Fiction Writer's Experience at KROQ Weenie Roast Music Festival

I love music but have rarely had the chance to see any live performances. I have been to a few small country fair concerts and one bigger one that was held at Cheyenne Frontier Days, but other than that, no concerts or music festivals for me until I went to LA. My sister does some music blogging and was able to get us into a music festival where it was groups that I actually listen to, for the most part, and overall it was a cool experience.

I must admit that when it comes to bands and music, I tend to recognize the song more than the people performing it. Aside from listening to the radio, I am big on creating playlists. Many of the novels I have in progress or plan to write in the near future have a playlist with at least 10 songs. I also have different playlists for running as I go more by time than distance when I'm training. So, I love making playlists and listening to music even if I don't pay as much attention to the people involved.

Still, it was a great experience seeing groups perform live and I hope to see more in the future. For fun, this post is a little review of the festival that I attended along with details on who performed and some of the songs I have in my current novel playlists.


KROQ Weenie Roast @ Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre

The event was a 24 year tradition in Orange County with this being the last year they would host in that particular venue. The station = http://kroq.cbslocal.com/

The lineup and my thoughts on the performances:

Budlight Party Stage

DJ Jeremiah Red
Bear Hands
Bishop Briggs
Nothing But Thieves
The Strumbellas
Lukas Graham

We didn't catch the first few since I didn't know some of them. The first ones we went over to the smaller stage to check out was Nothing But Thieves as the radio station up in Portland has played their song Trip Switch before (94.7 fm, Alternative Portland). I had also heard of the Strumbellas from listening to that station too. Had a good view of Nothing But Thieves with the exception of some tall people as it was standing room type of situation and well, I'm short. The Strumbellas were on the other stage, so I couldn't see them very well.

I really enjoyed Nothing But Thieves, who are from the UK.  They had good energy and it was easy to see how much the members of the band put themselves into their performance. If you haven't heard them before, I recommend checking them out. Trip Switch is a great song but others are enjoyable too. I don't have many of their songs attached to novels yet, but the one is going with Renegade and Quarantine for sure.

From the Strumbellas, I do like Spirits. It's a good song in general. I don't have any of their songs on playlists at this time but suspect that will change in the future.

Had no idea who Lukas Graham was but the women standing near me were very excited to see him. Very excited. Made for an interesting experience in the topic of fangirl-dom.



Main Stage

DJ Jeremiah Red
Miike Snow
Fitz and the Tantrums
Cold War Kids
Garbage
The Lumineers
Panic! at the Disco
(not on playlist) Blink-182
Empire of the Sun
Weezer
(Did not perform, hospital situation) Red Hot Chili Peppers


I actually knew all of the bands, though had to hear a song or two in order to remember a couple because I pay more attention to songs than who plays them. Most are ones that get played on the radio station I listen to but I've also heard many of them for years. And yes, I have songs from some of them on novel playlists.

People were really disappointed at the end when RHCP couldn't perform. Okay, more mad than disappointed. I didn't put down a lot of money so that might have influenced my lack of caring, plus all of the other performers did an awesome job. I still would like to see them perform, some day, live and hope things go better for the band with the hospital situation that caused the cancellation.

I enjoyed every performance. Panic! had to be one of the most dynamic performers out of the bunch though a few gave them a run for that title. Empire of the Sun was the most costume orientated and showy. Loved Garbage and despite a fall, she powered through, which shows great on her part as it can be hard to recover in the moment let alone turn it around that quickly the way she handled the situation. Also, a number of the bands have new albums and/or songs coming out this summer and performed some of them for the crowd along with the more popular ones.

Overall, a great experience and while I don't have all on playlists there are more to come in the future as I keep writing. And I may have gotten a novel title for an adult story from the new Fitz and the Tantrums song, maybe. ;-)

Novel Playlists with songs from bands that performed at Weenie Roast:

North West - Weezer (My Best Friend)
Snow - Panic! at the Disco (Ready to Go)
Under the Selfsame Sky - The Lumineers (Ho Hey)
Three Days of Rain - Garbage (I'm Only Happy When It Rains)


More to come. Have several novels that still need playlists. It's on the very long to do list for summer along with the youtube videos. Which, clips of the music festival will be up once I combine everything from my LA trip. Stay tuned for that.


What music groups have you seen live?
What is one song on your current novels playlist you enjoy the most right now?

M is for Music

Music is great for almost everything. It can inspire and motivate to continue. For me it also sparks the interest to write and by having a playlist, I can associate songs to particular novels. I also have found certain songs work for certain lifts at the gym as well. I wonder how many other people picked Music for M over in the A to Z blog challenge..


Fiction

I make playlists for my fiction writing. I have too many to list in fact and I've posted probably 3 or more blog posts over the years about the playlists, so I will just post a couple novels and songs that are specific to them (or artists and such).

Snow - Evanescence and Within Temptation, in particular The Howling

Aeon Fading - Help, I'm Alive by Metric and No Light, No Light by Florence & the Machine

Standing Ground - Second Chance by Shinedown

Every novel has at least 5 songs if not more than 10 on the playlist, which I listen to whenever writing that novel.

