Posts Tagged ‘Myspace’
Rocket!
Written by Suzanne on January 6, 2009 – 8:49 am -My internet travels landed me on the MySpace page of one very cool rock band. Rocket!
I found them while searching for songs with my name in the title. Rocket joins the list of musicians with a song called Suzanne, such as Leonard Cohen, Weezer, Lou Reed and Journey.
Reality TV viewers might remember them as finalists on The Next Great American Band, a FOX talent show that featured judges Shelia E., Ian Dickson, and John Rzeznick.
“Mixing 60′s girl group innocence with 70′s decibel-damaging boulevard beat and 80′s glam wham swagger, Rocket can only be described as a volatile combination that brings to mind The Shangri-Las crashing the stage during an early Motley Crue gig.” —Rocket MySpace profile

This all girl band is sugar and spice, and everything rock-n-roll wrapped up in a big neon bow of color. So here’s a New Year’s gift for you, my Q&A with Rocket:
Give us the history of Rocket. How did it all start?
Rocket started with three high school friends all named Lauren. But when one moved away to go to school, Lauren Rocket and I (Lauren C.) decided to bring more girls on board. We dragged Kristin-another high school friend of ours-out to play bass, found the other girls…and the rest is history!
When I think about “all girl bands” I get images of Josie and the Pussycats, The Go-Go’s, and fictional band The Carrie Nations. What’s your favorite all girl band from the music history vault?
We always feel like The Runaways are our sisters in crime. Our favorite cartoon girl band is, of course, Jem and the Holograms. And from the 90′s…The Spice Girls! I don’t care that they didn’t play instruments.
Do you feel girl bands have a tougher time breaking into the industry?
We are asked questions like this pretty often and it is always hard to say because it’s not like we’ve ever been in an all-guy band trying to make it. I think that at this point breaking into the music industry is hard, no matter who you are. The only annoying part about being a girl in a band is when people backstage ask, “who’s merch girl are you?”
Inquiring minds want to know, did you meet Johnny Depp while performing at the Viper Room?
We did not meet Johnny Depp while at the Viper Room. But we love him and if anyone ever sees him out, please call us.
Tell us about your experience on The Next Great American Band show.
The TV show was one of the most surreal things ever to happen to us. I’m glad we did it though; we now have a great cover version of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
I thought you guys really rocked the show but you were eliminated. Sometimes I wonder if being the winner of these shows is really a good thing or not. What’s your take on that?
Thanks! I actually don’t know what happened to the winners of the show, so I guess that answers that question. But they were really nice boys!
You guys, I mean gals, live in one happy rock-n-roll house. Which one of you is the housewife?
Lauren and Kelly compete for housewife. Lauren Rocket is a great cook but Kelly Rocket loves to sew.
My favorite song of yours is Suzanne because I’m completely narcissistic when it comes to my name. Who wrote this song and why the name Suzanne?
That’s top secret information that we are not at liberty to divulge. But I’m glad you like the song. Maybe it’s about you?!?!
You have a new album out early 2009. Give us the inside scoop on that?
The inside scoop on our new album is that it will be our first full-length release. We can’t wait to get it out and start playing the new songs and touring. We’re taking over! I should also mention we have some fun guests on the record. You’ll have to wait and see…
If you could tour with any band who would that be?
Since we all have different tastes in music, it would be different for each of us. I would love to tour with The White Stripes but Kristin Rocket would love to tour with Motorhead-She loves Lemmy!!!
You can purchase and download Rocket music by clicking here.
Posted in Interviews
5 Reasons I Like MySpace
Written by Suzanne on August 7, 2008 – 12:00 pm -
This might be a controversial topic for some because I’ve met more than a few people that despise MySpace. Mention you have an account and they’ll shake their heads at how stupid they think you must be. If you’re over 30 you might even get more than a good head shaking.
Logging into MySpace is one of the first things I do every morning and here are some reasons why.
5 reasons I like Myspace:
1. Music
I’ve found so many great new artists, like The Rayees, while hopping from friend to friend, or searching for music through MySpace listings. You can find out more about The Rayees under my Interviews Category. Adding songs to my profile is one of my favorite things to do on the web, besides hearing songs on my friends profile pages of course.
2. Visuals
Adding photos from my Photobucket account, or videos from YouTube makes my MySpace, my space. Photographers, and artists can use their profile page like a window to an internet art gallery. My alter ego and great logo was designed by an artist I met through MySpace named George Davis.
I found Mario Della Casa, the celebrity artist and Jeannie bottle maker, while I was looking at his friend Anthony Michael Hall’s MySpace page. Go to my Interviews Category to read more about Mario.
3. Networking
Before having my own site I never understood the concept of networking through a social network. Now I can see how amazing it can be. I make a friend with you, you make a friend with me, your friend tells their friends, my friends tells their friends, and we do it so effortlessly while listening, viewing and reading information about one another. Sort of like the old Faberge commercial remember… you’ll tell 2 friends and they’ll tell 2 friends, now you got it, and so on…
4. Bulletins
These are a nifty MySpace feature that many of my friends use daily. It’s a great way to tell everyone what you are up to, what you are going to do and anything you want to shout out. John Cusack uses bulletins quite often to let War, Inc. movie fans know the latest news about the film. Check out my review of War, Inc. under my Reviews Category.
5. Blogging
The blog section is a great place to share ideas, thoughts, and information with people. I use it to let my MySpace friends know what’s been happening on Housewife in Hollywood.com. For people who don’t want their own blog site it’s a nifty way to have the blogging experience without having their own site to manage.
