These boys fall like Domino's

Ummm....Sunday was interesting to say the least.

Interviewed a band. My favorite part was when the singer asked me, "so do you need anything? water, beer, shot of Jameson?"

Concert was fun, the real fun was the after party.

Who does not love free beer and pizza plus hanging out with an amazing band?!

My little sister is a fan of the band I was hanging with and wanted a autograph so I got her one cause I am nice like that.

We drank, sang Oasis, butthole surfers, weezer until the lights came up at 210am.








Basically..this is what I do. Crazy. crazy fun but crazy this is my life.

Here is the band, they are amazing and are kind of naughty for smoking inside the club when it is no smoking anywhere in Chicago.

The Big Pink with Lily Allen singing their song 'Domino's'

Quit.

I quit my job today.

Put in 2 weeks notice at 480.

Pure instinct and frustration but I have never felt better.

You're still burning off the angel on your face

Oh wait, oh wait, before I let you go
There's a thread or two still left between our souls
But you went messing with the gods and never fell away
You're still burning off the angel on your face
-BANG- -Empires-

Love that band. Love that song. I've seen them twice in concert and they are pretty amazing, especially the drummer. I have to write their review up tonight..hopefully.

So I made the mistake of getting Netflix. Did you know you can stream the movies(a lot) online instead of waiting..wow. That's what I did all day today instead of writing.

I kept justifying it my head "well you typed up half that interview last night you were supposed to do today so since it is already half way done you can watch one more movie.."
yeah no bueno.

So not miss natalie has to work tonight. Oh well.

My neighbors...I swear I think they slam their front door on purpose to annoy me. It makes such a loud noise it wakes me up in the morning..startles me at night..ugh. annoying.

I have been cooking more and more. It feels good. I do not remember the last time my fridge/freezer has had so much food in it. I pick up a lot of take out or I grocery shop for the next couple of days not weeks.
I am set for the next 3 weeks thankfully.

Life. Life. Life.
Concerts. Concerts. Concerts.
If I play my cards right starting Sunday I will go to a show every night for 6 days.
That is a lot of interviews. A lot of show reviews. But a lot of amazing shows.. Plus more money for me when people read my stories so win win win! Right?! Or am I making myself believe that only to be utterly stressed out come Friday.

I already have one set in stone. I'm on the guest list to see the lovely Imelda May and talented mister Jamie Cullum Monday night. I interviewed her last year and since then she performed on the Grammy's with Jeff Beck in the Les Paul tribute..she was stunning. Well if you read my column you would know that because I wrote a story about it.

That's it I am out to write! And NOT watch Lost..right..right.

Reach the City Steps Tonight.

Today's agenda:

Eat lunch at Kuma's (metal restaurant where all the burgers are named after metal bands)
Go get my picture taken with Oscar...The one that will be handed out Sunday night to Best Actor. It is in Chicago until Tomorrow.

Write. I have 4 deadlines tomorrow so that kind of needs to be done in my life.

Saturday:
Work.
Have a girls day with Julz and Erin which is getting tattoo's and lunch. Because clearly we do not have enough already. My friends are hardcore and I love it.

Yeah my life..I tell ya. It is rough.

"Let's Rage"

This weekend was intense. Raged like I was 21 again. I got about 7 hours of sleep from friday-sunday. Then for some reason Sunday night could not fall asleep until 230am.

Where to start. Thursday I had that date. He took me out for a sushi lunch then he took me to the University he teaches a class at (movie special effects/animation class) and I got animated.
Now what does that entail...I got into this black suit and had "markers" of my key joints stuck on me and stood in this black floor to ceiling part of the room where cameras were all around and I did random things. Cartwheels, handstands, pretended I was a Charlie Angel, etc.
Then looking at it on the computer I was this 3-D stick figure of sorts and then he had his class turn me into a 3-D girl that evening. Super fun.

