Ocean Eyes - Cover your eyes?

So Owl City is having this contest, right? And to win an autographed poster, album, and $50 iTunes gift card, all you have to do is upload a review of his new album Ocean Eyes onto YouTube, right? And I figured, hey, how about I make a super cute video where my Beanie Babies and duck-shaped soap review the album? Wouldn't that be cute?

It ended up looking totally stupid. Mostly cuz I made it in under 4 hours with my arch nemesis, Windows Movie Maker. But also cuz it's stupid.

So I don't really want anyone to watch it... But since it's a music review that I made and posted online, I feel obligated to post it here... There's a legit review of the album in the last 20 seconds or so. I'll find it for you...



2:11. There's the review. So it's a review of Ocean Eyes, plus two minutes and 11 seconds of my Beanie Babies sitting in front of my mom's calendar. What great work.

But for reals, the album is a million trillion zillion times better than my lame little video. Check it out on iTunes or buy it in stores and other places this Tuesday!

Such a Perfect Video

Coldplay's new video for "Strawberry Swing" premiered today, and I can't say a whole lot about it because it's too breath-taking. Maybe I'm just a sucker for music videos mixing live action with animation, but I'd say it's one of the most beautiful, artful videos I've ever seen.

Watch it. Please.

Super Psyched about Rosy Likes Red's Win!

Just wanted to say congrats to Rosy Likes Red for making Syke Band of the Month. I love Syke, and I love Rosy Likes Red, so I would say that I was totally psyched to see that they won... but that pun would just be too cheesy. I'll go with "stoked" instead.

Also, I am going to stop telling people I love Rosy Likes Red and switch to I absolutely adore Rosy Likes Red because they are just so sweet. They even linked to my review in their MySpace blog. I really wish I was going to be in the country for their shows at the Recher Theater and Jammin Java in August. But I definitely recommend that everyone else in the area goes and checks them out!

In other Rosy Likes Red-related news, the band has posted a bunch of pictures from Warped Tour on their MySpace (I'm still looking for the back of my head so I can brag even more about how good my spot was ^^)

And in case you haven't read my review of their set and are wondering who these guys are that I keep blabbering about, it is your duty as a Maryland citizen (or foreign reader cool enough to be from Maryland) to read my review of this amazing lil local band then check out their songs.

Might Be the Nicest, Sweetest Pimp Ever

It would be easy to call Stephen Barnes another little Internet novelty singer because a lot of his songs are pretty novel. Take his acoustic cover of "Swing" by Savage. I never thought that song could be heartwarming, but he sings "knees bent, ass out, come on push your ass out" in such a tender way.

But is that really so surprising from the man behind "Might Be a Pimp," the sweetest little song you've ever heard about prostitutes.

"I might be a pimp
And you might be a ho
But baby I will love you until I grow old"

Awww. It's fun, catchy, and - to make a good deal better - free! All Stephen's songs are available for free download on his PureVolume, and yes, all of them are just as sweet and heartwarming as his songs about prostitution.

If you're in the mood for something a bit more wholesome (but no less novel), I'd recommend my personal favorite Stephen Barnes song, "Handstands for Kelsey." It's an acoustic cover of a mash-up of "Bruises" by Chairlift and "Kelsey" by Metro Station, and no, it does not sound as bad as you think it should. It actually sounds pretty amazing. Check it out. On his MySpace player because this song isn't on YouTube. I trust that even all you Facebookies can find the song :)

Stephen's MySpace looks like a clone of NeverShoutNever's, or at least a younger brother trying his best to imitate NSN. And that's probably no coincidence - when Stephen sent me a friend request, I saw NSN listed as one of our 8 mutual friends. Of course, Stephen is nowhere near as successful as NSN - NSN has over 136 times as many MySpace friends as Stephen (yeah, I did the math). But Stephen's songs trade the simplicity and childlike joy of many of NSN's songs for more sophisticated songwriting. Although I must admit, NeverShoutNever's songs keep getting more and more elaborate, as anyone who's heard The Summer EP knows.

...Well, I don't really have anything newsworthy to say about Stephen Barnes; I just heard his music for the first time about an hour ago, actually. So I don't really know what he's up to, so I guess I'll just leave this here... But wasn't that cover of "Swing" newsworthy enough, even if the original Savage/Soulja Boy song was released almost a year ago and Stephen's cover was released months ago? I thought the whole world needed to know about it ASAP.

Edit: Jaykay, apparently any similarities between Stephen's profile and NeverShoutNever's are purely coincidental. Stephen told me he's not a big fan of NSN and is "trying to be nothing like nsn."
I guess even musicians don't have to like all their MySpace friends...

A Brilliant Array of "Fireflies" Light the Sky

I blame the lazy, lightning bug-filled nights of summer for making me forget to tell the entire world that Owl City's new single "Fireflies" has been available for free download on iTunes all this week. But you still have two days to zap over to iTunes and grab a copy.

Or you could always pay $.99 for this beautiful little ode to fireflies, insomnia, and other wondrous dreams. A song as magical as this is kind of worth the money.



But wait, there's more - the music video for "Fireflies" premiered yesterday on Owl City's MySpace! Normally I hate videos that all take place in one room and videos where the singer is just sitting at a piano the whole time - yawn! But this video takes place in no ordinary bedroom. Yet again, Owl City takes a mundane situation and turns it into a gorgeous work of art (for more examples of this, see "Early Birdie," a song about going on vacation, complete with highways and shuttle buses, but described in the breath-taking way only Owl City can describe them).

Cute, child-like, wondrous, beautiful.

Owl City "Fireflies"


And where can I get that adorable little dancing wind-up crab at 1:58???

Also, congrats to Owl City for having the #2 album on iTunes. Yup, Ocean Eyes is second only to Daughtry, beating out the Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, and every other band in the world that is not Daughtry.

It's taken me all week to wrap my head around "Fireflies"' beauty, so I'm not quite ready to extensively review Ocean Eyes, but I can tell you I definitely recommend it. (Also, may I note that it only costs $7.99 right now - pretty good.) As always, Owl City's songs shine a thousand little lights on the beauty in everything from the sea to the sky to the city of Seattle to dancing lightning bugs.

Warped Tour Diary Part 1: The Canned Food Conundrum, Sing It Loud, and the Next Jonas Brothers?!!?

Warped Tour. Alternative Press can (and will) spend hours talking about how it's the only summer tour that matters (What, AP's not into the JoBros World Tour? Or Demi Lovato and David Archuleta??), so you can pick up a copy of their magazine if you want a long-winded explanation of why Warped Tour is awesome. For my introduction, all I can say is, it is. It's big and long and hot and sweaty and weird and scary and hilarious and it would probably smell like gym socks if not for the overwhelming stench of tobacco. But we love it anyways.

2009's tour was an extremely momentous occasion: it marked the first time in history that my parents actually let me go. So this Tuesday, my friend and I got up at the crack of 7:00 (soooo earrrlyyyyy...) to make sure we got to the Merriweather Post Pavilion before the crowds did (I hear they start arriving around 9:00).

Tiffany, my friend laughed at your blog about being in the middle of the woods since Columbia Mall is literally across the street from Merriweather Post, but I totally feel you. I was sure I would get attacked by a bear while trying to find the main entrance in that forest. First, I got to the North Gate, which appears to be the chill entrance. Everyone was just sitting in circles on the ground. I'd like to chill there next year. But I was meeting up with a friend of a friend who had been standing in line at the main entrance since 7:30 (now that's dedication), so I had to rush past Barely Blind and their $5 EPs (all the way from Texas - wow!) and hug the fence of the pavilion, leaving a trail of Chewy bar crumbs so I wouldn't get lost.

(Okay, so maybe hugging the fence was enough to keep me from getting lost. Plus there was no way I was dropping any of my well-hid snacks on the ground. But didn't that make a cute story?)

We got in line easily enough, applied some sunscreen, and settled in for the long wait. The guys from The Promise Hero came by hocking their $5 EP, but they didn't seem too impressed when I started squealing about how I'm friends with them on MySpace and think they're really cool. Honestly, they seemed a bit more interested in my friend's friend's tank top and short shorts. Guys.

A few other people came by touting $5 EPs, and one guy even had an EP he was willing to sell for $2-5, whatever we were comfortable paying. That was cool. But he still focused his attention on the girls in tank tops and lost a sale because of it. We also got accosted by the friendly folks from Peta2, which has now decided to give away DVDs and stickers at every musical event in the world. I signed a petition against animal testing by cosmetics companies, despite my burning hatred for organizations that spend their money giving out free DVDs and stickers when they could use the money to, oh, I don't know, help animals, or something like that. But whatever.

