You’ve been to so many indie shows that you can tag every “type” of club-goer within one swift scan of the room. But have you ever wondered where you fit in the massive sea of hipsters? Enter, the Rockville CA Quiz — After answering these 6 uber-deep questions, you’ll know just what role you play at the indie club!
Be sure to catch up with all the most recent episodes and performances from TheWB.com’s original series Rockville CA right here.
Hello from Ireland!
A great welcome to all the viewers of “Rockville CA” from me, Rocky O’Reilly.
I play in Oppenheimer, a two-piece band from Belfast.
Late last year we took a 12 hour flight to Los Angeles from Dublin to play on “Rockville CA.” We filmed very early in the morning; I think it was about 9 AM. We hadn’t been to bed in three days! We’d played two concerts on our way from Belfast, and we felt nowhere near as attractive or presentable as the beautiful extras that were filling the Echoplex before we played.
Like every American audience that we’ve been lucky enough to play to in our many months of shows in your massive country, the people were warm, funny, interactive and welcoming to our funny accents and short pop songs.
Oppenheimer started in 2004 in a spare room in my house. We’d talked and toyed with the idea of starting a band with loads of synthesizers, bleeps and blips, and as many interesting noises as possible. We drank a lot of beer one night while watching the band The Album Leaf in a small bar near our houses. At some point during the set, we finally decided, “We can do that,” and so Oppenheimer began.
Before long, we were signed to Bar/None records from New Jersey. We were invited to play at festivals, go on tours and play shows with bands like The Bravery, Hot Chip, The Chalets, Ash, Tilly & The Wall and They Might Be Giants.
The four years since we started have been a whirlwind of crazy nights, long days and unbelievable events. Some of our favorite memories (spending 110 days living in a splitter van) while touring around the United States include watching deer run alongside us in Montana; celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with 10,000 “Irish” people in Austin, Texas; and being informed by a police officer that “fireworks are illegal in the state of New Jersey” after getting a bit too excitable with explosives on the beach in Atlantic City. These beautiful and surreal experiences have changed the people we are while touring from state to state, time and time again.
2009 has already been an incredible year for us. We’ve just completed a tour with OK Go and we’re returning for a series of shows with The Presidents of the United States of America on the East Coast in the second half of April. Between tours, we’ve been writing and starting to record songs for our third album. It’s the most exciting part of being in Oppenheimer for me, layering ideas and creating new songs. With each album we try to develop everything that we are, and this time we’re getting the chance to try completely new things; from heavier and faster songs, to rap and eight minute epics!
All the while I try to make as many fun videos as possible: Check our website and MySpace pages for “Attacks of the airhorn” on unsuspecting sound men and “ROCKENHEIMER, the directors cut,” the instrumental power rock band documentary that changed the face of music as we know it, and other crazy moments from our time on tour.
When not on tour or writing songs with Shaun, I spend a lot of time recording other Irish artists at my studio in Belfast.
We have an incredibly healthy music scene for a very small country. Belfast is filled with talented songwriters and musicians, and we all like to help each other out as much as possible. It’s a unique and fulfilling atmosphere in which to live and create.
Lately I’ve been enjoying watching all the “Tremors” and “Child’s Play movies,” and planning on making low budget sequels with my friends. If anyone has any creepy dolls or giant worms they want to donate, please get it touch!
Please feel free to stop by and stalk us on MySpace, Facebook or our website!
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/oppenheimer
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oppenheimer/28802850124?ref=ts
Website: http://www.oppenheimermusic.co.uk/
Rocky.
Apple has unveiled the new iPod Shuffle today, marking one step closer to manufacturing the world’s smallest and easy-to-lose-est mp3 player EVER.
The $79 audio player is about half the size of the current Shuffle and features the player controls on the headset cord–which explains why this looks like a piece of metal that fell out of your computer.
And for those of you who have 1,000 unidentifiable songs to store, the new gadget includes VoiceOver that sounds like a robot voice telling you which artist, song and album is currently playing.
So when does too small become too small for practical use?
Award season is slowly coming together and yesterday the official nominations for the 2009 Grammy Awards were announced.
Lil Wayne and Coldplay led the pack with 8 and 7 nominations respectively, including both garnering a nomination for Album Of The Year.
Unfortunately, the Jonas Brothers are up for Best New Artist and Katy Perry for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Really, people? REALLY? Do you want to award bad music?
You can check out the entire list of 51 nominations on the official Grammy website but you can voice your complaints here in the comments. I know I will.
Kill The Lights, a new song off of Britney Spear’s Circus album has leaked onto the Internet…and straight onto Youtube, of course. Thoughts?
Sorry to say, haters (including me), but I think she’s really back. For reals. Let’s hope she stays on her meds this time, though.
From The WOW Report.
Yup. It’s Lykke Li setting up for another episode of Rockville, CA, coming soon to a WB near you!
I’m suffering from a little election fatigue, so how about a music video? These used to be shown on MTV, but America decided they preferred Heidi Montag-style people.
The song is called “Northern Downpour” by a little band you might know as Panic! At The Disco. This band has recently gone though a radical name change, and are now simply Panic At The Disco.
The song is a little mellow, with hardly any panic at all and even less disco, but maybe that’s to be expected when you lose an exclamation point.
Also, according to Seventeen, Panic At The Disco likes The OC, so they have good taste.
Here’s the full music video for Paris Hilton’s latest single, Paris for President. It’s pretty awful.
Isn’t having a musician/faux-punk-rocker for a boyfriend supposed to give you better taste in music?
Sometimes it’s funny when rich musicians don’t grasp the Internet and try to get their way in everything. You know, like Metallica and online music.
Now Aerosmith is stepping up to the plate: their lead singer filed a lawsuit against people (most likely fans, right?) who like to impersonate him through blogs.
Here’s the best part,
In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, Tyler, 60, said he didn’t know the real names of those who have impersonated him and girlfriend Erin Brady on the Web…
Can someone please explain to Tyler about the harmless fantasy element of the Internet? This is why people spend so much time playing World of Warcraft—because they wish they were someone else.
Steve Tyler should just take these posers as compliments to his wonderful lifestyle, instead of suing people he can’t even name.
Mmmm, McDonald’s. There’s nothing I love more than biting into one of their tiny, dry cheeseburgers while simultaneously upping my blood pressure and cholesterol levels with huge amounts of saturated fat.
Wait, yes there is! DOWNLOADING MUSIC FROM MICROSOFT!
Microsoft and America’s billion hamburgers serving fast food chain has announced a partnership where Zune users can fiddle with their music over a free wi-fi connection at any participating McDonalds.
I wonder if this includes the drive-thru, cause I don’t even remember the last time I actually sat inside a Mickey Ds for a filet o’fish sammich.
