My first Podcast with Weheartmusic.com

This is my first podcast with the site founder Vu, and the lady on the Australian scene, Sally. We talked about a couple live acts we saw recently and some silly banter ensued.

Free Energy @ the 400 Bar Nov. 18th, 2010

If you haven’t heard of Free Energy by now, you are seriously missing out on life my friends. The five piece band is originally from Red Wing, MN but now resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The band consists of Scott Wells( lead guitar), Paul Sprangers (lead Vocals), Evan Wells (bass), Geoff Bucknam (guitar), and Nick Shuminksy (drums). The latter two members were met in Philly and the rest have a history in Minneapolis as the no longer active band, Hockey Night. And their record “Stuck On Nothing” has received many the ecstatic reviews from places like, Spin, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork.

Unlike a lot of hype bands these guys aren’t the young guys with the colorful synth tunes. These 5, 30 year old guys, rely on catchy, hook-laden 70’s guitar riffs, sing-a-long anthems, with a dose of good feelings, and “energy” for good measure and a worry “free” feeling. Ironically they are signed to DFA records, which is the child of James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and home to Hot Chip , Shit Robot, Holy Ghost!, Hercules and Love Affair, and YACHT. (If you are unfamiliar with these bands, they are all synth-laden indie rock bands.)

I was very privileged with the opportunity to see them in Paul Sprangers’ and the Wells brothers’ home state of Minnesota for the second time. When I got to the venue, I noticed there was only one drum set, which clearly belonged to Free Energy. I asked the bartender what the deal was and he told me that there had been a complication. It seems that both bands had been held back at the Canadian boarder earlier, and they would be playing an hour and a half late. Having seen them open for Titus Andronicus, I knew the kind of party these guys bring to wherever they go. So, I decided to wait, and boy was I not disappointed. At About 10 PM they had a sensational power-pop group from Canda, open for them. The name of this band was, Hollerado, and they got the crowd amped and jumping in glee. The perfect openers to set the stage for the crazy fun that is Free Energy. Scott Wells and Paul Sprangers took stage with Hollerado for a couple songs. It seems they like to do that a lot, since last time they joined Titus Andronicus on stage and they brought Amy of Titus Andronicus on stage with them during their set too.

Free Energy took stage at about 10:50, and opened their set with “All I know.” And proceeded the song with their hit single, “Dream City.” Their set, like always was a sing-a-long rock party that had the crowd jumping, and fist pumping. The happiness and energy they bring on stage is so incredibly contagious. They closed their set with “Hope Child” and then came right back out for a two song on-core, which they closed with “I’m going down” by Bruce Springsteen. Which was probably the highest and most epic part of the show. Paul started to pull people up on-stage with him, which ended with half the floor up on-stage. I took the microphone at the last verse and sung it and the chorus. Then it lead into a spontaneous cover of Neil Young’s “Keep On Rockin’ in the Free World” when lead singer and guitarist of Hollerado, Menno Versteeg picked up Scott Wells guitar. Then the venue erupted into chaos, as members of Free Energy and Hollerado and I sang loud and proud, while the venue sang-a-long and danced.

All in all, if Free Energy is coming to your town. Do not miss out. There are still a few dates left on this tour, and they promised to return real soon on a spring tour. And listen to Free Energy if you are into bands such as Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick and The Cars. Or if you need something to blast on your iPod or stereo while you sit back and try not to worry about the world around you.

For more of Hollerado:

http://www.myspace.com/hollerado

http://www.hollerado.com/

And more of Free Energy:

http://www.myspace.com/freeenergymusic

http://www.freeenergymusic.com/

My first review. Pretty Lights @ First Avenue Nov. 14th

Pretty Lights sure lives up to his moniker! Blame Derek Smith and his drummer, Adam Deitch if your lights went out on November 14th. Incredible light show aside, he DID bring the funk. He drove the crowd wild. If you were to see it from his view on stage, it probably looked like a hot pulsing mass of fun. The crowd had to be doused in water multiple times, and they even handed out water bottles for the dehydrated. I’ve seen the first at shows like Ratatat, but never the latter, since they usually sell you the water for 3 bucks!

Pretty Lights is Derek Smith. He hails from the south-western state, Colorado. He incorporates a drummer for his live sets, the current drummer is Adam Deitch. Derek makes funky, electro, hip-hop. With a ton of funk, soul, and hip-hop samples. Most of the crowd that was there for him were also fans of the Minneapolis hip-hop/rap scene, as well as acts such as Ratatat, Lotus, Bassnectar and Rusko.

He took the stage at about 10:10 and ended his set sometime round 12:30. It was all a blur of delightful and groovy beats.I also couldn't tell you what he played being that I had never seen him before. His latest EP, “Glow in the Darkness” is the only thing I’ve heard by him and he had no set-list. Sorry. If YOU want to get to know Pretty Lights, you are in luck! He has his whole catalogue of music for free on his website! http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/#/downloads.

The crowd also seemed to enjoy the opener, Michal Menert. A very fitting opener since it seemed Michael was in the same league of electro-hip hop. He has quite the charisma on-stage, and the crowd ate it up.

Check out more of Michal on his Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/michalmenert

More of Pretty Lights, especially free music!:

http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/

Life Update

Hello blog,

I really don't remember why I started you. I mean I never meant to do it to get followers, I knew I'd never be writing to a large number of people at all. Anyway, this post, and I guess this blog is to remind myself what was going on in my life at intervals throughout.

Let's skip the work thing, and focus on other things. Like how I feel at this point in life, what I'm doing, what I'm working towards.

I feel pretty good, I mean I'm at a point in life where everything has been going good for me. I have a wonderful girlfriend and it seems like I just can't stop winning. I have been going to a marathon of concerts, so much good music in so little time. It's exhausting, but I love it. I've won a few tickets to shows. The first being the Taste of Minnesota in the summer, where I met my wonderful girlfriend Steph Paxton. The second being, The National @First Avenue, which was sold out, and was a bigger deal than I would think. I really only went for The Antlers, no offense to The National. It was through The Antlers Facebook fanpage that I won those tix. And the last show I won tickets to was through Spin.com. Those were to the Mayer Hawthorne show here at The Varisty. Which was a fantastic deal. I got a meet & greet with Mayer Hawthorne, plus food, and a bunch of activities that the Mazda promoters where doing. That alone was great, then I got treated to a very good show by Gordon Voidwell and Mayer Hawthorne. :) Mayer even did some covers, my favorite of the night was "Beautiful" by Snoop Dogg.

Also, at that show, while schmoozing with random people. I ran into a music critic that wanted to know if I wanted to review shows for him during the winter while he hibernated. He's not a big snow fan, so this works out splendidly for me. Now I'm on the guest-lists to a ton of shows that I would of been going to anyway. Saves me money, so not getting paid is fine with me. Haha. Although if I could get paid to do this kind of thing, holy shite. That would be marvelous.

The site I'm writing show reviews for is weheartmusic.com. I even have my own email on that site. oscar@weheartmusic.com. And today is actually my first show. I am reviewing Pretty Lights @ the legendary First Avenue. I'm nervous, but very very excited. I mean, everyone on that site has more experience and knowledge than I. But it's a very laid back blog. So I hope I'll be received well.

I'll be posting all the reviews I have done on this blog after I post them on weheartmusic.com. I like the way they go about things there, so go ahead and give them a looksie.

-Oscar

LEGO, the dream job.

That's what most people think. What I get usually told by people who come to LEGO as tourists or whatever. "So this must be like your dream job eh buddy? heh heh." "You must get to build LEGOs all day and shit. Lucky fucker." That's how they come off. Eh. LEGO is an alright job, not many complaints by all means for something corporate. But let me tell you all a story.

About a week ago or two ago. This cute little seven year old came into LEGO. He bought like 700 dollars worth of LEGO. It was crazy. So I said, "Wow, must be your golden birthday huh?" And this little boy looks at me all nonchalant and says, "I don't think I'll make it to my golden birthday. I have cancer." I looked at his parents with a, "Omg, seriously?" look. And the people I thought were his parents said, "Yeah we came all the way from Make a wish California to bring him to his favorite place and get him some LEGOs." that's not all either, he goes on to say that I am super cool and nice and gives me this plastic dolphin, "Here, so you can remember my face for when I come in again." And he smiles and they take his stuff and head out the door. I stay staring at this dolphin. Not knowing what to do or how to feel. But when it sunk in. It was quite the sadness.

Why do you ask. Not only did I feel like shit because that kid is intelligent, adorable and charismatic, but it's because he thought I was awesome. And he won't get to live anymore. And he doesn't understand that, I was just doing my regular routine. Do I ever have genuine moments? Yeah, but that wasn't one of them. Not until I knew what was up. Why do we have to be so fake??? I mean, why can't we be more relaxed? I guess for one thing. The kids won't understand our humor and demeanor at a young age.

What gets me is that they tell us we act the way we do to provide an amazing experience for everyone. And yeah that can be true, but it's really to make the company look good so some people can keep on making a ton of money. I mean LEGO, they pay us sales associates like around 8.50 each. And they make a steal. I mean one of my supervisors told me that we buy Millennium Falcons for less than 100 dollars. And we sell those for 500. A mini-figure is like 3 bucks each and we probs get them made for like 20 cents. Crazy huh? Corporations. They are a devilishly beautiful thing, and disturbingly amazing. But I'm sick of this. I think if my life takes too many wrong turns I'm going to go live one farming communes like Trevor, and i'm gonna become an activist against corporations. Even though it leads nowhere.

But first I have to see if the life of mother culture, corporations and money has any merits. Or anything worth staying for. I need more experience. I need more answers.