March Faves!!

Heya again!

Whoa, I'm not late for this month's favorites! *pats self on the back*
Hurr we go..

10. Back in the Saddle - Aerosmith

Heard this one in Supernatural and I've just been listening to it for some reason XD I'm not a huge Aerosmith fan but this song's pretty cool. So yep.

9. Sample in a Jar - Phish

Ah, Phish, always Phish on the list. XD I've been playing a little guitar so this was one of the songs I played chords along with for shits and giggles.
But guysguysguysss
I'M GOING TO SEE PHISH THIS SUMMER
LIKE LIVE IN CONCERT
OH MY GOD I SCREAMED AND RAN AROUND THE HOUSE WHEN I FOUND OUT
I CAN'T WAIT IT'S BEEN ON MY BUCKET LIST TO SEE THEM.

8. Celestial Elixir - Haken

Creepy story about this one. I don't even really listen to Haken, and I still don't know where this came from.
It was maybe 11pm and I was just browsing le YouTubes and then I went to go to the bathroom (I didn't leave any videos playing or anything, it was just on the YT home page). And when I came out I heard some music playing. I walked back into my room and it's completely dark and this song was playing and I saw the freakin' album cover and practically peed myself and I just

 

WHAT THE HELL
But actually I ended up listening to the whole song and I kinda like it so yeah this whole story is just really disturbing though because my mom and brother were both asleep at the time so I have no idea how it happened.

7. In the Backseat - Arcade Fire

(On a completely different genre..)
Wow, this song is so beautiful. The cello, the vocals... just wow. With reluctance I'll admit that I didn't love this song the first time I heard it, and sort of forgot about it. But I was going through all of the MP3s that sort of pile up on my computer and I listened to it and it took my breath away. I love the strings and chord progression, and pretty much everything about the song.

6. Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys

A late addition to the list, I had to listen to this song a couple times for it to grow on me, but it's really cool and catchy. I should really listen to more of the AM, they seem like a pretty cool band, and from what I've heard I like them. Crying Lightning is another favorite.

5. The Becoming - Nine Inch Nails

I may or may not have put this song in last month's favorites, I don't care, because I've still been listening to it all the time. I like that it's in 7/8, how very technical of them xD.

4. Reflektor - Arcade Fire

When Reflektor first came out I was kind of indifferent about it, I think I probably only listened to it once. But I've been on an Arcade Fire kick recently so I re-listened to it and I'm like "Oh, this is actually an awesome song!". Not much else to say about it, really. Just a really cool, trippy tune.

3. Shine - Collective Soul

You know when you've heard a song on the radio a bunch of times and you like it but you don't know who it's by, and then one day you find out and you're just like "OHHHHHHhhh okay." XD Yeah, that's this song. I was reading a Supernatural fanfic and Castiel asked Dean what was the "gospel song I like about holy guidance?" I don't know how Dean got Collective Soul out of gospel and "holy guidance", but yeah, he said this song. So I found a Collective Soul CD in the basement and I listened to this song and I'm like WHOA WAIT A SEC I LOVE THIS SONG XD So now I know.

2. Closer - Nine Inch Nails

I know, such a vulgar song, don't judge me. NIN is one of those "I listen to them because they're catchy" kind of bands for me. Some of their songs I love, some I can't stand. This is one of the ones I really like, even though the lyrics are.. overly blunt xD.

1. Senses Working Overtime - XTC

My music teacher Duane showed me this song (they're doing it in the 80's Alternative show in SoR)
and I instantly loved it. This is one of those bands that's absolutely brilliant and yet never hits it big. A damn shame, too. Yes, they are very strange. But so are plenty of other famous bands (Talking Heads, Arcade Fire, etc.). These guys deserve way more recognition!

