Get those dancing shoes on with a little DanceRawrDance.

Seems like lately, every show I've been to in Boston is a crazy venue. The Rescues played in a vegetarian restaurant and the show I saw on Tuesday, September 22nd, was in a room off of a middle eastern restaurant hence

the name of this well known venue, "Middle East" in Cambridge, MA. It consists of two levels, so be careful when looking at your tickets, either the upstairs or downstairs.

This show was one of my first concerts as "press" with the

whole experience of having a photo pass to take pictures side stage, doing interviews before the show and doing coverage and it was a great time.The show I saw was headlined by alternative favorite Family Force 5 and included Breathe Carolina, Cash Cash, Queen's Club and IRival for the tour journey. The venue itself has a great setup with a large area in the middle for the dancers and moshers, typically the 21 and under crowd and has a separate section for the 21+ plus which also serves as a safe haven for the bands and music nerds like me to take notes! The bands are free to have a beer and enjoy the other acts while also allowing the fans to be a little bit closer to them

, which you can't always do in venues. It also bordered the area where the band would prep for their turn on the stage. It must have felt great to listen to the kids cheer int he audience, including a moment in particular that I remember while Jean Paul, the front man of Cash Cash was getting his mic set up and the kids were yelling and stomping their feet in excitement for the set!

I was there to interview Breathe Carolina, Cash Cash and Queen's Club but I decided to also do a short review of the show, and there really were no negatives to the performance. The show started off with IRival, a new band from the ATL who I'll be seeing again in November when they're on tour with Warped favorite Hit The Lights at Harper's Ferry.

They started off the show with a gigantic bang, had the kids clapping and jumping along the whole time. They had the solid mix of punk/t

techno/pop that many bands work their whole lives to get. They have the requisite long hair and a great screamer in the lead singer.

Next was Queen's Club, a band who's interview I'll post here soon, and they were great. Hilarious and low key off stage, as most bands are these days. Coming all the way from Kansas City (huge Royals fans!), Missouri, from first listen as they started their set mixed with rock and actually a little bit of rap synths mixed in but they quickly shake it up and switch their tone completely. That's when their true rock beasts come out and it's not just due to the headbanging! They also have a electro element which is always needed at these shows. They have a little bit of everything in their set and definitely energized the crowd for the rest of the night! They also included my requisite of hand claps in their music, which always makes me happy. It put them in the same boat for me as We The Kings and Hellogoodbye, which is nothing but a good thing in my heart.

Now on to Cash Cash, led by the energetic and crazy Jean-Paul Marklouf coming from New Jersey. Known

best for "Party In Your Bedroom" as of late, the band was on fire right from the beginning when they came out already starting that party that continued on through out the full entirety of their set. In our interview before the show, Jean Paul suggested one of his major influences on the music he tries to put out is Michael Jackson, and that comes through during his show. A mix of what I see a

s Michael Jackson's energy and Gabriel Saporta like flirtations are seen in his stage presence from his inspired "dance pit" to his high energy cover of Sean Kingston's "Fire on

the dance floor". He was very flirty with the girls in the audience (there was a very high ratio of girls to boys at the show) and would be like "I like you, do you like me?" He definitely knows how to work a crowd. Another thing I really liked about Cash Cash is the instruments they chose. My favorite was the keytar, I'm a pretty big fan and seeing a boy play it made me even more of a fan girl.

Then Breathe Carolina came out, the last act of the night t

hat I was able to catch and it was nothing less then I expected. Prior to

Warped Tour, I knew they were a band that everyone was pretty excited about. From interviews with bands from the Millionaires to Alana Grace, they were all really supportive of Breathe Carolina, and I only had had the pleasure of watching a few of their videos and listening to a few tracks off of their brand new album so I wasn't exactly sure what I was in for. I was made comfortable pretty quickly though when they started off their set with the title track off the album, "Hello Fascination". To this writer, they seem to have the same set up in general as 30H!3, for example but in a good way. David and Kyle are the two front men of the group, and have an amazing energy together that just creates such good

vibes for a show. Everyone was dancing in the crowd non-stop and was loving it. What's great about it too, is that they have the same presence, but they are a little more appropriate for the age crowd that really listens to them, which makes them look even better.

