Motion City Madness

It shouldn't come as any surprise that Amber and I are huge music fans. Maybe it's my dreads or Ambi's laid-back demeanor, but we just look like music people. If you're a party, and you're looking for a couple of music nerds, we're prolly the peeps you wanna chat up.

In fact, Ambi and I have a 'music' tradition that I carry out every few months. I'm one of those guys who loves knowing about cool indie bands that you don't. I admit, I secretly judge you by your knowledge of cool bands. As Christian Lander writes, "If you mention a band you like and the other person has heard of them, you lose. They own you. It is essential that you like the most obscure music possible." That being said, I hunt indie rock bands like Ahab hunts white whales. Amber acts as Queequeg, riding along in the boat with eager harpoon in hand, but not quite sure what lies beneath.

So every holiday or 'special day' (like our anniversary or her birthday), I find a band Ambi's never heard of, but that I know she'll love. The past few months have seen quite the bevy of ear-tastic tunes for my Deathcab Cutie. For Valentine's Day this year she received Throw Me the Statue "Creaturesque"; our anniversary, The Antlers "Hospice"; with the biggest haul at Christmas including The Noisettes "Wild Young Hearts", Phoenix "It's Never Been Like That" and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin "Pershing". Her birthday Nov. 24 saw NPR's album of the year, Veckatimest" by Grizzly Bear land in her waiting CD player.
This all started back when Amber lived in Peoria while teaching at Illinois Central College. I had moved back from Japan to Muncie (a five hours drive from Whiskeytown), and we really didn't see much of each other. A relatively unknown indie band I was into was appearing about two hours west of Amber, and I thought, "What a better way to see a band I like and get to spend time my darling girlfriend?!" ... and so began our love affair with Motion City Soundtrack.

We've now seen MCS, as they're commonly

known, on six separate occasions, traveling throughout Illinois and Indiana. Back in January, we read about a meet and greet on their website that would taking place just an hour from my place at a Best Buy in Aurora. Ambi hurried into her hybrid and hustled her heinie to DeKalb for an intimate acoustic set and meet and greet after the concert.

Amber and I dutifully waited in line to get our autographs, (photo printouts of the band's Mii avatars on our Wii), we debated asking them if they would play our wedding. Now, we're not fooling ourselves to think that we could afford to have a them play our special day, but we in wouldn't hurt to ask right? Alas, we chickened out. Maybe it's because we didn't want to hear them say no, or perhaps it was the strange (and frankly, a little creeped out) looks they gave us. When we entered the Ultimate Wedding Contest from Crate & Barrel, we noted that we'd love to have MCS play our wedding. You get 100 grand, why not, right?
When we saw Motion City Soundtrack at the House of Blues in Chicago, we weren't expecting to get another chance to hang out with Justin, Josh, Matthew, Jesse, and Tony. But as luck would have it, the band announced an after-party at the downtown bar Angels & Kings. Supporting bands fun, A Rocket To The Moon, and Sing It Loud also joined MCS at the bar. We got there a little after 10 pm and hung out waiting for MCS to arrive, chatting with Pat, the lead singer of Sing It Loud, who was a very cool cat, and an undergrad from Iowa, Travis, who celebrated April 20th a few weeks early. Like, reeeeally celebrated.

When the fellas finally showed up around 11 pm, Ambi and I were determined to corner one of them in a nuptial shakedown. Not wanting to completely mob them to start, we finally made our way through the masses until we captured drummer Tony Thaxton's attention. Tony was completely amicable and really friendly. He didn't big time us, but admitted that he really had no idea. I threw out 50 grand as an estimate, but he really couldn't confirm. Since we weren't sure what to expect, the fact he didn't have answer wasn't a surprise. He suggested contacting their management, and even offered up an email.

