1 May 2013 (Wednesday)

May Day! Another sunny day in Seattle. 7 students chose to talk music rather than work on their tans.

As we talked before class started someone mentioned the word "cheesy". This word is used a lot in US English but it's hard to define. Here's a definition.

Somehow we talked a little about Portland, Oregon (3 hours drive from Seattle). Portland is a nice city to visit. It has the world famous books store, Powell's Books (info, website). There's a cheap bus service between Seattle and Portland: BoltBus (website) . Prices start at $1 for the trip!

The first song of the day was "Close To You" (video, lyrics, song info) by The Carpenters (info). The student who chose this song said she has a lot of tests this week and this song relaxes her.

One of the new students said he likes "cheesy" music. I asked him for an example and he chose a song from Brazil, "Vida" (video) by KLB (info).

At this point one of the students mentioned that her Seattle Taiko club would be playing on campus on Friday. The Brazilian student said he knows some Taiko players in Brazil! Apparently Japanese culture is very popular in the part of Brazil where he is from.

Next we listened to a Japanese rapper: D.O. (but the student found the video by typing in Japanese and now I can't find the video!). The student who chose this song says that before this song Japanese rap was lame. She's not a big rap fan, but she likes D.O.'s style.

I asked a Korean student who likes rap a lot for an example of good Korean rap and he chose "Monster" (video, song info) by Drunken Tiger (info).

The next song was totally different: "Yellow" (video, lyrics, song info) by Coldplay (info). The student who chose it likes the lyrics and finds it relaxing. 

The next song was "Owaranai Uta" (video, song info) by The Blue Hearts (info). It is an old Japanese punk band. 

They sound a lot to me like The Clash (info). But no one in the class knew about The Clash so I played "White Riot" (video, lyrics, song info).


With that our time was up for the day.