So, with our rock n' roll fantasies under our belts, a babe in arms and a coupla carrots dangling from a sun-drenched palm frond, Me, the Hubbers (ya know, Stix) and the Kid find our little happy family back in Lalaland, USA.
We have traded in the rural nocturnal primal screams of Bedford, New York (coyotes, foxes, and spring peepers) for the late night primal screams of another genre, Venice Beach's night-owl shenanigans.
BTW..."What are spring peepers" you ask? Well spring "peepers" (don't let the name fool ya!) are tiny-whiny, wittle fwoggy-woggies who have a "Frogz-in-heat-a-Palooza" each spring. And, well, you do the math; One peep x one million peeps=Fuh-reak-ing LOUDDD!!
Can you tell I'm sensitive to sound? Especially night time sounds? Well, here-in lies "la raison". Rewind to...me preggers, 30-some weeks go by as I grow and glow n' grow some more. The bun is done, the stork is alerted and down floats Junior on a white puffy cloud right into my arms (or something like that. Man! what were they givin' me in el hopital?! me want more!)
Okay, so, cue the sobs of joy! Cue the awe-induced stupor and then, WHAM! While I'm distracted by alternating thoughts of "Holy sh*t! Yikes!" and "OMG!! How cute!", out of the corner of my bleary eye, something mysterious is floating away saying "Sayonara Sucka!" All my nights of good sleep have just lept upon that puffy cloud and and drifted away until further notice. That's okay, I'm too busy (and incoherent) to notice.
Cut to: 3am, on like a Tuesday by the way! Our bundle of joy is catching about his millionth "z" of the day, Stix is sawing logs, and hey I am sleeping too!
Then, kinda like a mosquito in your ear or a tell tale freakin' heart under the floor boards, a faint noise begins to grow louder and you guessed it, LOUDER.
First one eye snaps open, then the other, then five little words leak out of my mouth "W-T-F is that!?" Oh, and the "W" is for "Who" not "What" in this case.
At the exact moment that I realize that a) I am awake and b) it AIN"T junior in the next room that's waking me up. Uh-oh, look out! I scramble outta bed and pull on pretty much anything I can find. Oh, I will get to the bottom of the really bad doonce-doonce track that's blasting outside my window, at 3am on a Tuesday!!
Wait, take a beat Anne, breathe. I calm myself by thinking, "Ya know, this dude (I just know it's some "dude") will drive away soon". He's just dropping his buddy off after yet another late night at the Roxbury. No worries, I'm cool wit dat. I had a life too ya know.
But nooooo people, the techno-pop plays on. And on, and...That's IT!! Look out you Roxbury freak, you just woke a sleeping bear!
Looking for back-up, I announce that I am going to go tell this idiot to be quiet! My husband mumbles something about pineapples and rolls over-that guy can sleep through anything!! I tromp downstairs (in time to the disco beat!). I grab a big, black flash light step into hubby's boots. I'm a crazed Ma Kettle (is there any other kind?) ready for battle!!
I march outside, across the lawn towards the nice white beamer with the very blacked-out windows. Now what? The music is still really loud, where are the other neighbors? Jeez-lah-weez!
With an "Okay Mister!" attitude I shine the big ol' mag light's beam into the abyss.
I literally stumble backwards in disbelief but I somehow manage to keep the big bright beam shining away. I am illuminating a hot n' steamy, racy make-out session between two partially clothed young adults. Whoa! The Dude woke up me, the sleeping bear but I have just stirred up a hot n' horny hornet's nest! Now what?
My neighbor is yelling something at me like "What the hell are you doing!! I live here!!" Why should I back down now?
I just keep repeating the same thing "Turn down the music!" and "If you live here, then go inside fer chrissakes!".
With that, I tromp back across the lawn, realizing that some unintended and definitely unsequestered rite of passage has just occurred in my life on my neighbor's lawn at 3:15am on a Tuesday.
I had just traded in the girl who blasted her music too loud, drove to New York city at 2am on whims, escaped arrest by the Portuguese Police on a dusty road with friends searching for a party, snuck into GWAR, drove a darn Geo Tracker across the United States by herself, surfed Baja by herself and thousands more adventurous moments, I had traded in that free-wheelin' spirit for a "Turn that music down!!" Mama." Oy.
Ah well, what the hell are ya gonna do? Several days after that fateful evening, my neighbor found me literally crouching on all fours in my front yard, hiding from him out of major embarrassment. He peered over the white pickets and introduced himself. I fessed up to my mind-numbing level of embarrassment and explained my sleep-deprived maniacal state. He laughed and said he would "take it inside" next time. We became friends, me and Chris, the comedian next door, he is hilarious!
3/19/10
3/12/10
Why, Oh Why is This Song SO GOOD??
Collective Consciousness, Stars in Alignment
How is a great pop anthem created?
Note from author; Better read with said song blasting in background.
"Empire State of Mind"
What a great (insert expletive of choice here) song! What the heck?! Thank you Miss Keys and Mr. Z. Thank you Angela Hunte and "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic for writing and producing it! And a special shout out to the music Angels above for letting at least one iconic R&B, hip-hop, pop song from 2009 be unleashed upon the airwaves without a hint of the over auto-tuning technique. Robots-shmo-bots!! Enough already! We get it. Blame it on the juice and just say "NO" to the auto-tune buttons people!! (Ahhh, I feel better now, and yes, uncool and OLD, that's how I roll, 'nuff said).
BTW, scouts honor, as I write this and make sure I'm getting all the facts rock solid (thank you Wikipedia!) I Googled "who produced..." and guess what Google's magic genie auto-filled in for me? "who produced...empire state of mind", it was the absolute first auto-fill text in Google's line up, in the drop down menu next was "who produced Avatar" and third is "who produced Lady Gaga". Say what? No way! Way!! I guess I'm not the only one digging this anthem. And yes, I do realize I'm so 2000 and late with this review, but hey people are still critiquing Will.i.am S. (aka Shakespeare). King Lear, comedy or tragedy? Discuss!
Here is how I envision the making of this great song going down. JayZ calls Alicia Keys, (ah, the life of a pop star!) and says "Hey, Aleesh, I have this song I'd like you sing on". She says "Sure, Jay". Cut to, Alicia and JayZ in a studio somewhere. Cue the drum beat. Cue the "bum, bum, bum" piano chord progression. JayZ, you're up. Love the rap, love the build. Miss Keys, now you're up, here comes the whispers, "C'mon, c'mon" then..."in Newww Yorkkkk!! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do"! Wow-wee! It's BIG it's Bold, it's fun and it makes me wanna drive my car very fast!
But guess what! It didn't happen just like that. A writing team of two women, Angela Hunte and "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic-you go girls!! wrote it and produced it. On a wing and prayer they sent it to Roc Nation, JayZ's music publishing and entertainment company and, oh the drama! "Empire State of Mind" was met with negative reviews. The horror! Someone didn't have their "listening" ears on that day.
Perhaps this demo, oozing with potential, had reached the end of it's road, but not so! "Big Jon" Platt of EMI heard it at a BBQ, fell in love with it and said "JayZ would love this". P.S. A BBQ?! I thought music moguls only consumed caviar and bubbly! Who knew!
The rest is history. JayZ heard it and recorded it that same evening. He even almost called the ever so powerful and fabulous Ms. Mary J. Blige to sing the vocals. But the phone was put down. Whew! And Alicia with her keyboard abilities scored the part and we, the general public scored the privilege of participating in an ever so uplifting song's rise to the top.
"Put your lighter's in the air! Everybody say "Yeah, yeah, yeah". There's nothing you can't do."
Say "yes" people, there's nothing you can't do!
*** If somehow you've escaped this song, run! don't walk to the first illegal download you can find or better yet, be totally radical and subversive and BUY the damn song!! It's a $1.29 fer chrissakes people! and be prepared to be swept up in moment. Watch those speedometers!
Love Ya! Anne
How is a great pop anthem created?
Note from author; Better read with said song blasting in background.
"Empire State of Mind"
What a great (insert expletive of choice here) song! What the heck?! Thank you Miss Keys and Mr. Z. Thank you Angela Hunte and "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic for writing and producing it! And a special shout out to the music Angels above for letting at least one iconic R&B, hip-hop, pop song from 2009 be unleashed upon the airwaves without a hint of the over auto-tuning technique. Robots-shmo-bots!! Enough already! We get it. Blame it on the juice and just say "NO" to the auto-tune buttons people!! (Ahhh, I feel better now, and yes, uncool and OLD, that's how I roll, 'nuff said).
BTW, scouts honor, as I write this and make sure I'm getting all the facts rock solid (thank you Wikipedia!) I Googled "who produced..." and guess what Google's magic genie auto-filled in for me? "who produced...empire state of mind", it was the absolute first auto-fill text in Google's line up, in the drop down menu next was "who produced Avatar" and third is "who produced Lady Gaga". Say what? No way! Way!! I guess I'm not the only one digging this anthem. And yes, I do realize I'm so 2000 and late with this review, but hey people are still critiquing Will.i.am S. (aka Shakespeare). King Lear, comedy or tragedy? Discuss!
Here is how I envision the making of this great song going down. JayZ calls Alicia Keys, (ah, the life of a pop star!) and says "Hey, Aleesh, I have this song I'd like you sing on". She says "Sure, Jay". Cut to, Alicia and JayZ in a studio somewhere. Cue the drum beat. Cue the "bum, bum, bum" piano chord progression. JayZ, you're up. Love the rap, love the build. Miss Keys, now you're up, here comes the whispers, "C'mon, c'mon" then..."in Newww Yorkkkk!! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do"! Wow-wee! It's BIG it's Bold, it's fun and it makes me wanna drive my car very fast!
But guess what! It didn't happen just like that. A writing team of two women, Angela Hunte and "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic-you go girls!! wrote it and produced it. On a wing and prayer they sent it to Roc Nation, JayZ's music publishing and entertainment company and, oh the drama! "Empire State of Mind" was met with negative reviews. The horror! Someone didn't have their "listening" ears on that day.
Perhaps this demo, oozing with potential, had reached the end of it's road, but not so! "Big Jon" Platt of EMI heard it at a BBQ, fell in love with it and said "JayZ would love this". P.S. A BBQ?! I thought music moguls only consumed caviar and bubbly! Who knew!
The rest is history. JayZ heard it and recorded it that same evening. He even almost called the ever so powerful and fabulous Ms. Mary J. Blige to sing the vocals. But the phone was put down. Whew! And Alicia with her keyboard abilities scored the part and we, the general public scored the privilege of participating in an ever so uplifting song's rise to the top.
"Put your lighter's in the air! Everybody say "Yeah, yeah, yeah". There's nothing you can't do."
Say "yes" people, there's nothing you can't do!
*** If somehow you've escaped this song, run! don't walk to the first illegal download you can find or better yet, be totally radical and subversive and BUY the damn song!! It's a $1.29 fer chrissakes people! and be prepared to be swept up in moment. Watch those speedometers!
Love Ya! Anne
3/1/10
We Made a Rock Video!!
After recording their first LP “love Goes” in a home made recording studio in a converted dairy barn on a bucolic 4 acre farm, D&A flew to lovely (it’s all relative-right?) LaLa(La)Land
To shoot our very first rock video for our hit song(like I said, relative baby, relative.) “AngelMan”.
Now, me and “D” aka known as “Sticks Wagna” thought to ourselves,how long could making a rock n’ roll video take? a day or two or three? We know! Let’s grab a camera and just go for it dudes! Kowabungaaaaa stlye!
Welllllllllll........we put in a call to our friends, ya know, in “the biz-Baby!” Annnnnd....
Next thing we know we were being emailed treatments. Locations are being scouted. People who knew people we’re even getting permits! Like, whoa, there went our under the radar, guerrilla film shoot, but hey! We were thrilled :). Thanks to the lovely and amazing dynamic duo; Tracy & Michael Blum of Riverstreet (bad-ass) Productions, AngelMan the music vid was born.
Two weeks and an endless stream of caffeinated drinks later,
We found ourselves in front of a Bolex camera, (too cool!), which was in front of the totally, excellent D.P., Scott Hendrickson.
There was a make-up artist and everything, well first there was then by Friday afternoon, there wasn’t and Lord have mercy, Saturday was the shoot. The shock, the horror! at least pour moi, “A”, the chick. Screw the “devil may care” approach, give me some damn eyeshadow, mascara and more importantly layers of concealer, pancake and powder! And they did (give it to me) well Kokeeta did, the angel & make-up artist who showed up on Saturday- et voila! I was a “natural” beauty! The camera don’t lie- but the make-up do... (insert maniacal laughter here) she’s awesome!!
Did I mention choreography? Just when we thought we couldn’t get more professional! Cue the spot light, the jazz hands, black leotards, the winking at the audience over my left shoulder...oops! I digress. I was a theater major damnit!! (insert a wide-eyed Gloria Swanson, a la “Sunset Boulevard” 1950, here).
Choreography, right. Now, even though rock music has been pulsing through my veins since seated in the way back tiny crawl space of a 1970 VW bug (car seat!? What car seats? or seat belts for that matter!). Back there, I rocked out to Janis, Led Zep, the Beatles and more. So, one would just assume (I did!) that rock god moves were also pulsing through this kid of the early 70’s veins as well. Especially since each day after elementary school with a Brooks Brothers tie around my head (sorry dad!) and a wooden tennis racket (yep, wooden!) I put in hourzzz of air-guitaring my ass off to entire legendary rock albums (both sides! Twice!) Damn, I was good!