Rock on!
~Libby

Like, OMG, How Could You Not Have a Boyfriend Until Now??!?!11

Hello friends,
So something pretty exciting (to me, anyway) went down on March 31st this year. We have been putting it off for a pretty long time, actually. And no, I haven't decided to start talking like Golem and refer to myself as a plural. I'm now in a relationship!
Sam and I have known each other since the Allentown School of Rock opened (sorry, I don't know the exact date). We joined at the same time, actually, and Pink Floyd The Wall was both his and my first show. I guess you could say he was my first friend in School of Rock, though we didn't really talk much. I was too shy and he was too excited to meet other guitar players (*cough*apparentlybassistsaredifferent*cough*).
Anyway, we also both did the same second show, Modern Rock, which was a lot of fun. I'll admit, I probably could've been nicer to him (I picked on him a lot). But in all fairness, he did smack my bass into the wall (even though he was practically in tears and apologized about a dozen or more times).
Moving on, Sam decided to do some shows at Easton, and for a while, I didn't see much of him. I had convinced myself at the time that I was loyal to Allentown and I wasn't going to do any Easton shows. Well that all changed when Duane announced that the Easton Saturday show was The Best of Radiohead. How could I resist? So I did two shows that season (MTV Unplugged in Allentown and Radiohead in Easton) and I think something changed in our friendship over that show. Once he realized how much I had progressed and matured as a musician, and how challenging my parts were, I think he gained a newfound respect for me.
Then we come to Dance Rock, when I finally left Allentown. And I know, I know, this story better be heading somewhere! Trust me, I'm getting there. I'll cut straight to the exciting part just because this post is becoming longer than I had intended it to be.
In October of last year, a bunch of the School of Rock kids took a group trip to Dorney Park for the Halloween Haunt, including my best friend, Sophia, my good friends Justice and Evan, and Sam was there too. When I got home from this trip, Sam had posted a "Like for inboxed truth is." or something like that on Facebook. So I liked it because I almost always like those kinds of things, and then I got the message and yeah..

To sum it up, he got all awkward, told me he liked me more than a friend and that I'm "very pretty, kind, funny and an amazing bass player", and if I didn't feel the same way that's okay and that he just didn't want to ruin our friendship no matter what happens.

I guess I was a bit overwhelmed when I read it, 'cause it didn't really sink in until I had read it about two more times. Then I broke down sobbing. Yeah, Libby handles big news really well.
Anyway, I eventually wrote him back and told him I needed some time to think about it. I'm not going to explain why, because that's a really personal matter.

So almost six months roll by, and finally everything is worked out (for the most part). I had to give him some gentle encouragement, but he asked me out again and, well, here we are!

So the other day I was texting a long-distance friend of mine and I told her the news and when I said he was my first she was shocked. (She's a few years younger than me) She just didn't understand why I didn't have a boyfriend until now. I never got why it's so important to some people to have a relationship as soon as they hit the teen years. Like, what's the big rush? And yeah, we all want to have fun with our teen years and part of that is meeting people and falling in love and all that jazz. But there shouldn't be any hurry. I'll admit, I was feeling kind of crappy when all of my friends started getting into relationships and I felt like no one was interested in me. But I'm sure a lot of kids feel that way, and even when you try to convince yourself that it's stupid to feel bad, sometimes you can't help it. My advice, if you want to hear it, (and this isn't me with some kind of newfound strength now that I have a boyfriend, I would've said the same thing before Sam and I started dating): Enjoy your time being single. Dress to impress, or whatever makes you feel confident about yourself, and have fun!

Sam, thank you for being so patient and never pushing me to move things along. I'm so happy to have you in my life, and I look forward to making some great memories with you.

Rock on!
~Libby

Do What Makes You Happy.

I'm working on a Polyvore post on this, so I thought I'd do a full-length blog post about it.

This topic was inspired by a YouTube video I watched called Smile by one of my favorite YouTubers, Cherry Wallis. I'll put the video below.

Personally I think this video is really inspiring. I mean, there are a lot of other videos like this. It's just something we all kind of go "yeah, I know." and forget about, when really, this is more important than we might think.

Not to be morbid, but you could die anytime. Would you be happy with your life if you died today? Have you been doing the most you can to be happy?

So many of us spend so much time worrying about what others think of us that we stop worrying about what we think of ourselves. And this doesn't just apply to teenagers. I've learned that this doesn't stop when you become an adult; the contest to have the most impressive life continues. I think that that's really sad, man.
There is always, always going to be people who judge you in this world. It's what people do. Your friends will judge you, your family will judge, your neighbors, classmates.. whatever. It doesn't mean you need to shape yourself into who they want you to be. The only person you should be trying to be is yourself.

So whether it's coming out that you're gay, making the decision not to go to college, telling a person that you like them more than a friend or just being afraid to pursue an ambition, try not to worry so much about how everyone around you is going to react to it. If it's what you think is best for you, go for it.

Rock on!

February Favorites

Heya, back again for my list of top 10 February faves!

