Once again I had the time and presence of mind to participate in the Karaoke Blog Ring of Death.  This month the theme was “One hit wonders.”  There are quite a few of these out there so it should be a lot of fun to cruise through the ring and see which ones you recognize.  There were some pretty famous one hit wonders throughout the years.  There was even a Tom Hanks movie about one.  Everyone knows at least one, and probably has one as a favorite song.  Just don’t pick up the phone and start dialing 867-5309!

This month I am hosting Katie from Simply Kate.  Her one hit wonder is Breathless by the Corrs.  This is another one that should be familiar to a lot of people and was a little bit of a throwback fro me.  I just have to say that if someone got Katie a backup bad, she could have a career as a vocalist!  So, without further ado I give you Kate and Breathless:

So there you have it.  This is one that would bring down the house on Karaoke night at the bar!  If you want to see my video you can head over to Alexandra the Tsaritsa’s Blog.  If you want to see more Karaoke you can see DB’s video on Katie’s blog.  To learn more about the Karaoke ring, you should visit Sara Swears A Lot.

Here is  a shameless plug for bloggerstock, this month the theme is “Photo Inspired.”  So head over to this month’s info page to see the image and get more information, we would love to have you participating!

Well, I needed something to make me churn out a post since I haven’t in a while.  What provides more inspiration than some of the crazy folks who hang out over at 20SB?  Some of us came up with Bloggerstock, and then there are some, like Sara from Sara Swears A Lot, who come up with the Karaoke Blog Ring (of Death).  What is KBOD?  Well, each month a theme is picked an people make video blogs singing along to songs that fit the theme.  This month, the theme is alcohol related songs.  Something about St. Patties day and drinking and what have you (despite the fact that it isn’t really my holiday).

This month I am hosting a video by Lorn from Czech You Later.  Lorn is an English teacher in Prague and has quite a classic taste in songs that one might sing while drunk.  On the other hand, you might have to be drunk to actually get all of the words to this song out and actually make sense!  I suppose that if I told you that this is probably Don Mclean’s most famous song you should know what it is.  If you don’t, well then you had better learn yourself some classic rock!  This is also a great song for karaoke because  probably anywhere that you sang it, everyone would sing along.  One more hint if you have not figured out what the song is yet, Mclean wrote it primarily about the day Buddy Holly died. Figured it out yet?  Or did you just skip to the video and push play?

Here is a little not from Lorn:

Hey it’s lorn here for another round of kbrod…this time drinking songs! my guest this month is the lovely john and i have to say a big thank you to him. something you should know about him…he knows the words to every. song. ever. made. i’m not kidding. the man’s amazing. so i decided to test his lyrical skills with one of the longest songs ever! ha. also, this song has been a favorite of mine since i was little. there’s a cassette tape somewhere of an 8 year old me singing karaoke style to this song using my little fisher price tape deck with microphone (you remember those). my parents still joke about it to this day, so this is also a shout out to them. hope you enjoy, and feel free to sing along because i know you know the words too. many thanks to my wonderful host alex and don’t forget to check out rio over at my blog!

Well, without further ado, here is Lorn singing Don Mclean’s “American Pie.”

So, there you have one of the most iconic American songs!

If you are looking for my post, you can find it over on Shelly’s blog, Shelly Talks too Much.  If you want more information or to see a list of participants in the Karaoke Blog Ring of Death, you should visit Sara’s blog!

I will also take this time to put in a shameless plug for Bloggerstock.  We have a fun topic this month and would love it if you got involved.  If you want to find out what it is all about you can visit the site, or read some of the Bloggerstock posts on my blog.

So, I have been working on another song that I started to lay down some tracks for.  I have to give my brother some credit for this one as he is the one who introduced me to the original Woody Guthrie tune and a recent cover by Billy Bragg and Wilco.  I like folk music, it is always fun to play.  I wish I had the chance to play this song over the summer with my brother, but he never made it up to camp.  He wanted to play it too, so maybe sometime in the future.

The song is “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key” and it is a great, simple folk melody.  Here is my current recording, hopefully if time permits I will be able to add a little more depth to it.  Right now all the tracks are me, I played guitar and did all the vocal tracks.  nothing fancy, just some help from Garage Band.  So, let me know what you think, I am always open to comments and criticism.

Rick & Rocco’s Final Exam

This year is the last year that classes will be held in the building that I went to high school in.  Frankly it is about time.  They have been working on the new building and it will open for use next year.  The class of 2010 will be the last class to graduate from the Newton North High School that I knew.  Ironically, my mother’s class was the first to graduate for this building.

Over the past week there have been lots of celebrations, commemorations, and events related to the move.  Last week the theatre department had a big reunion performance called Kiss the Stage, which I was a day late to be able to go to.  However, last night, in the very last performance on the Lasker Stage was the final Rick ‘N Rocco Show.  Rocco is a 50′s rock and roll show that started when my mother was in school and continued until I was in school and then stopped, and for one last time they got the band back together to do one final performance.

When I had heard that they were doing the show and I would be around I knew that I wanted to go.  Of course yesterday morning some of the guys at NNHS gave me a shout to ask if I wanted to help.  So I ended up being involved with the show which was a lot of fun.  I got to run the lights for the last show at the theatre.  Sure, some people may say that it is only high school, but it is kinda sentimental.  I mean, I haven’t really been back there for a long time.  There were a bunch of alumni involved in the show and there were even more who came just to see it.  I can’t think of a better send off for the building.

The other really sentimental thing about the night was that we also celebrated the retirement of T (yes, we all called him T or Mr. T when we were in school and he also plays Rick in the show).  T was the choir director at NNHS and he also was the musical director for the musicals that the theatre department produced.  As I spent four years singing in the choirs and working on the shows it was really great to be invited to his retirement party.

T was an amazing teacher and a great friend.  I spent most of my weeks at school looking forward to the times that I would get to spend in his classroom.  I loved to sing then and I still do now.  I sang first in the freshman ensemble, then in the Concert Chior and in the Family Singers both my junior and senior years.  Yes, that meant that I was in two choirs for two years.  We had the opportunity to sing some great pieces and do fun concerts.  I even was a soloist in The Messiah which was a great experience.

Here is one of the piece that we sang in Family Singers.  Right now it is one of the only ones that I have on my computer.  I have more on some of my other drives, but they are not with me right now.  This piece however is a good one.  It is called “To You I Call.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Singing in the choirs in high school under the direction of T was probably one of the most important things in my musical career.  Learning how to sing in both large groups, small groups, solos and quartets was invaluable.  Learning to sing in mixed groups not standing with your section or singing with an orchestra was great.  We learned how to be independent, to work in groups and collaborate.  There were plenty of life lessons that came out of that classroom, things that are probably more important and more useful in day-to-day life than came out of other classes.  I certainly never asked myself: “When will I ever use this?” about anything in the choir room.

Mr. T had a great influence on many people’s lives.  Going to the show and then to the party and seeing not only the people who I knew from school, but the alumni spanning a whole range of years was amazing.  As T put it, everyone who came to wish him well you could sit with and talk to for hours about their experiences at NNHS and in his classroom, and how that helped get them to where they are today.

Of course, when you put all of these musical people in the same place at the same time what should happen but the instruments come out and the singing starts.  We had people playing guitar (including myself), we got T playing the piano and everyone sang.  Songs from all over the place.  It really was a great thing to stand around the piano again with a whole bunch of people who stood around the piano with T over the years.  This is what we do, it is really the best way to celebrate anything!  I mean, we sang until 1:00 in the morning.  At least we didn’t get in to singing something like “Kiss Today Goodbye,” because, while it might have been appropriate for the occasion, I think we all would have been crying by the end.

Well, everyone has to move on sometime, and while NNHS will be a different place without T, hopefully whoever takes over that position will have the same lasting impact on the students.  I am sure that I would not be the same person I am today had it not been for the time I spent in Room 127 at NNHS, had it not been for T.  I wish him and his family all the best and I hope that he enjoys his retirement.  I will always keep the memories of his classes close, and I will always be thankful I have them.

Thus ends an era as we bring down the house.

