frontman friday: adam young

hello, weekend. so glad you could join us.
summer weekends always go by so quickly and this weekend is shaping up to be equally as packed as the last so for just a few seconds i'm going to sit in the wonder of some frontman appreciation.

being appreciated today: adam young

i think this picture is really old but whatever.

photo credit: indyconcerts.com

mr. young is the guy in owl city

he seems like such a little precious head.

he's from my homestate of MN. one time i tweeted him and told him i was driving through his home city of owatanna and asked him to get coffee with me. shockingly, he never responded. 

good ol' land of ten thousand lakes. 

he's got a new album coming out in the not-too-distant future and just released a music video for his song beautiful times! you can watch it over at Rolling Stone. go watch it. now. 

even after he shunned my text and offer for coffee i still went to go see him play. he was playing jingle ball a couple of years ago so my friend and i got tickets. we were literally the second to last row in the xcel energy center. adam looked like an ant. he sounded great though and i completely forgave him for never tweeting me back. 

xo

girls wearing massive sunglasses driving jeeps are probably jerks.

one of my favorite summer activities is driving around with my windows down, my music cranked and an iced white mocha in my cup holder. 

this is basically my every day after work in the summer (minus the iced white mocha, i'm not rich) because i don't have AC in my car. one day as i was passing lake calhoun during the height of rush hour i kept playing leap frog with a sporty little white car. the driver looked like a super-douche; no shirt, backwards baseball cap, ray bans, perfectly tanned, you know the type. 

i was trying so hard to not be annoyed, which is incredibly difficult in rush hour traffic, so i turned up chroma by cartel a little louder and settled in for what looked to be a long ride. 

as we got to the stoplight i realized my lane neighbor was none other than white-car-perfect-tan. neat. 

out of the corner of my eye i saw movement. so i turned to look at him and he's leaning over to the passenger side of his car and yells, "i love cartel! this album is so great!" through the open window. massive grin on his face. i was shocked, i managed to smile and give some weak-action response like, "yeah, i love them too." then the light changed and he yelled, "have a great day!" gave a little wave and was off.  

the rest of my ride i thought about how wrong i had been. how often do i connect with strangers on the street over a shared love of anything? oh, practically never. i had completely written him off as being a decent human being just based on the fact that he had a zippy little car and a smile like you'd see on a dentist office waiting room poster. in our 5 second interaction he turned out to be genuinely nice and i turned out to be the super-douche. 

i guess the saying is right, don't judge a book by it's cover. 

xo

the lost art of the mixtape.

my little brother is pregnant! and by that i mean his wife is pregnant.

woohoo! i'm going to be an aunt (and my parents are finally going to be grandparents, my sister and i both really dropped the ball on that one). pretty stoked to have a little squish to cuddle every now and again. baby is due to make his/her entrance on Christmas eve. i really hope he/she comes early or holds out for a bit because when you share your birthday with Jesus you're gonna get trumped every year.

anyway, my sister-in-law is going to be pregnant for the next 6 months and, due to work, her and my brother are living in different states so i feel like she may need a pick me up occasionally through the next couple months.

enter the mixtape. remember when people used to make mixtapes for their crush declaring their love? or when a friend would make one for another friend because those songs were just something that had to be shared? they can be so personal and thoughtful. such a fun gift! ...i'm trying to hint at someone making me a mixtape. 

this time around, it's a baby-themed mixtape to help her get through the tough days. she might hate it (i don't know her personal feelings on mixtapes) but i think it's funny.