My friends and I all brought canned foods because we wanted free cut-the-line passes. And we like helping those less fortunate. We kept looking for places to drop it off (because I really don't want to carry my condensed milk and canned peaches around all day, thank you), but the Peta2 girls were clueless about it, and the Merriweather employees actually refused to talk about it. Weird. But around 10:00, all us line-jumping do-gooders got to stand under a tree, then move to a secret entrance next to some trailers, across the street from the dumpsters. Apparently this was the VIP entrance, too.

At first, we were all smushed together into one big line. I was standing near a guy wearing an Owl City t-shirt and was about to profess my love for Owl City to him and ask him if he was a member of the street team too and ask him to be my best friend, but just then, they divided our big mass of people trying to pass itself off as a line into two big masses of people trying to pass themselves off as the VIP line and the other line. Owl City Fan was a VIP, and I was a mere canned food-carrying commoner. Sigh. I never got to talk to him. I did manage to holler "I like you NeverShoutNever shirt" at a rather bewildered boy in a NeverShoutNever shirt, though.

They said they'd let our line in 10-15 minutes early, but by the time we got in, the pavilion was already flooded by folks from the main entrance. So maybe we would've gotten in earlier if we hadn't helped the needy. Oh well. Time to spend $2 on a sheet of paper with the schedule and move on!

The First Band: Sing It Loud

After our first lap around the pavilion, I bought a $6 smoothie (Sorry hon, I ain't paying $2 extra to carry around a sticky souvenir cup all day. Though the 3-foot tall $9 cups did look pretty darn cool...) and settled in to watch Sing It Loud's set.




Pat Brown has prettier hair than any other non-transvestite on Warped Tour. (But he's got nothing on Jeffree Star.)



My overpriced strawberry smoothie and I rocked out to a couple songs, including "Bite Your Lip." I truly admire Sing It Loud for noticing that a girl is biting her lower lip. Any other Warped Tour band would probably have called the song "Flash Your Tits" or "Shake Your Ass." Props to Sing It Loud for looking above chest-level.

My New Favorite Band: Rosy Likes Red

During Sing It Loud's last song, my friend and I made our way over the Kevin Says stage to get a good spot for the Baltimore band Rosy Likes Red. We got there pretty early, so there were plenty of spaces available to stand near the stage... including front row, center. Right in front of two giant speakers, of course, but you can't pass up a Great Spot like that. Sacrifice your hearing for the love of music.

While the band was setting up, two girls approached us and asked if we were there to see Vamps or if we'd be leaving after this band played (yeah, you know you want our Great Spot). We told them we were just here for Rosy Likes Red, then we'd probably go to another stage, so they could have our Great Spot. I checked out the schedule, seeing that Rosy Likes Red was scheduled to begin at 11:50, and Vamps was playing... at 3:55.

"You're seeing Vamps at 4:00?" I asked the girls, confused.

"Yeah," she said, and explained that they're a Japanese band who doesn't come to the US very often. She's gone to New York to see them before, so I guess standing outside in front of some speakers for 4 hours was no big... That's dedication. The Vamps fans were really cool. I tried to bond with them over our love of Asian Music No Other Non-Asians Listen To, but my mangled pronunciation of Aof Pongsak meant nothing to them. They also kind of liked Girls Generation, though, so that was cool. I'm definitely going to check out Vamps sometime, see if they're really worth the hot, sweaty wait.



But our conversation was cut short when Rosy Likes Red worked out their technical difficulties (for the moment...) and began their set.








I'd never heard of Rosy Likes Red before Warped Tour, so I can't tell you exactly which songs they played, but I can tell you they sounded good. On their MySpace, they describe themselves as new wave/emo/post punk with a retro sound. I don't know much about new wave post punk (for one thing, I thought that was an oxymoron...), but I would classify them as pop-punk. Their music reminded me of Blink-182's lighter stuff. I picked up a copy of their EP after the show (and got them all to sign it - yay!). I can definitely recommend the songs "Girl, You Take My Breath Away" and "Give Up." "Down" sounds a bit shakier on the EP, not quite as melodious, but still pretty rockin'.