All in all, a great show. Look for IRival hitting the road with Warped and personal favorite, Hit The Lights this fall. Look for Queen's Club new record, they just signed to Tooth and Nail Records a few days before I talked to them at the show, and Breathe Carolina and Cash Cash will be reuniting once again for Breathe Carolina's headlining tour with a few more acts in the mix!

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You can find some of all the bands' music at the respective links below:

IRival

Queen's Club

Cash Cash

Breathe Carolina

Family Force 5

Retweet.

mikeyway Little known fact; about 12 years ago, mat devine offered me a try-out to be in Kill Hannah. I was 17 and living at my parents house.

I hope that's a regret coming from Mr. Mikey Way. Got to meet the amazing Mat Devine last Saturday night, look for that interview soon!

Mix and Mark love's their all time low!

Blowing up the charts the past few years, All Time Low are arguably one of the biggest forces in the alternative music scene lately. Making fans out of adults and kids at the same time, Alex, Zach, Rian and Jack are making a name for themselves. The boys have been working for where they are now since high school and recently reached number four on the Billboard 100 with their latest album 'Nothing Personal' including the hit singles Weightless and Damned If I Do Ya(Damned if I Don't) and are currently touring the UK before they come back to headline the first ever Glamour Kill tour, bringing out fellow friends in We The Kings, Hey Monday and The Friday Night Boys!

They have been on tour for as long as I can remember, and seem to never stop doing what they love! A while ago, I was lucky enough to sit down with Jack Barakat, who plays guitar in the band, via the inter webs and we talked everything from how grateful they are for how far they have come, the friends they can count on and their excitement about playing the Glamour Kills tour, a line that has been so supportive of them since the beginning!

You guys just announced that you'll be headlining the first ever Glamour Kills tour along with We The Kings, Hey Monday and The Friday Night Boys. I've seen you guys play on a tour before with Hey Monday and I know you've toured with We The Kings in the past. How does it feel to be able to tour with these bands again and are you excited for the tour?

Yea we are so excited, Glamour kills has always been so supportive of our band and we love them to death....Touring is so fun no matter what and it just makes it that much more enjoyable when your able to be on the road with bands/friends you love to hang out with and watch each night. We are really excited for this lineup.

All Time Low seems pretty much always to be on tour. What’s your favorite part about touring and what’s your dream city to play that maybe you haven’t played yet?

Yea we definitely have been on the road a lot in recent years, the thought of being able to play music each night and hang out with your friends is an absolute dream come true and we couldn't be more stoked. There's no better way to connect with the fans than to play live and get to meet a lot of them. We have actually been lucky enough to recently go over to Australia and Japan which I know we all always wanted to be able to go play... We would be excited to play any new city/country that would have us!

I know, Alex does YouTube v-logs and you guys have a pretty wild Internet presence. How do you, personally, feel that the Internet has affected the success of All Time Low?

This day in age things are so different with being able to market your band....we used to have to go hand out CD's at local shows or hand out fliers at the mall whereas in recent years you can just send a link and add friends onto your myspace page. We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to have more kids be exposed to our music online then we had every imagined which most certainly helped us as well as many other bands out! Being an unsigned band and then on an indie label the Internet helped level the playing field with bands that had TV and radio exposure.

You had the honor of being AP Magazine’s band of the year, and also being on the cover already three times this year alone. How does that accomplishment feel? Did you read the magazine growing up?

Yea we were always big fans of the magazine, we used to always pick it up and read it at the local book shops so it was such a weird yet amazing feeling to walk into a Barnes N Noble and see our face on the front cover. Very surreal and we're grateful for all of the support the magazine and its readers have given us.

You guys just dropped your latest album “Nothing Personal” on July 7^th, where it debuted at #4 on the Billboard 100. How does it feel to reach that height at such a young age?

We are all so excited and proud with this new record, it's most certainly our favorite album we have made to date and are so stoked that kids came out and picked it up and enjoyed it too.....it's a great feeling knowing that someone goes out to purchase your music, let alone that amount that propelled us to being on the upper half of the billboard chart and we couldn't be more thankful! I know I said it earlier but it's just another very surreal thing to have happen. We keep thinking it's a joke ha ha.

Unfortunately, it is often said that bands that have a close connection to already established acts like Fall Out Boy and Blink 182 only become famous because of those connections. Cobra Starship, a past tour mate, even wrote a song about it. You guys are obviously established because of the hard work you have put into your dreams but how do you deal with the critics on this issue?

No matter what you do there will always be those who hate or doubt you.....we just love to play music and do our thing and have been blessed to have the opportunities we were given but we most certainly worked hard, hit the road and worked our way up like many other bands. All you can really do is be true to yourself and your fans. I think it's awesome when bands can help out other up and coming bands they believe in by taking them on tour. We definitely did our share of DIY type club tours and worked our way up from 10 people being there to know being fortunate enough to tour with bands such as FOB and play in front of tons of people.

You guys are playing a slew of dates right now on the Warped Tour like you have for the last few summers. Are there any bands that you are trying to catch the set of on this tour? Any bands that you were surprised by?
What’s your favorite memory thus far on this year’s tour or of the past?

Warped Tour has always been such a blast, just being around so many great friends/people each summer makes it such a great tour. This lineup like all the previous years has a lot of different options to choose from....bands like every avenue and The Maine as well as Underoath andTthe Devil Wears Prada. There is so much diversity which is the beauty of Warped Tour. This best thing has just been reuniting with old friends and becoming close with bands we haven't had a chance to tour with before like Less Than Jake, and Underoath.

What are your future plans after warped tour?

We're headlining Europe in Sept/Oct with our friends The Audition and then doing the GK tour in the fall. Some really cool things being discussed for 2010 so keep an eye out.

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I just want to say thank you to Jose Martinez from Earshot Media for setting this up and to Jack Barakat and the rest of the boys in All Time Low for being who they are and taking the time out to do this interview! You can find more of their music here on their myspace.

I'm Back!

I'm back after a week in Montreal, a vacation that was definitely needed and will be back to regular blogging!A little update of what's been going on lately: I covered the legendary Kill Hannah concert last Saturday night while on vacation, and that interview is going to be insane. Matt Devine is quite possibly one of the most well spoken rockers out there today, and it will definitely be a good read for anyone who wants a good look into what it takes to make it as a "underground" artist.

I also did the DanceRawrDance tour last Tuesday in Cambridge that featured Family Force 5, Breathe Carolina, Cash Cash, Queen's Club and IRival, with that review going up any minute!

This week, I will also be attending some shows and hope to see you there!

Look for the October schedule of Boston concerts too, and let me know if there is something I'm missing that you think I should check out!

Thanks for being awesome readers and definitely will be putting some stuff together today up here!

Meet Meese.

One of Denver's home town favorites, Meese is quickly making a name for themselves. They are on the verge of dropping their sophomore album "Broadcast" amazingly soon and have been lucky enough to share the stage with bands like Our Lady Peace, Phantom Planet, and Paramore among others including their personal friends in The Fray. The Fray being their fellow hometown comrades and even occasional ping pong opponents, "my brother and Joe King love playing ping pong against each other and it's fun to watch", says Nathaniel Meese about his brother and partner in crime, Patrick. Along with the two brothers, the band is comprised of Ben Haley and Mike Ayars.

The band is definitely a force to be reckoned with and have the musical talent and education to back up their pop rock melodic tracks that have indie hipster music nerd kids loving their music to boy band lovers. The guys are groomed for stardom, and hopefully it will be coming to them very soon and it will be very well deserved and worked hard for.

A while back, Nathan opened me up to his world of music nerdiness that matched mine. I'm the kind of girl who when giving music suggestions can go on for about ten minutes of her "all time favorites". He talked about the possibly surprising acts they would want to go on tour with to bands he thinks deserve a little more love. And all put together with some great parting words.

If you could tour with any three bands, who would they be and why?

1. The Killers

2. The Fray

3. Barack Obama

The Killers because they're an incredible live band who I think we share a similar sound with. We could learn a lot from them and also I think they've sold a couple of tickets on their last tour.

