Upcoming Singer/Songwriter Emily Yanek

Watching Emily Yanek on stage you can't help but channel her energy. From intimate cafes to large auditoriums Emily projects herself into you through her poignant lyricism and impeccible delivery. Her voice cracks at the pinnacle of emotions, and her belting turns to the sound of aching longing in just the right way to make you feel it in the pit of your stomach. Her songs signal to that far off memory you push away making you recall the emotions we all feel. The set is a perfect balance drawing you deeply in, yet pepping you up. Amongst the depth she sprinkles some of the most light and cheerful covers and originals. Over all she's down to earth, and unintimidating. Her talent is raw and you can't help but become entranced. I'm lucky to have gotten a Q and A with her. Feel free to leave your own questions in the comments!


Listen while you read! Emily's original 'Utterly Neglected'

Q: What music styles or musicians do you think most encompass your style, and why do you find them inspiring?

A: Well, all must know I am a throwback of the 1970's. I live for those artists and those songs. My hero is Jackson Browne.. he carries the weight of the situation in his melodies, and his lyrics are a blend of being relatable yet unique, like, you'll always know when it's one of his lines. Melodically speaking, Dan Fogelberg taught me everything I know. I remember when I first got into him, and studied his chord changes, and felt so bad ass when I wrote a song that went from a G to an E major...and the song was in D ;)
And he's so diverse, going from a crazy blues guitar song to a classical instrumental. Then rocks out on barre chords.

Q: So if you had to define your music in your own words how would you describe it?

A: I'd say that I'm aiming to bring back the singer/songwriter genre.. they way they did it in the 70's. Not just grabbing a guitar and writing lyrics about looking for your prince charming, haha. Taking actual observations on your life or being in some elses shoes, and writing from there. I am a Beatles fanatic and strive for every melody I put out to be a perfect one. Of course I write bad ones, but you have to know how to filter yourself. That's why albums were so short back in the day. 10 songs was a record. Side one and side two. Today it's 15. 2 or 3 good songs, and lots of filler.

Also, I need people to be brought together again and all feel the same thing for different reasons. Remember when Let It Be brought together the entire hippy generation? Well I can't seem to find our Paul McCartney in this generation.. music's gotta be brought back.

Q: Where do you find most of the inspiration for your lyrics? Are there any scandalous stories behind them? ;)

A: Haha, well my earlyyyy ones, like, middle school, of course all probably had some specific event or sentence and I'd write a scene around it in my head.. yea, that's how I used to do it, haha.

Today, my lyrics come from the melody. When I write a melody, a phrase comes with it, I have to craft the rest, but there's always that nugget that comes up on it's own, and I take it from there. Sometimes I'll write something and say "oh, this can't possibly be about me," but there it is, lurking in my subconscious..

Q: You seem to have an endless list of gigs, what keeps you on the stage continuously?

A: Booking, calling, and emailing my ass off! All I want is to tour and make albums. I get a high from performing, even if it's to no one. It's the only thing I want to do, the only thing I can possibly picture myself doing. I have to book all the time because if I don't I'll get anxious and I miss it and need to have a ton of shows lined up.. I want to be on an endless tour.

Q: What was the coolest gig you've ever done?

A: Hmm. Probably at The Lemon Grove in Youngstown, Ohio. It's a beautiful coffee shop turned club at night.. like a long hallway with a little stage, really dark, and lots of lights. And it's in my dad's hometown, which means a lot to me because of all his stories from 'back in the day,' where he used to play just around the corner. And it's the town he saw Dan Fogelberg in for the first time, before he was really 'Dan Fogelberg.' When I'm back in Youngstown, I'm channeling these things. It gives me chills, makes me want to cry and laugh all at the same time and it makes me feel like I'm really doing it.

Q: So what have you got going on now? Any new offers or big shows coming up?

A: Well there's this AWESOME band called The Janks that I saw in Harrisburg a year ago, and have been trying to land an opening slot for them next time they come around. Looks like that'll be happening, if I keep playing my cards right!! And I'll be graduated in a month's time.. and going to be booking in New York and New Jersey, mean while finishing my debut album called 'Watching The Highway.' And my second one, 'Aviator,' is pretty much mapped out. When I have my album, I'll be able to start looking for publishers, a small booking agent, and radio play. And I'm writing all the time.

If you'd like to check out Emily or learn more you can link to her on both myspace , facebook, and twitter!

Upcoming Singer/Songwriter Emily Yanek

Come to the Cabaret!

Cabaret has been by far my favorite musical ever since the first day I borrowed the soundtrack from the library in the seventh grade. I found the raciness of the 1998 revival of the show absolutely shocking, crude, and mostly enticing! When I heard my friend was auditioning for a local production I was both thrilled and terrified. It could be completely up to my expectations, or it could completely ruin the show for me, and I'd be left at the end to say "Oh well, you did well!"

The show was astounding. For everyone and anyone reading this in the area you must go see the Little Theater of Mechanicsburg production of Cabaret! The Kit Kat girls are enticing, the Emcee is Alan Cummings approved, and Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz are absolutely adorable. I truly wish I would've written this the night of the show so i could recount to you all the moments that blew me away. Fräulein Schneider's solos brought literal tears to my eyes. The show perfectly pulled you in with the sex and fun in the beginning climaxing effectively right before intermission. The ending is perfect in it's seriousness, but if you haven't seen the show yet I won't ruin it for you!

Basically, come here the music play, come to the cabaret old chum, come to the cabaret.




Order your tickets here.

Come to the Cabaret!

Day of Silence Follow Up

I am absolutely proud of all the students today in my school, and across the nation that stood up today for every broken nose, every broken dream, every hurt feeling, every skidded knee from being tripped, every person whose every been called a 'fag', and for every homosexual youth in the generations after us. The time to break the silence, the time to rise up against the discrimination and change societies norms towards dealing with bullying based on sexual orientation and gender preference. I think today was a big leap in our small central PA school. Although, it was an arduous process to get the day up and going the turn out today was worth every moment of fighting. I would have to guesstimate the participants to between 160-200 students.

The backlash was much less than I thought would happen. There were a few mean words on the internet, stolen fliers, and an anti-movement on facebook. My main hope for next year is that the students will be just as passionate and carry it on. I hope the administration will be less restrictive, and more positively supportive. I do have to say Collin's outfit was most definitely my favorite. It was the most flagrant rainbow of the day.

I loved his cape!

Some students wore duct tape, despite the pain of ripping it off. One boy wore duct tape and running mascara to emulate tears.







Tessa was definitely the biggest help to me today. She kicked ass at handing out things.







Do you have A Day of Silence story? Please do comment!

Day of Silence Follow Up

Weekly Random Things Post

So, I've decided to do a section weekly about random things I like. This way I don't have to categorize everything into, cooking, opinions, political, personal and so on. Let's just consider this my little Blog Junk Drawer. That sounds like a good name for it. So to display my junk here are random knick knacks I found cool this week.

Obama Weather
If you ever wondered what it would be like to turn on the weather every morning only to see our friendly neighborhood president on your news, here's the website for you. Your local weather is displayed by charming depictions of the President in various states of temperature appropriate garb. The weather, powered by weatherchannel.com, is also fairly accurate.

The State of the Nation is a slight drizzle today, my fellow Americans.


Greg Rutter's Definitive List of Things You Should Have Already Experienced on the Internet
Being a frequent victim of boredom, I have found the internet to be the best place for a quick fix. Sitting on facebook and refreshing every five minutes can be a drag. One can only tweet so much. In fact, social networking can be rather droll at times. That's when one must recall the good old days of viral videos and internet memes. Rutter's list is like the tv guide of the internet. I don't think you can every be bored again if you try to tackle this list. I believe the greatest gift I received from this link is the yatta video.

Dazzling!

