I’m a rock chick. I have the tattoos, the dark side, and the psychedelic hair. Well, okay,  perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration. I have purple braids in my crimson dreads, two frighteningly mushy tattoos (you know the drill; spiders and love-hearts and roses and tears and stuff), and a brother who thinks I’m goth because I’m melancholic and moody.

I’m not what you’d call a typical rocker. I don’t enjoy live concerts, I never mosh in public, I don’t use black make-up, and I have never ripped new jeans just because. I like the sound of emo because it speaks to my soul, and I like soft, alternative, punk rock. The ones who know better than me spend hours discussing the essence of acoustic indie music (or lack thereof), but I just bop my head, bang air drums, and rock on to sweet air guitar. For me, ‘alternative’ isn’t a genre, a statement, or a lifestyle. It’s a generic description of the kind of songs I like.

I’m a huge fan of internet radio, and my favourite station is Alternative Addiction. I’ve discovered a lot of my favourite bands there. A few weeks ago, I bumped into April Showers by The Mess. So I did what I always do when I find a song I like – I hit Google. Turns out they’re not a new band – they’ve been around since 2009 and have three albums. I checked out their Facebook and Twitter pages before ending up on YouTube.

I love the way this band sounds. They remind me of the late 90s and early 2000s, which is my favourite musical era. Their music blends the standard guitar and drums with unusual instrumental flavours that are probably electronic. They also have that Canadian-Rocker sound that I like so much, so I was surprised that they come from California. I’ve listened to almost 30 of their songs, and I love almost all of them, which is saying a lot. Their songs range between irrepressibly catchy and hauntingly deep.

My only complaint is that a few of their songs are too literal and wordy for rock. I mean, I love poetry, and I can understand an artiste wanting their music to have substance, but some songs have so much scope that there’s barely a chorus to latch on to. Ideally, rock should be ridiculously quirky or cryptically intense, preferably both. Think Swallowed in the sea by ColdPlay, Inside Out by Eve 6, or Pinch me by Bare Naked Ladies. Fortunately (for The Mess), the musicality of songs  like I had you at goodbye keep me listening even when the lyrics sometimes tempt my mind to stray.

I love that this band seems so ‘normal’. Their photos, the messages on their social media pages, and even their marketting strategy portrays them seem as ordinary kids just trying to catch a dream. I love the simplicity in the April showers video. No crazy clothes, naked chicks, emo make-up, or over-the-top theatrics – just a group of very talented guys having a lot of fun. They have this geek-sheikh thing going, and everybody knows how much I love my nerds. The Mess seems personable, authentic, and human, the kind of guys I’d love to hang out with. They seem like genuinely nice guys, and I like genuinely nice guys.

When I first found the band, I thought they were green, fresh on the scene, untouched by ‘hollywood’ and ‘fame’. But their sound was very refined. They didn’t sound like the amateur garage band they appear to be. Their Facebook page describes their music as ‘a blend of electronica and hard rock, honest, open, and always sentimental’. The band members are lead vocalist Mike Gross, Josh Bonaparte on bass, Brandon Lowe on guitar, Ryan Miles on lead guitar, and David Adametz on drums. Their Facebook page says they’re signed to Six Gun Recordings, which explains their polished sound. I love their name because, well, neatness makes me nervous, and I quite like their hair. Hopefully I’ll hear a lot more music from these guys, and who knows, maybe we might get the chance to kick back, chill out, and eat ice cream sometime.

♫ November ♫ The Mess ♫

Pointless break-ups are the worst. You find someone you care about, and you know they care about you, but somehow it doesn’t work out. Nobody cheated. Nobody lied. You didn’t grow apart. You didn’t change. But somehow, some way, you didn’t end up together.

Then you see him with someone else, and you have to know, need to know. Why her? Why not me? And whenever you ask that question, it brings chaos. For some inexplicable reason, your ex gets all defensive. Why should they? It’s a fairly simple question. What does she have that I don’t?

Maybe the reason the ex gets defensive is that he doesn’t know. All he knows is he wants her and he doesn’t want you. There doesn’t have to be a reason for it. Sometimes, things just happen. Think of that person you friend-zoned. What was so wrong with them? Nothing really. You simply weren’t attracted to them, and chances are you didn’t know why.

It’s tempting to compare yourself with your ex’ new beau. You think there must be something wrong with you, that you must be the problem. And it’s painful when the break-up was so amorphous that you don’t know what to fix. Here’s the thing though. ‘What if’ is a dangerous, endless game, and if you value your sanity, you’ll try not to play it.

I was watching THS yesterday, and it featured Mario Lopez. He’s hot. The girl he was dating was equally hot. So when they broke up, it couldn’t have been a case of greener pastures. Mario says he doesn’t like to talk about his personal stuff, and when he was pressed, he said, ‘Sometimes, relationships just don’t work out.”

You might never know why your ex picked her over you, and you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out. It’s easier to just let it go, find someone else, and let the dead [relationships] bury their own dead. After all, this was just one person in 7 billion. That leaves you 6,999,999,999 to choose from.

♫ Payphone ♫ Maroon 5 ♫

Me and my princess love the beach. Over Christmas, we were lucky to get a house at Bamburi, so we were basking and swimming pretty much all day. The thing about the beach at Christmas is that there are a LOT of people there. So we learnt to come early and swim far away from the crowd.

Once in a  while, something will totally take you by surprise. In my case, it usually a hot boy smiling at me. I think I’m so involved in my idea of who I am that I sometimes don’t notice things right in front of me, like, you know, the hot boy staring. Like just this morning, I saw this boy watching me from right across the street. I suppose I should have smiled and said hi, but I assumed he was looking at someone behind me. Too bad,  he was kind of hot. I think for me to notice that a hot boy is checking me out, he’d have to whack me on the head with a mallet. Preferably a softy, cushy one, or I’m likely to break his nose.

Anyway, the beach. I saw this gorgeous man swimming a few metres away. He had a blue wetsuit, caramel skin, pale brown dreads, and really pretty eyes. I didn’t want him to catch me staring, so I focused on conversing with the princess. She knows me pretty well, so she gives me this look like ‘what the hell, mum?!’ but I ignored it and kept babbling about nothing.

The next time I looked up, pretty boy was right next to me. I don’t know where he came from, or how he got there. He spoke to me. He actually spoke to me! I have no idea what he said, but the words ‘Sister Dredd’ were involved. Then he flashed me the most gorgeous smile.

At this point, the ideal response would have been to smile back and start up a conversation. But I was too busy freezing and blushing, oh the shame of it all. So he smiled again, and swam away, while I grabbed onto my little girl’s floater and tried not to faint.

The princess shook me from my stupor by splashing some sea water on my face, so I suppose I was grinning idiotically. “Mum, he’s hot, isn’t he?”

“Yes baby, he is.”

“And you’re blushing.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Okay, we’ll talk about this at home. Let’s go.”

And just like that, my magic moment was over. I tried subtly looking around to see if I could spot him, but there were way too many people. Oh well. At least I had my fairytale for a few moments. Plus, I get this fuzzy warm feeling knowing that out of all the gorgeous women on the beach, the hot boy chose to notice me. Yay! Maybe next time, I’ll to be a little less frozen.

♫ In the Morning ♫ The Holding ♫