MerriMaking

With festival season digging its toes in I thought I'd tell you about these guys so you can silly up your wardrobe ready for frolicking in a field with your most loved friends.

Merrimaking started out as a Duo in 2009 after finishing Uni Meg and Harri wanted to make animal hoods and sell them at festivals to make a bit of cash, I don't think they betted on the boom they've had in the industry over the last two years. 

I found out about them in Oh comely magazine. Thank you oh comely as usual.  Merrimaking makes seriously cool hand made animals hoods, on there website you can can chose from 4 different animals and then customise it with a lining OR if your bold and brave you can ask them nicely to commission one for you. I got a fawn one for my friend for her birthday last year, I spoke with Harri via email and she was so friendly, chatty and really helpful what more could you want.

For my 22nd birthday my friends sent in a picture of my Japanese akita Juno and asked if they would make one that looked like her. They had no problem and I was thrilled with my birthday present!

These days there knockin out a bit more than cute animal hoods, they've started making tees, hoodys, bum-bags and hats as well as collaborating with artists to make some limited addition cool shit. 

There hoods start from £25 and the bigger the commission the bigger the price tag but if you want quality and something awesome that is far from cheap and tacky then you have to get your hands in your pocket. If your thinking its a bit pricey for something silly to wear at festivals, wait till winter when you've got the flu, you'll be glad you've got something warm and happy snuggled around your face. 

http://merrimaking.co.uk/

Portable Speaker

So I don't know about you but summer is in full swing here in Preston, the weather here is immense and so is my prickly heat but I refuse to moan! Last night me and my friend Timm led on a blanket and watched the stars at 2am in T-shirts, how can people not make the most of this weather!  A necessity for this whether for sitting in the sunshine on the park with friends and for shoving new music down your mates throats is a portable speaker and a good one at that.

This is the Phillips SBA3010 soundshooter it comes in a range of colours but the most available are blue and orange, I do wish mine was purple but it is blue, you cant have everything I guess, I picked mine up over winter in Argos for £19.99 and its remains one of my best purchases I'e ever made, I use mine every single day! It is compatible with my blackberry, i-phones, laptops, computers, iPod and general MP3 players. It claims that there isn't much it isn't compatible with and I've yet to find what it doesn't work with either. This little thing is wrapped in rubber so if your a clumsy bastard like me you'll appreciate it, this robustness makes it more appealing. It fits in my bag and sits in the palm of my hand, it has a retractable cable which is a decent length and and its got a rechargeable battery which last a solid 8 hours. It works by two mini speakers sitting on top of each other that combined offer 2 watts of  mono audio output. Basically its fucking top. The clarity of sound it offers is nothing to roll your eyes at. I've never once regretted my purchase and you wont either.  

Mr Gnome

My find of the month is Mr Gnome. They are seriously good! A boy girl duo from the Midwest create explosive, experimental, indie rock/sad core style music, I cant really describe them but they are definitely the best words for the job. I found them after investing a bit of my discovery time on YouTube, watching recommended videos which is always a bit of a gamble,. You have to put yourself through exposing your poor ears too some of the draining drivel that lurks on there but sometimes you get lucky.  I dunno about you but I get pretty excited on the discovery of a new band, introducing it to my life and recommending them to my friends is always a fun part, its like a little achievement 'hey check out this band I found' and if they like them too then you might as well just high five your self. 

The first song I listened to was 'the way' I'd recommend starting there, after you've listened to that try 'ate the sun'. What I love the most is that its only a boy and girl giving it death - how crazy is that, either there full of energy or they've got anger issues, either way they make some incredible music, some songs are so different and varied in style and deliverance that they sounds like a different band all together - this can be bad in some cases but for these two its the best thing about them.