music

music monday by jen geigley



Tomorrow marks the release of Nine Inch Nails' new album 'Hesitation Marks' and I am absolutely obsessed with this song. Can't get enough. Check out their entire live set from Lolla this summer right here, too. So incredibly good, so worth your time. (Happy Labor Day - hope you're enjoying yourself!)

yarn love + Passion Pit by jen geigley

This is pretty much the color scheme at my house this fall. Purples, turquoise blues, reds, greeny/blueish stormy grays. I've been indulging and splurging on some extra-luxurious yarn (like Malabrigo and Twinkle) to make some super huge cowls to sell at all of the upcoming craft fairs this fall. It's totally worth it to make things I love and want to wear myself.
I've also been super excited to finally see the newest color additions to one of my most favorite yarns, Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick. I always have to order my favorite colors online (boo) because my local chain stores never carry the colors I want. The first three skeins pictured here are new colors (and I'm in love with all of them.) Cobalt, glacier and eggplant (which looks almost black here, but it's a deep gorgeous plum color.)
Totally unrelated, (although the colors in these pics remind me of the colors in my first yarn photo,) I got the chance to check out Passion Pit at the Val Air Ballroom on Monday night.
I went solo but ended up hanging around some of the scooter gang friends (Jordan, Sarah and Garrett) plus a fellow blogger pal, Stacey from Island Canary. It was a great night of energetic get-up-and-dance tunes with that crazy falsetto that Michael Angelakos is known for. I was curious to see how they'd pull off their radio songs live, so it was a pretty rad show overall. And they surprised us with a cover of 'Dreams' by the Cranberries. Fun stuff. (What have you been up to this week?)

4th of July + 80/35 festival (and the Flaming Lips!) by jen geigley

Alright! So here's how our super rad Fourth weekend went down.
The 80/35 Music Festival. Two days of indie music fun (and we even brought Lo to some of it.) It had been awhile since we had been to an outdoor music festival but we were so happy to see these kinds of bands being brought to downtown Des Moines. Perfect summer weather, a diverse lineup of rock, indie, hip hop and punk bands. It was the best 4th we've had in awhile.

We saw...
Ingrid Michaelson (...who wanted to change up 'The Way I Am', and so she sang all of 'Ice Ice Baby' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bell Air' - yo homes, smell ya later! - before asking us all to clap-clap - clap for her hit song. And she's so totally adorable live.)

Cracker (Okay, they're older now but they impressed the hell out of us. I was a big fan in the 90s.)

Poison Control Center (Fun, as you can see.)

Dirty Little Rabbits (Weird and theatrical and awesome, with Stella Katsoudas of Sister Soleil and Shawn Crahan of Slipknot - loved them. )

Pieta Brown (Loved, loved her.)

A gyro from The Gyro Man. A treat straight from my college days. So tasty and brings back memories.

We finally stepped inside this huge new sculpture in Western Gateway Park downtown.

And took Lo to her first official show. (She saw some pretty amazing bands for being a one-year-old.)
The Roots (Sorry for the not-great photo.) What an amazing act to see live. Lotus rocked out on our blanket 'till almost 11:00 pm.


And wow. The Flaming Lips. If all you know of the Flaming Lips is 'She Don't Use Jelly,' you are sadly missing out on a lot. And this show... Confetti. Painted naked dreadlock girls. People dressed in Telletubby costumes with flashlights. Huge balloons. Trippy graphics. The music. And a message... about the war, about politics, about our soldiers. Nothing was left out and this show will stay with me for a long time.