February 3, 2015 in Music, Seattle Bands

Seattle Music

I’ve lived in Seattle since 1998 and I have to admit, I didn’t delve that far into the Seattle music scene until recently. Most of the musicians I found were from the midwest, east coast and california and…well basically anywhere but here. Seattle. So lets just say I am making up for lost time. I’ve decided to research some local bands (I’m using local loosely to mean Pacific Northwest) and write about them here. The write ups will vary from short to maybe too long and I should stop. But in any case, they will be here. Let’s see where this goes.

 

 

January 18, 2015 in 101 Things To Do List, Life (General)

Game Night!

I forgot to take any pictures but I can cross one of my items off the list because tonight was game night. Granted we only played one game but it was Cards Against Humanity, and really…what more could you ask for with a game night but playing that game, eating tacos, drinking sangrias and hanging with great friends? It was all I could have hoped. I might try for another one but this one counts as I hadn’t seen these friends in a long time and I missed them dearly.

While not playing games and eating we talked about life and just caught up.  One possibility for #16 was brought up. We’ll see. But thats a story for another time…or another item crossed off post. Until then…#5 Game night is complete!

January 7, 2015 in Uncategorized

101 Things

A friend has a list of 101 things she wants to do, I don’t remember if its in a year or just in her lifetime but I thought it was a great idea. There aren’t necessarily huge complicated epic adventures, a lot are easily accessible experiences but its often these things we overlook. These great chances for memorable moments. So here is my list:

  1. Decorate the “Waiting for Interurban statues”
  2. Watch a football game at a sports bar Completed 02/01/2015
  3. Discover 5 new local bands
  4. Sing a song with a musician
  5. Have a game night with friends Completed 01/17/2015
  6. Host a get together to celebrate a random holiday
  7. Visit two friends that live outside of WA
  8. Complete 3 hikes
  9. Go camping
  10. Learn to cook 5 new dishes
  11. Send 10 surprise packages to friends
  12. Be able to decently play a song on guitar with bar chords
  13. Design and make my own Christmas cards
  14. Design, make and send birthday cards to 5 friends
  15. Run a 5k
  16. Do one thing that scares me
  17. Visit 10 museums
  18. Learn a new skill
  19. Visit 10 towns/cities I’ve never been to
  20. Take a picture at the Olympic Rings in Whistler
  21. Ride the Ducks
  22. Attend the Tulip Festival
  23. Walk/run 100 miles in one year
  24. Go through all my boxes and declutter
  25. Make my apt into a home
  26. Get my first tattoo
  27. Refurbish a piece of furniture
  28. Host an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party
  29. Go to an “extreme” sports event
  30. Go snowboarding
  31. Have a snowball fight
  32. Go sledding
  33. Volunteer
  34. Attend the symphony
  35. Attend the theatre
  36. Watch 10 movies in the movie theater (1/10)
  37. Go to an improv comedy night
  38. Lose 40 lbs
  39. Buy someone a cup of coffee
  40. Make a new friend
  41. Watch the sunrise
  42. See the Northern Lights
  43. Go stargazing
  44. Go on a roadtrip
  45. Go to Vegas
  46. Go to 50 concerts of 50 different bands/musicians (3/50)
  47. Take a spontaneous weekend trip
  48. Visit the Monterey Aquarium
  49. Host a Living Room Concert
  50. Knit or Crochet a Blanket
  51. Bake a cake from scratch
  52. Take a picture in the same exact location every month for a year
  53. Build and Fly a kite
  54. Perform 10 random acts of kindness
  55. Go Ice Skating
  56. Have a picnic
  57. Go to a speed dating event for fun
  58. Go to the Twin Towers memorial
  59. Go to a concert outside the Pacific Northwest
  60. Bury a time capsule
  61. Take a train somewhere
  62. Go to Eastern Canada
  63. Attend 5 meet-ups
  64. Attend a Trivia Night
  65. Go to a Seahawks game
  66. See a concert in Red Rocks Amphitheatre in CO
  67. Create an art focused website
  68. Write a book
  69. Make 10 mixtapes and hide in the open them for people to find 🙂
  70. Start an Etsy store selling stuff designed and made by me
  71. Run a 10k
  72. Bench press my weight
  73. Plant a tree
  74. Complete 30 days of finding one positive thing to be thankful for each day
  75. Go strawberry picking
  76. Go hunting for seashells on a beach
  77. Build a sand castle
  78. Learn to sew (for more than just mending)
  79. Take an art class
  80. Host a scavenger hunt
  81. Complete a drawing journal, draw everyday for 100 days (good or bad, just draw)
  82. Go on a graffiti photo safari
  83. Spend a day coloring in the park
  84. Give 25 random people real compliments
  85. Spend 30 days finding at least one thing to love about yourself.
  86. Do a cartwheel
  87. Go geocaching
  88. Spend a day exploring at least 5 neighborhoods in your own city
  89. Make a paper airplane that can travel at least 20 ft
  90. Go to the San Juan Islands
  91. Learn a new word a day for 90 days and use it in a “real life situation” sentence.

