New-Years-Policy?

I'm interested to hear if anyone has made any New Years Policies. Gohead and post them hear if you have any.......

Where I'm Calling From

Reading another Carver book. Is there anyone more real than Raymond Carver?
Who else would insert the line:

"She worked Wednesdays through Sundays."

on its own in between two paragraphs? No one, that's who.

Policy VS. Resolution

I dislike New Years resolutions. I've never made one in my life. Besides disliking the fact that they are temporary and are rarely kept, I dislike the word resolve because it is awkward-sounding to say and it started becoming popularized and excessively used in noun form (as in: I admire your resolve) by President Bush (and then the common American vinacular) soon after 9/11. But I digress.

I wanted to share with my readers some success I've been having recently with what I call "policies". I've been setting policies for myself regarding what I will and won't do in social situations. Most are won't-dos, but that's OK. It prevents me from being roped into doing something I dislike and it prevents me from feeling bad and coming up with lame excuses. Policies also prevent pretentiousness and create honesty and people like that. Policies are much more permanent than resolutions and are more about protocol, rather than will-power.

Here's a couple for instances:
- When someone says a word and I don't know what it means, I stop them and simply say, "I don't know what that word means." rather than pretending I do know what it means.

- I won't listen to "jam bands" or try to like them for someone who tries to get me to listen to My Morning Jacket or Phish or Dave Matthews or Greatful Dead. I don't listen to jam bands and I skip over the articles about them in magazines.

I have a handful of solid policies that help me navigate my social world and I'm creating more. Want to make a policy of your own? Here are some places to start:
* food
* borrowing/lending
* sharing opinions
* products you won't buy
* fashion
* vocabulary
* social norms

Remember, resolutions might be just for January, but a policy can be instated/amended at any time!

How embarassingly fanboyish I am!

Gob Iron (above) Jay Farrar (below)

Oh man. I went last night to see my rock idol, Jay Farrar (of Son Volt fame) play a solo set and then play with his side project Gob Iron (Brit slang for harmonica) at Slim's. Brilliant.

First of all, I've gotta say Hans and I had sucky luck at first- finding the place was difficult and then I thought I lost my wallet, but I didn't. Then the girl in front of me at the box office turned around and gave me a free ticket and said she won 2 tickets online and didn't need the other one. FREE. My luck had changed.

Jay played 4 or 5 songs from the upcoming (can't wait!) Son Volt album just on the acoustic guitar. Man, the lyrics are so visual and uniquely American and tragic and my brain was teleported to a far off place in my inner mind! Even with just those stripped down skeletal songs, Hans, who is not a Farrar fan, seemed affected by them. Either Hans was bored or blown away because his jaw had dropped.

That would've been good enough by itself, but guitarist/lapsteelist Mark Spencer came out and backed Jay up with a telecaster and it was just amazing. I'm not sure I've seen that many virtuosic performances of that level up close and personal. Spencer was out of this world and at times, it didn't even sound like a guitar. If I had a choice between some first-chair violinist slinging a Stradivarius and Mark Spencer, I'd choose Mark Spencer. Heck, I'd choose Spencer with his hands tied behind his back, he sounds so amazing. And you would too!

Gob Iron is a side project of Jay Farrar and Anders Parker (of Varnaline fame). They have reworked traditional folk songs with altered lyrics/melodies on their new album. They came on and played a great short set- basically played through the new album. The three guys traded between drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and lapsteel. Their encore was just sort of a jam session thing where they played covers and reworked each others' solo stuff. The encore was kind of sucky except that I love Jay's electric guitar solos and you don't get to see that that much in Son Volt.

But holy crap, what a good show!

The guys traded off on this guitar(above), belonging to Anders Parker. It's a costom made telecaster made out of pieces of his mom's barn. Click here to see more beauty.

Happy Thanksgiving!

HATED IT!

