If you don’t know what Warped Tour is, let me explain. The summer-long tour is a showcase of the alternative music scene, including acts that make you mosh, and others that can mellow you out. That’s why I love it so much. In the day when the 200 band tour come to my hometown, I get to watch, and interact, with bands that I love. Every year it is a new experience; you get to see bands that you’ve listened to for years, and find new ones to follow. But obviously, it is a different story. No Room For Rockstars follows four musicians and the head of the tour during it’s 2010 season, and makes an entertaining and eye opening hour-and-a-half documentary.

The people that Parris Patton and company covered stretched every sound found on the tour, as well as some of the crew that is involved in making the tour happened. Each one also brings an opinion and a mind-set, including business, touring, and the music industry as a whole. (more…)

The long awaited return of HBO’s Game of Thrones has finally come.  The second season picks up right where it left off, as it should and the war between kingdoms continues to draw nearer and nearer.  Incase you forgot about the first season, it ended with the newly appointed King Joffrey decapitating Ned Stark, who was Joffrey’s father’s “Hand” during his reign, and therefore declaring war on the entire north.  Meanwhile the youngest Stark daughter is on the run, while her sister sits beside her “beloved Joffrey” and her brothers are marching towards the kingdom with full armies marching behind them.  The North has declared war on the kingdom, and the beheading of Ned Stark was the trigger that led to the uprising.  Now it is up to Joffrey to keep kingdom alongside his soon to be Queen Sansa Stark.  The rest of the Starks are leading the battle against Joffrey and his mother. (more…)

Nicki Minaj is going through an identity crisis. And that is not just because she is portraying different personalities in her music. Minaj is labeled as hip-hop, an MC if you were. She even got the nod on MTV’s Hottest MCs list at number four. But she is also a pop artist, making songs that are both radio friendly and club ready. So where exactly would you put her?

That’s a question that is only reinforced on her newest album, Pink Friday…Roman Reloaded. This nineteen song collection almost splits right down the middle in both genres that Nicki is placed in. And depending on which side you prefer is how you will enjoy this album. (more…)

Hello internet perusers!  We are back with round 2 of the four part year break down of things to come.  Between April and June, the writers on HST have plenty that we are looking forward to in movies, music, and games,, and we want to share them with you.  No, none of these are April Fool’s jokes.  Zac is actually really excited to see a movie about male strippers. (more…)

Tarsem is back with an update of the Snow White fairy tale and the results are a cute and fresh story that blazes an original and interesting path out of the classic story.

The big pieces of Snow White are here in Mirror, Mirror; Evil Queen, Seven Dwarves, charming Prince, but the similarities don’t carry on much beyond there.  Tarsem’s visuals give the story a fresh coat of paint and the new twists to the story provide fun wrinkles to keep you on your toes.  The film is family friendly to the fullest and features a great cast that is game for the fun and the movie is all the better for it.

The film succeeds for most of the runtime, but there were a couple of slow spots throughout.  Julia Roberts plays the Evil Queen and while she does a good job I found her elements of the story the least compelling.  (more…)

2010’s Clash of the Titans may not be the best film by far, but for a blockbuster with quite the action and visual effects filled center, it is a movie I honestly don’t get sick of watching when I just want to get lost in something.  With this base and quite the exciting trailer, Wrath of the Titans was looking like a sequel that could far surpass the previous film in more than just sand and mixed mythology.  It could truly be great!

Well, it could have.  The first film had a story already provided to follow (granted I never saw the original Clash, so it could have just been loosely based), so this time I hoped that this world would really get to shine now that they could do anything.  But as my boyfriend said when we were talking about the lack of story structure afterwards, it felt as if they were making it up as they went.  I definitely agree with this, and the basic premise of Perseus needing to save the day as the Gods continue to lose power and suffer due to betrayal is also poorly set up, forewarning us for what is to come. (more…)

If you don’t know who Dev is, then you must not go to the clubs that often. Maybe some songs that she was featured in could jog your memory? How about Far-East Movement’s “Like A G6,” or New Boyz’ “Backseat,” or anything really with The Cataracs. She’s been featured and sampled in numerous songs – more or less because she is incredibly catchy to listen to, can make an awful song bearable.

But what I know her as is being one of the most underrated pop artists to come out in a while. She might use some effects in her voice, but it’s just that, an effect. When she’s stripped down, she can actually sing. And although most of her debut album The Night The Sun Came Up is filled with different effects, it doesn’t hinder this dance-club ready album, but enhances it. (more…)

I’m not really old enough to say this, but I’m going to anyways – pop music isn’t what it once was. With the wave of electronic pop out there, it’s easy to forget that singer/songwriters still exist in today’s music. Hopefully, us music listeners will go back to basics and remember that a piano and a voice is all you need to make a great song. We still have artists like Ben Folds, Ingrid Michaelson, and the resurgence of Fiona Apple as members of this exclusive club, but besides those three (and maybe a couple more), none have had truly great success as mainstream pop artists.

