Column 11 - It’s Up To You

Column 11: It’s Up To You
Written for RKYV e-zine

She’s back! Although let’s be honest, probably only to disappear yet again. That bothersome illness [I was ill over the summer] may have finally disappeared into the abyss of the past, but college is back in full swing. I have a full course load on 18 credits, a part time job, an honor society to be involved in, and four total extracurricular activities. Did I mention I ran for floor rep in my dorm?

Why, why, why would I make things so busy I barely have time for myself, let alone a writing project?

The truth is, I’ve gotten pretty lax about my ‘writing’ ever since I got sick – at least, the casual short story and poetry part. I spent one day working on drafts for a fantasy novel idea, and I felt the writer’s equivalent of the Tin Man squealing, “Oil can!” between rusty lips. (What screams on or in a writer - fingers? Brain folds?)

But my priorities have shifted.

The truth is, with the occasional publishing in a magazine (I had yet another occur recently) and my writing for the Pitt News, I feel overall content. I very rarely, if ever, really work on my other ideas.

I suppose the question is, how does one know when they should be content and enjoy their successes, versus when they should enjoy the successes but still kick themselves into work?

Honestly, this is a question I simply cannot answer for you. No one knows you better than yourself. On the other hand, you probably love to make excuses (I do, too; don’t worry).

However, I can give you my secret to balancing time and picking the important things. This is a life saver in college; probably, it’s a life saver outside of college too. (Yay, good habits).

Maybe this is where you can put an old fashioned thing called a list to good use.

Also, it can be the really old fashioned pen and lined paper list, or the updated computer list. Take your pick. I don’t care which, because they serve the same function.

This is the point you just write down your life: your schedule, what you do in your free time, how much free time you have. Write down your hobbies, and any goals you have. Write down how much time you set aside to be with friends, who you spend the most time with – if it’s a part of your life, try to write it down. Get it out in the open.

Then look at it. Even share it with a friend, if you feel comfortable doing so.

If things are going good and you’re happy with them, OK. Congratulations. (Just be on the look out for the day you want to do something. Then it’s time to look over that list again.)

If you feel like you want to add something to the list (now or in the future), cut some things out or cut down how much time you spend on other things. It will not be easy, but you have to prioritize just like I did.

Just remember: be firm with yourself, but be flexible as well. Things happen, things get in the way. And as long as you work when you can, that’s OK.

In the end, it will be completely, totally up to you to decide if that project can be worked on now, or put off until later.

(Just don’t put it off until later next time. Unless you have a real crisis of an excuse.)

Best of luck,
Larissa

CD Review: Lights

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/27/debut-lights-album-begs-listening

Debut Lights album begs for a 'Listening'

photo credit: Lights

The Listening

Lights
The Listening
Sire Records
Sounds Like: Owl City meets The Corrs
Grade: B

Lights’ debut album, The Listening, is a surprisingly enjoyable first release from the electro-pop band.

The mingling of jamming techno beats with an old-school pop sound creates an interesting spin on the genre and is usually pleasing to the ear.

It embraces pop’s ability to carry a beat and allow for a theme about a love or a relationship that’s so frighteningly deep and intense, each lover can’t live without the other.

But nothing is perfect. Out of all the songs, a handful touch on the idea of being more than unhappy with where you are. It’s a little disheartening.

Sure, every person has experienced one of the multiple moments Lights breathes into musical form. On the other hand, it’s probably best to eventually be proactive about one’s life, which is exactly the opposite of what Lights seems to advise in many songs.

Don’t look to this album for much inspiration in that field.

Above all, it’s good entertainment. “Pretend” is an especially sweet track about playing pretend and remembering what it is like to be a kid. There are even two versions of this song for musical lovers: an upbeat techno-mix and a classical piano version.

By the album’s end, though, just don’t forget about moving forward and living for today after waxing nostalgic about your childhood.

Keller Williams Performing in Pittsburgh

Keller Williams balances music with family, blends eclectic styles

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/22/keller-williams-balances-music-family-blends-eclectic-styles

Keller Williams
Mr. Smalls Theater
Oct. 25, 8 p.m.
$22
412-821-4447

Performers love to sit back and listen just as much as they love to perform. Well, at least one does.

“I always consider myself a music lover first,” Musician Keller Williams said. “I’m always listening to different music.”

Williams uses tools such as Rhapsody, Pandora and even the ordinary radio to tap into newly released music.

