Lobster Lounge with DJ An-log

This is a cute poster though i did not get that why it is related with lobster.

Some people are cool because they are superbly good at engaging others into conversation, but some are because they keep others engaged while they virtually involved with themselves.

I went to Casa Nueva the other day, and heard one DJ (Disk Jockey) playing there, which fascinated me. DJs are those who play recorded music for the audience. However, demonstrated by the name, DJs can also be seen as those who playing with the disks, at least as i understand. This process of playing was so much fun, and i, for one time, consider learning it. However, when i realized how much it may cost to have the equipment, i put this whimsical idea off to my wish list for the first-month salary.

My favorite part about the two DJs are their movements on the disks as shown in the pictures below and the musical effects they produced - delay, reverb, octave, chorus etc. These are the professional words i have just learned, and i prefer a more understandable way-- it's the playing with the transformation from one music to the other, either through the repetition of the former part, or through the distortion of the original sound, and the slowing down or speeding up of the rhythm in in one song that stands the sound out.

It is somewhat differnt playing in Casa and in Front Room. For me, DJs are freespirited. A restaurant like Casa is more spacious and fit for DJs because everyone enjoys the music while nobody really focuses. This is like the "polite eye avoidance" in elevator when you are along with someone else. Attention under that circumstance is not needed and is weird if paid too much. In Front Room where there are not so many people, and some of them are really paying attention, DJ may not perform the best they can since they are actually distracted.


This DJ focuses more on the adjustment of the rhythm in one song.



This DJ pays more attention to the transformation from one music to the other.

Dear Havanah's Debut in Front Room

------->
Frontier Room was also the place where many bands and local music performers came to rock the ship. Front Room now sustain this tradition. Here Dear Havanah comes.

Dear Havanah is a Boston-based band made up of five members. The detailed musical parts each plays are as follows:

·Dan Htoo-Levine: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
·Adam Ciminello: Keys/ Organ, Background Vocals
·Rob O’Block: Electric & Slide Guitar, Mandolin
·Mike Blong: Drums, Percussion, Background Vocals
·Colin Healy: Electric Bass

--------Stood there, yelling as one of the audience, I’m fascinated by the concert already. Not that I have not been to a grander concert before, but that they are really awesome.

Compared with Celine Dior’s concert I went to before, their stage is surely smaller – The cavern place in Front Room. However, the charm is that they are closer and approachable. Sitting there, seeing them playing and singing, and interacting with them, I’m being a real fan.

Concert itself is always fabulous. The preparation before that and after it are totally different. As i see, the before-the-show section can be described as burning with eagerness, during -the-show as shinning on the stage, and after-the-show as being lost and lonely. I arrived there long before they got started, so I got the chance to see how they set up and prepare. It took them around one hour to adjust the volume of each instrument to make sure the mix sound is appropriate in case any sound of certain instrument being too high to drown out another sound. They wanted to present the best to the audience. Surely, Not only the band are preparing, but also Front Room as well as the audience. Before the concert started, all the light in Front Room are turned off apart from the ones above Starbucks’ coffee section, so that the lighting effect of the stage can be contrasted. Girls were all nicely dressed, and sat as groups, getting ready for the show with their drinks.

When the show started, everyone has their Dan Htoo-Levine, as the vocal, acting as the center of the band, interact much with other band members. For Dear Havanah, the guitarist and the electric bass player interact a lot with vocal, probably because they are free on the stage. Drummer is the person who indulged in his world most, with necking stretching forward and backward a lot, and occasionally casted glance with the vocal too. Keyboard player is the most low-key person. He kept to himself, and speared relatively calm during the concert.

--------Dan Htoo-Levine: “We love to groove all the way from Boston to here with you tonight!”

It is impossible to describe each song, since they are of various genres. Some are blues, some are country music, some are folk music, and some are pop. However, my understanding of what make their music so intriguing is that the shifting and contrast between different elements. Specifically speaking, the contrast between singing without music and singing with music, continuously singing and singing discretely, standing still to sing and singing while jumping, and between playing original drums and heavy mental drums, electric guitar and wood guitar. Want to feel it yourself? Listen to their songs in OU Front Room

They came; I happened to see. No camera was taken with me, and thanks to my mobile. I'm totally overwhelmed by the picture effects at night. The good part is that maybe the blurring effects are what defined my mood at that time----They shook my world.

Jazz Night in Front Room

-----This is real Athenian Culture.

The Jazztet---they are from the Athens, they exactly demonstrate Athenian characteristics: deeply involved and truly loving, which can be demonstrated by the fact that they were totally indulged in their own music, yet also endeavored to wake from their world to interact with the audience as mush as they could.

