lcrelyea
rebeccapatrick
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Tommy Wilson
stephenkillion
amsettineriFiled under: Dance like no one is watching, Songs to start your day, Time to Party Tunes | Tags: dance dammit, jump around, party hard, sleigh bells
All I am going to say is sleigh bells are loud, sloppy and make me want to dance. Not since Andrew W.K.’s Party Hard have I felt more desire to jump around and fist pump for 3 minutes straight. Also, on a more humorous note, the guitarist was from Poison the Well. Enjoy.
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Songs to listen to with the windows down, songs that make you feel cool in uncool moments
Quite frequently, via facebook, I get invited to events and shows in Indiana. It’s great that my friends still want to include me in things, but simultaneously reminds me of cool things I’m missing out on. One such invitation was for an Everything, NOW!/Pomegranates show that occurred last weekend. Everything, NOW! is a great band, full of friends, and it would have been really great to be there. I had never heard of Pomegranates.
But I had been eating a lot of them recently (being a superfood and all).
So, because I love the fruit so much I bought their newest album, “Everybody! Come Outside” without even listening to a preview.
The title track sounds like jumping through a sprinkler. Not in a Vampire Weekend kind of way (they sound more like playful romping on a Caribbean beach). It’s just genuine joy and playfulness, the kind of lawlessness that most people lose when they get their driver’s permit. It’s beautiful.
But the track that made me fall in love is “Svatsi Uutsi.” The initial clapping and playful guitar melodies have a youthful charm that make me want to run barefoot grass in a white eyelet dress and do cartwheels. A montage swims through my mind, hands outside of windows, warm breezes, sunburnt cheeks, and bike rides. What’s not to like about this?
-Laura Celeste
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions, sing like no one is listening | Tags: air drumming, Monon, Tallest Man on Earth
I suppose I could blame it on a good night’s sleep after a long stretch of not-so-good-nights’ sleeping. Or maybe on the coffee and croissant I had at the Monon Coffee Co. with Jeremy. Also, the possibility of it being a perfectly weathered morning, coasting (or not coasting, considering that I ride fixed, but it felt so effortless in the moment, that I felt as though I was coasting) up the Monon Greenway on my way to work yesterday. It was just one of those mornings, and I can’t describe it in any other way than simply “infectious joy.”
Don’t chide me. I ride my bike with headphones sometimes, when I know that it’s safe to ride with headphones. You see, I had The Tallest Man on Earth singing over the wind in my ears. The sun was like confetti through the trees. And, I was dancing as much as a person can dance on a bike, singing loud, at times playing air drums (though there are no drums backing The Tallest Man on Earth, I was playing them), and other times, when necessity necessitated that my hands should be on the handlebars, I strummed along on the bars. For some reason, The Tallest Man on Earth conveys to me an air and countenance of Beirut’s, Zach Condon, but yet dusty with the creaks and groans of say, an ancient wooden trade vessel or a ghost of a cabin deep in the woods of Georgia or Mississippi.
I passed people, and they smiled at me; some laughed. It’s probably hard to see a large, tattooed man riding his bike in this manner, singing and carrying on, and not take part in the joy he is feeling, to be affected by it. I felt as though lilting lines of music and notes were wafting away n my wake. It felt good to believe, to want to believe, that those people who saw me, who smiled and laughed, knew a day better than they would have otherwise, simply because I cared to sing.
christopher earl.
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Inspirational Anthems, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions, sing like no one is listening | Tags: Actor, Annie Clark, Marry Me, Now Now, St. Vincent
It took me a while to get on the St. Vincent train. There was just so much initial hype over her it was hard to tell what to expect of her music. Pitchfork and PASTE made it sound like she came down from Mt. Olympus with music to better man-kind. It was hard not to be skeptical.
I’m glad that I gave it time. Recently her second album came out, and after giving it a hear, she started to win me over. It’s so charming! Her masterful use of orchestrated flutes, bells, and violins is nothing short of whimsical. More like a musical production from the 40’s than your average indie release. It’s clean music (outside of the occasional reverberated guitar solo) and that makes her stand out from the nitty-gritty that we keep hearing these days.
But I’m not here to review guys, I’m here to tell you about my enthusiasm for the song “Now, Now”. It all started out with watching Andrew Bird videos in an attempt to talk myself into shelling out the money to buy tickets to his concert. Soon I came across this video of one of her live performances, and was totally blown away.
I’m not going to pretend to understand her lyrics (“I’m not your mother’s favorite dog, I’m not the carpet you walk on“?) But there’s definitely something empowering about it. (You’re right! I’m NOT your mother’s favorite dog!) Despite having no idea what Annie Clark is trying to say, I find myself rocking out along with it everywhere I go: in my car, on my runs, while I study for the GRE’s, while I’m cleaning!
