Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Me & Nicky Da B

Nicky Da B is the guy you hear rapping in Diplo's "Express Yourself". His music is New Orleans bounce and it involves a lot of booty bouncing.

I found out about this show approximately four hours before it started and knew I had to go! We dragged along some (confused) friends in Portland and watched Nicky Da B and his two dancers perform for $6 in a crowd of about 20 people. Not bad! If only we had the queens of Expression of Self along!

Enjoy...









Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Seattle/Capital Hill Block Party!


Between longer trips, we like to keep visiting different places over the weekend. Seattle was a good choice because it is only 3 hours away, and my sister lives there. Also, Dylan had never been there before and a sunny summer weekend seemed like the best time to go. This past weekend, Seattle hosted the Capital Hill Block Party, an annual music festival that featuered Major Lazer and Diplo, so we pretty much had to go.

We drove up early Saturday afternoon and dropped our stuff of at my sister's house in SW Seattle. We went straight to the festival grounds, which were laid out over a couple of city blocks. The restuarants and bars inside the gates were packed, standing room only with limited drink choices. We were able to find a place for dinner, and soon met up with our friends: Rachel, Sarai, JT, and Amanda.


Major Lazer performed first and was amazing! The crowd was huge and pretty crazy. Everyone was dancing like psychos and generally having a good time, expressing themselves way too much. The Diplo show (at 1:30 am!) was in an inside venue, and the line/logistics to get were near impossible for anyone who had watched Major Lazer. Instead, we all decided to go to a couple of nearby clubs, including one that stayed open til 4 am. They were both gay clubs and were definitely better than any club I've been to in Portland (though I haven't been to many yet) or Corvallis (obviously).

Just in case any of my friends forgot some of the lovely coversations we had at 4 am:

Rachel: Yes, we will hang out at your parents house, followed by a trip to Stars.
Sarai: Yes, we will go to Sin Ju. And you should grind on whoever you want!
JT: Yes, we know we are the cutest couple in the world, ever.
Amanda: Keep expressing yourself


Sunday morning we started our recovery with a morning hot tub with my sister Lea and her fiance, Kyle. They then took us on a driving tour around Seattle, which was a nice laidback start to the day. After that, we went to EMP Musuem by the Seattle Center. We went through a bunch of exhibits dedicated to Seattle-influenced music such as Nirvana. We got to learn some sweet hooks on the light-up instructional keyboards and even (terribly) scratched some records. We also played "Wild Thing" on a stage in front of a virtual audience playing realistic looking Rock Band type instruments. Super dorky. It was really cold so I was wearing Dylan's button up shirt with black leg warmers on my arms, along with my already kinda grunge boots. So I guess I fit right in.

What was NOT dorky, but awesome, was the Avatar exhibit. I like fake glowing plants OK? They also had some of those giant computer screens where you can drag around windows and zoom in one files about different Pandora stuff, as well as a bunch of props from the film. The musuem also had a sci-fi section and a horror film section.


After that, we went up the Space Needle of course and took some photos. We walked through the Bite of Seattle and had some mediocre fried food while listening to a mediocre top 40s cover band. We did catch a dog jumping contest on the way out, which was pretty great. Thats why I love cities, you never know what kind of random, interesting thing will be happening down the street.