What I Read, Watched, and Rocked Out to in 2016

My blog has been rather dormant this year, but I have not been! I've been busy teaching kindergarten, editing my middle grade novel, being a distributor for It Works health and wellness products, momming my three awesome kids, and all this below!

Here is my annual list of what I read, watched, and rocked out to!

BOOKS READ
I mostly read in the summer or on school breaks, so the list isn't as long as I'd like, but I read some amazing books this year!

ROOM by Emma Donoghue  (need to still see the movie!)

YES, PLEASE by Amy Poehler

ONE TO KEEP by Tia Louise

ELEANOR AND PARK by Rainbow Rowell

WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON by John Green and David Levithan

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING by Nicola Yoon

BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE by Maggie Steifvater

SIGN OF THE GREEN DRAGON By C. Lee McKenzie

THIS ONE MOMENT By Stina Lindenblatt

SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS by Ann Brashares 

THE RAVEN KING by Maggie Steifvater

PERFECT TIMING By Robin Mellom

SEVEN DEADLY SINS by Corey Taylor

 

THANKS FOR THE MONEY by Joel McHale

Oh! And looky! Here's me with that handsome and hilarious author/actor Joel McHale!

 

 

MOVIES WATCHED

I am happy to report that I read more books than watched movies this year!

 

Grease Live on Fox

Daddy’s Home

Trainwreck

Civil War

Magic Mike XL

The Secret Life of Pets

The Legend of Tarzan

Batman vs Superman

Bad Moms

Rogue One (Sigh. Very sad about Carrie Fisher.)

 

CONCERTS ATTENDED

And you know my huge passion for my rock music. Concerts are my therapy for sure. Here are the bands I saw live this year! (And a sidenote: been dancing to George Michael tunes for the last few days. What a loss for the music world!)

Justin Bieber  (yes, I have a teenage daughter)

Skillet (a five dollar concert- man, they rocked it!)

Buckcherry - 5 times!  (my total count of Buckcherry shows is 15 now)

Sebastian Bach

Me and the Buckcherry boys

 

Goo Goo Dolls/Safety Suit

Click HERE to see me singing with Doug, the lead singer of Safety Suit! :)

 

 

WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS, MOVIES, AND CONCERTS OF 2016?

 



 

 

Mondays Music Moves Me: Movie Soundtracks

Mondays Music Moves Me is something I stumbled upon last month. How cool that Xmas Dolly hosts this twice a month! Today's theme is Movie Soundtracks. This is such a great theme with so many possibilities!

As you can see, I had trouble narrowing songs down for this theme.

First is "A View to A Kill" by Duran Duran from the James Bond movie soundtrack of the same name. Did you know that when that movie came out, I went to it fully expecting to see Duran Duran somewhere in it? Yup. Spoiler alert: they weren't in it. But this cool song was!



Speaking of the 80's,  I listened to the movie soundtrack Purple Rain quite a bit. All are great tunes, but my fave from the movie is "Let's Go Crazy." I couldn't find a youtube video though to embed!

Next is "American Girl" by Tom Petty from Silence of the Lambs. I cannot hear that song without picturing the girl in her car singing it before becoming a victim!



We rarely take a road trip without blasting this song from Vacation at least once!




And lastly, who can't listen to this Queen song without banging their head like Wayne and Garth in Wayne's World! :)





I'm noticing my picks are all from the way past! I guess I need to see more current movies!
Though I did love the rockin' Avengers Assemble soundtrack. It had some of my fave bands like Papa Roach and Buckcherry plus Bush and Evanescence!





Visit Xmas Dolly for move links of songs from the movies! What's your favorite song from the movies?

2012 is so last year

But I read some amazing books and listened to some awesome music.
Here's the roundup.

BOOKS
I generally read YA and MG, but books for adults dominated my nightstand this year, as well as some amazing indie titles.  So many great novels. My fave book of the year? GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn. Fave new author of the year? Leigh T. Moore. And yes, I even read the Fifty Shades trilogy. In the words of Anastasia, "Holy crap!"

Here's what I read, yo.