I’m on Facebook but it’s not visual enough for me and the drop down menus drive me a bit nutty. Not to mention all the little applications that can be added, I just can’t keep up. I do have an account but if I had to choose I’d go with MySpace.
Check out this Facebook song by Rhett & Link.
Visit me at myspace.com/bippityboppityblog
So how about you? What’s your social network preference?
Posted in The 5 on Friday
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rayees
Written by Suzanne on July 6, 2008 – 10:38 am -One thing I love about Myspace is the ability to find music that I might not come across anywhere else. I can spend hours going from one profile to the next, finding new music from around the world, including pictures, videos, and information about the musicians.
During my Myspace musical travels, I found The Rayees. I’ve been dancing in my living room, and singing along with their music so much lately, I just had to find out more about them. Here’s my interview with Blue and Merrick, also known as The Rayees.
HIH: According to Myspace you’re in Paris, London, New York, France. Besides inquiring about underpants the first question that pops into my mind is… Where are you from originally?
TR: We’re both French frogs from freaky frenchy France but we travel a lot cos we like to jump around like the French frogs we are. By the way we’ll soon be back in London.
HIH: Give us some back history about your dynamic duo in music. How did you go from Merrick and Blue to The Rayees?
TR: We’ve always been singing, alone or together. We sang our little heart out through life, we sang at home, in our rooms, in parks, on benches, and at school too. Especially in our high school bathroom cos the accoustic was just amazing. One day we wanted to go see Bridget Jones the movie, and we were broke. So we sat down in a subway station in Paris and started singing acapella. In no time we had enough money to go see the movie. It was supposed to be a one time thing, but we decided to do it again. That’s when we really learnt how to harmonize, and mix, twist and play with each others voice. Then one day, years later, we ordered pizzas, and because eating pizzas make us happy and optimistic, we took our black guitar and started to write our first song. It’s called A Stranger. It was a year and a half ago. We wrote something like a billion songs since then.
HIH: Do you two collaborate on everything? Who writes your songs?
TR: We both write the songs, sing the songs, and make out with the fans. It’s pretty much the Rayees philosophy, doing it all together, the pictures, the videos, the singing, the recording, and yeah, the making out part too.
HIH: You have so many cool videos on the internet, reminiscent of a young MTV when they actually played videos. Yours are authentic and creative, with unique graphics, and visuals that express not only your music but the style of The Rayees. Tell us more about the making of your videos.
TR: Well, it won’t surprise you, but we make all our videos ourselves with our cheap camera and our cheap clothing and cheap acting. And we love it that way. We usually write the scenario on a single sheet of paper and then we start doing our thing, dancing, acting, farting on each other’s face. We have friends – family – and two dogs helping us in the making. It’s a lot of fun really.
HIH: Both of your voices are very powerful yet they compliment one another. Is this how your personalities work together most of the time?
TR: We’re pretty much the same, but different. We grew up together, and we spend most of our time together, we laugh at the same jokes, speak at the same time, so we’re pretty much like twins. Except we don’t look the same. But we do wear the same clothes sometimes.
HIH: The Rayees sound has a great sense of retro, vintage and modern all whirled up together. What are some of your artistic influences, musical or otherwise?
TR: We’re always trying to cultivate our retro sound and looks, we’re both big fans of Ella Fitzgerald, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and we love to drown ourselves in the Beatles colored and psychedelik world, so yeah, of course, when it comes to make videos, we’ll try to make it look like a part of Ken Kesey’s acid test, and when we sing a song, we try to pretend we’re singing it with flowers in our hair in San Francisco golden gate park.
HIH: It seems that both of you are not the least bit afraid to reveal yourselves in videos and pictures, lots of star pasties and bodies in interesting poses. Do you feel this free spirited while playing live?
TR: It’s actually a lot worse. When we are filmed on stage, the filming staff will probably have to use a lot of blurring effects and “beep” sounds. It’s awful, it seems like we just can’t keep our clothes on. But honestly, we don’t have any shame about that. It’s just the way we like it. Barefeet, barechests, and slutty.
HIH: I dig The Rayees fan art on your Myspace blog. Did you hold a contest of some sort or do fans just make artwork and send it in?
TR: God no. All those contests on myspace kinda freak us out. There’s a new one every day, there’s always some price of some sort to win, but if you look closer, it’s just some band trying to promote themselves. Alanis Morrissette is having her own contest on myspace right now “you sing, she decides”. So no, no contest for us, at least not until we get as big as Alanis and make as much money as she does.
HIH: I’m constantly going to The Rayees Myspace profile so I can listen to your playlist. Where can I purchase or download your music?
TR: Well, you can’t right now. Unless if you want to sneak in our recording studio and steal all the files and upload them on the internet, which would be kinda mean. We’re in talks with different labels and so we won’t release the music ourselves (on Itunes for instance) til we see where those negociations go. But the road to our first album is long and hard.
HIH: The Rayees did Spain recently, where else have you performed and where will you be in the future?
TR: Well, we used to perform much more than we do now, since we started to sing at a subway station we didn’t really care how big or crowded – or clean – was the place. But lately we’ve mostly spent our time recording in studio, and we’re also, thanks to the help of a French music label, getting our own professional band. We’ll start rehearsing with them soon and our next concerts will be much better, but don’t worry, we’ll still strip down our clothes. Love and licks baby.
You can listen to The Rayees, and watch more of their creative videos on Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube.

