Tonight, Tonight: Jacob Metcalf at Dan’s Silver Leaf

Free spirits must be free so the DFW music scene (and the Dallas Family Band) will be void one wonderful voice, songwriter, and beardy smile that belongs to Jacob Metcalf. Jacob will be heading to Guadalajara, Mexico in less than a week to join some friends as they ride through Middle America to make new friends, experience a different world, and redefine what they call “home”. He shares a few thoughts about his trip on his Myspace page and his companions have been sharing their journey on their own site, www.missionvango.com.

Jacob Metcalf will be joined by Baruch the Scribe who are good reason to arrive at Dan’s Silver Leaf in Denton early tonight. Show is slated for a 9:30PM start and you kids over eighteen-years old can get in for just $5. Small price to pay to bid Jacob bon voyage and let him know he and his music will be missed (and should be recorded and released and shared with the world).

(Jacob Metcalf / myspace / twitter / facebook)

Feed Your Reader: I Love Charts

I use Google Reader to keep track of loads of blogs, news sources, and ridiculous sites. To those that aren’t geek with it, Google Reader allows me to check my favorite sites without having to visit all 100+ of them. It’s handy. Here’s one of my favorite sites:

I Love Charts (http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com) is a blog that is “By people who love charts for people who love charts”. Some of the charts are silly MS Paint jobs that will put a smile on your face and others are beautifully designed graphs and charts. Dig it:

Can’t Stop: Watching: Sarah Jaffe

As if Dentonite songbird Sarah Jaffe isn’t a local music favorite yet, Dallas Observer posted a few videos of her last Friday which I’ve watched multiple, multiple times today. She won’t be back in town for another two weeks when she plays at the Granada Theater with Seryn but as I’ve mentioned before, she is definitely worth checking out live. From the sounds of this video of her new, unreleased song, “A Sucker For Your Marketing,” I will undoubtedly buy her upcoming release… which, cross your fingers, may be released as early as this fall?

(Sarah Jaffe / website / myspace / facebook / last.fm)

Happy birthday, Ray Bradbury!

When I was in seventh grade, I befriended some eighth graders who shared the same interests as myself: music, wit, passing notes during class, making good grades, and Eddie Vedder. One gal in particular mentioned the author Ray Bradbury so naturally, as the eager-to-please younger sister of the group, I checked out Fahrenheit 451 from the school library. Although I also checked out Dandelion Wine, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, I do believe there should still be a copy of Fahrenheit 451 at my junior high that shows that I’ve checked it out at least seven times. Not even consecutively as I found myself drawn to re-visiting the story of Guy Montag, the fireman / bookburner who meets a free spirit named Clarisse as they proceed to try and “stick it to the man”. Thus, my love for dystopian novels was born.

Even sixteen years later, I make sure my small, used, discolored copy of Fahrenheit 451 remains in my book collection in case I need to reminisce about how geeky I was (and still am) or remind myself that the internet may be full of information but nothing could ever replace the feel, smell, and endless possibilities of a good book.

So, in lieu of one of my favorite author’s 90th birthday, I will be humming this tune in my head all day (NSFW):

Can’t Stop: Watching: Creed Shreds

Besides creating music that is fit to pop in your car on a sunny day, Austin-based Quiet Company is also a source of amusing tweets. Recently, they posted this:

Curiosity got the best of me and everyone loves listening to people sing with a mouthful of water so naturally, I hit up Google to find a clip from this concert and ran across an amusing message board thread. In it, I found both Creed performing “Bullets” from their Creed Live DVD (which broke a few Guinness World Records?) and a parody called Creed Shreds. The precision of the dubbing in Creed Shreds is what keeps me coming back for more. Someone put some effort into those videos and for that, I applaud them. I’m not sure which sounds more like someone singing with a mouthful of water, real Creed or fake Creed but you can make the choice yourself:

Real Creed:

Fake Creed: