Bellydance in NoDa

Lots of bellydancers and bellydance enthusiasts from various troups in Charlotte gathered in NoDa, next to Salvador Deli, for a couple of hours of fun bellydance exhibitions. Enjoy the videos! Pretty sure this will turn into a recurring event, happening every month, so be sure to make it out next time! Check Noda's calendar for future events.

Ready for the Weekend || A Review

I'm going to viciously defend this album against all the negativity from places like ArtRocker and Pretty Much Amazing.

This album has an increasingly more personal feel than Calvin Harris's debut. While it does mess with people's perceptions of what to expect from Calvin Harris, it messes with it in a way that allows room for growth, adaptation, and change - while keeping his distinct sound.

At first I was put off by the slightly different feel of the album: there was more singing, more lyrics, more featured artists, and more music that was not electronic based.

Nearly every song starts off with an intro of actual .. instruments.. playing actual music? That's not what I was expecting at all, but the electronic beats subtly and quickly creep in, transforming the tracks completely as they bloom electronically. I can see the incorporation of an instrumental intro for say, playing shows with a live band, and it doesn't detract from the music, but yes, it's something different.

So, now that we've gotten over the shock of actual instrumentation, the lyrics and vocals pose the following characteristics: Calvin Harris is definitely more vocal in this album, and I don't think it could have been any other way in order for this album to convey the unified feeling of a narrative. Harris may not have a naturally amazing ability to sing, but the depth of his emotions are apparent. Which I think is what music should really be about - the feelings that emotive music/lyrics/vocals invoke in the people that hear it.

From the first track to the last, an emotional journey that could only pertain to one's love life begins to unfold as the tracks waver between reminiscence, loneliness, rebounding, confidence, regret. The tracks flow into one another much like a person's emotive state. It's hard not to be able to relate. Compared to his debut, Ready for the Weekend is more intensely personal.

Calvin Harris tries his hand at singing more, at introducing a live aspect to his music. The cohesion of the new album is in many ways more masterful than his debut. It may be more upbeat but you kind of need that to balance the sad emotions. At the core you are able to hear the same kind of simple, electronic chords overlapping and synching that made us love him.

Blue Man Group

I was lucky enough to get to go see The Blue Man Group this weekend, and it was so much fun! I was really surprised at the interactivity with the crowd, I wasn't prepared for so much interactive fun. I expected some great performance art, but I got more than I even imagined. Now if I had only been picked for a skit.. that would have been the ultimate experience. Props to the lady that was chosen for the dating skit, where she was on a dinner date with all 3 blue men - and to the man who was blue-napped from the crowd, put in a body suit, escorted backstage, hanged by his feet, painted, and slammed against a giant canvas in an artistic emulation of the human body. The latter came up in later discussions of the show: did they really do that to the guy from the crowd? He came out wearing the suit, and I thought I noticed blue paint on his face and fancy shoes, but did the "backstage" show actually take place or was it pre-recorded? It seemed rather extreme to slam a person hanging from their feet against a wall who did not volunteer and was merely a spectator. The consensus is that if it really happened then it might as well have been on the actual stage.

In addition to the actual music, BMG is 80% performance art. I thought I picked up on non-verbal criticisms about art, technology, and culture throughout the show. The most obvious being the synchronized apps skit where there was so much going on it was hard to keep up with it all - a criticism on the effect of reliance and constantly divided attention that technology provides. Another example being the paint-ball skit where one Blue Man kept catching white balls in his mouth and he put it on a canvas as it turned into a esophageal sculpture. What I got from that was that anything can be considered art by modern standards, even something that was almost literally regurgitated.

I'm not the only one:

"One of the secrets to the success of "Tubes" is that it always seems as if there might be more to it than there actually is. Look hard enough, and you can find pointed comments about prefabricated culture and the dangers of technology." (Music & Marshmallows, In Sync)