An Airborne Music Event

After their June appearance at the House of Blues, The Airborne Toxic Event makes it’s way back to Vegas, this time in a concert special that is 100% free.

Local rock and alternative station, X107.5 hosted the free X-Fest listener event at the Sunset Station outdoor amphitheater on Saturday, which featured the bands Sleeper Agent, Redlight King, Otherwise and headlined Los Feliz, CA band; The Airborne Toxic Event.

For weeks prior to the event, listeners called in and signed up with the station to win tickets or had the option to stop by Ford Country in the Valley Auto Mall and receive tickets with any test drive.

After tickets were in hand, fans and listeners headed over to lawns of the Sunset amphitheater for the two-hour concert. While the three opening bands gave a great performance of their own artistic vibe, the headlining band TATE was what drew in the loudest fans. 

As it was pointed out to me prior to their show; some concerts you go to see the band and some concerts you go to hear the band, after attending TATE’s second concert in Vegas this year, it is with out a doubt that TATE is a band you go to hear. With their indie rock melodies, head banging beats and classical sounding undertone, they send out a musical reverberation that is nothing less than an auditory indulgence.

As they were introduced to the crowd, they jumped up on stage, diving straight into their first song, All I Ever Wanted, with not a moment to loose.

While much of the crowd appeared more enthusiastic about the buckets of beer and concept of a free concert than the bands performing, the evening provided a great concert that left fans wanting more.

Despite the event being a free performance, TATE did much more than jump on stage, sing a few songs and leave. Throughout the concert, lead singer Mikel Jollett gazed around the venue’s crowd, as if absorbing every moment and analyzing those in attendance, interacting with members of the audience occasionally between songs. Drummer, Daren Taylor, Bass player Noah Harmon and Jollett, jumped onto the drum platform for a three-person drum solo, Anna Bulbrook head banged while playing the keyboard without missing a beat, and Steven Chen jumped to all platforms and speakers blasting the sounds of his guitar.

 

Their set was on a short 1-hour time frame but they managed to fit in as many songs as possible, moving without any hesitation from one song to the next and ending their set with a handful of short covers including I Fought the Law.

Just in case all that didn’t get the crowds full attention, Jollett took it to the next level and went to the extreme of climbing up the side of the stage’s metal framing and up to the top spotlights, where he delivered an entire song to the crowd from overhead.

With nothing less than an exceptional stage presence and superb compilation of their best songs, TATE left crowds looking forward to their next Vegas performance and intrigued as to who will be brought out for the next X-Fest.

Curl up and Dye

There’s a reason girls grow their hair out, it’s so we can curl it, cut it, dye it, straighten it, style it and every other thing that we are told is bad for it. While playing with my split ends one morning, a new brand was brought to my attention, Shielo. This Hearst Corporation brand was brought to life in New York City in 2001 and has since gone international. The brand's intention: designing new expertise in the volumizing and color treatment.

In a matter of days I found myself trying out various products from the line. The first thing I found intriguing about the line was the packaging, simple looking bottles with paper sticker labels on the smaller samples and simple packaging on the actual bottles, nothing over the top visually in the design. I later found out that the Shielo brand is not only a strong advocate against animal cruelty but they also use post-consumer recycled and recyclable packaging. And so came time to test the products; shampoos and conditioners for volume, moisturizing and vibrancy and a leave in antioxidant protectant.

Of the three types of shampoo and conditioners I preferred the volumizing, because it did just that; added volume and lift to my hair at the roots, which only made sense since the volume collection was the first to debut online. After looking over the antioxidant protectant, I realized the product was designed for the dyers in the world. Although I don’t color my hair, I did find myself using the leave in protectant, daily. While I couldn’t determine if it was indeed “providing UV protection” to my hair, I did like how it helped prevent my hair from combating itself throughout the day and stirring up battlefield tangles and knots.

While each product had it’s own job to do, each one did so in silence, without an overpowering scent of aromas and perfumes. The very subtle smells the products did have were of soap and shea butter. 

For more information on Shielo and their products visit http://www.shielo.com/.

Pretty as a Podcast : Episode 1

Murphy's Law: Wedding Crasher

After the horrible haircut only two days before my brother’s wedding, I was sure that the rest of the weekend would be exceptional. My parents and I were taking a road trip to San Diego to see my brother get married! Our family was getting bigger and I was sure that the trip would hold nothing less than joyous celebration and excitement. While celebration did occur and there was excitement, Murphy imposed his law throughout the entire trip, creating a trip that I can only describe as inimitable.

The wedding was at 5 p.m. on Saturday. The plan was to leave Vegas early, drive to San Diego (what my brother assured us was a mere four hour drive), check into the hotel, relax for a bit and go to the wedding. 

We were two hours into the trip and so far everything was going well, except for the fact that our GPS said we had another three hour drive ahead of us, but an extra hour of driving wouldn’t impede our plans. Soon the California bound traffic began to come to a halt and before long we were one of hundreds sitting in standstill traffic.

As we inched further and further, a sign soon entered into our sight displaying words that immediately sent us into a slight disposition of frustration “Freeway closed ahead.” Thanks to a fire that had happened the night before, we were now stuck on a closed freeway until things were cleaned up on the roadway and it re-opened. Almost an hour and a half later, traffic began to move forward and soon we were back up to speed. Not much after we had gotten up to speed, traffic slowed to a stop once more and we were greeted with another sign; “Severe Accident Ahead – Expect Delays.” We began to doubt our time frame to clean up and arrive at the wedding. Four hours and six freeways later we were exceedingly irritated and checking into our hotel.

It was 4:55 p.m. the wedding started in five minutes and we had no time to lose. We raced to our hotel room, threw our things onto the beds, ripped open our luggage and changed into our suits and dresses, all the while; clothes flying from luggage, hair ties and bows soaring to and fro and the dog looking worried and utterly confused.  No sooner had we arrived, we were now racing back to the car, activating GPS on the way there.

We threw the car into reverse and headed out the driveway. Luckily GPS assured us the wedding location was only six minutes away from our hotel. Only one U-turn was needed and we soon saw the white balloons and bows tied to street signs leading the way to the wedding. It was 5:16, we were late for the ceremony but at least we had made it in time to see most of it. The balloons soon stopped leading our path and the winery was nowhere to be found. We pulled over and asked passerby’s on the street for the location of the winery, only to be told “You’re nowhere near that place.” Apparently there were two roads with the exact same name, minus a ‘north’ specification. After receiving new directions from a local, we began on our way.

By this point we could no longer be frustrated. We had done all we could and had still hit every freeway in Southern California, every construction zone and now we had shown up to the wrong wedding. As we made our way to the correct wedding we text messaged my brother along the way, who soon called us and updated our directions. With new directions in hand we headed south on another freeway, again, text messaging my brother along the way. After a thirty-minute drive we gave my brother a call to verify our directions. We soon learned we had originally wanted to go north, not south. Another three freeways and something like 12 U-Turns later we arrived at the wedding, the correct one this time.

Nothing says making an entrance like showing up to a wedding two hours late. Although we were two hours late, the reception hadn’t started yet. We were just in time for food, and after all the frustrating trials on the roadways, we were starving.

Overall the evening was pleasant as up beat sounds played from the DJ booth, each song reminding me of Vegas. The dinner was presented, the dance floor filled up, the cake was served and the evening was over.

The following morning we headed to the coastline for a delicious brunch with my brother and his new wife. After breakfast, as we headed out of town we followed my brother (so we wouldn’t get lost) to their new house for a tour. It was a nice visit, and soon we found ourselves saying our pleasant goodbyes with the bride and groom and we went on our way. 

No sooner had we left their house that we were laughing hysterically in the car at the fact that we were once again driving around lost on the San Diego streets. From side roads to freeways and wrong directions we drove back to Vegas sighing our plead to the GPS Gods to please let us escape the traffic laden California streets and guide us promptly back to Nevada. 

Not So Fantastic Sams

You know those stories you re-tell, where everyone’s response is; we’ve all been there at some point, well I hadn’t. I had escaped that awful experience; that is until yesterday. I can now say that I too can contribute to the re-telling of stories when it comes to a bad haircut. To say this was a bad haircut would be an understatement. Bad haircuts usually result in simple weird looks and subtle jokes among family. Awful haircuts however, cause complete strangers to laugh, offer supportive words and say things like “Oh my God! What happened!?” Of the two, what I had was an awful haircut. These haircuts also never take place during times when you could care less what you look like, instead they happen right before picture day, before a job interview, or in my case; two days before my brother’s wedding.

All I needed was to get some split ends removed and add a couple layers in. Seeing as how this was not rocket science, I figured I’d take the simple route; go around the corner from where I live and go to Fantastic Sams. Let’s just say this was a not so fantastic experience.

I walked into the butcher and she politely asked what I would like done. “Just some layers, and get rid of the split ends,” I said.

For the next fifteen minutes things seemed to go fine. Then as I saw strands of hair dropping that were a good five and six inches long, I started to get nervous.  She brushed and cut and stared and cut and brushed some more and kept cutting. When all was said and done the front looked pretty good. I paid and walked out the door.

As I drove home it occurred to me, I had never been shown what the back looked like. Upon arriving at home I grabbed a mirror, looked at the back of my hair, my jaw dropped and I immediately started to cry. Now, for clarification, I have never cried at a haircut before, it always seemed silly to me, but let me reemphasize that this haircut made me cry and these were not tears of joy.

I starred into the mirror hoping my glasses were playing tricks on me and I’d look back and everything would be better, but sadly this is what I was looking at.

Apparently the only layers the butcher knew were layers on a cake, so instead of having different layers sporadically blending throughout my hair I had three completely straight-line layers chiseled into my hair at crooked angles. 

Conveniently for them, when I returned to Fantastic Sams to complain and demand my money back, I was greeted with looks of surprise and the reassurance that there was no manager in for the rest of the week and they had no power to offer me anything. 

I immediately threw my hair into a ponytail and went over to the Paul Mitchell School to see if they could fix this disaster. I figured, something good has to come out of this – students could use a good laugh and be put to a test. 

I walked in, made my appointment and sat waiting patiently. My name was called and I walked with the student over to her station. She asked what I would like to have done. I told her the story of my awful haircut from thirty minutes earlier. She smiled and politely said;

“Let’s have a look, it can’t be that bad.”

I took my hair out of the ponytail and watched in the mirror as her jaw dropped and she blurted out

“Oh my God! What the heck happened to you!? I’m going to need help on this, I’ll be right back.”

She returned with a teacher at her side, who let out a slight chuckle and started brushing through it trying to figure out what had happened.

“What on earth did you ask them to do?”

“Just simple layers,” I responded sadly.

“Were they licensed?”

The teacher turned to someone else for help. Next thing I knew I had two teachers and a student all brushing through my hair, jaw dropped and a puzzled face on all their faces. I could see one of them forcing back a smile; I looked at her in the mirror and said;

“You can laugh, it’s fine. I know it’s awful.”

No sooner did the words escape my mouth that all three were laughing at my hair.

“Oh my God, I have no idea what happened but this is the worst haircut I have ever seen in my life,” said one of them. “We’ll fix this. It will be very difficult to do while trying to keep the length, but we’ll fix this. We’ll just have to go slowly through it all.”

For the next two hours we laughed and they played around working hard on damage control. Other teachers and students walked past looking with eyebrows raised, Other teachers would come over to me and put their hand on my should saying things would be okay. And may I just say, if you are ever unsure of whether your haircut is bad, the minute a male stylist comes over to you, squeezes your shoulder and sympathetically assures you “things will be okay” you suddenly sense just how bad you look.

Teachers sporadically came by, looked through the various cut strands and offered tips and help for how to salvage my hair without the need to resort to a pixie hairstyle. Then the words of assurance began to slowly occur as other teachers would come to see what others were talking about. “Wow, that is looking so much better.” “That’s much better than it was.”

After all was said and done, I was assured it was ten times better than it was and I was armed with two tips for advice for confronting public for the next month; 1.) It is essential that I style it every day before going out and 2.) If anyone asks, just say it’s the latest rage in Europe.