Tag Archives: music

Magic University, Harry Potter slash fiction and Daron’s Guitar Chronicles.

Posted on by

Here is a video of Cecilia Tan reading an excerpt from her Magic University series. The Magic University series is kind of like if Harry Potter had taken place in college and sex was magic. If you ever wished Harry Potter had been a bit more of an adult book you’ll love this series. She reads a sex scene from The Siren and the Sword (Book 1 of Magic University) then reads a short story she wrote called Draco the Wonder Ferret which is Harry Potter slash fiction. (If you don’t know what slash fiction is google it. And if you are curious here is her statement on fan fiction.) Draco the Wonder Ferret is both hot and hysterically funny which is not an easy combination to pull off. Enjoy.

WARNING: NSFW-Probably not something you want to be listening to at work.

My first introduction to Cecilia’s work was Daron’s Guitar Chronicles which I absolutely love. Daron is one of those characters that feels like he is actually one of your friends. I find myself wanting to tell people about what he is up to as if we all hang out together. It helps that due to the wonders of the internet that I can chat with Daron in comments and on Twitter etc. The story is an ongoing web serial. The storyline starts off in 1986 and Daron is now up to the early 1990s in the telling of his story. DGC is a wonderful coming-of-age story. Cecilia does a fantastic job of showing what growing up gay in the 1980s music scene was like. And DGC has been a really fun way to reminisce about the music of the 80s (and now 90s) as well as just remembering what life was like back then. Here is a short video Cecilia did a few years ago for a Kickstarter campaign that explains a bit about DGC.

The Kickstarter campaign was successful and you can now buy Daron’s Guitar Chronicles as real books. You can also get them as ebooks or read it for free online. If you choose to read it for free but would still like to support Cecilia she lists a few ways to donate here.

-Amber

Tokio Hotel Concert in Köln 2005.

Posted on by

Tokio Hotel is a German band who had major success at a very young age. At the time of this concert (2005) Bill Kaulitz (singer) and Tom Kaulitz (guitarist; the one with dreadlocks and a hat on) had just turned 16. Bill and Tom are identical twins but you have to look hard to notice it. Bassist Georg Listing would have been 18 and drummer Gustav Schäfer would have  just turned 17. By 2005 they had already been together for about 5 years. This tour was for their first album Schrei. In 2006 Tokio Hotel released Schrei so laut du kannst which had some of the songs from Schrei rerecorded since puberty caused Bill’s voice to change. They also added 3 tracks that were not on Schrei. I personally like the original vocals on Schrei best but Schrei so laut du kannst is worth getting for the extra tracks. Not that I dislike Bill’s voice since it changed, I just like the original vocal recording for those songs better. I think Bill’s voice has sounded slightly different with each album and it suits the music each time.

Their first album was mostly punk. I think their sound changed a bit with each album. Zimmer 483 (2007) was more rock and Humanoid (2009) was rock/synth pop. Their latest album Kings of Suburbia (2014) is more synth/dance/pop rock. Kings of Suburbia is their first album to be recorded only in English; Scream was released in 2007 which had some of the songs from both Schrei and Zimmer 483 recorded in English. And Humanoid had the full album recorded in both German and English.

Anyway, here is the concert from 2005. When I have more time I am going to post another blog with more of my favorite videos. I get tired of having to find them on YouTube when I want to watch them so it’s easier for me to post them here. If anyone knows if this is something I can buy on DVD let me know. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere but YouTube. I even checked Amazon’s German site and could not find it. Danke to sweetbill91 for posting this on YouTube.

1. Jung und nicht mehr jugendfrei 2. Beichte

2. Beichte 3. Ich bin nich’ ich 4. Schrei

4. Schrei 5. Leb die Sekunde 6. Schwarz

6. Schwarz 7. Gegen meinen Willen

8. Durch den Monsun 9. Thema Nr. 1

10. Wenn nichts mehr geht 11. Rette mich

12. Freunde bleiben 13. Der letzte Tag

14. Unendlichkeit

15. Durch den Monsun

-Amber

My intentions for this blog and YouTube channel.

Posted on by

Sorry for the rambling…

I’ve been trying to formulate a way to try to explain my intentions for this blog and my YouTube channel so people could have some idea of what to expect here. It’s hard because it encompasses so many different ideas, hence the “Anything and Alles (Everything)” tagline. There is no main thread that ties everything together except for the fact that they are all things that interest me. My original goal was to use this as a platform to interview people, and that is still a main goal. However, I also want to use this as a way to document things for myself. Whether it’s things I want to remember or just links and videos I want to be able to easily find again. I love being able to look back and see how my interests have evolved or how my ideas on things change with new input. And, in the process, if I can introduce someone to something they didn’t know existed or give them a new way to look at something, then that is just an added bonus.

Growing up my influences were talk shows and MTV (back when MTV actually played music 24 hours a day). I always wanted to be the interviewer. I thought MTV Veejays, Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey had the coolest jobs. Music was my first love, quickly followed by books, and I thought “how cool would it be to be able to interview whichever musician or author I was currently into?”. But I wanted to be able to interview whomever I wanted, whenever I wanted, from wherever I wanted. I never wanted to be tied to a location, production company, or a fixed schedule. Nor was I interested in having to interview people I didn’t care about simply for a show. I wanted freedom and control over what I was doing. And now with the internet and websites like YouTube I can do just that. I think that is pretty awesome. Now I just need to start telling people that GushOnline exists.

Check out the “About” section too.

-Amber

30 Seconds to Mars covers Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert covers Metallica etc.

Posted on by

I will post the original videos at the bottom of the post for reference.

Here is 30 Seconds to Mars doing a cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. The lyrics are different but I like what they did with it. I think they upped the creep factor a little bit. I love the emotion in Jared Leto’s voice.

Here is Adam Lambert covering Metallica’s Enter Sandman. I never thought of Enter Sandman as a sexy song but leave it to Adam Lambert to pull that off.

This is Postmodern Jukebox covering Paula Abdul’s Straight Up in vintage Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers style. I love the Betty Boop quality in Ashley Stroud’s voice. I had never heard of this group before this but I absolutely love this cover.

Here is Marilyn Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics. I can’t believe it’s going on twenty years since this came out. According to Wikipedia, Billboard rated this the “scariest video ever made”, beating out Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the top spot.

Here are the originals:

Lady Gaga-Bad Romance

Metallica-Enter Sandman

Paula Abdul-Straight Up

Eurythmics-Sweet Dreams

Thank you to the people who posted videos in the comments of Daron’s Guitar Chronicles of 30 Seconds to Mars and Postmodern Jukebox because otherwise I wouldn’t have known those covers existed.

Since I referenced it (and it is still awesome) here is Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

-Amber