I heart live music! {Ernie Halter}

I was not planning on taking a 10 day break from blogging but I also wasn't planning on spilling an entire cup of water into my laptop.  I hate my husbands computer so I've avoided using it but I can't any longer.  This post cannot wait!  It's timing is of utmost importance.

This is my final (and in my opinion, most important) installment of my I heart live music! series.  If you missed the others, you can read them here {Tony Lucca, Curtis Peoples, Tyrone Wells}.  The reason the timing of this is so important is because my very favorite singer/songwriter is releasing a new album, Labor of Love, TODAY!  He wrote or co-wrote every song, played and sang every note, produced and mixed the record and even designed the album artwork and t-shirts himself.  Today also happens to be his birthday (Happy birthday, E {and mom, and Jenny})!

Ernie Halter opened for Tyrone the very first night I ever saw him so I consider those two the O.G.'s of my live music love affair.  Ernie and his music have been there for me for some of the most memorable moments of my life.  His music was a huge part of our wedding, his song Come Home to Me helped me survive our last deployment (and was covered by Justin Bieber), I went to see him play the night my grandfather passed away (after hours days weeks months spent in the hospital with him, I know he would have wanted me to go).  Ernie helped me celebrate my 30th birthday and one of his songs, "Blue Dress", is even where I got the name for this blog.  To say he's been influential in my life would be a huge understatement!

Here's the ticket from my very first Ernie (&Tyrone) show.

July 2007 in NKY, only 2 months later. (we both look SO young!)

September 2008 in Cincinnati, this was a great night.  He was scheduled to play with Josh Hoge at a bar but most of the people there were more concerned with drinking than watching E & J so they packed up and we all headed to another bar on the other side of the river (Kentucky) and they played a fantastic acoustic show

February, 2009 in Cincinnati.

This night was a rough one for me.  My grandfather had passed away that afternoon after a long battle with cancer and I didn't think I was going to attend the show but my family ensured me that there was nothing I could do any longer and encouraged me to try to enjoy a night with my friends.   Honestly, after grueling months of daily hospital visits, it was the perfect distraction.

September 2009, in St Louis (again, playing with Tyrone).  Some of my girlfriends and my sister came out to visit us when we lived at FLW and the weekend just happened to coincide with an E&T show in STL.  Whatever, I'll always take visitors, even if there is an ulterior motive.  (ps. did you guys know it's ulterior and not alterior?  I didn't!  I love learning new things.)

August 2010, in Indi.  My last show before moving to Japan.  We are goobers and I love it!

May 2012 in Indi again.  I moved my flight back to America for my brother's wedding ahead almost 2 weeks so I could make it to this show.  I needed my fix!

September 2012 at my best friend's parent's house, celebrating my 30th birthday with E and some of the most amazing friends I've ever had!

Best birthday present ever!

Most recently, last week, after his show in San Diego.

My, oh my, look how we've changed in the past 7.5 years.  E, if you read this, I love you and I'm so grateful you and your amazing music are a part of my life!

So, what are you waiting for?!?  Go to iTunes or Amazon or where ever you buy your music, right now, and download some great music.  Purchase a copy of Labor of Love and help give Ernie the best birthday gift he could dream of, a #1 album on the singer/songwriter charts!

I heart live music! {Tony Lucca}

I bring to you today part 3 of what has become my "I heart live music!" series.  This time I present to you, Tony Lucca.  Those of you who are fans of "The Voice" may recognize him the finalist of Team Adam, season 2.  He's the one that was told by Christina Aguilera that he is "one dimentional" and then returned the following week to perform Britney Spears, "...Baby One More Time".  Yeah, he's awesome.

My cousin couldn't go with me this time and Jason had class that night so instead of being that strange girl by herself (not that there is anything wrong with going places alone, I go to movies and dinner by myself all the time), I decided to offer to sell merch.  Instead of paying someone to tour with them, most of these guys just have local fans sell their merchandise in exchange for 2 free tickets to the show.  This was my 1st time selling merch and I don't know that I'll do it again (well, except for next week when I've already agreed to help Ernie Halter). I was not prepared for how loud it was in the back, I'm usually right up front singing and cheering and snapping photos.  People just would not shut up back there.  I could see the stage from where I was set up but I couldn't hear much of anything over all the people (including the guy who opened for him) yapping.  (And after the show a couple came up to me and complained about the same thing.  They were really pissed that the opening act was so loud that they couldn't hear much of Tony either) From what I saw/heard, it was a really good show, I just wish I had been able to hear more.

