#Fast5 Facts (Music & Movies Edition)

1) There was a phase of my life in which I listened to a whole lot of underground hip hop. (It was from about 18 to 21. Initially, there was a boy involved.) To this day, I still enjoy the underground stuff better than any mainstream rap.

One of my favorite songs:

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To see him perform this live you can click here.

Other MCs that I love(d): Mos Def, Blackstar, Atmosphere (Slug)

2) I have never seen Goonies all the way through. 

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3) I can quote Empire Records from beginning to end. It will forever remain on my list of favorite movies of all time. 

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Mini fact: I loved Empire Records from my first viewing, and at the time, the only way I could have a copy for regular viewing was to record it on VHS. It was on the same tape as Dangerous Minds.

Other all-time favorites: Fight Club, Lost in Translation, The Nightmare Before Christmas, + a few others.

4) My love of Grunge (and '90s music in general) often makes people assume I'm older than I look. 

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Nirvana is arguably the most well-known Grunge band, and I've been of fan of Dave Grohl (ROCK GOD) since his days on drums with them, but my favorite band from this era? Alice in Chains. With Layne Staley, whom I believe was one of the best rock vocalists ever. That said, my Grunge Love extends to: Singles, Chris Cornell singing anything, flannels, Doc Martens, and the whole nine.

5) I hate - no really, hate - the movie A Christmas Story.

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The only thing I find remotely entertaining or funny in the whole of that movie is this scene, which is also wholly inappropriate and about 300 kinds of terrible. But in general? Never seeing this movie again would be perfectly fine with me. Bleh.

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What are some Little Known Facts About you and music and movies?

Soundtrack Things

a bit ago, my husband asked me a pretty cool question: 

"once you're published... if someone wanted to make your book into a movie, and you had a say in what ended up on the film soundtrack, what are 8 songs you'd want on it?" 

realistically, i didn't have to think too long for any of these tracks, because i write to a soundtrack, always. i thought i'd share them, in case anyone is interested. all of these songs create a real feel for either the story as a whole, or for a specific scene. pardon me as i nerd the f out, guys. for real.

in no particular order:

Bjork, "Army of Me"
(this was the most played track while i was writing the initial draft of this manuscript.)

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Civil Twilight, "Letters from the Sky"
 

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Flyleaf, "Fully Alive" 

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Frou Frou, "Let Go" 

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Radiohead, "How to Disappear Completely" 

(radiohead comprises the majority of my writing playlist for this novel.) 

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Massive Attack, "Butterfly Caught" 

(massive attack is also a large portion of this playlist.) 

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Incubus, "Dig" 

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Death Cab for Cutie, "You Are a Tourist" 

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what do you think? for those of you who know me, are you surprised? for those of you who have read this manuscript, can you "see" the story a bit better when you consider this soundtrack? 

:)

Happy Birthday to Me!

hey-o! 

for my birthday, i thought i'd make a hodgepodge post in which i shoe you a few of my favorite things. so, here we go!

in no particular order:

chuck taylors, because duh.

ben whishaw as Q in skyfall. OHAI BOY.

lattes (particularly with fun foam designs)

Daryl fucking Dixon, yo. Obviously.

Foo. Dave Grohl is cooler than you.

Mumford & Sons.

books.

Ten. (and the TARDIS, i suppose)

Marcus Mumford's lyrics.

and last, but definitely not least:

Cupcakes. Because of reasons.

anyhoo. there's obviously more where that came from, and i forgot to link to the original files, and for that i apologize, but: 

happy birthday to me!

hope you all have a fab day.

