kansas city: middle of the map fest

featuring paper route, work drugs, maps & atlases, and two door cinema club

let me preface this by saying that it truly was a fantastic show; my circumstances surrounding it were less than fortunate so i apologize if i sound bitter.


seeing as this little midwest festival was going on in kansas city, i had a two hour drive from columbia to work into my schedule. i was finished with class by two, and was planning on buying mumford and sons tickets when they went on sale at five. this was supposed to give me plenty of time to get my stuff together and head to kansas city, putting me at the beaumont club right around seven-thirty, right when the show was supposed to start. according to beaumont's website, a band i'd never heard of was opening so cutting it close seemed like an okay option. well five o'clock rolled around and i feverishly tried to get mumford tickets for a solid 28 minutes to no avail. i was crushed. not only had i tried and failed at presale, i tried and failed at general admission as well. i didn't realize it would take a half an hour to get tickets and i was flustered. it was closer to six by the time i got gas and hit the road. i called the venue to double check times but no one answered, though i still wasn't too worried when i arrived at eight. i exchanged my paper print out for a wristband and headed inside to a surprisingly empty club. but that's when i saw paper route loading out.

WHAT.

first of all, i blame the venue for listing the bands in the wrong order. second of all, i've had the WORST luck seeing paper route. this makes three times i've attempted to see them and failed. i was literally fighting back tears of anger and it didn't help that work drugs, the second band who was supposedly playing first was just okay. but whatever. at least i had a solid spot for maps & atlases and two door cinema club. i'll hand it to maps & atlases; they played a fantastic set to a very excited crowd. i'd never seen them live before, but i had seen dave davison, the lead singer's side project cast spells play at play:stl fest in st. louis and it was lovely. next up was two door cinema club, and the crowd was beginning to pack itself tightly together. i had a great spot, no tall people in front of me, when all of the sudden three rather large men shoved their way through and booted me out of my spot. it's a show, things like this happen, i was by myself and i'm pretty small, i get it. not a huge deal. but the events that transpired were a huge deal. i won't hash out details here, but let's just say there was sexual harassment, i got these three gentlemen escorted out of the venue, and declined to press charges, because after all, i'd paid twenty bucks for a ticket, thirty round trip for gas, and just wanted to get back to the two door cinema club performance i was missing. if you're curious, you can read my extremely heated rant about it here, but this is a music review blog, so reviewing the music is what i shall stick to!

so anyway.

two door put on the most fantastic show i've seen in a while and it definitely made up for all of the shenanigans that had happened earlier in the night. i somehow made it to the very front and danced my heart out. i don't know how those irishmen do it, but they expel some serious energy on stage and still sound great up until the last song and throughout the encore. i highly recommend seeing them live if you get the chance, and at the very least buy their album. i promise you won't be disappointed. in fact, i almost guarantee it'll be your album of the summer.

for the love of all things, check out these bands:

paper route - indie rock with a tinge of electronic vibe, from nashville, putting out a new record soon and touring in the summer/fall 2011  paperrouteonline.com

maps & atlases - chicago natives, indie, prog-ish, mathy rock, striking vocals; side project cast spells is worth a listen as well  mapsandatlases.org

two door cinema club - sexy european men hailing from ireland (yeah gingers!), high-energy, electronic pop rock  twodoorcinemaclub.com

spring break edition! || chicago: the fold and the frantic

i finally made it back to my favorite city of all, and what better time than over spring break... ahh, yes. the time when young college students are supposed to flock south to warm climates and run around in skimpy bathing suits in either drunken or hungover stupors... yes. these are the times in which i drive five hours north to visit chicago. and this time abby came with me! good times were had, good times indeed.

day one: we arrived mid-afternoon to abby' friend melanie's apartment. she lives there with her husband and two small children, quite the different set up than i'm used to while in chicago, but that's what i was going for. i'm in the windy city so often for shows, but i had yet to experience the tourist side of things. so abby and i planned out our weekend with lots of museums and trips downtown in our schedule. we ate dinner with melanie and the family and walked around hyde park a bit and saw the university of chicago campus, as well as some cool churches and bookstores. pretty sure i passed out at cold before eleven that night. holy travel exhaustion.

day two: we awoke bright and early and hit up the shedd aquarium first with the four year old and one and a half year old, and boy was that an experience. everyone was on spring break and there were sooo maaany kids! we were pretty overwhelmed, so we saw all there was to see and left around one. abby and i had planned to meet up with sam, but lunch fell through so abby and i ventured out on our own. we are at potbelly's, and then people-watched from a starbucks. (we were going to wander around outside and maybe see millennium park but it was pouring rain. fail.) abby spent the evening at home with the wee babes; i spent it out in the suburbs at model stranger's practice space/recording studio with sam and kristen. there was wine and there was pizza and there was lots of lively conversation. i believe i went to sleep around three am.

day three: the big day. we got up early once again to experience museum number two: the museum of science and industry. it. was. freaking. awesome. we left around two i believe, and then the public transportation adventure began. i've taken the el a couple times in chicago, but the first time was with chicago natives, the second with herds of people all going to the same destination (lollapalooza). but abby and i fared just fine. we took a bus from hyde park to the red line, and the red line to downtown. there we wandered in search of food and settled with mexican, then wandered some more and got lost, then wandered to millennium park where we saw the bean, hung out on michigan for a while, and then took the red line to the blue line to subterranean in wicker park. BAM.

show time!  abby and i were both exhausted at this point, but the night was only just beginning. we got off the train, rounded a corner, and i heard a bunch of friends screaming my name. at least we were in the right place! hugs from steph, claire and sam were exchanged and we eventually went inside. up first was shortstop from tokyo, a delightful little ska band (ska's not dead!) so we all danced around and got our skank on. after them were the downtown struts who put on one hell of a show for being the second band playing early on in the night. (punk's not dead either.) there was lots of moshing and stage-diving and in general a happy buzz of energy. next up was the fold, a pop punk band who's been around for quite some time. i remember discovering their music from an old tooth and nail records sampler cd i got years ago. and it wasn't until maybe two years ago that i made the connection that they were involved with so many chicago friends and bands that i already knew. the music world is so small and tight-knit; one of the many reasons i love it. they played a fantastic set and i was able to sing along to a couple songs without even knowing any of their newer music. that's how catchy they are. you hear em playing in a friend's car once and bam! the ear worm has been planted. the crowd was getting pretty intense at that point and abby and i could hardly stand any longer. we ended up in the back by the merch, where i promptly ran into mike who was in town from LA, who was double-fisting glasses of wine and wearing fake, neon raybans. what a classy motherfucker. we enjoyed the frantic from afar, and man what a show. this was probably my fourth or fifth time seeing the frantic perform, by mere association with all of the other chicago bands i know. i can't say i've kept close tabs on them, but in the two years that i've been seeing them play, they've matured so much and their sound just gets better and better. the crowd was absolutely nuts and the venue was probably close to ninety degrees.

it still floors me to see four local bands pack a venue like that. i'm not sure of subt's capacity, but i'd guess a couple. the show wasn't sold out, but it must have been close because people were paaaaacked in tight. i think back on that weekend in chicago and it's so cool to see music thriving. things like that just don't happen in st. louis. the mere fact htat i hung out with some friends in their practice space and watched them write new music is mind blowing, because while it may be second nature in chicago, that's not an option in st. louis. there aren't bands like that. i can count on ONE hand, the number of st. louis bands who take themselves even close to seriously enough to even have a practice or recording space. and the fact four local chicago bands can pack a venue like that? impossible in st. louis. i can't even name four local bands off the top of my head and i'm FROM st. louis. ask me to name chicago locals though? i could without a doubt give you fifteen. not to mention the plethora of members of other local bands in attendance at the show, giving their support of their fellow musicians. it pains me, but it also makes my heart swell with pride. because while st. louis (and columbia too, i mean, i do live here most of the year for school...) has close to nothing, chicago makes my head spin every time i'm in it. so. much. passion.

please take a minute and check out amazing chicago talent:
thefoldrock.com
thefrantic.com

and while you're at it, check out this guy on twitter. we've only met once or twice in person, and it was quick and in passing (so this probably makes me a bit creepy) but christian picciolini is doing amazing things for the local scene.
twitter.com/cpicciolini

post show we hung around for a bit talking to various people and eventually trekked out to oak park to hang out with meesh. wine was had, apples to apples was played, stories and giggles and all kinds of silly things were shared. abby and i stumbled into our crash space as the sun was coming up. literally. and then we got up three hours later and made the seven hour drive back to mizzou. let's just say there were kesha and backstreet boys sing-alongs in order to keep ourselves awake. quite the successful spring break!

album review: mansions - dig up the dead

article number two for popwreckoning! i'm loving every single thing about writing for them. i'm also madly in love with mansions, so you should definitely check them out. they're be in st. louis tuesday 5/31 at off broadway with ace enders' i can make a mess like nonbody's business. 

