Adventures in volunteering

You guys know how I am. I'm a sucker for civil service and whatnot. However instead of my usual hours being dedicated to the public library or random school events I decided to do something a little out of the norm and volunteer to help out at a concert.

I'm part of a female volunteer organization for my school and most of the time we just help out at food kitchens or play bingo with the elderly, so you can imagine my excitement whenever we get to do something different.

The bands that were at the concert were on the Music With A Mission Tour, and if you can't already tell by the tour name it was just a bunch of Christian bands.... yeah. I don't really listen to that much Christian music... in fact the only Christian band I ever listened to was Reliant K, and I honestly didn't know they were Christian until I wikipedia-ed them a year after buying a handful of their songs on iTunes. In the 6th grade.

I guess my lack of interest can be summed up by my confusion. Do they sing about Christian things, or do they just sing in a Christian way? Or both? I don't know. The local bands in my area are 95% screamo and claim to be Christian (whilst citing Slipknot and Pantera as their musical influences on their Facebook pages) so you can understand my confusion. Not that I'm hating on Christian, or screamo music... I just prefer to listen to other things.... Gah. I'm just digging myself into a hole.

Anyways, we were guaranteed a free t-shirt and we could watch the show as long as we made sure there was always at least one person at the merch table. I let the girl I was working with watch as much of the show that she wanted. She seemed more excited than I was about everything. Towards the end when Hawk Nelson was playing I went in and watched a few songs. Their light show was awesome.

You can't really tell in this picture though... Their letters lit up all multicolored at one point, and they had strobe lights going off sporadically.

My friend Amy used my camera to take these pictures. For their encore performance they came out dressed like Journey and sang Don't Stop Believing.

I was a merch monkey for the band Superchick and I had a lot of fun despite it being a little stressful. They had one of the busiest tables aside from Hawk Nelson, but I like selling stuff to people so it was cool. The merch manager was really nice, and a complete hipster dreamboat. As I was chatting with him I found out that he 1) had no idea what day it was 2) was the fill in bassist 3)hadn't showered in a while and 4)thought my little town was pretty cool.

Apparently we are since Weird Al is coming in a few days. I had no idea that we had decent events coming to my town. I really want to go see Riverdance now.

I did my best to pick out the most ambiguous shirt from all of the bands so I wouldn't get any crap for being a poser... >.> Buuuuut whatever. It was free and I live for free stuff.

Winter's chill chilled me to the bone this year

So a few posts back I mentioned signing up to be in CAKE's music video for The Winter, and today I got my section that I'll be filming!

I'm going to be singing the first line of the song, then 1 minute in I'll sing the background vocals, and then 1 minute 11 seconds in I'll be da-da-da da da da daaaaaaaa-ing.

And since I have a part at the VERY beginning of the song I have to film at sunrise! It will be epic! I'm planning on getting my friend Rebekka to help me with it this weekend... she doesn't know that she's helping me with it yet :P

Ahhhhh I can barely contain myself! I have to have my segment done by the 30th so I might be able to post my parts on here a bit later....

:D
:D
:D

This totally made my month.

Cool Kid; Old Polaroid

(click to enlarge)

The teacher was gone in my AcaDec class, which meant AUTOMATIC FREE PERIOD! At first we played this weird game that involved strips of paper, and a lot of guessing. It was fun, but after a while people started to leave to go to other classes to study and whatnot so being the nosy students that we are we decided to rummage through some old AcaDec stuff. We found some REALLY old photos including this one. I don't know what it is about that I love about this particular one, but I almost had an urge to steal it and keep it for myself. But I didn't. Mainly because this other girl in class was like "hahahhaaaa no."

In other news, That Guy from my art class released this digital album that you can listen to for free. It's a mixture of Passion Pit/Grizzly Bear, and I kind of enjoy it. I would recommend a favorite track, but seeing as there are only four up, I'm just going say that I like them all equally.

Power song 2010 - 2011

Yes, I know, another video? However, this song is my power song for the upcoming debate season. In the past I've usually chosen mellow songs like Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear, or Chicago by Sufjan Stevens, but this year?

Cake's Short Skirt/Long Jacket is just the thing to get me pumped and motivated to write my cases. Between all my other homework I have absolutely no time to write them during the week, so any free time on the weekends is spent working all night trying to write something that will WIN.

I feel terribly unprepared this year since I'm not in the debate class, and virtually competing as a maverick, but I plan on kicking some major butt despite my lack of preparation.

