123 – Rock and Cole -- Thursday, November 29, 2012 -- Frost Middle School -- Fairfax, VA

Note: In a few weeks, my students will read this entry as part of a music analysis lesson. That is why some of their achievements appear in it. ;)

There are many perks to being a teacher: working with hilarious students/colleagues, creating meaningful lessons, seeing students improve, etc.

One specific perk I get every November is participating in Rock and Cole. In the Rock and Cole project, students create their own mixed CD, matching five characters from the novel Touching Spirit Bear to five songs. (The project gets its name from Spirit Bear’s central character, Cole Matthews.) In the days leading up to the in-class concert, students scour book passages and song lyrics to find things that connect. On concert day, each student analyzes another student’s CD, trying to match the characters, songs, traits, and quotes. It’s also a pretty entertaining day, considering the desks are filled with 30-plus CD players, boom boxes, and headphones, and several students rock out as they work.

The best part for me is that I get to listen to all the CDs. New discoveries this year were Macklemore’s “Wings,” Imagine Dragons’ “It’s Time,” Owl City’s “When Will I See You Again,” Mumford and Sons’ “I Will Wait,” Psy’s “Gangham Style,” Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” and Disney’s “Colors of the Wind.” (Ok, so the last three weren’t ‘new discoveries.’ I had, sadly, heard those three 300 times before.)

 
Student award winners for this year included:
 
-- Star Performers LH, ZC, JP, JN, AA, AB, TD, NF, PL, NC, JN, TC, JO, PL, ML, AZ, JD, ZB, EL, CK, GR, and CMCMCM.   These students proved they did not need a band or stage to perform. They could rock out in a DESK!
-- Star Vocalists AW, NF, BB, HB, SM, CS, JL, JA, JC, CK, AR, and EL.  These students totally understood how to speak with headphones on.  They always spoke AT AN APPROPRIATE VOLUME…

-- Star Reviewers GP, EM, AW, SN, AB, PA, TD, CH, CL, CM, JN, AS, BT, TC, CL, DN, JN, JP, BS, NT, CZ, ML, ES, AR, MW, MR, and ZB. These students reviewed their CDs with the precision of professional rock critics. Wonder if Rolling Stone magazine is in any of their futures…

-- Rock Survivors JT, SA, KS, HB, AK, TC, YK, RH, AC, NA, AR, and CK, making it all the way through their CDs, despite multiple CD / headphone debacles.
-- Rock Comics CJ, CK, and ML. These students should be recognized for filling the concert with funny moments. CJ got amusingly angry at how many songs matched Spirit Bear’s main character. All of them asked the same basic question, “I get that Cole is a round, dynamic, three-dimensional character, but does EVERY song have to fit him?”  Speaking of Cole, a student named Cole [CK] provided much amusement when he FLIPPED OUT as he listened to the song ML included, Tiny Tim’s “Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight.”  Cole’s pain was 6^th period’s gain, as they watched him twist in his chair, pound on his desk, and shriek “make it stop” in almost as high a pitch as Tiny Tim himself.  All periods got to share in the amusing misery a day or so later, as they heard parts of that song and other ridiculous songs: Spongebob’s “F.U.N. Song,” “I’m a Little Teapot,” Frank Sinatra’s “Happy Birthday,” and “I’m a Gummy Bear.”

-- All students, for making this Rock and Cole one of the best in six years.   Admittedly, the 4^th period power outage was infuriating: there had not been a power outage since I arrived at Frost, and this is the time it decided to happen?!  4^th dealt with it admirably, though, seeing the gallows humor in it, making the best of a bad situation.   More students also submitted full folders than ever before, and all students were able to find classmates’ Favorite Word on their folders, which has not been true in previous years. In the end, SS and RT still said it best: “Couldn’t we listen and learn from music every day?”  If only…

Grade: A-
 

122 -- Of Monsters and Men -- Thursday, October 11, 2012 -- 9:30 Club -- DC

I was going to do a one-paragraph summary of the OMAM show, but a lot of readers know the full album, so I’ll provide the full notes.  This should also allow the people who went to the concert to connect with specific moments.  If you’d prefer to just listen to some OMAM, click on the videos at the bottom. :)  

--- I’m immediately struck by the different looks: Icelandic librarian, Icelandic witch, LL Bean model, Spiky Haired Guy from My Apartment Complex, and Sam from Lord of the Rings.

--- "Dirty Paws” sounds exactly like it does on the album – no loss in quality live.  The audience is surprisingly subdued at this point.

--- "From Finner” has a nice drum change a minute in -- the drummer's actually singing – in an Icelandic accent! Getting the audience to sway their hands is a good idea.  

--- Getting them to clap their hands during "Slow and Steady" is also smart – it’d be rather dull without it.  First trumpet of the night!  

--- HA, they’re dividing the audience into karaoke groups during “Mountain Sound.”  Downstairs follow the witch; upstairs follows Samwise Gamgee.  “Hold your horses...sleep until the sun goes down” – such uptempo excitement!

--- The acoustic opening to “Your Bones” is solid; as is the humor in the next introduction: “This song is about friendship.  So make sure to hug your partner, friend, sibling, or… yourself.”  (That other bone-related song was a cover of "Skeleton" by Yeah Yeah Yeah.  Mike Erickson would approve.)

                                         

--- “Do you want to hear a love song?!” induces numerous squeals.  The actual song, “Love Love Love,” induces very little because yawns do not make a lot of noise.  Cool keyboard plink in the last five seconds doesn't make up for the rest of the song.

--- “King and Lionheart” is so much better.  Clapping and ennnergy.

--- “Lakehouse” has an opening that’s both moody and happy.  Awww, a woman in the audience is strumming along.  “Where we are, where we are” – smooooth reverb.  Whoa, suddenly it’s all hyper – and the audience is getting involved.  This time the audience participation is not a gimmick; it’s gravy.  And now they’re now throwing in random blues riffs.  This is epic – best of the night so far.

--- “LITTLE TALKS”! With extended trumpet solo!!

--- After the encore: "We are doing two more songs.  This is the reason we’re back."  Heh.

--- "Sloom" has such distinctive inflections: “Love me, mottther, father, sister……as well.”

--- “Yellow Light”’s title and haunting vocal opening remind me of the green light in The Great Gatsby.  Not as memorable as Death Cab’s “Transatlanticism,” another moody closer, but points for a bold ending.

Grade: B+

121 -- Passion Pit -- Tuesday, October 16, 2012 -- 9:30 Club -- DC

Passion Pit was a lot of fun.  Considering I found out about the band from former students who also fit that description, I should not have been been surprised.  The high points of the night were “Take A Walk,” “Carried Away,” “Eyes as Candles,” and “Let Our Love Grow Tall.”  Oh, and I should not leave out “Little Secrets,” which literally says the word “higher” 45 times over the course of the song.  In between those sugar rushes you had polite indie pop crowd surfs, confetti falling from the ceiling, and a song with “sleepy” in the title which was anything but. 

Being fair, I’ll admit there were some lackluster tracks (“I’ve Got Your Number,” “The Reeling”), and Michael Angelakos’ often incomprehensible falsetto made it hard to find deep meaning in the lyrics.  (“Hiding in piles of princely orange peels” – huh?)  Overall, though, to paraphrase the band, I’d say that’s alright; that’s alright, I’m happy. ;)  

Grade: B+

Endnotes: (1) I listened to the third presidential debate on my iPhone going to and from the show.  Only in DC…  (2)  Somehow the band did not play “Make Light,” the addictive first track on their first album.  Something to look forward to next time! 

120 -- Dispatch -- Thursday, October 11, 2012 -- DAR Constitution Hall -- DC

The Dispatch concert I went to at Madison Square Garden remains one of the best concerts I have ever seen.  Rather than revisit all the elements of that show, I’ll hit on the few new elements of this one:

1.  “Flying Horses” was mind blowing.  The verse shifts in the middle, the extra banjo beats, the band admitting it was the fastest they had ever played the song……it was an out of body experience.

2.  “Here We Go” nearly topped it.  The added slow-burn intro, the added drum-jam middle, and the explosion at the end made my leg shake.  “Passerby” also benefitted from a new mega-jam ending, “Bats” from a new Bongo solo, and "The General" from a new “way yii yii” chorus.     

3.  Um, “Elias” was not as good as last time.  It was still great obviously, and it’s cool that they dedicated the song to a family that have fed them the past ten times they’ve come to DC.  That said, it’s hard to match a twenty-person Zimbabwean choir.

4.  Ben Marzouk was with me this time – that was a definite improvement.  Seeing Ben enjoy it, especially the violin-driven “Carry You,” added to the experience.

5.  This time they dedicated a song to me – well, all teachers actually, promoting the Amplifying Education initiative: http://amplifyingeducation.org/ I appreciated the gesture and the funny intro (“thank you for sacrificing the children”), but I wish they’d chosen a better song that “We Hold A Gun.”   

