awe, almost holding their breath for fear of missing a note. I could not believe the perfection in dainty Haines' voice as she sang sat down the whole time. Possibly the most magical performance I've seen in my life.

I then left the studio (as I was told not to 'bug Metric') and went to the lift to go back to the office. In the three minutes I waited for the lift, who should stroll out but Metric themselves, asking me to hold the lift! I'm not gonna lie, I didn't speak to them at length but did say hi to Emily and praised her performance, to which she replied 'Thank you sweetie!' The duo then talked about how the lifts in the Blue Fin building were 'huge compared to BBC Radio 6!'

When my knees stopped their wobbling I went back to the reality of work.

This afternoon I then went on to the pretty mundane task of copying the album, single and live reviews out of this week's issue and trawling through SXSW videos to find news stories.

Black Lips "think" they're playing Reading and Leeds fest this year and Little Boots is CONFIRMED!!! I sent quotes and info over to a writer, who has now put them up on the website HERE and HERE


By the way, the NME.COM quiz I wrote the other day is now online! Click HERE to test your music news knowledge.


Marry me Metric


Over and out.

Firstly, a big thank you to the Dooley brothers (New Education) for getting me guestlist to The Rifles last night. A sweeeeet night indeed.

I'd never been to The Roundhouse before and for some reason I'd made up in my head that it would be a dirty little intimate venue with battered stickers hanging off the wall and sweat constantly flying in my eye. Oh how wrong I was...

Firstly, it was huuuuge. And round (yeah, yeah, I know). And it even has a seated balcony, which is where I sat. The view was amazing - looking down onto a sea of waving hands and a misty rainbow-coloured stage. My night peaked when headliners The Rifles belted out 'Repeated Offender' and 'Peace and Quiet'. Good times.

Back to NME.

Soooo I finished the Prodigy captions this morning, which are now on the website. Take a look HERE

I was then asked to write captions for the Howling Bells, Everything Everything and Little Boots JD Sessions pictures, and upload them to the NME.COM system. A system that I had never seen in my life.

Luckily the girl next to me is too lovely for words and helped me out a LOT today.

The first task was finding the pictures I needed to caption. Could I find them? Hell no. The lovely Carol did.

We came across a Howling Bells gallery for their NME Presents gig first, and assumed I was to write these captions. So off I went, typing away and adding bits and bobs to their system.

I felt incredibly accomplished at this point. Accomplished until I came across the actual Howling Bells pictures I was supposed to caption. MIGHTY OOPS!!!

I fretted all lunchtime about cocking up at my dream work place and so returned early and bashed out the three galleries' captions. It was okay in the end.

Click HERE to see my 'accidental' work and HERE to see my actual work.

And that was pretty much my day. Oh I'm in tomorrow's NME.COM newsletter, by the way (awful picture of me with some stolen salt and pepper shakers!) - something about what I'm listening to and watching at the mo. But you can only see this if you subscribe to it online - so get subscribing people! Orrrr I'll try and find a way of getting it on here.

An antique lamp placed daintily upon a battered piano transforms the stage and takes us back to the days when old war veterans smoked pipes in their locals. Tonight should be all about headliners Lights. Action! here at The Sugarmill, but it’s not. The two local support acts The People Involved and Everything On Red have certainly stolen the show.

Combining UK and US talent, Lights.Action! look kind of wrong with half the band oozing Kings Of Leon’s indie style and the other half leaning towards emo-rockers Attack! Attack! but they sure are serious about creating catchy and melodic rock ballads. Despite only 100 tickets sold for tonight’s gig, headliners Lights.Action! forced a response from local supporters with a fantastic cover of Sam Sparro’s ‘Black and Gold’. It even surpasses Guillemot’s Live Lounge attempt.

Kicking off the show are local boys The People Involved. “We’re open to streakers…anything to liven things up a little”, laughs lead vocalist Seth Fullbrook, before they launch into an intensely powerful and progressive show. The passion this quartet have for their music is thrown out into the crowd with every hit of drummer Benji’s stick. Soulful and soaring, this band has everything to make commercial success.

Stoke’s favourite fairground punks Everything On Red follow up with a fast-paced, energetic set that could put five year olds at Disneyland to shame. Ranging from Enter Shikari to At The Drive In to, dare I say it, Scouting For Girls, these boys even managed to get a few people dancing to EP tracks ‘Neveroddoreven’ and ‘Take The Plunge’. The foursome Alex, James, Sam and Tom, especially Tom, are having a whale of a time. They play a tight show with offbeats galore, punchy vocals and the entertainment factor worthy of a summer festival stage. And yes, they’re all wearing red.

Check out the bands below: