South by Southwest 2009!!

After looking at the schedule for South by Southwest, I am now sufficiently depressed. I never realized how many amazing bands play during this fantastic week in Austin, TX, and I am so incredibly upset that I will be at school, stuck studying and taking tests, and unable to attend. 

What am I most upset about missing? Thursday, March 19th at Stubb's= an absolutely incredible night. Not only is one artist that I'm in love with playing, but THREE! All of them in one place at one time. Katy Perry, 3oh!3, AND Ben Harper with RELENTLESS7. I could die right now just thinking about it. 

So, though I am depressed about missing it, let's go over really quickly my favorite songs by each of these bands..

Katy Perry= The whole "One of the Boys" C.D. is one of my favorite albums of the year, but I really love "If You Can Afford Me." I like to find those few songs on an album that never quite make it onto the radio, but are great songs nonetheless. I highly recommend that you listen to it.

3oh!3= My roommates and I have really come to appreciate 3oh3! this year beacuse it is the perfect music to pump you up for a night out. We constantly listen to it while we are getting ready to go out on the weekends, and I would say our favorite is probably "Don't Trust Me." You can't help but smile at the crazy techno-ness and hilarious lyrics.

Ben Harper= I'm not really familiar with Ben Harper's music while playing with RELENTLESS7, but I do love "Walk Away" by Ben Harper almost more than any other song in the world. Ben Harper's music always relaxes me and his lyrics, as well as his tone are beautiful. Favorite song line by Ben Harper, and possibly one of the greatest lines of all time- "With so many people to love in my life, why do I worry about one?"  Y Love it Y

So to all of the lucky people who will get to attend this amazing music festival, especially Thursday night at Stubbs...I envy you. Enjoy it, and please throw yourself at the stage (just a little bit) for me :) Thanks.

Dream Shows

Ok, so for this week I had to come up with a line-up for my dream shows from four different genres: hip-hop, rock, jazz, and a genre of my choice. I definitely thought this was going to take just a couple of minutes, but it proved to be a lot more difficult than I thought. 

First I started with Hip Hop...My opener would be Kanye West because of his consistent creation of popular songs over time, the mid would be T.I. because really, who doesn't love "Live your Life" and "Whatever You Like," and headliner would for sure be the Black Eyed Peas. One of my favorite songs of all time is "Where is the Love," and to see this performed live would be an amazing experience. 

Next, the most difficult category for me to figure out was rock. I finally decided on an opening from Graham Colton Band, a band that might not be as well known, but has a great collection of songs. For the mid band, I picked Queen, and my headliner would be none other than Aerosmith...wow, they would be incredible. Both my mom and I have secret crushes on Steven Tyler and to see him up close and perfect would be great.

For the genre of my choice, I chose pop/alternative, which is probably my favorite cetegory of music. For the opener, I would love to see One Republic, though they have kind of been out of the spotlight for a little while now. For the mid, I picked Jack's Mannequin. I have seen them in concert before and they are great performers and I absolutely love their music. And..for the big headliner..I would be thrilled to see The Fray (for the 4th time) perform their new C.D. which is SOOOO good. I heard a rumor they are touring with Jack's this summer which pretty much could be the best concert of all time.

Lastly, the jazz category was a little harder for me to figure out, but after deciding, I realized I love all three artists that I picked. For the opener, I picked Norah Jones. I think that she has an amazing voice and very impressive piano skills. For the mid band, I picked Nat King Cole, and finally, as the headliner, Michael Buble because I am in love with him and would greatly appreciate if he would sing at my wedding. That is all. :)

Oh Valentine's Day...

So this post is going to be a bit random, but I thought I would just write whatever was on my mind at the moment, and the current hype here in my sorority house of 90 girls is Valentine's Day. It's interesting to hear everyone's thoughts on this lovely little holiday...I personally like to call it "The day of love or bitterness," depending on your current romantic status. I've always found it kind of sad that people put so much emphasis on one day of the year to show their love and affection for another. Isn't being in love about showing it in the smallest ways on the most random of occassions? Yet, I do understand it's very easy to get caught up in the biggest Hallmark holiday of the year; I've been drawn in by it a few too many times myself. 

I heard a good quote today that fit in well with the Valentine's day mania. "Love is simple. Life is complicated." It really is the truth. It is so easy to get caught up in what others think of you and the decisions that you make that we too often forget about all the people we care about. To me, Valentine's Day isn't just about telling one special person how you feel, but really, telling everyone in your life who you love how much you appreciate all they do for you...family, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends..you get the gist. 

Well, it's late and I'm in for a long week. Ill write soon. Adios.

My Favorite New Album

Thinking about the abundance of new albums that have been released in the past three months, and how few of them I have actually listened to, I realized that my musical taste has become seriously limited lately. I have, quite sadly, become too caught up in the Billboard Top 50, listening to whatever song comes on the radio first...which is usually one of about ten pop or hip hop songs. Because of my lack of quality music lately, I decided to buy (yes, I actually paid for music) an album that was released very recently, Duncan Sheik's, "Whisper House." In the past, I haven't really given Duncan's music a chance, sticking to my more familiar and "popular" artists. Much to my surprise, out of the 12 tracks on the C.D., I really, really enjoyed about ten of them. Though I am no expert on playing or critiquing guitar, I thought the guitar work was exceptional and very comforting to listen to. Also, a trumpet was used on many of the songs, espcially in intros and the endings, which definitely gave the music its own flavor and interesting vibe. I found that the overall instrument variation was what made the music so appealing and interesting to me. Since I am a piano player myself, I also appreciated the simple melodies played on the piano/keyboard on almost all of the songs. Something else I discovered was that I absolutely LOVE Duncan Sheik's voice. His tone is soft and strong at the same time, which I find, is very rare in a musical artist. At times, it has an almost eerie or haunting tone to it, which instead of turning me away, drew me further into each song. My favorite song on the album is definitely "Play Your Part." Great, great lyrics. I am really excited that I decided to download this album because I have already listened to the whole thing through about five times in the past two days. I highly recommend it to all of you! In the future, I will definitely be more open to listening to, as we like to say, "less main stream artists." That's all for now :)

Song Lyrics of Life

Sometimes the lyrics of songs are some of the only things that you can count on to understand how you are feeling. I love how there is always a song or line from a song that is completely fitting to your mood or current life state. Over the past few weeks, I have collected some of my favorite song lines. From reading these over, I think it is easier to understand me as a person, noting that almost all the lines surround around passion, love, and hope. 

"To make a mountain of your life is just a choice, but I never learned enough to listen to my voice when it said, always love, hate will get you every time." -Nada Surf-

"Even though I really love you, I'm gonna smile 'cause I deserve to. It'll all get better in time." -Leonna Lewis-

"Cause it's a long way down when your hopes are high as mountains and I am worried that I'm falling for you." -Ronnie Day-

"You don't know about my past and I don't have a future figured out, and maybe this is goin' too fast and maybe it's not meant to last...but what do you say to taking chances? -Celine Dion-

"I suppose that I could hold it in, but you excite my every cell. Sources say that senses are my friends, my senses say that I should tell." -Gavin Degraw-

"I wanted you so much, just like I do right now. I wanted us to be the one the poets write their books about. I wanted it to last. I wanted to grow old. But life got in the way." -Sister Hazel-

"I don't know what I want, so don't ask me cause I'm still trying to figure it out. Don't know what's down this road, I'm just walking trying to see through the rain coming down even though I'm not the only one who feels the way I do." -Taylor Swift-

"When I start to make you nervous, and I'm going to extremes, tomorrow I will change and today won't mean a thing." -Alannis Morisette-

"Everything I feel, I make believe is real." -Graham Colton Band-

I could continue on for awhile like this...the number of songs I could quote and relate to certain days of my life are countless. So I will leave this entry to be continued...feel free to share any of your favorite music lines :)

Platform One

So I thought it would be appropriate to give a quick little explanation on why I am working for Platform One Entertainment. For those of you who don't know, Platform One is a music marketing company that works to find and support new artists through various marketing strategies. 

As a college representative, I help to promote new artists that Platform One represents, as well as try and find new artists by keeping up with the music scene on Mizzou's campus. I do this through distributing a compilation c.d. that Platform 1 puts together, as well as through trying to give new bands exposure. 

NEW this semester, I will be reviewing bands at The Blue Note, the main concert venue here at Mizzou, and posting these reviews on my blog, as well as passing on the information to Platform One. 

The reasons I wanted to work for Platform One were:

1. I am a HUGE music fan. I pretty much listen to anything...my all time favorite will always be Gavin Degraw.

2. My major at Mizzou is advertising and PR, and I would love to be involved in marketing in the future. This is a really fun and exciting opportunity. 

As promised, I do have a song of the week...this one is a little bit old, Walk Away by Ben Harper. It showed up on my iPod the other day and reminded me of how much I love Ben Harper. Amazing voice, inspirational lyrics. 

If anyone has any information on any bands or artists that they've heard in concert or even just a friend's group, drop me an email at sarahcal44@gmail.com.

My First Blog Post Ever!

Hey everyone! I'm Sarah, one of the University of Missouri Platform One campus reps, and I couldn't be more excited for this upcoming year.

 I'm not the most talented at technological things and have never made a blog or website before, so I'm hoping this all works out the way it's supposed to. I have a feeling I am going to become addicted with this pretty quickly, rambling on about music, sports, school, or whatever comes to mind.

I thought it would be cute to start off my blog by establishing a fun weekly thing, so I have decided that I'm going to lead off each post with my favorite song of the week. It may be a recently released song or a song from ten years ago that happens to be stuck in my head this week. SO...for this week, my favorite song would definitely have to be "Don't Trust Me," by 3OH3!. To be honest, I had never heard of this band up until this past weekend visiting my friend at Kansas, but now I can't stop listening to it. I highly suggest you check it out if your falling asleep studying and need a little burst of energy.

On a different note, I thought I would just take a few seconds to brag about my incredibly wonderful school's football team. For those of you not from the Midwest, you probably haven't heard much about the state of Missouri up until these past 2 years, but thanks to our amazing team (which is now ranked #2 and # 3 in the polls) we are finally getting the credit we deserve :) I am a HUGE sports fanatic, which you will soon grow to see if you keep up with my blog. 

Well, I think that's it for my first post ever. I'll keep you updated!

~Sarah~