Dance on Fire by James Garcia Jr

Cold Cereal by Adam Rex

This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park

On the Bright Side by SR Johannes

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Fourth Stall Part 2 by Chris Rylander

Pearl by Jo Knowles
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James
Fifty Shades Darker by EL James
Fifty Shades Freed by EL James
The Color of Bones by Tracy Edward Wymer
Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger
Hourglass by Myra McEntire
The Classroom by Robin Mellom

The Truth About Faking by Leigh T. Moore

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
My Very UnFairy Tale Life by Anna Staniszewski
Rouge by Leigh T. Moore
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt
How To Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings by Laura Pauling
String Bridge by Jessica Bell

MOVIES
On to movies. I'm  not a huge movie watcher due to lack of time, but I noticed I rewatched a lot of classics this year, and of course, movies with my kiddos.

Phantom Menace 3D

Weekend Pass

Hugo
Hunger Games

The Avengers

The Amazing Spiderman

Magic Mike

The Three Stooges

ET

Hotel Transylvania

Dumb and Dumber

Fletch
Breaking Dawn 2

This is 40

Christmas Vacation

Elf

A Christmas Story

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

The Big Miracle

MUSIC
I love me some rock 'n' roll, so my top three rock songs of 2012 are these.

"Gluttony" by BUCKCHERRY (Got to hear this live a few weeks ago! Rated R btw.)



"You Waste Your Time" by TREMONTI  (Awesome guitar riffs, and I won a signed guitar from this guy last year, too.)


"Still Swingin'" by PAPA ROACH (I get see hear this song live in a few weeks! If you lika da zombies, this video reminds me of the last book of Carrie Ryan's zombie trilogy!)



What are your favorite books, movies or songs of 2012?

Five Easy Questions

with me today at Jill Kemerer's blog! Please stop on by HERE and say "HEY!" :) Thanks for having me, Jill!

Also, rocker Josh Todd tells us his current read at Book Recs of the Rock and Famous today!
Who is Josh Todd you ask? He's the sexay lead singer of Buckcherry. And that man can dance. He also has "Stay Gold" tattooed on his knuckles. And speaking of, The Outsiders and That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton ebooks were released yesterday! Greasers go digital!

Okay, now check out JT and his bad boy moves.

My Allegiance to Rock

Last week I attended yet another concert. This Rock Allegiance tour consisted of seven killer bands, five of which we saw: RED, POD, Puddle of Mudd, Papa Roach, and Buckcherry.

Two of these bands I've seen multiple times (Papa Roach - 7, Buckcherry - 5), so when I heard they were in the general area, I HAD to go!

My mom and my friend Shanon accompanied me on this 90+ degree evening. We were pleasantly surprised that the festival venue was next to a river and had a friendly, casual atmosphere and best of all - the seats were awesome and we snuck even closer! We were happy, sweaty rock fans.

Here are a few pics. I've written a full review at a new ezine that goes live soon. I will link it when it does. Yep, I've got another writing gig!

My friend and I with Tobin Esperance, bassist of Papa Roach.

Puddle of Mudd

Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach

Josh Todd of Buckcherry

A quick snippet of 3 bands at the fest. Watch to the end to see Josh Todd of Buckcherry dance. He can move!

It was a great way to end summer! Did you do anything special to commemmorate the end of the summer season?

Don't forget to check out my other blog, Book Recs of the Rock and Famous. This week I have Tyler Glenn of Neon Trees and John Taylor of Duran Duran featured! Thanks!

A Night at the Rave

As you know, last night I attended a Buckcherry and Chevelle concert. They played at the Rave in Milwaukee. It was my first time at this venue. The Rave is a pretty, older building with different floors with different concerts. I liked the smaller atmosphere of the place as well.
I went with my usual concert buddy (who is also my hubby's aunt), Beth, and our friend, Ginny. It is awesome that Beth loves to go to concerts as much as I do! She is always willing to go with me. Tonight she was extra excited, because she bought a special ticket to have a meet and greet with her favorite band, Buckcherry. The band signed a few items for her, chatted with her a bit, and took their picture with her (see below). She was beyond excited! I was giddy for her, too!

