MuteMath @ Palladium

When I got to the Palladium Ballroom, the opening band, As Tall As Lions, was already on stage and totally jamming out. Only later did I find out there was no singing because the lead vocalist Dan Nigro was sick. So there they were on stage, not saying a word, but keeping the audience engaged with their funky jazz sound. I overheard someone put it very well as saying they were a MuteMath and Miles Davis mash-up. They played til 8:45, and MuteMath took the stage at 9:20 by simply walking on and starting the show.

The first thing to happen, as any MuteMath follower will know, is Darren the drummer stands in the front of the stage and enthusiastically ducktapes his headphones to his head. Why? Because he just plays THAT hard.

They kicked off the night with "The Nerve", one of the songs off their latest album Armistice. And if you've seen the album cover, then you can picture the set piece they had at the back of the stage that resembles half of a Stargate. *A great picture and another concert review can be found at Shady Little Road's website run by our very own Bianca ad Donielle.* The half moon video screen had flashing, color-changing lights, and during each song you would see things projected on the screen such as old movie clips during "You Are Mine", bubbles and blurry street lights ("Clipping"), and overhead video feeds of the drums, keys, and xylophone ("Goodbye"). Not as impressive as the multiple screens which were closer behind them when they played at House of Blues last year, but still a cool added effect that didn't take away from what was going on with the guys on stage. Well, how could it with how utterly fascinating these guys are to watch?

The coolest stunt pulled that night involved Darren drumming on video screen circles held by stagehands. While he hit the screens with his drumsticks, a prerecorded drum track played, and each hit was accompanied by a light flashing on the circle and the flying off screen. Sort of guitar hero-ish. And absolutely mesmerizing.
Other amazing things done by Darren: Singing into a megaphone, hitting the symbol so hard it flies off (twice), pouring a bottle water all over himself and his drum set, standing on his drums, turning the keyboard into a drum set, and best of all, climbing on a piece of his drum set held up by the audience and falling backwards into the crowd letting them crowd surf him back to the stage. This guy leaves you breathless the whole show and most people can't even take their eyes off of him.

But it's not just the drummer that's all over the stage. The bassist frequently switches from electric bass to upright to handheld keyboard, the guitarist goes from electric guitar to effects board (played as an instrument!) to xylophone on a whim, and lead singer Paul Meany plays two keyboards (three if you count the KEYTAR!!) and his other-wordly theremin which he lets the audience play during the encore performance of "Reset".

Meany was humble the entire night, not saying anything more than "thank you" a few times and introducing the band members mid-show minus himself. He also turned the mic to the audience for "Spotlight" and bowed to us during the lyrics "now you're one of us/oh the spotlight is on".

The band is incredible live and I suggest you check out their Myspace pics to see all this stuff I'm not doing justice by trying to put into words.

Any show where at the end the lead singer does hand stands on the keyboards, accidentally flips all the way over and gives the audience an I-meant-to-do-that smile, and the drums are in a wet, broken heap, I believe a good time was had by all. :)

--Rachel

Set list:

The Nerve
Backfire
Chaos
Clipping
Control
No Repsonse
Plan B
Stare at the Sun
Goodbye
Armistice
Your Are Mine
Noticed
Typical
Burden

Encore:
Spotlight
Reset
Break The Same

The Proof is in the Pudding

Hello, Hey, Howz it goin'?!?! Its me, the Druezilla coming to the blog-o-sphere to update you on what REALLY has been going down. So grab a sippy cup like Harvey's got on TMZ, and listen up! Well, we have had some serious artist traffic in the studio as of late. The first guest I would like to talk about is the legendary loud rock/metal band PROJECT 86.

When I was in radio & living in Los Angeles, Ca. circa 2000, I was putting together a show that played only loud hard rock/metal bands. I got a submission from PROJECT 86 for the single 'One-Armed Man' from the Drawing Black Lines album. We loved them, and played the fire outta that song on the show!! In fact I went to go see them on that tour open for Megadeth at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd., it was pretty awesome. Now almost a decade later they have still got the fire and fury they had even back then, and they are currently touring the latest release Picket Fence Cartel, so as they rolled through the Dallas/FTW area, we got to have them on the show live and catch up. Turns out Andrew Schwab lead singer of the band has another book coming out very soon, and be on the look out for some really cool music videos from the songs off the new record to drop very soon.

Next up to bat, is not my L.A. Dodgers, its KJ-52!!!!