Saturday concert. Alkaline Trio. Cursive. The Dear & Departed were in town. If you don't know who they are..well..that is okay I guess. But they are kind of a big deal here...It sold out(both shows) really fast here and I did not get tickets in time.
The day of the show my friend J said her cousin flaked out on here and said I could just have her ticket. BUT alas I did not need it. The bands tour manager ended up coming outside and walking me right past security back stage.
Good thing for her because she sold her extra ticket for 60 bucks outside of the venue. Here is how she said it went down:
She went up to a lady just standing there and asked her if she wanted a ticket,

the lady asked how much, J said, "I don't know 30"
lady: "How about 40?"
J: "Umm okay thats fine"
lady: "Well Im going to give you 60"

CLEARLY she just wanted to go to the show. Insane.

Poor poor Dan was sick sick sick. He was still fun to talk with though. He is a singer and on the TLC show "LA Ink". He is a tattoo artist on the show. We talked about Oasis and how he likes them, and guess who has Oasis lyrics tattooed on them..ME. So I showed him and he loved it. Said it was a really "rad" tattoo.

This is me and Dan Smith. He is adorable and sweet, but I think his London accent is what makes him seem sweet...


The show was killer. I loved every minute of it. The beer being spilled on me, me spilling it on myself, the music, being pushed, being called a slut by some random drunk guy in the crowd(really..yeah right.)

It was a late show, it ended at like 1230am. Then the Cursive after party...oh man. free beer and pizza. count me in!
Needless to say..I crawled into bed around 3AM..in the same clothes...woke up at 520am for work at 6am.
Needless to say..I went to work in the same clothes I went out in + last nights make-up.
Visual Merchandised the crap out of dress shop. Something about that little bit of sleep + coffee made me wired.

I have a ton of writing to catch up on, but I slept all day long. Something about a 4 hour nap from 1-5pm was needed in my life.

Blame it on the pop. dance. rock n' roll.

So what the heck. people have some balls. someone actually messaged me this:

Hey beautiful. How are you? My name is Mike. I am 25. I am 6'2, italian, hockey player frame. italian, hung(9in), smart, funny, and sucessful. I know im forward, but I when I see something I want i get it. tell me about yourself? my number is 773-xxx-xxxx text/call me or email me back.

No. that is wrong on so many levels.

My neighbors had a party Sunday night. I ran into my landlords the next day randomly an d they are going to talk to them about it. I guess they told the landlords but there were about 20 people there and they were not aware it ran til 2am (maybe longer but I finally found my ear plugs at that time and fell asleep). Insane. It is Sunday, I have to wake up at 6am.

So 2 weeks ago on Thursday my friend and I went liquid lunch style on some sangria and then made a snow man.


I forgot what we named him though.

So this amazing guy did a mash-up from the top 25 songs of 2009. It is flawless. Insanely flawless.


Watch it.

I have a date on Thursday with a guy that does animation/special effects in films/he teaches a class at DePaul also for special effects. I've also been talking to this lawyer, keeping options open.

I have decided I am going to do every thing in my power to make it to Jamaica for Tanya/Andy's wedding. I want to go so bad. My tax return is pretty decent so I can pay off a lot of my debt with that which means my now money I can start to save.

Where I write for (one of the 2 places) is annoying me. www.mademan.com
Not a high point in my career that site, but they pay me a flat fee per article and I worked it out to where if I do 10 articles a week for an entire month(40 total) that is the majority of my rent money. Well I cannot get paid until my editor reads/changes things up a little/if he wants me to change some things send it back to me with critique/ready to go live. It has been taking 2 weeks to get my articles ready to go live by them.
It is not anything crazy I am writing and every thing has to be less than 700 words..so what is the hold up. What really gets me is since I am a new writer they are only letting me do 5 articles at a time (I submit 5 and once even one gets approved then I can do another) At the rate this is going I am only going to have 20 articles done per month because of the waiting.

I was told once I get more established on there they will bump me up to 10 articles on hold so we will see. Im going to give it another month and see how it pans out.

On that note I need to write.

phoneless

I broke another phone. This is phone number 3 I will be on in one year. I tend to drop it a lot. especially when I have been drinking, and we all know how often that is.

Planning things with my boo's sister is coming together and she is for sure 100 times more into it than I thought. I guess low expectations pay off sometimes.

Life:

I went to some album release party Monday night for this guy who is in Day 26. From P Diddy's making the band. He did a solo thing, it's pretty decent. The party...was not.
Let me just say, I am the indie/punk/maybe metal kind of girl. Not R&B/hip-hop writer. I felt out of my element. I did the best I could and there were some "celebrities" I spotted. Chicago Bull players, reality show people, radio dj's here, the band Day 26 got up and sang one of their songs. I did however fall in love with the MC. He was amazing and he twitted about my article so that was nice that he liked it. I guess he interns for Bad Boy (P Diddy's label) and now BAM he is running his own Celeb Open Mic Night in Chicago. I want that internship!

This weekend I am working merchandising and then interviewing Sick Puppies when they are here with Chevelle on Saturday. Not excited about this concert. Too clean cut for me. Give me dirty bands with dirty gritty guitar solos and bad ass drummers. Mainstream "rock" does not cut it for me, my blood is too thick for that droning.

Last but not least. Apparently I am way more top notch than I thought. This guy contacted me after 3 years of us not talking. Crazy. Who knew I was that memorable.

Making it in America

Last night I went to this party HBO had for their new show 'How to Make it in America'.
I took my friend J as my plus one and the snow did not slow us down from going. We got about 10 inches total that day.

I always feel a bit out of place and , "What am I doing here" kind of thing going on when at events like that. J said he felt the same way because he has a ton of friends in the arts and music world in some form and always feels out of place when his friends take him to places like I did last night. Best quote ever, "I think most people at some point throughout the night think, how did I get here, I do not not belong....and if they don't well...they are self-centered douche bags."

The creme de la creme of Chicago's music industry was there, which is weird because it is a television show...but it was nice being and hanging out with old friends, people I interviewed, photographers, etc. The boys from The Plain White T's, The Academy Is...owners of Angels & Kings, radio dj's, pretty much if your band hit mainstream and was from Chicago and you are not on tour..you were there.

Free food and booze was amazing and it was at Violet Hour which is this swanky place I would NEVER be able to afford right now. The grilled shrimp was the best..soooo yummy. I had 3 drinks and was buzzed. Heavily buzzed. The drinks were straight up pure alcohol. As J said after he took his first sip, "Whoa! I guess they really want us to like this show".

Party gifts are my favorite, and we got glass that says the shows name and a flash drive. Sweet because I JUST lost my flash drive when I moved.






Even if I don't feel like I belong there it is nice to be asked to go to places like that.

I just hope one day people don't realize I am a really shitty writer and the invites stop.

Early Start

I have sleep problems. I go to bed at midnight and have to wake up at 5AM or 6AM to go be a merchandising genius for 7 hours.
Thursday night it all caught up with me and I fell asleep at 730PM and woke up at 520AM, I was wide awake and did not have to be at work until 7AM. I made myself breakfast, watched 30 Rock from the night before, did not rush to the 147 and made it to work on time.
It felt good and the music gods were with me. I was listening to sprint radio on my phone and 3 songs back to back that I love came on. Usually I listen to one song I kind of like and flip until I find something decent.

Going through old pictures I always mis-place amazing memories and one that I am going to share happened in 2009 these amazing talented boys I interviewed opened up for Ben Harper on his Relentless7 tour. Sold out at The Vic.
In case you did not know who Ben Harper is (which seriously...you should he is amazing), he had that huge hit a while back "steal my kisses", and many many top 10 Billboard albums (6 made it in the top 10 I think), he discovered Jack Johnson, 2 Grammy's, was the one slaying it on Conan's last show to "Freebird" and is married to the blonde lady from Jurassic Park.

It was an amazing night.

My backstage pass/what let me watch the sound checks.
I LOVE sound checks, I always feel as if it is a private concert just for me. Here is what goes down in a sound check.
They do the instruments one at a time and then they play a song the whole way through. Make adjustments and then do another song the whole way through.