After Beth went to her meet and greet, we secured our positions near the front of the stage. I got to meet Buckcherry's drummer, Xavier, as he was hanging out before the show. Beth remembers everyone, and we buddied up with two members of the band, Silvergun, (she remembered we saw these guys open for Buckcherry the last time we saw them). They were hanging by the stage and gave us the scoop on the bands. Friendly guys. A band called Pop Evil played, then it was time for the bands we came to see.
Chevelle played most of their hits and a new song. We were near the bass speakers, and we could feel every beat reverberate in our body! Chevelle sounded great. My fave song of the night was "Send the Pain Below."

Next was Buckcherry. We were in front row to the left of the stage so enjoyed experiencing the band so close. Colorfully tattooed lead singer, Josh Todd, was energetic and raunchy as usual. We love when he dances, too. My fave songs were "Broken Glass" and "Everything." You can hear a short clip of "Everything" from the concert below.

Another awesome concert night. Next one: 2 1/2 weeks!

A Rockin' Review

So, I went to a concert Friday night. I know, I know. I already made two posts about the upcoming concert, and now you may be sick of hearing about it...but I'm not, so here's my review! (and don't be grumbling Avenged Sevenfold, Avenged Shmevenfold!)

My rock posse included my mom (yes, my mom), my hubby's Aunt Beth, and our friend, Ginny (who just had a baby six weeks ago!).

Beth drove us to the concert and after talking sweetly to a nice parking attendant, he directed us to parking very near the door (we slipped him a few bucks for his kindness). This was key as we didn't want to drag our winter coats in as we knew it would be hot with the crowd.

Next we entered as the first band finished playing. We had general admission tickets so had to find a good spot among the crowd. 'Twas a younger crowd and many teenage kids with their moms or dads (who did NOT know what they were in for-well except for my mom, she knew what she was in for, because she's a rock concert devotee like her daughter).

The next band was Papa Roach, a favorite of mine. The lead singer, Jacoby Shaddix, whipped the crowd into a frenzy with his energy and music. He even came out into the crowd about four times, which hardly ever happens with other bands. The fans appreciate it! Jacoby even managed to slime me as he passed me in the crowd and his sweaty, sweaty hands brushed mine in a quick high-five. The crowd was very into the whole show, my favorite song being "To Be Loved." Jacoby is the most energetic frontman I've ever seen live.

Jacoby in the crowd

Buckcherry, Beth's favorite, was next. I like Buckcherry, too. This is my third time seeing them in the last seven months! Josh Todd, the colorfully tattooed lead singer, sang hits like "Everything," "Too Drunk," and ended with "Crazy B..." My favorite was "Everything." The crowd unfortunately did not seem as into Buckcherry as Papa Roach, but I was entertained as I know most of their songs. Josh Todd's raunchy talk and songs made some of the parents with their teenage daughters or sons cringe a few times!

Josh Todd framed by hands throwing the devil horns.

Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) was last. The majority of the crowd seemed to be at the concert for them, the fans went wild. I was so excited to see them live up close. Avenged is my 9 year old son's favorite group so I took lots of pictures for him (he is too young yet for his first concert, plus I didn't want to be a cringing parent when the F words flew!). The lead guitarist, Synyster Gates, is my favorite lead guitarist. I love the crazy guitar riffs he plays. I danced and sang to every song, and they played an extra song for us as it was their last stop of the tour. My favorite song of the night was A7X's "Unholy Confessions." A nice man gave my mom and Beth his extra tickets to sit next to him in the seats by the general admission pit, because it was four hours of standing, jumping, and dancing. Ginny and I chose to stay in the crowd of sweaty, stinky teenagers, we were pretty close to the stage so I didn't mind.

Here is the stage and singer, M. Shadows with lead guitarist, Synyster Gates (obviously NOT their real, given names!)
Overall, an amazing night with some of my fave bands! Luckily I could have a lazy day on Saturday, because I was exhausted! Beth went on and saw Buckcherry and Papa Roach three hours away the next night, too. Now that is a fan!