Last week was one of the craziest weeks I’ve had in a while. My car must have racked up a couple hundred miles. I started off Monday with a business meeting of sorts, had an interview Tuesday morning, drove like a maniac to get to a Bayside acoustic show in Upland from Culver City, drove to Anaheim later that night for their show at the House of Blues in Anaheim, had class Wednesday, drove to LA for a showcase after class, Thursday drove to LA for Bayside’s show at the House of Blues on Sunset, then actually slept on Friday. Overall, it was a lot of fun but somewhat exhausting. It was all worth it for 3 Bayside shows in one week!
Monday during class I got a text from a friend telling me about an acoustic show at The Wire in Upland the next day. X103.9 was bringing Bayside to The Wire in Upland! My first thought was, “who the hell comes to Upland!?” – well thanks to The Wire, Bayside did. I thought about posting pictures from all the shows but does it really matter? Videos are always better, so here you go:
“Already Gone”
“Good fucking Bye (Matt Skiba cover)
“Don’t Call Me Peanut”
I didn’t have the greatest seat in the house for the Anaheim show but I did take some video for work of how the crowd response for “Sick, Sick, Sick” was. It was then that I truly understood the whole Bayside “Cult” thing lol, yes it’s taken me this long.
“Sick, Sick, Sick”
Lastly, the LA show was pretty awesome with the exception of the drunk girls that were there for…who knows what reason. If you come to a Bayside show in a dress, heels, drinks in hand, and don’t know a single word to any song – I am confused by you. Anyway, I was stoked to hear them play “We’ll be OK” at each show but this time I got it on video.
January 15, 2005 was my 18th birthday and instead of “hitting a club” or something lame like that, I decided to head out to Chain Reaction to catch Hellogoodbye and Never Heard Of It play. Little did my friends and I know that we were going to find one of our favorite bands playing this night. That band was A Change of Pace. We liked them so much that we decided we had to see them again. We headed out to LA the next night to see them at the El Rey and that’s when we met Torry, Adam, Johnny and Jon.
Got this poster at the El Rey show, 2005
(And I bought a shirt. It says "Arizona Heartcore" under their name, haha)
From that moment on, it was a band that continuously brought my friends and I together. Whether it was a summer night out to LA to see them play at the Knitting Factory, at a coffeeshop in the middle of San Diego during Spring Break that brought 3 friends closer together, or if I had to drive down from college in Santa Barbara on a Wednesday night to catch them play a 30-minute set. ACOP was our band.
2005 was our senior year and when it came down to our friend Alexis to make her Valedictorian speech, she ended it with, “there are no goodbyes, only see you agains” and only we really understood.
From losing friends, drifting away, and ex-boyfriend drama, ACOP was there for us. There are so many songs and lyrics that were a soundtrack to a certain time of my life and I have memories upon memories attached to certain lines from Change is the Only Constant’s “Sellout” (the song that line of the speech comes from), An Offer You Can’t Refuse’s “Death Do Us Part” (“you have no need for such a useless thing, broken forever more”), Prepare the Masses’ “Weekend Warriors” (“i’ll stay young forever”) and “I’m Alive” (“just another checkmark on my list of things that I regret”), to Just No Better Way’s “I’ll Be There” (“your senior year, you and your friends went crazy but then you found out who your friends really were”), and It Could Be Worse’s “The Other Way” (“so I spend some nights just staring at the sky wondering why I am even here”) and so many more!
My favorite ACOP song:
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I have seen this band over 15 times, over half of them at Chain Reaction in Anaheim and every time, it was great.
It’s always weird when you think about how much an effect someone’s songs and music can have in your life and how close you can feel to a band.
Well, all great things come to an end and unfortunately, A Change of Pace was one of those great things to come to an end. After the announcement, I quickly looked to my best friends to see who’d be crazy enough to drive out to Arizona for their hometown farewell show. Sure enough, Ale, Anita and I jumped into the car and headed out.
The Clubhouse was filled of fans with high hopes of catching Torry singing the songs we all fell in love with and bittersweet feelings about the night. The band hit the stage and played a mix of songs from all the past LP’s. I really couldn’t even give you a setlist because I was just enjoying the night and soaking it all in. I felt like that same 18 year old at Chain Reaction. As they came close to an hour performance, my heart became more and more sad as there was no Torry in sight. As much as we love Micah, it’s hard to accept your band with a new singer, singing old songs you loved but without that same feeling. ACOP left the stage and the crowd chanted “Torry, Torry, Torry!” and out comes Micah with an acoustic guitar. Then, he introduces “one of his best friends,” Torry Jasper and they begin to sing “Safe and Sound in Phone Lines”. The crowd went absolutely nuts, more craziness than the entire performance had already had, and they continued playing for a couple more songs including “Asleep At The Wheel” and “Weekend Warriors,” it really was a trip to see Torry on stage again with the band I fell in love with 6+ years ago.
As cheesy as it sounds, I will admit that my eyes filled up throughout the performance as it signified a closing of a chapter for me. I’m coming to the end of my education and it’s time to move on, grow up, and get a job. It’s scary shit. At the same time, I guess it was a similar situation for A Change of Pace, to close a chapter in their lives.
As Blink best put it, “I guess this is growing up.”
Record Store Day is the kind of event that makes me realize that there are still hardcore music fans out there. If you don’t know about Record Store Day, you need to get in the know: www.recordstoreday.com. It’s basically when a bunch of amazing bands and artists put out exclusive records (such as b-sides, covers, remixes, exclusive tracks, etc) and release it only to independent record stores (local example: Rhino Records in Claremont, Sound Spectrum in Laguna Beach, and of course Fingerprints in Long Beach).
On this past Saturday, RSD 2011 was in full effect but never have I experienced such an awesome in-store as was this one at Fingerprints on 420 E. 4th Street, Long Beach, California.
Foo Fighters reached out to Rand Foster, Fingerprints Records owner, and asked if they could play an in-store on Record Store Day. Can you imagine what an amazing phone call THAT must have been?! So, obviously as all independent record store owners are huge music fans, he was thrilled for the opportunity. The wristbands were given out a couple weeks before, announced by an eblast and facebook that whoever pre-ordered Wasting Light at the store, starting at 6pm, for the first 200 people, would get a wristband to see the band play on RSD.
Foo Fighters, Fingerprints Records commemorative poster
As my bosses are basically thee shit, I was able to attend this amazing event. Maybe for many, you can’t comprehend how much it blows my mind that the Foo Fighters did this. A band that can sell out an 85,000 seat venue as Wembley Stadium, has history that goes back to years before I was born, can play anywhere in the world: chose to play an intimate set for 200 people, at an independent record store? Mind-blowing.
The band came out to play right around 5PM. Dave Grohl looks at the crowd and says, “we love records, here’s our new one” and begins playing Wasting Light from beginning to end. They did “All My Life” as an encore and left the crowd pumped as hell. Even on stage, Grohl seems as laid back and down to earth as ever after telling a fan to give him his damn pick back because he wasn’t done playing.
915 E Route 66, Glendora, CA 91740, (626) 335-9111
Don’t you hate that donut shops close so early? It’s 2am, you’re studying then BAM! a craving for a sugary carb just hits you. Hellloooo Donut Man! My boyfriend and I discovered this little gem when we were up late, trying to hunt down the Kogi Truck. By the time we got to the truck, it was closed for the night. So, Yelp to the rescue and we see this place in Glendora with 5 stars and 600+ reviews open 24/7! Immediately, we need to head out there. On the way we discovered their staple items and ordered those. Ever since then, we’ve been continuously coming back for more. This place is always crowded with college students since Cal Poly, Univ of La Verne, Mt. Sac and etc are nearby and we all know college students love to eat late at night. Guilty here. I thought I’d share their yummyness.
I introduce you to, THE TIGER TAIL. This amazing thing is basically a glazed twist, with chocolate in between. But look at the size of this thing! The donut next to it is not a mini donut, that is a regular normal sized donut. Yes, it is that big!
They have maple and chocolate bars almost as big as Tiger Tails!
These babies are what they’re known for. Whatever the season permits, it’s either the Strawberry or the Peach donut. Now, you may attempt to eat this at one sitting but BEWARE. It is a glazed donut, split open, with as many strawberries stuffed inside as possible. Nom nom nom!
If you ever find yourself up at wee hours of the night, you might want to find yourself in line for The Donut Man! You may also want to bring one of these along:
There’s a delicious mexican restaurant that has been rapidly gaining popularity in West Covina. Now, I’m not just saying that because my uncle is the owner. You can check out their Yelp page for proof.
618 Shoppers Lane, Covina, CA 91723 (626) 332-4712
Yeah yeah yeah, southern california has good mexican food everywhere. That’s what everyone thinks. However, until you have genuine authentic mexican food (not Chipotle), then you’ll know the difference.
My favorite things to get at Fonda Don Chon are carne asada tacos, sopitos, and of course, Enchiladas Verdes Poblanas. I’ve never had these before the restaurant and my uncle wouldn’t even give me the recipe but that’s how you know they’re good! The description in their menu states it is prepared with a special mild chocolate sauce. It sounds a little odd but let me tell you it’s AH-MAZING. Here’s a snap shot:
The fact that 3 slices of avocado sit on top of this huge plate makes it even better. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it! The only downside is that they don’t have al pastor which is marinated pork tacos, some of my favorite. Everything else makes up for it, especially the huge burrito, “the pan chon”:
Excuse the somewhat blurry pictures. We were starving and ready to eat!
If you’re in the area, remember to come on down and tell ‘em Kathy sent you!
Here’s our second episode of Music Business 101. I’ve been holding onto this video until I could launch lovelifemusic.net (before, it was kathyknows.com). I interned with Andy Villalpando in the summer of 2008 at Columbia Records’ A&R department. Andy has an amazing ear for great music. He’s brought in such good talent and it doesn’t surprise me Columbia hired him. I sat down with him around October 2010 to talk about the music business and any tips he might have.
The song featured in the video is Passion Pit’s “Little Secrets” off their record Manners. If you’re into it, download it on Amazon.
Who do you want to hear from next? What do you want to learn about the music business? Let me know who I should interview next!
I recently started going to the gym again (just a few more weeks til graduation!). I found myself skipping around songs because I couldn’t find anything I was in the mood for. I realized how much this interrupted the flow of my workout and thought “hmmm, if I had just 1 long song that I could listen to the whole way through my elliptical workout…” So I created this nostalgic mix of top female pop songs that were popular in the late 90′s/early 2000′s and did a couple minutes of each song. It’s 25 minutes long which is just good enough for a quick run on the treadmill or elliptical. It was pretty fun putting this together! Mind you, I don’t have any sort of expertise in Garage Band or mixing songs, so I tried my best HA! Download it and give it a listen, maybe put it in your ipod! Then let me know how it goes at the gym. Here’s what I included:
Christina Aguilera, “What a Girl Wants”: 1999 | buy
Mandy More, “Candy”: 1999 | buy
Britney Spears, “Stronger”: 2000 | buy
Pink, “You Make Me Sick”: 2000 | buy
Dream, “He Loves U Not”: 2000 | buy
Janet Jackson, “All For You”: 2000 | buy
Madonna, “Music”: 2000 | buy
Jessica Simpson, “Irresistible”: 2001 | buy
Avril Lavigne, “Sk8ter Boi”: 2002 | buy
Jennifer Lopez, “Waiting For Tonight”: 2002 | buy
Ashlee Simpson, “LaLa”: 2004 | buy
Kelly Clarkson, “Since U Been Gone”: 2004 | buy
Listen:
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CASTING CALL is a pop-punk band from Connecticut. They are a fairly new band but I see tons of potential and I have their EP, “Values” on constant repeat. I want to introduce them to you. Tell me what you think!
Click through to check out the video interview and some of their music.
