So, James Franco is an artist, too.

I guess it was the only thing left he hadn't done yet, since he already has a pilot's license, a degree in creative writing from UCLA, went to Columbia University's writing program, NYU's art school for filmmaking, Brooklyn College for fiction writing, Yale's Ph.D program in English, and Rhode Island School of Design's digital-media master's program, wrote and published a collection of short stories, directed two short films, and....

Saturday at ACL

Day two of ACL did not disappoint!

Dan Croll

We kicked off the day with this guy's concert. Though we'd never heard of him before, he put on a really good show with some relaxed indie rock music.  He was very humble, charismatic, and adorably British, even saying that this was the biggest crowd he'd ever played for. I'll definitely be looking into his music.

Haim

Despite the horrifically unforgiving heat, these girls totally blew us away. We'd heard a little bit of their music before and thought it would be fun to just pop in and see how they were. Little did we know what a good show that we were in for. From their stage presence, to their great playing, to their unique music, to their style and "take it or leave it" personalities that shone through, we would definitely go see them again and have already listened to their brand new album, Days are Gone, twice.

Portugal: The Man

Ok, we only half watched this one - we were eating lunch and nearly dozing off towards the back at the same time. But from what we could tell, they were pretty good.  Their songs all sounded exactly the same, but it was nice to relax to and have as background music.

Kings of Leon

Amazing. Like Muse, you have to go see them yourself to really understand. But they were fantastic players and performers. Their music was really fun to dance to and there were a lot of hardcore fans shouting along to every song.  All in all, it was a great way to end our weekend.

ACL's recap:

~Simone, Maya, and Adair

Friday at ACL

Yesterday we went to the first day of ACL, and here are the bands we saw:

Courtyard Hounds 

This was a fun transition into the day. They were pretty laid back and relaxed and overall seemed to be having a good time. Their songs did start to sound the same after a while, but at this point in the day, we were just so excited to be there that it didn't matter all that much to us.

Fun.

As you may know from our post a few weeks ago about how much we wanted to see Fun., we are pretty big fans.  So when they came out on the stage, there may have been a few tears shed. After we recovered from that, they were one of the best live bands we have ever seen. At the beginning of the concert they announced that they have always wanted to come play at ACL, and both the band and the audience never stopped grinning the whole time.  Singer Nate Ruess (in his very blue eyed, tank top wearing glory) really commanded the stage and everyone was dancing and singing along. My favorite part about them really was how much fun they seemed to be having. The great chemistry between the bandmates is really what makes them stand out, from the way they were messing with each other, trying to shove and distract each other to the general attitude they seemed to have as a whole.

Vampire Weekend 

The happy hoppy hippies and hardcore fans really characterized this show.Overall their songs sounded very similar, but even so they had a great stage presence and were very charismatic. 

Arctic Monkeys 

Even without ever listening to their music before, this show was still really enjoyable. They also had a really great stage presence and brought the audience on their feet (plus...they are super British). Love their Black Keys-ish sound. We will definitely be checking these guys out.

Muse 

Where do we even begin. From the virtuosic solos, to the crazy stage pyrotechnics, to the performance in its entirety, everything about Muse screams legendary. Despite two incidents involving a blown out generator, this was probably the best show we have ever been to.  Go see them yourself to really understand!

ACL's recap of Friday:


-Simone and Maya

ACL 2013!

Hey guys! I just wanted to post a short little excuse about why I don't have a real post for today.  Well, you see, it's because I'm going to have something much better!  Friday and Saturday this week, I'm going to be posting about the

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS MUSIC FESTIVAL!

That's right, everyone - at the very last second (yesterday afternoon, to be precise) Maya and I finally got tickets!  This weekend we're off to see some of our favorite bands at this festival.  At the end of each day we will try to post a short little blurb about each band we saw and the cool things going on at the festival!

Can't wait!

Austin Teen Book Festival 2013

Just a few decades ago, the young adult genre of literature didn't exist; basically, you could read The Bobbsey Twins or Stephen King, there was no middle ground. After S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders was published, with the teenage demographic specifically in mind, the publishing industry began to shift; now Young Adult is not only a genre, but entire sections of the bookstore are designated just for Teen Paranormal Romance Novels. Also, many literary events are being created for teens, like the Young Adult Book Fest and the Austin Teen Book Festival. I've been to dozens of events for young adult books, with amazing authors like David Levithan, John Flanagan, Rick Riordan, and Christopher Paolini.

This is the second year of the Austin Teen Book Festival, and though I only recognized a few of the authors on the roster, I was excited to hear what they had to say.

I went to the lunch speaking event, with Rob Thomas (creator of Veronica Mars!) and Sarah Dessen, and to two panels: Tales of Tomorrow and Truth and Consequences.

 

Although this panel was interesting, I hadn't read any of the books so it was slightly less thrilling than it could have been. Still, the authors were very inspiring and I'm definitely excited to check out some of these books. It's fascinating to see how books located in settings very different from our own can still have problems that are eerily similar to ours, and how they provide an excellent way to showcase some of the flaws in our own society.
 

I generally prefer realistic fiction to dystopian novels (though The Hunger Games is an exception, of course), so I was excited for this panel. I read Openly Straight and Dear Teen Me a few months ago and loved them both.

One of the highlights of the panel was when Sean Beaudoin (author of Wise Young Fool) played a clip of a song from his high school band, titled "Demonic Lust of the Immortal," which was just as fabulous as you might imagine.

Living with Jackie Chan, by Jo Knowles, has been banned, and most of the other books also tackle controversial subjects. The authors talked about how they didn't necessarily set out to write an "issues book," it just kind of happened - they wrote about what was important to them, which happened to be a sensitive topic. Young adult fiction often focuses on dark, gritty topics, which results in many of the books being banned. Though Banned Books Week just ended, it's never too late to read some good old controversial literature.

After seeing this panel, I bought Out of the Pocket (by Bill Konigsberg) and Rats Saw God (by Rob Thomas), and I plan to read the rest of the books discussed too. I'll definitely be going back to the Book Festival next year, and I suggest you do too!

~Maya

p.s. You can see Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief, which I reviewed) reading from The Outsiders for Banned Book Week here.

Pure Heroine by Lorde

I have to admit, I'm not usually into number one hits, but Royals by Lorde has been a definite exception.  Even after hearing it on the radio every ten minutes, I listen to it on loop on my iPod.  I definitely like her as a person - she's said some pretty cool stuff about her views on the music industry today - and with the fact that she writes all of her own music and is only 16 years old, I have to give her some credit.  Today, her new album Pure Heroine came out.

The album starts of with one of my favorites, Tennis Court, a heavily synthesized song with booming bass and heavy hip-hop influences.  The lyrics ponder her newfound fame, calling for a moment to show people "how little we care", a different kind of typical teen rebellion. The head raiser, however, is her melodramatic "I fall apart, with all my heart / And you can watch from your window". It's pretty clear commentary on teen star breakdowns. The sound is very similar to Lana Del Ray's, but with the combination of heaver bass and her strong lyrics, it does provide some differences so they don't sound too similar.  She brags about how easy it is for her to make music: “Making smart with the words again? Well, I’m bored,” she casually boasts.

400 Lux is a little less strong musically, very repetitive and more Lana Del Ray-esque with its soaring orchestral backup.  Lyrically it is still pretty strong, telling the story of a boy driving her home after a tiring party. She tells enough to establish a dreary suburban Auckland where the kids dream hard and sneak drinks. (The sentence "We're hollow like the bottles that we drink" shines.) This backdrop supposedly lasts for the entire album, which I find intriguing as few albums ever have a  specific setting.

Next up is everyone's favorite, Royals.  As we all know, this one is fresh and catchy, with the strong snapping beat and stacked vocals, and the topic is pretty interesting.  Like Tennis Court, it talks about celebrities, discussion how distant they are, what ridiculous lives they lead. While not coming across as hypocritical by admitting to love loving Nicki Minaj and Lana Del Rey, Lorde doesn't condemn pop music; she just wants an alternative. She says she and her friends love the fantasy, are "driving Cadillacs in our dreams". It's just that the fantasy needs to make it clear that it's exactly that...and in that way, she's brilliant.

Ribs...bleh.  Not very strong music and kinda weak lyrics as she complains about being afraid of getting old.  The rhyme scheme and fragmented lines are interesting, but musically I really don't like this one as much as the others.

With Buzzcut Season, Lorde casts a haunting, sleepy spell with the melancholy piano and soaring vocals, recalling an incident of hair burning, and reporting how the men on the news say "that we will lose". She again mourns her fame. Her lyrics "I'll live in a hologram with you" really stick with you.

Things pick up tempo again with Team,  which comes around the halfway point of the album.  It also has a strong hip-hop beat and another atmospheric anthem of a chorus: “We live in cities you’ll never see on screen, not very pretty but we sure know how to run things.” It’s a recalls the “Royals” chorus: “We’ll never be royals, it don’t run in our blood, that kind of luxe just ain’t for us, we crave a different kind of buzz.” This seems to be a pretty strong point for her, her want to “run things,” her want to “be your ruler,” but not with the extravagant, fancy life that traditional pop stars demand. 

Glory and Gore, my absolute favorite and a hauntingly beautiful song, uses the battles of the Coliseum and gladiators to describe our culture's obsession with celebrity drama.  While artists may not actually kill each other, Lorde reflects that people really do enjoy this "bloodshed" of drama. 

With Still Sane, Lorde again reflects on fame and makes a decision to risk her sanity with "I'm little but I'm coming for the crown". She wonders about the possibly coming off as a jerk, wondering, "Only bad people live to see their likeness in stone / What does that make me?"

White Teeth Teens is a second part of The Love Club, my favorite song off of her first EP.  It describes the lust for perfection, especially with teenagers and (is this a theme I'm noticing?) their want to be like celebrities.

The album closes out with A World Alone, a fantastic album closer. Its stark guitar hits home about how dark life can be.  She describes her and her friend's bad habits and how people hate on her and them, their jealousy, and how they ignore it.  She closes out, answering the first line presented in "Tennis Court" with "let 'em talk", pulling the whole album together nicely.

The main things that stood out with album were the raw emotion, amazing lyrics, and the very similar sound and feel of each of the songs.  There is a pulse running throughout the album.  A steady drumbeat flows through every song, its tone ranging from hard hip-hop to the driving indie rock sound that is present in a lot of music right now. It's very percussive, but that sound never really takes the center of her lyrics, though it is always in the background.  The music is almost hypnotic sounding, with the many harmonized vocals and beat that just asks you to sing along.  However, this strong flow and similar sound within the songs is what seems to hold this album back from greatness. The album feels a bit incomplete, with too many songs winding along without any significant build.  Ribs and Buzzcut Season in particular are very similar styles - slower beats, dark choruses and hypnotic percussion. There is some contrast, though, with White Teeth Teens and A World Alone's upbeat and energetic feel with a chord progression almost recalling Vampire Weekend.  

Lorde’s clearly a gifted songwriter for her age, but don’t let the novelty affect your view of Pure Heroine. It’s a very mature album, and if you like indie/pop music, you definitely should try this album out.  She seems to really write from her heart and care about what she communicates in her music. What with all of the on Pure Heroine talking about her exploits as a teenager, pre-fame, then what will her songs be like post-fame, as an adult?   This normal life that she yearns for and seemingly lusts for definitely wouldn't be easy to achieve if she keeps gathering fame. While it’s no masterpiece, Pure Heroine is unique enough to keep conversation going, and despite its somewhat monotonous sound, I do really like it.

And now, cookies

Is a cookie recipe a weird thing to blog about? Maybe, but I have about five minutes of free time and I'd rather use it to bake than to write a coherent blog post.

I've made these cookies at least once a week for the past six months, and I'm still not sick of them. They're less bready than regular chocolate chip cookies because they have oats and coconut, but they still taste super chocolatey and delicious.

 

Ingredients: 

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs (the batter is delicious, so you can use powdered or pasteurized eggs if you don't want to die)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups flour 

2 cups oats

1 cup shredded coconut

2 cups chocolate chips 

Mix the butter and sugars, then add the eggs and vanilla extract. Dump everything else in the bowl, stir, and then use your hands to roll the batter into little balls. Put them in a 350 degree oven for eight to ten minutes. This makes almost four cookie sheets worth of cookies, so you might want to freeze some.

Obviously this is very complicated and time-consuming, so it might be better to just play
 Cookie Clicker for six hours instead. Maybe that would explain my lack of free time...

~Maya