CMJ should stand for Crappy Music Jamboree.

LIKE, SERIOUSLY?! cmj, is supposed to be a week of fantastic shows with new and exciting bands, and this year, it's a shit fest. maybe, there are two shows i even have a little bit of interest in, but of course, i'm not going because i'm broke, and have too much homework.
i wanted to go to pete and the pirates, let's wrestle, the love language, surf city and dawn landes @ the bell house, but again...i have no money, and no one felt like coming with my to nowheresville gowanus anyway.

i'm going to one show tomorrow, an early one ... the xx @ the apple store. is that even part of cmj? i don't know..but whatever. this week is lame.

perhaps it's official this time.

november 17th ... november flippin' 17th.
no, i haven't given up yet.
i haven't waited almost two years for NOTHING.
dear kid sis, please please please, impress me by not postponing the release again. love, devyn


oh, and i can't even see her on november 27th because it's 19+ ... why is life so shitty right now?!

sooo...

i wrote a review of where the wild things are for my school newspaper, and i figured i should post it here too.

Where The Wild Things Are, Directed by Spike Jonze, Screenplay by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, Warner Bros. Pictures (Released 10/16/09)

Whether it was the quirky creativity of Being John Malkovich that captured us years ago, or any of the many music videos he directed that had us mesmerized for four and a half minutes, most have come to the conclusion that Spike Jonze can do no wrong. His latest endeavor, the motion picture adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic, Where The Wild Things Are can very much help vouch for that.
Many would wonder how such a simple story could be made into a full-length movie. Spike Jonze has practically accomplished the impossible by turning ten sentences from our childhood into an hour and a half of joy and wonder, stretching and molding it into a moody tale of love, and gloom, but most of all, pure exuberance.
Although the film deviated slightly from the original story, the essence of the book still remains, with its rare simplicity that captures the true elements of what it means to be a kid. This is no fairy tale, no rainbows or castles, bunnies, or baby deer frolicking through the forest, just the terrifyingly beautiful imagination of a child – Max. His journey to a fantasyland and encounters with some melancholy monsters show us that not all things are perfect and that sadness can plague everyone, even the biggest, and scariest of creatures.
With Max’s help as “king,” the monsters learn that the only way to truly be happy, is to love, and without love, we are eternally lonely. All seems well and good, but soon things take a turn for the worst. The newfound love between the monsters falls apart once again, when it is found out that Max is not actually a king, but a boy, pretending to be a wolf, pretending to be a king – a normal boy who had run away from home, in the hopes of finding the meaning of family and happiness.
This film is heartwarming, to say the least. Not necessarily your average children’s movie, but something more rare and more special than that. It will make you laugh and cry, then cry some more, but it will surely leave you with a smile when you leave the theater.

finally!

i just took the SAT again this morning, and i am totally drained.
i'm completely dreading the fact that i probably didn't do much better than when i took them the first time, but at least i never have to take that stupid test ever again.
now i just have to finish all of my applications, send them, and wait.
hello early action. november 15th is creeping up so hard right now.

...lovely.

at least i'll be able to relax in a month.
unless i procrastinate and wait til january to send everything.
good lord, just kill me now.

all delighted people raise their hands.

after much anticipation, and i mean MUCH anticipation, i finally had the chance to see sufjan stevens. it was the last night of his four night run in new york, and i couldn't have been more stoked. we arrived around 7pm to find that the will call line was split into two parts, one for A-K and the second for L-Z. strangely enough, most people were on the line for the first part of the alphabet, and there were three people waiting on the other line. thankfully, my last name starts with an M and we got onto the smaller line.

they started letting us in shortly after and told us doors would be opening at 8:30, but that didn't stop everyone from hoarding the door like a flock of pigeons around some breadcrumbs. they ended up opening the door around 7:45, and despite the fact that they told us to enter slowly, every person, young and ancient, sprinted towards the stage to snag a front row spot.
the spot in which i thought was decent proved to be not so great later on, due to the piano that they parked in front of my face, but i'll get into that later.

as i was awaiting cryptacize, some obnoxious girl showed up. she had a tripod ... REALLY?! doesn't she know that assholes who bring tripods to shows are generally frowned upon? whatever, she was dumb and i didn't like her.
anyways, i hadn't seen cryptacize in quite some time, and i honestly didn't remember loving them when i saw them. all i remembered was really red lipstick, pilgrim-esque clothing and some folky tunes.
i'm not sure, maybe i was just having a bad day when i saw them before, because i really enjoyed them this time around. they had a sort of retro feel, and aside from being totally adorable, nedelle had the cutest dance moves ever. i quite enjoyed them.



they started to set up for sufjan stevens, and i hoped to god that they wouldn't move the piano. much to my luck, they moved it right in front of my face. i could literally see NOTHING. everyone in the front from the piano and to the right started to shift left, thank goodness. at that point, i had a pretty decent view and i was far beyond eager for sufjan to start.

he opened with mistress witch and the crowd just stared in awe. it was as if a spell had taken over the entire audience as we were entranced by the greatness that is sufjan stevens. each song has a simple complexity that just takes over your mind and captures you. i felt like i was in a different world.