There’s something bewitching about it that everyone should try.
-Laura
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Time to Party Tunes, songs that make you feel cool in uncool moments | Tags: Billie Jean, Irish pub, Michael Jackson, Thriller
When you work at a bar the jukebox is your enemy. Patrons take your favorite songs and make you abhor them. Every weekend night someone gets the great idea to select the entire album of Thriller. Which usually would make everything better, but somehow in an irish pub full of drunken Atlantans, the warm fuzzy feelings usually associated with the album are diminished.
Billie Jean though…Billie Jean will never fail to make me love life. There’s something about that synth and bouncy bass rhythm that always brings some bounce to everyone’s step. I look across the bar and suddenly everyone’s head is bobbing, and all the drunk women shake their asses just slightly. The waitresses are removed from their formerly sour moods and suddenly everyone’s ponytails sway as we cart dirty plates back to the kitchen and bring beer refills to our tables. The whole bar is suddenly removed from its regular context, and we all feel on the verge of bursting into choreographed dance.
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Inspirational Anthems, Night Drive Tunes, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Time to Party Tunes, sing like no one is listening | Tags: 3eb, losing a whole year, motorcycle drive-by, Stephen Jenkins, the red album, Third eye blind, wounded
Okay, some things don’t fade with time: I love third eye blind. BAM! There it is. No shame. I’ll go ahead and say that I honestly think that they were one of the most under appreciated wonders of the nineties. It’s horrific that they will go down in the books for “Semi-charmed life.” As that is by far one of the worst songs they have ever written. Steve Jenkins is, for the most part, a terrific song writer.
The red album will always be in heavy rotation in my car stereo. The transition between “Losing a Whole Year” and “Narcolepsy” always makes me catch my breath.
In my junior and sophmore years of high school, on the most wrestless of nights, I would sneak out of the house and take late night drives with their blue album. I would sing along with “Wounded” until I lost my voice. My fists would pump through the open moonroof. The wind and the melody carried me away. For a moment I was the only person in the world, just speeding down Oak Grove road in the moonlight. I forgot about all the stupid boys, the endless tests, and the monotony of day-to-day high school life.
But of all of the great things that have come out of that band, there is one song that will forever have my heart: Motorcycle Drive-by. It’s my trump card for any moment. You bring up third-eye blind these days and you will get many scoffs from many skeptics who underestimate their brilliance.
Last February I was on a roadtrip back from Chicago with my boyfriend and three of his friends. We were taking turns with the ipod. They all made fun of me for having so much 3EB. So when it was my turn I went straight to the second to last song of the red album. Without telling them what they were about to hear, I pressed play.
By the end of it I was in the car with four dudes, with eyes aglow and mouths ajar.
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Inspirational Anthems, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Sunny Dispositions, Time to Party Tunes, sing like no one is listening | Tags: Arcade Fire, No Cars Go, Self-Doubt
My good friend Benji and I used to have this game where, at any given moment, the one of us would turn to the other and simply ask, “What song?” It was our shorthand for, “What song do you have stuck in your head?” It wasn’t because we were mouthing words or humming or anything; it was because we always had a song in our head.
It’s a strange feeling to not really have that anymore. Entire moments of my life pass without a song playing itself on repeat, echoing off synapses, right lobe, left lobe, etc. etc. And I wonder, should I be writing for a music blog if that isn’t the case anymore? I question myself. Because, that’s what I do, and what I want to believe everyone does, so if you don’t happen to be one of those individuals who lives their life wondering about perfect comma placement, please, don’t tell me. I won’t tell you that I think you’re leading an unfulfilling life. Unexamined life, unfulfilling life, etc. etc. I think that was Plato or Thoreau or Garfield. Just trust me on this one.
But, I’ve come to the other side of my self-doubt. You are going to listen to me, dammit. You are going to read what I say and maybe laugh or nod or say, “Yes! That song rules. I listened to that driving through Kansas once and realized how meaningless corn is, too!”
This is why. I was driving the other day with Brittany (my fiance’), and we were dancing (as much as one can dance while strapped into a 1-ton bullet of speeding metal) to “No Cars Go” by Arcade Fire (ironic, I know, listening to this song, you know, in a car). Brittany turns to me and laughs and says, “Are you cold?” She’s pointing at my arms, where hundreds of goose bumps (Benji’s wife hates when you call them “goose pimples”) were creating a hairy forest.
“No!” I exclaimed (and, I hate exclamation marks). “This song just fucking rules!”
So, that’s why I am comfortable writing here, even though I no longer turn tunes over and over in my head, nor do I really feel impelled to label myself a musician, but gosh darn it, I still listen to songs I’ve heard hundreds of times before and think, “This song just fucking rules!”
-christopher earl.