1. baby baby by amy grant
2. sweet baby james by james taylor
3. baby one more time by britney spears
4. baby by justin bieber 
5. hey baby by no doubt
6. come on over baby by christina aguilera
7. i got you babe by sonny & cher
8. baby got back by sir mix-a-lot
9. ice ice baby by vanilla ice
10. baby it's cold outside the 'elf' version obvi

so go make a mixtape for someone, it will probably make their day.
xo

frontman friday: dan reynolds

it's the freakin' weekend, baby, i'm about to have me some fun.
well, i'm actually working this weekend but it's friday and in this moment that is all that matters...it's still a weekend at heart.

today's eye/ear candy: dan reynolds

that's passion right there.

photo credit: kyle k photo

dan is the lead singer for imagine dragons

is it weird that i like it when dudes cross their legs? 

i know it isn't manly but i'm into it. 

fun facts: dan went on mission for the mormon church when he was younger and has a daughter named, arrow. couldn't find a picture of him in the traditional white shirt/black tie combo but how absurdly adorable is this picture of him and arrow?  

 awww, so precious. 

photo credit: i can only assume he took this, looks like a selfie. 

when imagine dragons first hit mainstream radio with 'it's time' everyone i knew was all "have you heard of imagine dragons?" and it got really old really quick and i was determined not to like them on that fact alone. then i listened to night visions and i was like, "screw it, they're great and i'm on this bandwagon." 

now they are coming to my city and are playing a FREE show (thanks, major league baseball for choosing minneapolis to have your all-star game) and i get to see mr. reynolds live and in person! i hope they bring along the giant drum.

because how epic does this look? 

see you on july 12th, dan and crew! 

xo

all i want is the taste that your lips allow.

normally i am not a huge demi lovato fan.
but she covered ed sheeran's 'give me love' and i was impressed.
then today this video came out of her and ed singing it as a duet...
...and it's perfection.
girl's got grit and i'm a wee bit obsessed with the ginger singer-songwriter.

it's a happy tuesday.
xo

i like it when people screw up.

he made a mistake and it made me so happy.

a few nights ago NEEDTOBREATHE rolled through town and duh, i was there. it was the first time i've seen them since original drummer, joe, left the band and the first time i've seen them since the release of rivers in the wasteland.

the show was going so well and they were playing a lot of songs off the new album (which i would have hated if i didn't own it and couldn't sing along but i'm a huge fangirl and had pre-ordered the album) with just a few older singles sprinkled throughout.

about two-thirds of the way into the show the opening chords for "something beautiful" were played and the crowd went wild. bear started singing and what came out of his mouth was so not the first verse; it was some weird mash-up of a bunch of random lines from the song. he had clearly forgotten his own song.

and i loved it.

i loved it because he handled it like a champ. he's a professional performer and if you didn't know the song (or even if you weren't listening that closely) you would never have known that he screwed up. i don't know that he got one word right in the entire first verse but bless his heart, he just charged ahead and finally found his footing when he got to the chorus.

and i loved it because it shows how human he is. he screws up too. in a culture where we idolize celebrities we often forget that they are still just people, even if they have a job in the spotlight. they make mistakes, they get sick, they have bad days, they miss their families, and sometimes they forget the words to their own songs.

he screwed up and no one cared. in fact, it endeared me to him even more.

xo

frontman friday: paul meany

friday is upon us...beautiful, isn't it?
before we start oogling one of my favorite frontmen, a quick happy father's day to all the dads out there! hope you enjoy grilling out and receiving a tie/socks/can of mixed nuts from children who love you but have no idea what to buy for you.

my frontman for today is a dad so it's totally applicable.

meet frontman dad: paul meany

i LOVE it when singers smile while singing and playing.

photo credit: raggedband.com

paul calls center stage in MUTEMATH

picture of musical geniuses right here. 

photo credit: RELEVANT magazine

the first time i ever saw MUTEMATH play was on a tiny stage, in the middle of the day at a festival right after they released the Reset EP. there were maybe 20 of us crowded around the trailer-turned-stage. however, the first time i saw paul play was years earlier when he was in a band called earthsuit. 

paul is second from left. i'm sure this look was really in in 2000. 

photo credit: earthsuit

MUTEMATH caught the ears of movie execs and landed on two different soundtracks. 

 i never saw transformers.

i also never saw twilight. 

but clearly they have killer soundtracks.

they used to sell buttons in sets of two because one button said mute and the other button said math. i had a set and my mom thought they were the dumbest thing but i thought they were the greatest...and then i lost the mute button. tragedy. so now, somewhere in one of my boxes of random nostalgic crap that i tote around whenever i move, i have a sad little math button that misses it's counterpart. 

xo