If you know me, you know I go through Captain Morgan’s at quite a rate. Black-rum Spiced Eggnog, Jen Altman’s recipe at Design*Sponge:

Image by unknown, because 8,000 people reblogged it on Tumblr:

Bike design in the bathroom, via Re-Nest:

Hey, it’s a maned wolf! The only member of the Chrysocyon genus, which is a very distinct canid. Not a fox, dog, wolf, or coyote. Weird, eh?

An embroidery-based cake decoration by ClockworkLemon, via Craft blog.

Kling is a lovely European label doing cute, retro fashion, found via NEET Magazine:

StarWars wallpaper from ThinkGeek:

This will make your heart hurt. Lilly the Great Dane is blind. She has a guide dog called Maddison, and they need rehoming together. Did you ever hear of a blind dog getting a guide dog?  No mean feat adopting two such large dogs, one of which with special needs. I really hope someone with lots of room will be able to give them a new loving home:

And we seem to have come to a natural end here.

Big lifestyle changes = getting our little Boston terrier puppy, Batman. More on that later.

Good stuff I found recently:

Lovely gum packages from Blue Q:

Cute bird clips from MyDeco:

Herbert Ponting’s grotto in an iceberg:

Incredibly beautiful older lady, from Advanced Style blog:

 Iittala’s classic Kastehelmi Collection in grey. Designed by Oiva Toikka:

Moomin trays, from Cloudberry Living:

Planet Blue’s new holiday campaign, check out that amazing eye makeup (can you say magpie?):

Martha Stewart’s wildflower ice cubes are killing it:

It’s the Henry Rollins whiteboard! WHUT?

Um, how do you follow that? With the ridiculously expensive Stanhope teapot from Anthropologie!:

And these Seven Deadly Sins plates from Trixie Delicious on Etsy. Quite lovely:

See you in another six months, eh?

—

This is difficult to write. I am starting this 10 days (9 May 2011) after getting tattooed, and I intend for it to be an account documenting my relationship with, and changing reaction to, a specific tattoo of mine. I aim to keep it in draft and add to it as and when my thoughts crystallize towards the tattoo on my arm.  I’ll post it  in its entirety when I feel I have reached some kind of conclusion. It is now 12 June – a month later, and I’m sure I have that. But why write this?

• Partly because, due to having a very strange relationship with tattoos on myself, I’ll probably feel this way again in the future (I can’t imagine not getting any more tattoos), and I need to look back on my own thoughts for reassurance the next time I do this to myself.
• Partly because I know that there are other people that must go through the same process of shock and desperation while they’re getting to used to/regretting a tattoo.
• I don’t really have ‘body issues’. I’m not being conceited here, but aside from hating my own butt, like many women do, and sometimes feeling like my face is too birdy and my eyes are a bit big, I just don’t. I won’t apologise for that. So now that I have/had a ‘body issue’ (albeit entirely self-inflicted and somewhat, er, relatively without perspective), it’s quite a novel emotion.
• To reinforce that it’s not just drunken or trashy morons with crap taste in tribal or cartoon characters that consider getting a tattoo removed or partially removed. People like me, who already have other [good] tattoos and wait/travel for custom work from a respected artist, also have mad freak-outs.
• How many people do you personally know who’ve admitted and documented doubts about their tattoo? You only read accounts of tattoo removal after lasering has started. I think there’s a certain amount of bravado around tattoo collectors (by this, I mean people that get work by prestigious tattooists). So much so that few people admit that they don’t like the background to their sleeve… they didn’t research what something was really meant to look like in great enough depth so it’s not quite true to reality… or that getting something at a convention was really rushed and the dude really should have redrawn that. Or even that it took them a month to stop regretting a massive new piece. Nobody likes to admit that they made a mistake, or point out their own imperfections.

I love tattoos.  My husband is fairly heavily tattooed (sleeve, back, calves, shin), and so are my friends. I love women with tattoos – Theo Kogan, Beatrix Von Bourbon, Sabina Kelley are all just about the hottest ladies on the planet to my mind.  If you follow awesome vintage beauties The Freelancer’s Fashion Blog and The Mysterious Life of the Metropolitan ex-Housewife, or the ever inspiring punkrock food blogger Bake & Destroy, you’ll know that not only are they incredibly stylish and accomplished women, they are tattooed. On their arms. Which looks amazing. (Not to diminish any of these ladies’ intellectual, professional or social achievements here, but I’m an aesthete, and you might have noticed that this blog’s  getting rather full of stuff I like looking at, rather than stuff I actually do or think. And this here is a reaction to what I’ve changed about my own appearance. Whether or not you think that’s vain is immaterial to me, this is about MY brain and body together.)

And so it follows that as I adore tattoos, and I don’t work in a job where it’d seem to be a problem, it was about time to get visible tattoos. What’s the point of having pretty pictures on you if nobody else can see them? I’m on my third tattoo – but my first one that can be seen with short sleeves.

(PEELING STILL  = ew.) I do think this tattoo is beautiful, it’s very meaningful to me, and I know many people would covet it, especially given the artist, but… it’s fucking massive. And it’s really dark. And, essentially, it’s not what I wanted (some elements are different), and that seems the hardest factor for me to get over. I’ve mainly been really mad at myself, and people keep telling me that I’m being too hard on myself. It’s a novelty for me – I don’t generally do stuff that I know to be wrong, or dumb (does anyone really sit and think “yeah, this is really stupid. I’ll do it”?), so when I do, I have no idea how to handle my feelings toward myself. (See also:  moving to Sheffield.)

When I booked this, I stressed that it could be no bigger than 6″ x 3.5″. It was intended to fit under an elongated short sleeve (yeah, pardon? Like this). It doesn’t. It comes to my elbow. This is my horse Danny (Sixpenny King) and he was meant to be wearing his crown, and have six pennies attached to his bridle. Obviously, he isn’t and doesn’t. When I was first shown it, it was 15% bigger, so would have come down past my elbow. Reducing the scale proved quite easy, but that was the limit – and then I had to try my transfer on. I tried asking for the ribbons to be removed but I just let myself get steamrollered into agreeing to the size of it, possibly because I had travelled 600 miles for it and waited months for my appointment. For several nights (possibly weeks, actually), I’d been worrying about how big it was going to get drawn up, and kept telling myself, “if it’s too big, I’ll just make him do it on my ribs”. Man, I did not stick to that, and I didn’t stand my ground in the slightest. This is quite unlike me.

My initial reaction

For the first three days (mainly when it was wrapped in clingfilm over the Bank Holiday Monday), I wasn’t bothered about my tattoo. I thought it quite novel, but mainly I just wanted the bastard to stop hurting and I hated having to sleep in clingfilm.

Then, by the time I went back to work on the Tuesday, I was convinced that it was the ugliest thing that I’d ever seen and:

• Why have I done this to my arm?
• Why have I got any tattoos at all? Do I even like tattoos? Don’t get any more, you moron! Better rethink the feet plan. Certainly can’t get the blackened machines I was thinking of…
• Why have I ruined my arm? It was very slender and fair before and now I have this massive dark tattoo on it, and look at all those women in Vogue or Lula that don’t have tattoos. Look at their pristine arms. I miss my flawless arm! I’ll never be able to wear sleeveless shirts again.
• How am I going to hide this from my parents for the rest of my life?
• Nobody I admire in the public eye has such a thing.
• And it’s not what I wanted!
• And horse tattoos are naff/camp! It doesn’t even look like Danny! I might as well have got a rainbow unicorn: it’s that camp.
• What will I look like at age 50?
• People are judging me. I’ll never wear a sleeveless dress at work again.
• What do I do if my sister gets married and I have to wear a longsleeve dress at a summer wedding?

In week one

I continued to panic at work, being really depressed and withdrawn. I obsessed over different removal methods. I researched and researched, trying to find before and after photos for various methods. I got depressed every time I thought about how long it’ll take me to remove my tattoo, and whether I’ll scar (the pain doesn’t really bother me, isn’t that odd?). Would I prefer having a scar than a tattoo? I frantically searched for pretty tops and dresses that would be cool in the summer and yet cover my tattoo. They do exist, yes!

I found myself wishing, as I very rarely do, that there was such thing as a time machine, and if I’d just done this differently then everything would be bearable. I recounted all the nightmares I’ve had about having huge tattoos in inappropriate places and then trying to get them lasered off within a few hours. (Apparently, in my bad dreams, if you get it while it’s fresh it’s like it never happened. Bullshit, obviously). I was worried about how similar my feelings were to those I had in nightmares, and thought that I might still be asleep. But no, it was real, and I lived in a waking nightmare about being stuck with something that I felt was ill-thought out, ugly and silly. And worse, unfeminine. I thought about the money I’d spent on my tattoo and the trip to get it. Then I thought about the money it’d cost to remove it, and what a frivolous expenditure when we’ve saved for a house deposit for so long. And I cried a lot, because I had done something stupid and now I was going to pay (indeed, financially) for it. And the reason we moved to Sheffield was so that we could afford a much better standard of living, so what’s  the point of leaving London (and the job opportunities) to buy a house up here if I’m just going to piss money up the wall doing dumb shit to myself and then getting it removed?

I also thought a lot about getting my whole tattoo removed, or at least faded a great deal, so that I could get something more colourful there. I decided that having a tattoo on my arm wasn’t the issue, but that it was too long and too dark. I figured maybe I’d have the ‘peeking parts’ removed – ribbons and crown, and then brighten up the upper part  with pastel old-school 5-line stars around his head.

On the Friday afternoon, I tried to visit a micro-pigmentation salon that works with Rejuvi – hoping to find out more about its results. Rejuvi is a cream that is tattooed in and then activates your body’s immune system, attaching to the ink and causing your body to force the whole foreign body out in a big scab. I’ve read that the aftercare is quite intense – not getting it wet for a few weeks, then thoroughly protecting the scab – and many people admit that they don’t follow the wound aftercare and pick at it, etc.  It does leave a red scar that fades after 6-12 months, but again, many people appear to be really impatient and are complaining that they’re scarred a month after having it. Well, duh, wait a bit! I’d love to hear from those people who complained initially whether their scar has indeed faded or disappeared altogether after that time.

Having phoned first, with no answer or voicemail, we walked to this micropigmentation shop near our house, and found it to be closed. Whether it’s permanently closed, I don’t know. Its website is still operational. Perhaps they’re on holiday?

In that week I also booked an appointment for the following Monday with sk:n clinics, to have a consultation about laser removal.

On the Friday evening, we went out in Sheffield to a couple of bars, the Great Gatsby and Old No. 7. I wore a cap-sleeved sixties dress that exposed my tattoo and didn’t feel bad about it. I felt really glad that I hadn’t done it on the outside of my arm though. Over that weekend, I agreed to myself (and Matt, although he’d never ask such a thing of me) that I would live with my tattoo until at least the end of June.

I also quite definitely decided that I would never want my whole tattoo removed, but that if it was just a bit smaller I’d be really happy. So I figured finding out whether it’s possible to remove the crown and ribbons would be a good idea, as would finding out whether I had problem colours (yellow and blue) or skin, and how much time and money it’d take.

Week 2 and my sk:n clinic consultation

On the Monday evening (9 days after getting my tattoo), I went for my consultation at the sk:n clinic on Psalter Lane, five minutes from my house. I filled out a form about my health conditions before seeing the therapist. Of course, I brought the boy along too for moral support.

The lady therapist that I saw was really professional, knowledgeable and, importantly, non-judgmental. I heard myself explaining that I did actually like my tattoo a lot and I wasn’t sure that I wanted even part of it removed, but that I felt it was just 2″ too long and I know this is hasty but how much would it cost to have this part removed.  Oh really? Did I say those things? Yes, yes I did. And I feel that I meant them too.

She told me how much it would cost per session to remove that aspect – £85 per session, since it’s a minor area of about 2″ square.  Then she advised that the longer you leave it between laser treatments (she recommended 8-12 weeks), the more effective it is, since it maximises the time that your body takes to do its own work in carrying away the shattered ink fragments. I didn’t know this. Having researched other blogs about tattoo removal (surprisingly thin on the ground), people were leaving 4 weeks between treatments, anxious to get the tattoo out as soon as possible. But it turns out that’s not really the best way at all – it costs more and it’s ineffective because it doesn’t give your body enough time to do its own cleaning work.

But the therapist also told me that they’d have no idea how long it’d take to remove my crown and ribbons, or whether the pigments would mutate (white in particular can turn black, yellow is difficult to remove).  I was also told that even knowing what inks a tattooer used doesn’t help – you can only see how each colour will react once you have a patch test. She said sometimes you can see a huge difference after 3 sessions, or that you could wait two months after a treatment for the ink to be dispersed by your immune system but it doesn’t look like it’s had an effect, yet another month later (still without treatment) the body has suddenly made a big step in removing the ink itself.

