tricksters and villains apply within

I think you have to have been living under a rock not to know what the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts art. So you don't need me to explain how good they can be to find new music or to see good indie musicians do what they do in an intimate setting. And the setlist isn't tight or too defined, the musicians can talk or riff or whatever makes them feel the music or connected to the small audience in the office at the time. I'm not an NPR fan and I don't watch every new Tiny Desk video when it goes up, but every now and again something will catch my eye. Last year's winner of the Tiny Desk Contest was a band called Tank and the Bangas. The video went up pretty much a year ago yesterday and it's 20+ minutes of good fun. Their music is hip hop soul with a big voice and really hefty lyrics. I fell in love pretty much immediately, listened to all the songs I could find and then sent the video out to all of my friends. They were in town for a Tedx youth conference rece...

I'm very much not the demographic for Dodie Clark's YouTube career, or even probably her music. But I find her honest and charming and her music utterly delightful. I appreciate her communication about her struggles with mental illness and her ability to put them on camera. I love the lyrics to her songs because they feel like they come from a real place and were I a younger adult, I'd likely find them highly applicable to my own feelings. Instead of sort of wistfully nostalgic. Actually I find myself somewhere between the two on most days and dodie's sweet, soft voice is a good remedy for when you find yourself more wistfully nostalgic than tragically and seemingly unceasingly young. (For me, anyway.)

As big of a fan as I am of music, I'm not the sort of person that hates on covers. Obviously I've recommended at least one here before. But lest that not accurately portray my love of covers, let me make it clear here and now. I LOVE covers, even bad ones, even cheesy ones. I love hearing someone else's take on music I know really, really well. Sometimes they bring a sound to the music that I find interesting, sometimes they change the music in a way that brings out lyrics I hadn't noticed before, sometimes it's just a new way for me to fall in love with the song all over again. Sure, not ever cover is great and I might just listen to it once and pass by. But sometimes I might decide that I like the cover better than original. It's all good in the cover game. So then let me tell you how much I love Scary Pockets. They're a funk band doing what Scott Bradlee did with Postmodern Jukebox (if you ask who? um... go figure that out and come back to me). They...

I'm happy to see new music from Pentatonix that isn't Christmas, or personal projects. Not that they're not all extremely talented on their own, but after Ari left, I wondered what new music from them might look like. Their cover for Havana is good, but this new song is a little bit of a return to some of their older sounds - new music mixed with an old beat. It also helps that I really, really dig New Rules from Dua Lipa right now. Putting the beat from Aaliyah's Are You That Somebody? just hits me where my teen-self lived, knee-deep in R&B. This is real good.

With the release of Dessa's new album, Chime, stories and videos of her process in writing the songs on it have been making the rounds. As a bit of a science nerd, she investigated the impact of love on the brain. Comparing her brain's reactions to images of an ex she couldn't quite shake feelings for and another person, she was able to see exactly where in the brain her feelings for this person lived. She talks about it more in the video below. I love Dessa's music, the lyrics in her songs deal not just with love but life. I've been listening to Chime for the past week or so and while I've not as in love with it as I have been with previous albums, I am thoroughly enjoying it. 

This video is about a year old now but boy is it pretty much a great description for having a chronic illness. I've been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia for about fifteen years now and while I have daily meds that (thankfully) haven't changed much since I first started with my rheumatologist like a decade ago. The only think that really  ebbs and flows regardless of pain is my energy levels. People tend to take a lot out of me, because I tend towards extrovert when I'm around people. Recovering can take a day or two and that depends on how many spoons I have on any given day. When you couple that with your just garden variety insomnia (which I've battled since I was a kid -- I get it from my father and his father, we're just night owls, period), getting restful, recuperative rest is pretty much not a thing that happens. I feel like this song is pretty much my go to anthem for those days. Like, long Mondays with a lot of work on the table and not enough hours of sleep a...

