"Weird Al" Yankovic Announces Mandatory Fun Tour Dates

Yankovic is all over the place these days, recently guest starring on ABC's Galavant. He's even lending his voice to the new Adventure Time video game. It was teased on Facebook all day on Monday and Tuesday at Midnight, the dates for "Weird Al" Yankovic's Mandatory Fun tour were announced on his website. This tour comes on the heels of the immense success that Yankovic has found with the release of "Mandatory Fun," his fourteenth studio album. Yankovic has performed numerous times in and around Kentucky and this tour is no different, with the following dates on his tour:

MAY 23
RYMAN AUDITORIUM
NASHVILLE, TN

MAY 28
MURAT THEATRE AT OLD NATIONAL CENTRE
INDIANAPOLIS, IN


MAY 30
JACOBS PAVILION AT NAUTICA
CLEVELAND, OH


JUN 21
FRAZE PAVILION
KETTERING, OH


JUN 24
PALACE THEATRE
LOUISVILLE, KY


JUL 7
SOUTHERN KENTUCKY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
BOWLING GREEN, KY


AUG 7
TENNESSEE THEATRE
KNOXVILLE, TN

There you have it, there are plenty of chances to see the king of the musical parody this summer. His newest album is comprised of twelve songs and features parodies of Iggy Azaelea, Pharrell Williams, Lorde, and Imagine Dragons among others.

Yankovic, a geek icon, will no doubt perform song from his storied career which spans the last three decades. I'm not sure which show I'll be able to go to, but I hope to see him at the Louisville Palace because it's just after my birthday! This will be a concert that you won't want to miss, I know I'm kicking myself for not seeing him when he performed at Paramount Arts Center in Ashland.

Let me know in the comments if you're going to get tickets when they go on sale on January 27! Dates are, of course, subject to change, so be sure to keep an eye on "Weird Al's" website!

Be sure to like Kentucky Geek Girl on Facebook and follow my daily updates on Twitter! If you have any questions or want to discuss partnership opportunities, be sure to send me an email.

Images courtesy:
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1867637!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/weird-al-yankovic.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Fun

Flashback Friday: My first CD

Flashback Friday is a series where I get in the wayback machine and revisit some of my favorite things from years past. It can be anything really, random stuff from teh intarwebz, books, movies, games, et cetera. 

We've covered some awesome teen shows from the 1990s and I've talked about my first video game. Now, I think, it's time to move into the musical realm. I think I entered into the age of compact discs a bit later than some. I remember seeing them at the store, but I was quite content with my tapes, big headphones, and small tape players. I even got a two tape deck boombox on the late side, so when I made mix tapes, I did so by holding a hand-held tape recorder (or a sweet microphone) up to radio or single deck tape player.

In the early to mix 1990s, my music of choice was mostly country. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky, from where around a dozen Country Music stars also hailed; country music runs through my blood. As does Bluegrass and Folk Music. At 25, I won't deny my love for the music on which I was raised, though in order to make myself appear cool, I did once denounce it. (I love all music, except country and rap," I once uttered.) I did listen to other music on the radio, 100.5 WKEE FM out of Huntington, West Virginia played songs from the "1970s, 1980s, and today" because that was "current" music. Songs of the '70s were not oldies at that point.

New Video from Shadow Clone Shows that it Feels Good to Cosplay

In my 25 years I had never seen someone who raps about anime and cosplay until I met Shadow Clone. In fact, I first saw him performing while I was waiting in line at Derby City Comic Con back in 2011, but that is before I knew who he was or how awesome he is! As a Nerdcore artist, he uses his hip hop beats to focus on his interests in anime/manga, video games, and all things that are generally nerdy.

This week, Shadow Clone released a video for his latest single "Damn, It Feels Good to Cosplay" which may have a very familiar beat. The video was filmed at SukoshiCon: Destination Anime and was a collaborative effort on two levels. In addition working with the video's director and other members of the crew, Shadow Clone also collaborated with cosplay special guests who were attending the convention and other cosplayers who were at the con, based in Destin, Florida. Prior to the convention, he reached out to the cosplay guests, who were very receptive to his request to be in the video.

Baby Got Theft: Glee and Intellectual Property Violation

Yesterday morning, I was checking Twitter like I do and noticed a tweet from Jonathan Coulton, one of my favorite artists posted this on Twitter:

Hey look, @gleeonfox ripped off my cover of Baby Got Back: bit.ly/WME9Ho. Never even contacted me. Classy.
— Jonathan Coulton (@jonathancoulton) January 18, 2013

Hmm? I thought as I clicked on the video to which he had linked:

 

 

I must say that I've been defending Glee to the haters, particularly to people who have given up on the series now in its fourth season. I've tried to maintain my identity as a Gleek through it all, but honestly, this is the last straw. On Coulton's blog, he says that he was initially alerted to an unofficial Glee Wiki with the listing for Baby Got Back. The wiki, of course, does not give credit to Coulton's cover, rather it gives full rights to Sir Mix-A-Lot. Could this be because people are not familiar with Jonathan Coulton's work? Perhaps, but the powers that be at Glee and Fox would have been aware of him to have specifically picked his version of Baby Got Back.