Pleasingly, because I said I wasn’t 100% sure about having it removed, she encouraged me to live with my ink for a significant period. After all, laser treatment will always be there. My tattoo will be there as long as I want it, until I decide to get rid of it. To me, this is really telling – sk:n clinics aren’t eager to push you into treatments unless you really want them. There’s no sales pitch, and they aren’t pushy. The lady just gave me all the information she could, and was honest when she couldn’t answer (ie, number of treatments it’d take). She also advised that because I wasn’t sure about removal, that they could do a really small test patch, rather than starting to break down the whole area. That’s so good to know.

In week three:

After going to see the laser people, almost all desire disappeared to remove any part of my tattoo.  Why? Because, I suppose, I finally felt like it was there out of choice. Choice because I know that I can remove it, should I want to… I’m not stuck with it. Financially, I may be, but psychologically, not so much. We continued to go out, see our lovely neighbours, go see a few bands in Sheffield and Leeds, and I continue to feel not just ok about it, but pretty cool. Yeah, I feel ‘cool’. I am that vain.

I think I also realised that I’m not going to change that much between now and ‘when I am old’.  As a 17-year-old, I thought I would be ‘old’ at 28, and that I might be a different person. I am not (although I am arguably less of a prat). These things that I have accrued – husband, red hair, fat ass, career direction, hilarious taste in clothes – are not things that will ever really leave me: we will change and evolve together. And I’m sure that’s how I’ll continue to feel about this tattoo, I will be a funny-looking but cool 50-year-old with amazing kids and rad dogs, like that older lady who sells rockabilly fascinators on Broadway Market.

Week four and beyond:

A month after getting this piece, I found out my horse, Danny, would be put to sleep after a really hard winter, in which he’s just really struggled at life. Summer is also really hard for him, he is really miserable and he’s not put on any weight since last year. He looks poor. He can’t even have his feet trimmed because he cannot stand on three legs for the farrier (if you know anything about horses, you’ll know that this is the beginning of the end). My mum and dad see him every day: my dad’s recently permanently returned from working midweek in Bristol and did question my mum on whether it really was right to have him put out of pain just because he is very old, but since seeing Danny every day, he also thinks it’s time.

We bought Danny when I was 13 and had many a great year winning lots of events, usually at great speed and slightly out of control.  He had a massive attitude towards everything, even just hanging out to graze with his buds in the field he marched everywhere in a strop, was really naughty to lead anywhere (I had to go fetch him in with a bridle instead of a headcollar), once ripped the muscle in my arm and has left with me with a permanent dimple (nerve damage) in my right thigh from when he kicked me to somewhere in the vicinity of kingdom come.  You go ON with your bad self, Daniel-son. He remained with my family until the end of his days because we never wanted to pass him onto people that might not understand and appreciate what a special and badly-behaved git he was. He was the only remaining progeny of Nickel King, and half-brother to Mary King‘s world champions King William and King Boris.

Saying goodbye to him was one of the saddest things I’ve done. I can’t imagine not having him tattooed on my arm now.

—

So that’s why this psychological journey and its documentation was, for me, a exercise in self-reflection and, ultimately, coming to terms with loss.

I don’t really give a crap about being ‘in fashion’ (have you seen the state of me?), but it so happens that my tastes are presently intersecting with the mainstream. It makes clothes I like much easier to get, but it also means every bugger gets in on my sartorial act. So that just means that you have to show some love to your old favourite indie brands in order to keep yourself a bit different. (Or pay a bit more for exclusivity and foreign shipping.)

And on to my point! (Wow, took a long time getting to that one, didn’t I?) Given that this here blog has quite limited readership, I don’t really mind sharing my secret treasure troves.  Label love, in no particular order (more to come someday soon…)

Vivetta

Vivetta is Italian. It’s a little expensive, but it’s gorgeous.

Nadinoo

Nadinoo is from the UK, hooray! Designed by Nadia Izruna from Lancashire, I think they’re now based out of Manchester. These photos are from the website, but they are taken by Tommy of pretty blog, thisisnaive.

Lena Hoschek

When is the online store coming?! Well worth a trip to Austria for her shops alone, I’m sure. Hiya bankruptcy. These photos are Autumn Winter 2010 collection (a standout season, in my opinion) borrowed from various sources but all are photographs by Lupi Spuma.

