Music you should be excited about

Pop Culture Tuesdays

I love music and there's a lot coming out soon that I'm SUPER excited out.  I'm going to talk about three bands I get all fangirly over.

LUDO;

I own every Ludo album, they have a very distinct sound, each song tells a story, some are funny, some are heartbreaking.  It's epic and humble.  they wrote a rock opera called The Broken Bride, and I've listened to it at least 10 times and I have no idea what it's about, but the music is nice.   Whipped Cream is the single off their new album.  4 unsexy guys trying to be overly sexy is hilarious..  Awesome.




Their new album Prepare the Preparations comes out Sept 7.

Anberlin

There is another band I own every CD they put out.  Their rarity CD is amazing.  I spent $18 for a delux various of a CD I already had because the band signed it. Then I lost it.  Shhhh don't tell my  hubby.  This was the band that made me realize Christian rock didn't have to be all about God and preachy.  Instead it could ROCK and be insightful and meaningful. Anberlin doesn't curse and sing about drugs, besides that, it's exactly like every other band I listen too.  Expect Anberlin is one of the BEST.




The new album comes out Sept 7 and it's called Dark is the way: Light is the place.



Finally is Jimmy Eat World.
Ok I'll forgive them for the really stupid name because I love this band.  Bleed American I listened to so much the CD partially melted.  I've seen them live 4 times and I"m going to Virgin Fest because they'll be playing.  Jimmy Eat World are credited with creating the emo music movement, which is sort of a weird honor and interesting because they'll out live the emo music movement.  In the Middle is one of my favorite songs of all time. 



Their new album is Invented and it will be out Sept 28
It also has the nicest cover out of all them.

Also The Airborne Toxic Event has a DVD release coming out.  It looks NOTHING short of incredible.   It's also coming on Sept 7.  I'm going to be VERY busy at best buy that day.

In honor of SO much Kick @$$ music coming out,  September will be MUSIC MONTH! 
Every week I will be picking 1 commenter and send them a MIX CD. I might pick more than one a week.  I will most likely pick you if you do the same contest on your blog.  So there might be more than one winner a week.  YAY!

The great and forgotten

Pop Culture Tuesdays

Sometimes TV gives us greatness and sometimes the rest of the viewing public doesn't catch on to the awesomeness of the show.    Sometimes the show has it run and it ends and then it's completely forgotten.

Here are my favorites:
Cartoons:

The Tick
A dumb superhero named the Tick tries to protect The City with his sidekick Arthur the moth-- not a bunny with wings.  In the second season he get a dog named Speak, because the speaks to the Tick.  It's one of the funniest shows I've ever seen.

Exosquad
A show about a war between races, smart, edgy characters died, sciencey and techy  and all in all awesome.  The show was complex and wonderfully written.  And totally forgotten.

Invader Zim
Lots of yelling, smart in the way it shows humanity's stupid.  Zim is the dumbest of all the invaders.

Drama

The West Wing.
What if Politics was cool, important and the president did the right thing all the time.  Yes in the late 90's early 2000's this show was smart.  Seriously I learned something in every episode.  The first  two seasons where perfect from beginning to end and when Donna Moss finds out Josh Lyman was shut, I wept.  Seriously 10 years later and it can still bring a tear to my eye.  Josh Lyman and Donna Moss were one of the best ships out there. 

Dead like Me.
What if you died but you got to live a little longer as a reaper?  yeah Awesome.  It was a heart felt show that dealt with serious matters with the perfect blend of dark humor.  It was so good years after it was canceled they made a movie out of it to continue the show.

X-files 
Maybe not forgotten but maybe overlooked as how important the show really was.  Without X-files there would be no Buffy, also most NONE of the shows on Syfy network, and no Lost.
Although the last three seasons became completely unwatchable.

So there's like thousands of other shows I could talk about and maybe I will when I start to run out of ideas to blog about. 

phineas and ferb

Pop Culture Tuesday.

This summer I've discovered a new TV show.  I was late to three playdates because of it.   The name of the show is Phineas and Ferb.  It's about these two brothers who do something amazing everyday and somehow NEVER get caught.  There was one episode when they were trying to reunite a band for their parents aniversey.  When I told the mothers at the play date that's why I was late, one mother said, "Love Handle, that's the name of the band."

Ok, so yeah.  The show is AWESOME.

Every episode their sister tries to get them busted, and every time something happens and no one believes her.

The best is their pet platypus who is a secret agent... Nuff said.

The writing is spot on, it's the sort of show that exactly what it is.  The timing and pacing is perfect.  If you want to learn how to write humor, watch this show.

The Theme Song basically sums up the whole show.




You can watch full episodes here.

It might ruin your life, but you'll laugh while it's happening. 

YouTube- it's not cute animals anymore

click over to see my contest! You could win a MYSTERY BOX.

Pop Culture Tuesday

So there's this website called YouTube.  Have you heard of it?  Yeah you've seen cute videos of cats falling off of things or a skateboarding dog.  Whatever, it's not like it a legit form of entertainment, right?

My dears you are SO very wrong.  

Here's the thing, if you're reading this blog chances are you either, A know me personally, (Hi Mom) or B want to write something, most likely YA lit. 

Many people who write YA do not have the profound pleasure of hanging around teenagers 10 months out of the year... sucks to be you.  

No most YA author's have their own kids or are in their mid 20's and are trying to recall that horrific time in their lives when everything sucked and your friends betrayed you and your skin exploded and no one want to date you because you didn't have boobs.  Or that could have been my teenage experaince. 

Anyway for most people teenagers out of their social group (and they should be, it fraking creepy to be 31 with a moragage and a kid hanging out at pharm party or a texting party.) 

So how can you get to know what a teenager is really like?  There's the internet and YouTube.  

Here's what you need to know, there's LOTS of videos out there on YouTube but I'm going to talk about four YouTubers.  

Shane Dawson, he's young, funny, dresses up in a lot of his videos, isn't censored, wears too much red lipstick and has over  1.7 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS!   Subscribers aren't people who watch 1 video and are done with you, they watch TONS of videos.

Most of them are, yep you guessed it TEENAGERS.  Watching his a video and you'll see why. 

Are you writing a wacky male lead?  Shane Dawson is a great reference.

Next person I want to talk about it IJustine.  First off, she's beauitful, her lips are shiny and her hair is perfect and she must be every geek fanasity girl.  She does these cute wacky videos and here's the thing, SHE DOES THEM.  She's clever and funny and TECHIE!  She also has over a Million subscribers.  She's a LIFECASTER which means she vlogs constantly.  I subscribed to her yesterday and she's already posted 4 vidoes. 

Shane and Ijustine are doing with the cameras what network TV can't do.  Maintain Viewership.  

These two also sometimes play to the lowest common demomnater.

Charlie does not.  He's smart, young, completely lost and British.  He has a brain in his head and isn't sure exactly how to use it.  

Lastly it's emlfiy. She's geeky, she's smart, she's quirky.  She's also highly entertaining.  She's me in high school.  She also has the least amount of videos and the least followers.  

You Tube is Legit.  Kids/teenagers are creating interesting and entertaining content out there.  You're future readers are watching it.  

Time to face it, the internet isn't going away.  Fraking awesome!