Jazz night on Tuesday has become a biweekly tradition in Front Room. Local Jazz bands are invited to perform for once a month for a time period, depending on their popularity among the students and guests. Therefore, to have one's favourite band perform there, students should voice their favourite band out to UPC (university program council).

I first heard from my friend Ash last quarter that Jazz music in Front Room was pretty nice and cool. Jazztet, the band for this quarter's jazz nights in Front Room, has five members in the team:

•Ernie Bastin --- Valve Trombone & Percussion
•Guy Remonko---Drums & Percussion
•Matt James---Saxophone
•John Horne---Guitar
•Terry Douds---Bass




What impressed me most about this band is that everybody seems to indulge in their own instrument playing, however they are closely connected with their rare glance at each other or even their tacit agreement with each other.

Attentive meditating indulged involved



An glance is worth more than words

There is this difference between a music band and a jazz band. They start a song differently----music band usually starts with the drum, while the jazz band are starting by snap their fingers or counting "one, two, three. "

I asked John Horne, the guitarist, about the amplifier he used for his guitar and the kind of sound he was looking for. because i found that his guitar sound was kind of different with the sound i have heard from other amplifier. He said that he was using Fishman Amp and the sound he was looking for was an old vintage sound. He plays really well. Therefore, it did not surprise me when i found out that he was a professor in the music school of OU on their website. Actually, every member of this band are related with OU, either a current teacher in OU, or a Emeritus professor.

It is exciting to discover that they also play Latino music, which is completely to my taste. I guess i will follow them later about any Latino music show since I'm a Latino music fan. More of their works are available on their my space.

Not a good place for movies--a reply to stine's comment

The four people sitting front watching were eventually "driven away" by the noise there


Tonight was supposed to be a movie night of documentary Fidel Castro: Big Man, Small Island Documentary playing in Front Room. However, the situation was not as same as i imagined.


It has almost become the customs that Sunday has been the work day for most American students since they spent their Friday and Saturday partying, or sunday is a working day here? Anyway, Front Room in Sunday is like library except that people can talk if they want. This definitely was not good for those who want to watch the documentary in Front Room tonight.


The documentary was supposed to serve as the prelogue of tomorrow's International Week Keynote speech given by Alina Fernandez---one child of Cuban president Fidel Castro. It should privode the background information needed. However, the noiProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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there made it impossible for those who were really interested to focus and watch. Finally, they were "driven away."

Anyway, Front Room probably is not a good place for movies. That's why we have theatres on Baker second floor and on court street.

Black poet Javon Johnson's talk show

-----He is short, but he is not scared to climb the tree; he is a poet, and he is humorous.


He was born and grew up in the east side of south central, Los Angeles, going to school in the west side. He is a humorous poet, or a poetic humorist. He is Javon Johnson.

Javon performed his stylish humor in Front Room last night. He recited his poems to the audience in the form of hip-hop, which won great applause from the audience for both his humor and his exquisitely managed rhythm. each poem has a theme - family, love and ethics. I was moved into tears by his naturally betrayed affection with his family, and laughed into tears by his poetic humor. Some of my favourite lines from his poems are:

"please, love me butterfly, even if i don't transform into the man that you deserve."

"i tell my grandmother:'you don't have to shoulder the whole world'...Now my grandmother is slowly dying, and I'm not strong enough to hold her world."

Between each two poems, he would tell the audience one or two anecdotes about him, his friends or his family member. I remembered one is about him teasing with a young boy.
Javon punched the boy in his face.
young boy:"mum, he hit me"
Javon: "come on. I'm a grown man.."

His shortness does not embarrass him, instead it becomes the raw materials for his smart humor. He said that:"I'm short, but I'm not scared to climb up trees," or "I'm short, and i will punch the tall in the special place."

He took some CDs with him wherever he performed, and his ways to promote those CDs were hilarious too.
Javon:"when i say 'C', you say 'D'. OK, now. "
Javon:"C"
audience:"D."
Javon:"good. I've had some CDs with me to sell."

Yesterday, his way of promotion is that he kept asking purposely:"did i mention i have CDs with me?" People couldn't help laughing when he said that the third time. While he was promoting for his CD, he said:"If you like what i do, you buy my CD, that's cool; if you don't like what i do, you buy my CD, that's weird, but I'm cool with that; if you like what i do, but you can't buy my CD, that's cool too; if you don't like what i do, and you don't buy my CD, that's playing yourself."

Though I did not get some of what he said because of the accent, i definitely like what he did, and that's cool.