Gorgeous.

High on the list of ‘Rich People Problems’ (I’m not rich but I don’t really have any other negative issues to grapple with – happily married, good job, satisfactory friends and family) and ‘Shit I Don’t Need By Any Stretch of the Imagination’ is pretty vintage-style luggage. The worst thing about genuine vintage luggage is that you gotta carry the bugger – it’s got no wheeeeeels! If you’re a noodly-armed 90lb weakling like me, you’ll not be [hypothetically – like I can afford it] wanting to do that one. Rather unbecoming. You need (course you do) the mod cons like pull out handles and wheels, which these badboys have. Anyway it’s not like I have any money, so this is a pie in the sky wantlist. I certainly wouldn’t dream of spending hundreds of pounds on reproduction luggage when there are simply way more important things in life.

So, bored of [hypothetically] waiting for Steamline to pull their thumbs out their butts anytime soon, I’ve rounded up these potential moneywasters. My my, they are pretty. And quite unnecessary. I’m sure they’d get screwed to hell in the hold or on the luggage carousel. Basically, something to buy if you have tons of money to burn and can afford two sets of luggage!

Go see Alstermo Bruk luggage – made in Sweden. It’s delicious. I could eat it.

From Alstermo Bruk

From Alstermo Bruk

From Vogue.it

And furthermore, see  Uppercase Luggage. Also, go eat it (you might have to just chew on leather for nutrition – can you even afford food now?). So beautiful.

Uppercase

via Thisnext.com

Barley brown Uppercase

Now, go do your Poirot LARPing (or is that just me?).

Yeah, weird. Why? It’s a convoluted explanation.

Coming from London, where almost every day I’d cycled 8 miles to and from home in Shoreditch to work in Westminster, I was used to getting into a screaming rage on a regular basis. Now, that’s not because I ride like some brakeless pretentious twat who thinks they’re in Mash. I’m not a messenger, and I’d never want to be. (Hey, I’ve ridden fixed since 2007. I’m allowed to! Why are fixies like tampons? You know the answer.)  I’d get into a rage because every cyclist in London, every day, whatever they ride, has to battle to be seen and respected on the road.

Not so in Sheffield. Sheffield is the loveliest place to cycle – we have great cycle networks and bus lanes, and almost every vehicle will slow or move around you. In short, you are visible because you are unusual. Because you’re not everywhere, causing a ‘nuisance’ by mere virtue of your ubiquity.

Sheffield is gloriously safe to cycle around. I’m lucky that I no longer have to fight White Van Man at the lights, or get harried by some moron on a full-sus mountainbike tailgating me all the way along Embankment and then trying to chat about the weather while I’m trying to get away from him. I don’t have to deal with Dulwich Mum wobbling all the way out into the middle of the road without warning, or dickfaces running reds with gay abandon. Or Mr Brompton who’s in such a rush that he’s going to risk his life by undertaking a HGV at a junction. I no longer feel that I’m minutes away from witnessing the death of a cyclist.

Which is all very well, but I’m basically a selfish fucker, and clearly something is wrong with my cycling here: I’m not getting mad enough when cycling in Sheffield. Seriously. In London you can ride fast and assertively (which is obviously different to riding like a dick) – partly because it’s pretty flat. In London, you can bang on the passenger window of some hapless SMIDSY motorist and hope that he’ll learn to look out for other road users in future. You can ring your bell and be 50% confident that this here pedestrian is going to look before he runs out into the road. You are RIDING.

And you can spin aggressively. It makes no difference if you’re a masher or if you have souplesse, because it’s just awesome to travel at speed and HAVE to keep living 15 seconds in the future, and keep going faster.

I don’t get to do this in Sheffield. My commute is the most boring 7 minute ride down a straight road in a bus lane, with my legs spinning like billyo because I have to ride a fricking polo gear in order to take the hill on the way back home. In London I always pushed a pretty high gear (hallo muscles!), so while I wasn’t the quickest off the lights or the skippiest to skid-stop, I was keeping a decent pace, always pushing to go faster faster faster, and I had to anticipate every kind of hazard.

I’m not being flippant about cycling safety or saying I would like a taxi to pull out on me without looking, or that I enjoyed being squeezed and intimidated off the road by lorries. Instead this rant is about how a landscape allows you to ride.

