‘Tis the season for Christmas music. Normally I say “Bah humbug” to boring old holiday tunes, but I’m really interested in the She and Him Christmas album. Take a listen!
Speaking of festive, my friend Kelly is having an ugly sweater contest in which Mr. Barnabus Stinson, II is participating. Vote for Barney here! He is damn cute in his sweater. Check it out.
Just discovered a really fun folksy band last week. I went to the Jeremy Messersmith concert at the Maintenance Shop in Ames on Friday and the opening act was Jon Drake and the Shakes.
They kind of remind me of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes … but with their own flavor. They’re from Chicago. And were really fun to watch. I was going to skip the opening band, but was realllly glad I showed up in time to catch these guys.
Since they’re not crazy popular, there isn’t great quality video on YouTube (though there is one of them in Dubuque — by my hometown), but you can check out their MySpace page OR their bandcamp page for more (free downloadable) tuneage.
I’ve been loving this song (and new album) by The Drums … so take a listen. It’s really upbeat, but the lyrics aren’t. How ironic-slash-hipster of them.
Happy Thanksgiving! You know what I’m thankful for? Awesome music. Here’s some to share.
I recently was introduced to the Tune-Yards via one of my fabulous former interns who has amazing musical taste. I picked up their new album “w h o k i l l” via emusic.com.
Let me know what you think. I’m in love.
I’m really loving this song by The Tallest Man on Earth. He’s a Swedish acoustic singer/songwriter. I found him on Spotify via my friend Steph. Let me know what you think. I love his style.
I recently discovered that you can shop online at Goodwill. And I’ve taken advantage of this.
Lookie what I got in the mail! ($5-7 a piece)
Did I mention that Thriller is in near-mint condition? Crazy. If I would have tried to find this on eBay I probably would have paid upwards of $50 for it. Instead, I got it for $5.
Now I need a record player. I would actually like to start getting vinyl. I love vinyl — always have. I used to alphabetize my dad’s collection and I’ve called dibs on that collection should he ever want to get rid of it [MINE, Coree!]
Wow. Summer has been over for a while and I’m just getting to blogging about the end of summer: Labor Day weekend.
This year I randomly decided that it would be fun to trek down to Kansas City and head to a Ke$ha concert with Mark’s former roommate’s wife, who I barely have spent time with, and a friend of hers that I’ve never even met.
That doesn’t sound like something the anti-social heavy metal pixie would do.
But I did it anyway. And it was so much fun!
Here I am at the stoplight before getting onto 30 from Ames. This is my “party hair” and the moment where I begin to miss the long hair.
On the way down to KC I had to drive through Missouri. I will spare you the gory truckstop bathroom details and share a photo of a large fireworks shop in MO.
When I arrived at Megan and Malachi’s place (thanks to Shelly’s GPS, Berniece, and a 2nd set of directions later), I was greeted by this:
[giant pile of glitter] I was going to go shopping with them earlier in the day, but didn’t manage to get on the road early enough. They picked up some this large pile of sequined and glittery stuff at Deb’s.
It took a while for everybody to get ready. I was pretty much ready — I just had to throw on some clothes. Which actually was challenging because I brought a backless shirt which required a special stick-on bra. I’m not going into details, but this product shouldn’t be sold in sizes above an A-cup — unless you’re using super glue, that puppy is not staying stuck to larger-chested women. There’s this thing called GRAVITY.
Anywho, since I was basically ready to go, I helped the other girls get ready. Which was a LOT of fun. It reminded me of high school when we would get ready for prom or you know, in our twenties, when we still get ready for prom, but the theme might be “Night of the Living Prom” instead of “Time of Our Lives”.
