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 just spent the best 7 dollars I’ve spent in a long time. I bought Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros album, Up from Below. Of course, I’ve been digging some of their songs on The Current for the last several months. But it was the song “Home” that did it for me.
Also, I’m not sure what the deal with this band is. I love this sound — but can’t decide if it’s a throwback or a parody of the 60s. And I’d like to point out that there’s entirely too many people for one stage. 
I was futzing around on iTunes the other day and adding some key albums to my wishlist, when I remembered that a couple bands that I’ve done album art for have their albums on iTunes. I didn’t find one of them, but I did find my friend Flip’s band, The Half Hearts.
So cool to see your artwork somewhere so public!
Although … I can’t take credit for the illustrations. Those are my friend Kim‘s.
it’s really exciting when something that you design gets printed … but it’s even more exciting when something you designed not-for-work (for FUN) gets printed!
I received these pretty packages in the mail …
They’re CDs that I designed for my friend Flip’s band The Half Hearts. My friend Kim did the paintings and I created the layout. They had them professionally printed and packaged and sent me a couple for my portfolio. Sooooo exciting! (probably WAY more exciting to them though!)
CHILDREN OF BODOM
is
coming
to
Des MOINES!
October 1 — they’re supporting Black Label Society, who, I’m cool with seeing again, but more importantly:
ALEXI LAIHO is coming to Des Moines. AND it’s a small venue. Which means. I could be. Within. His. Reach.
Oh man.
By the way … for those of you who don’t know me, did I mention that I’m a huge metalhead? I think that needs to probably be in my sidebar bio somewhere.
It’s soooo cheesy, but Children of Bodom are my end-all-do-all favorite metal band (aside from the ‘deth of course, who I’m scheduled to see again in August). They really came into play when I had my leg injury from running the 2008 Des Moines Marathon … I started listening to their album, Are You Dead Yet? and the lyrics from the title track became my mantra: “Should I regret, or ask myself, are you dead yet?” I even did a metal craft swap last summer and received a very cool cross stitch with those lyrics. It was their driving speed that turned me from a jog-paced distance runner into a competitive shorter distance runner (I killed the last half marathon I ran!).
And in case you forgot, I may or may not have a minor crush on their lead vocalist and guitarist … Alexi. Laiho.
Anyway, I’m sure noone that reads this is even close to half as excited as I am about this, but I’m about ready to pee my pants over here waiting for them to announce ticket sales at the 7 Flags Center here!
As some of you may know, my boyfriend is in a band called Assault Company (www.assaultcompany.com for their latest EP).
Some of you may not recall that how I met my boyfriend was because I was in the band for a while as the lead singer. I did two shows (in one day) and that was the end of my career. I broke up the band the next fall and Kasey (the bassist at the time) and I decided to start our own band — The Duct Tape Pirates. It took a month or so to decide on the name…but we never really did anything. Basically I didn’t learn bass fast enough and I really just wanted to sing. So that project went down the crapper.
Anyway, I had won a free flickr pro account from my friend Niki’s Design-o-blog’s Ugly Website Contest. I finally got the account up and running yesterday and was going through my photos today to upload…and found this gem:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1KdNTXkH5c]
This was at the SpringFest battle of the bands (the year VEISHEA was cancelled). Probably the worst song for my vocals. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I wish somebody had taped a song that I was growly in.. that would rock. I can’t do that anymore, and I had some pretty scary vox.
Either way. Enjoy. Somehow I thought that the dress code for “metal” included a pink flamingo skirt. Also, the crazy bass player on the left of the screen is definitely Kasey with short hair. He hit his bass so hard that day he split his finger open and bled all over it…and didn’t clean the blood off the bass until after he sold it (in preparation to ship off of course). This is how I fell in love with him…ha.
EDIT: Okay, I can’t blog about the Assault Company without including this awesome promo that Kasey put together for their 2nd to last EP:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb-y-_oWbTY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f]
Um and I also can’t blog about the boyfriend without including the AWESOME birthday song that he did for me last fall:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX9PusqM-Yo&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f]