But the thing that really struck me about Rosy Likes Red was their image and stage presence. Lead singer Connor looked very striking in a black tee, red skinny jeans, and mismatched red and black Chucks. Was it just coincidence that he was wearing fire engine pants, which were the trademark of Joe Jonas before they became the trademark of every lite emo hipster? Or that bassist Byron had a fauxhawk, which was the trademark of Joe Jonas before the band got involved with Disney and Disney reportedly cut off the Joehawk because it was too immature? Rosy Likes Red's stage presence reminded me of the Jonas Brothers before every elementary schooler in the world had a Camp Rock pillowcase, back when they were just a little pop-punk band from Jersey that was heavier on the pop. Disney probably won't be banging down Rosy Likes Red's door because RLR is certainly heavier on the punk half of the genre than the JoBros ever were, but RLR's on-stage antics were certainly reminiscent of the free Jonas Brothers concert I saw in Six Flags two years ago, before they released their first album on a Disney-owned record label. Connor jumped and danced around, just as Kevin Jonas always did. He also walked right up to the edge of the stage, on top of the speakers, looking too cool in his wayfarer shades. He didn't quite have the Joe Jonas Rockstar Strut down, but he was getting there.

Cute moment: Rosy Likes Red's motto is "Get naked and dance!" Near the beginning of the set, Connor said that. A girl behind me started lifting up her tank top.

"Oh my God!" Connor screamed. "She's actually doing it!"

Sure, I don't honestly believe she was going to take it all off, and I don't if Connor really believed that either, but it was the cutest thing ever. Any other band would've cheered and egged her on, but Rosy Likes Red seemed genuinely shocked, bless their skinny-jeans-loving little hearts.



But seriously folks, Rosy Likes Red were awesome. And Jonas haters, please don't write them off because I just spent the last 250 words saying their set was like a "Year 3000"-era Jonas Brothers nostalgia tour. They aren't little JoBros wannabes or anything like that. They're a super cool local band everyone should check out.



Also, their drummer looked amazing. I don't know much about drumming, but I do know that the way he went from the snare and toms to the cymbals looked really cool. Their songs didn't have very funky beats, but he played them in a pretty funky-looking way. I never saw him do the traditional one-hand-on-snare-other-on-tom setup most drummers use. I think... Uggh, I know nothing about drumming, but I think their drummer was really cool. Drummers, please comment and either explain what I'm trying to say or just tell me I'm crazy.



Rosy Likes Red had a bunch of technical difficulties during their set, but they handled them with charm and charisma. Connor spilled his drink on the wires connecting his mic and guitar, but he turned the whole thing into a joke about how he's such a crazy, destructive rock star. Lots of things kept going wrong with their equipment, but RLR never missed a beat. Very good for a little local band on the Kevin Says stage.




Did I mention how close to the stage we were? We were so close to the stage. I think I could have touched Connor if I had reached my hand out. But no one else was trying to touch him, and RLR isn't super famous (yet), so I was afraid I would come off as weird and creepy instead of cute and fangirly. So I kept my hands to myself.

I still want to be able to reach out and touch someone on some stage at some point in my life, though.



Also, at the end of their set, some guy in short shorts and nothing else came running out on stage. It reminded me of how Hellogoodbye concerts usually end with guys dressed up in colorful Mexican garb or beer bottle costumes dancing around the stage. It was random, but it was a cool touch.



After the set, my friend and I went over to RLR's tent to hang out with them and get autographs and the like. We both bought their EP and got everyone to sign it. At first, the guys started signing the front of the plastic case instead of the disc itself. Then they realized it was better to sign the actual disc. Cuties. Guess they aren't too used to giving autographs.

Other cool fact: my friend went bowling with their bassist, Byron, and he recognized her! Yeah, I'm friends with friends of famous people. Be jealous.



I also got my picture taken with all the members of RLR except Connor, who was busy talking to some friends and kind of oblivious to the fact that me and my friend were standig right next to him for, oh, I don't know, five minutes. Hmmm. It was worth it to get his autograph, though. Plus it gave me some time to check out Alana Grace, who played on the Kevin Says stage after RLR. She sounded all right. One of the few female-fronted rock bands at Warped Tour this year (or was she a solo artist with a back-up band?). The few minutes I heard of her set weren't very remarkable, though I liked her black tee with gold writing on it. Couldn't read it, but it looked cool.



And thus ends Part 1 of my diary of my day at Warped Tour. Stay tuned for the dish on Lights, the scariest mosh pit I've ever seen (not Lights'), and a very pissy British band that is not afraid to kick you in the vagina.