It wasn't like we were going to take no for an answer, but we weren't going to go crazy with our interrogatories either. We ending up asking keyboardist Jesse Johnson and bass guitarist Matt Taylor as well. Both were very accommodating and very patience with our impudence. We spent a good 20 minutes talking with Jesse and Matt, and walked away with the impression that we are indeed fans of the coolest rock band in the world. I just can't see Lars or Axl just hanging with fans shooting the breeze without reminding you how much better they are than you. If you're not into Motion City Soundtrack, you should be.

We look forward to rocking out with them again soon. We thought we were a little weird considering how many times we've seen them and how many times we've actually engaged them in conversation. I apologized for 'stalking them' until Jesse told us that we're not even in the team photo for obsessive. "There's some people who've seen us over a hundred times." Ambi and I exchanged glances... (whoa)... Matt reiterated, "So you're not that bad. Pretty normal I'd say."

The guys in MCS are still on tour promoting the new album, My Dinosaur Life. They'll be back in the Midwest in June, and we're hoping to make it to Des Moines for another show. We're sure it will be another great one.

We Finally Made the Finals!

So we finally made the finals of one of these social media contests we've entered. About time, huh? Actually, we think we deserved to be included this time, but we hesitate to trumpet that too much. Fact is, we entered to the Crate & Barrel Ultimate Wedding contest because we think our love story is unique and compelling. The fact we finished in the Top 50 is quite the accomplishment considering we didn't rely on tragedy to define our entry or to have a good story. Nearly everyone else in the Top 50, and definitely in the Top 20 defined themselves by illness, sexual orientation, or tragedy. Whether it be a car accident, cancer, or societal discrimination, all they could talk about was about how badly their lives sucked.

I'll try not to get too much into another rant here, but Amber and I thought the contest was about what made your couple unique. Of the Top 6, three had cancer, two were in severe auto accidents, one had a serious birth defect, and the other couple was championing same sex marriage. If it bleeds it leads, and these couples exploited their personal calamity to the fullest! The interesting part is that originality makes up the greatest percentage of a team's score. If 15 other couples are defining themselves by one partner's cancer, how unique is that? After a while, it's the same narrative:

John and Jane knew each other in high school, but lost touch. Seven years later, they saw each other on Facebook and rekindled a love they thought long since buried. Two years into the relationship while planning her fairytale wedding, Jane was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. John's love has brought Jane through this terrible time. With outstanding medical bills and crappy jobs, we need this wedding. Vote for us.

On top of the guilt trip in the entry, their friends, coached by them I'm sure, flood the C&B Facebook page and YouTube with updates claiming their friends "deserve" this fantastic prize. Interestingly though, no one ever says who they deserve the $100,000 dream wedding over. If they are deserving, doesn't that mean someone else is undeserving?

As for Ms. Buck and me, we've both had tough times, but we decided not to frame our relationship by our own misfortune. Amber and I are very lucky to have each other, our health, and a positive outlook on life; not mired in inferiority and feelings of inequity.

We had a blast with the contest and all the interviews we did for our entries' promotion. The last day of the contest, I had two interviews on DeKalb's news leader, 1360 AM WLBK, and another on NewsTalk 1400 WDWS in Champaign. The latter allowed me to reconnect with an old friend, Elizabeth Hess, from my days on the "Murray in the Morning" show on Sporting News Radio. That was a fun interview. I also did a previous spot the day before on WLBK, and recorded a nice spot on with WZBD 92.7 in Berne, Indiana. WZBD holds a special place in my heart as it was one of my first radio gigs fresh out of high school long long ago. We also managed to wrangle write-ups in the Ball State Daily News, and the hometown papers of the Decatur Daily Democrat and the Saginaw News. For each media outlet, we talked about our entry at http://tinyurl.com/yh9haon and how everyone should vote for us, and I'm pretty sure I guided a few people to check our proposal video at http://bit.ly/6Nc3Dj.

Even if we don't win a prize, we had a lot of fun as we always do, and sure has opened our eyes to the possibilities for our gift registry. That'll be a perfect post for another day.