Concerts and Shit

I haven't been using this blog in ages.

BUT here's a list of all the concerts Chris and I have been to (that we can recall).

7/04/07 - Tool - Marcus Ampitheater

12/03/07 - Modest Mouse/Man Man - Orpheum Theater

3/09/08 - NoFX - the Myth

5/28/08 - Jeffrey Lewis - Varsity Theater

5/03/09 - Flight of the Conchords  Northrop Auditorium

11/04/09 - Brand New - First Ave

2/23/10 - Alec Onsworth/Ezra Furman and the Harpoons - 400 Bar

4/12/10 - Owen Pallett/Snowblink - Varsity Theater

4/24/10 - Gogol Bordello/Devotchka - First Ave

4/27/10 - Yeasayer/Sleigh Bells - First Ave

5/14/10 - Gayngs - First Ave

5/17/10 - Local Natives - 400 Bar

5/23/10 - Tallest Man on Earth - Varsity Theater

6/4/10 - Caribou/Toro Y Moi - 7th St Entry

6/05/10 - She & Him - First Ave

7/13/10 - Liars/John Weise - First Ave

7/16-18/10 - Pitchfork Festival

8/05/10 - The National/The Antlers - First Ave

9/17/10 - Titus Andronicus/Free Energy - Triple Rock

9/19/10 - The Flaming Lips/Ariel Pink - Roy Wilkins

9/22/10 - Arcade Fire/Calexio - Roy Wilkins

9/27/10 - Caribou/Emeralds - First Ave

10/04/10 - King Khan - Triple Rock

10/16/10  - Sufjan Stevens - Orpheum Theater

10/23/10 - LCD Soundsystem/Hot Chip - Roy Wilkins

10/30/10 - The Books - Cedar Cultural Center

11/14/10 - Robyn - Fine Line Music Cafe

11/17/10 - Tim & Eric - State Theater

2/11/11 - Best Coast/Wavves/No Joy - Varsity Theater

2/13/11 - Robyn/Diamond Rings/Natalia Kills - First Ave

2/24/11 - Baths/Braids/Houses - 7th St. Entry

4/4/11 - Bright Eyes/Titus Andronicus - First Ave

5/08/11 - tune-yards/buke & gass - Cedar Cultural Center

05/19/11 - CSS/Sleigh Bells/Neon Indian - First Ave

5/21/11 - Aesop Rock/Kimya Dawson - Triple Rock

6/14/11 - Mountain Goats - Varsity Theater

7/15-17/11 - Pitchfork Festival

7/15/11 - Das Racist/Smith Westerns - Lincoln Hall

7/16/11 - Moonface/Shabazz Palaces - Lincoln Hall

8/30/11 - TV on the Radio - First Ave

8/31/11 - TV on the Radio - First Ave

9/06/11 - Bon Iver - Orpheum Theater

9/15/11 - Braids/Pepper Rabbit - 7th St Entry

10/01/11 - Twin Shadow/Diamond Rings - 7th St. Entry

10/01/11 - Girls/NOBUNNY - First Ave

10/05/11 - The Drums - 7th St Entry

10/08/11 - Pretty Lights - The Myth

10/18/11 - Gang Gang Dance/Prince Rama - 7th St Entry

10/21/11 - Das Racist/Despot/Lakutis - Blue Moose Tap House

2/04/12 - Jeff Mangum - State Theatre

2/18/12 - Schoolboy Q - Varsity Theater

3/08/12 - EMA/Nu Sense - 7th St Entry

3/13/12 - Grimes/Born Gold/Elite Gymnastics - 7th St Entry

3/13/12 - Odd Future - First Ave

4/01/12 - Skream & Benga - The Brick

4/03/12 - Shabazz Palaces - The Whole

5/17/12 - The Weeknd - First Ave

5/27/12 - Soundset Festival

7/05/12 - El-P/Killer Mike/Mr MF eXquire/Despot - Fine Line Music Cafe

7/06/12 - Devotchka/Caroline Smith and the Goodnight Sleep - MN Zoo

9/20/12 - GZA/Killer Mike/Sweet Valley - First Ave

10/13/12 -Riff Raff/Action Bronson - Zombie Island

10/13/12 - A$AP Rocky/Danny Brown - First Ave

10/27/12 - Diamond Rings - 7th St Entry

11/21/12 - Death Grips/Myko Blanco - 7th St Entry

12/13/12 - How to Dress Well - 7th St Entry

2/18/13 - Nick Offerman - Mill City Nights

3/04/13 - Autre Ne Veut/Majical Cloudz - Triple Rock

Also, some upcoming shows:

Postponed -3/18/13 - Animal Collective/Dan Deacon - First Ave
3/20/13 - Major Lazer - First Ave
3/29/13 - Wavves/Fidlar - First Ave
4/01/13 - Sky Ferreira/How To Dress Well - 7th St Entry
4/03/13 - Sigur Ros - Roy Wilkins
4/05/13 - Calvin Harris - Epic
4/12/13 - The Men - First Ave
4/26/13 - Danny Brown/Kitty - Triple Rock

Woooooooooo!

Best Text of 2012

There's still a month left in 2012, but I doubt anything can beat this text.

"Watching how to train your dragon! It does look like your cat!"

Needless to say, I am freaking out.

My Thoughts on Politics

Some things I would like people to think about in the upcoming election:

1) Reducing access to birth control increases the number of unwanted children born. These children would be more likely to be poor, to be victims of neglect and abuse, and to die in infancy. What do you think costs more, the government supporting these unfortunate children or providing access to birth control?

2) Planned parenthood is not all about abortions. Planned parenthood helps families to conceive and raise healthy children. They help to provide prenatal care. They do cancer screenings that catch breast and cervical cancer early and save lives and money.

3) People who receive welfare are not lazy! They are people who are struggling and need help. They are not stereotypes! Welfare provides them the opportunity to advance, so that they can get better jobs and pay back into the system one day.

4) Women make 72% of their white male counterparts, but African American women only make 64% and Hispanic women just 55%. If women received equal pay, I am positive that fewer families would need welfare assistance.

5) Gay marriage would not change your life, unless you're, you know, gay. They just want to be able to see their loved one in the hospital and make critical decisions together. They want to inherit their spouse's belongings and life insurance without paying thousands and thousands of dollar to law firms.

6) Voter ID laws specifically target minorities and elderly. I cannot believe that seniors, some of whom fought in WW2, could potentially by disenfranchised. In person voter fraud is basically unheard of.

7) You cannot pay for a deficit with a 5 trillion dollar tax cut. How can you promise not to raise taxes, but say you will close loop holes to pay for your cut? Would the closure of these loop holes not increase taxes? Can you guarantee that those loop holes won't affect middle class Americans?

I am a woman and a minority. I am not a preexisting condition. I know I am opinionated. I know many of you disagree with things I have said here. My goal is only to share my feelings about issues I am passionate about. I have never been poor. I have never been pregnant. But I believe in an America where we reach out to help those around us.

Summer Reading

This summer I read the first two books of the Song of Fire and Ice series, a Game of Thrones and a Clash of  Kings. Absolutely loved them! I'm super eager to watch the HBO series, but I've been waiting for my stupid boyfriend to read the book, too! While waiting for him to catch up (which is taking incredibly too long) I decided to read an Ann Rice book my brother sent me for my birthday a couple months ago. I've read the first two books of her Vampire Diaries series and this time started the Mayfair Witches series. The first book is the Witching Hour, which is incredibly mysterious and inappropriately sexy. I'm about 700 pages through the 1000 page book, but my reading came to a screeching start once the semester started. Senior year and shit.

GZA

Exactly 11 weeks after I broke my foot and went to the Into the Wild Tour, the 64 Squares tour came to Minneapolis. The tour is GZA with Killer Mike, Sweet Valley (Nathan Williams), and Bear Hands. In preparation for the show, I drank like four or five bloody mary's at our apartment. Then we met two of our friends at the parking ramp and walked over to the show. I promptly grabbed a whiskey ginger and then Sweet Valley began to play. I am a huge fan of Wavves and had checked out Sweet Valley's newest mixtape Eternal Champ before the show. I screamed a bunch and then bought a Sweet Valley shirt with a topless girl turned away wearing high waist-ed jean shorts and facing back with a Misfits looking face. We grabbed more of the same drinks from one of the waitresses that walks through the crowd, and the exact same drinks cost us 2 dollars more? Rather drunk, I went wild for Killer Mike. There were probably two or three people between me and the rail. Between sets, one of the people we were at the show with managed to move up to the rail. His maneuver really pissed off some girl, who after yelling at him took his Das Racist Relax hat and threw it on the ground. My boyfriend has the same hat and feeling rather offended that she would do such a thing, I socked the girl in the face. Also, I fell over. Clearly not seeing it coming, she teared up and moved away in the crowd. When they picked my friends hat up, GZA actually signed it for him. During GZA's set he saw me desperately trying to reach my hand forward and he grabbed my hand specifically. It was pretty awesome. I forgot my phone in the car and was using my boyfriends to tweet at Killer Mike, who followed me after the broken foot thing, about meeting up. Apparently we got home to grab some stuff, I walked into the bedroom, and promptly fell asleep fully clothed on top of all of the blankets. That Friday morning I was almost as hungover as I was after the party bus I puked on. What a summer.

My Broken Foot - Part 2

The next morning I went to the doctor, feeling like a bad ass, to find out that I broke the outside metatarsal in my left foot, twice. To top it off I'd stood/danced on it for five hours and it was freakishly swollen. They gave me a "cam boot" so I can walk around and I can even take it off to sleep and shower. Also, I have my mom's crutches from when she broke the same bone in the same foot twenty years ago!

After a semi-serious nap, Chris and I headed out to the Minnesota Zoo to see Devotchka. Side note - if you have will call tickets, they don't get there until 6:30 PM, so you can't get into the zoo like you would with regular tickets. On our way to the the amphitheater I got a beer brat and fries and a Big Ginger. The food and drink was expensive, but good. Luckily, we were seated in row O at the end, so we were at the top of the amphitheater and I didn't have to hobble down the stairs or climb over people.

Caroline Smith and the Goodnight Sleeps opened the show. Caroline was super cute and can really belt it out. An older gent in the crowd pointed out to us that her drummer is the drummer from Cloud Cult. We later saw him yell and chase the guy down to ask why Cloud Cult doesn't have any shows scheduled in Minnesota.

The right side of the amphitheater is definitely the side to be seated on. From there you can see the lake behind the stage and it's rather pretty at sunset. This was my second time seeing Devotchka, but my first time seeing them since they put out their last album, 100 Lovers. They played my favorite song, Exhaustible, and the song Chris was most hoping to hear, Enemy Guns.

During their set, a thunderstorm was approaching, so all behind the stage was being lit up by lightning. It was absolutely prefect weather for an outside venue. We left right before the encore so that I wouldn't have to struggle through the crowd on my crutches. A very lovely lady gave us a ride back from the amphitheater on her golf cart so I only had to walk from the zoo to our car. The storm never broke while we at the zoo, but the freeways were flooded and it was madness on the way home.

My Broken Foot

It all began the evening of Thursday July 5th around 6 PM. First with drinking Alize out of the trunk of my boyfriend's car in the park and shop parking lot. Then with dinner at Taste of Thailand, where I drank what was likely the most expensive black Russian in the world. After a great dinner, we walked over to the Fine Line Music Cafe to see if there was re-entry. On our way, I stepped off the sidewalk to cross the road, not realizing I was not level with the ground, and landed with all my weight on the top of my left foot. It hurt like hell and started swelling immediately, but I continued walking anyway. After finding out that there was no re-entry at the Fine Line, we walked all the way back to our car, drank some Shakers vodka, and then walked back to the venue again. By this time I was relatively sure I broke a bone, based on the strange jut sticking out of my foot, but I refused to miss the show.

After arriving at the Fine Line again, I promptly got another drink. I believe a rum and coke. We got there earlier enough to get right up to the front of the stage. The show started with Despot, whom I saw and met last fall down in Iowa opening for Das Racist. I recognized a couple of his songs and he also did his usual "aerobics."

Mr. Muthafuckin' Exquire, who looks rather different (and better) with a beard, was next. I've listened to his mix tape several times, but the only song I recognized that he played was Huzzah. I was glad he played the original since his verses are better than on the remix. During MFE's set El-P brought out grey goose so he could take "straight shots of vodka," as Huzzah says. His stage presence was immaculate and he never lost that smile of his, and of course he took his shirt off to showcase that nice big belly.

Killer Mike, probably my favorite rapper out there right now, came out next. He played my absolute favorite song - Country Fried, along with other hits off his new album R.A.P. Music like Reagan, Big Beast, and RAP Music. He also played Ric Flair and Burn off his last album PL3DGE and his verses on the old hits The Whole World by Outkast and I Ain't Never Scared by Bone Crusher. He even came down into the crowd, near what he called "gangland." Minnesota should be notorious for it's awkward, unmoving crowds, but this crowd was way hype.

El-P of course came out last. Slug made an appearance to bring out that strange squirrel puppet from that music video, but thank God he didn't spoil the show by performing anything. El-P played Cancer for Cure from front to back... except that he did not play Nothing but You+Me (FTL), the song that's on the same track as $4 Vic, which is my favorite song of his. In his encore he played the Company Flow track Vital Nerve and part of a Tribe Called Quest's track Can I Kick It. At the end of the show, I bought the Into the Wild tour t-shirt and my boyfriend bought the same shirt and the Cat be Unemployed shirt by Despot. We also bought the Into the Wild tour poster and got it signed by El-P and Killer Mike. My foot hurt so bad I paid a taxi to drive us back to the parking lot and then zombie dragged my foot into the house.

The next morning I went to the doctor, feeling like a bad ass, to find out that I broke the outer metatarsal in my left foot, twice. To top it off, I'd stood/danced on it for five hours and it was freakishly swollen. When I told my friends I broke a bone in my foot, several of them asked me if I'd been drinking. My response is fuck you... "I like drinking... and I be drunk."