Arctic Monkeys Biography (R2)

My Top Ten Alternative Songs for This Week:

1. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

2. “Leave Out All The Rest”- Linkin Park

3. “Tonight You’re Perfect”- New Politics

4. “This Is War”- Thirty Seconds to Mars

5. “No Light, No Light”- Florence and the Machine

6. “Silhouettes”- Of Monsters and Men

7. “Sirens”- Pearl Jam

8. “The Mother We”- CHVRCHES

9. “The Walker”- Fitz and the Tantrums

10. “Gun”- CHVRCHES

 

Biography Time:

This week’s biography will be about Arctic Monkeys! I just decided to write it about them since their single, “Do I Wanna Know?” is number one in the world of alternative music for this week. I personally LOVE this song. I would probably make it number eleven on my list of favorite songs at the moment. As you can tell, it isn’t on this list since I only tell you my top ten alternative songs for the week. Without further ado, I give you the biography of ARCTIC MONKEYS!

 

Arctic Monkeys Biography:

The Arctic Monkeys band was formed in 2001 when Alex Turner and Jamie Cook received guitars for Christmas. They started practicing with Andy Nicholson and Matt Helders soon after. These four teenagers were friends in high school when they formed this band. They are all from Sheffield, England. Nicholson plays the bass and Helders plays the drums. They began playing locally in 2003. They began handing out CDs to their fans who in turn spread the word. Arctic Monkeys’ fan base continued to grow because of this. British fans thoroughly enjoyed Turner’s accented singing voice. Their EP, Five Minutes With Arctic Monkeys, was released in 2005 and it quickly became popular. The band started performing at small British festivals, but they drew gigantic crowds. Their debut single was “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”. It quickly became number one in the UK. Many singles, EPs, and albums later, the Arctic Monkeys are now known all around the world. I love their music, and I can’t wait to hear more!

Top Ten Alternative Songs for This Week (R1)

Top Ten Alternative Songs for This Week:

1. “Do I Wanna Know?”- Arctic Monkeys

2. “Come A Little Closer”- Cage the Elephant

3. “Team”- Lorde

4. “Pompeii”- Bastille

5. “Afraid”- The Neighbourhood

6. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

7. “Sirens”- Pearl Jam

8. “Unbelievers”- Vampire Weekend

9. “Demons”- Imagine Dragons

10.  “House Of Gold”- Twenty One Pilots

 

Upcoming Concerts:

Since I’m writing (typing, whatever) this blog post early, I felt the need to tell you that there is a concert tonight at 7:00.  That means that this concert will start in about…eighteen minutes! Anyways, this concert will be performed at The Lost Horizon in Syracuse, New York by 10 Years. The next two concerts will be performed by Aaron Lewis on February 7^th and 8^th at 8:00pm. The 7^th is a Friday and the 8^th is a Saturday just in case you were wondering. They will both take place at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino Showroom in Verona, New York. I will only be mentioning two more concerts in this segment tonight, but if your heart so desires, I have concert dates on an older post. These concert dates go until February 23^rd, and then I will have to update. Aren’t I lucky? Lettuce will be performing on Sunday, February 9^th at 8:00pm. The location will be Westcott Theater in Syracuse, New York. They will be performing at a later date also; I will remind you when the time draws nearer. For Today (yes, this is indeed a band name) will be performing Thursday, February 13^th at 6:00pm. The concert will take place at the Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park, New York. That’s all for now folks! As always, let me know if you’ve gone to one of these concerts or have a date that you would like me to post. By the way, the concert that I mentioned earlier in this section will be starting in…three minutes now!  

 

Avicii Biography Part 2 (Q2)

My Top Ten Alternative Songs For This Week:

1. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

2. “Tonight You’re Perfect”- New Politics

3. “Crystallize”- Young the Giant

4. “Leave Out All The Rest”- Linkin Park

5. “Home”- Evanescence

6. “No Light No Light”- Florence and the Machine

7. “Wake Me Up”- Avicii

8. “Harbour Lights”- A Silent Film

9. “This Is War”- Thirty Seconds to Mars

10. “Missing”- Evanescence

Something That I Just Thought Of:

I just realized that I listed Evanescence AND Young the Giant TWICE. I honestly love way more than ten songs at the moment. These ten lucky songs just happen to have the privilege of being stuck in my head while I’m typing this. Also, as hard as it might be to believe…I DO listen to other music other than alternative. I know! It must be surprising…or not. Anyways, that’s why my list is titled My Top Ten ALTERNATIVE Songs For This Week. I’ll just move on to the biography now since I’ve kept you waiting in suspense long enough. It’s about time (see what I did there?) that I finished typing Avicii’s biography.

Avicii Biography Continued:

As I’ve just stated, this is a continuation of the biography that I started last week. I left off with talking about how Avicii first got his music out to the world. THE STORY CONTINUES NOW.

Tim Berg released “ManMan” on Pete Tong’s Bedroom Bedlam for a competition of sorts. His song ended up with 70% of the votes and was immediately contacted by multiple promoters and agencies all over the world. He’s currently performing at a couple of small DJ things, but he spends most of his time in the studio. Berg once said that he wanted everybody to be able to connect to his music. He continues to create unique sounds in the world of music. His music has been described as, “a combination of killer vocals with high-energy music” complimenting it completely. He’s only 19 at the time, but he has already achieved so much. I can’t wait to hear more of his music!

Top Ten Songs For The Week Of January 20th (Q1)

Top Ten Alternative Songs For This Week:

1. “Come A Little Closer”- Cage the Elephant

2. “Do I Wanna Know?”- Arctic Monkeys

3. “Pompeii”- Bastille

4. “Team”- Lorde

5. “Afraid”- The Neighbourhood

6. “Sirens”- Pearl Jam

7. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

8. “Demons”- Imagine Dragons

9. “Unbelievers”- Vampire Weekend

10. “House Of Gold”- Twenty One Pilots

Upcoming Concerts:

10 Years will be performing on Wednesday, January 29^th at 7:00pm. They will be performing at The Lost Horizon in Syracuse, New York. Finally! Somebody decided to be a trendsetter and perform at a time other than 8:00pm! Anyways, Aaron Lewis will be performing on February 7^th and 8^th which is a Friday and a Saturday. That’s very convenient…VERY convenient. (Sorry, that’s an inside joke.) The concert will take place at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino Showroom in Verona, New York at 8:00pm. The last band whose concert I will post for these upcoming weeks will be Lettuce. They will be performing on Sunday, February 9^th at 8:00pm in Westcott Theater. The theater is located in Syracuse, New York. Lettuce will also be performing about a week later, on Friday February 21^st to be exact. The concert will take place at 8:00pm in Tralf which is in Buffalo, New York. I know that I skipped a couple of concert dates, but I was just sticking the last two concert dates together because they will be performed by the same band. As always, there’s a full list of concerts, complete up to February 23^rd, in an earlier post on my blog. I believe that it’s right after the Christmas edition if you want to check it out!

Random News:

I was just randomly listening to the new music that I recently put on my iPod when all of a sudden my favorite song from at least TWO YEARS AGO started playing! Needless to say, I started to listening to some of the older songs on my iPod so don’t be surprised if you see a couple of older songs on my list of top ten songs for this week.

Avicii Biography Part 1 (P2)

My Top Ten Songs For This Week:

1. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

2. “Silhouettes”- Of Monsters and Men

3. “Sirens’- Pearl Jam

4. “Crystallize”- Young the Giant

5. “Tonight You’re Perfect”- New Politics

6. “Miracle Mile”- Cold War Kids

7. “Follow Me”- Muse

8. “San Francisco”- Mowgli’s

9. “Wake Me Up”- Avicii

10.  “Harbour Lights”- A Silent Film

Biography Introduction:

Hello everybody and welcome to this week’s version of an alternative band’s biography! Who will the lucky band be? Will you guess it? Will we ever find out? I still haven’t asked the most important question…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it. Are you feeling the suspense yet? Whoops! Sorry, that wasn’t the question that you were all waiting for. Will I ever tell you? Whoop, there it is! This week’s band biography will be about Avicii!

Avicii Biography:

What I find to be the most interesting part of this band is that it is composed of ONE PERSON. Tim Berg is that one person. Yes, you heard me. TIM BERG IS AVICII. He launched his career on his own by using blogs about dance and music. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1989. Berg started creating music at the young age of 18. He wrote new music and remixed existing songs in his bedroom. It isn’t enough that he started his own band gig at 18, but he also recorded his music in his bedroom instead of in a recording studio. His sound was influenced by Daft Punk and Steve Angello. Berg gained a huge following and eventually found support in the form of Tiësto. He invited Berg to perform every week at Privilege in Ibiza. This helped him to get his music out there so that more people could listen to it. Pete Tong helped out too by releasing the first single, “Madman”, through his Bedroom Bedlam Label.

OKAY, I DECIDED TO TRY SOMETHING NEW. SINCE AVICII HAS A VERY LONG BIOGRAPHY, I WILL CONTINUE THIS IN NEXT WEEK’S BLOG POST. I CAN NOW KEEP YOU IN SUSPENSE EVEN LONGER! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I’LL SEE YOU NEXT TIME (hopefully).  

Top Ten For The Week Of January 13th (P1)

Top Ten Alternative Songs for This Week:

1. “Come A Little Closer”- Cage the Elephant

2. “Pompeii”- Bastille

3. “Do I Wanna Know?”- Arctic Monkeys

4. “Team”- Lorde

5. “Afraid”- The Neighbourhood

6. “Demons”- Imagine Dragons

7. “Sirens”- Pearl Jam

8. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

9. “Unbelievers”- Vampire Weekend

10. “Out Of My League”- Fitz and the Tantrums

Upcoming Concerts:

Unlike last time, I’ll just jump right in and tell you about the concerts instead of giving excuses. A Great Big World and Secret Someones concert will be on Saturday, January 18^th at 8:00pm. The concert will take place in Tralf (Buffalo, New York). 10 Years will be performing on Wednesday, January 29^th at 7:00pm. The performance will be at The Lost Horizon in Syracuse, New York. The last concert date, actually dates since they’re for the same band, is in February. FEBRUARY! I can’t believe it. January is flying by, and I’ve only skied twice! Okay, I’m sorry. I got a little off track. Aaron Lewis will be playing on Friday, February 7^th at 8:00pm and on Saturday, February 8^th at 8:00pm. They will be performing at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino Showroom in Verona, New York for BOTH NIGHTS. Let me repeat, Aaron Lewis will be performing at the same location for both of their provided concert dates. Got it? Phew…

Random News:

First of all, I just got home from NYSTEA last night, and IT WAS AWESOME! NYSTEA is a theater conference where kids can go and attend all different kinds of theater related workshops. I’m not even kidding you; there was a workshop for EVERYTHING. I took hand to hand combat among other things. There were dancing classes, singing classes, classes to make costumes out of garbage bags…etc. Anyways, you may be wondering what this has to do with anything. There were activity times where you could attend dances and whatnot. A couple of my friends and I were outside of our rooms when we heard music coming from a room downstairs. It was “Wake Me Up” by Avicii! I got super excited and ran downstairs. There was a lightshow going on, and all of the music was ALTERNATIVE! It was great! Apparently, somebody had good taste.

Young the Giant Biography (O2)

My Top Ten Alternative Songs for This Week:

1. “It’s About Time”- Young the Giant

2. “Tessellate”- alt-j

3. “Crystallize”- Young the Giant

4. “Silhouettes”- Of Monsters and Men

5. “San Francisco”- Mowgli’s

6. “Harbour Lights”- A Silent Film

7. “The Walker”- Fitz and the Tantrums

8. “Miracle Mile”- Cold War Kids

9. “Follow Me”- Muse

10.  “Still Into You”- Paramore

 

SOOOOOOOO, who will be the lucky band this week? I haven’t done a biography on a band in FOREVER! I didn’t even do one right before break. Then again, I had a good excuse for that. Come on, who wouldn’t want a special Christmas edition of my blog? Please don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question. Anyways, YOUNG THE GIANT is the lucky band!

 

Young the Giant Biography:

My favorite songs by them include, but aren’t limited to, “Cough Syrup”, “Crystallize”, and “It’s About Time”. The last two were kind of obvious considering that I placed them in MY top ten list. Oh well…too bad so sad. Believe it or not, the original name of Young the Giant was The Jakes. Personally, I prefer their name now because it’s more original and memorable. This band originated in Irvine, California where all of the band members met each other in high school. The band consists of Sameer Gadhia, Jacob Tilley, Eric Cannata, Payam Doostzadeh, and Francois Comtois. Sameer is the lead singer, Jacob is the guitarist, Eric is the other guitarist, Payam is the bass player, and Francois is the drummer. After graduation, they formed their own band (obviously) and continued to perform together even when they all went off to different colleges. Eventually, they decided to put college on hold so that they could focus on making music. By 2009, they were performing EVERYWHERE, and they were opening for Kings of Leon. The Jakes was signed to Roadrunner Records a couple months later. In 2010, they changed their name to Young the Giant (THANK GOODNESS!). Later that year, their self-titled album was released, which included the hit song “Cough Syrup”. They have released one album since then called Mind Over Matter. This album was actually released in 2014, so it’s pretty new. My favorite song at the moment, “It’s About Time”, is on this album. Young the Giant’s music/style has been described as indie rock. I LOVE THIS BAND!