So where am I going with this? Oh right! the shoot, the shoot people! Choreography... SO, with emphasis “elementary school” and “air guitar”, D&A hired a choreographer, the fabulous Cecily Garcia, to show us how to rock the mike and guitars and well, ourselves. Dang, the girl’s got moves!! Move over Fergie, humps or no humps, thanks to Cecily’s major talent, I pulled off a good hair flip or two. So what if my back-flip hand-spring wound up on the cutting room floor (owww, I’ll be fine, really.)
Okay, enough about da band memba’s, let’s get to the cast...Jon Gries, a real bonafide actor, played our AngelMan. What talent, it’s all in the subtleties really and Jon, “homes”, you got mad, mad skills. Go ahead, IMDB him, the list of his film roles will blow your mind and keep you scrolling down for days. BTW one of D&A’s favorite role’s of Jon’s is that of Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. Haha! he’s hilarious and so is the movie. Like, Gosh! Go rent it! Jeez! Rent Real Genius while you’re at it. Don’t ask, just trust me on this!
D&A had a blast! The shoot was so much fun. The whole entire crew made it such a great experience! They are and were all AngelMen and AngelWomen in our book. They rock and they rocked it!
We love you!! Love, D&A
To shoot our very first rock video for our hit song(like I said, relative baby, relative.) “AngelMan”.
Now, me and “D” aka known as “Sticks Wagna” thought to ourselves,how long could making a rock n’ roll video take? a day or two or three? We know! Let’s grab a camera and just go for it dudes! Kowabungaaaaa stlye!
Welllllllllll........we put in a call to our friends, ya know, in “the biz-Baby!” Annnnnd....
Next thing we know we were being emailed treatments. Locations are being scouted. People who knew people we’re even getting permits! Like, whoa, there went our under the radar, guerrilla film shoot, but hey! We were thrilled :). Thanks to the lovely and amazing dynamic duo; Tracy & Michael Blum of Riverstreet (bad-ass) Productions, AngelMan the music vid was born.
Two weeks and an endless stream of caffeinated drinks later,
We found ourselves in front of a Bolex camera, (too cool!), which was in front of the totally, excellent D.P., Scott Hendrickson.
There was a make-up artist and everything, well first there was then by Friday afternoon, there wasn’t and Lord have mercy, Saturday was the shoot. The shock, the horror! at least pour moi, “A”, the chick. Screw the “devil may care” approach, give me some damn eyeshadow, mascara and more importantly layers of concealer, pancake and powder! And they did (give it to me) well Kokeeta did, the angel & make-up artist who showed up on Saturday- et voila! I was a “natural” beauty! The camera don’t lie- but the make-up do... (insert maniacal laughter here) she’s awesome!!
Did I mention choreography? Just when we thought we couldn’t get more professional! Cue the spot light, the jazz hands, black leotards, the winking at the audience over my left shoulder...oops! I digress. I was a theater major damnit!! (insert a wide-eyed Gloria Swanson, a la “Sunset Boulevard” 1950, here).
Choreography, right. Now, even though rock music has been pulsing through my veins since seated in the way back tiny crawl space of a 1970 VW bug (car seat!? What car seats? or seat belts for that matter!). Back there, I rocked out to Janis, Led Zep, the Beatles and more. So, one would just assume (I did!) that rock god moves were also pulsing through this kid of the early 70’s veins as well. Especially since each day after elementary school with a Brooks Brothers tie around my head (sorry dad!) and a wooden tennis racket (yep, wooden!) I put in hourzzz of air-guitaring my ass off to entire legendary rock albums (both sides! Twice!) Damn, I was good!
So where am I going with this? Oh right! the shoot, the shoot people! Choreography... SO, with emphasis “elementary school” and “air guitar”, D&A hired a choreographer, the fabulous Cecily Garcia, to show us how to rock the mike and guitars and well, ourselves. Dang, the girl’s got moves!! Move over Fergie, humps or no humps, thanks to Cecily’s major talent, I pulled off a good hair flip or two. So what if my back-flip hand-spring wound up on the cutting room floor (owww, I’ll be fine, really.)
Okay, enough about da band memba’s, let’s get to the cast...Jon Gries, a real bonafide actor, played our AngelMan. What talent, it’s all in the subtleties really and Jon, “homes”, you got mad, mad skills. Go ahead, IMDB him, the list of his film roles will blow your mind and keep you scrolling down for days. BTW one of D&A’s favorite role’s of Jon’s is that of Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. Haha! he’s hilarious and so is the movie. Like, Gosh! Go rent it! Jeez! Rent Real Genius while you’re at it. Don’t ask, just trust me on this!
D&A had a blast! The shoot was so much fun. The whole entire crew made it such a great experience! They are and were all AngelMen and AngelWomen in our book. They rock and they rocked it!
We love you!! Love, D&A
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