Calamity produces modern & pop art variety shows and creates dance to show around the Boston area. We believe art is an everyday and everyperson activity.
Enjoy this warm, buttery wonder from down under while you batten down your hatches in preparation for a lovely spring snow storm!
It's John Butler Trio's "Zebra" and I'm pretty sure I listened to it EVERY DAY during my tenure at BU. Listen to it once, and I'm confident you'll pick up a similar habit.
Congrats to all of us for polishing off the first week of school.
Here's a song I've been meaning to share for a while, but life got in the way a bit.
This is a band that I found in the background of super weird house party at BU. Turns out this song was also featured in an episode of Scrubs...and it totally sounds that way, if you didn't already know it.
Voila! "Shadow" by The Southland
Imagine college Amy wistfully avoiding reading articles on occupational therapy in StuVi.
I've been in touch with a lot of my coworkers from my days of retail glory...which prompted me to spark up my ol' PacLove playlist on Spotify: my collection of songs that played on Pac Radio.
And thank golly I did because otherwise this gem would have gone unshared.
Here's the latest song my next door neighbors are sick of hearing from it being piped directly from my bedroom window to their backyard.
It's "Boston Town" by Della Mae and it makes me proud to be a woman. I can't play an instrument and I'm certainly not a laborer...but goddamnit, I'm a woman!
So I watched a cute little movie that I would have never known about if it weren't for the "Recommended for You" section of Amazon. I like my movies light; I like my movies fluffy; I like my movies girly and predictable, and so enter "Lola Versus." It wasn't fantastic, it wasn't terrible, but the soundtrack was pretty great. So great, I'm struggling even now, trying to decide which song to share from it.
Ooooooooookay, it's gotta be Ani.
Here's Ani DeFranco with "Both Hands." The scene in the movie in which it plays is pretty cute; tangibly and painfully awkward, but in a delightful way.
I'm including a studio version, but like all things Ani...it's worth tracking down a live version. OH WAIT HERE'S ONE NOW.
Man, everything that is awesome about performing...you can see it in her face. I love it.
It's a great song. By a great artist. Off a great soundtrack...but don't look it up just yet so I can feature more songs from it and you'll all think I'm poetic and deep.
So it's been a while since we shared a song. There are so many great songs, and now that it's finally warm and tingly outside, WE CAN SING THEM ALL WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET AND NO ONE WILL GET MAD. [maybe]
In order to more thoroughly pump myself up in the early mornings of these spring days (though granted, it doesn't take much) I've been making a point of exploring new tunes as I get ready for work.
And here's what I discovered today. Pardon me if it was once hip and now is not, but I think it's great, and I hope you will too!
I told you, a few posts ago, about how my job is great! However, it is, very much so, still a job. I'm not the type of person that leaps out of bed to start my work day in the morning, so I'm trying to find ways to feel more like my work day is a part of my life...instead of just surviving through the day so that I can commence living after the dismissal bell rings. I've started wearing clothing to work that had been previously black listed from my functional school attire. (Leggings? AT SCHOOL?? If my butt is covered then HECK YES.)
Anyway, one way that I'm helping myself to feel more like a person and less like an OT machine, is having Pandora open and at the ready for when I have any sort of paperwork to do. And believe you me, there is always paperwork to do.
This may sound like a really simple and ...dare I say... dumb thing to mention in a blog post, but remember, I work in a school. My job is very much a social and active one, and one that is not without many much singing and music throughout any given day to begin with. The thought of listening to my "personal life" music was a fairly foreign one, until last year, when a co-worker and I would chose a song of questionable repute to end our Fridays.
So anyway, the HAIM Pandora station is the greatest one there is, and I am slowly becoming work obsessed with a group called Scavenger Hunt and their song "Dreamers" is a current favorite.
Hello Kids, hope you're all having a splendiferous week that is making you feel satiated and enthusiastic about your life!
Here's a song that just suits a good mood. It's a little dirty, but it's dirty in that really sneaky way...that sort of makes it EXTRA dirty, but you could totally listen to it in front of your Mom and not be embarrassed. It's really cute.
