Come to Denver, Please?

I don't live in Denver, (well, I live 20 minutes away on a good day) but I can say that I care about the music that we have here in Denver. I was thinking about what I can do to make it even better and get the people who love the music here in Denver to go to more shows. Because of this, I drafted up 10 reasons why bands, artists, and music lovers should come to do Denver.




1. Fact is, you are going to pass over us anyway.
      If you didn't know, Colorado is the big square state in the middle of California and  Texas. Most planes that have to get anywhere in the nation fly over us, and face it, you will pass through us on your road trip. Would it be worth it to just stop on that road trip, and play us a show? Don't worry about venues, we have some odd ones (I'll get to that later).

   2. We are nice people.
    Take it from me, I have had some (good) run ins with musicians and I promise that even the most unsuspecting people will be nice to you and your band (If you have one). For example, I was ordering a burrito at Chipotle, the best burrito place ever, and I hear a "Hey" and look over my shoulder to see one of the best guitarists ever (I'm protecting their privacy). I didn't realize it at the moment, but I was helping one of my favorite guitarists build an epic vegetarian burrito. The voice in the back of my head was saying "They are famous! Get them to sign a napkin!" but I didn't act, and most of us here in Denver wont. We are willing to hang out on a couch and talk about tape loop machines.

   3. Our venues are awesome.
     I talked about this in in my all ages vs. age restricted post, but Denver has some really awesome places to see a show, So you dont' have to worry about really bad shows at really bad venues, someone is always going to show up. No matter what.

   4. Our food is good.
      I know that when I travel, I always look for a good place to eat. And most of the time, I eat at a new place that someone recommends to me. If I ever eat at a place that is really bad, then I have a hard time going back. We don't have bad places to eat in Denver. We have what you want to eat, even deep dish pizza and cupcakes.

   5. We have killer bands that will open for you.
      Being an artist in Denver, I'd be thrilled to open with my band, I'm sure that other bands in Denver feel the same way I do. We have talent here, so why not take advantage of it? This brings me to my other point...

   6. Our scene is thriving!
     We have lots of local stuff here and it is all pretty good. Despite that though, we need to find the key that we need to make our scene even better. We need all the help that we can get.

   7. Please give us something to do!
      Please! When I'm not debating, I see if I can attend a show. I love my local music, but it gets kind of stale when you see the same bands every weekend. I know that other people feel my pain, so why not try to set up even more shows for us to attend? Talk to a Denver musician and set up a gig! It will keep us from sitting at home staring at walls.

   8. We will buy your stuff.
     I love getting trinkets, posters, stickers, CD's, and anything else at shows. As long as I'm helping out a fellow indie artist, I (and other people) will buy your stuff and will be happy buying it.

   9. I'll show up! (hopefully)
      Always will! (That's saying if I don't have anything else to do...) But I really do show up at shows if I am staring at my wall on a perfectly good Friday night wondering what else I could do with my time. Just try not to put a show on a weekday!

  10. We are awesome!
      300 days of sunshine, Mountain ranges galore, clean air, great people, what else could you wish for in a city? That is pretty awesome to me.

Music For Dummies.

My Dad wants a new Ipod. Let me say that he only has a few CD's (not even close to what I have by the way) a blackberry touch (I have no idea what it is, I don't do blackberries) and he downloads everything else of the two devils of online music: Rhapsody and Itunes. This new Ipod that he wants is only a steel at 160 gigs and can hold everything you can "ever dream of".  As a music lover, collector, and blogger I had an inherent right to disagree with him. I'm not going to retype everything that I said, but I can just break my argument into 3 reasons why he doesn't need an 160 gig Ipod to hold all of his music.

Do you even have 160 gigs worth of music in the first place?

According to my research, 160 gigs is 40,000 songs.  That is just about 2,666 CD's total. The last time I checked, my dear old Dad Isn't even close to that number on hard copy CD's or even in downloads. Why waste the money on going big? Take it from me people, sometimes more isn't worth it.  Here is an example: One time my Dad thought it was a good idea to get my Mom a 200 Gig laptop and iPod touch just because she was "behind on technology". She uses both about once a month. I go by this saying " Only buy it when you need it".  I'm going to move on to the next thing...

Can you even rip 190 CD's without my help? Can you download and renew licenses without my help?

I got the title from those For dummies" book series. Its kind of a running joke in my family "You need to get your Dad a "computers for dummies" book because he doesn't know what the heck to do when it comes to computers. Being the tech geek in my family, I know what is good, what is bad, how to put it together, how to take it apart, and how to fix it. A while ago I was like "Yeah! I'll help you set up your computer :D" and after I was on the phone taking 3 hours out of my homework time in SAT season talking to the Lead IT specialist in India for no reason, I gave up helping. Who has to take responsibility for when a phone breaks? Who fixes computers when the WiFi goes out? Me. If I can do it, then I'm pretty sure that it Isn't that hard to take responsibility to fix your own technology.

Whatever you download, you don't own.

One of the bad parts of downloading off the internet is that sometimes you have to get "license" to use the music that you have. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but HowStuffWorks has a great article on music licensing. I recommend it so you can feel my pain.

I hope you guys learned something in my madness. It really isn't worth being flashy. If I'm giving off the impression that my family is rich, it isn't true. It really isn't . I don't even have enough for a burrito sometimes, more or less, a new iPod. Who has money though? My Dad. Thanks for reading through my family issues. I promise I wont do it again. But you know what I will do? I'll finish typing my super secret post just for you guys.

My 5 musical fantasies that probably won't happen, but might just happen anyway.

We all have those fantasies, the ones where you think for a while and say "Oh that would be so totally awesome if this band did this thing!". That came into my head today, so I then thought about the 5 musical things that I personally know that won't happen. And if they did happen, you could say that I called it. This list isn't ranked, so don't be all like "She ranked this band over this one? How absurd!".  I'm just writing what comes to mind.

1. A "real" PJ Harvey B-sides album.
If you read my "Friday Five" from last week, you know how much I want a PJ Harvey B-sides album.  Well, I think that I can speak for a lot of PJ fans when I say this; we are tired of going to You tube to find your B-sides. Could you just do us a favor and make, one 15 track B-sides album so we all can hear your awesome B-sides. One more thing, please don't release this only in the UK. If that happened, your non UK fans wouldn't be to happy. Trust me, I can't travel to the UK  to by one CD (well, I could but I just don't want to).

2.One more Sleater Kinney Album.
This could happen. Yes, I'm a hardcore SK fan and I know whats going on with them. Corin is about to release an album on October 5th, (here is a free download. You're welcome) and I can't confirm this, but Brownstein and Weiss may have a new band in the coming future. When I heard all of this I was like "Yeah! That's awesome and I can't wait, but where in the heck is the Sleater Kinney?" I started to write an if - then statement and it went like this "If Sleater Kinney is on hiatus and all three of them are still active in music, then we will see a new album from them because they are all still active in music". Science has never failed me, and if it fails me now, then I'm screwed. (Do it for me Sleater Kinney! Pleeseee :)

3. The release of the long awaited My Bloody Valentine Album.
Ok, this is how this story goes. My Bloody Valentine released an album. This album was Loveless and it came out in 1991. This album was so great, it made Creation Records go Bankrupt. Fast forward to 2007, Kevin Shields says that their album is "almost" done and they have been recording since 1997. My Bloody Valentine toured and toured and toured and toured until they were at All Tomorrows parties in 2009. And then what happened?  I want to hear more of that crazy, crazy awesomeness in my ears and I want to hear it soon. I don't want to be 30 years old and finally get the new My Bloody Valentine album. That just doesn't feel right.

4. Another Feist album.
Feist is kind of like the My Bloody Valentine thing except she is in another band (Broken Social Scene) and thats good right? I think that the world needs more catchy original songs like "Past in Present" (if I had a dollar for every time that got stuck in my head...). Just a word of advice from me, (if you just magically happen to stumble on my blog) don't listen to Apple. If you just so happen to make that said "catchy" song, don't sell it to Apple. Don't. I don't care if they give you the Apple Ipad 2.3 and a full American citinship. Just don't. Thanks.

5. I play a "real" gig.
Ok, I got the small ones down; friend's basement, friend's backyard, friend's Mom's birthday bash, School Guitar club (Yeah, I owned all of them). When am I going to play something with a legit band (not like the bands that I played with weren't legit) at a really cool dive bar (dream come true...) ? Anyway, I'm sure that it will happen when I'm in college trying to scrape up some money before I go to some far away land as an English teacher. I'll tell you how it goes.

Friday Five later. Have fun with the download. (don't tell them who sent you here. Thanks)

Back Home!

Its great to be back! It's even better to have content to write about! I'm really going to try to post my CD collection so you guys can see how much work (and money) that I put into my collection. I'm also waiting on some stuff I bought from mail order (I'm like the only one who does mail order right?) and that should be really cool because I've haven't been able to find this CD anywhere in the Denver area, and this is the first time that this happened, ever. I also have a mix tape and I might review that too. I might do a doubble post about my guitar because I know that some of you want to see how great my guitar is (trust me, it is really cool). Keep your eyes open for surprise posts this month! You know that they are coming! If you haven't already vote on my poll. I want to see what you guys want out of the blog. I want to start reviewing the Denver scene, so Denver bands, (or those who know them) post comments or try to contact me if you want me to review your stuff. Even if you don't live near Denver please talk to me! I'll be more than happy to post about your band! Keep your eyes open for new and exciting stuff! (like artist reviews, *cough cough cough*)

Fantastic Saturday Six

Hello blog readers! I was kind of busy yesterday, so I couldn't get to the Friday Five Videos. So, to make up for that, I'm going to post 6 videos for the "Fantastic Saturday Six" so you guys can have some music to listen to. I haven't forgotten about genera mixes so I should have a genre mix for next Friday. Check back soon because I'm (still) working on the post of my music collection.

Sonic Youth - Kool Thing live


Scratch Acid - El Espectro


Big Black - Passing Complexion (Check out that guitar sound at the beginning!)


Pretenders - Mystery Achievement  (I tried playing this on bass guitar...It didn't work out too well)


PJ Harvey - Mansize - Live in Chicago (Metro)


Hole -Loaded

Videos!

I wanted to post some videos that I found on youtube. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Hopefully I can do this weekly on Friday, so check back soon. 

(Note: I'm posting what I like right now, hopefully I can do genre mixtures in the future?)

G.B.H.- Midnight Madness and Beyond


Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion

 Bill Nye the Science Guy - Always Dry (Alanis Morissette parody)


Santogold - Starstruck


The Adicts Chinese Take Away