This was my first time seeing him since his appearance on The Voice and I was really happy to see that not much had changed (other than the addition of a Britney Spears {I had to look up how to spell her name!} cover).  He opened and closed with 2 of my favorite songs that I hadn't heard him sing live in a long time so I was very pleasantly surprised by that.  I'm glad he kept it real.

Doing this little series has been so much fun for me, taking a jaunt down memory lane.  However, it has reminded me that I lost ALL of my photos taken prior to August 2012 so I'm at the mercy of what I can find on Facebook/old blog posts (thank God for those).  

This is from a show, in Cincinnati, in August 2009.

This was weeks before I moved to Japan, in Indianapolis, celebrating my friend's 21st birthday.

I wish I could find more photos but this is serving as a good reminder that I need to be better at backing up my photos and printing off and preserving ones that are important.

Come back next week for my 4th and final installment of this musical series!

I heart live music! {Curtis Peoples}

2 shows in a week and I only have to wait 10 days for the next one?!?  I'm in music heaven here!  Luckily my cousin is willing to join me when she can and so far she's hooked on both artists she's seen.

This time it was Curtis Peoples, check out the video he just released for the 1st single from his new album.  Who doesn't love a little old school Nintendo?


I actually drug my big camera AND the flash I've had for 9 months now (and never used) along with me to this show and I'm glad I did.

Curtis and I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out the last time I'd seen him and we thought we had it narrowed down but a little Facebook research proved us wrong!

The 1st time I saw him was March 31, 2009 in Cincinnati, OH.

 3 days later we (a couple of my girlfriends and I) made the drive to Columbus to see him again (and Ernie Halter & Josh Hoge)

We decided we needed more so 2 weeks later we drove 5 hours to Nashville to see Curtis & Josh, again!

(I cannot believe I'm sharing this AWFUL photo of myself on here, I seriously considered blurring out my own face!  Pale is NOT the look for me.)

We thought that show in Nashville was the last time we'd seen each other but then I remember this show was 3 months later, back in Cincinnati.

4 shows in 4 months then nothing for 4 years!  I sure am glad the hiatus is over!

I heart live music! {Tyrone Wells}

I've talked about my love of music here before.  It was one of the things I missed the most while we were living in Japan.  I managed to squeeze in a few shows while I was in the US visiting and for my 30th birthday so I didn't have to go a full 3 years without seeing a show but I couldn't wait to get back to America and get back to seeing my favorite guys play.  Luckily I didn't have to wait long.  Last week Tyrone Wells played a show at House of Blues San Diego.

With little effort, I convinced my cousin to join me.

And, as expected, we were treated to an exceptional show.

I love this man as an artist and what he stands for and believes in.

Yep, she's hooked!  She'll be back, I'm certain!

Tyrone is the one who started my love affair with singer/songwriters.  You can read the whole story that I linked above (or if you skipped it, you can read it here) but here's a little photo recap.

It all started in May 2007 when 3 girls who were slightly infatuated with a certain hockey player went to a show knowing said hockey player might be there.  I know we have photos of us with Tyrone that night but at the moment, I do not know where.  I fear they were on the external hard drive that is no longer functioning.

I know we saw him a few more times in between but these are all the photos I can find right now.  This was from a show in September 2009 in St. Louis.  We (my girlfriends and I) have never been shy about driving long distances to get our music fix.  I was living at FLW but they all drove down to see me him.

I even managed to squeeze in a show while I was back in America on vacation while living in Japan.

Indianapolis, May 2012

As if I needed more convincing that SD is the perfect place for us, not only did I get to see Tyrone this week but in the next 3 weeks, I will be seeing 3 more of my favorite singer/songwriters who are all coming to town.  I cannot even begin to put into words how excited this makes me!

Blog everyday in May {Day 29}

Day 29, Wednesday: Five songs or pieces of music that speak to you or bring back memories. Use Grooveshark or YouTube to include them in the post

1. Blue Dress by Ernie Halter (This is where the name of my blog came from.)

2. Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne (Our "wedding song", we didn't have one and Jason suggested this one while he was deployed.  It couldn't be more fitting of our relationship.)

3. Good Riddance by Green Day (My all time favorite song.  EVER.)

4. One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey and Boys II Men (This was played at a funeral I attended in 8th grade {and many others after that} and 17 years later, I still cannot listen to it without sobbing.  I couldn't even bring myself to test the link so I hope it works)

5. Party in the U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus (This one is slightly embarrassing but it was our jam during one of the best periods in my life.  This song will always remind me of the friends we made and shared our lives with in Missouri and the great time we had there.) 

this is too good not to share!

