Leaving Araby and things to come

Troops! Let’s chat some happenings around the Berry College way, yeah? Just a bit ago we had a rather lovely concert that opened up with the stylings of our very own alumni duo of Jon Gill and Jonah Williams. Forgive the fact that this is late, I caught some epic strep throat. On my birthday. And didn’t get up for five days. 21^st birthday FAIL.

I’ll be the first to admit that pretty acoustic stuff about girls doesn’t normally get me excited, but Mr. Gill seems to have some serious talent going on for him. He’s got a strong, not overly folksy voice that really suits his music and Jonah knows how to coax some of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard out of a pedal steel. Glorious. I have some pretty crappy footage of them covering John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” because that song destroys my life and I couldn’t help myself.

Taking the stage after them were some Athens kids (represent!) calling themselves Leaving Araby. The fliers all over campus had been comparing them to The Fray for a couple weeks so I wasn’t super excited, but upon hearing them, I don’t quite agree with the signage. I agree that they were a little soft around the edges and had a chill vibe at times, but live they weren’t piano driven. Or boring. Nothing against our friends in The Fray, there’s just only so many contrived, twinkly melodies I want on one album.

They were pleasantly danceable – so I did – and their singer had some lovely flaily guitar moves that immediately won my heart. So cheers to Leaving Araby, they were personable and looked like they actually wanted to be playing to a room of college kids who needed something to do before the house parties started – a feat that many wouldn’t be able to pull off.

In other news, there’s another show going on tonight, hooray! This one’s in Ford auditorium and has Jon and Jonah again, but the headliner is Devidasa with some excellent drum circle world music goodness. A heads-up for those who aren’t really the crunchy music type, this might not be your scene. There will be some seriously heady people out tonight along with the more mainstream kids to enjoy the awesome, so just be aware.

And tomorrow there’s a free benefit concert with a collection going up for Haiti. It’s at 7 pm in the College Chapel and we’re gonna be seeing Decemberadio and Seventh Day Slumber, so it’s a jam packed musical weekend at Berry College. Throw up those rock fists, my friends.

In other news, the snow is coming down! It’s winter wonderland-tastic outside and we’re snowed in at the costume shop today. I say we’re snowed in… it’s more like our boss is away and we’re working on dance concert pieces while doing princess themed mad libs out of a coloring book. Thank the lord for Friday.

More later, kids, I have some fun new fashiony things for us to play with. Spoiler alert: it involves shiny faux leather AND rhinestones. Not to be taken lightly. But you guys are great, we’ll play again soon!

Now playing: I'm Not Over - Carolina Liar

A fluffy update and things to come

Hey, kids. So, I've got some cool news for us out here floating in cyberland. As of pretty soon in the coming future, the Rome paper will be hosting your very own Indiosyncracy blog on their "Last Call" page. This will, naturally, make us a household name since the lovely paper entertainment team needs people to talk about stuff going on in Rome and the surrounding areas (if this ever happens). And I like to talk about stuff. We are going to be a glorious match. I'm going to be keeping the same format, unless I'm told otherwise or get some rad new idea, and I'll be supplying your fashion and music fix as best I can.

Anyways, housekeeping aside, I saw a wicked reading of a play called "Copenhagen" last night. It was a three hour long, German, existential-intellectual play about the physics and ethics behind the creation of the atomic bomb. Now, before you start seizing with joy and happiness over the subject matter, it was actually a rather brilliant piece of work. My pretend brother Mark Bailey and two of our very dear friends, Matt Dixon and Jennifer Allman, put it on under the direction of our own John Countryman and it was absolutely beautiful. They were all so powerful and genuine and the talk back afterwards with some of the members of the physics department was really useful. I'll let you know before the next production so maybe you guys can come and check it out.

In other news, I'm hitting up the Leaving Araby show tonight so there will be a review and pictures in the very near future. Opening for them at 8pm in the Spruill Ballroom in the Krannert Center are the gloriously titled "Jon Gill and Friends" which will be including my roommate's wonderful boyfriend Jonah Williams, so that's something pretty awesome to look forward to. I might try to get some vague video, but I couldn't get a camera, other excuses, etc. Next time!

So that's it for the day, there'll be prettier things to look at next post and some music talk. Later this week I think I'll put up some of things we've been working on in the costume shop since we've got a big Restoration comedy coming up. Grinding down steel corset bones is a sight to behold, let me tell you. AND I have a super fun idea that kinda got kicked in the face for last night, but perhaps next weekend I'll have something wicked for us to laugh at. Stay tuned.

 

But that's it for now, team, thanks for coming out to play and maybe I'll see you at the show tonight!

Waking Up with OneRepublic

Hey, team. You’ll have to forgive me for taking so long, life kinda went to hell and decided to stay there for a while. But this is completely irrelevant in the face of some music that is begging to be talked about. Let’s chat about OneRepublic’s sophomore effort, Waking Up.

 

The album opens with a count in and some light stripped down percussive elements before Ryan Tedder’s voice slides in under the radar with an almost ominous sounding piano line that builds pleasantly with a little bit of guitar and a dash of stuttering which is always a hardcore win in my book. Apparently all the love was made just for me, so hopefully the string line was as well. Layered vocals provide a nice round sound that isn’t overpowering but leaves you hoping it grows some.

The acoustics sound like they’re in a bathroom near the end, but it’s interesting enough. It bleeds into the next songs chorus with just a drum and shaker bit that could be really fun, but then they go and destroy this lovely build up with a hearkening back to the Stones and their boy choir. One thing we should all learn from music - don’t mimic one of the greatest bands on Earth, I don’t care how great you think it might turn out.  Not nearly on par with Britney doing “I Can’t Get No,” but still.

“All the Right Moves” opens with a couple well-placed organ chords and a chorus that I personally think resonates kinda beautifully. It’s nothing complicated but it’ll get stuck in your head faster than you’d think. The strings become a theme throughout the album; sometimes they’re dead on and sometimes they miss but you definitely get the feel of what the band’s trying to convey.

The song has a longing quality that’s nice, but you get the idea after a few passes of the chorus. Nothing against the song, though, it’s one of my favorites on the album. I would be lying if I said I didn’t put it on repeat a couple times.

Following up this single is “Secrets,” another string filled playground. This particular track sounds like it wants to be a Beyonce song, which considering Mr. Tedder has written for her, makes a lot of sense. The same can be said for “Good Life,” a very middle of the road and radio friendly little tune with some tripping vocal patterns, but I’d rather hear it from the diva than an altern pop rock band.

An excellent save comes in the form of “Everybody Loves Me.” The opening alone makes you wanna dance with some acoustic guitar and tambourine. The chorus is obscenely easy to sing along to and vocally it sounds like it wants to be a blues song that’s yelling to be taken out for a joyride.

“Missing Persons 1 & 2” sends a wink and a smile out to U2. It could try to be a huge stadium song, but it falls a bit short with an almost juvenile feel at times. It takes a turn of the Radiohead variety in the middle where a chaotic mess becomes a more structured melody that has a serious Thom Yorke and almost out of body feeling that seriously hits how it’s meant to. This is a song that’d smile at you from across the room but it doesn’t want to come up and introduce itself.

Another serious U2 number is “Waking Up.” The guitar tones could have been borrowed straight from the Edge and nobody would be the wiser, but it’s layered over with a Killers feeling. We’re finally allowed to hear with Tedder’s voice can do, however. This man’s range is absolutely beautiful, it can do amazing things and should not be restrained in any way.

There’s not a lot going on lyrically, and the song bleeds into an instrumental bit that would be far better if Matthew Bellamy got his hands on it. It almost sounds like something a worship band would do while the pastor’s praying or doing an altar call so that’s interesting, but I don’t really like the headspace it puts you in, something feels off and awkward.

The intro for “Marchin On” is a dead ringer for a chilled down version of Bloc Party’s “This Modern Love” but then turns into something that is straight off of Coldplay’s latest album. Everything about it could be driving modern Brit-rock, yet it has a nondescript clapping pattern that Anberlin would be a fan of. Regardless, it’s a great song. I like it but I wouldn’t have guessed it was OneRepublic without the vocalist. Which is cool, it’s nice to switch things up, but I would have guessed it was someone else entirely.

The album closes with the pleasantly boring and ambient sounding “Lullaby.” The title fits, I’ll be prone to skipping it along with “All This Time” and “Fear.” All things considered, I think it’s a fine sophomore effort. It’s hard to follow up their first album, but somehow I think OneRepublic can get past the harsher criticism out there and come out with some really nice songs that we’ll be singing for years to come.