Did the interview with the boys and they let me put my friend Val on the guest list. The interview parlayed into me just hanging out/drinking with them until it was their turn to perform.


Don't they just LOOK like fun :)
The lead singer(the guy standing up in the back) has a "list" with his girlfriend and on that list..and for some reason it seemed like all of theirs was Winona Ryder. I always find guys in bands have this thing for her. I don't know why. Indie godess maybe.
Reason why The Vic is my all time favorite venue in Chicago, they let me watch from sidestage/backstage (the staff). So I watched the boys do their thing from backstage and Val still was not there yet. So I started watching Ben Harper who is just amazing.



Watched a couple of his songs then went to meet Val who was already double fisting.

Her ticket looked like this(stole this from her FB page):

She said it is something she will keep forever because it is not even a real ticket like everyone else had.
The caption she has for the ticket, "Gotta love those friends in the biz..."

Overall it was an amazing experience. Met some new friends, got my friend into a sold out show she was dying to see, watched Ben Harper from backstage, solidified my love for The Vic.


Ben Harper and Jack Johnson



My boys The Henry Clay People with their video "Something in the Water"

Off to be productive on this Saturday morning!

Let's Blur it Up

Oh Houston how I kind of missed you, but mainly missed the people.

Sorry if this offends anyone but at the bar I for sure noticed Chicago as a whole has way better looking/dressed people than Houston does.
More trendy/sophisticated/accessorized

I had so much fun though hanging out with my oldest friend Kat M/her sister + Kat's boyfriend / his friends.

Pre-gamed while watching Jersey Shore. How come no one has introduced this hot mess of a show for me yet?! Amazingly trashy. I am hooked.

We hit up Pearl Bar which was interesting..Then some after hours pizza place which was just a waste of time. We were there for an hour waiting on 2 pizza's. I would have gone to Jack in the Box and called it a night.

I am getting pumped for my birthday party in ONE WEEK. We are about to throw down and get plain rowdy.
I hope people do not get all old on me and call it quits before the night it done! Everyone seems to be married/kids/do not go out as much.

I am helping Allie pick out our bridesmaid dresses. It is actually kind of fun/stressful at the same time. In case you did not know, I love fashion/clothes.
I for sure think I have amazing taste from working in fashion for the last 3.5 years, I just wish I had more money to spend on clothes.
There are so many cute dresses out there but there always seems to be just one little thing about it that makes you want to keep looking for something better.
I think we have found some pretty amazing one's so far, just not "the one" but bouncing idea's off of each other I know we have the same taste level/know what she wants so it for sure makes it easier to send stuff her way.

Off to Jack In The Box than watch Jersey Shore before getting rowdy again tonight.

Music Top List

After attempting to count it up I went to between 60-70 concerts this year.
2010 I am going to try and break 100.

Top 5 concerts:

5. Ok Go
That was insane last minute concert I got added to the guest list and I am glad I went too. The boys were just touring to tour this past summer before their new album comes out.

4. Ten out of Tenn
Ten artists from Tenn that performed together. It was just amazing to see so many talented people on one stage. They would rotate the singer and the singer would play one of their songs while everyone else did backings(vocal or instrumental).

3. Taking Back Sunday/Anberlin/fun.
All 3 of these bands are just insanely good. TBS set was solid mixture of older and newer material. Anberlin is just wow, amazing and fun. is just fun!

2. Brand New/Manchester Orchestra
Love this band since I was 17 and wow they did not disappoint. Insanity and I straight listened to their new album/older stuff for at least a month after the show.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Pure amazing. First time seeing them live and if I was not on the guest list, wow I would have paid money for it. When they come back here next year I will for sure go see them again even if it is not for work. Karen O has this energy that I want in my life.


Top 5 Interviews:

Some were just downright funny, some were just with artists I admire as musicians but this is a good mix.

5. Imelda May
This Irish sensation was classy, beautiful, and a bit hard to understand through her thick Irish accent. It was her first time coming overseas and wow was she amazing live. She is HUGE in Ireland/UK and her show in Chicago was jam packed. She is true Rockabilly from her clothes/make-up to musical stylings. She was insanely nice and her performance was straight solid.



