Concert Roadtrip Month

Before I get into all the concert road trips, here is a taste of what it's like to work at Fuse.  Your desk would be covered in big piles of CDs all the time, and occasionally people will just give you really cool stuff like autographed guitars. Ok just kidding, that doesn't really happen every day, but today I was actually given an acoustic guitar signed by the guys in Plain White T's.  The sad news is that I only know how to play 3 chords, and not very well (I learned how to play them in high school because it was almost enough chords to know how to play "Season" by Good Charlotte...)  This is what it looks like when I try to tune it:

I've dubbed the past few weeks "concert road trip month," even though technically it covered a bit of April AND May.  Mid-April I went to Philadelphia with my fellow PA Carmelina, and SURS Naomi, to see The Starting Line's last hometown show before their break.  We got to the show a little late because we were too busy getting lost in Camden, so we missed Steel Train.  Four Year Strong played a sick set as usual-- they're one band that I can say with absolute certainty that they're going to blow up.  Bayside played next.  I think I could probably listen to Bayside every day for the rest of my life and not get sick of them.

The Starting Line played the best set I've ever seen them play, and possibly one of the best shows I've ever seen.  I nearly had a heart attack when they started playing The Drama Summer, because they played that the first time I ever saw them, almost 6 years ago, and I hadn't ever seen them play it since then.  It was cool to see them play their hometown-- you could tell the show was something special, and also the kids in Philly were pretty awesome.  There was a group of guys standing next to us who were pretty much the dude equivalents of us (i.e. they were shouting along with every single word of every song, and dancing like crazy instead of doing the 'cool guy head bob')  They filmed the whole thing for a DVD.  You can tell you're standing next to TV people at a show when you hear them interrupt their own singing along to say things like "Whoaaaaaa did you see that steadicam shot?" or "I wonder what format they're shooting in?" (we asked; it was HD)  I haven't bought a concert DVD since high school but I am buying this one.

The following weekend the three of us were joined by Tara, another Fuser, to go to Washington DC to see Paramore/Jimmy Eat World.  This tour unfortunately didn't hit NYC because of Bamboozle, but when my sister told me she'd bought tickets to this tour in Rochester, I got jealous and decided we need to road trip to go see it.  The show was in a college sports arena, not quite the same cool atmosphere as the Electric Factory show we'd been at the week before, but the show itself was awesome.  I've seen Paramore play 200 capacity rooms that weren't even sold out, and I've seen them play sold out 2000-person shows, and I've never seen them play a set that I would ever even describe as "average."  They're always incredible.  I think the last time I saw Jimmy Eat World was when I was 16, and it was one of the first concerts I ever went to.  Their set was great, I think they played a pretty good mix of new and old stuff.  Here are some pictures from the show, and one oldie but goodie that I took at a show in Buffalo in 2006.

The last weekend in "Concert Road Trip Weekend" was Bamboozle.  Last year I only went 1 day, and I was working, so this was really my first Bamboozle experience.  Saturday I saw Holiday Parade, Farewell, Metro Station, Anthony Raneri, The Maine, Vinnie Caruana (Movielife set), Mae, Hit the Lights, Family Force 5, MxPx, The Rocket Summer, Set Your Goals, Valencia, Paramore, Jimmy Eat World, and Snoop Dogg.  Stand out sets for me were Vinnie's Movielife set, Set Your Goals and Valencia.  By the end of the day I was exhausted, but I stuck around for Snoop Dogg because I wanted to be able to brag to my brother that I'd seen him.

Sunday I watched Between the Trees, Paper Rival, The Secret Handshake, Four Year Strong, You Me and Everyone We Know, The Starting Line, I Am the Avalanche, The Receiving End Of Sirens, Phantom Planet, Brighten, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Gym Class Heroes, Coheed and Cambria, and most of Panic At the Disco. My favorites of the day were You Me and Everyone We Know (the best band I've started listening to this year) and The Starting Line.  At the end of The Starting Line's set about 60 people ran out to join them onstage, and they stopped playing while the entire crowd and everyone onstage sang the last chorus of "Best of Me."  Naomi and the SURS team were all working, but I called them and held up my phone so they could hear some of the set.  It's going to be a bummer for the next few years before they start playing shows again.  The entire crowd started chanting "DON'T BREAK UP!" and Kenny said there's no way in hell they can break up, so I'm going to stay hopeful that they'll be back in 2011.

