Glee Give A Note

Vote for Northwest School of the Arts (Charlotte, NC) as the recipient of Glee's grant for school music programs! They really deserve it, plus they are part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District which absolutely is a mess and doesn't fund them enough.

I still have the song from their entry video stuck in my head... so go vote, and then vote again tomorrow when you catch yourself singing the song to yourself. :)

The Academy Is... Over

Self-explanatory note from the band above. My rant will follow below:

After several line-ups changes over the years, and a big announcement in June saying that members Andy Mrotek (drums) and Michael Guy Chislett (guitar) would be leaving, TAI has finally called it quits. This marks the end of the majority of Decaydance / Fueled By Ramen bands as we know them For example, Fall Out Boy is on indefinite hiatus, Panic[!] At the Disco split in two and is a little indecisive on its name's punctuation, Gym Class Heroes is going strong but not without a little bit of spotlight stolen by "Travie" McCoy (he too, used to be known by a slightly different name) and a little bit of selling out with Adam Levine on their current record.

Six of the eleven acts listed on the Decaydance page of Artists (as of 10/8/2011) are acts that have broken up or ceased creating music. Some kind of domino effect is going on here, and at this point, past fans probably don't care because they've been strung along, promised new albums for far too long. Pete Wentz no longer has the magic touch and Fueled By Ramen has been commonly known as an entity within Atlantic Records for quite some time now. The number of people who blindingly join the bandwagon of whatever bands sign to the label is dwindlingly fast. I mostly blame their personal lives - these artists are growing up and while they once were all some sort of circle of friends, they now have different musical tastes and lifestyles (for example, William Beckett from TAI has a daughter) and they don't have that united front of bands on the cutting edge of popular rock music (if that isn't an oxymoron) anymore.

I'll miss The Academy Is..., but more so, I already miss the days when the majority of my favorite bands consisted of members who were all alive and together and able to be seen in concert.

Christina Perri

In roughly an hour, Christina Perri will perform in one of her biggest live television performances yet. Of course, it was TV that brought her first single "Jar of Hearts" to life in the first place.

Last year, her EP and eventual music video for "Jar of Hearts" gained her fame after being featured on So You Think You Can Dance - and again a little under a year later on Glee. She was named a Vh1 "You Oughta Know" Artist and in May released lovestrong., her first full-length.

Like many writers (and writer she is), she seems to favor heartbreak as her main motif. And she's got that penchant for awKward/artistic capitaLization, or lack thereof. She isn't afraid to use skin as a replacement for paper, however, with more awesome tattoos than there's room here to mention.

In describing her time spent in the studio (only slightly more than a month) she said, "I was running back and forth doing the vocals, the piano, the guitar, the harmonies, and the doubles.”

Yeah, she's one of those types. The ones who get their dream on with a random breakthrough, and actually deserve it (with those chops, and the actual ability to play and write for multiple instruments? Please, you can't dispute this). A Cinderella story.

Judge for yourself if she's got a way with words. The Late Show with Letterman @ 11:35pm August 1st. Or if that's long past when you read this...

"i learned to live, half alive, and now you want me one more time"

click to listen.

RIP Amy Winehouse

Several days after Amy Winehouse's death, her father announced plans for a charitable organization bearing her name with a focus of helping addicts. It's certainly a better legacy than the lyrics to her most famous song. The cause of death remains to be known.
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Speaking of rehab, it's now been two weeks since the release of Demi Lovato's lead single "Skyscraper," the first since her time in rehabilitation for the treatment of eating disorder among other problems. She's come back stronger than ever, and effectively dropped her Disney affiliation. Nonetheless, she can still be seen as a decent role model - if only she'd have taken risks in sharing her story with her fans earlier, rather than risks with her health. She is currently in the studio with Timbaland (according to her tweet) which could play out interestingly. I'll be forever waiting to see if her collaboration with frontman of The Academy Is..., William Beckett, is ever put out into the world, though.

"only silence has its ending, like we never had a chance"

click to listen.

The Academy Was...

The Academy Is... is falling apart and losing almost half of their members just like a whole slew of other Fueled By Ramen bands (Paramore, Fall Out Boy, ring any bells?). If you're too lazy to read the letter above, Andy "The Butcher" Mrotek and Michael Guy Chislett are leaving to pursue other creative ventures, for The Butcher, namely a band with the same name as his online art gallery, The Animal Upstairs, and for Chislett, touring as a guitarist for Brooke Fraser. Just conjecture here, but I don't think that this was their idea.

Neither leaving musician was a founding member (The Butcher replaced Michael DelPrincipe, the original drummer, and Chislett replaced Tom Conrad, making him the third lead guitarist). TAI has begun to follow suit in the manner of many young(ish) powerpop bands with a revolving door of musicians coming and going for one or two albums each.

The majority of lyrics have been credited to singer/frontman William Beckett, and the majority of the music has been credited to Beckett and only-remaining-guitarist Mike Carden, so they seem to be in good hands as far as writing new music goes. Their website features a clip of new material, though there's no hint as to when there will next be an album release. The last formal album came out in 2008, though an EP came in concurrence with their spot on the AP Fall Ball Tour in 2009.

" i feel the tide is turning, the end of a chapter starts today, do i really belong here anymore anyway?"

click to listen.

Faded Paper Figures

In this digital age, many a band relies solely on messy lyric search engines to display the words that accompany their music. Rather than pour over pages printed on glossy paper, we Google for posts by other listeners, which is quite subjective. And while Seal might be okay with any interpretation, some listeners just want to know the true meaning.

Which brings me to Faded Paper Figures. Much in the style of The Postal Service, the Californian indie-electronica band features both male and female vocals, punctuated with both organic drums and electro blips. Like the Postal Service's Give Up, their 2010 album New Medium was recorded unusually (in the case of FPF, on both coasts of the United States, in the case of the Postal Service, by mail). And their gorgeous lyrics are gorgeously displayed in one place, with hyperlink annotations to give context for where their got their inspiration. You mean there's someone using the Internet to give rather than take credit? Yes, indeed Faded Paper Figures is something different. If you don't believe me...

"the cold is nice, when love is ice, our solitude will warm the room.
we'll melt here like icicles, electric and lyrical, our solitude will warm the room"

...click here.

Butch Walker and the Black Widows

Cover art from the coolest forty-something musician in America, Butch Walker manages to write for his own current band and produce for everyone from female pop stars to powerpop bands (P!nk, Avril, Katy Perry, The Academy Is..., and All Time Low to name a few).

After losing his house and all his worldly possessions in a wildfire, Walker pressed on and wrote Sycamore Meadows. He's not afraid to express emotion and he's also not afraid to have fun (check out his spoof of Taylor Swift's "You Belong to Me" - watch from 2:47 to hear the song and skip the shenanigans).

The above art belongs to his 2010 effort, and he has a brand-new album, The Spade, in its final stages before its release.

"as i'm waiting for those eyes, to say what's on your mind, i finally think i've found the words to say"

click to listen.