New blog!

O hai I got a new blog! At first I was seriously lusting this one, you know, 'cos I thought it was really fun, hip, funny, and hippie, but it's kind of boring, no? So I made a new one, a funnier, hipper one, specifically this one. It's off the chain. Trust.

Try it, you'll like it. But come here for the music, show updates, and slightly highbrow-ness in and around Atlanta. It's...AWEsome! Totes!

xoxo Gossip Girl-er...sorry,

Your electric bird,
Erika

Underrated Revisited: Cavil At Rest

Sometimes great bands get overlooked. You know, like how your parents paid more attention to your gorgeous, honor roll making sister than they did you. This section of the blogosphere is devoted to those bands who never really got their due years past...

Cavil At Rest


In the wake of spring 2007, mid March, a video premiered on MTV2's famous Subterranean. In the video, presented like a puppet show, a felt curtain parted and five cardboard musicians began playing pop music.

Cavil at Rest is a five piece group of especially handsome boys from Orange County, CA. The lead singer has an afro (and he's adorable), but what should really get you to like them should be their relatable lyrics and dance-y pop beats. If, perhaps, an archetypal 90s boy band could learn to play the guitar then maybe Cavil at Rest would have never happened. Alas, they didn't, and CaR broke the barrier between pop and rock music.

Few bands before them could rock out and sing in perfect harmony simultaneously (and still retain their severe indie cred), thus Cavil at Rest were both trendsetters and trailblazers. On their first album, Orion Way, Cavil at Rest began to explore just how deep they could take pop music before it became kitschy. They also took advantage of their "on-the-cusp" sound to develop their music into something typically viewed as "Top 40."

The acoustic single, "We Could Love," creates a Hellogoodbye type melody, while backup vocals and tinkling pianos push it close to Augustana. On "Who's There?", the boys make hyped-up, energetic pop reflective with the lyrics, "And I feel I idealize you to death/Dare I speak/Dare I speak/And I am weary under the weight of all the things I could say."

As with many bands that create a new genre of music, Cavil At Rest gained a very loyal Californian fan following, but even after the positive reception of their video on Subterranean, they never really became as popular as they should've, making them one of the most underrated bands of early '07. Orion Way was released under Chop Chop Music, and CaR continues to be unsigned to a record label.

Cavil at Rest site here.
Album available here.

cavil at rest: "who's there?"
cavil at rest: "we could love"


"Who's There?"



Your electric bird,
Erika

Underrated Revisited: The A-Sides

Sometimes great bands get overlooked. You know, like how your parents paid more attention to your gorgeous, honor roll making sister than they did you. This section of the blogosphere is devoted to those bands who never really got their due years past...

The A-Sides


If you live/lived in the city of Atlanta or its perimeter, and listened to 99x on Sunday nights from 8 - 10:oo pm, then you might recognize this band.

The A-Sides are 5 piece band from Philly, US, that make a niche brand of pop music; specifically one that recalls the power of a pop band, the calmness of a folk band, the sensibilities of modern musicians, the lyrics of Joie Blaney, and the ethereal-ness of Band Of Horses. They, in fact, put the "Brotherly Love" in "The City Of Brotherly Love." Along with Social Studies, they were probably one of the most underrated acts of '07.

On their second full length (but first on Vagrant Records, also home to Dashboard Confessional, Murder By Death, and Thrice), Silver Storms, the band harnesses frontman Jon Barthmus' calming voice and their "soft-when-it-needs-to-be-heavy-when -it-needs-to-be" noise to mold a crisp, cool landscape of sound. From tracks like "We're The Trees," with its dance-able harmonies on a sturdily built pop foundation, to ""Diamonds," a slow moving track that chugs along and climaxes 6 minutes later, Silver Storms is that perfect mix of reflective lyrics and smooth melodies with a sprinkling of snow and fairy dust.

Album available here.
The A-Sides site here.

the a-sides: "we're the trees"
the a-sides: "cinematic"

Your electric bird,
Erika

When I Was Fourteen...

I had two diaries.

I thought Reese Witherspoon could run for president

All of my clothes came from the Charlotte Russe clearance racks and Old Navy

My allowance was 10.00 a week

My friends and I had a collective Myspace that only we would comment on

All of my lip gloss had sparkles in it

I hung out with high school seniors

I finally got my braces off

I seriously considered taking high school online

Looks like there's a reason the past shouldn't be revisited.

New music to your right!

Your (adult) electric bird,
Erika

Stop Pretending

The year is 1983. The scene: in the wake of poppy, glossy, girl bands with crimped hair, electric eyeshadow, and cowboy boots, a gaggle of badass chicks with a penchant for 60s psychedelia, style for days, and too much attitude to bottle straight up killed the paradigm of innocent chicks with Fenders. They were the Pandoras, and, in a way, they were the predecessors of the Donnas. With spunk like the girl garage band successors Thee Headcoatees (and, more recently, the Coathangers) and guitar shred-ability like the Gore Gore Girls, the Pandoras were the epitome of the kind of "fuck you" attitude that spawned abso fabso frontwomen like Karen O, Jemina Pearl, and Beth Ditto.


(The Pandoras circa '85. Walking Urban Outfitters poster children.)

The 1986 LP, Stop Pretending (via thee head vein), recorded with frontwoman Paula Pierce, but with a new band, is an amazing blend of 60's surf rock and 80's pop that makes you want to simultaneously jump on your bed with a hairbrush microphone and slip into a leather jacket and smoke a cigarette.

Muh-Hollaaand!

Your electric bird,
Erika

Ohai Survey!

I don't know what a meme is (and nope, I'm not bothering to find the meaning of it) but whatever it is, I guess it's like a survey. Or something. But I found a popular one on the internet and since a) I don't know what else to talk about besides myself, and b) no one reads this shit anyway, I thought I would fill it out. You know, to make me sound kind of interesting or something.

My Foundation: Don't wear any. But if I abso have to, it's MAC Studio Fix. Apply that shit with a blush brush instead of the sponge pad and it'll last you all day.
My Mascara: L'Oreal Panoramic Curl. It's a bit craptastic, but I love how black it is.
My Blush: MAC blush in Blushbaby
My Eye Shadow: I don't wear eyeshadow, but when I do it's this plum-y color I bought back when I was in middle school. The container is like nondescript. I think it's probably N.Y.C. since that's all I could afford.
My Day Cream: Oil Of Olay, the dry skin version. Which is kind of weird 'cos my skin's sort of oily but I keep buying the dry skin one.
My Lipstick: MAC lipstick in Brick. Or Maybelline lipstick in Nude Blush. It just depends on how much I care about my appearance that day.
My Beauty Product Brand: Rimmel London. It will make you look like Kate Moss, no lie.
My Essential Beauty Product: Eyeliner. Everyday, two colors: navy on the bottom lid and emerald on the top.
My Favorite Makeup Product: Makeup removing sponges. I use mine to smudge my eyeliner.
My Perfume: Princess by Vera Wang, or for special occasions, Burberry Brit.
My Nails: (I'm assuming this means polish, since only anal people use nail cream) Nothing. Ever since middle school, my piano teacher didn't let me paint my nails and now I'm just used to it.
My Feet: N.Y.C. Taxi Cab. Yellow on tan skin is fabbbb!
My Hands: Cetaphil. Yep, just Cetaphil.
Three Products to bring on a Deserted Island: Eyeliner, blush, and Chapstick!
Woman I admire for her beauty: Twiggy...her eyes were gorgeousie!
Woman with the Best Sense of Style: Charlotte Gainsbourg. Everything she wears, no matter what it is, looks tailored for her style. Also Basia Bulat because she looks like an APC advert all the time.
My Ultimate Dream: To become completely content with my life.
How Do I Define Womanhood: Confidence.
My Favorite Fashion Publication: Missbehave!

Your (fresh faced) electric bird,
Erika

You Wanna Be On Top?

Tyra Banks: Delusional headcase or entrepreneurial and marketing mastermind?

You be the judge.
(Also this is to distract from the fact that I don't really have anything else to write and this question has been mulling around in my head after watching seven seasons of ANTM)

Your electric bird,
Erika

Target Rips Itself Off: Makes Worse Clothing Than Before

Ohai tackity tack tack capsule collection from Target! We all saw the fledgling beginnings of this possibly good idea: Erin Fetherston for Target was kind of cute...I guess...Proenza Schouler was awesome, as was Luella Bartley, so obvi Target is a bit hit (Jovovich-Hawk, Libertine) and miss (Patrick Robinson, Alice Temperly). But this time Target's done the (inevitable) unthinkable: they've ripped themselves off. Presenting Target's Go! International for Target. Yeah, it totally sounds like Kevin Drew titled the collection, but don't be fooled, this collection is red hot (not!)! It's full of geometric prints, colorblock shifts, and straight up asymmetrical madness! Shit is going down!

The funniest thing about this whole shabang is the fact that their home/domestic collection is more fug than the Mossimo bullshit they keep pimping out season after season. Everything is just sooooo...tack tack tack it up! It's almost like the design team of Target consists of Hannah Montana loving 13 year olds and 17 year olds with two credits from Home Ec. No lie.

It's currently clogging up the fluorescent lit aisle ways of the Big Red Bulls-Eye and prolly will be until Target finds some other designer to force a collabo with. I'm thinking Sean John...maybe a "No Bitch-Asses" on a pre-shrunk cotton shirt for 15.99 hanging up next to the neon green "Frankie Says Relax" tee? Just a thought...

Your electric bird,
Erika

See Vampire Weekend Before The Douchey Hipster You Met At The Bar Starts Buying Their Shit!

Yeah, it was all kind of going downhill once MTV got a hold of them, but for the better aspect of this whole thing, Vampire Weekend is still, by definition (mostly), an indie band. Of course, they are on the radio, but I think Indie 103.1 kind of makes it okay.

If they aren't just the cutest little aspiring English professors!

So let's say you're a die-hard VW fan. You stuck by them when "A-Punk" was on MTV and they appeared on SNL, and were even brave and loyal enough to defend them when the haters started their shit talking post their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel...with that band or whatever. You deserve to have complete rights to the band whose nurturing you personally had a hand in. YOU bought the album (back when it was still a preorder on Amazon, too!), commented on all the VW articles, made sure to only reveal your little Brooklyn gems to a select amount of people (whom you knew would really care about Vampire Weekend), and even turned a deaf ear (and blind eye) to their little stint of self-pimping. And you'll be damned if you attend their show and attempt to mosh during "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" amidst a gaggle of hormonally confused preteen hoes and American Apparel-styled hipster douches that would rather sip their Pabst and appear chill behind their Ray Bans than enjoy the music!

Well there's hope, and it doesn't come in the form of a support group. Vampire Weekend is coming to Atlanta, and since the masses (87%) of us aren't douche-holes that care more about status than happiness, it can almost be assured that the aforementioned scenario shan't occur.

In retrospect, this was a lot to write about a Vampire Weekend performance, but a true fan will appreciate. Trust.

Vampire Weekend at the Variety Playhouse on June 11 at 8:30 pm. Tickets can be bought here, or at the box office in front of the Playhouse.

vampire weekend - "cape cod kwassa kwassa"
vampire weekend - "oxford comma"

Violet stars happy hunting!

Your electric bird,
Erika

Employment...Is Hard

I need a job! Really! Normally, I'd stick it out with this job search but it isn't getting any easier. Or brighter, for that matter. I've flagged down about 5 possible jobs on Craiglist and applied to three companies already...but I need money! Cute clothing and pinup girl tattoos don't fund themselves, y'know?

Honestly, I was perfectly fine with my internship position at 99x under Elliott, but then the whole station just folded like a scene out of some bad Lifetime daytime movie and I was left without anything. It was an unpaid internship, so I had no money to hoard in my bank account back then.

I am sooo good at like tons of things but the fact that I'm seventeen for another month means a whole lot of opportunities that will be denied to me...and subsequently will no longer be available once I am.

The obvious answer to my employment (or lack thereof) conundrum is the mall. Yes, it's full of students, part-time-ness, and food courts, but I worked in the mall for 6 months and at the end of it vowed to never set foot in the back room of a mall boutique again.

I'm trying to remain optimistic but this whole "being funded by my mother" thing will never sit right with me. I pride myself on being independent and like very much to make my own money, take care of my shit for myself.

With my jet-setting the fuck out of here to CSUN looming in the back of my head, my window of opportunity for finding a decent job where I can make a good amount of money in a fairly short time (3 months) is slowly closing. I feel like given the chance I could really do well at whatever I set my mind (and paycheck) to, but I just don't have that foot in the door.

Gawd, 18+ jobs are overrated. Just let me waitress now. Promise I won't sneak the booze. Pinky swear. I'd be a great (paid) intern. Just ask my old boss. Professional blogger/writer/
contributor? Dude, my major is magazine journalism. Radio DJ? I interned at a radio station!

Just call...please...I've got the skills, and I'll lie on the application and tax forms. I can be 18 now...or even 21! I'm flexible!

So...so...poor...

Your (broke as a joke) electric bird,
Erika

I Iz On Missbehave.com!

OMG I'm on Ask Missbehave! I'm awesome! Pretty much everyone is telling me that I should get out of my current relationship before I a) kill my boo and catch a crazy Fed case, or b) fall in super love and find it impossible to get out (oh no!). I'm still caught in a confused state of crazy pants-ness. You should see me on there. Well, not me, porque my pic's not above the email but they got this cool drag-alicious queen bitch (no threat to you Miss Wintour), and it's for totally awesome.


more cat pictures

I iz the bomb. Whoa. Too much Lolcats for myz own good.