Front Room: Happy Mother's Day

Is it that Mother's Day remains the same in each university? OU celebrated the festival on May 1-3, which was kind of grand and touched upon my nostalgia. Having been asked of the Mother's Day celebration in their campus, my friends seemed to have no idea, which reflected that OU did a pretty good job in connecting the school with the parents. During the holiday, Front Room was REALLY busy.



One feature event taking place in Front Room was a silent auction sponsored by Alpha Omicron Pi to benefit Juvenile Arthritis Research Foundation (the arthritis foundation). It lasted from 12:00pm to 1:15pm, and raised about 2,500 dollar. Huge crowds of people, most of whom were mums, attend the event. They watched the auction articles attentively, hoping to find out some lovely articles as well as contribute to the charity foundation.

some nice articles as well as contribute to the charity foundation.

something to their taste to bring home as well as contributing to the foundation. Most of the stuff are sold in a package and are good helper for housewives.



Stuffs like cosmetics bag, pitcher, table cloth are liked by most housewives.



It is in Front Room, so Starbucks coffee surely should be one of the auction article. As we can see from the long auction lists in the picture, the "competition" was fierce.



Jewelry, flower and chocolates are women's "lovers."




Apart from joining the auction, many mothers and daughters or sons were just sitting there, enjoying their quality time, either talking or playing cards and board games.

All you have to know about Front Room

Before this blog starts, i figure there is a need to introduce a little bit about this place, for those who have never heard of it, or those who maybe know.

Front Room is a Starbucks coffee house in the fourth floor of Backer. Locating at the front of Baker Center, it gets its name Front Room due to its advantageous location. It is a sweet place to have some time out of study, yet not as wild and unbridled as places like bars.



Walking into Front Room, your eyes will first be directed to the coffee section, and then a small stage on the other side. With basic lighting facilities, this stage serves as a cozy place for medium concert. At the back of the stage, an artificial fireplace is available. This fireplace, i heard, is not working, but built to imitate the real fireplace in Old Frontier Room.


The old "Front Room" is in old baker, and the name is not "Front Room," but "Frontier Room," because it used to serve as the Frontier of the campus, according to the archive person in Alden Library. However, its function is also a snack bar where students went to relax and have their favourite drinks, but not for the alcohol, since there was an Ohio Room where students went to sip alcohol. In the first two years of its operation, Frontier Room was way too small, and Janice Bixler, the director of Baker center at that time, wrote to the president to recommend that it is "much too small for the present enrollment of students, and of course will be more and more inadequate as the enrollment increases." The next year, the snack bar area of Frontier Room was enlarged, and a Jukebox was added to it.

It is interesting and touching to see the comparison between the old Frontier Room and the new Front Room.



This is a story on Post about Frontier Room started all-night open practice, which was a big thing at that time.



This is what the usual scenes in Frontier Room were like. Students were as casual as we are now, and customers always went to and fro in constant streams.



This picture was really AWESOME. I like the Frontier Room logo, as well as the "model" who posed so well for Frontier Room branding.




This illustration extracted the best of Frontier Room as well as Front Room - it is a place swarmed with warmth.

Front Room enjoys favors not only from the students, but also people who work there. I should thank Andrea Timm, who worked there since fall 2008, (the same time i started my journey at OU) for accepting my interview, and from her i get to know so much about Front Room. Same with me, she really liked this place, especially the environment - artworks hanging on the wall, music playing all the time, and the aroma of coffee soaking the room. It feels really comfortable to work, study or hang out there.



Talking of the artworks on the wall, I have to mention that those artworks in Front Room are from Passion Workshop, a vocational workshop for adults with mental and physical challenges.


Andrea told me that there has been lots of fun stuff happened in Front Room. Many student organizations host parties there, such as super bowl parties, St. Patrick's Day parties, and even 'beach' parties. Every Friday night, there is open mic night in which anyone can perform for the coffee shop, followed by "laughter after dark", which according to her, is a group of students come and improvise for the coffee shop.

Andrea said it is really nice about this place except for a minor not-so-satisfactory policy. The left-over food of the day cannot be given to those who need them but thrown away. As a student worker for west 82 myself, I totally understand her concern. The food policy in dining hall is really hard for me to understand. Even though i was not growing up in an family that basic food supply was problematic, i feel that throwing away those food is huge waste. Why cannot they be given to the people living in homeless shelters in Athens. Sometimes, i think it is really great idea that activities like walks and charity sale are collecting money and food for those local poor. However, when it comes to food in dining hall, the policy is so rigid that what could have be done becomes far away. Besides, Andrea thinks it is not reasonable that Front Room does not have glass recycling since other recycling, such as paper, cans etc. are available.