6.  The sound went out during the first third of the show, and it was awesome.  Irritating as it was when the sound would drop out, it made it that much better when it returned.  It also built up a lot of band-crowd unity, which was necessary after they started with a number of songs from Circles Around The Sun, their lackluster new album, don’t seem like they’re enough, so we're going to play a game of dice and be right back.  [The sound comes back a second later.]  Whoa, that was a quick game.”  From there, the band had the audience sing the entire “Bang Bang,” invited individual audience members on stage after the opener, Good Old Boys, had left, and finished “Two Coins” with a stadium wave!  Like I said, awesome.

                   

Grade: A

119 -- Jack White -- Saturday, October 6, 2012 -- Merriweather Post Pavilion -- Columbia, MD

The White Stripes concert I went to at Madison Square Garden five years ago was a huge disappointment.  It was upsetting to hear all these albums I loved thrashed and beaten live.  And this time too, I did have notes that said “too hopeful for Stieg Larsson,” “too hopeful for Marilyn Manson,” and “why must the guitar dry heave?”

That said, knowing what to expect ahead of time allowed me to also appreciate the good things.  I enjoyed, for example, when White cleverly co-opted ZZ Top, insisting “Jesus just left Chicago, bound for Washington DC.”   The guest singer during “Top Yourself” also really added to the song, “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” was an exciting throwback, and the electric bluegrass “Yorba” was outstanding. 

Hopefully next time, White will ease up on the amp, and it will be an even better show.

Grade: C+

118 -- ZZ Top -- Saturday, October 6, 2012 -- Merriweather Post Pavilion -- Columbia, MD

--- Three immediate chuckles: 1)  ZZ’s huge sunglasses / beard 2)  The age difference between the ZZ and Skrillex audiences.  3)  “Some of ya are saying, ‘How is that guy playing that guitar with one hand?’” [He flips the guitar over to reveal a big beer sign.]

--- Two early non sequiturs: 1)  The dog that runs on stage during “Tush”  2)  The terrifying picture of a bug superimposed over a background of rice and KFC.  How that connects with “Tube Snake Boogie” I’ll never know.

--- One-liners throughout: “My head's in Texas; my heart's in Mississippi…I've been trying to figure out how to rhyme something with Maryland.  Oh well, I’ll insert Maryland in the next chorus anyway…This song is from way back – way, way back…This song is so new I have to have someone bring me out the words."

The songs did become repetitive after a while, but I enjoyed them most of the time.  After forty minutes of Skrillex, old school guitar rock worked!

Grade: B

117 -- Skrillex -- Saturday, October 6, 2012 -- Merriweather Post Pavilion -- Columbia, MD

Full disclosure: I am not a huge Skrillex fan.  I saw him as part of the Virgin Mobile Festival.  I appreciate a lot of genres: indie rock, classic rock, pop rock, indie pop, hip hop, etc.  Somehow I have never been able to enjoy ‘rhythmic static’ or ‘syncopated electrocution.’

That said, if you were a Skrillex fan, you probably would have enjoyed the wide variety of mixes and Sonny Moore’s energy during the show.  I will also admit that I enjoyed the pumped up “Fresh Prince” and the way the broken-up sounds fit the broken-up Transformers images on the video screen.  Doubt I’ll ever go to another Skrillex show, but it’s something…

Grade: C-

116 – Nas -- Saturday, October 6, 2012 -- Merriweather Post Pavilion -- Columbia, MD

I give Nas a lot of credit.  I had not listened to many of his albums, and texting white teenagers were not his core audience, but he worked it.  He paced to the right, to the left, to the middle, managing to come off as forceful and confident, not cocky: “I can’t stop now, Maryland, ‘cause I can’t stop now, DC…This is for my all my Trapped In The 90s brothers…Where’s my hip hop people at?  When you say hip, I say hop. [Heh].”

This was a nice twist: “My old attitude was life’s a B, and then you die.  Now, as I get older, I realize that life is good.  It can still be a B, but you’re not ready to die.”   I enjoyed this line as well: “This song is dedicated to my ex-wife.  It’s called ‘Goodbye.’”

There was also a solid contrast between the gunshot-laden “Made You Look” and the responsibility-driven “Daughters.”  The mic-life play in “One Mic” worked equally well.

The high point of the set was clearly “I Can.”  You had to love the positive message, the little kids singing during the chorus, and lines like “she was beautiful, but now when hugs people, they hold they breath ‘cause she smells of corrosion and death.”  It’s also the only song I can responsibly link here, so enjoy.

Grade: B