List to be continued… Find the current list under “The List: 101 Things to Do” on the menu.

January 7, 2015 in 101 Things To Do List, Life (General)

I do what I want..

So many hopes for this blog, if any of you have actually been following it I am sure by now you think I am a little flighty and indecisive. This is true at times. The truth is, the original concept for this blog didn’t work out so I tried to do something else with it that also didn’t work because it was so limited. I found myself having a bunch of other blogs to capture things because I just segregated every experience of my lift into different blogs. Who needs that?

So, I’m going to move my current blog entries from my current blog here. It fits because its about life and there is a lot of music going on in it as well.

I guess to describe it the most accurately would be its a project of sorts. A friend has a list of 101 Things to Do in 1001 days. I was inspired so I made a list of my own. Right now I only have 90 something things but I keep adding. I have crossed off a few things that others are in progress. Including a goal to go to 50 concerts of 50 different musicians/bands/artists. So, don’t worry. There will still be a lot of music 🙂

Alright, the transition begins this weekend. Hopefully this is the last major change, but if its not, you shouldn’t be surprised haha

May 30, 2013 in Uncategorized

Context…It is important people (Adam Levine’s “Outburst”)

There have been a lot of opinions being stated as well as over-dramatization about Adam Levine’s comment at the end of Tuesday’s The Voice Results Show. For those that do not know, there were three contestants left on the chopping block at the end of the show. Team Blake’s Holly Tucker as well as Team Adam’s Judith Hill and Sarah Simmons. This meant that at the end of the day at least one of Adam’s singers was going home. Right before the announcement of the final save the camera pans to Blake and you hear Adam say “I hate this country”. This was tweeted on twitter and all hell broke loose. Other twitter users started tweeting about it, retweeting, blogs and media picked up on it and it was a veritable smorgasboard of hate towards Mr. Levine. But here is the thing… if everyone took the comment in context with the situation that it was made during and if the camera hadn’t panned to Blake (so we could have seen Adam’s face or gestures when he said it) maybe this wouldn’t have been such a big deal but alas that is not how people work.

People that do not even watch the show jumped in on the action claiming Adam as anti-America and now he’s having to explain something that he shouldn’t need to if people just looked at context. “America” gets to vote for who stays and who goes. America as in “this country”. The entire season you could see how fond Adam has grown of his performers and how much he cared. So seeing that two out of his three singers (who are amazing and seriously… WTF Voice watchers/voters) were still up for elimination he made a comment about hating this country. Then when the camera pans back out you see him sitting there with fingers crossed and pleading under his breath hoping they would be saved. So context. Adam Levine faced with losing two of his singers (which he eventually did, see above WTF comment) said “I hate this country”, it was a joke throwaway statement. Much like sometimes when my friends say something I say “I hate you” to them. Do I actually hate them? No I do not.

Did Adam just randomly decide to say “I hate this country” for no reason under his breath? No he did not. Even from the little clip everyone has been posting you can see that. Now he’s having to go the long PR route going on TV shows, talking to blogs, tweeting and etc to explain an innocent frustrated outburst made in an intense situation. Why are we as a society so quick to get offended and jump on the “hate” and “anger” wagon? When did we become so overly sensitive to everything that is said that something like this had to be blown way out of proportion? Seriously people, lets calm the heck down and try to think things through before blowing our tops.

Does Adam Levine hate this country, his country, his birthplace and homeland? ANSWER IS NO! Lets just leave it alone now. Or if anything, get offended by the fact that media and overly sensitive people blew this out of proportion and wasted all our time and flooded the news channels, radio station morning reports and etc with this stupid crap.

April 14, 2012 in Live Music, Music

Matt Nathanson o/f Kelly Clarkson (03.22.12)

Matt Nathanson and Band

Matt Nathanson and his rad band o/f Kelly Clarkson at Showare Center (03.22.12)

Matt came around again…and again he was opening for a big act. Since with the new job and job hunt a trip to Spokane was unlikely I decided to grab a ticket for the show. Now I know you may be reading that and thinking that I don’t like Kelly Clarkson but it’s not that. What made the decision to buy the ticket hard is that I no longer have a good paying permanent job and find myself broke all the time. I’m trying to survive just like everyone else. So shows that cost $70…its a reach. This time, I decided it was worth it. Kelly and Matt, along with some of the raddest band members ever (Aben Eubanks, Aaron Tap, Konrad Meissner and James Farrell to name a few), best decision ever.

The show was great, it’s always different watching a musician open for a crowd that doesn’t know them as opposed to seeing them play a headlining show. They are needier, they want the crowd to like them and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. Not that Matt doesn’t cater to his normal crowd, but its different. When he is headlining its like he is hanging out with old friends, when he is opening its like he’s the new kid at a party trying to get people to notice him and hang. Staying as far away from the wall and the corner as possible. Well people, Matt Nathanson is no wall flower.

Matt came out and instead of easing into the crowd’s hearts, he bust the door down and announced he was there with his upbeat music and witty banter. He had my section dancing and standing by the middle of his first song and by the time he was ending his set with Faster he had cemented his place in the entire audience’s musical lives. They stood, they danced, they clapped and they sang. You may say “well it is a concert of course they did all that”, but this is WA. People stand in attention without moving and are silent during entire shows where the only noise you hear from them is the applause after the song has ended. Sure there was a lot of that going on, but there was a lot of crowd engagement too. People laughed, sang along and even better they danced. Plus, you know a crowd loves a musician when the line to meet him wraps around the stadium.

It was a proud yet bittersweet moment standing in line to say hello. On one hand, Ive been going to see Matt play for over 10 years. I’ve bought every cd, traveled thousands of miles, sold merch at shows and told everyone I meet about his awesome music. How can I not be proud and happy for him? Hatin on him would make me a total douche. On the other hand, I had about 3 seconds to say hello, grab a picture and then get scooted away when I finally got to him in the line. A little sad, but understandable. Things change with time and success. Matt is getting the recognition he deserves for his many years of hard work, touring and amazing music. Good on him. I’ll miss our talks but I have years of memories to look back on. So congratulations Matt! I’m glad the rest of the world is now getting that you are a f*cking badass musician. I’ll see you at your next show, even if you don’t see me (that sounded creepy but you know what I mean).

PS Kelly was rad too and I’ll write about her part of the show in a little bit.

Check out matt at www.mattnathanson.com.

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April 13, 2012 in Uncategorized

Updating…

Its been awhile I know, currently I’m trying to get a new theme to work and add some pages. Sorry.

I do have quite a few shows to post about and add some photos and video. I will get those up soon. In the mean time please enjoy this gif.

funny gifs

 

New post coming soon…

March 2, 2012 in Live Music, Music, Non-Profit

Melodic Caring Project: You are all invited!

Melodic Caring Project Launch Party Banner

Hello!

I’ve recently discovered a new non-profit called the Melodic Caring Project where they bring music to patients who are in the hospital battling diseases via streaming. I’m really excited about this non-profit. As a huge music lover I know what music can do to a person’s morale when they are down and need a pick me up. Just one of the amazing things I love about music is the face that when you listen to a song that correlates to how you are feeling or something you have gone through it makes you feel as if someone understands and is going through it all with you. Or when you want to forget about a bad day, rough time, etc you can put on something with a great beat or fun lyrics and forget about everything and just delve into the music.

Music can be magical and healing, and the Melodic Caring Project understands that and is going to bring the music straight to the people who need it. Hospital patients. I for one hope this really takes off and succeeds as its such a novel idea that can help so much.

The official launch party is March 29th at the Fremont Abbey in Seattle, WA. There will be live performances and a silent auction. If you can attend they would love to have you, if you cannot I know they would appreciate it if you can spread the word about this event and this great organization. Below you will find the official Invitation, please pass it on. Repost, link to etc. The links to the Facebook event page is below as well but just to bring it out here it is again:

Melodic Caring Project Launch Party: https://www.facebook.com/events/363680286985695/.

If you are a musician and would like to volunteer your services to play for a patient go to www.melodiccaringproject.com/getinvolved.html.

If you want to volunteer for this organization or donate money you can go to the same place. www.melodiccaringproject.com/getinvolved.html

Please help spread the word for this amazing start up non-profit. With everyone’s help this will be amazing!

_____________________________________________
OFFICIAL INVITATION TO MELODIC CARING PROJECT LAUNCH PARTY!!!

We’re very excited to share with you our new project, a non-profit called the MELODIC CARING PROJECT (MCP), in which we stream live music to patients in the hospital. We recently received our 501(c)3 tax exempt status and have partnered with Seattle Children’s Hospital to offer our service to it’s kids and have devoted ourselves to the project full time! We were also recently featured on MSNBC as their “featured” article on their Digital life on Today!

Please take a few minutes to check out our website, join our facebook page and watch the attached video. They say “knowledge is power.” With the MELODIC CARING PROJECT knowledge is empowerment. The more people who know about what we do, the more people and patients we can reach through our service. If you would be willing to forward this email to your contact list it would be hugely appreciated.

We would also like to personally invite you to our big MCP Seattle Launch Party & Benefit Thursday, March 29th from 7-9PM at the Fremont Abbey in Seattle. There will be drinks/spirits for purchase as well as some great music by local artists BRYAN JOHN APPLEBY and LEVI WARE! The music will be streamed live to children at Seattle Children’s Hospital so we invite you to come on out and experience what the MELODIC CARING PROJECT is all about! This event will also serve as a silent auction & fundraiser for MCP in order to raise funds to bring more music to more kids so bring your checkbooks if you will! I’ve attached the event invitation below so please see it for more details and pass it on to your friends and family! (You can RSVP via our event page by clicking here FacebookEventPage)
February 14, 2012 in Music

Happy Valentine’s Day

One of my favorite love songs and it just happens to be about today.

Kina Grannis – Valentine

 

Have a great day everyone!

Lots of love,

Me 🙂

February 9, 2012 in Live Music, Music

MuteMath…memories and sadness

My friend got me into this band. She love love loved them and she wanted me to love them too. Unfortunately every time she mentioned them she said their name so quickly I thought she was saying “Meat Math” and I was not interested in seeing a band that might possible sing about about “meat” or “math” (I was totally thinking crazy metal hardcore band). Boy did I feel like an idiot after I finally took the time to watch them and enjoy them live. (I saw them once open for one of my favorite bands. This show occurred before the one Im going to take a trip down memory lane for right now. At the time of the first show I had hurt my leg and was in a lot of pain. I blame the drugs for making me so inattentive, but I’ve since made up for that lost show.)

Here is my best MuteMath memory...

We had driven down to San Francisco on our yearly pilgrimage to see one of our favorite musicians, the timing of the shows made it so we would miss MuteMath’s Seattle tour date but if we drove through the night we would get there in time for their San Francisco date…and Alicia was not about to miss seeing them play. So we drove through the night, almost died a few times (big rigs are scary), but finally made it to SF. Then I decided to be a pain because I was so tired and I almost didn’t go. Boy am I glad that Alicia is a little scary when she is determined. So there I found myself, at the MuteMath show at Slim’s in San Francisco. Once the music started I felt like a jackass. They were so good. I mean, f#$%ing amazingly good, and their energy on stage was massive. Plus their drummer was hot. (yeah, I admit it… I dig drummers)

I also found out he was crazy talented. Like I could not take my eyes off of him. Darren King plays percussion Like. A. Boss. Seriously, I was mesmerized by his playing. So mesmerized that I missed the fact that Paul (lead singer) had jumped off the stage and I took an elbow to the eye. Yup, right square in the eye. It hurt like all get out, but Paul (even in his heightened rocker state of being) noticed and hugged me. He apologized and moved on through the crowd. How could I be mad at him, it was my own fault for staring at Darren and not paying attention to his amazingness. Trust me, I paid attention after that. By the end of the show MuteMath was now my favorite live band. I was in love with the band that I formerly thought was called “Meat Math”, and I was ready to punch myself in the face for not giving them a chance earlier (you think Paul knew and thats what the elbow was for?…anyways…). And at the end of the show, Darren gave away drum sticks to audience members. As I got one someone yanked it out of my hands, lucky for me Darren saw and walked right over and gave me the rest of what he had telling everyone they were mine and I could give them to whomever. (Gorgeous, talented and sweet…sigh)

We had a chance to talk to the band after and get some autographs. Paul apologized profusely for my eye and even gave me another hug. I jokingly told him that if it turned into a black eye I was going to be pissed, to which he replied “if it does take a picture and post it and I will make it up to you”. He felt so bad about it. I told him to forget it. (It didn’t turn into a black eye luckily, but some people thought I should have just told him it did as a joke… I thought that would be cruel because he was so nice.) He was seriously the coolest guy, we talked for a good 10 minutes, I even told him our harrowing talk of adventure down and how Alicia threatened my life if we didn’t make it to the show (he laughed…she however didn’t find it all that funny..whoops). Anyways, we got to talk to all the band members except Darren..sadness. But its all good. I had my memento from that night.

So why the trip down memory lane? 1) I just found that drumstick 2) They will be in town tomorrow night playing a show at the Showbox and I will not be there. It will be the first time I have missed their show since that SF trip. That is the reason for the sadness. I’ve seen them play big shows and small shows since. We even promoted their Endfest after party show, handing out fliers to everyone at the festival. And then waited until 1 am for them to hit the stage (I finally got to meet Darren at this show and he thanked me for promoting and then told me it would be his honor to take a picture with me…could these guys get any sweeter. unfortunately for me, the picture disappeared. sad face) I have had so many amazing memories seeing this band (even their crew thought I should have told Paul I got a black eye…they are quite the jokers.)

All my memories will have to do and fill my heart tomorrow night as they hit the stage. I will not being seeing this amazing band, but I will be there in spirit. I love you MuteMath,  you are truly fantastic and talented. I’m sorry I don’t have the money to see the show, but if I did I would give it all to you for one amazing night of music.

For those lucky enough to see them live, I hope you take the opportunity. These guys have the energy and enthusiasm to lift you on your feet and make you dance. They capture your attention and hold it the entire show because you never know what is going to happen next. You almost don’t want to blink and sometimes I find myself needing to give a reminder to breathe. Check them out, you will not be disappointed.

www.mutemath.com

MuteMath w/Canon Blue

  • Showbox Sodo
  • Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012
  • Doors open: 7:00 PM
  • Ages: All Ages to Enter, 21 & Over to Drink
  • Advanced Ticket Prices*: $28.00
  • Day of Show*: $32.00


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