Throwback Tuesday: Discovery by ELO

I think I scored this gem for a whopping dollar, I broke it out and listened to it yesterday as I was snowed in and doing some photography for The Furnace Room. ELO is one of my favorite bands, orchestral themes mixed with rock and disco, what's not to love. Jeff Lynne is the man. This album is probably best known for "Don't Bring Me Down" which immediately slows my work flow as I cannot help but start dancing. "Need Her Love" is extremely sweet and "Midnight Blue" is probably one of my favorites as well,

I see you standing there far out along the way,
I want to touch you but the night becomes the day,
I count the words that I am never gonna say
And I see you midnight blue.

I wish more people would cover these songs because the lyrics are really beautiful. Although no one could ever outdue "Mr. Blue Sky", that song is pretty much perfect as is and will always be one of my favorites. So what is your throwback record for today? Leave a comment and maybe I'll give it a listen! 

A night out and welcome to October!

 

Music is the outpouring of the soul and hearing it live is an experience like none other. The other night I went out on the town and listened to the Peoria Symphony Orchestra at the Civic Center in Peoria. It was gorgeous, I was gifted a box seat in exchange for promoting the performance on Twitter. It is a new and amusing marketing strategy to have a group that discusses the key points and interesting details of each season's performance.

 

Tonight we were delighted by Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Strauss, and Debussy. Olga Kern, award winning pianist, brought down the house and nearly set off the fire alarm with her smoking hot key moves. Personally I think her gorgeous gown alone deserved a standing ovation, it looked like something straight out of a couture collection. I sat next to a long time concert going couple, aka cute and classy old people, she was all decked out with her sparkly clip on earrings and matching necklaces. Yes I said necklaces. And her husband sat behind her listening attentively. The only slightly annoying thing that happened occurred during the up tempo movements of the Rachmaninoff piece, a woman in front of me had particularly loud fingernails and enjoyed tapping them. Thankfully she moved after the intermission. After the concert I ran into some old friends and left smiling inside and out!

Throwback Thursday Vinyl: Boots by Nancy Sinatra

I picked this little number up on my thrift trip for a scandalous 75 cents at an antique store in Galesburg, IL. It's fabulous. The delicious Nancy Sinatra is the ultimate razor sharp blond bombshell who could hold her own in 1966. She covers everything a teenager was feeling in the 60s high on the drama of love, lies, and loneliness. What surprised me were the Beatles, Dylan, and Rolling Stones covers on this album. These tracks are ultimately given the Nancy Sinatra camp stamp but what makes me laugh is if the artists weren't pleased with them, who would dare insult the daughter of Frank Sinatra. You better prepare for a swift boot print on your face. Besides the obvious title track that is one of my all time oldie favs, "In My Room" is a dramatic affair that makes me want to stand in my house like I own the place and the cover of "As Tears Go By" is a dreamy serenade. Definitely pick this up if you get the chance and support your local record store.

Happy Fish, First Fridays. and Ribbon Records!

 

Friday night my cousin and I partook of CIAO First Fridays in Peoria, but first I had to make it out of her home filled with swanky vintage treasures from her latest road trip to northern Illinois. Happy Fish Sushi was our dinner of choice, a cool little joint in Campustown with super fresh sushi, although the tables are a tad too close together and there is that awkward moment where you feel like you are dining with the strangers next to you and you almost reach for something on their plate :) Carrie and I highly recommend the Miami Roll and the White Dragon roll.

 

Our next trek was Ribbon Records, a new favorite of mine, you will have to excuse the impressionistic photo I took below, but it is jam packed with bins of used records and the coolest vintage clothing collection you will find outside of a big city. This is a must see hole in the wall in Peoria. You can listen to music at your leisure as well!

 

We then traversed the artist studios of the Murray Building on Walnut street (Ribbon Records is in the first floor, artists are on the next 3 floors). We met Ken Hoffman, Ken Tiessen, Tracy Frugoli, and a few more very talented folk. Our night ended under the stars eating ice cream and discussing our life's passions. It was a pretty stellar Friday.

 

Carrie wants this lamp.

Thrift Stores Are the Bacon of Shopping...

Sorry for my absence, my cousin Carrie and I went on a thrifting road trip and it did not disappoint. We laughed our way through Springfield, the Quad Cities, and Galesburg, IL. We were led on some wild goose chases and experienced lots of bargains, screaming babies, chatty hotel neighbors, one man motorcycle wheelie popping fist pumping shows, PMS ice cream outings, Gumbo Ya-Ya, would-be yogurt bandits, singing horrible 90s music, Bad Girl Video and Fat Cat's Tattoo lounge, a license plate that said WHO AM U, drive-in movies, paying in pennies, forgetting to eat lunch, and Willy Wonka saying "tell me how you're going to try and eat a salad." It was a magical journey.

  

The Sangamon Antique Mall in Springfield, lotsa junking fun.

The Route 66 Drive-In, I highly recommend this!! We saw Fast & Furious 6 (bleh) and Star Trek Into Darkness (woohoo!!!!)

 

Coasting through small towns scouting out garage sales, that is the best way to get deals.

 

Totally misleading, don't always trust the signs, they had a wooden tv table painted like a watermelon for $20. No thank you! Where's the quarter table?!? 

 

Oh heck yeah, ice cream, cures everything...except diabetes.

 

My haul! Lots of fun treasures! I've already listed some in my shop, coleblk.etsy.com. If you want to check out some of Carrie's treasures, check out swankyladyvintage.etsy.com. 

Always remember: "Thrift stores are the BACON of shopping, antique stores are the STEAK!"

Whirlwind, what a week

 

What a week. They say one of the only constants in life is change. They were right. The other constant in life is God, and that's how I know everything is going the way it is supposed to. The best way to respond to change is by grabbing hold of it and letting go all in the same instant, like a great weight has landed on your shoulders but somehow you know that it will soon pass through you into space. 

 

I will spare you anymore metaphors and move on to lighter matters. Congrats to MaryAnne at lifeathaven, that was the best phone message ever! I also got the magazine sent to press and saw my friends Jared and Stephanie Bartman in concert and they were excellent as always and Henry was a wiggle worm but he clearly stole the show. The string quartet were magical and everyone brought their best to the table, not to mention the fact that this concert was BYOB and there was one table in particular that brought their best booze to the table and were very giggly. Also kudos to Denim Dragons and your freaky masks but great tunes.

Renee, I'm holding true and working my way through the book. I'm so proud of this meal, ginger teriyaki chicken and smashed spinach and garlic potatoes. MMMMMmmmmmmmm. I will be eating on this for a while. It really feels good to eat real food for a change. 

Happy Record Store Day!

 

There is just something about vinyl, the tactile feel, the odd eye-grabbing album art, and yes that 1970s-sandalwood-incense-plucked-straight-from-a-woodpaneled-basement smell. This is the first time I truly celebrated Record Store Day (sans Jack White, I guess he was too busy being an ambassador or something to come to Illinois). My friend Luke happens to be a big time vinyl collector so we met up at Co-Op Records in East Peoria where we quickly learned that you need to be in line before the dawn has cracked if you want to get that elusive Blind Melon record that the store - correction, the city - only ordered one copy of. Our trek included not one but FOUR local record stores because we're hard core like that. EP Co-Op, Peoria Co-Op, Pekin Co-Op, and Ribbon Records in downtown Peoria which I think was my favorite for quirk value, hence I will be going back. You meet some interesting characters along the way as well and it's cool to hear what everyone is after.

 

Here was my haul, I really wasn't looking for anything too specific so I plucked some Guess Who for my dad for Father's Day and the Spiral Starecase and Steve Martin are mine all mine. I know you are jealous, you are just playing it cool. I was pleasantly surprised to find this 8x10 portrait of Steve still in the sleeve!

Here is my friend's haul, 15 total. He was most pleased with Nick Drake and The White Stripes. Quite the eclectic array. He even asked me to make him stop before his spending got out of hand, but as I've learned from shopping with Carrie of Swanky Lady Vintage, no amount of hand slapping can deter someone from a good bargain. I may have to borrow a few.

 

It was a beautiful, sunny spring day, a little chilly in the morning, but it warmed up as the day progressed. One of those days where you can't help but take the backroads, turn up the Radiohead B-Sides, and sing away in your best Thom Yorke voice. 

What I'm listening to...

I haven't been listening to very much new music these days, I'm more the type of person to savor and live in my songs for a while, but this new, bombastic gem kept me satiated for days. I'm a big Muse fan, they are an acquired taste with their over-the-top style, roaring guitars, and Matt Bellamy's thrice octave voice that both melts my face off and makes me laugh when I hear it. I know girls who cannot reach some of the notes he does, and I'm in a Catholic Church choir, so that's saying something. Let me take a stroll through the tracks...

1. "Supremacy" - A classic Muse romp about overthrowing big government with all three players in full force, personally my favorite moment of this song is Matt singing the word "fantasy".
2. "Madness" - This song is the chocolate ice cream of songs, so hot, and that wonky bass, yes please.
3. "Panic Station" - Well hello 1985, fancy meeting you here, slap that bass and give me another dose of horn section.
4-5. "Prelude" "Survival" - This was the official song of the Olympics and I was enraged when the American media chose to ignore it and play their own stuff. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!??!! This song is amazing, it makes me want to punch someone and run a marathon!!! Simultaneously!!!
6. "Follow Me" - This is the sweetest and most uplifting song, Matt recently became a father with Kate Hudson and that strange beat you hear at the beginning is his son's heartbeat. I think any child would be thrilled to hear that when things get tough his father wants nothing more than for him to follow him and be brave.
7. "Animal" - This sounds like Muse's attempt at a Radiohead song to me.
8. "Explorers" - A cry out for freedom, in the end we all cry out for someone to save us.
9. "Big Freeze" - Loud and fun.
10. "Save Me" - Chris (the bass player) would seldom talk in interviews up to this point then low and behold he volunteers to write and sing a few songs, a huge smile spread across my face when his soft voice started. Beautiful, and a reprieve from Matt's power.
11. "Liquid State" - Another from Chris, very good.
12. "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" - Awww yeah, throw a newscaster, an orchestra, and a dash of dubstep and voila!! Now let's go save the world.
13. "The 2nd Law: Isolated System" - a fitting cool down from all of that awesome, and some quick-change choir moves!

A night out on the town

Jared Bartman and Friends is my favorite local band, they span genres, perform amazing original music and a cover here and there, they have the occasional string section and a six month old baby that wears noise-canceling headphones - what's not to love about this band?! I met the lead singer and his wife through Numéro and I've designed two album covers for them. Friday night they played at the Contemporary Art Center downtown and they were fabulous, if you ever get the chance to see them live, do it. I'm partial to their version of "Paperback Writer" by The Beatles and "Born Too Late" by the Ponytails. After the show I hopped over to May Street to visit another new artist spot as a part of CIAO first fridays--local artists open up their galleries for viewing and sometimes showcase live music and food. CIAO first fridays reassure me that Peoria is moving in the right direction as far as the arts go. Some people wonder why some of us artists stay in Peoria, given that the scene is not as developed as the bigger cities, but to that I say, if no one stays then nothing is going to get any better. There is a lot of diversity here, you just have to put forth the effort to support it.

Butterfly Effect Album Design

The man who used to occupy the office across the hall from me at work was a videographer and rap artist. He asked me one day to design an album cover for his new music project titled "Butterfly Effect". I still haven't heard any of the music on his album but he had a vague direction and so I came up with this design, he loved it, assignment complete in less than an hour. Those jobs are a blessing because you never quite know how your taste is going to mesh with someone in a completely different field. I should probably do a critique of my favorite album covers, what's your favorite album cover? Or if you have a band (or always dreamed of being in one) I'd be happy to design you an album cover :)