It is that time again.  Bloggerstock is here and this time we have expanded beyond the ten founders of the event.  Personally, I have been quite impressed with the turnout, and how easy it was to really keep things organized.  I shouldn’t dawdle on that subject though, that is not the purpose of this post!

In an ironically convenient twist of fate, the bloggerstock post date falls on a Monday, which suits the theme that I sometimes have for Mondays, “Mondays on Music.”  So, here to tell you a little bit about personal theme songs is Susie Q from Out of the Ordinary.  Susie Q is a blogger who doesn’t hesitate to just lay it all out there.  Her blog has recently moved, but if you track down her old one, you can see she has been at it for a while.  She is days away from graduating from uni, and has just lined up a great job.  If you like to read life unedited, you might enjoy reading Susie Q.

If you are looking for my post, you can find it over on That Ain’t Kosher.

Without further ado, I give you Susie Q!

Hello peeps, Susie Q here! I am guest posting here on Alex’s blog today after Bloggerstock enticed me to do a blog swap! If you haven’t checked it out already, click on the link and see what’s going on! Basically it’s a ring of bloggers who all love taking using and abusing other people’s personal space. Nah, it’s a great way of discovering new bloggers and readers.

Every month there’s a new topic that all the bloggers will write about. Then all these bloggers are muddled up and write on other people’s blogs. It’s not just a simple swap of “you write on mine and you write on mine” but all blogs link together. Like, I’m here on Alex’s space and I have received a wonderful post from Michael. You can read his post right here. Go ahead, click.. It’s a good one!

When I heard the theme for this month’s bloggerstock, the first thought that came to my mind, was *zomgh* am I meant to know what my theme song is? But I don’t listen to music unless it’s pounding in my ear as I’m doing my daily run!

But as I thought about it, it did become very clear what my theme song is. It’s the one song that gives me that tingly feeling in my tummy as it comes on. It’s the one that makes my heart skip a beat as it plays on my iPod.

Now, I have to tell you; there is a backstory to the song. Basically, my ex left me two years back. He left me while I was at work; he must’ve started packing as soon as I left. Imagine my surprise as I came home in the early hours of the morning! He did come in the next morning to explain but the damage was already done. It hurt. It was the betrayal that I cried about, not the ending of a year-long relationship.

So I went to my safe-place, where I felt happy. I pulled out my Tori Amos cd’s and stuffed myself full of ice-cream all the while whining about how terrible my life was. I trawled the internet for relationship advice (cos the internets knows it all y’all!) and my search led me to youtube. It ended up being a pointless link that had nothing to do with relationships. It was this girl doing hip rolls. (search it if you don’t know what they are. If done right, it looks so sexy!) I was just about to close the screen as the music came on. ‘Ice Box’ by Omarion. And the melody caught me immediately. And I sat there and started feeling better. The song was all about the break-up. The lyrics were about the break-up. EVERYTHING in the whole wide world was about the breakup!

“I got this ice box where my heart used to be … Why can’t I get it right? Just can’t let it go/I opened up, she let me down, I won’t feel that no more/I got memories, this is crazy/She ain’t nothin’ like the girl I used to know”

And that’s how it stayed for a long time. Every time I heard the song, it reminded me of him. Every time it played, I would go to that sad time in my life. Up until a few months ago even. And that’s when it all changed.

You see, I’ve been called the ‘Ice Queen’ by some. Because unless you’re in my inner circle, you would not know that I have emotions. I do not talk about problems, I hide them like a secretive mole. I don’t cry in front of people, and even smiles have been few and far between. And it’s because I’ve been hurt in the past.. “Just can’t let it go/I opened up, she let me down, I won’t feel that no more” So there I was, listening to this song again. And I realised; I am no longer THAT GIRL. I no longer drag my past with me. This song no longer reminds me of the ex. Now reminds me of the past. It reminds me of how far I have come.

“She ain’t nothin’ like the girl I used to know” Yeah, I am nothing like the girl you used to know. I’m stronger, wiser and unfortunately older. I am who I am and where I am because of what has happened in the past, not despite that. But sometimes, just sometimes it’s quite nice to jump deep in the pool of the past. So here you go guys; my past.

Thank you Alex for letting me invade your personal space, I enjoyed it! Now people, get clicking!