The Performing Arts: A reprise.

Last Sunday night I went to see Macklemore at the 7th St. Entry and was simply blown away by his performance, which was more of a celebration with the Minneapolis crowd than a one-sided affair. He was sick and he was tired but he feasted on the energy of that tiny room and gave one of the craziest performances he could.
The show triggered a few thoughts about both Macklemore and another artist - Dessa - who happens to be a badass twin cities emcee.

I'll start you off with Macklemore. I've seen him twice ever, and both times have been within the last year. Last May Macklemore came down the The Key in Northfield. There were a little over a hundred kids packed into a pretty tiny concert room. We charged $5 for entry and paid Macklemore and Ryan Lewis right around $300 for the evening. Both Ben and Ryan were so real. Probably some of the most real performers I've seen. They both worked together so smoothly and had such a great time up on stage, forcing the small, cramped audience to echo their enthusiasm. After the show the two stayed around for a good half hour just talking to the kids who were left at The Key. There were maybe 10 of us who stuck around till about 11 o'clock, just sitting around on the old couches and chatting. Finally as they were about to head out, we told them they had to come back again. They said "Next time we're in the Midwest on tour, we'll make sure we stop at The Key." Now, I'm not going to say that's a direct quote, but it's pretty close.
Well, this tour rolled around and the Key Booking Team contacted Macklemore's agent. SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS. I'm not going to say I'm upset that they blew up so quickly, but damn. That's a lot of money. Too much for a youth center in Northfield, Minnesota.  And I'm certain the group would be more than willing to play for less if they didn't have to go through the agent. Anyone want to lend the Key $6000? I promise we'll make a thousand of it back!
To say the least, I'm very glad that Macklemore was able to play the Key when he was less well-known. It's always cool to see groups that play there get big, because then we can say that we (The Key) were somehow a part of it. This was true with A.F.I., Cloud Cult, Heiruspecs, and now Macklemore. Everybody starts somewhere, yeah?
And then there was this past Sunday. On the last half of the 34-show tour, Macklemore was sick and tired and just wanted a Juicy Lucy, but He and Ryan Lewis and the rest of the group fed off of the crowds energy in the sold out venue, and the crowd in the sold out venue fed off of the energy of the performers. A true symbiotic relationship of hip hop, if you will. As the show moved on, the energy only kept increasing, and the whole time, Ben kept thanking the crowd, saying that it was "reminding me why I keep doing this shit." It just goes to show that no matter how big you get, and no matter what price tag accompanies a person's name tag, it's possible to stay real. This is why Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have the deepest of respect from me.

And now let me bring us back to the Minneapolis hip hop scene. Dessa: a member of the ever-growing, MTV-acclaimed group by the name of Doomtree; a goddess on the stage; and another legitimately real person. I wish I could say enough to come anywhere close to justifying what needs to be said about Dessa, but to make it real short, she's crazy-cool.
On stage, Dessa is simply hot. Now I'm a person who has spent much of my time trying to avoid the term 'hot'. But really, there's no other way to describe on-stage-Dessa. She's just got that hot vibe. She has the right voice, moves, glare, lyrics, delivery, two-plus outfit changes per set, and sure as hell the right pouty-lip-pucker-thing when performing. That being said, she, too, always has so much energy up on stage that it's impossible to dislike her music, no matter how hard you try. I'll never forget the night of her CD release for A Badly Broken Code. Not because it was my first 18+ show last January, and not because she surprised the crowd by bringing out the entire Doomtree crew for multiple sets, but because near the end of her show she called up two dancers and gave a quick explanation before cuing Papertiger to play the beat.
"We only had about ten hours to practice this, but we figured we'd do it anyway."
She and the two dancers (who happened to be large, bad-ass-looking men) then proceeded to bust out this crazy two minute long Latin dance piece (again, hot) that topped off the night so perfectly.
And again, not only is she a solid performer and artist, but she's also real. On the night of the Current's 40th birthday party I was standing in the audience watching some band I didn't know, anxiously awaiting both Dessa and Heiruspecs to come on later that evening. My attention was drawn away from the stage for a few brief moments, and who do I see standing not four feet in front of me but DESSA. She wasn't there just to perform and be looked at during her set. She was there to celebrate the 40 years of the Current, and to watch other artists up on that stage. Might I say again: so legit.

