Back in Town

I've returned from my 2 weeks working at camp and without internet access! Posts to follow shortly...

Concert Plans...ruined!

2 of my most anticipated summer shows have been ruined in one week!! My plans for Rock the Bells fell through due to douchebag-iness of my friends who bailed at 12 the night before, and Bon Iver fell through due to my friend having to leave a day early for the beach. Blurgh. I had been hoping to go to a lot of shows this summer (including Coldplay, shut up.) but I've only gone to Fleet Foxes. This is the first summer since I think the 7th grade where I haven't gone to at least a show per month. Weird.

Countdown to Rock the Bells!

I am very, very excited for Rock the Bells this weekend. While my music taste lies mostly in alternative/indie/pop, there is some rap that I absolutely love, and most of the groups and rappers in RTB fall under that category. One such rapper is Nas, whose new album, which is untitled (originally he planned to call it Nigger, but for various reasons, he did not. When Nas was on the Colbert Report the other day, Colbert suggested he use the word Reggin instead. And then he said he would "pop some truth in your ass". It was a good episode.) is full of evidence that Nas is one of the best rappers alive right now. Now, I am a huge Kanye fan, but if the world were just, Nas would have as much fame as West. Here's one of my favorite songs from Nas's latest, it's called "Queens Get The Money".

Things I Am Excited For

Things I am excited for in the coming weeks...
1) There is a good chance I'll be going to Rock the Bells!
2) My summer school health class is over (Woohoo! Now I have more time for...oh yeah, SAT review and summer reading. Ugh.)
3) Going to work at the best camp in the world in two weeks. Yes yes yes yes yes!

More about TIAEFITCW #1...
I am by no means a huge rap fan, but my god, this line-up has every group and rapper I love, besides Kanye, Lupe, and Lil Wayne (but I have already seen the first two of those three). It's got De La Soul (3 Feet High and Rising is one of my favorite summer albums ever), A Tribe Called Quest (Um, hello. "Can I Kick It"! LIVE!), Nas, Ghostface.... This list goes on. The tour even has newer artists like Wale (if you haven't yet, you must download his Mixtape About Nothing. Too lazy to link...go Google it), Kid Sister (who did a sweet song with Kanye), Santogold (whose album is in very heavy rotation at the moment), The Cool Kids ("a new black version of the Beastie Boys"), and much much much more!! Goodness gracious I better go to this.

More about TIAEFITCW #2...
Ok, my health class is over which is awesome because now I don't have to get up early and sit in a classroom til 1 every day. Unfortunately, I have SAT review and summer reading. Summer reading is mostly fine, since the books don't suck, but I have to annotate them, which bites and makes the reading so much more grueling and tedious.


I am currently listening to my massive Summer Shuffle. Yesterday I went on a long bike ride. This weekend I was in NYC which was quite fun. I saw the Mamma Mia movie, which means that I now have every ABBA song simultaneously stuck in my head. It was charming at first, but now I'm just feeling suicidal. I watched Batman Begins last night to get in the mood to see the Dark Knight later this week. Can't wait!

The Gap

I went shopping with my mom yesterday, and while I was in the Gap I noticed that their soundtrack in the store is basically a who's-who of blogged-out indie groups. Vampire Weekend's "M79" was sandwiched between Tokyo Police Club's "Tessellate" and Feist's "I Feel It All". Not to mention some peppy twee-pop songs that I'd never heard before. It made me wonder a few things- Is the soundtrack at each Gap the same? Who chooses the music? Do they have an intentional "sound" they aim for? If there is a specific job of "music-chooser" where may I apply?

I mean really, how sick of a job would that be? You just get to make fun, happy mixtapes. And get paid.

Also the past 3 or 4 times I've been at a Gap they've played the song "Come On" by Guster. Just a funny lil observation of mine.

Speaking of Guster, this is the first summer in a while where they aren't touring. It's weird. Seeing them has become a bit of a summer tradition. They're a fantastic summer band.

Fleet Foxes Live

So I chose to go to the Fleet Foxes show last night instead of tonight's No Age show. And while I suppose that No Age could be a life-altering concert, I'm more than pleased with my decision. Fleet Foxes were (question: would Fleet Foxes be plural or singular? i.e. Foxes was or Foxes were?) fantastic live. Despite their supposedly ill front man (he had a steaming mug of tea by his stool. Not to mention he was dressed in multiple layers of flannel and wore a knit hat. This was July. In a hot and sweaty club.) they played a very impressive set that in every way lived up to their blogged-out hype. The harmonies on songs like "White Winter Hymnal" were gorgeous, and the band sounded better than they do on their flawless self-titled LP. The aforementioned tea-sippin' front man's vocals blew me away. I can't help but wonder (That sounded like Carrie Bradshaw. Well, I did see the Sex and the City movie two nights ago. Is this the only blog post in history that mentions Fleet Foxes and SatC in the same sentence? Probably.) what he sounds like when he's not congested and coughing. The band was clearly humbled by what they called a "staggering" sold-out crowd. After each song they sincerely thanked the audience, who in turn was very receptive to the music and the quintet. It was a pleasure seeing Fleet Foxes for the first time in a small-scale venue, because I predict that they will be selling out larger clubs in the not-so-distant future.

NPR recorded the show and it can be heard here.

They didn't allow flash photography last night, and my camera is crappy (thus it does not function well without a flash), but I got a few semi-decent shots:

Cheese Muffins

I've been on a baking kick lately. A few days ago I made cupcakes from scratch, and today I made Monterey Jack muffins. When we got our new kitchen last month we also got speakers installed, so I am now able to bake and listen to music simultaneously! Muffin Recipe, Muffin Mixtape, and muffin pictures below! :)

Recipe for Monterey Jack Muffins
Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Grease one muffin tin (should hold 12 muffins) and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cheese. Make a well in the dry ingredient mixture.
2. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, and oil. Pour egg mixture into the dry mixture. Mix until moistened. Do not mix too much, or the dough will be too tough!
3. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Each muffin cup should be about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden. Let cool for 5 minutes and eat warm.

This recipe is super easy and the muffins were pretty good, if I do say so myself. I adapted the recipe from one I found in a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Including baking time, it took about 35 minutes.

Muffin Mix

1. Stay Positive- The Hold Steady
2. Two Halves- My Morning Jacket
3. You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb- Spoon
4. The Sons of Cain- Ted Leo
5. Eraser- No Age
6. Sequestered in Memphis- The Hold Steady
7. Alex Chilton- The Replacements
8. I'm Amazed- My Morning Jacket
9. Constructive Summer- The Hold Steady
10. Sheila Take a Bow- The Smiths
11. A Little Bit of Feel Good- Jamie Lidell

The mix was just thrown together before I started baking. It's basically a blend of good songs off the albums that have been in heavy rotation over the past few days (Stay Positive, Evil Urges, Pleased to Meet Me...). No order, but it is about 35 minutes which is the time it takes to make the muffins! Woohoo!

Muffin pictures!

Happy 4th of July

Not a patriotic song in the least, but it has "American Flags" in the title...

Sorry I Accosted You.

I accosted a probably very friendly couple at a Barnes & Noble about a month ago. I feel bad about it, and yet I knew that accosting them was my duty. Read on:

I was standing in line with some friends at Barnes & Noble. Susannah was purchasing Robert Penn Warren's "All The King's Men" for summer reading, and as I waited for her to check out, I eyed the small CD rack. It was stocked with impulse soccer-mom buys, such as Michael Buble and Kenny G, but then, in the upper right corner, there was a copy of The Best of Radiohead. Now, as a huge Radiohead fan, I knew that this compilation album was in no way Thom Yorke's idea. It was a portion of EMI's plan of revenge after Radiohead left their label to give away In Rainbows. A twenty-something couple in front of me were browsing the CDs as well.

"Oh, Radiohead!" said the man, picking up a copy.
"They're great," replied his girlfriend tracing her finger down the back track listing.

I fretted. "These people can't purchase this sham of an album! Radiohead wouldn't want that!" I thought. So, I did what any partially insane teen would do.

"You can't buy that!" I said abruptly.

The couple stared at me blankly. I stared back.

"Um. EMI, Radiohead's old label, released it without permission. Radiohead, uh, doesn't want people to buy it," I stammered.

The couple stared at me blankly.

"Um. Ok," said the male with a forced chuckle, placing the album back on the rack. "Why is this nervous girl with braces yelling at me about Radiohead?" he was probably thinking.

My friend Victoria looked at me with an amused smile. I turned around and walked away. Mission accomplished.

My apologies for accosting you, friendly couple. But you really shouldn't buy the album.

Summer Shuffle

Every summer for the past three years I have made a massive playlist called the Summer Shuffle. It usually contains between 75 and 100 songs, ranging from old classics to new hits or just whatever I've been listening to, or simply songs that remind me of summer. The tunes are in no particular order, and every time I listen to it, I just stick the whole thing on shuffle so a new mix comes up every time. I'm the kind of person who puts great care into making mixes. I try to make the songs flow perfectly into each other, and I put a lot of focus on what the first and last tracks are, making sure there's enough meat in the middle so that the listener doesn't get bored, etc. So, the Summer Shuffle is quite a departure from my usual mix-making tendencies, but it far-and-away my favorite thing to listen to in the summer. This year though, in addition to my Shuffle, I made an "abridged" summer mix, using 16 songs from the shuffle, organized to maximize the listening experience. Here's the track listing:


a waste of time, pure and simple.

1. Blankest Year- Nada Surf
2. I Feel it All- Feist
3. Wild Mountain Nation- Blitzen Trapper
4. Production City- The Whigs
5. Lights Out- Santogold
6. Graveyard Girl- M83
7. 7 Stars- The Apples in Stereo
8. Strawberry Swing- Coldplay
9. Baby Britain- Elliott Smith
10. Heavy Metal Drummer- Wilco
11. Kirby's House- Razorlight
12. To Go Home- M. Ward
13. White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes
14. Boy With a Coin- Iron & Wine
15. In Our Talons- Bowerbirds
16. Neverending Math Equation- Sun Kil Moon

If you're interested in a copy, email me at nmsles@gmail.com with your address. I'll send over a copy of the mix in a one-of-a-kind case :)

And with that, I leave you with this summer-spirited picture.