Phosphorescent Black Cab session

I’m not sure why “Phosphorescent” is so hard for me to spell, I had to check it twice before I got it right.

The Black Cab Sessions take place in black cabs in and around London.  Musicians and bands are invited to come into the cab, play a song, and blow our minds.  Phosphorescent did this very well.

“Wolves” is one of my favorite songs, and sounds sooooo beautiful.  This is the 38th Session.  Other great appearances include Lykke Li, Spoon, the Ravonettes, and The New Pornographers (two of those videos include accordions.  New trend?)  I recommend going to the website and getting on the mailing list.  Even bands you might be unfamiliar with can be really incredible, and maybe you’ll find a new favorite.

 

Oh, Wilford Brimley

This is the number one result when you Google “diabetes guy” (which I’m sure you do all the time).

 

Swedish gothic gypsy folk?

Doesn’t sound like it would be a good genre, but it’s surprisingly wonderful.  Swedish band The Magnificent Seven play catchy sea chanteys and waltzes with unusual instruments and eastern-sounding influences.  The four-member band is from Örebro, Sweden, and have a few eps out already.  Three of their songs are up for download on their myspace.  I can’t tell you much more about them since their myspace page is in Swedish, but the songs are worth a listen.

The Magnificent Sevenspace

 

New Mystery Jets video

I haven’t been able to get Mystery Jets’s last single, “Young Love” out of my head since I first heard it. And “Flakes” has had a constant presence in my iTunes usage. Now there’s a third Mystery Jets song for me to fall in love with, “Two Doors Down.”

Mm, 80s-licious. Their newest album, 21, is already available in the UK. If I’m not mistaken, the album will be available in the US April 28th (so soon!), but I could be completely wrong about that. Now if only their tour would hop over to this side of the Atlantic.

 

Blegh

Being sick sucks.  Being really busy sucks.  Being both at the same time double-sucks.  Between Funking the War (http://tinyurl.com/4puqdu), making pancakes (hey, when you get a craving for pancakes, you have to have pancakes), and sitting in my room staring at the wall going “unh…. I don’t feel good…” I haven’t gotten much done.  Mainly, I’m upset I haven’t gotten a muxtape recommendation up on Muxtapes That Don’t Suck, which I mentioned last post.  I just haven’t been in the mood to listen to a playlist long enough to really judge any of them.  Hopefully I’ll get one up in the next few days (maybe even today… maybe.).

I finally got to register for classes today.  In the fall I’ll be taking Anthropology 103, Art History 270 (History of the Motion Picture), English 215 (Readings in Literature), German 201, and History 103.  If I get into the film program (whenever they decide to let me know…), I’ll also be taking Arts 001, Cinema Scene Study, which is, despite being a 3-hour long class, 0 credits.  How disappointing.  Over the Summer I’ll be taking Art History 104, History 102, German 102, and English 200 at Nova (the community college, not the area.  Although it is in NoVA).  With any luck I’ll also be working at a photography studio.  Or anywhere, really.  Other than Hancock fabrics.  So not going back to that place.  Never again.  Ugh.

 

Muxtapes that don’t suck

You may remember that I posted my own muxtape.com creation a while ago. My future brother-in-law has started a blog appropriately called Muxtapes That Don’t Suck. Go check it out and listen to some good muxtapes.  I’ll be helping contribute to it, so reading more of my opinions has got to be a plus, right?

 

New Weezer single (or, YESYESYESYESYES!!!)

So, I’ve been waiting for a new Weezer album since their last (pretty disappointing) one came out.  Back in December, my friend, a fellow Weezer fanatic, told me the new album was coming out “soon.”  Since then I’ve been watching for news, and finally, the first single off the new album has been released.  I don’t even care that I have to stream it off their website, Weezer is a band that I won’t think twice about spending the money to buy their album.  Especially after hearing this new track, “Pork and Beans.”  It seems like the old, awesome Weezer is back.  Alone has been keeping me pretty happy with plenty of Rivers (and supplying my first-ever ringtone), but it’s time for a new something from the band.  This is going to be their 3rd self-titled album, most likely it’ll be known as the Red album (the previous two the the Blue album and the Green album, for those of you not in the know).  I’m not expecting it to be another Pinkerton or anything, but if the rest of the album is anything like “Pork and Beans,” it just help me forget Make Believe ever happened.

Listen to “Pork and Beans” at weezer.com

 

So this was my Saturday:

So, Saturday afternoon, around 3:30, Aimee, Mike, Angie, and I drove to UVA for the annual Spring Fest.  Spring Fest started around 12, but with all the rain and storming in Richmond, we waited, assuming it had rained in Charlottesville too (we later found out they had almost no rain).  Now, as VCU students, UVA events don’t generally mean much, but this year, Spring Fest featured the absolutely-amazing OK Go, one of my favorite bands!  I was the only one of us who was really familiar with them, Angie had one of their albums and listened occasionally, Aimee and Mike had heard “Here it Goes Again,” but other than that hadn’t ever really listened to them.  Still, I was super-pumped.
We got there around 4:30.  The show had already started, but we had only missed a song or two.  We probably would’ve seen the whole thing if we hadn’t gotten a little lost and accidentally wound up at a lacrosse game.  Luckily, we called some UVA kids we knew who gave us directions to Nameless Field, where the show was taking place.  Now, VCU doesn’t really have many fields, but I’d like to think that if we did, we could at least come up with some names for them.  I mean really, Nameless Field?
This was my second time seeing OK Go live, the first being at DC’s 930 club about a year and half ago.  Let me just say, OK Go puts on a great show.  Now I’ve seen them in both a small club setting and in an outdoor afternoon show, and I can confidently say they completely rocked at both shows.  The first time I saw them I got so into it and was dancing around so much I almost passed out (true story, you can ask my sister), so this time I made sure that didn’t happen (although, in retrospect, how great of a story would that have been?).  I was just way too excited to not dance around some though, and (very energetically) sang along to every song (yes, I know all the words to every OK Go song).  Damien Kulash came down into the audience several times, and at one point I shoved some kid out of my was to get closer (do not get between me and good music).  He was really not getting that much into the music, so I figured between the two of us, I deserved the better spot.
Everything about the show was just great, awesome, rocking out, wonderful awesomeness.  The short acoustic set they did (which they had also done at 930) was great, especially since they came down into the audience to do it, which gave it a really small more intimate atmosphere.
I was disappointed that there was no backyard dancing, but I can deal.  Apparently one of the guitar picks thrown into the audience at several times throughout the show landed right in front of Mike, but he was holding Aimee on his shoulders and couldn’t bend down to pick it up before someone else got it.  I was also pretty close to getting a copy of the set list, but unfortunately lost out.  On the way back to VCU we drove past one of the kids who did get a set list, and I told Aimee she should hit him with her car so I could jump out and grab it, but for some reason she didn’t think that was a good idea.
Sorry for the really long post, but Saturday was just so amazing I can’t help but go on and on.  I love OK Go so much, and was super excited to get the chance to see them again (and for free this time!).  As we left, Aimee said, “We should go to more of their shows.”  Yes, Aimee.   Yes, we should.

OK Go’s official website

 

Weekend update (haha, that’s an SNL skit… lol)

An upsetting little paradox: When I have time to write in this, it’s because I’m not doing anything else.  When I am doing something exciting that could be interesting in here, I am not posting here because I’m doing something else.  Which is why I’m a bit behind on my blog posts.

Friday night, I went to see Rent live at the Landmark Theatre with two of my friends.  One of my friends had no previous exposure to Rent, while my other friend and I loved the movie and both of us had heard songs from the original Broadway soundtrack.  The tickets cost about $37, but adding on all of the stupid extra charges ($7 convenience fee???), it came out to about $50.  But we went anyway because we really wanted to see Rent live.

Was the show worth $50?  Absolutely not.  It was bad.  It was really bad.  I was so disappointed.  The music arrangements were weird, there were points where I felt the music should have swelled, there should have been some emotional hight, but, there wasn’t.  Only 3 of the actors were really good (the guys who played Mark, Roger, and Benny, if anyone’s curious).  The woman who played Joanne had an awful voice and a distinct lisp.  There were a lot of songs where it just wouldn’t be possible to sing that well and dance around all energetically, but still, it seemed like there was almost no dancing.

On the plus side, the guy who played Roger was once voted “South Africa’s Hottest Hunk” by people magazine. Our Collins was Anwar F. Robinson, who apparently was on American Idol 4.  The show got better after intermission, when we moved to an empty section and were able to talk a bit during the show (of course we were silent before when sitting around other people, but when you have a whole section to yourself… you have some more freedoms).

Saturday night I went to the Strut fashion show with some people since a friend of ours was in it.  The ticket was only $5 for a floor seat.  Pretty awesome.  I’m guessing I got a floor seat since I bought a ticket from one of the models instead of at the door or going to Breakpoint, otherwise why would anyone not buy a floor seat?  They were only 5 bucks.  For the most part, the show was awesome.  There were some weird outfits, and some unflattering outfits, but mostly there were some cool clothes.  The little in-between parts with the pilot and the two flight attendants, however, were painfully unfunny.  But, all around I had a good time.  And then I went to Panda Veg for dinner!

Later that night my friend gave me every Beck album I didn’t already own.  I love Beck so much, as I’ve mentioned before.  I’ve been having a good time listening to him the last few days.

Well, that was my weekend.  Fascinating, I know.

 

So I finally made a muxtape

If you didn’t already know, muxtape.com is this great new website where you can create your own online mixtapes.  I assume the best way to use this is to show off how superior your music collection is.  Anyway, I was very excited about this since I love making mixes, and finally a way to share them with pretty much the whole internet.  This isn’t my best mix ever, but it was pretty spur of the moment.  There’s a 12 song limit, and I used all 12 which I probably didn’t need to, but hey, they’re good songs.

My muxtape

Anyway, enjoy.  Then go to muxtape.com to listen to other peoples and make your own!