Christopher Browder has stolen my heart. I'll be honest: I'm pretty new to the Mansions bandwagon, but I'm glad I hopped on when I did. I bought New Best Friends from iTunes a few short months ago and have kept it in heavy rotation since. ("Talk Talk Talk" is just so catchy, am I right?!) So when I started doing some research and realized there was a new album coming soon, I couldn't have been more excited. Read more...

album review: william fitzsimmons - gold in the shadow

guys guys! check it out. my first run-around with a real music blog. doing a bit of freelance stuff for kansas city-based blog popwreckoning. great things will  come of this, i can feel it. i'm just so grateful for such a rad opportunity. here's my first little write-up for them.  you can also check it out here. 

"Jesse Lacey had it right with the lyrics "I know that you're a sucker for anything acoustic." But we're not talking about Brand New. This is William Fitzsimmons. This is the man famous for delicious, acousticy folk music and one amazing beard. His fifth full-length album Gold in the Shadow will soon be gracing your ears, and believe me. It's great.  Read more... 

album review: ryan silver's 'the dakota sessions'

i posted about this rad little ep a couple weeks back and i sincerely hope you grabbed your FREE copy. you'd be silly not to. more and more excellent musicians seem to be coming out of nashville and here's another one to add to the list. it's catchy and it's acoustic. it's happy and it's fun and it's perfect summertime music. put it on your iPod and just try to not picture being at the beach. it's reminiscent of jason mraz and jack johnson, and let's be honest: who doesn't love those two? so check our ryan's 'dakota sessions' and i promise you won't be disappointed. keep an eye on him. i'm sure we can expect more great things in the future.

take a listen if you haven't yet: www.ryansilver.bandcamp.com (and pssst! don't tell him i told you... but it's still free if you're so inclined. but hey, why not tip him a couple bucks? he's a good looking guy!)

st. louis: the heyday

the wonderful boys of colorado finally came back through the midwest! what a lucky girl i am. i first met these boys through my good friends of cavashawn and state & madison. they toured together on what was fondly referred to as 'the rad bromance tour' and i think some of us are still trying to sort through all of the shenanigans that went down during those couple of weeks.

they played cicero's on a weeknight. not exactly conducive to my school and work schedule, but what the hell. sleep when you're dead, right? abby decided last minute to come with me, so that was a plus. we gathered our stuff, trekked from columbia to st. louis and had ourselves a good time. we had dinner at panera, attempted to get homework done at starbucks, and eventually gave up and headed down to cicero's for the show. there wasn't much of a crowd; it was mainly composed of all the other bands. but all the bands were talented so that was a plus. the heyday played a lovely set as always, we stuck around for a little after and chatted with each of the boys, then made the late-night drive back to school.

check out their tunes and tell me how fucking awesome 'fools go fallin' is: www.theheydaymusic.com

st. louis: the zombie apocalypse! featuring building rome

ahhh, building rome. a refreshing look at a band that has some legitimate credit in the local st. louis music scene. what's come out of st. louis, you ask? besides story of the year and ludo, not much. but building rome's been around and they've been working hard to get exposure and it's paying off. i've seen many a building rome show, and i've probably been seeing them for close to five years now. the boys have slept on the floor of my columbia apartment, and i interned as a publicist for them for a semester of college. there's always a good vibe at their shows and this time was no different. there was a great crowd. (like i said before, i'm terrible at guessing numbers) the firebird's capacity is around 200 and it was pretty full. i'd say a hundred-something or so people came out and had a great time. they played what seemed like a really short set, but i guess i was just having a lot of fun singing along and dancing like a fool. a capo was lost at one point, and to pass the time tom (guitarist) led the crowd in an a capella sing-along of journey's don't stop believin'. tom can definitely command a crowd; he's been in the st. louis scene for as long as i can remember, previously in centerpointe. i was probably in middle school back in those days. crazy.

but it was a solid show. and it was a fun one. it was also good to see jon (lead singer) back in action and looking healthy. he's been on the quite mental health roller coaster over the past couple of months and it was nice to see him back to his old (or new, i guess) self. even though those kinds of shows are few and far between for st. louis, it left me with positive vibes and an uplifting outlook for the future of our somewhat sparse music scene. there really are people out there who care. i just wish they came out to more shows!

www.buildingromerock.com