If anyone reading this is from Buffalo, I sure hope you checked out the Dinkus 9 reunion show last Friday at Showplace.  It was kind of a big deal because I think this was the first show that my brother played with these guys since 2004 or 2005.  I would've considered going home for the show if it weren't for the fact that I went to the MCR/TBS show at Madison Square Garden.  I'm bummed to have missed it!  On the plus side, I saw Taking Back Sunday for the first time, and they were reeeeally good.

This ends the longest blog ever.  Later!

-Carrie, Sauce PA

 

Office hijinks

It's April Fools Day, and I've never been very good at pulling pranks.  I can't keep a straight face to save my life, and I'm the kind of person who will change stuff on my friends' myspaces when they leave it open on their computer, but then feel bad and tell them about it.  This year I teamed up with my fellow PA Carmelina for some fun.

Nothing beats coming in an hour early and blowing up balloons until you almost pass out!  Also check out our Christmas tree/menorah combo in that first picture.

Yesterday Pete Wentz stopped by The Sauce to talk about Antarctica and the new FOB Live album and stuff.  Our head writer Joel (who, by the way, has not written a blog in a year) came up with the idea to put Fall Out Boy on Mount Rushmore.  I'm pretty sure it's some of my better photoshopping, though I figured it was either going to come off as really funny or insanely creepy.  Luckily, Pete thought it was funny (see left.)  Basically, I will take any opportunity to play with photoshop instead of doing real work. 

Case in point:

But enough about photoshop.  Today is possibly the most exciting day in the history of The Sauce, because Jeff Corwin is coming on the show and HE IS BRINGING ANIMALS.  The one thing that has been blatantly missing from the show in the past year is animals.  OK, technically our first guest ever was a dog, but that doesn't count because I did not get to meet that dog.  Jeff Corwin is bringing a bunch of awesome reptiles.  And while I would have loved it if he brought one of these or one of these or one of these or one of these, I still plan on the entire Sauce team taking pictures with a python around our necks, Britney Spears-style.  Get pumped!  It's gonna be a great show!

What April Fools pranks did you pull today?

-Carrie

Taste of Chaos (and some other stuff)

Today on The Sauce we talked a lil bit about Taste of Chaos and all the coverage SURS is will be airing from the tour.  Last week I tagged along on the SURS team field trip out to Nassau Coliseum to go see Taste of Chaos.  The show was awesome (I'd never seen Avenged Sevenfold before) and I took some pretty sweet pictures, if I do say so myself...my apologies to any "real" photographers whose way I was in :)

Last night I went to "The Secret of the Dangerous Radio From Maine, In Space Tour"-- let me say, whoever put this tour together is a genius who probably likes to dance, because all the bands on it are insanely fun.  As usual, I missed Powerspace.  I think I've been to atleast 3 shows that they've played, yet I've still never seen them.  One day, Powerspace.  One day.  We got to the show in the middle of Danger Radio's set-- saw these guys open for The Audition and Envy On the Coast last month.  They played a fun set and the crowd was REALLY into them.  The Maine is a band whose EP I found in the Fuse office a few months ago and have been listening to a lot.  I'm pretty sure their singer stole Kenny Vasoli's voice (and I mean that in a good way...not that there's a bad way to say "You sound like Kenny Vasoli")  I'd never seen The Secret Handshake before, but it was a dancing good time.  I give that show two thumbs up.

I'm going to leave you with a picture of Jared and his mini-me.  You saw it on The Sauce yesterday, but I think it's some of my finest photoshop work and maybe deserves a second look?

-Carrie

New Releases!

We're not back until next week, but yesterday was Tuesday so I'm gonna do some new releases, blog-style!

Here's what I picked up yesterday:

The Hush Sound: Goodbye Blues
One thing that I love about this band is that they have so much growth & progression between each album they've put out, but they haven't changed so much that they're unrecognizable as the same band.  They're one of my go-to bands when I can't decide what to listen to on my way to work in the morning, probably because there's enough variety on each album that it's tough to get bored with them.

The Matches- A Band In Hope
I love everything these guys do.  After one listen, I think I prefer Decomposer, but I remember after one listen of Decomposer I still preferred their first album.  After many listens, Decomposer ended up being one of my favorite albums of '06.  I will be listening to this a lot more very soon.  Also I'd like to place a bet that "Wake the Sun" will be used under the opening credits sequence of some American Pie-style teen comedy movie this summer (if that doesn't make sense, listen to the song and imagine it, and you'll know what I mean)

Yael Naim- Yael Naim
Ok, I didn't buy this, but I did think of it while I was at the store.  This is the girl who sings the song in that macbook air commercial.  I just love that song, and I think the video for it is the most adorable video since that Spiderman Snow Patrol video.

Anyway, get pumped for next week, when The Sauce is back with all new episodes!

-Carrie

Sauce Team Cricket-Off

Yesterday on The Sauce you saw Steven eat a record-breaking, tremendous TEN crickets.  That's as many crickets as Jared and three other Sauce staffers combined.  For proof, check out this video and see some interdepartmental cricket-snacking.

"They're good...maybe TOO good."

Good week here on The Sauce!  As Robyn said in her blog below, Jordin Sparks came in on Monday to chat with her old pal Jared.  She talked a bit about her recent trip to Africa, where she handed out bed nets to help prevent malaria, which I thought was pretty sweet.

Also on Monday, Naomi and I headed over to Irving Plaza to see The Graduate play with Simple Plan.  If you haven't noticed from the fact that I've mentioned The Graduate in pretty much every blog I've written, I kind of like them.  It was definitely cool to see them in a bigger venue, though the sound at Irving Plaza didn't quite do them justice (it seemed like there was an unnecessary amount of reverb on the vocals)  But otherwise, the show was awesome- I've never seen these guys play a show where they haven't killed it.  There were a few blank stares in the audience, but for the most part everyone seemed pretty receptive.  Their dates with Simple Plan are almost over, but if you have a chance to see The Graduate at ANY show, I'd highly recommend checking them out.

We ended up staying for all of Simple Plan's set, which turned out to be a lot of fun.  I've watched a whole lot of reruns of their episode of Extra Sauce, which resulted in me getting made fun of a little for knowing all the words to some of their new songs.  Much like when they were on The Sauce, they put on a really solid, high energy show.

Yesterday author John Sellers was on the show-- I haven't read his book, but I'm thinking I probably should.  I was glad to find out that I'm not the only person who has a list of every show I've ever been to!  (how else would I know that I saw my brother's band 16 times before they broke up, or that last year I saw 58 bands that I'd never seen before?)

A few more pictures from this week:

 -Carrie

30 Seconds of Fame

Hello to everybody in the Sauce-o-sphere!

I decided this morning to write up a blog, because THIS intern has had her Best Week Ever! (that is my final tribute to Matt Goldich, who will be missed)  Things were exciting this week, Jordin Sparks dropped in, visited with her old Idol buddy Jared. Woody Harrelson and Andre 3000 shot trash hoops (white men can't jump, but they CAN dominate trash hoops, people)

Also King Norris rocked it for us on that same night.  Now, everybody should know this by now, but the lead singer of King Norris is none other then Fred Norris of Howard Stern fame. So of course Howard had to send out Lisa G. from The Howard 100 to get the behind-the-scenes scoop.  She got interviews with both Steven and Jared, also our Rockin' producer Becky, and surprisingly she was also interested in talking to--guess who? ME, that's who! The Sauce intern!

See, I was dominating the delay-buzzer on Tuesday and since they can all swear as much as the F**in want at Sirius, they were curious to find out what it was like for me, the Dump Girl. (for all that don't know, Howard and everybody call it the Dump Button, so that makes me the Dump-er, a title I shall don proudly)

Well, Lisa G. and me chatted for a few minutes and it was done. I went about my business and manned my Dump station. (or ladied it, as it were)    I really didn't think my interview was all that interesting, but apparently they thought it was OK, because they actually put it on the air on Howard 100! That's right, little ole me, enjoying my 30-second sound-bite of fame.

I still have yet to hear myself, because I don't have satellite radio, but just to know that I have graced the Sirius air waves, I've just gotta say: *BEEP* Yeah!

Thanks to Lisa G. for interviewing me, and thanks to The Sauce for just letting me be here.

Until next time...
Robyn- The Intern

Dingle

Dangle

winter wonderland?

There's crazy snow in NYC today!  It makes most people grumpy, but I'm from Buffalo and I actually miss the snow a little.  Also, you can tell I've been away from Buffalo a long time when I refer to 6 inches as "crazy snow."

It's been a fun week here on The Sauce.  Foo Fighters were hilarious as usual on Tuesday.  I didn't get to see their show at MSG that night, but I heard it was awesome. 

Wednesday Panic at the Disco was in the studio.  For some reason, no one noticed until about 2pm Wednesday that Ryan looks pretty much exactly like a younger version of our supervising producer.  We asked a bunch of people around the office, and almost everyone agreed with us.  Here's a fun fact- I interviewed Panic at the Disco a week after A Fever You Can't Sweat Out came out, for the tv show I produced in college.  If I'm guessing correctly, it was probably one of their first, if not ACTUALLY their first, on-camera interview.  I'm not going to post a link, because I was a terrible on-camera interviewer (one of many reasons I work behind the scenes now), and the whole thing was mildly awkward.  But it's out there somewhere, floating around the internet...

I've only made it out to one show so far this week.  Tuesday I went to Every Avenue's CD release show.  I can't say that I'm as crazy for their new full length as I was for their EP, but it's still a solid, really catchy album and the show was a lot of fun.

Here are a few more pictures from this week-

 

This was possibly the least informative blog ever, so hopefully the pictures make up for it.  It's Friday, so I'm gonna get out of the office and start my weekend!  I chipped in with a bunch of people to enter the Mega Millions lottery, so if we win I guess we'll be doing The Sauce from our cabanas in the Bahamas?  Just kiddinggggg :)

-Carrie

2 days, 2 shows

How much fun was Simple Plan on Monday?  So much fun!  It was actually the first Extra Sauce that I was in the studio for-- all the other ones I somehow ended up being busy elsewhere.  I love every time we have performances on the show-- Extra Sauce or not, they're always the most fun days.  I think that out of all the performances we've had, Simple Plan was one of the best sounding ones we've had (I mean that in the technical aspects, and also that they did 7 very solid live songs)

My favorite part was our head writer secretly serenading one of our crew members behind his back with "Welcome To My Life."  That, and David/Steven giving a shout out to The Graduate.  Overall it was a good time, and one of my favorite performance shows we've had.   I'll be seeing Simple Plan again in a week or so, when they play Irving Plaza with The Graduate.

Then the next night, I went with SURS Naomi to the Pac Sun tour.  The Audition was fun as always-- they were actually the first band I saw when I moved to the city.  It was a couple years ago, my first week as a Fuse intern, and I saw they were playing Knitting Factory, so I headed over even though I'd lived here for 3 days and only knew 2 people (neither of whom wanted to go with me).  This time they played HighLine Ballroom, and did a good mix of songs off Champion (awesome album) and their first album.

Envy On the Coast was headlining this date of the tour.  For some reason, I still haven't gotten my hands on a copy of Lucy Gray yet, but let me tell you: Sugar Skulls is my JAM.  I go to a lot of shows, and I almost always have fun, but I'm not often so impressed with a band, musically.  It's rare to see a band where not only can more than one person sing competently, but 3 guys in the band have great voices.  Ryan has a CRAZY set of pipes.  At the end of their set, he announced that a fellow Long Island musician would be coming out to join them...who was it?  Oh, just one mister Adam Lazzara.  Of course, by this point my camera's memory card was full, and in the time it took me to frantically delete some pictures, the show was over.  You can see a youtube video (warning: with PAINFUL sound quality)  here.  And here are some pictures that Naomi and I took (click to enlarge...)

Lastly, the Harlem Globetrotters were in on Wednesday.  Jared and Steven are saying that they consider playing with them a career highlight.  Wildkat, Curly and Sweet Lou were all super friendly and so much fun to have in the studio-- check out some pics!

Huge week next week-- Foo Fighters, Serj Tankian, Panic at the Disco, and more! Stay tuned... :)