Coulton's cover of Baby Got Back is extremely unique and true to his artistic style. Not only did Glee swipe his cover, but it's believe that they actually used his audio and stripped away his vocals. There are aspects of his song that they included however. At 2:17, he says "Johnny C's in trouble" instead of "Mix-A-Lot's in trouble." Johnny C? Jonathan Coulton! They didn't even change the lyric! There's a duck quack for [expletive deleted as well.] That's just complete and utter crap.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of Coulton's original recording and the Glee recording, which will premiere on the eleventh episode of the season "Sadie Hawkins." It is to be sung by Kurt's new love interest Adam.

As you can see, the resemblance is uncanny. Really, this just pisses me off. Coulton maintains that Fox did not contact him for permission to use his cover. I have no doubt about that. Honestly, I think that someone heard his version ... somewhere... who really knows where and came into the planning meeting saying, "I have a brilliant idea! I heard this great version of Baby Got Back that we might be able to pull off as unique and fresh!" "A RAISE FOR YOU!" said his/her boss. Yes, I'm sure that's exactly how it went.

For more updates, check out Jonathan Coulton's blog and his Twitter account. You can support him by buying his music at CD Baby! Some of my favorite songs by him include Creepy Doll, Still Alive (of course),  Code Monkey, which was the first song I had heard by him.

I'm going to be following this story closely. I'm on the fence about watching this episode of Glee at all, but I think I will... for science!

Gangnam Style Goes to Dragon*Con

K-Pop is taking America by storm and artist PSY is leading the charge. The video for his infectious song "Gagnam Style" has amassed 106,340,747 views on YouTube at the time of this writing. The video is pretty much everywhere on the intarwebs. The randomosity of the video and the crazy dance moves have been appealing to everyone. And while I have mostly geeks and nerds as friends on Facebook, I can safely attest that everyone in the community is on board the PSY train.

As evidence of this, this weekend at Dragon*Con, YouTube user Minhnhat employed the use of  cosplayers and their awesome costumes to create a sort of lip dub version of "Gangnam Style". Featured in the video are Gandalf (who approves of everything), Deadpool, Captain America, and even Princess Peach with so many other amazing cosplayers that I can't even name because there are just so many. All fandoms seem to be represented; I even saw a Katniss (from The Hunger Games) in there! Kudos to all involved in this amazing video and to YouTuber Minhnhat for making these cosplayers look super badass. Also, thank you to PSY for making a song that will never ever stop being awesome.

Check out the original video for "Gangnam Style" here:

For more nerd news and general geekery, be sure to check out Kentucky Geek Girl on Facebook and head over to Word of the Nerd Online. Bex and Proffitt will be covering all of the Dragon*Con shenanigans over on Good Girls Gone Geek.

Video for Taylor Swift's "Safe and Sound" Premieres

Last night on the Twitter account for The Capitol, the fictitious city in Panem, which appears in The Hunger Games, there was an announcement that the video for Taylor Swift's video "Safe and Sound" was to premiere tonight. Viewing was mandatory, as all things are in Panem. The video for Swift's addition to film's soundtrack appeared on MTV tonight during First Look: Taylor Swift.

Check out the video after the cut

Around the Web: Game of Thrones Violin Cover

I'm the only member of the KGG team that has watched Game of Thrones or read any of Song of Ice and Fire series. I have to get my other ladies into this, because it's so freaking amazing.

Jason Yang posted this on his Youtube channel yesterday. It is a violin cover of the Game of Thrones opening track. There are also quite a few covers around the internethers. I particularly like the hard rock version.

via Geek Girl Diva

What do you like about the music from Game of Thrones?

It's Primeday, Primeday!

In the last month and a half, Rebecca Black's Friday video has garnered over 100 million views on Youtube. While most comments ridicule her very existence (she's been getting death threats,) that infernal song is actually growing on me. Actually, I'm more fond of all of the parodies that have been made of the song. One such parody by Teddie Films brings the song into the Star Wars universe. Besides the Rebecca Black parody, they also have a Star Wars themed version of the Ke$ha Tik Tok video. With Tik Tok, I would have preferred that they write original lyrics, but it was still pretty funny. A friend described it as "terrible," but I say that it's "terribly awesome."

Have a great Friday everyone!

To boldly go

I've always been a Star Trek fan. I was a small child when The Next Generation was running and watched it weekly with my grandfather. I was highly impressed with the show even as a kid, and loved the fact that Levar Burton was on both Reading Rainbow and TNG. I even loved the crossover episode of Rainbow when Burton went behind the scenes of TNG. I could talk all day about that, but the point of my post is to showcase this youtube video that I found today.



I'm not by any means a fan of Ke$ha. I think she tries to hard to be like Lady Gaga, whom I love. But her songs are catchy (damn her) and I enjoy singing along for the most part. This video combines "Tik Tok" her debut song and scenes from Star Trek: The Original Series. I can just imagine William Shatner saying, "Wake up ... in ... the... morning feeling... like... P-Diddy." in his special way.

Enjoy.

Also, I just want to share that as a small child, I wanted to marry Data.*

*Maybe I still do.