Music Time!

Once again I'm playing catch-up for Karaoke over the past couple of weeks but this time it's including some fun news as well!  Yesterday, I recorded some vocals for a Halloween Rap.  I was in the studio for a half hour doing the chorus for the song and also the closing part.  I'm not rapping in the video, just singing, but I don't want to give too many details because hopefully, I'll have more to tell in just a couple weeks!  It was a lot of fun and the project is super cute so I can't wait to share it!

So back into Karaoke, three weeks ago it was a female only night when I started with 'Jealousy' by Natalie Merchant, and then 'Ironic' by Alanis Morissette.  I keep adding songs to my History Folder and I finally finished up my own Word Document that I saved at home so I can keep track of what's new and old.  My new song of the night was by Kelly Clarkson, 'Walk Away', a sassy song, while my next was 'Love Is A Battlefield' by Pat Benatar.  It's been fairly quiet at Karaoke lately with the start of the school year so I closed out with 'Hold On' by Wilson Phillips.

Then last week there were 2 groups of people at Gabe's so we had one of our busiest Wednesday nights for Karaoke and plenty of singers.  I opened with 'Baby Baby' by Amy Grant, keeping it 90's, and a fun song everyone knew.  I had been wanting to sing my new song for a while, and it was one of my favorite songs in College, and a few people were really excited I was singing it because they had forgotten about it.  My new song was 'Stuck' by Stacie Orrico and I loved singing it!  I slowed it down and jazzed it up for my next song which was Tracy Chapman's 'Give Me One Reason' which is still one of my favorite songs to sing.  My next song was 'Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under' by Shania Twain which I haven't sang for a while and since the crowd was keeping it 70's I closed with 'Piece Of My Heart' which went over well, and felt great to rock out to!  Yet again, it was another female only night for me!

This past week we celebrated a Birthday so it was a bunch of regulars in that got to sing a ton so I was happy it was a slower night aside from the party.  I opened with Pat Benatar's 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' and actually skipped my turn a bunch last night because I wanted everyone else to sing and I had sang a few songs at Karaoke on Saturday night even doing Mandy Moore's 'I Wanna Be With You' which was new for me, that I'll bring to a Wednesday night Karaoke soon, and also sang one song at Boardwalk 11 on Monday with our Garage Crew after work that night.  Keeping it Rock & Roll I did Toto's 'Hold The Line' which I also hadn't sang in a while and then my new song was 'I Could Fall In Love' by Selena.  I had forgotten about the Spanish verse towards the end of the song so those Spanish classes paid off after all ;)  We had a couple Adele songs so I did 'Rolling In The Deep' and then closed out with 'You Give Love A Bad Name' by Bon Jovi.  It was certainly a night of variety for me!

This busy month has flown by:  Lots of Karaoke, new music, and a couple projects, travel, concerts, and some shopping trips for the Fall Season!  While Summer in LA is nearing it's end, some of my favorite Holidays are coming up and I'll have some new stuff coming soon!

Football Season is Back!

As soon as the Superbowl is over I look forward to August when Pre-Season Football begins, which means Regular Season is just around the corner.  It also means Fantasy Football is back, and my love/hate relationship with that enticing little game.

I've been a Packer Fan for as long as I can remember, not to mention, I've been on the Green Bay Packer Ticket Waiting List since I was 9 years old.  Originally, my brother and I, were told we would get the tickets when we were about 50 years old, well, that number has changed and we hope to see those tickets in our lifetime.  Who can blame Packer Fans for still going to all the games because we are an amazing and loveable team, led by my all-time favorite Packer draft pick, Aaron Rodgers!  Every week I look forward to watching my Packer game, whether I'm working at the bar and cheering along with my team, or at home on the couch, with a Bloody Mary and some Football treats, or sipping a beer at my favorite Sports Bar, there's nothing like watching my favorite game of the week!

Go Pack Go!

Fantasy Football has been around for a long time, and while this is my 3rd consecutive year playing, I was initially talked into Fantasy Football when I had first moved out to LA 8 years ago by my friend, Tim Gage, (miss you all the time, and won't forget the incredible experience of working on 'The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told' with you and some of the most memorable people of my acting career) but didn't do so well that year because I didn't quite understand the game.  Well, the past 2 years have been good and bad; my first year I got 3rd place, while last year, I came in nearly bottom of the barrel.  This year, I'm in the middle, but it's only the 3rd week, and hopefully I'll move back up towards the top after Monday night's game and because each team in our league has an awesome Super Team thanks to a No Auto-Draft League.

I do have a love/hate relationship with Fantasy Football.  Who doesn't get excited about a little healthy competition between friends, cheering on players and wanting them to succeed but I can't tell you how frustrating it is, week to week, relying on specific players to win your match-up.  For instance, I have Victor Cruz on my team and in the first week he scored over 30 points while last week he scored almost 13, which is still awesome, but Eli Manning still manages to ruin my game because I have to worry about how well he's going to play and he's completely unreliable.  That brought a loss for me last week considering my opponent had Denver's defense who brought in 23 points (scoring an extra 10 points above their projections) against the Giant's offense in Manning Bowl.  I blame it all on Eli.  Yet, for some reason, I love playing and get excited about watching all the Football games throughout the week, and keeping track of my scores on the Stat Tracker!

I'm so happy that Football is back in full effect!  So if you can't figure out which team to cheer for, why not pick our team, the Packers, as they are the only team who's owned by the fans; and there's nothing like being at a Packer Game in the middle of December, while it's negative 10 degrees outside!  You have to do it once in your life :)

That Gangsta Lean...

I got to see some more footage from 'Stealing A Man's Grill' music video last night and I can't wait to share this fun video very soon!  Since I posted a behind the scenes photo in my last blog I thought I'd post another picture from after filming; with a little more clothes than will be involved in the final cut of the video but total attitude and sass you can surely expect once you see the finished product!

With Brad Coder, Director and Singer of 'Stealing a Man's Grill' after my scene!

In addition to the music video news, last week's Karaoke night was a fun one with performances by a bunch of my friends trying out some Michael Jackson for the first time!  I've never sang any Michael so I went all out and did 'The Way You Make Me Feel' and it was a blast!  For some reason, it brought out a very fun and different side to me, made me want to dance, having everyone get into the music and it was well received :)  Since that was my new song of the night, before the craziness began I opened with 'All I Wanna Do' by Heart which was followed by Counting Crow's 'Mr. Jones' since I'm still updating the History folder.  Next up it was 'Invincible' by Pat Benatar and I closed out the night with some country doing 'That Don't Impress Me Much' by Shania Twain.  Those nights with a big crowd of friends trying out new music are the best!

Stealing a Man's Grill

It's Music Video time!  It's been years since I worked on a music video but when my friend, Brad, asked me to be in his music video and told me the concept, I couldn't resist!  I knew it would be a lot of fun and I was excited to work with my friends on this project!

 

Last week after I finished up a Bartending shift at The Garage I drove to Playa Del Rey to meet up with everyone and shoot our scenes.  I don't want to give too much away but basically Kevin and I steal Brad's grill and Brad searches all over to try to find it.  Hilarity shall ensue but Kevin and I's scene involved me jumping out of the truck, stealing the grill, and hopping into the truck bed as we speed off into the distance.  Needless to say, the next day I ended up with bruises all over my legs and I was super sore from getting tossed around but I wanted to go big and make it as real as possible, so I gave it my all!

 

One of my favorite things about our shoot was when Kevin and I were driving to our first marks and we were just doing some improv in the truck, talking about stealing the grill and our relationship.  When we finished for the day, we got to see all the scenes and our improv was actually super funny and totally in the moment.  Who knows where it will end up but I think we're both hoping to use it for our reels since it's ridiculous :)

Shooting 'Stealing a Man's Grill' Music Video

There's a few more scenes that need to be shot so it may be a couple weeks before the video comes out but I can't wait to share it with everyone!  For now, you'll just have to settle for our screen grab on a perfect sunny day!

Super-Set Birthday!

A couple weeks ago one of my co-workers had her Birthday Party at The Garage and instead of just playing music on an iPod there were Acoustic Performances throughout the night.  Talk about an awesome idea and it was the perfect opportunity to do a Live Performance and work on some music stuff.

Neil and I got together a couple days before the Performance and figured out what we wanted to sing and we decided to do 3 Super-Sets of Songs.  We had to figure out which key the songs were in so they could flow together seamlessly and at least stick with a similar theme.  Once we had practiced some songs and put them in the right key, we put together each super-set and practiced it as a whole.  In two hours we finally had a show.  The next day we rehearsed the sets all the way through, learning harmonies and our parts and a couple hours later, we were exhausted but felt like we had covered a lot of ground before the performance the following night.  The day of the Birthday Party we got together one last time to go over all the songs, completely through twice.  For putting something together in 2 days and just a few hours I was proud of our hard work and dedication!

Neil & I after our Performance at The Garage!

The night of Angela's Birthday in The Motor Club at The Garage, there were tons of acoustic performances and singers; it was such a fun and different way to bring music to a Birthday Party!  Around midnight, Neil and I took the stage, and started the first song of our Three Song Super-Set which was 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams and that flowed into 'Baby One More Time' by Britney Spears, and everyone joined in with us.  The last song in that set was an original by Neil, called 'Dizzy' which is one of my favorite songs.  The Party seemed to enjoy the original but we were happy to jump right into another song they could sing along with us, so our next Set started with Mr. Big's 'To Be With You' which everyone knew.  We slowed it down with U2's 'With Or Without You' and the Acoustic version of 'Livin' On A Prayer' by Bon Jovi.  I think that might have confused everyone because they knew the lyrics but couldn't figure out what it was right away.  The last Super Set started with a more recent song that had everyone singing and dancing, which was 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Rae Jepson.  Neil and I took a queue from David Cook and did Mariah Carey's 'Always Be My Baby' which he sang on "American Idol" and we closed out our entire set with 'Don't Stop Believing', the "Glee" version so everyone could sing along with us!

This was definitely a creative way to play music and get everyone at the party involved with songs they may want to hear or dance to.  We all have our guilty pleasures and Neil and I were able to perform 9 of them in just under 20 minutes!  We both had a lot of fun and we'd definitely like to do our Super-Set again for our friends at a show :)

Karaoke at Gabe's!

After a fun Labor Day Weekend it's back to the grind and the heat is certainly not breaking here in LA!  It was 90 degrees and going on a run outside for even just 40 minutes today was sweltering so I had to finish my work-out in our air-conditioned gym...lucky me :)

Catching up with some Karaoke for the past couple weeks a few weeks ago and a quiet day at Gabe's started with 'You Were Meant For Me' by Jewel and after a few friends came in it turned into Gender Bender Night and my next 3 songs were all by male artists or bands.  It had been quite some time since I sang Journey's 'Lights' so that was first up on the list and even though I've had this next song on my (New Song) list for over a year I hadn't sang it yet, so I did Bryan Adams' 'Summer of '69' which went really well and was a lot of fun!  Everyone slowed it down on their last round so I did 'Here Without You' by 3 Doors Down which is still one of my favorite songs from my college days!

Last week I wanted to add some more new music to my History file so I started with 'Gold Dust Woman' by Fleetwood Mac which is a song I normally close with, but decided to open with.  I can't believe I just discovered that song just a few years ago but it's certainly one of my top choices in Fleetwood Mac songs!  It was another quiet night at the bar so next up was 'Foolish Games' by Jewel and my new song for the night was Amy Grant's 'Baby Baby' which was a blast to sing and definitely a guilty pleasure.  Marty had stopped by for a few songs so we sang 'Need You Now' by Lady Antebellum and there was no Gender Bender night for me that night as I sang all female songs continuing with Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time' on request from Marcus.  That song works really well for my voice and I should probably sing it more often because everyone likes to sing along with it.  I closed out the night with 'Listen To Your Heart,' this time requested by Marty; the song will forever remind me of being at the Roxette Concert last year with my Mom :D

It's been slowing down at Karaoke lately but hopefully with kids back in school it'll pick back up and we can get some wild and fun Karaoke nights going on once again!  

*If you haven't checked out Gabe's Sports Bar (it's also a Steelers Bar for you Football Fans) you can find it at 2965 South Sepulveda Blvd in West Los Angeles, CA 90064.*