4. Caroline from Chairlift
Calm, collected, New York Caroline. We walked around the city in the rain trying to find a coffee shop and ended up eating at a little hole in the wall Japanese restaurant before their sold out show. Not only was the interview good and she was really open but we talked for about an hour off record about life, fashion, men, etc. She was extremely interested in me and gave me pointers about moving my career from writing to Public Relations. 2009 for her band consisted of their song on the iPod nano commercial, opening up for Phoenix and then The Killers and an MTV video award nomination. Expect even bigger things come 2010.



3. Andrew from Miike Snow
Hands down if you have not heard of the band Miike Snow, please go listen to them! In 2009 they are by far my favorite discovery music wise. Andrew was just a doll and not what I expected(if you have seen his picture he is a bit ruff looking). Their music is new yet being received amazingly. They had 2 sold out Chicago dates and played Lolla.



2. The Almost
Last minute interview/concert. They came here with The Used and I interviewed 4 out of the 5 band members. They were just so funny/sarcastic. The way these boys bounced off each other was any writers dream. My story also got picked up by another publication which was pretty darn sweet!

1. The Fall Of Troy
Just flat out the funnest interview I did all year. Not to mention the most candid. It was no holds bar with these boys and they had no shame telling me things they most likely should not have! They also put on an amazing show opening up for Thursday.


There it is, top 5. Maybe I should have done a top 10 because now more and more interviews/concerts that are noteworthy are streaming back into my brain. Maybe next time Ill do 11-20.

If it's true then tell me how it got this way...

One thing that stays consistent in my life is my love for music.

Hello I do make money off of writing about it so I better like it.

Where did my love for music come from...Don't know. But it is there.

I don't always love the bands with the best singers, or beats, or hooks, but I have always loved the bands in which the lyrics touched me the most.

I don't listen to the radio, ever....It is not some defiant action either, my life just works out to where I do not have to/never have an opportunity too.
I live in a city where I do not have/do not need a car. I take the EL train everywhere and listen to my MP3 player. Maybe one out of every 7 friends I have has a car here and we rarely take it.

My point to all this is, because I swear i have one is, I like music because I like it, not because it is being shoved down my throat by mainstream.

So I am surprised when a band I have loved for years upon years suddenly becomes big. Cobra Starship. When did this happen?! AND WHY.

Their last album is by far their worse, only 3 songs on the whole album is listenable yet they have become a staple with "Good Girls Go Bad" and with naming their title "Hot Mess".
I have been using that phrase since 2004 so do not act like you coined it.
No one really "coins a term" they have all been floating around for years upon years.

Okay now I am done ranting.

I pick my music for the day based on my mood and what lyrics I am "feeling" at the time. So if you know what I am listening too you can pretty much get into my head and know what thoughts are creeping through my brain during that day.

I am a simple girl that seems complicated.

You gotta swim
Swim for your life
Swim for the music that saves you
When you're not so sure you'll survive
You gotta swim
And swim when it hurts
The whole world is watching
You haven't come this far to fall off the earth

-Andrew McMahon

New Blog

As if I am not behind enough in my writing (that I actually get paid for) my bestest friend Allie has convinced me to obtain a blogger.

I am sitting on her floor, the last night in Texas before making my trip back to Chicago.

Always bitter sweet, I am sad to leave her, yet miss the little life I knitted for myself in the mid-west. Where no day is ever remotely the same, a new concert/work day/adventure each day/night which is something I can never complain about...well except when it leaves me sleep deprived.

My trip to Texas was brief yet needed and it came about because my wonderful, beautiful friend got married to a wonderful, handsome man. I have never been more happy and delighted for her. He is just amazing for her, she used to be a little uptight but he for sure loosens her up and brings out the best in her.
I am lucky enough to know them as a couple for years now and excited to further get to know them as a married couple.

It was a fun adventure this wedding which will have to wait for another time because my boo, her hubby and I are about to embark in a trip for some yummy dessert...even though we ate no dinner.

Life. Got to love it.