I know I posted about this on tumblr yesterday, but I had to write a little more about it as a way to express my awe over this whole project. I've been following the updates on this project since the idea was first floated to the community. Tumblr fans had been mashing up Hamilton and Critical Role in art and gifs and photosets since Hamilton came out. But a project of this scope is just beyond everything else, and it could've worked out so differently. The work that it took to write these songs and make them fit both the story of Season 1 in addition to hitting the plot themes of Hamilton is mind boggling. Somehow they made it work and they made it work so incredibly well. I cried multiple times today listening to this whole thing. Seriously, if you're a fan of both Hamilton and Critical Role and you haven't listened to this yet, get on it. It's amazing. The Critter community is pretty fantastic as far as fandoms go. I feel like it's worth mentioning how ...

This theme of Whiskey Please isn't anything new, in fact, songs about your man and his liquor is pretty standard in both country and rock genres. And songs about your man being taken by someone else, well that's just a good 90% of all female-led lyrics (a rough guesstimate). Whissell's song here, Whiskey Please , gives those themes a little mashup in something that's a little reminiscent (to me) of Dolly Parton's, Jolene . This isn't a song of complaining or even of anger. This is a song where a women is begging for her man back, begging for the alcohol to let him go. We know it doesn't work like that, but as someone who has some first hand alcoholics, I very much the understand the wish that it did. And it doesn't at all hurt that Whissell has this deep voice, something that reads as strained from tears or something more. I've been listening to a lot of her stuff lately and just really enjoying her voice and the sort of badassitude that comes a...

I really love the ladies edition of this mixtape theme that I put up last week. However, it left out a couple of songs that I really wanted to include somehow. So, I've got a dudes edition (male singers) that hopefully has the same kind of badass attitude that the ladies side had. And really, if you only listen to one song from this playlist? Make sure it's the last song. You can grab the ladies version of this theme I put up at my post  here . As a reminder these were put together as part of the February mixtape challenge put together by Eve @  Twist in the Taile  and Evi @  Adventuring Through Pages , The word for this month's challenge is  schwarmerei.  You can find the prompt post for this month  here . Tracklist : i. temperature   - machel montano; ii. do it  - tuxedo; iii.  happy  - c2c; iv. harder better faster stronger  - daft punk; v. champion  - fall out boy; vi. someone new  - hozier; vii. don't stop ...

My hand has a stamp of Harry Truman's face on it. Such is my life after having attended a concert at one of the newer concert venues in Kansas City, The Truman. It's really a glorified warehouse, a big open concrete room with a bar in the front and a bar in the back and a stage that doesn't offer much line of sight unless you're standing in the front. Or, if like me and my concert pal, you find some bar stools and a cocktail table. From there, perched uncomfortably on metal stools, I could sort of make out the head and shoulders and the occasional peek of a drums and a guitar or two of the two bands we went to see Tuesday night: Night Beats, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Really, we went for BRMC. As one might expect if you're at all familiar with the band. They're a rock/rockabilly kind of band complete with heavy drums and the intermittent use of a harmonica. I was somehow, through the musical browsing I often do, introduced to BRMC by their song "Bea...

Yesterday was Judy Blume's 80th birthday. Judy Blume's stories were the sort of human stories that we needed as kids, the stories that told us we weren't alone with our weird thoughts... or we were but maybe we weren't as weird as we thought we were. For those of us who grew up with the works of Judy Blume, I think we each have a book that hit us harder than others, one story that really spoke to us. For me, that was It's Not the End of the World . My parents were already divorced by the time I was old enough to read It's Not the End of the World , but that didn't make it any less profound to read for me. The way Karen thinks about being at her parents houses when they're separated, the way she deals with thoughts about her own future relationships, and what you feel like your house must look like to other people. For Judy's birthday, Amanda Palmer has written this really lovely tribute to the way stories change us, how reading books like the...

If you're not super into YouTube or music, you might not know about this great channel called Mahogany. Since 2010 the Mahogany channel has been putting together these great studio sessions for indie music creators. Their videos are beautifully shot, with amazing sound and they've introduced me to some really fantastic creators. Today they launched a new series: Covers. And it started with this really soft and amazing cover of the popular Lou Reed song, Walk on the Wild Side by Jordan Mackampa. This first video is shot in a really fantastic profile, half-silhouette and based on their teaser it looks like that might be the standard for these sessions, which is cool. It also looks like you'll be able to keep up with the Covers sessions on Spotify here , if that's your kind of thing. If you like Jordan's voice, check out a session he did with his original song, Open Arms, which has been one of my favorite finds from Mahogany for a long while. 

Inspired by the word for the february mixtape challenge as created by Eve @  Twist in the Taile  and Evi @ Adventuring Through Pages , I bring you a playlist for February. The word for this month's challenge is schwarmerei : n. You can find the prompt for this month here .  As I started putting songs together I was sort of inspired to only put songs on the list sung by ladies, and sort of my go-to songs for putting myself in a good mood. You can find the playlist on Spotify here . Track List: i . confident - demi lovato; ii . my lovin' (you're never gonna get it) - en vogue; iii . freak like me - halestorm; iv .  love myself - qveen herby; v . good as hell - lizzo; vi . what have you done for me lately  - janet jackson; vii . that's my girl - fifth harmony; viii . flawless  - beyoncé

I don't have anything much to say about this video except that it's super cool. It's a dubstep medley of The Force Awakens, Duel of Fates and Imperial March done on a bagpipe, accompanied by a violin and a DJ on a launchpad. Also, this badass piper has the coolest horned dragon skull on her bagpipe and I love it.

I've already written about how much I love the new Fall Out Boy album and specifically the song, "Champion". I don't want to spend a bunch of time talking about all the songs on the album that I am loving, especially since every time I listen to it all the way through I'm finding something new I like. Some of the songs didn't strike me at first but have definitely become more interesting and enjoyable upon repeated listening. However, more than any other songs on the album, even more than "Champion", I love the songs "Church" and "Heaven's Gate". I have a strong affinity for media that works with Christian mythologies and symbolism. Both songs heavily rely on Christian or church themes to talk about love. Plus, they're just pretty enjoyable pop songs, with catchy lyrics and melodies. I have a hard time getting either of them out of my head once I've started listening. But instead of going in-depth about the songs t...

There are several new songs off the new Fall Out Boy album that I'm in love with, namely "Church" and "Heaven's Gate" which have themes I tend to really like it songs. They're also catchy as hell. However, those aren't the ones I want to share. Instead let me share with you a song for all the bad days that if you're like me, get a little bit better with a good song. Champion is a song about making it through. About coming out stronger on the other side of something. About knowing you can live through something tough. It reminds me a lot of my tattoo, which is a line from an Andrea Gibson poem, "I Sing the Dream Electric, but Only When My Power's Out". I have on my arm a portion of this line:  " I said to the sun, tell me about the Big Bang The sun said, ' It hurts to become . '" I like that line because it reminds me that we all go through tough times, but it's the moments we experienc...

I'm kind of a huge music nerd. Not a snob, because I like just about anything you put in front of my ears. I pride myself a little on having an ear for what's good or bad. In fact, when I was much younger and was buying tapes and later cds as they were released, I used to challenge myself to figure out which would be the next song released from the album for the radio. I feel like I did pretty well. Although my access to new music was more and more restricted as I grew up and my family got more and more into the church. By high school, I only kept up with as much new music as I could pack into every other weekend at my dad's, since my parents were separated. In recent years, I've really enjoyed having access to streaming services and YouTube. I signed up for a Google Music account pretty much as soon as it was possible. And I became a subscriber when that became an option. My Google Music subscription gives me YouTube Red access and whatever mess YouTube has going o...