Fitness

I make playlists for fitness activities. I have a variety too with a couple that are for walking, one is more rock/alternative and the other is a much shorter pop one. I have a musical playlist along with a disney one, which needs more music. I also am now building running ones which will probably be a rock focused on and an alternative.

Good running songs include: Help, I'm Alive by Metric, The Howling by Withing Temptation and Welcome to the Jungle by Guns n Roses.

Good lifting songs so far are things like: Scream by Avenge Sevenfold, Rock You Like a Hurricane by Scorpion and from Jekyll & Hyde the musical both This is the Moment and Alive.



Do you use music for fiction or fitness?

D is for Dance

And another one in the bank,  I mean Hi. Only on day four of the blog challenge but things are going strong. Check out A to Z blog challenge to see what the other fun bloggers are coming up with on this adventure through the alphabet.

Today my topic is: Dance  And to start things off, I will admit that I'm not much of a dancer. I had a tiny stint in ballet as a little kid but hated it. We had square dancing in high school once a year but I avoided it whenever possible, even picking homework above skipping class to go learn to square dance. I did win a dance-off at a coffee shop Halloween party but that was one weird night (top guys in their dance off chose to dance with a broom and a vacuum). Other than that, I've done zumba for a couple months but that was over 4 years ago. Still, let's talk about dance anyways.


Fitness

Dance can be a fun way to get fit. Whether it's barre, zumba or any other type of dance, it does burn calories to shake it (move) to music. There are many classes and different studios available that focus on dance as a craft and dance as a method for fitness. And it's certainly not a new concept for fitness. The music can change a little though some remain even after the many years have gone by. I still remember having vhs tapes of Richard Simmons grooving in the 80's, for example. Ah fun times.

There are so many options available. Some include: belly dancing, zumba, ballet, jazzercise, hip hop abs/dance, dance dance revolution, so you think you can dance, other dance games for gaming systems and others. This is one of the great parts about dance because like music in general, not everyone has the same taste or abilities.

For fun, check out this video of a 1980's style aerobic dance competition with Shake It Off by Taylor Swift added: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlJI-GqB-6Y

Fiction

While not everyone or character can be a dancer, there are times when dance itself can be useful for  either character or world development. Dance has many reasons, whether it's fun, fitness, religion, culture, spiritual, and more. What dances people do, whether there is a religious connection or if they come upon a different culture, quite a bit can be shown by involving a little dance into a story.

Consider a couple of questions:
Would it be weird or frowned upon for two boys to dance together, or is it strange, unacceptable for a boy and girl to share a dance?
Does one show worship through movement?
What happens at a festival or holiday?
Can a character earn a living through dance?

Just some options that are out there. I'm sure you can come up with better ways to use dance in stories on your own. I don't have many dancers at this time but I have plenty of fantasy worlds to develop. It may be something I explore in the future. While I don't yet have a dancer main character, I do have a cloud walker and she likens the walk to dance. We'll have to see what I create in the future.


Plus, I may be making dance goals for myself in the future. I like zumba but also have some personal songs that I'd like to learn the dances from, including one or two musical ones. Will post more on that in the future and might even share one of them some day.


Do you dance? Do any of your characters dance or is it an aspect of the world's culture?

M is for Music

I love music. Growing up I was in both band and choir. I listened to music when I could and have always enjoyed a plethora of genres. Music has many uses and can be helpful for both of my blog endeavors: fiction and fitness.

For fitness I love to listen to music when walking. I would walk as a teen on our dirt road (just under half a mile one way) and listen to music with a portable cd player, then eventually got an ipod when I was older. Whether it's outside, on the treadmill, or for a dance exercise program, music always helped keep me motivated to keep moving.

Aside from fitness, I am a big fan of music while I write. In fact, now for almost every novel I have (except maybe Thomas/Kyle) I have created a music playlist with songs that are for that novel only. After listening to the play list a few times I can easily associate those songs and that playlist to the specific novel to the point where hearing them makes me want to work on that story. I pick songs that remind me of either the main character, a second very important character, the novel as a whole, or a certain part of the novel. There are some posts where I've talked about my playlists in the past, but here are a few novels that are in progress and one song from each of their playlists.

Ottohahn in E Minor:
This novel is different. I have songs by Chopin, Seether, Adam Lambert, Stone Sour and Lifehouse. Quite the weird variety. But they all work with the story.



Aeon Fading:
This is my novel from NaNoWriMo 2012. Still not quite finished, just have the ending to write. This song I listened to a lot as it was focused on the main character and helped me stay in his mind set. I used listenonrepeat web site during November for writing sprints to hear the song over and over again.



Cloud 9:
New novella that I'm trying to get the first draft written soon. Has a female main character, which I have far less practice writing. Nice cause I can have female vocalists a bit more (yeah the gender is a little important for voice when I"m listening to songs, along with a few other factors) but also tough because I don't want love songs as it's more of a middle grade story about a young cloud-walker.




Do you ever make playlists?
What do you use music for in your life?

G is for Go the Distance

This is one of my favorite Disney movie songs (though in all fairness my "favorite" list is really really long) and it has a great message showing someone who feels lost, looked down on but is willing to do the work to find where he belongs in life. I like a character with those qualities.




Does the hero character go the distance?
Can we go the distance in our own lives?