In the movie of my life it would be featured in some sort of hanging-out-with-my-girlfriends montage, even though it's topic matter is a bit more :ahem: blue.
It's Eliza Doolittle with "Skinny Genes," and it's the best!
I usually have a song a few days in advance that I plan on featuring as our weekly tune. Today, however, my paradigm shifted, as the radio played for me a song I had previously never heard. Or rather, a version of a song I've never heard.
I knew I had to share it.
Presented with no further commentary, here is Obadiah Parker's cover of one of my favorite high school jams (and an ex-boyfriend' personalized ring tone for me), "Hey Ya!"
Cheers to the close of another worky week! And a short one too. Weird to think it was just four days ago that Columbus discovered America. My, how the time does fly!
Anyway, I imagine that the lot of you have legions of cool things to do this weekend with cool people and in cool outfits. Cool! Enjoy that! My weekend, I'm intending, will be spent creating dance which, all things considered, isn't the least cool of the things I could do.
For this weekend, here's a song I love that was introduced to me by someone who was very very dear, but after time and summers and grad school, has grown to find his way away. He played this song for me in the Summer of 2007, but even then to me, it had a very fall feel to it. Around here, it's feeling more like the summer than fall, but who's to take for granted a beautiful day?
Her name is Basia Bulat and the song is "In the Night." I hope you love it as much as I do!
Hope you're all doing something festive and worthy of a bank holiday. Me? I just used some glitter nail polish and am ready to make an appearance at an out-of-state wedding.
In case you're in need of some up-pumping, or just a tune to make you feel good, here's a super awesome great song that is a mainstay of my "getting ready" playlist. It's The Asteroids Galaxy Tour's "Heart Attack."
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ROOM TO DANCE.
I know what you're thinking. Her name is Mette Lindberg. She is Danish. She is flawless. She is my spirit animal.
Here is a song I just plain like. It suits every mood and is yet another song that makes me feel like a cooler person just by listening to it. It's "Bambi" by Tokyo Police Club. It features one of my foremost favorite lyrics from any song ever;
turning into black and white /
underneath the swinging lights
These weeks have been long! Do something fun this weekend - or do absolutely nothing and revel in it!
Has anyone else had an absolutely absurd week? Not bad, per se, but just a very "HOLY CRAP IT IS FINALLY FRIDAY AND IT MIGHT ALSO BE LATE DECEMBER 2017" week.
Here's a song that I think might suit your state of relief.
As you all probably already know, Amanda Palmer is one of the coolest people in the world, and more specifically, one of the coolest people in and of the Boston area. Her duo, The Dresden Dolls, is one of those bands that inherently makes anyone who listens to them, cool, with refined taste in music.
I listened to this song, "Bank of Boston Beauty Queen," almost religiously in the calm after the storm of a messy break up in college. It made me feel like an individual again, as opposed to a failed half of a broken relationship. But it's not necessarily a break up song...it just gave me what I needed at the time.
And so I think it might be a perfect song for today...or to just know about in general. Because it's great.
What do you listen to when you can't describe your mood? When you're not particularly sure of the mood that you're in? What are you doing in your life to be as cool as Amanda Palmer, and can you give me some pointers?** Give us a shout or hum us a tune in the comments section!
Have a 'HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW LONG THIS WEEKEND IS' weekend!
-A.
**I'm sure you're cool just the way you are! But I would still like some pointers.
This past Friday found me traveling from Maine back to Somerville with our friends, Luminarium Dance. Because we got a flat tire halfway home and Meghan surprised me with a secret visit from my long-distance boyfriend (woo!) I cruelly left you without a Friday tune.
I am, at the very least, the worst.
So while you're busy not laboring, here's a belated but heartfelt tune that I hope will soothe your end-of-summer woes. It's called "So It Goes" by local heroes The Grownup Noise.
Enjoy the tune and then catch The Grownup Noise bopping around the Camberville area whenever you possibly can. I'd like to give you a date, but my internet is being extremely childish right now. Go ahead and give them a follow on Twitter or a like on the Face-B and keep yourself updated!
Enjoy your Monday holiday, folks. Whatever you do, don't labor!
-A.