Best Dressed 2010
The link above will take you to Unique Vintage. This is by far the best affordable dress shop I have found online. I, like so many other girls, was short on time to find a prom dress, too picky to settle for less than what I wanted, and frantically giving myself an ulcer trying to find the perfect one. Unique Vintage was my savior. Not only did I order a dress I'm certain no one else will be sporting at my school's prom, I racked up a list of vintage inspired dresses for everyday wear to idolize. I will review the dress and upload pictures the minute the Fed Ex man graces my doorstep with the package!

My dress in a different color. Move over Yatta boys!

... and finally I'd like to brag. I'd like to brag about just how amusing I find my lovely beau's artwork. While sitting in the kitchen chatting with his mom, he doodled this entire computer page and I stole it. I'm going to try hard to upload his first full length animation soon.

For the life of me I could NOT get this picture to rotate when uploaded! It's updated on my mac photo viewer, but not here.

Weekly Random Things Post

GLSEN Day of Silence April 16th

Every year the GLSEN organization hosts a national day of silence to bring to light the issue of the bullying of students based on their implied or actual sexual orientation or gender preference. This year I've tried to get our school involved. At first things seemed to be going particularly well, the Principle seemingly approving. However, as time wore on, he became increasingly dodgy. He showed up half an hour late to meetings, and avoided approving or disapproving ideas leaving us floundering with a time constraint. After working diligently on posters for our Day of Silence he disapproved them based on the fact that we used celebrity images on them. He said we didn't have Ellen's permission or Angelina's permission to have their picture on our posters. Considering our school is in the middle of bumfuck nowheresville, I doubt Angelina Jolie will be prancing in anytime ripping down posters in rage. Not to mention the fact that the subjects of the posters were all openly gays, lesbians, or bisexuals and would most likely be thrilled to be used towards this cause. We will fight though. We will do whatever we must to get the student body revved up for Friday! We will be silent and make a stand. Because it's sick that homosexual teenagers are 300% more likely to commit suicide. Because no one deserves to be bullied. It is our generation that must take a stand to end the discrimination.

For more information: click here

GLSEN Day of Silence April 16th

Opinion of the Week: Pro Barbie

Barbie was a misogynist. Feminists decried her irresponsibly fake dimensions. To them she was not only an imitation woman, but a poorly rendered copy. Her stature is impossible to match, her human dimensions being five foot six inches and 110 pounds with an 18 inch waist 39 inch bust and 33 inch hips. Come on even the idea for Barbie was originally sparked from a German sex doll! However, as time has progressed so has Barbie. Today, she sports more reasonably natural dimensions, and is a one woman show- providing for herself fiercely with a myriad of jobs. From Nascar Driver to surgeon Barbie has done it all. She's a woman to be proud of.

So if Barbie is a more viable source of inspiration for growing young ladies what is the shallow figurine that teaches our generation's children to be nothing but pretty bimbos.


If that were my baby, she'd so be grounded.

I have never liked the Bratz dolls. They were always ugly to me with their clearly dysmorphic bodies. Plus you have to remove their feet to change their shoes, which I find highly unsettling. However, the more I saw Bratz the more unsettled I became. The girls are dressed in the skimpiest of all club attire. Clearly from their ads all they want to do is party and look for boys. Now, I'm all for the sexual empowerment of women. Let me now stress the woman part. Dolls are intended to be played with from girls the age of 4-12. If our country was over-sexualized enough, the marketing of dolls such as the Bratz to young girls is just asking for Lolita complexes to pop up everywhere. Looking back after puberty, childhood is really the only time that your decisions aren't in some way affected by sex or your sexual identity. There are no funky hormones, and you rarely worry about self image yet. Once again for example Noelle who has an allergy to brushing her hair. She gets very whiny about it. Now, as a woman whose reached that peak of puberty, I wouldn't be caught dead with nappy hair. Who might be looking? I might not be appealing. Blah blah blah, insecurity etc. Girls need to fully take in this time before they become the women of tomorrow who are worrying about their self image, and their sexual appeal. No matter how self assured of a woman you are, those little feelings will forever nag at you every now and then. Isn't there a better way to transition them into dealing with that, and being someone productive and less outward oriented? The Bratz dolls clearly are not it. Why not help them transition with a hero to look up to?