Moral of the story? If Dessa and Macklemore ever choose to do some sort of collaboration, I will be all over that in a heartbeat. And by that I mean: Dessa, Macklemore, please collaborate.

And as I try to do, here's some video of Macklemore's show last Sunday which I took, and a little bit of Dessa's gorgeous work. If you like their stuff, please go buy some of it!

The Performing Arts.

On Thursday, March 17th I made the trek down to Northfield, Minnesota to check out the High School's Rock and Roll Revival. For anyone who doesn't know what it is, Rock and Roll Revival is an event in which students bring back songs that were big back in the 50's and 60's with a full band, some great vocalists and a multitude of backup dancers. Auditions are in December, and between the first audition and opening night each member of the cast puts in some ungodly number of hours rehearsing both with choreographer Shari Setchell and "vocal coach" Bob Gregory-Bjorklund.
Because RRR is such a big deal both in the school and Northfield's greater community, and because it takes so much time, effort, and money to put on, it only happens once every other year. But when they do it, they do it right. The school spends thousands and thousands of dollars hiring professionals for sound and lights, rents out the middle school auditorium (which at capacity holds upwards of eight hundred good folks) to sell out every single evening, hires Bob and Shari-both of which are great at what they do, and the list goes on.
But it pays off. Off of ticket sales RRR brings the school around $50,000 in the two weekends. Of course a good portion of that goes to the costs I mentioned previously, but seriously. If it weren't a bunch of students who had busy lives in this, it could probably go on for a couple months and still sell out every show. Hell, they could even take it on the road.

Now, why I thought to write about RRR is because two years ago I was a junior in high school and participated in Rock and Roll Revival. Four years ago I was a freshman and also participated.
Four years ago: Freshman year. I tried out in December and got a backup dancing/singing part. I was in four songs and sang/danced in each.
Two years ago: Junior year. I tried out in December and got a solo, a couple small-group songs, and the swing dance number. I was in 7 songs total; the most of anyone that year (which seemed like a big deal at the time).
This year: I did not try out. I texted a few friends as soon as I knew the list was up and was pleased to see who got solos. I was lucky to be able to buy a last-minute ticket for the Thursday night show, and I was very pleased by the performance.

This year was the first year that I'd actually seen RRR. Before I was in it in high school I had never seen the show. The closest I got was running into the group practicing outside the auditorium in 7th grade. Before that, I hadn't even heard of it.
I didn't realize it would be so true, but being in the back of the auditorium as opposed to backstage was an entirely different experience than I had two years ago. I noticed a couple things that I didn't quite realize when I was on stage.

First off, when singing as backup, it is impossible to differentiate between voices. As a singer, I was always very self-conscious about how loud I was singing. I've got a naturally very loud voice, and I never wanted to "out-sing" the soloist (however, when I was the soloist, this came in very handy). The monitor directly in front of the microphone I was singing into blasted my voice right back at me, which only perpetuated the feeling.
From the audience, no matter how hard I tried to hear an individual voice, it was the backup and the soloist.

Second, no matter what, there is someone watching you when you're on stage. It's something they always say during rehearsals and it's something I always dismiss as unimportant. But damn. At RRR there were a few people I saw in the backup that clearly weren't thinking about the audience potentially staring them down throughout the course of an entire song (which I caught myself doing with a few of these lucky folks).

Finally, there's no need to worry whether or not you mess up a little. An audience member really can't tell, especially if they're only seeing the show the one time like I was. This was another thing that I beat myself up about when in the show. If any tiny thing went wrong I would let it basically ruin my night. What a waste of my brain cells.


