music :: shovels and rope

Recently I had the pleasure to see Shovels & Rope play the Bowery Ballroom. Love these guys and on stage their energy is infectious. You just want to be a part of their magic and happiness. Just the two of them, singing and playing along with each other. A couple guitars and a bandana tied up drum kit. Awesome. 

Bowery Ballroom is one of my favorite venues in the city. It is small but in a really amazing intimate way. And there's this great bar downstairs for drinks if you get there early. Barstools, couches and the like. The merch table is downstairs too and most of the shows that play the Bowery have pretty awesome stuff to check out. So anyway if you haven't heard of these guys yet and missed them on Letterman recently, you are missing out and you should listen to them asap. Side Note :: their solo albums {Michael Trent & Carrie Ann Hearst} are pretty awesome and worth a listen as well. Especially this song… I cannot stop listening. 

:: Birmingham Lyrics ::

"Made a little money playing in the bars, 

With two beat up drums and two old guitars,

 From the Crescent City to the Great Salt Lake,

 It ain't what you got, it's what you make"

{shovels & rope}

good morning america no doubt

July 2012, NYC

GMA Summer Concert Series, Central Park

Yesterday I woke up at 5am to go see Good Morning America's free show of No Doubt playing for the summer concert series. It was sticky, warm and crowded but so fun. Worth the early wake up call for me! They played their new hit Settle Down from their upcoming album Push and Shove. Followed by It's My Life, Underneath It All and Spiderwebs. The highlight for me was when Gwen yelled out to the crowd at about 7:15am, "you're deliciously delicious." Cheers ensued. She is just too adorable and still rocks it like she's 20. Awesome to see these guys together again. Can't wait to hear more from them.

Anyone watch the morning show yesterday?

::settle down::

I'm a rough and tough

I'm a rough and tough

And nothing's gonna knock this girl down

it don't last forever {we'll make this last forever}

Happy, oh so Happy Friday



“If something is good, you must torture it mercilessly

until it is either dead or great.”

{gabe saporta}

a tourist in my own world

Random snapshots from the weekend.

Dinners. Live Music. Brunch. Times Sq Tourist. Lots of Pizza. American Idiot on Broadway. Knicks Tickets. Wine. Wine. Beer.

{above, note Elmo in the crowd! thought it was too funny}

"The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own."

{susan sontag}

you didn't even know that I was in a punk band

Last night I went to the Nokia… um, I mean Best Buy Theatre in NYC to see Ingrid Michaelson. She is so entertaining live, 2nd time to see her in NYC. This time though she had two opening acts that I simply fell head over heels in love with! Bess Rogers and The Guggenheim Grotto. So much personality on one stage. Check them out if you can, they are awesome. Blog title inspired by Bess and can I tell you she did the best little cover I’ve ever heard; Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me. It was grand. Ingrid did a cover of R.E.M’s Night Swimming; you had me at hello R.E.M... such a great song. I will be going to every Ingrid show in NYC from now on, without a doubt. Lastly, watching her and her band cover Britney Spears’ Toxic {with choreographed dancing} was almost as rad as this cover of Gin & Juice. Well actually Ingrid & her crew were more awesome but I just love singing along to Snoop Dogg’s words in a country rhythm.

So happy tomorrow is Friday!

Do any of you have a favorite cover song?

if I had half a say ~ you'd play for me everyday

Last week I got to see Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield {a dream for me to see either of them but together? Sold.} in the most intimate setting I could imagine at Mercury Lounge in NYC. They don’t even have stage doors there, they just walk right through the crowd to get to the stage. They drunkenly stared at each other (rather Evan at Juliana) and picked on each as if they were 18/19 again (rather Juliana saying Evan just shut up, let’s play). Evan was adamant that he wanted his tequila though it was already in front of him and he joked that he could be demanding when the crazy things he wanted were already done and done right. This marked the first time to two have publicly played together “I guess growing up means going from electric to acoustic” they mused. And they were so good; I’ll say a little sloppy towards the end but honestly it couldn’t have been better because it felt real. They started into a few of the songs over when they would slip a lyric or a chord and then they were done and off the stage before you even remembered that they were just sitting in front of you sexually bantering to or about each other. Evan: “this song is about wanting to sleep with her.” Juliana: “and it never happened.” It’s About Time.

"it's about time

lick my lips

And I won’t hear the end of this

All you need’s a reassurance

Buy some time and come back for it

Before long, before it's gone…"

The pictures were hard to take as the stage was level with the crowd and there were rude people fussing to stop taking pictures, but dude, come on, when will I get this opportunity again? So screw you, I’m taking pictures if I want to. Sorry. So I tried to get a few decent ones.

you can pull off ruffles and a skull ring

Saturday the roomie and I made our first trip to the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ. It was {just a little bit of} a mission to get there. Usually NJ transit is alright to deal with and most venues out there are less than $20 and less than an hour to get to… well, this was a new experience almost an hour and a half later, a train and a taxi and $30+ bucks gone, we got there. We won’t be doing that again!... oh but wait, we already bought tickets to see OAR next week too... Oh well, at least the next time around we know to bring remix {more on that later} and exactly which train to hop on without having to ask annoying customer service people in the train station. We spent a gorgeous day outside in the sun listening to some straight up girl-power music. Welcome to Lilith Fair.

Sunday was a day of relaxing and going to see The Kids Are Alright – seemed fitting to finish up the weekend with a girl-themed movie about relationships... it was good for a light, easy watch with emotions thrown around left and right throughout the movie. Now I think I’m in need of a weekend of nothing but UFC and whiskey. How was your weekend?

you've gone and stole my heart and made it your own

What an entertaining night I had this week with Jack Johnson, G. Love {no special sauce this time though – he was solo acoustic} and ALO. We had drinks and eats at Lucy’s Royale Cantina pre-show with lots of tequila and a little cheesy goodness in a quesadilla. They were streaming Jack Johnson and Pearl Jam through the speakers and screening surf videos on the TV; couldn’t have been more perfect if I planned it myself.

Beer Round One. Then starting the night with ALO’s Girl, I Wanna Lay You Down gave me even higher expectations that the whole night would be grand and it was. Beer Round Two. Next, G. Love was awesome and he even played one of my personal favorites of his, Booty Call. I was so happy! Then off to get one last round and get hyped for Mr. Jack Johnson himself {and friends}! He started with You and Your Heart and then continued to play all of our sing-along favorites, including my most-loved, Wasting Time; and he played My Little Girl dedicated to his Mom {who was there} and also gave a shout out to his wife before playing Do You Remember, that he wrote for her and he recognized they were going on 17 years… so cute! He ended the night with everyone back on stage singing Better Together. Wish I had that set list to frame. Beer Round Four, just to end the night.

{G. Love then the rest Jack and friends}

{sorry for so many pics - I was a little snap-happy at this show!}

Happy Weekend all!!