Killin' Wasps and Takin' Names

          So I just had my Spring Break last week. Its so strange to think that second semester is already halfway over. I mean seriously, it seems like I just got here a couple weeks ago. Anyways, I decided that I would go to Chattanooga with a couple friends and stay at their lakehouse/cabin in kind of the middle of nowhere. Coming into this, I didn't really know what to expect, I just knew I was going to be hanging out with some friends doing who knows what.
          When we got up to the cabin, we immediately realized that we had ZERO phone service and ZERO internet. Personally, I was pretty much ok with that. I'm normally pretty solid without internet. Unfortunately for my friend Nigel, he needed internet in order to be able to Skype with his girlfriend and his family in Australia and Malaysia. Needless to say, he got bored pretty quickly. One of the first things we realized was that there were literally tons of wasps everywhere. Our first order of business was to kill them. The thing was that whenever we thought we had gotten all of them, some more would just appear the next morning. I think we got the magic number up to 21 before we finally got rid of the dreaded wasps.
          The other thing we realized was that we didn't exactly have a lot to do except watch whatever movies they had up at the cabin. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you look at it), all of the movies they had were VHS tapes. Man, that brought back some memories. I had forgotten what it meant to have to rewind a movie before watching it. We wound up watching everything from Fight Club to The Jungle Book. We even went and tried some fishing, which eventually ended up with us just standing out at the dock and not even getting a nibble.
          Long story short, I had a great time at the cabin. I loved just being able to hang out with some cool people and not have to worry about things like my phone or internet. It was very refreshing.
         Next on my spring break agenda was to come back to Murfreesboro a couple days early to meet one of my great highschool friends Christian, who was coming up so we could go see a concert in Nashville together. I hadn't seen him in a couple months, so I was pumped. He also brought one of his friends from college whose name was Wes. These two introduced me to the 50 count nugget at McDonald's for just ten bucks. That's right, 50 nuggets for TEN bucks. Obviously, we split them. Otherwise, one of us probably would have passed out just from the sheer number of nuggets.
         Later that night, me and Christian headed to the concert. We were going to see one of our favorite bands, The Bridges. I think I've talked about them before in a post but if you haven't listened to them, you really should. You won't be disappointed. What really surprised me though was how good the other two performances were. The headlining band was Apache Relay (yep, that's a Heavyweights reference for all you movie buffs out there). They had one of the most energetic shows I've seen in quite a while. It consisted of lots of jumping around and dancing, but in a really cool way. The opening singer/songwriter of the night was a guy named Rayland Baxter. I had never heard of him before, but I was really blown away by his great songwriting, unique voice, and catchy songs. Plus, he has one of the most rocking mustaches ever. Check him out for sure. As always, I hope you enjoy! (sorry this post went a little long, I got a little carried away)

-Colby McHugh

In The Presence of Something Great

          For those of you who don't already know, last week we saw more or less the "Big Break" of one of our favorite local bands, Elenowen. We had found out that they were playing a FREE show right outside of campus so obviously we were pumped for a great show. We were all introduced to Elenowen last semester when they played another free show that pretty much blew away all of us. We all thought the same thing: "Why have we never heard of these guys before?" 

         So we went to this show fully expecting a great show and needless to say, we weren't disappointed. Then we were greeted with quite an unexpected surprise. After finishing their first or second song, the owner of the venue came up on stage and handed the band an envelope that was entitle The Voice. I personally had no idea what The Voice was, so I was completely lost. As she opened and read the envelope, it was easy to see that something big was going down. She read it and said in a voice that really showed true joyfulness and excitement, "You have made the final cut for The Voice!" (or something like that, I was thoroughly confused as to what exactly was happening). Quickly, I had someone explain what this mysterious The Voice was. I soon saw the importance of what had just happened. The Voice is basically ABC's version of American Idol or something like that, and Elenowen had just made the final cut for the show, which means that they would be on TV and get tons of exposure. The next thing we knew there were these big TV cameras coming out of nowhere. Elenowen was asked to repeat the act of opening the envelope and acting surprised so they could get the reaction on camera. It was clear that the band was maybe a little too flustered by the excitement that they couldn't really make it seem realistic. We (the audience) were also asked to give a standing ovation at least 4 or 5 times. I lost track after the third. After all the hooplah (yes, I did just say hooplah) died down, we were treated to one of the best shows I've seen in quite some time. One of the highlights include a folked out cover of the Spice Girls' Wannabe. It was AWESOME.

          As for some background information on Elenowen, here it goes. Elenowen is basically the husband and wife duo of Josh and Nicole Johnson. They released their first cd about a year ago and are currently working on a releasing a new one sometime soon. As for genres, I've never been one for just labeling bands with a genre but if I had to, I would call Elenowen a folk band with some basic, subtle country influences. Many of their songs are co-written, which gives each song a certain kind of dynamic that is hard to find. That said, the subjects of most of their songs revolve mainly around Josh and Nicole as they have gone through their first year of marriage. Every once in a while, I'll hear a guy and a girl singing, and it'll give me goosebumps because their voices just go so well together. Elenowen is pretty much the definition of that feeling. PLEASE check them out and support them, because they absolutely deserve it.

          I couldn't find any quality videos on Youtube, so the best I can do is paste a link to their Myspace. http://www.myspace.com/elenowenmusic. Enjoy.