Pandora Radio

I’m sure most people have one or at least heard of it, but Pandora Internet Radio is a pretty cool place for music fans. It requires you to make an account but it just asks for your email – no big deal. Also, once you sign in you’re signed in for life (that’s how it works for me anyhow). Basically you create your own stations by selecting an artist or song you like then it will keep playing that artist as well as similar ones. When a song plays you can thumbs up or down it. If you thumbs up it’ll be played again, and thumbs down it’s gone. If you get sick of a particular song (if you thumbs up one they tend to play it A LOT) you can put it “on the shelf” and it won’t be played for the next 30 days. You can make as many stations as you want and they have a quick mix station where it’ll play randoms from the stations you’ve already created. I’ve found a lot of great bands through this system. One annoying thing is that in one hour you can only skip seven songs due to some sort of legal business. For all you iPhone/iPod users – there’s a free app for this as well.

Website: www.pandora.com

Newest Music I've Got

Newest CDs I've Gotten:

Ke$ha “Animal” – When my friend told me to get this I was hesitant… mostly because if I hear “Tik Tok” one more time, I’m going to flip my lid. (Although I have to admit it’s inspired some great Facebook fan pages such as “I Wake Up in the Morning and Feel Like Breakfast” …cheap laughs ensue.) But regardless of my feelings toward the one song I figured I’d give it a shot. After listening all the way through I’ve decided that, if taken at face value, it’s pretty decent. Don’t expect any life changing lines or even quotable ones, but like I said… take it for what it is and it’s solid. She’s a total mess but her weak rhymes and electronic beats make for some “easy listening”.

Young Money “We Are Young Money” – I’ll be the first to say I hate Lil Wayne. For some reason the guy just hits me wrong so I didn’t expect much from this. To clarify: I can handle some Wayne, like if he’s featured on a song but I don’t think I could handle his own CD. The song, “Bedrock” is really what pulled me in because I get stoked every time it’s on the radio… luckily for me, the same twelve songs are always in rotation so that happens often. One song on the album I’m ashamed to admit I really like is “She Is Gone”. It’s one of the most misogynistic and violent songs I’ve ever heard but I dig it. I guess I’ll take the feeling of being socially irresponsible while listening, and just turn it down when others walk in.

Santigold “Santigold” – This isn’t new at all but I just recently got into her. One day my roommate was playing a mix CD her friend gave her, which had some Santigold songs on there. The first one was “Creator” which caught my attention from the… interesting opening, so I asked her, “Who is this?” to which she replied, “Santigold” and we kept on listening. A few songs later I asked again, “…Who is this now?” and she replied, “Santigold again.” So after two songs, I figured I should probably just check this girl out because I was definitely feeling it. It’s very dub and electronic at the same time. Out of these three CDs it’s probably the one I’ve listened to most.

2010 Grammys

I usually don’t watch award shows but I was sucked into the Grammys last night. Once I heard Lady Gaga was performing, I knew I had to watch. Her performance was pretty spectacular. I loved “Speechless” with Elton John but what made the night for me was Pink’s performance.

I had never heard the song, “Glitter In the Air” before but since last night I’ve probably listened to it about a hundred times. (I have to keep reminding myself these dorm walls are pretty thin and I can’t sing half as good as her, haha). She sang so beautifully that it was hard not to be moved. Along with her acrobatic twirling in the air, WHILE SINGING. It was extremely impressive. I’ve always liked Pink for being different and pop-y with an edge, but this example of her talent really blew me away.

For anyone who didn’t see her performance you should definitely YouTube it!

Top 5 Best Shows

This post is inspired by a conversation I had with Megan from our class. We were talking about going to shows and local venues, which got me thinking…

The Top 5 Best Shows I’ve ever been to:

5. Reggie & the Full Effect with openers: MC Chris, Leathermouth, and David Costa is Dead (September 3^rd 2008 at The House of Blues)

Prior to going to this show, I only really knew of Reggie and Leathermouth. Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance started Leathermouth and since it was their first tour, and the show only cost like 10$ I thought – Why not? It was probably the most eclectic show I’ve been to so far. David Costa is a rapper from Indiana who is surprisingly dark and melodic. Leathermouth is full on screamo. MC Chris is another rapper who writes ridiculously yet hilarious songs with his cartoonish voice. Reggie & the Full Effect is essentially just singer James Dewees paying techno-y, pop, sometimes screaming, funny songs with whatever other instrumentalists he can scrounge up. For going on a total whim, I think I decided to get tickets like the day before; it was one of the funniest nights ever.

4. Kill Hannah’s New Heart for Christmas 5 (December 21^st at Subterranean and December 22^nd at The Vic, both in 2007)

Kill Hannah is a band from Chicago who I have probably seen live close to ten times over the past 6 years. Anyone who knows of Kill Hannah knows that their Christmas show is THE show to go to. 2007 was the first year they changed it into a two-night event. The first night was for 400 people at Subterranean, and the second was a bigger show at the Vic. Since I had seen KH so many times before, my friends and I had started a pretty big KH fan group with other people we had seen at the earlier shows. Eventually our group of 3 turned into a group of like 20. The first night we really just hung around talking, taking pictures, ignoring the first bands until KH came on because it seemed more like a house party then a show. The second night was more legit, and equally as fun as the first night. Like I said, they go all out so they had people dressed up like elves, and Frosty the Snowman, as well as fake snow. They even ended the night with a KH rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy”

3. Warped Tour 2004 (July 24^th, 2004)

This was my first every Warped Tour and my second (or third) concert ever. The bands I saw include: Lars Frederiksen & the Bastards, Flogging Molly, Simple Plan, NOFX, and Avenged Sevenfold. There were probably more but it was a long time ago, haha. I was sketchy on the entire idea of Warped Tour because I didn’t see how a daylong event, out in the summer sun, would be fun. Sounded more tiresome to be honest. The weather actually ended up being overcast and not so bad. The bands I remember most are Lars, NOFX and Avenged Sevenfold. Lars Frederiksen is the guitarist for Rancid but started this band to fill avoid, I suppose. It’s pretty brutal, fast, loud punk rock but what made the set memorable is that my mom came to Warped, went on the barricade with me, and even fist pumped (to “Oi”s not like… Jersey Shore) which was beyond hilarious. NOFX was just funny and the first real mosh-pit I had ever been into. The night ended with Avenged. This was before they became pretty well known and were really consumed with their stage presence; they were covered in make up and extremely flamboyant. My mom described their set as “watching a gothic Queen” which about sums it up. The best thing about Warped is that you can meet your favorite bands relatively easy, see a lot of them in the same spot, and get TONS of free things.

2. Anti-Flag with openers: Big D and the Kids Table (March 16^th, 2007 at The Metro)

I had always been a pretty big Anti-Flag fan since around 7^th grade but right before this show I had started getting into Big D a lot. They’re a ska band out of Boston. Needless to say when I saw they were opening for Anti-Flag I was pretty excited. I had been talking to the saxophone player through MySpace almost daily and happened to mention I would be at the show and that it was how I was celebrating my birthday that year with my friends (by going). During their set the lead singer, David McWane, introduced a song with, “This is for Michelle who’s turning 43 tonight…nah, I’m just kidding, she’s 61!” and went into “Shining On” which, to this day, is my favorite song by them. I was on cloud 9 by the time Anti-Flag came on, and they were as inspirational as always. I feel if you don’t want to change the world by the end of an Anti-Flag set, you obviously weren’t paying attention. Afterwards, that same saxophone player recognized me outside, and we talked for a while as well as the rest of Big D. Pretty iconic way to celebrate my 16^th birthday.

And finally…

1. Big D and the Kids Table with openers: Whole Wheat Bread (November 28^th 2007 at the Metro)

This show was on a Thursday but I knew I wanted to get there early so we could get to the barricade. Somehow my two friends, Tom and Lauren, and I conned our parents into letting us leave school at noon to drive to the Metro and sit outside. The doors opened at like 6 so we had roughly 5 hours to kill in the near-freezing Chicago weather… and of course we were in only hoodies since where would we put our coats once inside? Needless to say we found out about the “coat check” system after that. We were the first people in line nearly all 5 of those hours, saw the bands bringing their equipment in and even the guitarist of Big D, Sean, asked us, “Why the hell are you guys here so early?” Our reply? “Because you are.” Once inside, the opening band was Whole Wheat Bread, which is a group from Florida who mix punk rock with rap. They were amazing. Big D came on and I honestly felt like they were playing entirely for us since we all made eye contact a few times. It was my first time seeing them headline so it was a nice change to hear them play for 90 minutes instead of the usual 30.

…Kind of long but those are mine. Feel free to comment with yours.

The Bouncing Souls

Regardless of if you’re an avid music fan or just listen to whatever is on, I feel like everyone has a moment where they hear something so good they have to investigate. Over time that band becomes “theirs” and can change the way you feel about music, your own life, or even the world in general. Something just aligns in the universe making you and this artist click. It can be like their music was what you were waiting for all this time.

For me, that band would be The Bouncing Souls. They’re a four piece punk band that started in 1989 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. When I was in 7^th and 8^th grade, I was really consumed by the more popularly known US punk bands like Rancid, NoFX and Alkaline Trio, but I have an older cousin, Jay, who used to listen to all of those bands plus many, many more when he was a teenager. He would make fun of my lack of knowledge and we’d argue over if a band were washed up or not. Since he proclaimed himself my “older and wiser” cousin, he decided it was his duty to show me other artists. After that whenever we had a family party for the 4^th of July or Christmas, he would always come up to me with a huge stack of CDs.

A few years down the road, this tradition kept happening: going to parties and getting a stack but now I could drive so I’d leave the stack in my car. When I was driving to my Dad’s house or out with friends I would put them on. Eventually I got to The Bouncing Souls’ “Maniacal Laughter” and I remembered how Jay had told me, “If you don’t like that CD, you’re hopeless.”

I remember listening to the first song, “Lamar Vannoy” and immediately pressing the back button to listen to it again… and again, and again, and again. It’s just so quick paced, and loud that it got my attention right away. Greg Attonito, the lead singer, has a voice that I could can listen to all day. After getting through the entire CD, I called Jay and told him I would be needing everything the Bouncing Souls have ever put out ASAP.

Eventually, I collected all of their CDs and each song was just as good as the first one I heard. I fell in love with their lyrics, ranging from their crazier ones (“You’re so rad. If you were a fabric you’d be plaid because everybody knows that plaid is so rad. I think about you and I go m-m-m-m-mad”) to the more meaningful ones (“I’ve met some people along the way. Some of them split, some of them stayed… For good or bad, I’ve loved them all”) and everything in between. I felt like Greg Attonito knew exactly what I was trying to say about my life in all aspects... friends, growing up, and how much I appreciated bands like their own. Attonito provided the lyrics and the other three: Pete, Bryan and Michael provided the perfect fast, loud environment those lyrics needed to make their grand appearance.

Since then, I’ve seen the band live at least three times, and have kept up with everything they have been releasing. Last year they celebrated their 20^th anniversary with a tour and put out a new song every month of the year. They have slowed down over the years (musically and touring-wise) but they still have the same meaning to me. Regardless of how my music tastes vary over time, The Bouncing Souls are always going to be “my” band.

Here’s a YouTube video of the song “Lamar Vannoy” if you’re interested: