Too soon? Sorry, Haiti.

When disaster strikes, there are lots of celebrity artists that want to step up and help.

Even at Minnesota Public Radio!

Listen: Haiti Relief Song

10 artists. 1 (un)clear message. 2 female pop star impressions by your favorite blogging public radio employee.

Allow me to serenade you.

For the record, my a cappella group has been together far longer than Glee or the Sing Off ever existed.

Moving on.

Last night we had a little recording session and one of the songs is a Rilo Kiley ditty that I sing the solo in. Please enjoy.

Download or play: Breakin' Up (Rilo Kiley) by Late Night Menu.

And just to prove to you that I actually can successfully rap at times without making a complete fool of myself, last night we also recorded that Duffy song that I embarrassed myself with during our last performance.

Download or play: the sweet rap part of Mercy (Duffy) by Late Night Menu.

Ok. Happy day to you! Seacrest out.

My pics for the Current's "Top 89".

I know not everyone that reads this blog listens to MPR's indie rock station but here are some of my favorite songs that were new this last year. I have to say, it was a great year for music.



Cage The Elephant: Ain't No Rest for the Wicked (Cage The Elephant)
Bon Iver: Brackett, WI (Dark Was The Night)
Brother Ali: Good Lord (The Truth Is Here)
Camera Obscura: Honey in the Sun (My Maudlin Career)
Dirty Projectors and David Byrne: Knotty Pine (Dark Was The Night)
The Bird And The Bee: My Love (Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future)
Ben Kweller: Sawdust Man (Changing Horses)
Alexi Murdoch: Towards The Sun (Away We Go Soundtrack)
Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks (Veckatimest)
The Big Pink: Velvet (A Brief History Of Love)

You can listen to a playlist I have made of these songs here (give it a second to load on this page):



Or if you don't like the widget, you can listen here.

White girl can't rap.

I recently joined a small vocal ensemble and last week was my first performance with the group. The song we performed is Mercy by Duffy and it would be accurate to describe my role in this song as one of the "yeah yeah yeah" girls, with one exception. Halfway through the song there is a vocal percussion breakdown where every member of the group except the soloist and myself repeat different vocal beats, thus denoting the breakdown. My part includes 8 bars of rapping. That's right. Rapping. Having a little experience in the karaoke Gangsta's Paradise realm, I wasn't really nervous or anything until I realized that the audience we were performing for was about 100 students from the Black Student Union at the University, and maybe a handful of others (mostly consisting of our out-of-place ultra-white group)*. So the first stanza of my ridiculously non-sensical rap goes like this:

You look at me and think we're the same kind
'Cause you don't know what I got and
I want a bit more than I'm asking for
but I just don't want to waste my time

Pretty easy right? Theoretically. But for a rowdy theater full of yelling, snapping, clapping, boisterous college kids, they were essentially silent when we got up there. The lights were blinding, the mood was one of full-on skepticism. From them, it was probably skepticism over "who the hell are these kids coming to our show to perform in a format we're not used to", and from us, it was skepticism over whether we would perform well, mess up, be accepted, etc. Most of my group was calm and ready to rock. But something came over me when it was almost time for me to rap. I locked up and I got so worried about forgetting the words that this, to my horror, is what came out of my mouth:

You look at me and think we're the same kind
'Cause you don't know what I got and
I want a bit flim flattadata dat
bada blip blop bee boop dip dap dap

I finished the stupid rap unable to look anyone in the audience in the eyes, which meant, since it was stadium seating, that I had to stare at the floor until the song was over. I would like to think I can rap...but scat-rapping is not something I hope I never have to face doing again.

*Truth be told, one of us is 1/18 Hawaiian. That counts towards diversity, right?

Naming a band is difficult.

If you want to hear what it sounds like when a rowdy and ridiculously unproductive a cappella group tries to come up with a new name, one of our members secretly taped our discussion last night. THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES WORTH OF IT.

The discussion features poop, farting, wikipedia, Garrision Keillor, Suri Cruz, noisy neighbors, and a stranger named Pam.

Listen: Kill me now.

p.s. I didn't mean to do a deaf voice when doing an impression of the "Noisy Neighbors". It just came out, ok?

And no. We never came up with a name.

It's gonna be a good fall.

I'm coming up on quite the musical fall with being in two vocal groups and spending way more money than I'm worth on upcoming concerts. (And these are not to discredit the awesome Donkeys/Magnolia Electric Co., Parlour Suite, Phoenix, Decemberists, and Gospel Gossip shows that have entertained and delighted me this summer.)

September:



October:



December:



(And shhhhh don't tell anyone - it's not for me - it's for a friend - I swear - shut up) Next weekend:

Thanks a lot "Wham".

I was really excited to look up the song that was the #1 Billboard hit on my day of birth, then I was incredibly disappointed to find out it was "Careless Whisper" by Wham. Sick!

Do you have a better one?



(By the way, my heart tells me this video is John Candy's finest work.)

Goo goo goo goo!

One thing about Hawaii is that everywhere you go there is soft, indistinguishable Hawaiian elevator music playing. Our hotel played this one song on repeat in our hotel outdoor lobby, where we spent a good amount of time planning our day trips. At first the music is kind of nice, but when you fall asleep with it relentlessly burning in your ears, it gets to you.

Here is our take on one considerably terrible tune that would not escape our brains.