Song of the week: "Darling" by MAX. I featured MAX in my "artists to watch in 2015" article I wrote for Examiner and he's a featured artist to watch on The Blaze's music blog, COTMA. According to Pete Wentz's not-so subtle hints he's been dropping on Twitter for the past week, he's also the latest addition to DCD2 Records, home of literally every single one of my favorite bands, including Panic! At The Disco, LOLO, New Politics, Cobra Starship and of course, Fall Out Boy. So happy that one of my favorite new solo artists found a home with all of my all time favorite musicians.
As per usual, my DJ shift was earlier today, and I played a pretty solid playlist today. Check it out here and view all of the tracks below!
"Video Girl" - FKA twigs
"Step" - Vampire Weekend
"Killing Me" - decker.
"Riptide" - Vance Joy
"Stardust" - Neon Tiger
"Love You Much Better" - The Hush Sound
"Identify" - The Maine
"High" - Young Rising Sons
"You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away" - The Beatles
"Boyfriend" - Best Coast
"Sex On The Regular" - Miniature Tigers
"I Wanna Get Better" - Bleachers
"Cecilia And The Satellite" - Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness
"Dreaming" - Smallpools
"Shut Up and Dance" - Walk The Moon
This time last year, I was pretty clueless when it came to local music except for a few bands here and there, but now I've expanded my horizons and learned about so many local bands and even befriended a few, which is super rad.
Coming up on one year (tomorrow, actually) marks the first time I ever interviewed a band. That's also the last time I interviewed a band... haha. But luckily for me, I have the opportunity along with DJ Kaley K to interview John O'Callaghan from The Maine next month. Super stoked on that, plus some other interview opportunities may pop up around then, but we'll see!
This week's been pretty solid so far. The only thing that'll make it better is seeing Panic! At The Disco from the barricade again, like the past two times. Here's to hoping!
And in honor of seeing the lovely men of Panic! on Friday, I'm signing off this post with the piano version of "This Is Gospel." My favorite part about this entire video is that Brendon told them to throw whatever they wanted on him, so they literally threw whatever they wanted. Beautiful.
Song of the week: "Waves" by Magic Man in honor of them being announced on the lineup for the Chipotle Cultivate Festival, which I get to review for COTMA! So many exciting shows coming up this spring, but I'll get to those in a bit.
As always, here's my playlist from today. I tried making it special and played songs only by bands coming into the area over the next few months, and I did pretty well except for one. I'm seeing most of these bands this year and I am way beyond stoked for it. Listen here.
"Karaoke" - Smallpools
"I Thank You" - The Mowgli’s
"Blue Sky" - Banana Gun
"Next In Line" - Walk The Moon
"Acres of Lust" - Sonny & The Sunsets
"Cameras" - Matt & Kim
"The Way We Talk" - The Maine
"Flashed Junk Mind" - Milky Chance
"Where The Streets Have No Name" - U2
"Waves" - Magic Man
"Reality" - Never Let This Go
"Kings & Queens" - MisterWives
"Holding On To You" - twenty one pilots
I'm limiting my concerts this year, but I'm going to four festivals between March and April, but the lineups were way too good to pass up. March brings the Pot Of Gold Festival (I'm seeing Bleachers, New Politics, Echosmith, Chromeo, New Politics and Fall Out Boy all in the same weekend, oh man), the Viva PHX mini festival (Halsey, Young Rising Sons, Smallpools, and so many of my local favorites), FestivAltAZ (MisterWives & Panic! At The Disco are playing, the only two reasons I needed to go) and then the Chipotle Cultivate Festival, which was announced earlier this week (my loves twenty one pilots are headlining and Magic Man are slated to play).
My Future Sunsets dudes have been hard at work in LA, working on covers and music with all of their pals over there. The most recent is their cover of Taylor Swift's "Style" with the always dazzling Tori McClure. They've done so much over the past few months and I'm so excited to see everything come together when everything's finally released. Check the "Style" cover out below:
In other music news, The Maine finally set a release date for American Candy, which is one of my most anticipated albums this year. If you're tuned in to The Blaze, we're giving away tickets to their show at The Marquee Theatre on April 3, which is the first date of the entire American Candy Tour. I'm excited for a lot of albums this year, but this one having a piece of home in it I think makes it the most special to me. I finally get what Jared said when he said a few months back that this record is pop songs dressed up as rock songs, but I dig it. I'm also so into that this album is the polar opposite of Forever Halloween. Oh, and I stayed up late on Monday night just to watch the premiere of their lyric video for their first single. It was well worth the wait.
Lastly, with my next huge concert being the Pot Of Gold Festival (I'm seeing Panic! At The Disco headline my school's spring-fling-type concert next week though, and I'm shooting some shows hopefully in early March), I didn't get to talk about Fall Out Boy last week. Two years off of hiatus, it seems like yesterday, to be honest. I remember leaving my English class to go to the bathroom to check Twitter and my entire timeline was all Fall Out Boy. They're my favorite band, they always will be. Two, three, four, five years in the future, they'll still be my favorite band. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing without their music. I wouldn't like half of the music I like now with their music.
Last year, they uploaded a one year later video on their account, narrated by Patrick & Pete, and honestly, it brought me to tears. How much one band could do in one year with being away for so long. It's incredible.
Song of the week: "We All Roll Along" by The Maine from their 2008 release, Can't Stop, Won't Stop. Why? I'll get into that later.
But for now? Here's my playlist that was played on The Blaze today during the 12-1 PM hour! Listen to it on Spotify here (as always) in case you missed it or just want to hear it again. All of the tracks are below:
"Sweet Time" - The Technicolors
"Days Are Gone" - Haim
"Rude Boy" - Diners
"The First Single (Cause A Scene)" - The Format
"More Than Life" - Magazine Society
"Birthday Girl" - The Roots ft. Patrick Stump
"Right Now" - Never Let This Go
"Rollercoaster" - Bleachers
"Panic" - The Smiths
"Tightrope" - Walk The Moon
"Stay" - The Love Me Nots
"Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" - Green Day
"In Exile" - Thrice
"Run" - The Maine
This past week/weekend was insane, with the Super Bowl going on and stuff. I'm not a sports person, at all, and having all of the main events downtown was a lot for me. I mean, it was cool, but not really my thing. I saw Jimmy Fallon rehearse for his post-Super Bowl live show (rad) and saw Walk The Moon and The Technicolors play a free concert just a few blocks down from where I live.
If you don't know, The Technicolors are a local band who just recently signed to 8123, a local record label with artists signed to it like Lydia, This Century, Nick Santino (formerly of A Rocket To The Moon *insert crying emoji here*), and most notably, The Maine. If you listen to one artist, you listen to them all, which is actually really cool, because these bands really all have their own sound, but are deeply rooted with their hometowns, most are here in Arizona, but some aren't. The band that has the biggest connection here in Arizona (at least I think) is The Maine.
Back in 2008, my parents had a family friend who had a daughter a few years older than me, so I hung out with her whenever our parents hung out together. She was obsessed with bands like My Chemical Romance, Green Day, blink-182, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! At The Disco, and then she showed me smaller bands, too. One of them was The Maine. She was so passionate about these guys, and hey, I was in 8th grade, so why not? I think the first song I listened to of theirs was "Girls Do What They Want," which I would jam out to pretty hard because I thought it sounded like a Jonas Brothers song at the time. I really didn't take a liking to The Maine until high school, but little did 8th grade me know (high school me, rather) that I would grow incredibly close to the five guys that make up The Maine.
I was supposed to go to An Acoustic Evening with The Maine last year (yeah, the show they filmed their DVD at), but I had another commitment that night. Then, I was supposed to go to the 2014 Vans Warped Tour, but was unable to get a ticket. They then announced that they would be playing the Summer Ends Music Festival, but the entire festival got rained out during their set and it had to move to a tiny venue (plus I ended up getting sick that day, so I couldn't even see them at all). A month later, they played a secret show at a really tiny venue here in Phoenix, and as usual, they met everyone afterwards (they're kind of known to do that). Since there were so many people in such a tiny venue, I was unable to talk to all of them, but I was able to get to chat with Pat for a bit and then John before leaving. It was cool to watch them interact with fans who they had seen before at multiple shows, greeting them like old friends and spending the time to really have conversations with them. I had never seen a band like that do that before, especially a band as (pretty) big as The Maine.
In January, they announced the American Candy Tour, which is kicking off here, in Arizona, which is weird, because they usually end tours here or just do album release shows here. They were selling tickets in person all the way in Tempe, so I took the shuttle from downtown Phoenix to Tempe, was picked up by my friends, and went with $20 cash to buy a ticket. I stepped up to John & Jared's shared ticket window and was immediately greeted by John as he pressed his hands onto the glass, asking me how I was and how it was great to see me, followed immediately by a ton of questions on how school was going (he used to go to my school, weirdly enough). I was so overwhelmed by the fact that I hadn't seen him in months and talked to him for five minutes after he had a couple of drinks that I was genuinely surprised that he remembered me and the brief conversation that we had. I bought my ticket (it's still creased from when he handed it to me) and he said he would see me when they were all finished up, and soon enough, he told me he remembered me.
Friday night, they were all at the Walk The Moon concert supporting The Technicolors. I knew that they were there, I mean, they're signed to the same label, are close friends, the concert was free and in their city, the list goes on and on. I had left the pit after The Technicolors had ended (rumors about a certain boy band member being across the street started to circulate and that's something that I don't want to get into), and on our way out, I noticed a few familiar faces. Make that five familiar faces. I saw Pat first, and greeted him with a big wave and an even bigger hug, and he really seemed so happy to see me & my friends. He asked us what we thought of The Technicolors, and I had never seen them before, but I play them during my shifts on the station, so I told him they were really good & it made me more excited to see them in April when their tour starts. We talked for a while, laughed a lot, and then I decided that it was time to continue our trek out of the crowd, so we hugged again & said our goodbyes.
John was standing a bit far back, and he got a hair cut (a very much needed one, mind you) and he looked so good that I didn't even recognize him at first. I kept whisper-yelling "John" while semi crouched so he would see me awkwardly positioned between people, and after a few attempts, he bent down, beer can in hand, with the biggest smile on his face. He asked how I was, complimented my hat, and then we chatted a bit before Halvo (Cobra Starship's bassist & John's best friend/college roommate who I had met earlier that day) had cut in.
Then this was when I was really going to leave. Kennedy saw me from inside of the crowd, and there was no easy way for him to get to me. He waved feebly, squeezed his way between people (Jared and someone else I think) before popping next to me. Kennedy went through a lot over the past few months, and he looked so much happier and healthier on Friday night, if not the happiest and healthiest I've ever seen him. I had only talked to him once in my entire life, and it was one of the quickest interactions I've had with any of them, but it meant a lot that Friday we got to talk. We chatted how we were, The Technicolors, American Candy, and life. I remembered him saying to be gentle with hugs in his lengthy post shortly after the band's blackout period ended, and when he went in for one, I half whispered "I'll be gentle" and he looked at me with a really sincere face and said "Thank you."
Also side note...this happened today:
I guess what this whole thing was a huge post saying that a lot of things mean a lot to me, but this band is one of them. Everyone probably thinks with me that every band is my favorite band, which may be true because music has gotten me through a lot and I try to connect it with stuff that's kind of sucky sometimes, but I can honestly say I've never met a band as passionate about what they do other than The Maine. So they're my favorite bunch of dudes.
Here's to American Candy. And Pat, I'm holding you to the pre-listening thing of the album you're attempting to plan. You promised that invite.
Closing out this blog post with a music video, as per usual. Here's "Run" off of The Maine's Forever Halloween, which is the song I ended my shift with today.
Have a rad rest of your week, everyone. Don't sweat the small stuff.
