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This Post IS About ACL, but NOT About ACL Afterparties. Sorry.

Well, it appears that I am going to ACL! A photographer friend was nice enough to hook me up with a

writing gig. I will be writing a recap of the festival forConsequence of Sound– a New York and Chicago-based music blog. I’m pretty stoked, but running late, so I have to go!

Check out this post I wrote over at CultureMap. It is a dialogue between my mother and I on the line-up for this year’s ACL fest. Who does she think sucks ass? Who does she thinks rocks? That woman is full of surprises.

Gosh, I love her…

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My mother and I have dramatically different music tastes. When I was a young girl, I’d listen to her record collection from the 60s and 70s while she bought the latest Top 40 CDs. As she bounced around the house singing songs from Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy With It” or Right Said Fred’s “I Have No Idea What the Album is Called Nor Do I Care—two albums she still proudly listens to—I was mimicking David Byrne’s dance moves in front (more…)

September 16, 2011 by
Music, Pop Culture

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Are My Soap Opera

When I was a young girl I fantasized a lot about Fleetwood Mac. Specifically Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. They were my teenage soap opera. I would lie in bed for hours gobbling up their discography, paying strict attention to the sharp pangs of Lindsey’s anger and the romanticism of Stevie. My heart would flutter as the story of their love and break-up wafted from my turntable. For those of you not familiar with Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were a young couple/struggling musicians in California that got their big break the day that Mick Fleetwood and John McVie from the British blues band, Fleetwood Mac, heard them. He welcomed them on board as their lead singers, alongside keyboardist Christine McVie, and the rest is history. This super band when on to record one of the best selling albums of all time, Rumours, with over 40 million copies sold, in addition to many other high-grossing albums that have earned the band their place in rock (more…)

August 24, 2011 by
Music, Pop Culture

Kanye Ain’t Got Shit On Otis: The Epic Lives and Deaths of Soul Singers

I wasn’t able to write a new post for today, but I wanted to revisit a post I wrote last year about the deaths of famous soul singers. I’ve been thinking a lot about Otis Redding lately after I discovered that Kayne West and Jay-Z sampled the singer on his new album, Watch the Throne. Buzz is circulating around the to-be-released-this-evening music video of the song “Otis“. Which as I’m reading right now actually as no mention of Otis Redding in the lyrics, but rather talks about cigars, champagne, private jets, and supermodels.

Yesterday, I got all up in Kanye’s junk after declaring that Otis is an untouchable and upstarts like Kanye should not mess with his shit. This statement was mostly met with agreement, but a few people defended Kanye. They suggested that sampling is an art form and should be respected. Though I’m an appreciator of all arts- and I will include sampling as an art form, albeit one that I have mixed feelings on- I still think Otis Redding is the sort of musician (more…)

August 11, 2011 by
Music, Pop Culture

A Letter to David Bowie’s Crotch

Dear David Bowie’s Crotch,
What can I say, man? Wow. You’ve haunted me since I was five. I think you’ve kind of terrorized everyone for a long time. You’ve captured the attention of many nations and not let go. There is a remote village in Africa where they worship your likeness in a potato that a small child had dug from the Earth. The potato now sits on a makeshift shrine in the center of the village. The inhabitants look to you to converse with the rain gods when they’re going through a drought, but your potato does nothing but sit there and mock them.

Is that right?

Is it fair that you tease people with the idea that you hold magic powers within you? Is it fair that you drift through people’s dreams, standing dormant then uncoiling towards them like a violent snake? I don’t think so, man.

It’s time to let people go.

It’s time to go back to where you once belonged. I’m not really sure where that is, but, yeah, you go now.

Bye.

I guess what has concerned me all these (more…)

July 21, 2011 by
Music, Pop Culture

I Like Billy Joel. There, I Said It. I SAID IT! Are You Happy, Now?

I often find myself apologizing for liking Billy Joel.
Or I won’t even admit that I like him at all.
I’ll turn my back on Billy and jump in with the teasing about his songs being too loungy, too gauge your ears in with the closest sharp object. I’ll make fun of his over-elation of using gratuitous sound effects and his transparent storytelling tactics. Cast in a dark shadow of shame, I’ll sit there making fun of this musician I love more than broccoli but less than corn chowder soup. Lifting up away from my body, I look down at this insecure girl, afraid to confidentially say to the world, “Billy Joel is good. Billy Joel is great.”

Well, I’m tired of that girl. I kicked her off the scooter somewhere on Pretentious Ave. and am reclaiming the child that used to write the lyrics to ‘Captain Jack’ in marker on her vanity mirror and cry.

Out of the light rock FM closet I’m here to confirm a couple of statements:
 -I love Billy Joel.
-I think Billy Joel’s music is as treasureful as (more…)

July 8, 2011 by
Music, Writing

Happy Birthday, Elton John- My Lover

Today is Elton John’s birthday.

I remember this because there was a time- a very long time ago- when I would fantasize about that man on a daily basis.

And when I say “fantasize”, I mean exactly that.

I even wrote an essay about it- “Discovering Your Sexuality Through Hairy Gay Men”.

Elton John happened to be the dude I fixated on when my hormones were ragin’ and my nose was growing disproportionately to my head.

This maybe explains a lot about who I am.

Or at least I’d like to think that it does?

Or maybe I’m desperately hoping that it does…?

So in honor of that sexy pile of pasty man dough, I’m reposting my little love letter to Sir Elton John.

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Remember that age when you started discovering your sexuality?


That awkward, dreadful time when you didn’t understand why your male friends suddenly felt the urge to show you their penises while you were trying to reenact “X-files” episodes in the basement (more…)
March 25, 2011 by
Music, Pop Culture

Top 6 Dumbass Band Names

SXSW is a good time to sit back and reflect on all the dumbass band names that people come up with.

Oh, and there are a lot of them.

Take for instance the SXSW crowd favorite Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All.

What does this mean!? It’s not even a dark and brooding sentence like most ridiculous band names. It’s like they did the old Bowie trick and put some words into a hat. What’s so odd about the future, huh? And why does Mozart have to be wrangled in to your poor naming skills? Leave him alone! And don’t go making him killing everybody! Mozart was a good man. He wrote ‘The Magic Flute’ and I kind of like it.

I will not listen to this band purely based off of their name. There. You lost a potential listener due to your inability to come up with a winning band name (absolutely nota Charlie Sheen reference). Same goes for most of these bands below. Your band names suck and here is why….

Tell me your favorite dumbass band name!

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (or CYHSY)
Where (more…)

March 22, 2011 by
Austin, Film, Music, Pop Culture

The Characters of SXSW

Austin-based company Software Advice sent me an AWESOME sketch breakdown they did of the different archetypes one would see at SXSW. They’re pretty spot-on. Here is a little snippet below, but you can check out the rest of their hilarious drawings here, or follow them on Twitter here, or ‘like’ their Facebook fan page here.

(Interactive) Aspiring Entrepreneur

“We’re Twitter meets Zynga with an API that transforms the social graph.”

He’s an alpha male in a beta body, rockin’ the hoodie and flip flops – just like Zuck. SXSW Interactive attracts a swarm of these php-smokin’, eager beavers. You’ll find him at “Business Model 101: How To Actually Make Money?,” but he wishes he was at the Android Developer Meetup. You’ll often find the PR Chick and the Venture Capitalist in hot pursuit – a stunning reversal of the social order that was in place during college, last year. At least one of these aspiring entrepreneurs will join the digital elite within a year. And OMG, you totally ordered (more…)

March 18, 2011 by
Austin, Film, Music

The Best Part of SXSW Is…

My friend from college, Joe Nicolosi, is a super talented filmmaker. Everyone in Austin knows it, but now it looks like the world does too! Joe is the filmmaker behind the SXSW “film bumpers” you see before a screening. Truth be told, Joe’s various bumpers are better than many of the movies this year. This guy has real talent and you should check out the video below. Within two days, his short video, Mario, went from 300 Youtube hits to over 300,000 and climbing! I have a feeling you’ll be seeing more of this guy soon…

March 17, 2011 by
Austin, Film, Music, Pop Culture

SXSW Adventures Continued: These Are the Daves I Know

So, the other night we hung out with Dave Foley again. He got us into the green room at the IFC SXSW venue and we hung out with Michael Ian Black, Aziz Ansari, and Thomas Lennon. I was too nervous to say anything to them. The evening then took us all over Austin where at any given time you could see me walking with my arm around Dave Foley, me slapping Dave Foley when he would say something insanely dirty, Dave Foley peeing on the side of a building, and Dave Foley lying down on the ground. Dave was stopped every five minutes with people literally freaking out when they recognized him. Dave got a wee bit tipsy and there is a good chance he may hate us now. It was quite the evening. Here are some snapshots.

March 17, 2011 by