The Fray because their loyal fan base is made up of real music fans that actually listen to opening bands. I've learned that from experience and we are actually lucky enough to get to tour with them again this July. Plus my brother and Joe King love playing ping pong against each other and it's fun to watch.

And last but not least Barack Obama because a crowd and a ton of press usually gathers wherever he goes so I think it'd be pretty good exposure for our band.

Who are your major inspirations?

There are obviously a ton of bands that inspire the 4 of us and that becomes pretty apparent after listening to our new album 'broadcast'. Some songs on the new record are inspired by bands like bloc party and the Maccabees. Real angular and pumping guitar rock. Others are more ballady ala bends-era radiohead or early coldplay. Others are harder to put a finger on and I like to think that they just simply sound like 'Meese'. But ultimately the two bands that the 4 of us all agree on are radiohead and phoenix.

What was the first album you bought and the first concert you went to?

The first album I bought was 'august & everything after' by the counting crows. I still have it and listen to it regularly. What a great album. Timeless. Every time I listen to 'round here' I feel like I'm 9 years old again.

I'm lucky enough to have artistic parents who took my brother and I's musical upbringing seriously and they knew it was important to get us out to shows at an early stage- SO they took us to see my Dads favorite band The Allman Bros when I was in middle school. It was in Cleveland at the nautica stage down in the flats before the whole city gave up on itself. Regardless of where it was, it was incredible and changed my life.

How do you go about the song writing process? Is there something about it that may make you a bit different from other acts today?

My brother patrick writes 95% of everything we play. I usually swoop in at the end of the process and write a part or do all the guitar stuff or help with a lyric or 2. There were a couple of tunes for 'broadcast' that we wrote as a band and they turned out amazing and I think we'll ultimately end up doing a lot more of that for the next record, but patrick is definitely the songwriter of Meese.

What makes us a bit different than a lot of rocks bands these days as far as writing goes is actually how we demo out songs and write. All four of us use some type of electronic music program to get ideas down- like Reason or Garage Band- something like that. Then we just email ideas to each other and work off of that. It's like the Postal Service model for writing only we all live in Denver. I think that there's this sort of stigma attached to rock bands that we all get together with a case of beer and a pizza and go jam until something sounds good and the truth of the matter is that for our band it just doesn't work that way. We all have other outlets for jammy more traditional ways of writing and performing and Meese just sort of turned into an electronic project that we all play real instruments on. It's worked so far and is definitely the right system for the 4 of us.

What, in your opinion, is one of the top albums of 2009 thus far?

Definitely 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix' by Phoenix. That's my

Album of the year already. That band is so incredible.

What inspired you guys to start making music together (besides the whole two of you being brothers thing)?

Patrick and I have been music fans and writers our whole lives and we've been in bands together since I was 10 years old. It finally got to a point where we realized that we could write and put together a band better than some bands that were having a lot of success. And the inspiration is just for the ride. This is the most ridiculous, crazy, scary, incredible, lonely, funny, complex, and unusual job that I could picture doing. So what better way to spend my young years!

Is there any artist of several that you know who may be deserving of a little more light and attention?

Phoenix who I mentioned before. Their last two records are just perfect. They sound like Daft Punk mixed with the strokes.

The French Kicks never get any love and have put out amazing album after amazing album since I was in high school. Go buy all their albums it's worth it.

There's a band called Kent from Norway (I think) that have put out in-freaking-credible CDs. Namely 'hagnesta hill'. The songs 'protection" and 'kevlar soul' just totally wail and deserve your immediate attention.

Margot And The Nuclear So & So's are another amazing band that I never hear people talking about. They have two heartbreaking good albums that I listen to every time it's my turn to drive the van.

Plus there's a bunch of great Denver bands that everyone should find out about now so you can have bragging rights in the future:

The Epilogues

Elin Palmer

Ian Cooke

Born in the Flood

The Wheel

Speakeasy Tiger

I could go on for days I'm a total music nerd I'll just stop there.

What's your favorite treat?

Kid A with headphones on

Any last words?

Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas.

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You can find more of their music on their myspace and look out for the new album "Broadcast" hitting your local record store's shelves soon!