Your electric bird,
Erika

Does It? I Guess It Does...

New episode of the Bad Girl's Club tonight! Normally, I'd be more excited but it's the 1st half of a two part finale thing and I'm kinda sad that I won't get to see my 5 fave bitches anymore...and just when I started to really like Tanisha. Homegirl suddenly got really...tolerant. I liked it. And Darlen was always cool to me...then she made Tanisha catch a case at the club by fighting, but shit can that girl scrap. Neveen's still kind of evil though...


Oh well. Oxygen's not stupid. There will be more seasons until the public tires of them...and then they'll sell the Bad Girl's Club to E! So everyone wins!

In other, obscenely exciting news, I am going through my old school music phase (again). In honor of that, I posted up some retro-licious tracks in the music section. Not all of them are actually from the 60s and 70s...but it doesn't hurt that they sound like they are. A few of the tracks came from the fantastic 50s and 60s garage rock haven, but most of my really great vintage music comes from this outrageous little site. Oh, and you like surf rock and rockabilly? Then listen to this on WRAS 88.5.

Tanisha (post cardio exercise class): "I am getting signals from muscles I never knew existed. I feel like the whole of Brooklyn just jumped me."

Priceless!

Your electric bird,
Erika

Hello? Do You Have Thom Yorke In A Basement?

Okay, yesterday night, around midnight, I was still wide awake (a Coke, two slices of Domino's pizza, a cup of cran-pom juice, a bag of M&Ms and a Fat Boy will do that to you) and flipping listlessly through the channels when I landed on vh1 and guess what I saw?

Radiohead's In Rainbows From the Basement.

All the commercials about it had been saying it premiered at 0:00:00 AM which meant absolutely nothing at the time. But when the clock hit midnight, I got it. Very clever, vh1. I will give you that one.

But oh man, it was wicked rad! Except for the occasional time when Mr. Yorke got so into the music that he started swaying and tossing his arms to and fro - a time when someone should've reminded him that he wasn't at a Cypress Hill concert. But aside from that, it was all that and a bag of Chips Ahoy! I really enjoyed it.

I don't know if it'll come on again, for all you sad souls that missed it, but vh1 has a habit of repeatedly beating it's audience over the head with its programming, so...who knows?

My favorite track from In Rainbows, (aside from "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"): "Reckoner"


video.vh1.com

Blast that shit!

Your electric bird,
Erika

Things What Make Me Happy This Week: Step It Up & Dance, Bravo In General, Fridickulous Pickup Lines

So I might be addicted to television. But it's a baby addiction, like when you don't have to have meth everyday but a hit or two sure makes the day a lot better. It used to be worse; I used to hate going on family trips or to hotels without cable 'cos I loved the telly so much. Isn't it cute how I tossed that little British-ism in there? I'm a fecking genius.

Anyhoo...for some reason (perhaps suspected brain damage from when I hit my head on that big flower pot as a kid), I am really digging Bravo, the television channel. At first (when K-Griff's reality show hit the air) I was a little "ehhh" about Bravo. But then it's like someone hit the Bravo execs with some kind of common sense stick! They took Queer Eye off the air! There was Project Runway, Shear Genius, Top Chef...and now Real Housewives of the OC and NYC! (With an ATL spinoff in the making!) It almost can't get any better! Now I less than symbol three Bravo so bad...well, let's just say if I could've found it a tux, I wouldn't taken that bastard to prom.

And for some really weird reason, B-Vo's been straight killing it this week with their programming.

Normally I hate dance-themed reality shows, you know, like So You Think You Can Dance? or Dancing With The Stars. Also, I normally hate things involving Elizabeth Berkeley. (Saved By The Bell was nothing, btw, without Lark Voorhies.)

So you can imagine my innate veneration for Showgirls. Oh, and this new B-Vo show Step It Up & Dance. It's like about these (crappy) totally dedicated dancers that go on this show to tell the world! just how (bad) serious they are about dancing. They do (stupid) totally realistic challenges like going on (lame) AWEsome auditions, learn (MC Skat Kat kind of shitty) innovative choreography, and even battle each other with (retarded) completely sweet moves! It's electric! As it turns out, Berkeley (you know, not actually having danced) is even less useless than Padma Lakshmi (TC Hot-tay!). She just calls the kids, tells them to leave, pretty much makes the position of show-host seem as simple as spotting the fallacy of Wheel Of Fortune. Freaking conspiracy! But the best part of this show is that the dancers seem like they don't mind being satires of themselves. The show, actually, is like a satire of the world of dance. It's fab!

Anyway, there's this uber-creepy McCreepy pants dude on there who's always telling the dancers how to dance (btw he can't) and wearing weird on the verge of pilling knitwear sweaters. One time he danced and I think an angel lost its wings. Oh, and somewhere, a little girl got some platform sandals. Needless to say, homeboy brings all kind of evil into this world.
There was this contestant/dancer on the come up called Oscar. He's Italian, trained in music theatre, and fully better than anyone else (in the world and on the show). I will props him on his style choices...but that's where it begins and ends. He's super hilariously removed from the real world outside of dancing...or was, till he got voted off for the musical theatre challenge. Haha! Irocany is sweet...

Anyway, Step It Up & Dance comes on Bravo on Thursday nights at 10 pm. Bask in the limelight.

Oh yeah! And I totally heard the worst pickup line of my life today while I was on Forsyth and Marietta St. I was walking to DOTS (not my first mistake of the day, sadly) when this guy said to me, "Hi love, can I ask you a question?" I rolled my eyes and said, "What?" And he was like, "Can we go to the movies tonight?" Like, GAWWWDDD!

I said no.

Your electric bird,
Erika

This Ish Is Justice!

Okay so, ever since homeboy went sample crazy on just about every album he's done, we've all known that Kanye West knows what's up (musically, of course, since his views on Bush are another story). What is very up (sky-high in fact) is that 'Ye and Justice, the feisty French discotheque duo (which I lurve, btw. Gaspard, forget the age difference! I'll still wed thee! Don't French people just drink wine to live immortally anyway? We share the same fountain of youth!) are tag-teaming for some outta this world shit. Oh yeah, and plus they've got that more-dope-than-the-shit-your- dealer-gives-you clothing line that costs an arm, leg, and torso to cop.


But this time, oh this time, 'Ye, Justice, and the sure to be a global supastah! director Romain-Gavras have sacrificed the right virgin because the gods have blessed the world with a sickly killer video for "Stress." If you don't know that song, a) you're not a real Justice fan, and b) don't feel bad. It's at the end of the album, past the club bangers and "D.A.N.C.E." Don't front. You know that's why you bought the record...

Anyway, this video features angry adolescents, a lawless city, some Parisian references, a shaky camera hand, and a subway (or, how I'm pretty sure they say in Paris, metro) station.

So...it's kind of like if Death Wish and Cloverfield had a super wicked HD baby, with bangin' jackets and an ironically ironic hate of "D.A.N.C.E."

Thanks Kanye!

justice stress (official video)
by 75_prod

Your electric bird,
Erika

I Missed The Boat

Ugh, you and I both, Modest Mouse. You and I both. So if you're reading this and find yourself in need of a little backstory, I can help you out.

Missbehave Magazine, the holy grail/sacrilegious shrine of women's mags and badassery is holding this contest-y thing. I read a post about it awhile back but was all like, "Pssshhh. Okay." And I said it (mentally) in this really douchebag-gy mocking voice. I'm not proud of it, okay? But then I read some way later posts (in lieu of studying for my European History exam) and suddenly I felt like the douchebag from Split Ends.

Turns out MissBH (my new abbrev for the fabulousness) needed some more contributors and they were looking for rad chicks to come guest blog some shit! Just the kind of thing I would j'adore seeing as I read MissBH religiously and completely know how to speak and write awesomely. (And sometimes I can do both, but I have to have a clear head for that, which doesn't happen a lot.) The point is, instead of sitting here wasting my education and eating all my Bazooka bubblegum (shit...all gone, nevermind) I could be chitchatting with the best and brightest bitches on the coast. But when opportunity knocked, what did I do? Toss it like a salad. And now I'll have to sit in sad regret/tragic rue-ance while some American Apparel chick with lens-less glasses, suspenders, and a pair of Toms gets to half-assedly write about some less-than-sweet shit just 'cos she beat me to the jump.

Life is unfair. I'm gonna go paint or something. Hey, maybe I can get all angsty like that Juno girl and people might suddenly find my sarcasm endearing. Okay, maybe not. Shit.

By the way, if you need to fully understand the merits of lensless glasses, um, Dominic Andrews can help you out. Actually, he can also tell you other meaningless shit on his little Stickam thingy. Sometimes the internet is scary.



Your electric bird,
Erika