KJ was in town to play with a very interesting individual who actually is a Dallas local, give it up for former President of the United States, George W. Bush. I bet its a trip opening for someone like that. But KJ and I got to sit down live on the afternoon drive show and chat it up. On a side note about KJ, when I dedicated my life to Christ in 2002, KJ-52's album Collaborations was one of the first 10 Christian cds I got, so that album means a BUNCH to me. KJ is no slouch, he has been consistently releasing albums and remixes ever since I first heard of him in '02. Last time I saw KJ was at the GMA's in the hallway of the Tooth & Nail interview rooms. I was on tour w/ Manafest, he and KJ recorded a pretty funny 'white rapper' PSA. You can see it on KJ's youtube channel. The new project from Five-Tweezie, is called Five Two Television, a concept album that has an underlying story that runs through the whole record and ends in a cliff hanger like a good episode of Lost or Heroes. We got to play a few songs from the new album and he talked about the mixtape that is included in the packaging of the new cd.

Finally, as you know I can't go 3 minutes without talking about my favorite Canadian, MANAFEST. I'm gonna be bouncing to Northern Cali. in November to rock 2 shows w/ him out there. He is coming around the bend on finishing up his new album and as soon as we can, I will try to get him to world premiere some of it on PowerFM. Of course he will also have to be in DFW area to do something like that and infact he is going to be here soon. Coming up in December, he and I have several shows confirmed and the details will posted on the bulletin board soon. If you have NOT seen me DJ live with MANAFEST, this will be a true Christmas treat, you might get to hear a new song live in the set. So to my PowerCorps members I want to say a big 'ol thank you, and sharathon hasn't even started yet, but you are the backbone of the station and I know that the seeds are being planted from what you have sown.

Keep up the good work even if its hard, and we will keep reaching people for Jesus with the ministry of amazing modern Christian music, so mad respects from: Drue Mitchell.

It really DOES exist!

This past weekend, my family and I met up with some friends at a cabin on Lake Texoma. We just wanted to get out of town, sit around, eat (A LOT) and play games. That's what we did. It was awesome. One of the coolest things, though, had nothing to do with the cabin, the lake or our friends! On our way to the cabin, we passed by the infamous Power FM semi-trailer!



Ok, infamous to us anyway. Did you know about this thing? A while back a rad listener put the giant letters and logo on his truck. And simply by driving around, he promotes the station. Now, just a few weeks ago I was having a conversation with someone about this very truck and how we hadn't had any recent sightings reported (we would get calls going "Uh... yeah, I was just driving and this bright orange semi went past me... and it said POWER FM ON IT!"). Well, my husband, my son and I were just driving along, on Hwy 82 near Whitesboro, about to head North on Hwy 377... when I spotted it. I think I startled my husband, yelling "THE POWER FM TRUCK IS RIGHT THERE!" Haha. Anyway, I thought it was cool to track it down and to know it's still out there, promoting the station. On the way back home we stopped to snap a picture of it, just to prove that... y'know... it does exist!

Keep rockin' for Christ!
Jade =)

Pop-Up Banner, take two

Ok, so you guys know how excited we were about our new Pop-Up Banner back in July, right? If not, read this blog/watch this video first. Ok, so we were excited about it. Well, after a few times (like, literally two times) after pulling it up and down from it's frame, the graphic began to flake off. After about four times, it stopped standing up straight. Six times... it ripped nearly in half. We were being gentle, we were taking extra special care of it... and it STILL did that. Needless to say, we were a little less excited about it by then. Dawn contacted the guy who got it for us, told him all about what happened after six uses... he said he would look into it with the manufacturer he got it from.

Turns out, the particular pop-up banner we had was really only meant to be used 1-2 times, then thrown away. WHAT?!?! No where did it tell us (or the guy who we ordered it through) anything like that. We weren't happy. The manufacturer ended up apologizing and making us a deal, giving us what was supposed to be the best quality pop-up banner they make for a great price to appease us and make up for their mistake. So, yesterday morning it came in. We were all, once again, super excited to open it up and try it out. Here's video of what happened...



Yes, seriously! It took Chris, Dawn, Jade, Eddie and Flossie to get this thing up... and the poll is too long, it will not latch on no matter what we do. We took the poll from the other ("disposable") banner and it fits fine, but is kind of thin. The new poll is more heavy duty, but too long. This is our luck, people. This is what happens to us. Haha! Anyway, we are working on getting that resolved and/or just sawing the poll off a little to get it to fit. But now we're pretty determined not to get excited over a pop-up banner... it's just not worth it.

Keep rockin' for Christ!
Jade =)