Guest List

Hey all, I did a music guest list for the Scott Collection. Head over there to check it out.

Update: I also did an article on tUnE-yArDs. We haven't decided on whether this is going to be a regular thing or not yet. I'll keep you posted.

Janelle Monae: The Rebirth of the Cool

The title pretty much sums it up. I want to write about this girl for hours. I want to talk about how she will not be restrained to one genre (a clue could come from her collaborators on Archandroid. She works with Big Boi, Of Montreal, and another ambassador of cool, Saul Williams). I want to discuss the amazing plotline of her music and how each track flows seamlessly into the other. I want to speak of how amazing her stage presence and choreography is. I want to speak of her eloquence and articulacy in the face of critics who stereotype the R & B community as unintelligent and shallow. I want to declare her the Miles Davis of this day and age because she breathes awesomeness. But I won't do any of these things. I will post some videos, and let you become so enamored that you want to research these things and come to these conclusions yourself.



"Sincerely, Jane" Live (Original track from Metopolis)- Janelle Monae


"Wondaland" off Archandroid - Janelle Monae


"Make the Bus" ft. Of Montreal off Archandroid- Janelle Monae


"Cold War" music video (Original track on Archandroid)- Janelle Monae

"Metal" and "Taylor Swift" Used in the Same Sentence

Check out the YouTube station AndyRehfeldt. This guy is insanely musicly gifted to begin with, but he takes it to a whole new level, taking the vocal tracks from pop songs and recording metal tracks behind them. He's not a one-trick pony either, he also has crafted metal tracks into Radio Disney songs. The one that caught my eye was his polka-metal version of Ke$ha's Tik Tok. There's never been a bigger contrast of talent within the same song (And his fart sound effects during the polka parts seems to acknowledge it). Below is his metal version of Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me".


Taylor Swift - You Belong with Me (Andy Rehfeldt remix)
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Tool Rools

So, as anyone who reads this blog will know (all two or three of you), I'm a fan of the Format / Fun.'s front man Nate Ruess. This weekend my girlfriend, her roommate, and I went to Minneapolis to see Fun. in concert. I enjoyed their segment. Unfortunately, they were opening for Jack's Mannequin. Now, there was a time in high school that I liked this band. It was during my emo days. I saw them in concert at Summerfest (I think in '06?). It occurred to me after watching Andrew McMahon that he is a giant tool. This weekend, older and wiser as I am, my beliefs were only affirmed.

Now, if any of you want to learn how to be a tool on stage too, I'll educate you in a segment I will call "Tool Rools". Mr. McMahon followed all of these.

#1 First thing you do when you get out on stage is yell "How the f*** you feeling tonight (insert name of city here)?!?!?! This question follows or is similar to other tool rools to follow, but it deserves it's own rule because it's so cliche and one that tool rockers will always follow. Naturally, Mr. McMahon was not an exception.

#2 Have two mics, a foot apart, with absolutely no difference in effect/volume, that you switch between constantly so you can make spastic dramatic movements.

#3 Spastic dramatic movements. Now, there is a right way and wrong way to do it. But McMahon makes ridiculous faces when he plays that in no way are necessary and are clearly meant to be emotive but just come off as douchey. Dude looked like he was having sex with his piano. He clearly was thinking, Yeah, I look awesome because it totally looks like I'm rocking out hard when I'm playing chords on a piano.

#4 Insert the name of the town you're playing in into the song. This is what you do if you're a cheer whore. And yes, it happened.

#5 Stand on the speakers and sing. Unless you take a dive into the crowd (which is only okay if your music is dive-worthy and not sappy ballads disguised as rock), you are a tool.

#6 Swear as much as you can when you talk. Especially if you're not angry about anything. Like, fine, if there's power behind your statements, by all means, exercise your Constitutional right. But come on, if you're saying "I'm quitting music to become an f***ing ice dancer" (actual wording from the concert), then save it.

#7 Have other tools in the audience. So many stories. The girl behind us that was singing at the top of her lungs horribly, the guy in front that would be like "DID YOU HEAR THAT SOLO? IT WAS SO F***ING AWESOME. HE'S THE BEST MUSICIAN EVER! READ MY SHIRT, IT SAYS JACK'S MANNEQUIN! I GIVE HIGH FIVES IF YOU LIKE JACK'S MANNEQUIN!" (Again, actually overheard from the concert. Another unrelated thing I heard was a guy say "I just did something with a man that I never want to do again...").

#8 Jump on your instrument. I'm amazed he didn't destroy his piano. There was really no need for it. I really hate being at concerts when people destroy their instruments. It's like, "Yeah, it's a crappy economy, and you paid $25 dollars to my show, and I really could have charged you $3 less if I didn't have to replace this instrument, but bah, it's so worth it right?" No. It's cliche and it was originally done by people way more talented and rebellious than you. Your music is about wishing someone knew how you felt about them and crying in your pillow, not a corrupt government.

#9 After each song make it look like you just ran a marathon.

#10 Announce to everyone that you're drinking alcohol on stage. Especially when it's a martini.

Basically, I've seen a lot of bad concerts (mostly in my high school days), but if I were the Pitchfork of concert reviewers I'd give a Jack's concert a 0.0 or probably even this.

Politics on the Pot?