I don't know about you, but I've had a pretty serious case of winter blues. I don't really care for winter, and after Christmas I'm done and ready for spring. It didn't help that we had a freakin' butt-load of snow storms!
So when winter's a drag and I need a pick-me-up, I turn to my favorite summery tunes. It might be just me, but I have sort of seasonal bands. That doesn't mean I don't listen to them year-round, I just generally listen to them most in one particular season/time of year. For instance, I mostly just listen to Megadeth in fall. So this list will mainly consist of my favorite bands/songs to listen to in the warmer months.

Alright, let's get to it, shall we?

10. Mercenary - Panic! At the Disco

This isn't one of my summer jams, it's just a song I listened to a lot this past month. As you may know, Panic! is one of my all-time favorite bands, so it's no shocker that one of their songs would be on this list, haha.

9. China Cat Sunflower - Grateful Dead

This song.. oh man. It brings back memories. Summer memories. This is probably the most summery song I know, and I listen to hippie jam bands. I'm not really sure this one counts for Feb faves because I started listening to it at the beginning of March, but whatever, I'll make an exception. Anyhow, this song is so chill and fun. It was one of the first GD songs I heard, and I fell in love with it pretty much instantly. Ah, I love the Grateful Dead so much.

8. Casino Queen - Wilco

There is so much energy in this song, it's actually my new favorite Wilco song. I've known of Wilco for a while, but I never really listened to a ton of their songs until I went to the School of Rock Wilco show when I remembered how much I love them. I love their piano and vocals the most. Such an amazing band!

7. Santeria - Sublime

Santeria is one of the songs in the SoCal show I'm in at School of Rock. Normally I don't count any of the songs in shows because obviously I have to listen to them all a bunch to learn them, but I've been listening to Santeria aside from during practice. Sublime is slowly growing on me, and this one has a really fun bass line. My friend Sophia and I are both on this song, and we have so much fun with it. We also crack up at the lyrics, they're so ridiculous. XD

6. Carry on Wayward Son - Kansas

So I was watching Supernatural, and it got to the season 5 finale. The episode opens with Carry on Wayward Son and a montage of "the road so far" and at that moment I'm pretty sure I busted out crying. I've known and loved this song pretty much all my life, but I hadn't heard it in years. It's perfect. This. Song. Is. Perfect. If you have not heard this song then you need to click that link and listen to it. Now.

5. Phish - It's Ice

Was this in one of my other lists? I feel like it was. Oh well. Here it is again. xD
That just proves how awesome this song is, because it really it awesome. I mean, if you're not into this kind of stuff you're probably not going to appreciate it as much as I do, but if you are: jackpot, baby. The amount of genius in this song is actually unbelievable. The bass, the guitar, oh and the lyrics man. "I'm tied to him or him to me, depending who you ask." That is fucking genius.

4. Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups

Wow, another one from SoCal. I didn't do that on purpose, I swear. It never actually even crossed my mind that this one and Santeria are both from SoCal, because I listen to them like the rest of the songs on my iPod.
So yeah, Panic Switch is pretty badass. At first I thought it was kind of annoying because of his voice, but it really grew on me, and it's one of my favorite songs in SoCal now. It reminds me of the Smashing Pumpkins actually.
Plus, I get to play bass and sing backup vocals on it, so that's pretty great.

3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer - The Beatles

3 WEEKS STRAIGHT THIS STUPID SONG WAS STUCK IN MY HEAD
BANG BANG MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER CAME DOWWWN
AHHHHHHHGHDSJDKFADKL
Okay yeah, it's annoyingly catchy, but I love it. I love The Beatles, I love Paul's vocals (Paul's my favorite Beatle btw) I love everything about this song. EXCEPT THAT IT GETS STUCK IN MY HEAD FOR THREE DAMN WEEKS

2. All I Need - Radiohead

Spacey, trippy and beautiful. That's how I'd describe All I Need. In Rainbows is one of my most underlistened Radiohead albums, which is a shame because it's perfection. I get that if you're not into mellow, slower stuff like this then you might find In Rainbows boring though. It's an acquired taste I suppose; I wasn't always into stuff like this.

1. Ramblin' Man - The Allman Brothers Band

AW YISS
YOU WANT SUMMER
I'LL GIVE YOU SUMMER
HERE
HAVE SOME SUMMER
THIS IS ACTUALLY SUMMER IN A SONG
YOU'RE WELCOME

So that's it! Hope you got some new jams out of it, or at least you won't be bored listening to my large variety of favorite genres, haha. Alright, that's all for today!