Song of the week: Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop

I was clicking through the albums that I won from an amazing music blog, You Sing I Write and one of these included the new album dropping September 29th from Landon Pigg 'The Boy Who Never' and I realized that he sings one of the songs I have always loved but just never knew who sang it.

You know when that happens, songs are in commercials but they don't say the name of the guy who is singing it and that song is "Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop". Google it, you probably know it and you just don't realize it. After listening to a few more of the tracks currently streaming on his myspace, I have definitely become a fan, and can't wait to get his new album in the mail! Thanks again You Sing I Write, you have lead me to a for sure soon to be favorite once again!

Parachute

With their hit single "She Is Love" taking over the radio charts and the song being featured in the new Nivea commercials, Parachute is a band that isn't disappearing any time soon. Will Anderson and the band have come very far, and have toured with acts like The Script, Secondhand Serenade, OAR, Duffy and Matt Nathanson, along with jumping on with Kelly Clarkson this fall.

They even played New Year's Eve where the other acts included Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift. They are unstoppable and are making new fans everywhere they go.

I recently had the chance to sit down over the phone with the lead singer of the band, Will Anderson and we talked everything from how to describe their own personal sound to his favorite treat that really makes his day. Read on for more about the band and after the bump, instead of the typical video, see a fellow interview I love about clothes they like on girls, and what they don't like. Be aware!

If you could pick any three acts to tour with, who would they be and why?

Weezer, Ben Folds and U2 are my three. That would be awesome. We're big fans of all of their music, we just really like their sound, been listening to them a long time. So those three would be a dream.

You guys just released your debut album, "Losing Sleep", a few months ago. For someone who may have never heard of you and picks it up, how would you sell it?

I would say it's more like melodic pop rock, really comes down to the songs, catchy tunes you know. We're not trying to be really cool indie rock and you know, that's just kind of what it is so for us, we're very excited that people are responding to it, having it be something people have latched on to.

Is there something about your songwriting process that may make you different from other bands?

Yeah, I think we try to with the music itself, the instruments usually evolve, kind of fit the part naturally and the songs, I think are a little different then a lot of bands out there right now. Kind of different from the stuff you hear on the radio. If it's something really successful, and they've heard it before they may hear us and think 'oh it's a little something different'.

Great! Are there any albums this year so far besides yours of course that stood out to you, as a favorite?

The new Scenic album is amazing. I think it's one of my favorites and Passion Pit's album is one of my favorites as well so those two are the ones that the band really latched on too.

You guys played in Times Square on the New Year's Eve Special. How did that feel?

It was crazy, it was amazing, it was cold! It was something we never really though we would get to do and the experience was really great so it was definitely something that was very unexpected but very very awesome. Playing with those guys(the Jonas Brothers), they're huge! They're super stars so no matter how extreme or crazy the randomness of it made it something that we'll definitely never forget.

Awesome. Do you have a favorite song to play live right now?

Lately, it's been Ghost. I think it's just like pretty much our idea of something that we want to pursue that kind of sound and it's definitely where we are. That's the last song we wrote too so it's special. It's definitely our favorite song to play. We all really enjoy the song so it's definitely our pick.

Do you have a favorite venue that you like to go back to or a dream venue for the future?

The venues we go back to, we love the clubs in Sunset LA. We love the Vice Room, the Roxy. Those are two classic clubs that we really enjoy. In the East Coast, we love going to New York for the Gramercy Theater, Highline Ballroom. Those two are the best as well.

Awesome. Are there any music plans that we can look forward to, maybe something to know about after the Kelly Clarkson tour?

I'd say, we are going to do some holiday tunes. Some of our songs turned into holiday songs and we decided to record it and release it so we're really excited about that. Think we'll probably do traditional songs too as well, going to put that out then in the new year, I think we're gonna do a headlining tour which will be fun and I think just keep grinding away on the road!

What's your favorite treat?

I love like Twizzlers. Yeah, that's totally my favorite. Kids go on my twitter, read about me eating them all the time. Those are the greatest days of my life.

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You can find more of their music on their myspace and the video I talked about below: