Class Change and Music

Great news! I was able to change the meeting time of my E E 586 class from MWF 4-5PM to MWF 9-10AM. It turns out that nobody (including the professor) wanted to have class that late in the day. Essentially, it adds an extra half day to my weekends. Give me some time and I'll update my online schedule.

After that class, I walked across the EME footbridge and ran into a big event happening on the Honors lawn. There was free pizza, a slip-and-slide, a volleyball net, and a stage for live music. As I was grabbing my pizza, I found out that Rocky Votolato and Tyrone Wells were going to perform. I hadn't heard of Tyrone Wells before, but I have some Rocky Votolato on my iPod and I like it a lot. So I took a seat in the grass and ended up staying for both concerts.

Here's a list of the Rocky songs that I recognized, with my comments included in parenthesis:

Alabaster (I was happy that his opener was one I knew.)
White Daisy Passing (One of his all-time best. Sounded great live.)
I'll Catch You (Beautiful lyrics. He introduced it by saying, "Here's an old one.")
Suicide Medicine (My favorite song on the album of the same name.)
Mix Tapes / Cell Mates (I liked his performance of this song better than the version on the album. It was very good)
Tinfoil Hats (I hadn't heard this one before, but I liked it enough to add it to my iTunes cart.)

It seemed like most of the people in the audience were there to see Tyrone Wells. I hadn't heard of this guy before, but he turned out to be really good. He had enjoyable solo tunes and I really liked his band, too. Tyrone is originally from Spokane but now lives in California. He has a nice mix of slow, soft songs and upbeat, fun tunes. I bought six or seven of the songs I liked on iTunes when I got home.

In other music news, Switchfoot sent out an email yesterday announcing that they are going independent from Columbia Records. Also, they'll be coming out with another album sometime in 2008. They've already recorded 13 new songs! I'd be interested to hear more about why they wanted out of their contract.