it's a post-it collage!

this week i copied supah mommy and made a picnik collage out of my post-it notes. it may have been more trouble than it was worth but, whatevs.

zilker elementary benefit concert

last night i was lucky enough to sell merch for ben kweller at the 10th annual zilker elementary backyard concert. they have these concerts every year to raise money for the art/music department at the school. this year, it wasn't a "backyard" concert because it rained ALL day and night, so it was in the cafeteria. this year's lineup included station identification, jimmy lafave, grace london, and ben kweller.

first, let me start with how sweet and kind ben was to me. i've never sold merch before but i'm friends with his regular merch girl and she's out on tour with another band so she asked if i could help out. i was a little nervous for two reasons 1) that i was going to screw up somehow and 2) that i was going to totally geek out on ben because i've been a fan of his for soooo long. i've met the guy before but i've never spoken to him for longer than about 60 seconds. he called me as i was driving home from work and i missed the call because i had my radio turned up so loud. so now i have the most adorable voiciemail from him. haha! anyway, he was super nice throughout the entire experience.

now here's the part where i talk about what a fun and unique community they have down there near zilker elementary. my table was set up in the hall outside of the cafeteria, right by the doors to come in, so i saw pretty much everyone as they arrived. everyone knew everyone! the parents and the kids (old and young) all seemed to know each other. it just looked like a very close-knit group of parents who love to support their school and i thought it was awesome!

before ben played, a young lady (and i mean young, i heard she was only 9) named grace london played with her band. she played guitar and sang and she was unbelievable! i think everyone was blown away by her. other than a dixie chicks song and a couple of kt tunstall numbers, she played a lot of songs that i like! here are the ones i made note of during the show:

wonderwall by oasis (this was her soundcheck)
don't panic by coldplay
we're going to be friends by the white stripes
hallelujah by leonard cohen
hey jude by the beatles
sweet child o' mine by guns n roses

i wish i had been able to get some videos of her but i was shunned to the hallway. anyway, this girl is going places.

then ben played and it was great! here's his set:

wantin' her again
walk on me
undone-the sweater song (weezer cover)
sawdust man
fallin'
on my way
b-i-n-g-o w/ dorian on vocals
don't know why
sundress
fight
dusty trail
heart of gold w/ jimmy lafave (neil young cover)
have you ever seen the rain w/ jimmy lafave (ccr cover)
stand by me w/ jimmy lafave and grace london (ben e. king cover)
like a rolling stone w/jimmy lafave (bob dylan cover)

the sweater song was awesome because it made me think of the time i saw guster and he came out and played that with them. it's so fun. and since it was in an elementary school, instead of, "goddamn" ben said, "good grief" it made me laugh out loud! ben was in the middle of the last verse of "on my way" when dorian came out on stage and ben said, "yeah, i'm singing about your mama!" ben never finished that song because they turned on another mic and he and dorian sang bingo. it was adorable! i think dorian also "played" piano on "don't know why". when jimmy came out and i heard the opening notes of "heart of gold" i died inside a little. neil young is one of my all-time favorite artists and i love hearing people that i love cover him. ben played the harmonica and everything. it was magical. i left my table in the hall to go stand in the doorway to the cafeteria and i took a short video.



the whole night was great! i didn't screw up anything and i had a really fun time watching ben play to a bunch of kids and their hip, eccentrically dressed parents. and now here are the only pictures i took:

new (to me) music!

hello, my name is stefanie and i am a music junkie. i love music so so much. the only things more important to me are my friends and family. i am constantly listening to music and going to see live shows. i'm also always looking for new music to get excited about. i have to say, there hasn't been much out there that has impressed me in the past couple of years. the two albums that really stand out to me as ones that continue to blow me away are blind pilot's 3 rounds and a sound and brendan hines' good for you know who. i have worn both of those albums out and i still listen to them constantly. well, here's a story about a new album that i am immediately enamored with:

i've read the name noah and the whale a few times in passing on blogs over the past 6 months or so but never stopped to investigate them. a few weeks ago i heard one of their songs on the radio but the whole time it was on i was thinking, "hmm...noah and the whale? that reminds me of the squid and the whale. which was written and directed by noah baumbach!" that's the way my brain works most of the time. so i didn't really pay much attention to the song when it was on but after it ended the dj said, "that was noah and the whale. no one in the band is actually named noah. the name was inspired by the band's favorite movie, the squid and the whale which was directed by noah baumbach." are you kidding me? i died a little. i should have known right then that these were my kind of people but i sort of forgot about them.

on monday as i was driving to work, andy langer played their song blue skies and it hit me like a ton of bricks. ohhh emm geeeee! that's seriously what was going through my mind as i listened to it. i made a mental note to check out the rest of that album (the first days of spring) and now here i am, completely blown away. i can't stop listening to it. i know it's not music that's for everyone, but i think most of my friends would love it.

there is also a 47 minute movie that goes along with it and it's totally free if you download the album from itunes! and it's all only $7.99. it's the best money i've spent in ages.

writer's workshop trial

i've seen a couple of my friends participate in mama kat's writer's workshop but i've never had much to contribute to any of her prompts...until now!

so the prompt that i have chosen is to describe the most destructive thing your pet has done. and this story is quite unique, i believe.

when i was 7 years old i begged my parents for a hamster. i'm not sure why. i must have had a friend who had them or something. anyway, we finally went to the pet store at northcross mall and picked up an adorable little guy that i named hammy. obviously, i didn't hit my creative stride until later in life. hammy didn't live in one of those crazy plastic cages (like sam had in garden state...haha!). he lived in a white wire cage with a red plastic top and bottom.

i don't know how familiar you guys are with hamsters but if they can squeeze their little heads through an opening, they can squeeze their fat bellies through too. it's pretty fascinating, really. so, as you can guess, hammy started escaping from his cage on a nightly basis. i have no idea where he would go or how we ever found him but we always did.

one morning (the day ann richards became governor of texas) i woke up to some terrible news. hammy had escaped his cage once again but this time, something bad happened. i guess now would be the time for me to tell you all that we also had a dog, a big german sheppard named fritz. apparently fritz sat on hammy and squished him to death.

i was devastated. i don't know if my mom had been planning this all along or if the death of the family hamster triggered it but she kept my sister and me home from school that day. she took us to ann richards' inauguration and on the way home we went to the pet store and got a new hamster.

i have a feeling that hammy didn't meet his maker quite the way the story was told to me but i don't care. i'm glad my parents shielded me from the details surrounding hammy's death. as it was, i grew up feeling sad for fritz because he had accidentally killed another animal. and that's the way i prefer to remember it. i would later end up resenting fritz for another reason anyway.

i never follow the rules

yesterday my friend jenn gave me a blog award! here it is:

The rules for this award are:

1)  You MUST pass this award on to at least one (1) person.

2)  You can send it to as many as you want.  Circulate this bad boy all over the interwebz!

so here's the deal, i've spent the last day going over all the blogs that i read on a regular basis and i kept going back to the same person each time. however, it seems kind of cheap to give an award right back to the person who gave it to you. yes, i can't think of a better person to say, "hey, i LOVE reading your blog!" to than jenn. i've known jenn since i was 11 years old. i am now 26 so...do the math! that's a long time. though our relationship now isn't as strong as it used to be, she is still very much in my thoughts on a fairly regular basis. being able to read her blog is like having a long phone call to catch up on what's going on in her life. and she's probably the second funniest person that i know (obviously i'm number 1)! i am constantly entertained by her blog. so, even though it seems like i'm being lazy by passing this award right back to her, it's not for lack of trying to think of someone more deserving. 

another tuesday!

my goodness, tuesdays come quick these days!

3 weeks worth of pictures?

i really intended to post my daily pictures once a week but i just kept forgetting! i'm not going to post 21 pictures on this here blog so i encourage you to just check out the entire project! this picture picks up where i left off 3 weeks ago on the blog. perhaps i'll try again next sunday. but for now i will leave you with one picture, my new shoes!

record club

jamie lidell, beck, wilco, and feist covering little hands by skip spence. back in june beck announced this project, record club, where he and other artists would record cover versions of an entire album in one day. this is the first song released from their cover of oar by skip spence. i can't wait to see more!

it's a flash back!

so the idea here is to go find an old blog post and re-post it today for flashback friday. i have no idea why i picked this one to re-post. i guess because it still makes me laugh after all this time. so here goes!


eggs and corn


(originally posted june 8, 2008)


i saw this video several months ago and for some stupid reason i think it's absolutely hilarious. 


 


well, a couple of days ago i saw this one on the yahoo most watched videos or some shit. i knew it had to be the same people! then i re-watched the egg one and realized that the same girl is in both of them. i think i still like the egg one better (just because of the line, "what's she doing?" which my sister and i say alllll the time) but this one is still pretty funny.  

awesome guys making fun music

check out waz, will, and al making music for cougartown!