Young girls play with dolls. Originally, this was to promote motherly instincts, as young girls watched their mothers, and wanted to mimic them. If you think that's sexist then go ahead. I believe now a days however, dolls are just for the purpose of imagination, and in a way choosing to "be who you want to be" as some Barbie commercials proclaim. With Barbie you can be anything! There are Barbies for every race, and every occupation. Although Bratz dolls have the multi-ethnic thing down, they certainly have no other agenda other than partying. Case in point, my little sister's Bratz bus. Now, Noelle is most definitely a tom boy. There is no denying that. She is not usually drawn to the girly. One day however, I saw her toting around her beanie babies and Bionicles in a giant mauve bus. Peeking into the interior I found to my distaste, a dance floor, a hot tub, and (at this point I was beyound peeved) a mini bar. What standards is that instilling to young girls? I mean, Noelle shrugged an in a matter of fact way said it was a mini bar and laughed about it. She can handle it. She knows who she is and she's perfectly chill, a very well parented young one. However, for the girls who literally rely on looking up to something, and emulating it, Bratz are the worst example.

Even the name "Bratz" is implies some sort of attitude that I can't connect with.


brat
   /bræt/ Show Spelled[brat] Show IPA
–noun
a child, esp. an annoying, spoiled, or impolite child (usually used in contempt or irritation).

These do not sound like endorseable behaviors to me. We need to be teaching children to be loving, and polite. Not spoiled, super self envolved, and beyound empathy for anything other than hot tubs, thongs, and the labels of their clothing.

So for you future moms, or you current moms think about this. Do you want your daughter to be a Barbie or a Bratz? Choose wisely, because I've dealt with enough brats to know the world doesn't need any more.

Who are you rooting for?

If you're interested in some Barbie fun facts: click here

Opinion of the Week: Pro Barbie

Organic pads, spring break, hooray gay day!

Despite the heaviness of winter spring break has finally sprung. It seemed like the ice would never melt! However, the snow days have made our break four days long. LAME. It began surprisingly well, and hopefully will continue to be fantastic. It all started with Emma spying something shiny. What was it? It's a Van de Graffe generator. As you can assume a room full of teenage kids trying to create lightning is always a good time.


emma is the phoenix

Brandon proved his status of demi-god by creating lightning from his very hands. Static Shock would've felt really comfortable in that room. Everything was pulsing with electric.

After a brief respite in Mr. Storrick's room playing with science, we finally head to Addie's house. I've very thankful for my committee in Amnesty International. We've all worked very hard and now the Day of Silence is happening. I'll post a blog about this later in detail to promote it. Everyone worked really diligently all night, and between boughs of irrational laughter we accomplished at least twenty posters, and facts to hang around the school.


the fact checkers hard at work


schemma likes lass bance


brandon's work pose

All things considered The Day of Silence against bullying based on sexual orientation or gender preference is a go!

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Now, menstrual time is a time of hell no woman particularly wants to talk about. It's come to my attention lately that pads and tampons are just ridiculously overpriced. Not only are they a major expense, they're also majorly bad for the environment. When I first was reading about reusable pads and period cups, it sounded gross. The more I thought about it though, the more it made coherent sense. Spend one sum of money a year on a cup. The cup can be in for up to 12 hours. It only needs changed and cleaned twice a day. That sounds much more comfortable! It also is better for the interior of your lady parts. Not to mention the pads are handmade and actually really cute. They're made of layers of fleece and sound really comfortable.


they're just so adorable!

I think maybe switching to this could be a.) more environmentally good b.) less pricey than constantly restocking feminine care products and c.) comfortable. The pads could make my period more enjoyable and comfortable. Let's face it everyone hates the feeling of having a pad that isn't on right sticking to your leg, or worse. It just sucks. Plus tampons are no joy to constantly worry about.

I'll have to tell you ladies how this little experiment goes.
More to come.

Organic pads, spring break, hooray gay day!