Category Archives: Music

Aging Out



Aging Out, originally uploaded by theuser.

I saw Aging Out, a musical about kids in foster care who "age out" of
the system, at UCI the day before yesterday. It was a lot of fun! I
hadn’t seen a play or musical since Fiddler on the Roof in the summer
of 2009, so it had definitely been a while. It felt odd walking up a
path that was so familiar but that I hadn’t taken in so long. We also
sat in the same seats in which we always tried to sit at Live Nudes.
My friend Melissa was in the show, and she was really great. It’s too
bad her character had to be abused though. I ran into someone I knew
who also watching the show, too! There were a lot of good
performances, and I had a great time.

Nightwish Members Forming New Band, The Myötähäpeä

BLABBERMOUTH.NET – NIGHTWISH Members Launch THE MYÖTÄHÄPEÄ; Video Available

According to NIGHTWISH keyboardist/mainman Tuomas Holopainen, “This amazing group of mind-blowing virtuosity combined with a versatile repertoire includes such names as Heikki Kovalainen of F1 LOTUS on the drums, and Mr. Toni Virtanen on the vocals. Jukka [Nevalainen, drums] took over the keys, whereas Emppu [Vuorine, guitar] and me swapped between guitar and bass to make it a real challenge. Jamppa Lautamäki of the NIGHTWISH website fame filled the first open backing vocals position, but there’s still room for more behind the mics.”

Some of the members of Nightwish are forming a new group, The Myötähäpeä, with other artists. I hope this doesn’t mean a decline in Nightwish releases, but I doubt it because Nightwish is currently Finland’s most successful band, and I get the feeling this is more of a side project. If you follow the link through to the source, there’s a YouTube clip of them rehearsing.

Scott Pilgrim

Wow. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was really amazing! I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It’s almost strange how it so perfectly adapted gaming (not a particular game) to the movie screen. I definitely want to own this movie. You could even say that I’m in lesbians with it.
The soundtrack is pretty amazing too. I’m pretty terrible at trying to talk about music in any meaningful way, so I guess I won’t try much. I will say that I was looking for new music recently. It’s been hard for me to find anything new to listen to ever lately. The Scott Pilgrim soundtrack… well, it rocks! One of the best songs on it, Scott Pilgrim by Plumtree, was the song that inspired the creation of the original Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. I looked into Plumtree and found that they’re an indie rock, punk-pop formed in 1993 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They started playing in junior high! Anyways, I really liked their sound and have been listening to one of their albums, Predicts the Future, quite a bit now. Good stuff!

The Aquabats!

I saw The Aquabats play at the Henry Fonda in Hollywood on Friday, and it was so much fun! The five regulars, MC Bat Commander, Crash McLarson, Jimmy The Robot, Ricky Fitness, and Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk, were all there, but two previous members, Chainsaw and Catboy, were there too! They played a bunch of songs I knew and loved including Red Sweater, Pool Party, Pizza Day, and a cover of Holiday Road.

 
When they played Attacked By Snakes a guy in a large snake costume came out and danced on stage. Later, between songs, Tortilla Man attacked! He knocked MC Bat Commander down and even pushed him off stage into the audience! MC Bat Commander considered calling the LAPD, the marines, or even Oprah, but in the end, Santa came on stage to hit Tortilla Man with his belly, defeating him.
When the show was done, they left the stage and a video played of them leaving. This was live, of course, and not prerecorded elsewhere… anyways they had trouble getting their car going, so they all got out to push. As the driver got out, he took off the emergency break. Guess what happened!? They pushed it easily but right into another car… and then their car caught fire! The Aquabats did what any responsible people would do – they ran back on stage to play more! They ended their show by playing a cover of Holiday Road with clips of Christmas Vacation playing on the screen. Multiple times it seemed like it was all over and they’d break into another chorus. They even brought a bunch of kids on stage to sing with them, letting them use the mics. It was really, really cool.
I should mention the opening bands – Supernova and Buck-O-Nine. Both bands were really entertaining. Supernova had metallic looking costumes, weird astronaut-like helmets, and foil covering their instruments. They passed out foil to the audience beforehand, but I’m not really sure why! We wore it on our heads.
The night was amazingly fun, but I was really sore from all the jumping and getting bumped. My throat hurt too a little from yelling and singing. Totally worth it though of course. On the way out, they passed out Aquabats CDs with two Christmas songs, including the Holiday Road cover. Very cool =D

Body Parts in Songs

Wired reports that artists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg have created a visual representation of how much each musical genre incorporates each body part into their lyrics. The eyes are sung about most with blues and gospel singing most about hands and hip-hop singing about, no surprises here, asses.

Music meme

Got this from 152’s lj!
1) Total volume of music files on my computer?
6,684 files 30.9 GB (6,652 files 27.0 GB excluding music videos)
2) The last CD I bought was:
The Dears – No Cities Left
3a) The last song I listened to before writing this was:
The Dears – No Cities Left – Who Are You, Defenders of the Universe
3b) Song playing right now:
Metallica – Black Album – Nothing Else Matters
4) Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me:
Um, I don’t know. I’ll just list artists I’m listening to lately…
The Dears
Metallica
Apoptygma Berzerk
As I Lay Dying
My Chemical Romance
Franz Ferdinand
5) Which 5 people are you passing this baton to, and why?
I’m not passing. Come get it.