Mumford and Me

sometimes, you hear a song by a band, and you love it immediately.

they're not getting any radio play, so you start looking their songs up, and you find that you really dig the rest of their stuff, even the b-sides which aren't going to be on their forthcoming studio album.

when that album finally releases, you listen to it so much that you know it backward and forward, and then a second album is scheduled to be released.

you're insanely nervous because how can anything live up to that first album which was, for you, absolute perfection?

and then the pre-order of that second album downloads to your iTunes, and you lose your mind, because it's so freaking fantastic.

that's me and mumford, people.

there are a litany of reasons i love them

i love that marcus mumford writes songs based on his residual feelings after he finished books.

i love that marcus mumford's lyrics are compelling and lovely to read all on their own, regardless of the sound that comes along with them.

i love their vocal harmonies.

i love the grating behind marcus' voice.

i love that winston does inappropriate things to the air while playing a fiddle.

i love that ben's absurdly adorable (even if he's sort of the worst dj in the world).

i love that ted is so lovely and smart, and that it's so cool to listen to him ramble on about their music.

but mostly, i love that their songs always, always, always hit me right in the FEELS.

mumford's lyrics are steeped in religion, conflict based on religion, love, and some of the harsh realities of life. as a result, they speak to me on a long list of levels, my tortured religious history being rather high on that list. also, some things that have happened in  my life recently are almost narrated by a handful of their songs, so much so that i can't adequately explain it.

they're one of my favorite bands. the end.

music & me: zz ward

here's a thing you should know about me: i'm a bit of a music snob.

not in the conventionalway, though. what i mean is that it's highly unlikely that i'll label any singer that can't *actually* sing as someone whom i either take seriously or call my favorite. that said, we all know britney spears couldnt sing her way out of a bucket, BUT the girl makes some killer tunes, so i like her, because if you tell me that you can't enjoy a well-crafted pop song, well, maybe i worry for your humanity.

here's another thing you should know about me: it's rare for me to love something immediately. usually, it takes some time for things to grow on me. i might like it a lot, but usually, it takes a few listens. there are exceptions (which i'll probably ramble about in another blog post), but... yeah.

so anyway. yesterday, my friend patrick linked me to this video.

and i loved it.

so here's my recommendation for ZZ WARD:

this girl can blow, she's pretty, and (according to her bio in various places), she plays a handful of instruments. i personally love the attitude she brings to her songs. "put the gun down" is like a sassier version of "jolene," "til the casket drops" is an crazy intense song of devotion, and she sounds great live (which is a big test for me, as a fellow singer). also, her stuff translates to acoustic wonderfully. I kind of think anybody who wishes adele wasn't such a classy broad, lyrically, will fall in love with ms. ward, because this girl lays it all out there.

sounds like: Adele meets hip hop and a little grit

video for "put the gun down"

 

 

acoustic version, "til the casket drops"

 

i can't lie: i snagged this album on itunes last night as soon as i heard a couple more of her tracks on spotify. and, i learned that she's playing here in nashville in a couple weeks, and i've snagged a couple tickets, so i will be in attendance. super excited.

i love her sound, i love her aesthetic, and i am thoroughly impressed with this debut (!!).

new tunes ftw!

music & me: runaways

the killers and i have had a strange little relationship.

i avoided them purposefully when "somebody told me" was released, based solely on the fact that sometimes, i avoid mainstream music, and OY, they were everywhere.

but then, "mr. brightside" was released.

and i loved it.
[sidenote: i find brandon flowers absurdly attractive, eyeliner or not, dandy or not, hipster-wear or not.]

then there was "when you were young," which, i will admit, is probably one of my favorite songs of the last decade.

however: the songs that followed up "when you were young" lost me. they weren't my cup of tea, and i sort of stopped following the killers for a few years.

i am happy to say that, with their most recent single, they've won me back over, and i've enjoyed the few tracks i've listened to from their new album, battle born.

here's the video for "runaways":

i love the simple treatment of the song, and i'm looking forward to their next single.

writing: nanowrimo 2012

i'll be participating in national novel writing month (NaNoWriMo) again this november. this will be the second one in a row for me. last year, i NaNo'd in 2 weeks, because i ignored my need for sleep and also ended up getting a sinus infection that knocked me out of commission regarding work attendance for 2 days, so i wrote 10k in a single day.

i am lucky that i have the ability to write quickly, but also pretty cleanly, so it wasn't a total mess when i was done, but i made one rather massive mistake last year:

i wrote out of order.

i'm a chronological writer. it's how i work. i always have an ending point in mind, and usually a few major plot points determined; i let the more minor details work themselves out (and am usually pleased to find that because i let the characters boss me around a bit, the story has more depth and detail that i would initially have thought).

so, all my 8000 docs with various scenes written on them from last year?

yep, they are still all disjointed and sitting in a folder on my hard drive. i simply don't have the patience to fix/connect/adjust everything that it needs, so until i really have the time, that story will sit there, unworked. (boo, hiss.)