I’d just like the chance to ride aggressively, to say ‘yeah I got across London in 15 minutes’ and come through the door buzzing and full of adrenaline after shouting at some shonky-haired Kamikaze wazzock. To push harder, to go faster, and ride hard right until the very last 50 yards of my commute, not to push (as I do now) until my heart pops just to very slowly cycle up a steep incline. You think you’ll be able to mash your bike up a hill and just get all your stress out. No, Sheffield hills say ‘here, just have a slap in the face and get over it, puny human’. And so I arrive at my hilly home, having actually cycled up to my door a total of 4 times since January, not steaming and like ‘rawwwwr TRAFFIC’ as I used to, but instead listlessly half-dead from the ascent.

There is no ‘ride hard’ here. There is none, because I ride a fucking mono-geared bike. I have to ride a tiny gear to get up that hill, so on a fixed gear I’ll never again be fast, my legs won’t feel powerful and I’ll never again feel like I’m elegantly cruising in slow motion.

In order to ride harder and release all that 9-5 stress, I have to get a geared bike.

And this is why I’m bursting into tears at really tiny things like not being able to have a pancake, watching the first season of ER or realising I’ve become 80% deskilled in driving a car.

I was lucky enought to meet Rich at Posi Numbers in 2003 but I was incredibly shy (and my love of hardcore was quite rapidly being destroyed), so we didn’t talk much. We kept in touch for maybe a year or so after that but that eventually lapsed. I’m just really bad at keeping in touch with people, there’s no excuse for it, really. But Rich, dude, I still look for that Sole Campbell James Brown Arsenal shirt you were after…!

All the reference to ‘Lights Out’ can be interchanged with ‘Sex Positions’ – which is what LO changed their name to – they were fricking legendary too.  Rich later sent me the tour edition of the Sex Positions 12″ and then screened me a SP t-shirt especially. He also gave me the Stop and Think demo and the Jaguarz demo – both brilliant, of course. What a guy!

[Explanatory note - Deathwish in 2002 wasn't the behemoth it is today. In the midlands, it was still the new kid on the block.]

- As an introduction, Deathwish bands aren’t too well known here in the UK, so how would you describe the music of The Dedication to someone who’d not heard that kind of style before?

Rich: Hmmm – this is a really hard question. Basically I don’t think of a specific sound when I think of what The Dedication was. It was more like a progression on what we love, which is hardcore. There was no specific sound we are/were trying to achieve, we did what we thought sounded good. Melodic, driving, chaotic at times would be words I would use, looking back.

- How did you get together as a band, and who plays what? Were you in other bands prior to The Dedication?

Rich: We got together because Eric (guitar) and the two brothers (Shaun and Mike) had known each other growing up in the Boston area and going to shows. They decided they wanted to do a band so they made it happen. Larry joined us after our initial drummer left due to an interest in high school girls and football games (American football). I joined out of just being friends with Eric and knowing that we wanted to do a band together. We have all done bands in the past, Eric was in Bound by Nothing, Shaun and Mike did a straight edge youthcrew band called Make It Last, and I previously played drums in an oi! band called The Reformed. None of those bands really amounted to much other than local shows, and demo tapes.

- An oi! band? Your screaming couldn’t be further away from that kind of style. Does it feel strange having been in two such different styles of bands?

Rich: It doesn’t feel weird. I have a soft spot in my heart for oi! and always will, I started out going to punk shows for probably a year before I started even going to hardcore shows when I was younger. As far as the way I sing – I don’t think it would reflect to the kind of music I listen to most, because I don’t listen to a lot of older screamo or anything like that.

- In regard to that, can you describe the musical influence that evolved into the sound of your band? There’s not many bands sound like yours…

Rich: Basically musical influences come from everywhere from David Bowie to the old Dangerhouse bands, to Embrace and the old DC stuff, to NYHC. We wanted to prove that hardcore can progress and be something other then fast parts, buildups and mosh parts. We were a hardcore band; we didn’t try to claim to be anything more.

- How did you get into hardcore, in the beginning? What sparked it all off, for you?

Rich: I got into hardcore through punk rock. There was a kid in my homeroom class in the 9th grade who decided that I should play in a band with him. So that’s how it basically happened. We were called Tried And True. We only released a demo and were heavily influenced by Underdog, and the such like. But I loved punk rock because of how it seemed dangerous and like something totally new compared to the world I was living in previously.

- I suppose I have a preconceived idea of a typical Deathwish band’s sound. The Dedication surprised me. Do you think you stood out from other bands on the Deathwish roster?

Rich: I think we did. Perhaps not so much now with bands like Knives Out and Horror Show on the roster. I think we stand out with most hardcore crowds, we don’t really fit a specific genre and I like that. Transcending is kind of cool, I think.

- How did the deal with Deathwish come about? Who put out your demo, prior to the “Youth Murder Anthems” EP? Was that self-released?

Rich: Tre (co-owner of Deathwish) had seen us open up a few shows around Boston and Philadelphia for bands he was roadieing for. He then approached us about doing a record. Apparently he had been a fan of ours for a long time. We had been playing on our demo for over a year and were ready for something new. The demo was self released: about 1,000 copies made on our tape decks – mailed out and brought to all of our shows previous to our EP coming out.

- At times you remind me of early Ink and Dagger. What did you think of them? I’ve only seen photos of you guys, not being rich enough to ever get over to the US to watch your shows, but it looks like you all wore zombie make up? Where did that idea come from? Was that at all Ink and Dagger-inspired? Can you give me some make-up tips?

Rich: I love Ink and Dagger – they are one of my favorite bands. Definitely innovative, I love innovation and progression. We didn’t all wear zombie makeup – sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t. I personally did it once for Halloween.

The make-up wasn’t really Ink and Dagger inspired it was more zombie/ death-inspired: basically you would have to talk to Larry and Mike about it. They loved make up.

- How hard did you find it as a relatively underground band in Boston? Your last show was headlining over The Hope Conspiracy, how did that feel? Do you know those guys well?

Rich: In the beginning I felt that no one would even give us the time of day. I guess we weren’t really playing to our crowd. The hardcore crowd was receptive after we played to them and showed them we could rock just as hard as anyone. We played shows with every kind of bands from The Locust to Piebald, (for more well known bands), we played in basements and played in huge halls. I prefer basements – Boston does not have a permanent all ages venue and didn’t while we were a band, so we took what we could get when it came up. As for headlining over The Hope Conspiracy – they are friends of ours who we have played with and just know from living in the city. Basically I booked the show with my friend Matt Galle, and I felt that since it was our last show I wanted to headline – The Hope Conspiracy were fine with us headlining and the show was incredible.

- Why did The Dedication break up? And how are your plans going to record and put out your final LP? Has it been recorded yet? Can you tell me a bit about how it’s going to sound? Is that going to be with Deathwish?

Rich: The Dedication broke up for personal reasons – some people felt that creative differences and friendships were more important then being a band. We didn’t want to do the band and not have fun and be so excited for every show that we couldn’t sleep the night before. That was always important to me – I don’t want to be part of a band that I dread going to shows and practicing. Some members couldn’t deal with being in the band and touring and going maybe to the next level (taking on a booking agent) etc., so we broke up leaving a good thing how we wanted to remember it: as the most fun we have had in our lives up to that point.

The LP will probably never be released or recorded. The songs aren’t all completed. We still talk about it sometimes when we see each other. Eric, Larry and I have a new band called Lights Out. Shaun is doing his own things and trying to get settled back in Boston. Mike will probably continue to blow people’s minds with his music – maybe one day it will come back together if that’s the course it takes but I am not going to worry about it or push it. I accomplished everything I could imagine and ten times more with The Dedication.

- Your lyrics were pretty pissed off. Would you have described yourself as a negative hardcore band, in retrospect?

Rich: No – I don’t think we were a negative hardcore band. Maybe we didn’t have a positive message all the way around. But I think we were trying to affect hardcore in a positive way. Maybe all bands are trying to do that, I don’t know. We were just trying to make kids open up their minds a little more, search within themselves for answers instead of relying so much on other people.

- Everyone has splatter artwork now. What’s your opinion of the growing trend towards horror-core?

Rich: We didn’t initially intend to have splatter artwork – Jake Bannon (who did the layout – and an INCREDIBLE job) decided it would fit our sound. Personally, I wouldn’t have used it. But I am not a graphic designer. I don’t really know what you mean by horror-core. If you mean bands like AFI, and Pitch Black and stuff – those bands I guess have a specific image or message maybe it is dark, but they aren’t The Misfits so it doesn’t faze me.

- I also heard something about you being in the now defunct Stop And Think. Is that true?

Rich: Yes. I was the drummer.

- I saw Stop And Think’s demo was on Standhard’s (of Right Brigade fame) label. How did that come about? What’s he like as a person, and why did you release it with him?

Rich: Standhard was good friends with everyone in the band. We live in the same city – hang out with the same kids, go to the same shows. We were doing the demo – and Jesse asked if we wanted him to handle all the mail order and put the SHR stamp on that shit. And it happened. If you want to know what he is like as a person you should probably hang out with him – but I find him to be a pretty laid back guy. We released it with him because he is our friend, and the huge signing bonus of course.

- Weren’t Stop and Think going to release a 7″ on Bridge Nine? What happened there and why did it end? What are the rest of the band doing in the future?

Rich: We were going to release a 12″ EP of 8 songs. What happened is that we pretty much lost interest in the band – school, jobs, life got in the way. It ended because it was time, and Clevo (the bassist) was moving to Cleveland to move on with life. CC and Joey play in Invasion; CC also has a million other music side projects – he and I will do a band again. AJ is boxing and working. Joey is being fit, going to school, and wearing his Warzone hat.

- What’s the story with Lights Out, then? Where’s that heading? I thought you guys originally had a band called The Red and The Black, after The Dedication first ended?

Rich: Lights Out (now Sex Positions) is the band that Larry, Eric, and I started after The Dedication. Basically we are trying to capture many of the same interests but do our own spin on it. We have 100% creative input instead of the situation before where we didn’t really write a lot of the music. The band was originally called The Red And The Black – mostly just so I could flyer for our first show. Later we found out that there was another band with the same name from New York City, so we changed it to the next coolest thing. Plus our friend Mike D suggested it – and we thought that was cool.

- Didn’t you write the music for The Dedication? What’s the story there, what do you mean?

Rich: I personally had nothing to do with the song writing other then the lyrics. All the music was written by the brothers Kilfoyle. In Lights Out (Sex Positions) – it’s much more of a group effort. That’s the story, morning glory.

- What does the future hold for you, as Rich Perusi, personally? Are you happy?

Rich: The future hopefully holds me getting a degree from Boston University, getting a job. Touring with Lights Out. Reading a lot of books, playing some play station, hanging out with the new crew and the old crew, hanging out with my girlfriend. Going to shows. Am I happy? Well, probably not 100%, otherwise I wouldn’t be involved with such an angst-filled musical scene. I have a lot of problems with the way people act, I guess that makes me upset.

- People in the hardcore scene, or generally? Can you explain?

I guess generally – but I find hardcore to be a microcosm of the world at large. I basically think that too many people don’t think for themselves, read enough books, or attempt to expand their minds (and I don’t mean with LSD). People are much too content, that’s all.

Available from ExtraButterNY.com (yes, HINT)

Along with my bike, these are one of the few other things in the world that I’d not tire of licking. (Oh, so I just bought them, anyway.)

“The one who dies with the most toys is the one who wins” – I’m not ashamed of being a materialist. I know there are lots of problems in the world, and I refuse to opine about them on my blog. Soz. There’s plenty of other places you can go for that. Not here. This is for nice things that don’t relate to the real world in the slightest.

Now, on your way.

I adore their little faces. Both hilarious and cute. They’re all, like, ‘herperderpderpderp’ and yet ‘awwwwww’ at the same time.

Now we live in Sheffield, Matt is working from home so we have a whole room dedicated to The Home Office. None of this ‘sharing with a bed or junk’ business, which is what we had previously in our two-bed maisonette (although it is quite messy after the move still) . One day, one day, this new room’s arse is going to get whipped into shape, but probably no time soon.

It’s also become apparent that my husband really needs/should have his desk to himself now he’s freelance (well, I think so, anyway), and I need to stop fretting about his methods and instead concentrate on an orderly workspace of my own. One day I hope we’ll be able to work from home together, but no bank is going to give us a mortgage for that situation right now, so it’s going to be a while. At home is now the only time I have to continue with my BSI course, and get round to making a crafting space for myself, so I figured it’s about time I bought my own desk and concentrated on making it, like, FEMININE ORGANISATIONAL P[R]AWN.  (You know what I mean…)

This stuff is keeping my mind on the job:

Why do I get off on this stuff so much? I’ve always thought I could be a bit Aspergers-ish with my preoccupation with organising.