I went to London last October. It was one of the most amazing times of my life.

While out there I learned about The Five One via Twitter. This is them here, here + here. And here!:

They're kinda everywhere. Cus they're colors (or colours, per the UK). And colors are everywhere. RED, BLUE, GREEN + GOLD. 

When I find music I'm learning to love + I'm sure I'm not unique in doing this, I beat myself upside the head with it. For about two weeks I used my camera as my eye + tuned out the loud London streets+dainty accents in favor of this band. I saw this:

I heard this:

London is one of my happy places. And The Five One is the soundtrack.  I hear it+there is a visceral effect that brings me right back there. Lemme take you with me to my happy place/ *hands you earbuds*

All of our good/bad (and everything in between) times deserve great music.

Enough about me.

At first this music was hecka catchy. Danced to it on the tube. Listened to it on the double-decker bus. Rocked steady to it in the line for lamb kebabs. I slept to it too. Beat myself upside the head. After I loved the sounds, I loved the words+[funny/real/sweet]stories.

They rep where they're from. That'd be DMV (District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia... some people don't know). Where you're from is what you are. You'll hear where they're from+what they are.

I'll let the music tell you about the colors. It's bigger than a theme. When I heard the music+learned to love the words, I started seeing colors like I was re-learning them.

This music is: Alternative. Hip Hop. RocknRoll. Soul. ohmuhgawd. Soul.

Checkemout. 

Glide. It's a haven. A bit of heaven for some, I'm sure. The line was about two blocks long.

This man was sleeping on a velvet couch parked on the sidewalk on Geary street. I took a few photos of him, but this is my favorite because there were some guys moving stuff out of an apartment+they dropped a load (you can see it in the background), but he stayed asleep. The couch reminded me of the couch in the yard of the high rises on The Wire.

A Kurt Cobain print from an exhibit called Dirty Pretty Things by Russell Young. It's a little hard to tell, but the picture is glittery. Some of the stuff we love most is simultaneously effed up+glittery.

Was an amazing day in San Francisco. Mellow folks, beautiful weather. What more could you ask for a city to give you?

The mural (second picture) is outside of my piercing place. Murals rock cus they're connectors. When artists create them, they're connecting their message with anyone who walks by them+pauses to absorb them+that, in turn, connects the people that walk by them with each other. Love murals.