Before I get to the point of this post, I have to warn my fellow mil-spouse readers, especially those with deployed husbands, the song I'm about to discuss WILL make you cry!


So there is a singer/songwriter that I LOVE name Ernie Halter (you can read all about how my obsession with  love for singer/songwriters started here) .  Last week, the pop sensation Justin Bieber sang a cover of one of Ernie's songs called "Come Home to Me" at his concert in Hong Kong and posted a link on his twitter account.  

This lead to an increase of 30,000+ twitter followers for my dear friend Ernie.  I'm so incredibly excited for him. he deserves every one of those followers!

To return the favor, Ernie recorded a cover of "Baby"

Justin just happened to be in Tokyo this week and after his concert here last night, he flew back to LA and then drove an hour to a show Ernie was doing and surprised him.  Justin even hopped on stage and sang "Come Home to Me" with Ernie.

This is such a huge moment for someone who has worked so hard and I just wanted to share it with the whole world (or at least the part of the world that reads my blog)!

crossfit day 1

UGH!!!!!!!

I thought I might puke from exercise for the 1st time ever yesterday!  I might have pushed myself a little hard for day 1, but hey, you get out of it what you put into it and I'm determined to get my money's worth of butt kicking!  We has a warm up (that left me huffing and puffing), "learned" proper form for push ups, squats and "body rows" (basically a modification of a pull up using rings for people who can't do an actual pull up) then completed the WOD Work Out of the Day which was to run 200 meter (have I mentioned before that I do NOT run?!?!?! blah!) then do 15 each squats, push-ups, body rows, then do 12 of each then 9 of each and finally another 200m run and it's timed.  I set a goal to complete the work out in under 10 minutes and I finished in 9:25 so I was pretty happy with myself (plus I only walked 100/400 meters).  At the end of our 12 sessions I'll do the same work out again and hopefully shave a few minutes off that time.

After crossfit, I hurried to a friends to shower/change before heading to Indianapolis to celebrate a friends birthday.  So I only had the clothes I was planning on wearing and when I went to put my almost BRAND NEW Victoria Secret bra on, the stupid strap broke right off!

No $40 bra should break after just 6 weeks!  The bra that this one replaced was the exact same bra and lasted me almost 3 years, so I was pretty pissed.  Plus I didn't have a bra to wear!  Luckily I had some of my sisters old bra's in the car that were supposed to be going to goodwill that I thankfully hadn't dropped off yet!

Crisis was averted and I got to enjoy a fabulous show from these 2 amazing guys!

Ernie Halter (hello super cheese smile!)

Tony Lucca

the birthday girl thought this looked like a good place to stop, pop a squat and look at the photos on her camera (LOVE YOU!)

Time to go prepare myself for crossfit day 2 then birthday celebration round 2!

New Music

I am by no means a music critic, but when I "discover" great music, I find it dreadful not to share it with the world!

A little back story, if you don't care, skip to the end of the photos:

So if you read this post, you know about my love for hockey...it stole my heart and soul at a young age and hasn't let go since.  In the city I grew up in, we didn't have an NHL team, but a team 2 leagues below, an ECHL team, the Cincinnati Cyclones.  These players are much more personable than NHL players and I was friends with quite a few of them on MySpace (yeah, back when MySpace was cool) and one of the players on the hockey team had a song on his page by an artist named Tyrone Wells.  Some of my girlfriends (who may or may not have had a thing for unnamed hockey player) fell in love with the song and decided that when he came to town we should go see him (because we liked his music, not because this certain hockey player might be there...ok, that might be stretching the truth).  May 4th, 2007 will forever be a day that changed my life musically.  My girlfriends and I went to this concert...see, here we are =)

Just so happens, that not only do we LOVE Tyrone Wells and his music....

But we also LOVE his opening act...Ernie Halter...

And thus began our love affair with AWESOME singer/songwriters, including...

Josh Hoge who played with Ernie a few times

and Curtis Peoples who also played with Ernie and Josh once or twice

and this list goes on, one guy opens for the next and thus I have discovered so much of my favorite music (much of which was used one way or another in my wedding) all because one girl had a crush on a hockey player.

ANYWAYS...back to the original point of this post....Tyrone Wells released a new acoustic album yesterday and I want to share it with you 

check out Metal and Wood on iTunes