[side note: i have scrivener now, so organization is much easier.]

i am planning on continuing a project that i've already started for nano this year, which is technically against the rules, but i only have about 6-8k written of it, and that's a far cry from complete, so it is what it is. it's my goal to hit the nano goal of 50K written in november by about 3-4 days before the end of the month so that perhaps i'll be closer to 60K written for the month when everything is said and done.

what is this project, you ask?

it's a pretty angsty, dark and twisty little thing. nothing supernatural, no fantasy elements like the project i'll be querying soon. it's my (rather emotional) take on a classic boy-meets-girl story, and i really love the characters.

the protagonist is a boy.

this makes me happy-happy-happy.

that said, the playlist that helps me write the story? is primarily girl singers.

here's the song that inspired the whole shebang, performed live by the girl who wrote it:

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i think i love you like a car crash, dear

i don't want your wreckage, but i find i cannot steer

my eyes away now

in fact, miss nalick's entire second album has been vastly impacting regarding the story, the characters, and their development.

i'll link my nano profile in the right column over there,  but for now:

which songs inspire you?

fast 5: please go away

fast 5 will be a thing where i just blog a random list. i don't know how often i'll make said lists, but this one's been in my brains for the last few days, so here we go:

 

 

5 bands or songs i would like a reprieve from:

after living in austin: anything by nirvana

after living in nashville: anything by pearl jam
(apparently every major city's radio staff has a favorite grunge band)

young the giant, "cough syrup"

cage the elephant, "shake me down"

fun., "we are young"

dear every djs everywhere:

these songs are dead. after all, the youngest of these is from what, 2010? ok, maybe early, early 2011. why-oh-why are these still on heavy rotation?

i'm not saying to never play these songs/bands again. but my ears would appreciate a reprieve so that maybe, just maybe, i can start to like these songs and bands again. even six months would suffice. until this happens, please trust that i will either change the station or, if that is not an option, i will roll my eyes for the entirety of any of the aforementioned (with rare exception).

respectfully, a fan of a lot of current music,
b helm

p.s. bands with punctuation in their names are ridiculous, though (for right now), i'm ok with "some nights."
p.s.s. i do love me some dave grohl, and his attachment to nirvana is not lost on me, but really, enough with "smells like teen spirit," guys. really.


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which songs do you wish radio would forget about, temporarily or not?

music and me: my favorite band

one really important thing people should know about me?

i'm a music fanatic - unabashed, almost to the point of pain sometimes.

from a very young age, i learned that music was incredibly important to me - it could deepen or adjust my mood, and what's more, i found that i could sing, and that made it all fun. at this point in my life, music plays heavily into anything i write, so in a very real way, it helps me develop tone and characters and the whole nine.

 

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i listen to every type of music from pop to metal to classical and Broadway tunes, but my favorite - my home base, if you will - is rock. i can't really explain why. i do love me some pop music (as a matter of fact, robyn, the singer of the song that inspired this blog url, is one of my all time favorite performers ever), but at the end of the day, my favorite band plays rock music and i wouldn't have it any other way.

that band?

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foo fighters.

aside from the fact that dave grohl is a rock god, i love every album they've ever released, and i've been listening to them since i was fifteen. it's impossible for me to choose my top 5 favorites from their catalog - i actually just tried and failed rather spectacularly, for the record. however, i will say that if i ever get up the nerve to get any of the three tattoos i would like to have, the first one will be a snippet of a foo lyric.

bamf

so, yeah. foo. love them.

but i still haven't seen them live. le suck. i'm hoping to remedy that in 2013.

i've decided that maybe album reviews or at least "here's what i'm loving right now" sort of posts will be a regular thing here, which is pretty exciting, all things considered.

in that vein? sometime this week, you can expect a review of the new mumford & sons album, babel, because they have cemented themselves a place on my list of favorite bands with its release. hope everybody's having a killer week.

what's your favorite band?


hearts,
b