sufjan is one of the few artists that could make singing about even the silliest things seem totally profound. i mean, he could sing about garbage, and i'd take him seriously. he's incredibly talented and amazing and wonderful.
he didn't talk much between songs, but when he did, it was adorable. one song, a new one, he claimed was about smurfs taking over connecticut. all of the new songs were fantastic. they were all super long and exciting. the one that stood out though was "all delighted people" which had this fantastic line "oh, i love you a lot ... oh, i love you from the top of my heart," which was so sweet and lovely. during the part where he sang "all delighted people raise their hands," everyone in the audience put their hands up. it was beautiful.









here's the setlist, i got a picture of it before some girl rudely stole it before the end:


this show was definitely one of the highlights of the year. i haven't been that satisfied with a show since, i don't even know when.

oh yeah? what else?

okay, so i was just on facebook, blah blah blah whatever, then a post from natalie portman's shaved head shows up on the newsfeed. i rarely listen to them anymore, but hey, i wanted to know what was up, so out of curiosity, i clicked it. and what do i find? this:
"We have some exciting news! Our new EP, "Meet Hot Singles" was just released digitally today! The EP features new versions of ‘Sophisticated Side Ponytail’ and ‘Me + Yr Daughter' that we created with Grammy winning producer John King (he's done Beck, Beastie Boys, Tenacious D, etc). Also on the EP are ‘Mouth Full of Bones’ and our ode to facial hair ‘Beard Lust.’ You can download the EP right now wherever digital tracks are sold! As you may or may not have noticed, our 2008 album Glistening Pleasure is not available anymore. This is all in preparation for the early 2010 re-release of the album on WARNER BROS. RECORDS! More details on that will follow, but we can say that there will be a least one new surprise nugget on the album. GP2K10!"



"wait," you must be thinking ... "did i read this correctly?"
yes, they're signed to warner bros now. how RIDICULOUS is this?
first matt and kim wom a vma, and now npsh is signed to one of the biggest american record labels?

i don't even understand.
then again, didn't i predict they'd be huge this year? i was indeed correct.
...more correct than i wanted to be.

surprise surprise!

it's now october 6th, and kid sister's album is officially NOT OUT!
what did i expect though? i almost had hope this time.
oh well.

ummm, also, yeah. just saying...


also, i have decided that i'm applying to bard as my "reach" school. go me!

it's october 5th.

ohhh, another one of these posts?
kid sister's album is supposed to drop tomorrow, and what can i say, i don't expect it to be out tomorrow. i mean, how many times has she postponed the release date?
frankly, i've given up. she's out of the radar, almost nonexistent in my eyes.
like, don't get me wrong, she's totally fun and awesome to listen to, but shit, i can't wait forever. it was supposed to come out like a year and a half ago. tell me what's wrong with this picture.
i've been looking for leaks, there's nothing.
all it says on her myspace (yeah, who goes on myspace anymore? i was desperate for information, chill out) is that it's coming soon. coming soon when? next week? next month? next year? in fact, next year seems more believable than tomorrow.



also, apparently, this bitch is playing at webster on november 27th.
there's no other information about that show on the webster website. awesome!

kid sister fails again.

basically, i suck at blogging.

last night was a flashback to my childhood with my favorite favorites, bayside.
at this point, i've kind of lost track as to how many times i've seen them, but it's somewhere around 18 times i think. could be more, could be less, but hell, i don't feel like tracing back the last 4 years and counting how many bayside shows i've been to.
anyways, it was one of the better bayside lineups in a while, including envy on the coast and i am the avalanche. to say the least, i was pretty stoked. i got to irving around 4:45, only to find a million other people already lined up, but thankfully, i had a friend who had gotten there like an hour before, so i got onto the line with her.

even with getting there so early, i ended up on the very edge of the front row on the barricade. and of course, by the end of the show, i was in front of that barricade, enjoying the good life next to a security guard because that's how i roll.

the first band, bridge and tunnel was alright. nothing i'd listen to regularly, but i'm sure a lot of people like them. the crowd seemed less than enthused though. probably saving all of their energy for i am the avalanche, who may i just say, killed it.
vinnie caruana is just a really charming, badass dude. they're a lot of fun live, and the energy they have just radiates through the whole audience, whether you like them or not. i could've done without the guy butt raping me throughout their entire set.

next up was envy on the coast. i always forget how much i love them because i just neglect listening to them often. they were really quite lovely, and their cover of "empire state of mind" that ran into "the gift of paralysis" basically made my month. it was beautiful, and i always love seeing the entire crowd singing the line "throwing punches at ocean waves" while pumping fists in unison. it's beautiful.



the long anticipated, bayside came on shortly after. i hadn't seen them play a legitimate show (not including bamboozle and warped tour) since last november, so this was quite a treat. their setlist doesn't really change much from show to show, but i was glad that they played a lot from their self-titled rather than filling up the set with songs from shudder. i expected at least a few songs from sirens, but sadly, all we got was "masterpiece." i'm not complaining though, the set was met my standards and left me satisfied.



they closed the show with "hello shitty" and "devotion and desire" as usual, and i grabbed the setlist, this time only getting yelled at a little bit by the security guard. he didn't drag me off of the stage this time. thank goodness.
i wandered around, caught up with mr. and mrs. ghanbarian and headed home, smiling.






honestly, i don't even know what it is about bayside that makes me so happy.
they never fail to amaze me.