Rock on!

I Finally Recorded Something!

Happy Friday, peeps!
I'm gonna make this quick, but as you can tell by reading the title, I have a little something to share!
A few weeks back I was screwing around on my keyboard and I noticed that a LOT of my favorite songs to play are in the same keys. So I decided to see how many I could mash together and well.. this happened.
Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of work to put this together. I mean, I spent all day on it and played until my hands were shaking, and there are still a lot of mistakes. But I'm mostly happy with it, except towards the end you can tell I was really worn out and I started slipping keys more.

So enjoy this piano medley I composed!

 

Songs:
1. Nobody Home - Pink Floyd
2. The Thin Ice - Pink Floyd
3. Let it Be - The Beatles
4. Hey Jude - The Beatles
5. Restless Heart Syndrome - Green Day
6. Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
7. Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies
8. She Had the World - Panic! At the Disco

[Side note: All of the songs were kept in their original keys (except Yellow Submarine which is on a quarter tone)]

Rock on!

So It's Been Awhile

Indeed it has.
I'll be honest, I can only keep up a steady blogging schedule for so long. The same goes for writing in general, which is probably why I could never keep up with a diary.
But hey, here I am now.
OH and I've discovered a new favorite Radiohead song (No Surprises is still my #1 favorite, but I have a lot of other close seconds). Well, more like Zach found it and showed it to me. I confess that I've only listened to In Rainbows like once or twice, so I'm currently in the process of re-listening to the whole album again.
Anyhow, the song I was talking about is All I Need, from the record In Rainbows, as you might've guessed. You should definitely give it a listen. Click here to do so.

Also, it's been almost a year since I got my nose pierced. Wow. It doesn't seem like it, really. I feel like it was just a few months ago or something. Then again, I guess I never noticed when it stopped hurting to change the jewelry and it didn't close up quickly after I took the ring out.
I've been wanting to do a blog post on that whole experience. Maybe I'll do that on April 19th (the one year mark). Who knows?

Speaking of April and approaching milestones, I'm gonna be sixteen soon. Holy shit man. I'm excited and scared and I don't know what else but it's crazy.
I plan to go for my learner's permit as soon as I can. My aunt's gonna teach me to drive, plus my friend Evan (he's 19 and been driving for a while) gave me some good advice.

What else has happened..
I started a mural sort of painting project on my wall. Well, more like several smaller projects. My mom was surprisingly cool with it when she found out. I even got my best friend Sophia to contribute! She painted the Dark Side of the Moon rainbow prism. I love it so much.

I've been watching Supernatural and American Horror Story.
God.. I just.. Supernatural is so amazing, but it's breaking my heart. Castiel is my favorite character. <3
And um... don't watch AHS. Just don't. Please.

I had my first Taco Bell experience =P We had some extra time after SoCal rehearsal so Evan drove Zach and I and we grabbed some Taco Bell. I got the nacho Doritos Locos Tacos and GOD THEY ARE GOOD. I shouldn't get used to them though they're so bad lol.

The School of Rock Best of Show competition happened in NYC at the Highline Ballroom. It was kind of ridiculously long, though. I mean four hours.. it kinda sucked how little time each school got, too. There were 7 schools: Farmingdale, Roslyn, Chathem, Easton, Allentown, Madison and Tenafly.
I didn't actually get to perform, which really pissed me off when I first found out. So each school got a half-hour of stage time. Easton SoR has 3 shows per season, so that means 10 minutes per show, right? Right. I was in Dance Rock. And of course they had to pick the 11-minute long song that I wasn't on. Whatever, I got over it I guess. The songs that went from Easton were:
Wilco: Casino Queen and Impossible Germany
Alice in Chains: I Stay Away and Them Bones
Dance Rock: Rebubula (by Moe.)
And guess what school won??
Easton, baby! I mean I didn't have any part of the win, but I'm still proud my school won!!

Woww okay I've been typing a lot and probably boring whoever's reading this so I'm gonna go now and maybe do my school work idk. So yeah laters!

Rock on~

Hey!

Hello!
So real quick I wanted to shout out my good friend Sam, who just put out an awesome cover of the Doctor Who theme song on his SoundCloud! You can check it out here, and please follow him if you like his songs!

Thanks!
~Libby~