All that aside, I'd just like to say that everyone in RRR did a great job, and it was nice to talk with everyone in the show afterward. It's always a good feeling to be greeted with excitement consistently when going back to high school functions.

Here's Straight No Chaser with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". I chose this one here because every year a group of faculty sing a song and this was it for this year.

On Silence.

The engine of an airplane creates approximately 140 decibels of noise. In other words, the engine of an airplane is approximately "very loud". OSHA says that because of this, it is dangerous and will eventually lead to deafness (I'm sure they word it much more eloquently, but that's what they mean), and because of this, it is mandated that all employees working in situations that involve potential hearing loss wear OSHA approved hearing protection.
But I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't wear it.
I'm sure it's just my rebellious ways sticking it to the man, and boy oh boy there's no better way to for that man to be stuck than by my unprotected hearing. He must truly be upset.
Anyway, why any of this is of any importance is because while at work Sunday night, I decided to finally wear the ear plugs that are provided, and it was one of the strangest experiences I've had in a while.

As the foam earplugs slowly began to take on air as well as the shape of my ear canal, the noise surrounding me was slowly dampened. At first it was uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable. Think constant wet-willy, but dry. And foamy. So really, don't think wet-willy at all.
The physical discomfort passed just about by the time my hearing was entirely dampened. I could no longer hear footsteps, doors being shut, the rumble of the catering vans, and just a murmur was present from the howling jet engines. My ears were comfortable. My other senses were not.
I was almost immediately an animal of prey, if you will. Everything on the tarmac was my predator. Even though I've spent nearly a thousand hours driving around the airport since I've started working, it was all new. The tugs and tow bars seemed always inches behind my bumper. The bag runners sped past and I found myself looking left and right in a nonstop paranoia. The jets parked at the gate seemed as though they were to be pushed back at any second without the presence of wingwalkers. I could hear the van's RPMs neither increasing nor decreasing as I accelerated and decelerated. As I was in the planes catering them I could not hear the upset flight attendants asking for one extra bottle of water. It was strange. It was stressful. It was peaceful.

The entire time my hearing was artificially handicapped, I found that every other sense was overcompensating for the handicap by making me one hundred percent aware of its presence.
I could feel the van shaking viciously as it accelerated.
I could smell the jet fuel in the air so strongly that my stomach became upset.
I could see everything going on in front of me while my peripheral was going haywire.
I could taste the salt being kicked up in the air by the jets' engines.

All in all, such an experience was to be expected. Yes, it was bizarre, but similarly to when an animal in nature is born without the strength of a certain sense, all others must make up for it.

What really threw me for a loop, though, was when I finally took the earplugs out. I walked into the break room after working my seven o'clock flight bank and approached the table as my brother and another coworker were having a muffled conversation. I sort of just stood there for a few seconds before deciding it was time to take the earplugs out and listen to their conversation.
Of course when I took them out I could hear the conversation more clearly, but on top of that, I could hear the low hum of the refrigerator, the nearly supersonic white noise that almost everyone forgets about until they stop to listen for it, and the rustling of my coat sleeve against my body. Particularly the rustling, as there was a solid five seconds between removing the earplugs and finally realizing where the noise was coming from, and why it was so damn loud.

From this experience during an all-too-normal day at work, I realized a few things:

1. The sense of hearing is quite possibly one of the senses we rely on the most in our day to day lives; be it listening for cars while crossing the street, or for the shouts of warning when we really shouldn't cross the street.
2. Each and every one of our senses are capable of providing much stronger signals than they do when we combine the use of each sense, simply because we don't need each of our senses working at their best when each can work with mediocrity.
3. Finally, I take sound for granted. 

And here's a nice little tune for you to listen to. An oldie but a goody, as they say:

Catching you up, catching me up: Parts 3, 4 and the rest.

Now that it's March, it's about time to give up on filling you in on the happenings in December. I spent my last two posts updating you on the boring parts of December, and skipped over the fun parts, anticipating that I would eventually get around to them,

That didn't happen. So here's the fun stuff:
Music and Travel.