So where does that leave Cathy Heller? Her music has been on big shows including One Tree Hill and Switched at Birth, so she’s obviously getting some ground in music listeners’ self concious. But that alone won’t get you the notoriety that the aforementioned artists have gained. Her newest EP, Imagine Nation, is a bright and imaginative (see what I did there?) effort sure to bring a smile to many faces. (more…)

Years ago, I was flipping between the two MTV shows that were on. I don’t remember what was on the first one, but MTV2 had The Mars Volta’s music video for “The Widow” (off of their 2005 album Frances the Mute) playing. To this day, it is the only music video that legitimately scared me. Maybe it was the people bleeding black out of their eyes, or just the mindtrip parts towards the end of it, regardless of what it was, it made quite the impression on me. Since then, I’ve tried listening to all of their next albums, finding new songs that moved me in ways that I didn’t think a progressive rock band could.

Mind you, this is way before I knew that guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala came from At The Drive-In. And although I went back later to listen to their albums and enjoyed myself, I’d still go back and listen to the over-exemplary complexities of The Mars Volta. Now that At the Drive-In will be reuniting this year, it would be only fitting to release some new material to celebrate. Of course, we do not get a new Drive-In record, but Volta’s Noctourniquet, a complex head-trip that doesn’t stop until the last song. (more…)

The Hunger Games is among the year’s most anticipated films, but I have to say I thought it was mostly awful from start to finish.

The Hunger Games is a yearly competition held in an undisclosed time and place that calls upon two teenage participants from each of the 12 Districts in the world, one male/one female, to compete in a battle to the death where only one will survive.

That is all I knew about The Hunger Games before going into it.  Never saw a trailer, knew a few of the cast members, and was told by a number of people/the internet that the books are really good.  Based off a young adult novel, the film certainly feels that way, but that is nowhere near my biggest complaint of the film.  The film fails to connect us with its characters, the world they live in, or build any sense of stakes or tension along the way.

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A child crawls out of the forest, looking for help that will never come.  Instead he is skewered and beaten to death.  Because he didn’t have the conch.  Yep, that’s how Lord of the Flies worked.  Ok, so maybe not, but this was still a rather gruesome thing to read even as a high schooler.  The Hunger Games had a similar plight in word form as barbaric images depicting children/teens murdering others for survival/sport engrossed masses of readers.  But how exactly does this translate to screen?

For those who don’t know, The Hunger Games tells the post-apocalyptic story in which the 12 districts must offer up a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18 each year as tribute to participate in the games.  Games… The Capitol sure knows how to drain the fun out of that word.  You see, during these “games” the tributes must fight to the death until there is only one left standing.  (more…)

The word monster makes me think of the three things.  First, of dancing along to the monster mash as my classmates and I scampered around the Halloween themed obstacle course constructed out of mats, ropes, and scooters in my elementary school gym.  The day when the gym lights were turned off, ghoulish music blasted, and the obstacle course stood fully erect made for best gym class all year, and not just because it meant a brief reprieve from square dancing (with boys…eeew…cooties!) or other equally gut wrenching activities invented for the sole purpose of torturing us youngins (uhhh, volleyball?  Anyone?  Ok so maybe I just have sensitive wrists).  The second thing monster brings to mind is Monsters Inc, which is by far the greatest Pixar movie in existence.  Anyone that doesn’t want to curl up in the blue fuzzy arms of “Kitty” (a.k.a. Sully) is just dead inside.  And finally, who can think of monsters without thinking of Lady Gaga?  Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Gaga, but she wears dresses made of raw meat!  If that is not horrifying I don’t know what is.

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There are two ways I can approach writing this introductory paragraph for Odd Future, the most controversial rap collective since N.W.A.. One, I can fly my Wolf Gang flag in the air and say that their new album, The OF Tape, Vol. 2 is the best thing ever, or I can be like a lot of critics and just label them as “a bunch of horrorcore.” Although those elements of that subgenre are definitely present on their new album, it seems like the giant collective is starting to successfully evolve and mature their sound.

Ok, let me rephrase what I just stated. They’re maturing their sound and style, but c’mon, they’re STILL the Odd Future parents are scared of they’re kids listening to. (more…)

As my personal evolution into the alternative scene continued to expand over my teenage years, I happened to find a small little movie called Garden State. In this movie, Sam (played by Natalie Portman) hands over her headphones to Andrew (played by Zac Braff), and tells him that “this song will change your life.” The song was The Shins’ “New Slang,” and effectively helped change my musical listenings. This was the first time that I had ever heard of the band – so in retrospect – it seems like Natalie Portman introduced me to them.

A couple years later, The Shins released Wincing The Night Away, which although went over well with other critics, I personally couldn’t get into it. Although some of the songs like “Sleeping Lessons” and “Sea Legs” still inhabit my iPod, I do not play them all too often anymore. (more…)

Heather: For our latest book club installment, I chose Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which I hoped would win me some points with my game-obsessed fellow book club members.  Why exactly did I think this?  Well, if the title wasn’t enough, maybe this brief summary will clue you in.  (Be sure to check out the review I posted previously if you would like something spoiler free: here)

In the unnervingly near future, the Earth is a desolate place, filled with pollution and smog, steel high-rises, and even trailer parks resembling teetering Jenga towers.  As an escape from the bleak surroundings, people often log in to the OASIS – an immense virtual reality where individuals can go to work, school, and even hang out with their friends (many of whom they have never actually met in person).  Shortly after his death, the creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, released video footage describing a quest he created in the latter years of his life. (more…)