I'm totally obsessed with KPop right now, and no, I don't need to explain but I will.
It's fun finding new music to listen to. I'm quite open-minded when it comes to music so I'll give nearly anything a chance (though I am quick to write off an entire band and all of their songs based on disliking one song, so in hindsight, perhaps I'm not that open-minded musically? haha!)
However, it's been fun discovering bands I've never heard of and songs I've never heard. Of course, it started with Ladies Code. This time last year, the group was trending on Twitter and when I found out why, my heart broke. The 5-member girl group had been involved in a tragic accident, killing one member instantly and then another member dying just 4 short days later. It was heartbreaking to their fans, and once I listened to one song, I became a fan. Now, if you know me, you know my favorite KPop group is now Ladies Code and they will always be number 1, but in the past few months, I've given a few other groups/singers a listen. Here's my list of some of my favorites, starting with...
Of course, Ladies Code. Here's the song "Hate You", the song that made me a fan, followed by their very first song, "Bad Girl", which is now my favorite.
Here are a few of my other favorite singers/groups, in no particular order:
Girl's Day, "Female President"
Girl's Generation, "Catch me If You Can"
Sunny Hill, "The Grasshopper Song"
Ailee, "U&I" (girl can sannggggg!)
Crayon Pop, "Dancing Queen" (they toured with Lady Gaga last year)
2Yoon, "24/7" (KPop Country?? Somehow it works)
4Minute, "Volume Up" (2 of the girls in this group is in 2Yoon!)
AOA, "Get Out" (Can you guess which movie character each girl is??)
One more Ladies Code video, cause why not? It's called "Pretty Pretty".
For the last few days I've been thinking about my next moves. Yes, I'm still doing stand-up, but I'm sick of putting off what I could be doing today. I keep saying I'll do more once the twins are in school and blah blah blah. I understand that I, of course, would need someone to watch them if I'm out doing stuff during the day but I no longer want to use them as an excuse to do nothing!
So while I'm at home teaching the girls how to write their names and singing songs from Frozen, I'm planning what I need to do. I think I might try to get all three girls into a program over the summer just for a few hours a day so I have time to write and work on my act. It's very hard to even blog when every few minutes a kid needs juice or asks to play on the Kindle. I just got interrupted while making dinner reservations over the phone!
So on top of doing stand-up shows, I'm going to start shooting some comedic shorts for Youtube. I'd love to have something on Funny or Die. I wrote one that stars me and all three girls that Bry is going to shoot. It's pretty funny. We're going to shoot it next week. I'm also working on recording a song or EP as a solo artist. Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but Bry and I met years ago and started working on music as an acoustic rock duo called Strangers of Grace. This was before we were even dating. I wrote a song the other day in 10 minutes and Bry had the guitar and came up with music for it. And thank God for iPhone, because I used both mine and his to record it right then and there. I wrote the lyrics on the phone and e-mailed it to both of us. We've talked about using some of our old Strangers of Grace songs and writing new ones and then going to perform at some small club.
I think I get anxious when I'm not doing enough. Yes, I guess I can overdo it, as I have before and even lately. But I'd rather overdo it than under-do it. Does that make sense?
Here's a song we made that we never quite finished from a few years ago:
If you wanna see a few more semi-embarrassing, not-yet-finished songs we never performed live go here and here. Yeah, I say semi-embarrassing cause fuck it. Takes a lot to embarrass me. Ha!
This song is amazing and I'm quite thankful to Stacy Dupree for making this video, many years ago. Yes, it's not perfectly clear and I'm not even sure what year she made this. I believe it was around the time I first met them, so I'd like to say about 7-8 years ago? Stacy is adorable in it with her darker locks.
Stacy Dupree
Of course, since then Eisley has gone on to make more albums and Stacy has gotten married, had a baby and made an album with her husband as the band Sucre.
Sucre
Even though she doesn't sing in this, (her singing is amazing you guys, if you didn't know), the video is fun to watch. The song is called "Ruby Over Diamonds" which is by a band called Kashmir, who are also amazing. And this is one of my favorite songs!
And while you're at it, check out Stacy's band Sucre:
I know I don't update my blog as much as I used to. But with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and HelloGiggles, I'm writing for so many different things.
Lately I've been Tweeting a lot about this amazing band called Bastille from England. I was lucky AND blessed enough to get to interview the lead singer, Dan Smith, for HelloGiggles. Now my job is to tell everyone I ever come in contact with to listen to them.
Okay, let me tell you how the interview with. First, I got severely nervous and sick the day before. Okay, it's no secret that I have some anxiety issues (some) but I had to do this interview right. I mean, I'm pretty much obsessed with the band (think how Kat vonD is over Him and Ville Vallo). So speaking to Dan, him knowing who I am, blew my mind. On top of that, I had to be professional. I take my writing quite seriously and I didn't want to come across as just a giggly fan. I'm a journalist!
When I was first connected to him through his management, whom I'd been e-mailing back and forth for a few weeks, she said "Dan, you're on with Angie Grace from HelloGiggles" and he said "Hi Angie!" I went "Hi Dan!", and I swear to God, you could literally hear me melting! How do I know this? I had to record the conversation to transcribe it for the site. So everytime I listened to it, all I could think was "I sound like a fool". I remember shaking, also. After I got the first question out of the way, I realized how normal and down-to-Earth he was! I mean, this guy does not take himself seriously at all! I even asked him how did he feel about being considered a sex symbol and he said "awkward". Okay, I love him. The way he speaks, saying "quite" this and "I'm an awkward guy from London", I wanted to say "You know you're a friggin' rock star, right? Like, girls are obsessed with you".
I held it together. After a few questions, it felt as if we were having a normal conversation, with me asking the questions. Then he started asking me questions, like asking me what did I think of the show "Twin Peaks". I then mentioned that I went to buy tickets for their show and found out they were already sold out and then found out the whole U.S. tour was sold out already and not only was he humble by this, he said that I should ask his management about getting on the guest list and then he said "I'd love for you to come". Yes, I've fucking replayed the tape recorder for all who have visited my house, live here, etc.
I haven't heard from his management about that, yet, but I'm sure they're busy with the U.S. release of the album. He then tweeted me a few days ago when I pointed out the album was #4 on the iTunes chart and he tweeted back at me "It was good to speak to you last week". Yes, I died again. Twice dead.
It means so much to me to be able to know people I truly respect and enjoy their art. Knowing Sherri Dupree of Eisley means a lot to me. Knowing Josh Fadem means a lot to me. Meeting Chris D'Elia means a lot me. Now sorta kinda a little bit knowing Dan means a lot to me. And I just got tickets to go see them live at Jimmy Kimmel for Bry's birthday. Did I mention Bry also loves Bastille? We've both said that Dan is not capable of writing a bad song. He's amazing. Also, he uses the word "Mental" a lot. As in "Wow, that's mental!". Love it.
My favorite Bastille performance, thus far:
Bastille, "Bad Blood", Last.fm sessions
"Things We Lost in the Fire"
"Laughter Lines" (my current obsession)
Bastille on Conan performing "Pompeii", the first time I saw them. Which is weird, because I watch every Conan episode but usually skip the musical guest, unless it's somewhere I've heard of. I think this just happened to come on while we were talking and no one cut it off, then they came on and wow.
Okay, so anybody who knows me knows how I feel about the band Eisley. I first heard of them probably in 2002 from one of those "You Hear It First" dealies on MTV, you know, back when they actually played music...oh, how that was soooo long ago...anyway, back then, Eisley still consisted of people in their teens and were singing about Sea Kings and going over mountains and stuff. Since then, I've had the amazing chance of meeting them and staying current with them, talking to them from time to time online and seeing them almost every time they come to Chicago and actually getting to speak with them and have real conversations. Some may say my love for Eisley may be a semi-obsessive. I hope to someday have them do the entire soundtrack to one of my films...
But also because of Eisley, I have discovered a lot of amazing music. Most of it indie rock. I just became enthralled with this band called TallHart and Kashmir.
I posted a few Eisley videos for your viewing pleasure, and a pic of me with some of my favorite people in the world...my dear friends EISLEY! (That I sometimes refer to as "The Eisleys", though their last name is Dupree...lol
Eisley "Smarter" off of their 2010 album "The Valley"
I thought they sounded so good and looked so amazing...
Their newest video "The Valley"
and just because I love this song by Kashmir, and Stacy is so pretty. This has to be at least 5 years old or something...
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