You're Next!

    No, I'm not making threats against my readers... My friends in central Illinois based metal band, Oblivion Oasis, embarked this week on their very first self-book tour, the You're Next Tour. 

    Based out of the Arthur/Tuscola, IL area, Oblivion Oasis is Dylan Chupp vocals, Austin Yoder bass/vocals, Daniel Ledbetter guitar, and Tyler Gudenrath drums. The group is quoted as drawing inspiration and influence from "anything and everything." 

    Whether these guys are rocking your mohawk in a church basement or Amishstock rock festival, they are sure to make a scene you'll never forget and keeps fans coming back for more. If you're in the South Carolina/North Carolina/Tennessee area, be sure to check them out on You're Next Tour here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193188817393949

    Or check them out August 27th at Amishstock rock festival in Arthur, IL, and make sure to visit their facebook page at: 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oblivion-Oasis/24302279966?sk=wall

Until next time,

Art, Love, Rock & Roll,

Larra

A Different Kind of Playlist

There’s a building in the business district of Shelbyville, IL. When you drive past it looks like any other building with bass pumping to hard that it rattles the glass in the front windows: welcome to Poor Man’s Playlist. Upon entering the building you are greeted with neon walls and a sign proclaiming “mosh at your own risk.”

The venue hosted its first concert on July 9^th 2011: a bold choice which competed with the Tinley Park, IL date for Vans Warped Tour, as well as the EP release show of Champaign-Urbana’s The Wisdom We Gain (formerly Dropped For a Funeral). The opening featured bands from as near as Shelbyville and as far as Columbus, OH.

As a reviewer I feel inclined to mention that air conditioning would have been welcome, and the bands took the stage late, but as shows go, it wasn’t the worst. I am excited to see where this up-and-coming venue heads in the future, and how they will build a name for themselves in an ever-struggling music industry.

Good luck, Poor Man’s Playlist, hope to see you soon!

We Are Warped

Myself and Belinda watching August Burns Red-the first show of the day.

Okay, to begin this post, you should know that I’ve been waiting since I was in 7^th grade for the summer I could finally go to Warped Tour, and this summer on July 7^th, at 19 years old, I joined the freshman class of the Vans Warped Tour and had the time of my life. I saw 13 bands play, was in the middle of tons thrashing crowds and mosh pits, threw many elbows, lifted countless crowd surfers, ran a lap around some merch tents with Joe Ragosta (of Patent Pending) and a bunch of fellow Patent Pending fans, agreed to do a “favor” for the AP guy and ended up handing out 80+ Warped Programs, I was on my feet for ten hours, I came home exhausted, sunburned, thrilled, and already pumped for Warped 2012. I saw some of my favorite bands and got introduced to a few new ones.

At Warped you are tossed into the throes of one collective, pulsing organism. You are skin on skin on teeshirt on body paint with 10,000 of your best friends. People will hold your drink or help you with sunscreen; shout out a question and someone will answer. When you start to fall in a mosh pit, there is someone behind you who will push you back up. Schedules, sunscreen, and memories are all shared. By lunchtime you’ve sweated all your makeup off, you’re dripping on the pavement, and you’ve lost any semblance of being “put together,” but you don’t care and neither does anyone else. Everyone at Warped is friends because everyone has one thing in common: we all live and breathe music.

By the time I got home from I was sunburned, exhausted, and so so happy. Basically, Warped Tour, I’ll see you next year.

Several thousand of my new friends.

Any Other Heart

“I’ve been this awful shade of lonely since your reasons left the room…” sings Go Radio front man Jason Lancaster in the band’s “Any Other Heart” from their March 2011 album Lucky Street. The ballad takes on deep and tragic meaning as it is explained by Lancaster in an interview with Last.fm in which he tells the heart breaking story of his father’s death and subsequent betrayal on the part of his step-mother. Lancaster describes “Any Other Heart” as being about the “enormous hatred” he feels surrounding that deceit and dishonesty. A powerful track referencing betrayal, regret, and wanting, “Any Other Heart” breathes like a passionate, accessible anthem for anyone who has ever been hurt, disappointed, or stabbed in the proverbial back.

Be sure to catch Go Radio on Vans Warped Tour this summer and check out Lucky Street for yourself on iTunes or at your favorite music store.

Musically Me

    Hey! I'm Larra, and I hope that this blog's theme makes it evident that I love music. Music of almost any kind, and by almost I mean that Justine Bieber is not -I repeat- is not music. My iPod is all but a body part, and it bears about 2150 songs currently...and that doesn't even come close to being everything I own. I sing in my college choir, I go to every local show and every concert I can get to. Art and Music are what I do. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. So, enjoy my musings and rants, and if you want me to review your band/venue, drop me a line at LarraKyleen@facebook.com