So I'm sitting on the toilet and I read "Don't forget to spay and neuter your liberals". Liberals had been crossed out and replaced with 'conservative bigots'... Next to it said "Bush Cheney Oil". The stall was full of commentary about politics. I thought to myself, You know, it seems like about 75% of stall comments are about politics. Maybe it's because I'm on a campus. But I feel I've seen it just about everywhere I've gone. Do people instinctively think about politics on the pot, or is it just the idea that bathroom commentary has to be bold and powerful? What do these people mean to accomplish by doing this? Are undecided votes won on the toilet? Do people think their deepest when they're squeezing one out? Maybe it's because they're alone with no distractions. Or maybe they're reading the paper and are enraged by something they've read. This phenomenon just fascinated me. I leave it up to you.

The Year in TJ

No, that's not the title of my new porn flick. I've already gone over the year in music, and since this blog is basically centered on music and myself, I thought I'd go over my own year. I don't blame you if you skip over this post, but it'll be nice to look back at in a couple of years. Some of these things I've already written about, others I haven't.





Basically my year started in April, when I started to hit a string of good luck. Katie and I had been hanging out a lot, and on the 24th we went to Milwaukee to see Company of Thieves. Two days later we were dating. There's no way to describe how happy she's made me since then. Well, I probably could, but it'd be agonizingly long and sappy, and believe me, I have been known to be sappy.





About two weeks later I went in to see my advisor. The previous year I had been denied enrollment in Education. I wasn't feeling too confident because I had basically done nothing worthwhile in the last year to make myself more appealing. I went in to the meeting asking what I could do to make it the next year. The advisor looked at me and said, "Um, I can't really tell you anything flat out, but I wouldn't be so pessimistic about this year". I walked out of that meeting feeling more angry than anything, because I was convinced that she didn't actually know if I made it. However, when I got home I looked in the mail and I had already gotten my acceptance letter. I was completely unprepared and it was like my whole future had changed drastically in one day. Really, it had changed a lot in the last two weeks. I am very naturally pessimistic and the way things tended to be going right past my expectations was mind-boggling.





In addition, for the last couple months, there was a growing number of people that had been asking me to move up a level in coaching the women's club hockey team. In this, I mean that I was the C team coach, and the B players were asking me to come up. I was quite flattered, as I didn't see it coming. I had coached the C team for three years, but this year I had substituted for the B coaches at a couple tournaments. When a position opened up, they asked me to fill it for this school year. Though I had a great time with the C team, I obliged because I felt I could be of more help at a higher level of play. The C team had a new batch of beginners every year, and as i've been playing hockey since I was in third grade, I had trouble remembering how I learned the basics. Coaching the B team's been a lot of fun, and I think things really have begun to click.





The summer was quite bittersweet. I worked grounds at the golf course for the fourth year. The golf course is a great deal, as I get paid well and get about 45 hours a week. Every once in a while a meal gets thrown in there. I worked from 5:30 am to 1:30 pm on weekdays and went in on weekends worked about two to two-and-a-half hours. The hours were nice in the sense that it left nights open to do things. However, this was probably my least favorite year at the club. First off, I was 6 hours away from Katie. This led to seeing her twice over the summer. Both of the visits were amazing and I wouldn't trade them for the world, but it was hard being so far away. Lack of sleep made me more prone to being sad and moody. The politics were really getting to me, as there were numerous tensions between people. Some weren't doing their jobs because they thought other people were getting unfair treatment. I think I worked harder this summer as a result of picking up other peoples' slack. I was so ready to go back to school once it came around.





The psychological effects of this summer probably made the transition back pretty difficult. I had some major social anxiety over the summer, and when you start a program right after that where you have all your classes with the same thirty people in the midst of that problem it makes things quite difficult. Luckily I began to relax after a while and ended up making some good friends within the program.





Practicum was another story. I was placed in a classroom on Mondays and Wednesdays for four ninth grade US History classes. I'm an interesting case because I want to be a teacher, but I'm a nervous public speaker. I've noticed there are others like me within the program, however. My cooperating teacher was great in the sense that he would bluntly tell me my flaws and my strengths. When I'd teach lessons, he'd give me specific things to focus on. He didn't hold my hand, and he put me in some really difficult situations. He had to leave often because one of his children would get sick, and he'd leave me in charge. These were scary times, but I became a lot better of a teacher because of them. I developed a voice at some point within it, and I finally began to relax in front of the kids as I got to know them. I still doubt myself every once in a while, but I think it's normal of people in my position.





I've still been playing as much hockey as I can, but it's been limited due to my schedule being out of my hands and the lack of funds I experienced in the last couple months. I owed my parents some money (a large sum) and paid it to them in October. It resulted in me being left with little of my summer earnings. Constant illness kept me from working much (see Pneumon-YEAH!). I was left with enough to live on for a few weeks when I paid my parents and the instruction that I should take out some money from some investments. In order to due this, I had to take over managing my own accounts, as my family had been doing it since I had never taken any money out. I legitimately thought I'd have my money in a matter of weeks. I got it on Christmas Eve. A month or so of owing people money and having literally no money to spend on food or bills except maybe the $50 I might manage to make over the course of two weeks really put things in perspective. It's been a big relief having that problem solved in the last two weeks, and now I'm able to set straight some debts I owe.





As for 2010, I'm really excited for it. I'll be teaching in a middle school next semester, I'm planning on staying in Madison this summer, and Katie and I have some awesome stuff planned. Hanging out with Katie's awesome all the time, but it's going to be cool going to the Fun. concert in Minneapolis and hanging out in her hometown, going to the Badger hockey team's outdoor games, going to the Lion King play while it's in Madison, and watching the Olympics together.
It's gonna be a good year.