Grab the Popcorn

Video time! :)

Sing along with Melee!! :)



Getting Ready to Tour - The Myriad:



Switchfoot Podcast:

Cd Saturday

Friday was mostly awful for me. Fortunately, Friday ended and things looked much brighter on Saturday morn.... I mean afternoon. I stayed up really late and slept until 3:30 p.m. I wanted to go to a scrapbook thing today, but it started at 10 a.m. I tried, but it just didn't happen. One of the things that lifted me from the Friday funk was The Fold's cd, Secrets Keep You Sick, but the icing on the cake was playing Singularity by Mae on my Zune, and trying not to laugh when Brink of Disaster started playing. The lyrics so fit my day that I almost laughed out loud. LOL

So, it is somewhat fitting that I set aside a part of Saturday to put up a few more Mae posters at this end of town. First stop was the Guitar Center in Riverdale. I went in and asked if they had earplugs - the good sort that cuts off after a certain decibel level and allows you to still hear the music -- hopefully without it seeming so muffled. They had some, and I will try them out at the next show. This is probably long overdue. Then I asked if they had a place to put up concert posters, which they did. I'm not sure how much traffic it gets except employees, but they have ads up for people looking for drummers, etc., so hopefully it gets a bit. Anyway, it was fun as the clerk loves Mae and The Honorary Title. I gave him a Mae sticker and Honorary Title poster and he was really excited about it. Unfortunately, I drove off without my camera, so no photo proof, although I may get to that later if I can wake up early enough before work sometime. Anyway, I headed over to Graywhale to put up a poster in Ogden. So there will be posters @ Graywhale's in Ogden, Bountiful, Salt Lake City, and Taylorsville. I think Taylorsville is closest to the venue. Mae did an acoustic set there at least once. Anyway, while I was at the Ogden Graywhale, I decided to look through their cd's and found a Tori Amos cd, "The Beekeeper" and Death Cab for Cutie's "You Can Play These Songs With Chords." It isn't the Death Cab cd I was looking for, but I didn't have it so I bought it.

I stopped at another music place on Riverdale Road and was going to ask if they put up posters, and on the door I saw posters all over for a "Battle of the Bands" at Weber State, and Daphne Loves Derby is playing on April 11. Figures it is a Friday! LOL But since Weber is pretty close to work, I might be able to work something out to maybe work the whole 8 hours at different times of the day than usual. I hope so... that's if you don't have to be a student or anything. Anyway, I left two posters with an employee, since they were closed, and he said he'd see about getting them approved. I'll check back sometime in the next week.

Then I made a short pit stop and home, picked up my camera, went to Wally World (aka Wal Mart for those not in on the lingo) and decided to pick up Mercy Me's new cd. I really wanted Santus Real's cd, but it looks like I'll have to order it online if I want it. :( I had ordered some pics from the Mute Math/Matchbox 20 concert from Wal Mart online, and my main goal was to pick them up. I went through the pics and noticed that it only printed half my order. Instead of the whole album, it just picked up the last 29 pics that I added to the album. So, I ended up using the kiosk. Unfortunately, I left the SD card in the kiosk, typical Melanie style. Sigh... Fortunately, I discovered it fairly soon, and someone had turned it in, although I can't pick it up until tomorrow.

Next stop was Music to the Maxx in Layton. I asked about putting up the poster, and it was taped on the window near the door. Then I looked around and found Melee's first cd, "Everyday Behavior." Once upon a time, I tried to order it from Amazon, and somehow ordered their ep instead. SO, I still didn't have it until this evening. I got so excited when I saw that Music to the Maxx had Melee's cd. LOL So, after I paid for my find I chatted with the clerks, gave them a Mae sticker, and asked about music they were playing that I liked. So, then I had them listening to Melee, Eisley, The Myriad, etc. I thanked them for indulging me and went to take a photo, which is when I realized that I had no sd card in my camera. I did have another one in the camera case, so at least I still got a pic.


Then I headed for home and the post office. I stopped at Grounds for Coffee and left a poster that they will hopefully put up if the manager approves it. I ordered a Peach Italian Soda, which I love, and if I must say so, it was pretty good! I rather miss their Italian sodas, so now that it's not bitter cold, I should do that more often again. :)

With Italian soda in hand I headed for the post office to check my P.O. Box, and the Angels and Airwaves cd was waiting for me there from www.yourmusic.com.

So, today I have 5 new cd's (well, at least new to me) to add to my Zune. It should keep me busy and in trouble.

Hope everyone had a great Saturday!!

Peace out,
Melanie

P.S. photos to follow soon.

Melee at Kilby Court

Now I'm part of the entertainment

I'm sitting here trying to think of a way to give you a window into the time since I last posted a blog without writing yet another mini novel. I don't suppose it is any accident that the two vocabulary words that really stuck with me from high school were garrulous and loquacious. See, I'm already getting long-winded!

Friday the 18th, I headed out to Kilby Court to see We Shot the Moon. If you are not familiar with them, it is Jonathan Jones of Waking Ashland's band. The recorded version of the band includes Joe and Dan of Sherwood. If you are totally lost at this point, I can only suggest checking out myspace. Kilby Court is a small venue reminiscient of a large garage. I guess there is new ownership and they recently upgraded the sound. Let me tell you, it was the best thing anyone has done for shows here in a while. The sound was amazing. No struggling to make out words because of bad or distorted vocals. I don't know if I would have known the great sound was in part due to an upgrade, except Jonathan mentioned it. Let's just say that I had a great time at the show and the music was fantastic. I got to talk to everyone, since it's pretty difficult to avoid artists at Kilby, and enjoyed that as well. The show on Friday was an early show starting at 5:30 p.m. and ending by 8 p.m. Then there was a second concert. The downside to this was that there was no hanging out by the fire making s'mores. :(






Saturday, I made the drive to Sandy to the Solid Ground Cafe to see Brighten with Number One Gun, Sever Your Ties, S.A.W. and Larusso. Shortly after I arrived one of the bands got out of their van and had a snowball fight. I captured a great shot of one of them in the act, but unfortunately I didn't give the camera enough time to focus (in which case there would have been no pic. That was a bummer. Once the show started, all of the bands played well, although Sever Your Ties was too screamy for me for the most part. I have to say they have one of the better stage presentations, though and they were really fun to watch. I met and talked to the lead singer, Justin, after the show and he is just such a nice, fun person! Brighten was outstanding, as they were last time I saw them at the same venue. I was able to chat with Justin a bit (yea, too many Justin's - it gets confusing sometimes) and got a few good photos to show for it. After the show I bought a tee from Brighten, an ep from Larusso along with a stretchy shirt with hood. I wore it the next day and got several compliments. I also bought a cd from Number One Gun. In other words, I overspent. LOL It was a long drive home, but I had a good time.



Monday, I went to yet another concert to see Sound the Alarm open for Finch. The first band that played, Mury wasn't too bad. Their second song song was a little rough with the vocals at the beginning, but everything else had a pretty good sound.
Second, the band I came to see, Sound the Alarm played and put on a great show. I think they impressed some Finch fans that had never heard them before. After STA, some band played for an excruciatingly long time. Their music had no clear melody and one song droned into another. It was painful. I'll die if they read this, as I usually try to find good things to say, but seriously, I just wanted their set to end. I wish I could say I was alone in this feeeling, but I wasn't. Then Finch played. I have to say I liked the first two songs, but then they got screamy. SO, I went to the back to talk to STA and buy merch (a tee.) I watched Finch from the back. I did like the last song they played. IT wasn't screamy. LOL I didn't get a lot of great pics since the lighting wasn't exactly the best (story of the week), but I do think I have a few. Thanks to Savannah, I have a pic with the STA guys. The biggest downside, was dropping one of my 50mm lenses solidly on the cement flooring and breaking it in two. Not a happy moment. It isn't an overly expensive lens, and I have a back up, but I don't think the back up is quite as sharp for some reason. C'est la vie!



Tuesday I had just got a few things done, tried to work on some photos, and I got my hair cut. :)

The last night, Wed., the 23rd, I went to lunch with my husband and to the paint ball gun store (or whatever you call it) to get him something for his birthday. Yea, I ditched him on his birthday to go see Melee. It's o.k. He didn't seem to mind at all. He had a nice quiet time to work on his new toy! LOL Usually he is asleep pretty early anyway. I was supposed to have a meet & greet, which was funny since Kilby is so small. So, I headed for SLC and arrived at Kilby Court at about 4:05 p.m. As I am pulling into the alley, a white van was pulling out, and I thought I saw Ryan driving. I pulled over to let them drive by and saw Ricky in the passenger seat. He waved at me and I waved back. (Later I was told they were on their way to a radio interview.) When they finally arrived back at the venue, I saw Chris and gave him the C.S. Lewis book I had for him. He loved it. :) Then I talked to Chris for a while until I saw Mike by the fire pit (yes, Kilby has a fire pit) and took him some Pirate's Booty. He was pretty excited about it. That made my night. I didn't get much of a chance to see Ricky before the show and I didn't really talk to Ryan until later. I had something for Ricky, which he loves, but everyone else didn't. LOL And I had a birthday gift for Ryan. Matt White played first, and I enjoyed his set a lot. I met him before the show and gave him a hand warmer because he had no gloves and it was making me cold looking at him. LOL So, from the stage, he thanked me for it. AFterwards, I had the planned meet & greet, but since Until June wasn't playing at our show, Melee was kinda busy setting up for theirs. I had a place to the side of the stage where I thought I could get some pics. This time I should have been on the other side. I never seem to get the right spot with them. LOL
Anyway, they did set up, and the show was great! The sound was simply amazing and I think this is the first time I could really hear Ryan's background vocals well. I had hoped for Can't Hold On as part of the set, but it didn't happen. Chris told me he'd try to put in in next time (and I will do my best to hold him to that.) ;) I had the best time during their set. It was so fun and energetic. After the show I talked to all of the guys again and to Ryan and gave him his birthday gift. We talked about the Beatles, among other things. Someone came up to me and told me I was adorable. I told her that I don't think that is usually what most people think of when they see me, but she reiterated it and said that she was watching me as much as the band. LOL... so now I'm part of the entertainment. ;) I'm still not sure what to think of that. Melee is just too much fun to watch - much more fun than this semi-old lady acting silly while watching Melee. :) I hated to leave so early, but Melee was packing up, and then heading to Park City to open for Josh Groban. They were totally excited about it. :) I was excited for them!!!
Anyway, I got lots of hugs, which I love. I'm a hugging sort of person at heart. I finally walked to my car with Lauralee and her sister, and gave them a chocolate bar since s'mores didn't work out. Then I headed for home.







I figured my husband might be asleep, but I called him to tell him I was heading home and he was still up, so I stopped at Smith's and bought him a chocolate cake. I knew it had to be chocolate for him, but since I don't eat chocolate, I noticed that Smith's had individual pieces of white cake, so I bought one, so we could have cake together, and we did. :) I even sang Happy Birthday.



Peace out,
Melanie

Short Melee Headlining Tour

My busy January plus February concert news

So far January has been somewhat quiet, which is a good thing. I'm not sleeping enough... not too unusual. I have been going to sleep a little earlier, but I seem to wake up after 6-7 hours of sleep, and I always feel like I need 8. Such is my life. LOL

I have tickets for quite a few shows in January, and two shows planned that I don't have tickets for as of yet. I am supposed to be called back to work around
Jan. 21. I'm hoping to delay it, if possible to the 24th. I already put Jan. 23 as a requested day off, but I really want to see Sound the Alarm on the 21st, and I really don't want to use my leave for the 23rd. So, we'll see what happens.

Anyway, here is what things look like so far:
Jan. 12 Brian Magana in Layton, UT (local, not too far from home... beautiful voice, haunting melodies.)
Jan. 16 One Republic McKay Events Center in Orem
Jan. 18 We Shot the Moon at Kilby Court in Salt Lake
Jan. 19 Brighten (Number One Gun, et al.) Solid Ground Cafe in Sandy
Jan. 21 Sound the Alarm, et al. at The Avalon in S. Salt Lake City
Jan. 23 Melee at Kilby Court in Salt Lake
I need to move to Salt Lake City for about a week. LOL Gas prices are going to
kill me.

In February, I only have two concerts planned, and that's because one of them was postponed from December(Colbie Callait.) It just figures that the December show was moved to Friday, Feb. 15, which will be a bear to get off work. They hate it when anyone takes off on a Friday. The other date is Steven Curtis Chapman on Feb. 23. I will likely be working at that show. I'm still waiting for word on how that's going to work as I've never worked at that venue before.

Anyway, here is the info. on the Steven Curtis Chapman concert:



(click for larger view)

This is the first time Mr. Chapman has performed in this area. The nice thing is that it's a much easier/shorter commute than usual. That's always helpful. :)

If you know anyone in SLC, pass the info. along. I've seen him in concert before and he puts on a good concert. I think he is much, much better live than his cd's.

Should I even talk about March yet? Hey.. why not?
Angels & Airwaves, The Color Fred on March 4 at In the Venue (still need approval for time off work)
Mute Math with Alanis Morisette & Matchbox 20 on March 6 @ the E-Center
March 29, The Starting Line (yea for a Saturday show!)

You know... I almost hope no one comes in April. LOL I hate to miss a show I really want to see, but I may need a break. Yes, I think I am certifiable. LOL

Love, Peace, and a musical 2008,
--Melanie

Photo Blog, Bowling for Soup, Melee, Over It, Jan. 18,2006