This was where I really started missing my long hair. I attempted to put Megan’s in a mohawk-type updo, but it was almost too clean for this charade. So we back-combed the crap out of it and ended up with this:
Then I helped her friend Jaime pin her hair all to the side. AND watched both of them attempt to put fake eyelashes on. I didn’t bother — I failed so many times at fake eyelashes for Halloweens past … didn’t bother. But it was kind of awesome to see somebody actually get these on. I convinced Jaime to wear one instead of two because her hair was asymmetrical, and her eyelashes would even it out. Which for this event, totally worked.
So after dumping a pound of glitter on to finish off our looks, we downed a few drinks and headed out. Malachi dropped us off at the concert and we were looking pretty sleazy. Sad to say (or proud to say?) we weren’t even close to the sleaziest there.
The concert was awesome — aside from the $9 beers. Which, for the record, the girl next to me stole my beer when I was in the bathroom. Then I think she felt bad so she was feeding me shots of vodka for the rest of the concert.
Also, most of the concert looked like this. GLITTERFEST. At the end, Ke$ha said she hopes we all wake up with glitter in places shouldn’t be the next morning.
After the show Malachi picked us up, I changed in the backseat of the car and we went to the Power and Light District for some bar hopping. First stop was the Raglan Road Irish Pub where we quickly noticed that the waitresses were dancing on the tables.
So I said to Jaime, “How many drinks will it take to get us dancing on the tables?” For me? Not one drink. What else would do it? What do you think? MICHAEL JACKSON of course. It wasn’t even one of the super-dancy-awesome songs — just P.Y.T. And eventually when I was drunk, Thriller. To which I said, “I KNOW THIS DANCE.” (umm … yeah. it’s been a while since I attempted to do it — from memory of the video, not actually learning it).
… and pretty soon this happened.
After we tired of dancing on tables, we decided to head over to the PBR Big Sky bar, where there was a mechanical bull. Megan and I promptly got in line to ride the bull. Jaime couldn’t due to a roller derby injury (which sadly, made me remember how much I fricking want to do roller derby).
Here we go. I realized halfway through the short time we were on the bull that I was WEARING A DRESS. So, um, I somewhat gracefully (as gracefully as possible I suppose) fell off the bull. Megan hung on for dear life. And at one point was side-saddle giving the devil horns. If only somebody took a picture of that.
Somewhere after the bull-riding Megan got really into drawing on herself and others with a sharpie. We were getting drinks and some guys gave us their autographs. I’m pretty sure they were just random dudes, but Megan was convinced the one guy was from LMFAO, so we let them sharpie us.
So after Glittersleazefest 2011, I headed back to Iowa. But I noticed there was a Whole Foods just down the road from Megan and Malachi’s place. So I stopped in and picked up some goodies. I brought the gummy pandas home to Mark but everything else may have been consumed on the way home (the sushi BEFORE I left in case you were wondering).
Side note, I recently read a blog post in which some of my friends were trying Kombucha. If you’re interested in drinking old, fermented tea, the citrus is by far the best flavor.
Another band I discovered via a coworker who pointed them out on Spotify is The Thievery Corporation. Who, again, I was already digging on The Current.
Here’s Stargazer by The Thievery Corporation. Let me know what you think.
I’ve been using Spotify a lot lately, but am trying to find a good balance between Spotify and The Current — for a couple of reasons. One is obvious — I’m a member of The Current and donate a chunk of money every month to keep them up and running. Two — if I quit listening to the radio, how will I ever find anything new? I get that the point of Spotify is to see what your friends are listening to and find new things that way, but my musical tastes don’t overlap my friends’ that much.
That being said, I asked my intern last week if he had any band suggestions. And he said Cults. Which I quickly realized I was already digging on The Current anyway but didn’t know it was this band. The song Go Outside is on their current rotation.
Here’s the video for Go Outside. Let me know what you think.
I know I’ve already featured LCD Soundsystem, but I recently purchased an older album of theirs, “The Sound of Silver” at the suggestion of a friend upon seeing my last post about these guys.
This album is slowly growing on me, though I don’t like it as much as “This is Happening” (their 2010 release). I am in love with this song, “North American Scum”. On repeat.