Music.
I kicked off the December concert season with a trip in that 17 inch blizzard to downtown Minneapolis to see the Doomtree Blowout at First Ave. The two mile trip downtown took just about a half hour thanks to the weather, and incompetent drivers. Once we finally got to the show, which had about half as many people in the audience as it should have, the energy on stage and in the diminished audience was enough for the entire month. The entire Doomtree crew rocked First Ave's main room in such a powerful way.

Just a few days after Doomtree, I headed down to First Ave again for The Current's birthday party. It was a weeknight and I probably should have been studying for finals, but I saw that Heiruspecs was playing last that night at the end of a pretty solid lineup, and I couldn't help but to show up. After arriving I realized that most people old enough to celebrate The Current. At one point in the set, there was the entirety of Heiruspecs, Dessa (of Doomtree), Big Zach (of Kanser), and Carnage all up on stage at once, all celebrating the twin cities local music scene.

Now, I swear I attended more concerts in December after The Current's 40th Birthday party, but I can't specifically remember who or when they were in my old age.

What I do remember is that in the past two months I've gone to see Trampled By Turtles twice. And both times, the show has been so full of energy, and so full of drunk/high/tripping people of all sorts of age groups and personalities: middle age housewives, twenty-something hippies, 60 year old men in overalls, you name it. In some settings that could make the show much less enjoyable, and others, much more enjoyable. In this case, each side of the spectrum showed through, but overall it was one (two) of the most fun concerts I've ever been to. Period.

But enough of that. Now let's talk about travel.


Let me make one thing clear: the only reason anyone, and I mean anyone would ever choose to keep a minimum wage job with not-so-flexible scheduling and an hour-long commute each way while going to school full time is because of some sort of unfathomable perk. For instance: free flights, ANYWHERE.

With December being the month of the first half of the U of M's winter break, it was basically the first chance I had all since getting the job to take a trip anywhere (unless you count that afternoon I flew to Chicago with my roommate to get a deep dish pizza, or the night I hung out with a friend in Portland before Halloween).
I had been anticipating this break basically since the beginning of semester simply because I wanted to FLY. And that's just what I did.

My first trip was a flight to Seattle to visit a friend of mine living on San Juan Island. I barely got on the flight out there, and got a little lost in Sea-Tac Airport on the way to the shuttle, but after that it was smooth sailing. On the island itself, I met all sorts of cool people, and I adventured with Liz to each end of the island, checking out lighthouses and wildlife and the Mausoleum and the beaches and the island camel. It was beautiful, to say the least. I wish I could take the time to remember and post every moment of that trip in detail but the trip to the island itself is really sort of difficult to put into words. I remember it all just swell, but it's not the sort of activity that most people would consider their "ideal" vacation. To be honest, it wasn't meant to be a vacation, but rather a time to adventure and catch up a bit with a friend whom I hadn't seen for a few years. It was relaxing, exciting, and a bit worrisome at points (again mainly getting from the airplane to the shuttle), but most of all it was basically perfect.
A note on San Juan Island: The island is a one of a kind place. It's almost entirely secluded but for the light pollution dancing across the Puget Sound, yet it has a sort of life to it that you can't find many other places. It was entirely pleasant to be able to slow down about 95% for a couple days.
And then the trip back. We spent the day before I had to fly back to Minnesota in Seattle. We visited the Market and the arboretum and had some quality pizza. It was a good three hours of wandering through the city with Liz and her brother. It was a very quick turnaround from the Island, but also very enjoyable. And very sunny, mind you. Liz and her brother had to head back north to catch the last ferry back to the island before the end of the night, so I was left to find my way to the top of the Space Needle by myself. And contrary to what you may believe, being up at the top of one of the busiest tourist traps around alone is fantastic. I was able to take in the entire city, walking laps around the needle to ensure I didn't miss a sight, and I was able to catch snippets of others' conversations as they mused over the city with their families, their spouses, their best friends, whoever. I was able to take in the whole city in the silence of my own thought, yet still be connected to all others atop the Needle. It was perfect.
On the flight back there were just enough seats open for me to be welcomed into the first class cabin, where I had three vodka-cranapples and fell fast asleep, just after bidding farewell to the Seattle skyline out of the aircraft window.

Next up: Pittsburgh. Flying out on January 1st and returning on January 3rd, this was quite the short trip. Nonetheless, it was still great. Again I was visiting a friend. And again, I wish I could do the city and the friend justice by explaining the whole thing in great detail. But I'll just have to give you the highlights, and skip over the play-by-play. I was greeted by 50 degree weather and a constant mist, which was tropical in comparison to the 0 degree Minnesota weather. It was the day of the NHL winter classic, so hockey fans were out and about in all corners of the city, and might I add they were not very pleased that it was raining, because it was delaying the game and melting the ice. After walking through the city for a bit and trying to find the riverside past all of the construction, we took a trip to a suburban movie theatre and checked out Black Swan, then drove through Allegheny County's cheesiest Christmas display; a three mile long city park plastered in Christmas lights and elves and Christmas dinosaurs and a variety of other festive lighting displays.
The next day was the day I finally got to see The Mattress Factory and the city's skyline. The Mattress Factory is a modern art museum outside of downtown Pittsburgh that has all sorts of exhibits that incorporate all of the senses. There's no way to explain most of the exhibits without bringing you to the museum and walking you through every floor, so let's take a road trip sometime, yeah?
Between Mattress Factory and skyline, there was eating, going to a legitimate hookah lounge, and getting the car towed for parking without a permit (oops...), but then there was skyline. The entire family piled into the SUV after dinner and drove up the side of Mount Washington to an overlook a mile or so up the road. I don't know what it was that made it so, but the view from that lookout of Pittsburgh's skyline was amazing. It easily ties with, and arguably beats out Seattle's skyline. It could have been the rivers reaching confluence, or the view of Heinz Field like you'll never see it from a blimp above the Steelers' games, but that skyline from that perspective was simply breathtaking. Most of all, I think it was the striking resemblance to the Minneapolis skyline to which I've grown so accustomed and set my bias toward that made me so interested in the Pittsburgh skyline. If you want to check out the view (not quite the same as what I experienced) shift your attention here. And just so you don't forget what really matters, here's Minneapolis again.
The rest of Pittsburgh was sleep and a ride back to the airport early in the morning.

Disclaimer: I watched Jersey Shore for the first time in Pittsburgh. I'm not proud of this.

Finally, Amsterdam. I wish I could talk up my trip to Amsterdam more than I will, but the truth is that I was only there for a total of about 22 hours, and round trip the flight was 17 hours. I booked the flight out on a Wednesday at noon, and got the last seat on the flight out at 7:30PM. I landed around 11:00AM Holland-time, and made my way to the hostel, basically falling right asleep as soon as I got there. When I was awake, though, I did my fair share of exploring and decided that the two best things about Amsterdam are these: the fact that there is a two-way bicycle path for every road makes biking easy, and therefore there are more active, healthy people who know how to live; and the combination of the architecture and the channels making a great majority of the city accessible by boat makes the place absolutely beautiful. I'm definitely going back this summer.
The flight back was phenomenal. My seat assignment was seat 2H (which is business class, if you weren't sure). The second I stepped on the plane, they asked to take my coat, and then the flight went a little something like this:
Champagne-Take Off-More Drinks-Meal-Wine-Wine-Wine-Sleep-Wake-Meal-Touchdown.
I was pampered. It was great.

So, there's December and January for you. I'll try to keep up now.

I think I'm going to also start finishing up posts with links to videos/songs that I enjoy. I could pretend that there was some sort of deep connection between my current situation in life and this song, but I really just like the music and the video that accompanies it.
Enjoy.

Head Full of Doubt/ Road Full of Promise - The Avett Brothers