"I want a girl who gets up early

I want a girl who stays up late

I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity

Who uses a machete to cut through red tape

With fingernails that shine like justice

And a voice that is dark like tinted glass

She is fast and thorough

And sharp as a tack

She's touring the facility

And picking up slack

I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng.... lonnng jacket"

Home.

A convincing argument towards my inner need to be a traveling gypsy.

Alejandro....?

So last night I was on Facebook and my friend Alejandro commented on Lady Gaga's music video for her third single from "Fame Monster" Alejandro.

He was a bit upset about it, saying that Lady Gaga had went too far. Curious I decided to pull it up on YouTube and watch it.

At the time I was pulling the video up I was talking to my friend Troy, who is vacationing in Korea. I thought, "Hey why not show Troy too? He likes Lady Gaga..."

So I sent him the link.... and we both watched it. It was pretty run of the mill for Gaga. Avant garde dancing and costume, the usual. Then it got around the 4 minute mark and.... cue the really awkward scenes that depict... you know...

I usually appreciate the artistic style of Lady Gaga, but after the video, IMing Troy was awkward because I sent him the music video....

Lesson Learned. Never send someone the link to anything unless you know what it contains.

Poor Troy. I don't even think his Korean big head knew what was going on.

If you want to watch the highly interesting music video (which is amazing, despite making it awkward between me and Troy now) you can view it here.

Wonton Lady Gaga fan

Why is it that whenever people find out that I like Lady Gaga they're just like, "Really? Are you serious?"

You know what fans of death metal, followers of Dimmu Borgir? SUCK IT. Don't try to pull your elitist BS on me. Don't judge me because I can appreciate folk, punk, and other various forms of music at the same time.

At least Lady Gaga has some actual talent backing her crazy antics.

SUCK IT HATERS. And yeah, next time you think about criticizing my taste in music, remember who knows how to do the chemistry homework.

I wish I knew someone named Bill

This song is pretty much the bomb dot com. I love the whole feel of this song, and it's not annoying like other "wedding" songs. I'm sorry, but I would be lying if I told you that I didn't want to stab my eyes out whenever I go to a wedding and hear these sappy songs over and over about crap like, "I'll love you till the end of time...."

Not that that statement is bad, but it's so completely hackneyed. UGH.

Now, this song about Bill, I'm listening to it on repeat that's how much I love it. Bill. Bill. I need to meet a Bill.

Music Education

I like to listen to quirky folk muzicks, and I won't even lie, some of it is just out there crazy, but I like it. It's so much better than all of this re-mixed hip hop stuff that just gets used for grinding, grinding, and more grinding. Not that grinding is bad, but sometimes I like to lay in bed with a good book, or a pen and paper and just listen to nice music that helps me relax.

So here are some groups that I like right now. Some old, some new, they're quirky but give them a listen. I picked my favourite song to go with them also :) Give them a listen.

Deerhoof - Byun

CocoRosie - Not For Sale

Tapes 'n Tapes - Just Drums, or Buckle

The Postal Service - Be Still My Heart (if you fancy owl city, you'll most likely enjoy this song)

M.Ward - Chinese Translation

Headphones - What Are You Looking For?

The Apples in Stereo - Onto Something

I know, it's a bit of a list, but I just don't think I'm doing the world justice if I don't promote these musicians in some way or form. I most certainly do NOT have enough money/time to make them all super awesome T-shirts for me to wear around school, so for now bumping them on my blog will just have to do.

Just promise me you'll at least listen to one of these groups, even if you don't like them you'll have gotten a bit of musical diversity for the day :)

Summer Playlist.

The first song, was the mysterious song Jacob was always playing in Debate. I always liked it, but I could never figure out what it was.

The other songs are just a few of my current favourites :)

Do you guys have any favourite songs for summer?

Heads up on BoA!

This weekend has been sooo good. I think my battery is close to being re-charged which means I get to be my normal ball of energy self on Monday!

Anyways I've been craving some of my Asian music so I went to YouTube and typed in BoA, one of my personal favourite Korean singers who is not only talented in Korean, she can speak Japanese, Chinese Mandarin, and English!

What I'm most excited about though is the fact that some time in November she's releasing a single with Flo Rida.

Of course most of you probably don't care about Asian Music, but since I'm part Asian, I guess I just like the stuff by nature, so for anyone who is curious for who BoA is here's one of my favourite songs by her called Amazing Kiss in English.

Jarod Barber

Is someone you should consider checking out.  He friended me on Myspace, and I've always loved helping out aspiring musicians even though they may not be everyone's cup-o-tea, but hey, just look at the Sex Pistols.

He's very indie-ish acoustic, and just starting out-- so help support him and at least check out his music!