“It’s something I’m into now, branching out and trying to hear the types of music I’ve never heard before,” Williams said. “There’s tons I go back to and listen to, but musically, there’s a wide variety.”

Variety seems to be a strength of Williams personally.

His genre of music has been described as funky, acoustic and electronic rolled into one. This was not intentional.

“It just sort of evolved on its own,” Williams said. “My first gig for money was in 1986. That was just from learning some chords and playing some songs on the radio.”

Between shows, Williams was a student who worked during the summer.

“Going out and playing on a stool made more money than those construction jobs,” Williams said.

But music wasn’t his career. It was something he did locally, he said.

When he began to travel and play as a career in the early 1990s, he didn’t travel far.

“I would try to open for bands on the weekend at different clubs,” he said. These performances became a cycle over the years.

“There was traveling involved, but it was on a regional level,” he said. “It wasn’t until I moved out to Colorado in ‘95 that I began to travel more.”

Soon, recording sessions accompanied his performances.

“It’s something I always wanted to do — make a record,” Williams said. “The first, ‘Freak,’ is tripping with energy. My records have definitely progressed since then.

“It’s definitely something I love,” Williams said about his music. “My mission is a relentless pursuit of entertaining myself. The fact that people pay a ticket price to watch me entertain myself blows me away. They want to see me having fun, I guess. I want to have fun and have that come across on stage and hopefully entertain the people who came to see me.”

Williams uses some improvisation on stage in his mission to have fun.

“I’ve always written and recorded as the songs come along, and I play whatever I want,” Williams said. “I try not to do the same show two nights in a row and to change things up in the venue since I last played there. The songs that I play are probably going to be different live then they are in the record.”

Conversations might inspire his song composition, but composing pieces is not a straightforward process.

“A lot of it kind of happens late at night,” he said. “Since I have kids, there’s not a whole lot of down time to sit and write. I have to go out of my way and stay up late, and that’s when it comes. It’s easy when it happens that way.”

Once written, it’s time to record. Williams has his own balance for the amount of technology used in a song.

“It’s hard not to use technology to clean up your sound,” Williams said. “But there’s a certain amount of organic-ness that I’m going for ... I use a little technology to right some wrongs. I call it creative editing.”

For the future, Williams has a list of things he wants to record.

“I have my work cut out for me for the next two and a half years,” he said. “I’m confident I’ll be making records and music.”
This is probably a good thing, considering there’s no planned alternative.

“There is no backup plan and no turning back,” Williams said. “This is what I’ll be doing.”

Check out Williams' Mypace page.

CD Review: Rooftop Trio

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/21/rooftop-trio-gives-pittsburghers-something-love

Rooftop Trio gives Pittsburghers something to love

Band: The Rooftop Trio

Sounds Like: The Avett Brothers, Ella Meno

Why do we love Pittsburgh? Is it the $5 pizzas or the fact that the city constantly pumps out new artists like The Rooftop Trio? Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter.

As the new band in town, The Rooftop Trio advertises its recordings as “Blues. Funk. Rock.”
It’s definitely not guilty of false advertising, and it really knows how to put together a nifty little piece of fun.
The band relies more on its music than lyrics, with instrumental solos lasting for about half of each song, creating a nice sound that is sure to relax listeners.

Its pieces are fun to listen to because of how pleasing the final product is to the ears.

The drumming is smooth and makes easy transitions between hard and soft styles. The guitar is passionate and demands that everyone pay attention to it. It has both a rock and a jazzy feel to it.

But don’t worry — when the band does sing, it reveals that it knows how to handle voices, as well as instruments. And it would never dare drown out the guitar.

Celtic Thunder

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/19/celtic-thunders-rolls-pittsburgh

Celtic Thunder rolls into Pittsburgh

photo credit: Courtesy Dan Klores Communications

Celtic Thunder’s talent spans across genres as well as generations.

Celtic Thunder
Heinz Hall
Oct. 20, 7:30 p.m.
$47.50 - $67.50
412-392-4900

Decked out in plaid, one of Ireland’s most exciting vocal groups, Celtic Thunder, will rumble and roll into Pittsburgh this fall.

Celtic Thunder combines the talents of five men to create a variety of music, including Celtic ballads and popular hit songs. Some of its songs are acoustic, while others are products of an entire orchestra.

On stage backdrops are also used to give the setting a scenic feeling.

With props, the orchestra ensemble and even a composer, Celtic Thunder blows boy bands out of the park.

“It’s a unique show. It’s five completely different voices, five soloists in a show who just come together,” Celtic Thunder singer Damian Joseph McGinty, Jr. said.

Creator and producer Sharon Browne put the group together after hosting auditions in Ireland two years ago.

“It’s her baby. She thought it up,” McGinty said about Browne. “She tried to think of something the Americans would love. We’re working, making records, trying to sell our show.”

However, McGinty said Celtic Thunder does not fit the stereotype of boy band in any sense.

“It’s five soloists who sing their own show and come together to produce a few good shows,” McGinty said.

There is also an incredible discrepancy in ages.

“The age difference is huge,” McGinty said. “I’m the youngest. I turned 17 last month.”

Of the other four singers, one is 23, two are in their 30s and the oldest is 41.

“It’s a weird combination,” McGinty said. “[But] a different age attracts different people. It could attract the widest audience possible. You never see a boy band where age varies so much. It’s gone well so far, and we’re all enjoying it.”

The five different voices and vocal ranges can provide a challenge, but McGinty said their composer Phil Coulter does a good job creating the best pieces for the band’s lineup.

The wide range of musical instruments matches the wide range of vocal talent. Including everything from a full orchestra to a smaller string quartet, bass player, drummer and percussionist, a Celtic Thunder performance can be compared to a full-blown musical.

“The more instruments you’ve got, the more songs you can produce,” said McGinty.

Attracting the widest audience goes hand in hand with Celtic Thunder’s mission, which is not just to make money by selling records, but to make people happy, McGinty said.

McGinty recalled one woman who thanked Celtic Thunder for helping her through chemotherapy, saying the group was an inspiration to her.

“That’s an amazing thing to hear,” McGinty said. “We were all shocked. It was incredible.”

McGinty said the group does tries to advertise and make sure it can reach as many people as possible, which was a challenge to begin with.

“When we were released in March 2008, nobody knew who we were,” McGinty said. “We’ve done a lot of promotion around PBS and TV stations. It’s a challenge to get yourself known because it’s a big place. It’s part of the fun, though.”

Along with TV promotions, the group began recording its CD very early.

“We recorded the album in the summer 2008, and I was 14 at the time,” McGinty said. “I never really sang in a studio before. I wasn’t really nervous. It was so new, I didn’t understand the size and capacity of what I was doing. We were all excited. We all recorded the songs and had a great couple of weeks in Ireland.

“There’s a couple weeks off, then we’re being back in the studio,” he said. “Me, I prefer being on stage. It’s an incredible feeling. You don’t get a bigger buzz.”

The reactions of the crowd can especially assist in the buzz which stage performers like McGinty experience.

“Sometimes the crowds are absolutely incredible,” McGinty said. “If the crowd is incredible, then you’re not going to forget anything soon. Places like Pittsburgh — we were there last year, that was incredible.”

“We buzz off a crowd, the crowd buzzes off us,” he said. “We all look forward to Pittsburgh, and we cannot wait to play there.”

Pittsburgh Ghost Walks

Get spooky on a Pittsburgh walking ghost tour

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/13/get-spooky-pittsburgh-walking-ghost-tour

Haunted Pittsburgh: Ghost Walks

September — 7 p.m.
October — 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m
Starting from the Carson Street Deli.
1507 E. Carson St., 412-381-5335
Tickets — $15 purchased at the Carson Street Deli

Most of us may snore through history lessons, but we usually perk up at the mention of ghost stories.

But what do ghost stories and history have to do with each other? It turns out that in Pittsburgh, the answer to that question is quite a lot.

This October, the newly formed organization Haunted Pittsburgh will tell Pittsburghers the spooky stories of the city through Haunted Pittsburgh: Ghost Walks.

The group recently launched walking ghost tours in the South Side, with plans for dinners at Gypsy Café in October.

The group is the pet project of attorneys Michelle Smith and Tim Murray, who shared a vision of Pittsburgh ghost tours.

“We noticed that most large cities and lots of not-so-large towns have successful ghost tours,” Murray said. “A lot of these places regard ... ghost tours as civic treasures, and we wondered why Pittsburgh didn’t have a permanent, ongoing ghost tour in a big neighborhood.”

It’s certainly not because Pittsburgh’s devoid of ghosts. According to Murray, the city is full of stories.

“We began doing research, and we found that Pittsburgh has a plethora of wonderful ghost stories, a lot of them involving some of this town’s most important historical figures,” Murray said.

This includes the powerful Henry Clay Frick and Roberto Clemente, he said.

“[We] learned Pittsburgh is an absolute treasure trove of great stories — stories that few people are telling nowadays, because there just isn’t a venue for it,” Murray said. “We decided to start Haunted Pittsburgh to fill the void.”

According to Murray, Haunted Pittsburgh stands out from haunted houses in its style and message.

“We are more akin to historians and storytellers as opposed to paranormal investigators,” he said. “We focus on the ghost stories themselves and the history and tradition that surround the stories.”

Haunted Pittsburgh uses the South Side neighborhood for its walking tour and dinners. It’s impossible to have tours in every neighborhood with ghost stories, but the South Side has its benefits.

“South Side is unique because of its big population and heavy concentration of ... mid-19th-century homes and ... because of its sheer vitality,” Murray said.

“If you’re looking for ghost stories, ironically enough, you usually have to go where there’s a lot of life, and in Pittsburgh, that’s South Side,” he said.

In Pittsburgh, history and ghost tales will always include the old steel industry that gave Pittsburgh its nickname, “The Steel City.”

“South Side was a steel mill neighborhood,” Murray said. “The mills are imprinted on our town’s DNA, and they provide for some creepy ghost tales. Pittsburgh has famously been called ‘hell with the lid off.’ Our city’s character was forged in vicious labor strife and in pig-iron furnaces so hot that men and women sometimes forget their fear of hell. Any town that has lived through the turbulence and tumult we’ve experienced can’t escape its ghosts.”

These days, the friendly atmosphere in some restaurants allows introductions to other people in the community, including paranormal believers and real-life mediums, Murray said. He added that there is a medium who regularly attends the ghost walks and dinners.

“People are naturally curious, and they love to ponder mysteries,” Murray said. “There is no greater mystery than what lies beyond. Our ghost tour and dinner taps into that curiosity. Interest in what lies beyond predates recorded history. It really comes down to personal belief — religion grapples with these questions, and we’d defer to the theologians on these matters.”

People might struggle with the answers, but perhaps the answers are best left alone for now. It lends more mystery to the ghost tours.

“The good thing for us is that people coming to the walking tour or the dinner know going in that we’re not going to solve the great riddles of life after death for them,” Murray said. “They’re just looking to us to give them an hour of chills and goosebumps and maybe learn some damn interesting things about Pittsburgh’s great history.”

Haunted Pittsburgh’s tour guide is historian James “Woody” Cunningham, a true raconteur. He has done his research, and he thinks there’s something special about Pittsburgh.

“What makes [Pittsburgh] different from most [cities] that I’ve been to is that the more research you do into it, the more true they seem to be,” Cunningham said.

True or not, tours do not guarantee a ghost sighting. This is story time. Cunningham still warns any non-believers on the tour: “If you don’t like cats, they’ll sit on your lap. It seems to be the same thing with ghosts.”

The walk down several streets goes past old houses and businesses, while presenting a view of the river and city. Cunningham picks which stories to tell from his memorized bank of tales.

Tales include sweet hospital nuns, as well as unfortunate steel workers who fell into the vats.

The tours and dinners always end with what Haunted Pittsburgh calls “the 1129 Ridge story” — a tale about one of the nation’s most haunted houses.

It’s a chilling, graphic and even potentially dangerous legend. Decades ago, when Thomas Edison took one of his inventions — that could supposedly talk to the dead — in a house, he left and told residents to leave it alone.

This house no longer stands, which is probably for the best.

In the end, its demise leaves Haunted Pittsburgh with one hell of a tale to share.

Reservations for Gypsy Café ghost dinners can be made through the restaurant. Check the website for specific dates at hauntedpittsburghtours.com.

EOTO in Pittsburgh

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/13/eoto-infuses-music-party-mentality-bring-groove-club-cafe

EOTO infuses music with party mentality, to bring groove to Club Cafe

photo credit: Courtesy Ankur Malhotra

EOTO incorporates trippy lights with their far-out sound.

Think about the most memorable dance party you’ve ever been to.

Now imagine being in a band whose goal is to make every performance like that party, but better.

EOTO is the electro-house-dance music project of former members of The String Cheese Incident, Jason Hann and Michael Travis. The band uses live performance, improvisation and electronic music.

“It’s 100 percent improvised music, and it’s all live,” Hann said, “and it’s all being created in front of the audience. It’s a combination of DJ with all-electronic music that flows from one song into the next, but there’s also musicianship going on.”

Performing every night can be exhausting and stressful, but Hann believes it has helped him and his band partner Travis develop their performance skills.

“The best part ... is playing night after night after night,” Hann said. “We constantly get better because it’s a stretch to do something different. The same thing gets boring. The hard part is trying to inject new energy.”

These all-night jam sessions began between the two just for fun. Since then, their roots have heavily influenced their goal as a performance group.

“We started out playing for hours on end with no real agenda, just to have fun,” Hann said. “It slowly morphed into being able to [play] . . . music for hours at a time. It was much more fun than trying to put songs together on a computer. Much more fun to go out there with a blank slate and have the audience go through the same thing with us.”

Three years later, the pair stopped performing privately and spent all their time on the road. They want to perform abroad as well, Hann said.

They also performed with other groups in various genres.

“The fun part about interacting is that it makes us play a little bit [differently],” Hann said. “If we collaborate, then there’s a meeting halfway and something new comes out of it. It’s just nice to have something different to play.”

But they still love their hometown, Boulder, Colo.

“There was definitely a following there that we wouldn’t have been able to go national [so quickly] without,” Hann said.

There’s room for vocals at their jams, as well.

“We both do vocals,” he said. “Travis might do more things with words, but it’s pretty matched by effect. When I do vocals, I’m usually making up words or raps. I’m using syllables as opposed to speaking English.”

For a band that relies so heavily on improvisation, recording albums would seem like a challenge.

“The studio is basically how we perform live, but when we perform live, we basically transition from song to song to song and don’t stop,” Hann said. “[In the studio] we press record and we just go for it and use whatever we record. If we perform 10 minutes, we might take four to five and use that as our song.”

But the difference between the recording and the live performance is clear to Hann.

“It’s definitely almost ceremonial and communal in the fact that we don’t know what we’re going to play, and it develops a relationship throughout the night,” he said. “It’s a feeling between just drums, dancers and energy in the moment. It’s satisfying to feel that in the room. That moment will only happen that way that particular night.”

Lengthy studio work may not be for EOTO, but it’s not a bad thing.

“That’s just a whole other art form to be in the studio and create a song with different parts,” Hann said. “I have much respect for producers that go in there. I also do that on my off-time.

“I have done it for a long time. But for live, it is far more satisfying to feel you can go with a blank palette and begin creating something and create it on a level that strives to be as in-depth as a producer in the studio with all the time in the world.”

Poetry: Barefoot; Gypsy Lane;

http://www.teenink.com/poetry/free_verse/article/134027/Barefoot/

Barefoot

Walk down the sidewalks and boulevards barefoot –
Feel the pavement beneath your soft epidermis.
It’s solid concrete for eleven steps. Then
A stone stabs into a toe. Stumble willingly,
Walk and stumble from the aftershocks of pain,
And cultivate your endurance, until the skin
Hardens to the touch, becomes stone
Slapping the concrete in return with each of your steps.
And when winter comes, feel the skin soften
Until seasons change back to a time to ache and limp.

*
http://www.teenink.com/poetry/free_verse/article/134030/Gypsy-Lane/

Gypsy Lane

Staring down an alley lit by antique lanterns,
Fixed and updated with like-so technology, I watch
The goings of the figures surrounding the cobblestone.

Masqueraders in suits smirk down at the beggars in rags:
Rags of faded gold, the hue from the combs of honey
They left behind, or never had.

The rag piles collect in a hive of bees, swarming
In desperation to find a home; and they weakly buzz back
At the swatting sensations of the hands of the well dressed:

The songbirds; with nests to return at night, and sunlight
To warm the top of their wings with every flap
They have no need for the bees in rags. The sight

Of the insects, the sight of what they themselves
Could crumble into, creates chest palpitations
That they can only quench with beatings.

Motionless, I weakly watch the blows come down.
I wonder if it is only on this little back street
That the songbirds look uglier than the bees.

I wonder if their flapping wings just might sting harder
Than the stingers the bees never use. And I glance at the lanterns
Shining above the actions humans find ordinary,

And realize they are the only pieces of work on the street
That ever evolved with the times.

*

http://www.teenink.com/poetry/free_verse/article/134024/As-The-Police-Race-By-iTunes-Plays-On/

As The Police Race By iTunes Plays On

Sirens/begin intro music shuffle/
sweet strings slither into the chorus
sirens here, always here, they never
leave/loud, invade my mind/both
of you come here into me, you
are a part of this city, this life
of the student who tries to make
a simmer of stew in the rain/
the song switches, she sings,
‘Fighting for no reward’/ the
sirens fade.