So, as I said in a recent post, most of the movies I rent have something to do with music. This also goes for about half of the books I read. High Fidelity is a novel about a British audiophile who also owns a record store. Unlike the movie, which kind of portrays the main character (I forget his name- that's how sucky the book is) as a street savvy indie guy who collects rare Belle and Sebastian B-sides, this British guy goes gah-gah over weird Tina Turner LPs and stuff (?????). He's also annoyingly clueless about women and does horrible things to them, but still thinks it's their fault. Immature. Kind of a weenie. It's like- get it together! You're 30, not 21!

Anyway, I quit reading it halfway through the book.

Some authors can create a character who you are supposed to hate. This wasn't one of those. Some authors can create a character who is pathetic and you start to love them because you are sympathetic to them. I think that's what Hornby tried to do, but he missed the mark. It's like when you're sitting next to somebody on the BART who is infringing on your personal space or something. Instead of sitting there and taking it, you get up and move to the next car at the next stop. So that's what I did. It's OK to just stop reading a crappy book.... or a book that just annoys you for that matter.

So I picked up a western detective novel that my friend Scott mailed me called "No Country For Old Men" by none other than Cormac McCarthy. A guy starts killing people with one of those blunt pnuematic hammers they slaughter cattle with in the first couple pages. Now that's a classic!

Headphones

These kinda headphones that come with the ipod are serious crap. Mine were always super quiet, distorted when the music was bassy, and stopped working at the drop of a hat. So I went to my local Walgreens and bought some cheapies for $9.99 and they're spectacular! They openned up a whole new world to me! Super full sound, can go way louder that the ipod ones, and they don't fall out or feel like they're half-way in your ear. I know I shouldn't crank the volume way up, but let's face it, when riding my bizz-nike to work and listening to All Songs Considered or This American Life, Bob Boilen and Ira Glass don't exactly have those razor radio voices and they can't compete with Dwight/San Pablo traffic. I even was able to play the drums along to a whole Son Volt album- something I could've never heard over the drums with the ipod headphones. I'd rather have a pair of my cheapies than ten thousand ipod ones.

Really great songs with music videos that are cartoons:

C'mon, you're not doing anything else right now.

Beulah "Gene Autry"


Of Montreal "Wraith Pinned to the Mist"


Aberfeldy "Love is an Arrow"

Love is a verb and a noun as well.
You'll find it in the dictionary under 'L'.

Movies about Music

I would say that the majority of movies I put on our Netflix queue have to do with music. It's pretty hit-or-miss with them because what looks like a festival documentary (Bonaroo 96) turns out not to have real live footage, but montages of the weird naked hippies at the festival while the music plays in the background. Or band documentaries, like the one on Beulah (one of my favorite bands) that are nothing more than cam-corder footage from inside their van. However, I had a couple big scores in the last week.

The first was the Chorus. I thouroughly enjoyed it. One of the things that popped out to me was the Math teacher. He sucked at teaching math, but I totally related to how he just couldn't stay away from the chorus. He wanted to be around music and wanted to help out. He was just frantic about being close to music, because there wasn't any other music to speak of.

Also, movies/books about boyhood really get me right here (I'm making a gesture as if being stabbed in the heart) when they tackle the theme of what I call "the dichotomy of boyhood." What I mean is that I think we, as boys, have this inate dichotomy where we want to be Superman, firemen, cops and save/help people, but we also fantasize violence and killing. Young boys adore their female cohorts, but despise them as well. We love to build things, but delight in explosions and demolition. I think this movie touched on this in a subtle but thought-provoking way and it makes me nostalgic in that way that you can get nostalgic about even the darker parts of your life.

Also, surprisingly, I really got to like the name Boniface.


I also rented a movie about the making of Nirvana's "Nevermind" album. It's from a series called "Classic albums" and it was super in-depth and technical. A lot of it was filmed at Butch Vig's (producer) sound board as he literally deconstructed each song and showed the viewer things like what this song would have sounded like had the voice not been doubled, or what it would've sounded like if the song had drums instead and why and so on.

He explained, in a way that both JIll and I understood, how one song was not working out, so Kurt went over, sat on the couch with an acoustic, and said, "It should sound like this." Butch Vig ran and brought the mics out to him and had him just play it. What Vig explained so well was how it became a problem to record the drums, bass, and cello because Cobain had not recorded the song to a click track, so the tempo is all over the place. His guitar was also not in tune, the the bass and cello had to be tuned strangely. Fantastic.

I have often blogged about wanting musical writing/journalism and movies to be more technical and this one didn't dumb it down at all. This movie will convince you why this was one of the most important pieces of art ever.

As French as fries or toast

Very Boring.
Very American.
Great music, but only 15 seconds at a time.
Half-way through the film I was ready to operate the gillotine myself.

Midlake "The Trials of Van Occupanther"

Hans kept talking about this band, MIDLAKE, and then made me a mix cd with 3 or 4 of the songs on it. I was sold. Went out and got it on Monday and my iPod has been playing it non stop. I've even considered clearing my iPod of everything but Midlake.

The way this CD really got me is well described below in my previous post. I liked it, but there were really some things I hated about it. One of these things was when lead singer, Tim Smith, sings out the line, "I'm Van Occupanther! I'm Van Occupanther!" I thought, "That's lame sauce! How sucky! How obvious!" But after a few listens, I found myself on my bike, head back smiling, whimsically singing along to those very same lines believing that I, myself, was Van Occupanther!

A truly great album is one that you start out saying something like, "It's OK, but their drummer sucks! He ruins the album for me." And a week later, you're like, "That drummer is revolutionary! He's a visionary! He makes the album!" And that sort of epiphany happened for me when getting into this album, but it was more about some of their artistic choices that rubbed me the wrong way at first, but then I realized they were strokes of genius.

I think Van Occupanther is a real piece of genius, high art, greatness, what have you.

One of the greatest things about these guys is that they did not just hire some orchestral instrumentalists to back them up, these guys played the flute and the bassoon themselves throughout the record and it really colors things. And I love love love the synthesizers!

Hey, don't just take my word for it, check out what Earl says about Midlake:

"The Trials of Van Occupanther is now one of the most important modern records I own. In an age of overly-used irony and disconnected nonchalance, this record actually means something, and Midlake should be forever hailed for their unique and genuine approach to music. Simply put, Van Occupanther has backbone, and the fact that you don't feel cheated by it gives one hope that sincerity can still exist within modern alternative music."

Jason Lee, Star of My Name is Earl and Midlake Cohort

What makes a FANTASTIC record?

After over a decade of music fanboyism, concert going, magazine reading, and record collecting I have finally unlocked the secret to the timeless mystery: "What makes a great album?"

Here it is: If after a few listens the things that you hated about the record are now the things you love about the record- then it is officially FANTASTIC!

My work here is done.
Beam me up, Scotty!

New Pernice Bro.s Record Out

I got my Pernice Brothers CD in the mail yesterday PLUS my special fanboy pre-order bonus CD that was hand screenprinted and hand signed by Joe Pernice. On my sleeve the screenprinting was a little smeared and next to the smear he wrote"(shakey hand)". It's gonna be our little nest egg when I sell it for a million bucks on ebay. Not really. The Bonus CD is alternate mixes and demos. I thought the demos would be, like most, Joe with an acoustic guitar singing the songs into a 4track. The 4track part is correct, but it's a weird drum machine, a lot of electric guitars, and him just singing, "Da tee dum dum daaaah" through all of each song. So weird. I was kind of pissed. The alternate mixes are OK. They are mostly just the band pulled out of the mixes so it is just Joe, piano, and the orchestra. Also- they gave me hella stickers in my order! Dissapointed with the bonus fanclub disc, but the sleeve is pretty cool. I can feel your jealosy.

The album is pretty good. Not their best. Need more time with it. For now, here's a cool video for their single. It's kinda funny:

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Watched this documentary last night about Daniel Johnston. He's sort of a skitzoid savant genius songwriter who has the voice of a little boy and sings very sweet, but tortured songs. Got himself famous by recording "albums" by placing a portable tape recorder against his piano and just playing/singing. The tapes just got passed around and passed around and this is all in the early 80s. Even made in on MTV in 1985 (only having played one real show) by ambushing a taping that was going on in his hometown.
Some questions I am left with: As a believer in Jesus who has a hard time understanding the devil, if this guy is really possessed and not just crazy, why would the devil pick this guy who is an outspoken christian (was even arrested for writing hundreds of christian fishes all over the inside of the statue of liberty in order to ward off the innevitable "military take-over")? ALSO: How synonymous are the words genius and crazy? The people in my life who I believed were even borderline genius couldn't hang socially. Van Gogh cut off his ear.

I think musicians and people interested in "spirit world" type stuff could/should watch this movie. I think musicians should definately have Daniel Johnston in their musical vocabulary and be able to reference his style/influence. I think spiritual people would have an interesting time cracking this egg.

New Song Posted

New song up on my Myspace page called "Fake #1 Dream".

Lyrics- some thoughts

Lyrics are really not the most important part of music for me. In fact- the less, the better. If you're gonna be wordy and obvious, you'd better be pretty friggin clever (i.e. Joe Pernice). Otherwise, I really like the abstract stuff where lyricists have some more "visual" words... sort of a lyrical impressionism. I'm very much into the whole "let the listener decide what it's about" thing.

So what kind of lyric really cinches the deal for me? Well, Jill and I were listening to the Promise Ring all day yesterday and a great example came up.

First, so I can make my point, pretend that words have no meaning- just sound. The only character is found in their sound and not in an attached definition. Then ask yourself what makes a good melody or musical phrase? Most people would say that when a short simple melody is played, but then repeated and as they are repeated, small variations are made on that one melody. Think about Marry Had A Little Lamb- it's basically one melody line of notes that is improved upon just slightly, but progressively. Now go back to my idea about words having no meaning and check this Promise Ring lyric out:

And she slept across the ocean
as we crossed the ocean.
And I got cross with the ocean.

from "saturday" on The Horse Latitudes EP

This is a good example, because this is nonsensical and really doesn't have meaning other than what you visualize in your mind. Anyway, it's a variation on a repeated lyric where CROSS and THE OCEAN are in every line, but improved upon progressively.

Also, for a frame of reference, he's been repeating (mumbling) the lines "She drank white wine. Makes me want to marry her memories madly." up until that point. Not a great set of lines but the fact that they are mumbled and repeated quietly until the song climaxes with loud guitars and the "cross the ocean" lyrics scream-sung, those opening boring lyrics set the stage for an exciting conclusion. BEAUTIFULLY done.

Anyway, there you go.

OK, so I just wanted a guitar like his.....

Jay Farrar looking tuff with a beard and my guitar.

Goodbye, old friend.

While searching Craigslist for building materials, I happened upon a guy selling a guitar that I've always wanted. I've always been content with my guitars. The only thing is that neither has a Bigsby (whammy bar), but I don't necessarily have the funds or the motivation to buy one and have it attached to either guitar. So I simply asked this guy if he would trade. I went out to the city last night and we swapped the SG for his guitar.

Now, I'm not super sentimental about my guitars. They are just expensive paintbrushes. A painter remembers his art, not his brushes. And the art I made with this guitar is precious. The upper right is a picture of me with my SG recording "We Frequent the Sky, Maurice" (click to listen) with Til Seven in 98/99, which has the ballsiest guitar sound ever made by anyone! Also the things I did and places I went with this guitar are what I'll remember. Above at the left is a pic of me with the SG playing at the Troubador in Hollywood in maybe 2000. Bought it in 96 or 97, so we've had 10 great years.

Happy trails, good buddy.........

So, introducing: my new Gretsch Electromatic Duo Jet (Pro Jet)!

This Made My Day

There's one at every show....


It just gets funnier......

JIM & PAM

Arright we could all use some Jim and Pam moments this time of the week.

Son Volt YouTubes from Bonaroo

CHICKAMAUGA- great neil young solo from JAY
Fantastic harmonies, too.
also- check out the hippe-spin-hand-dance movements in the foreground
there's at least one at every show


WINDFALL
I think the hippie chick moved to the front for this one.

I WON!!!!!

Holy crap! I won! Well, I won a CD give away from some local entertainment site/blog and won the new Magnolia Electric Co CD. Yes the one that they had on tour at that show (before the release date) and then sold out of before I bought one that night. The funny thing is that when I typed my email into that contest, it just kept saying "error: invalid address" and I kept typing it in and being like "whaaa?" but maybe I was really entering multiple times who knows? This also might be karma- in return for the Magnolia EP that got ruined with coffee in the car.

Anton Karas

Fantastic Zither music by Anton Karas. I saw the Third Man recently and was totaly inspired by the score. Go to my other blog here to see how it's impacted me. The video below is not so much a video as it is just a sound clip of Karas' "Harry Lime's Theme" being played on a vintage turntable. Click on it! It will make your day!

Crystal Lake

Is it just me or does/should everyone want to be like Jason Lytle of Grandaddy?

Taps

I went hiking with Jill in the Marin Headlands yesterday. As we were walking towards some small abandoned bunkers that once held gun turrets during WWII, we could here music coming from across a cove or inlet where another large bunker or barracks was. It was brass band music and it sounded like some funeral durge, like the ghosts of some army band was playing for their fallen camrades. Very much like the out-of-tune horn stuff in Neutral Milk Hotel. And the way the wind was catching it and modulating it and the way the sound was bouncing off the landforms twisted it and made it sound other-worldly. Truly ghostly.

When we got closer, we realized there was some sort of band camp. A YMCA inside the park was hosting it and the brass section of the marching band was practicing in what looks like an amphitheatre, but is really the base of where a gun turret once swivelled. The picture above/left is of that turret at the top of that very exposed bunker. As we walked on we saw the drum line and the color guard. For some reason, geeky teenagers wearing Columbine trench coats hitting tightly tuned snare drums as Magic the Gathering cards fall out of their pockets just isn't as cool as a troop of spooks playing taps from beyond.

Sometimes I would very much like to have field recording equipment.

My Record Collection

A pretty complete inventory of my record collection can be found HERE, if anyone's curious. I did this a couple weeks ago and it was really fun. It doesn't include most of my vinyl or some rare compilations and it doesn't include the CDs I married into.

"Pricks!"

Love how Bob introduces this song.... quite possibly one of the best pop songs ever written.
Don't believe me?

Robert Pollard


Guided by Voices at Ameoba

Review of Friday's show

On Friday Jill and I went to see Mates of State at the Greek Theater. They were openning for Spoon and Death Cab For Cutie. Mates went on right at 7:00 sharp before the majority of the people had even come in. Basically, the stadium was empty. We sat in the stands and watched happily as the yuppie set bought $16.95 cocktails, the hippie set wandered aimlessly, and a lot of parents escorted their teens and preteens. Kinda weird.

It felt like they only played for fifteen minutes. Most of their set lacked energy, as I think they feed a lot off of the crowd and the crowd wasn't giving them anything compared to the recent packed out bouncing, singing along, dancing crowd at the Great American Music Hall. It was an OK set and one highlight was how they smartly slipped that Gnarles Barkley song into the bridge of "Like You Crazy". They announced that they had two songs left, but only played one and were quickly swept off the stage.

Spoon played forgetful songs. Not sure how to describe their sound or style or genre. It's like when you put your drink cup under the Coke dispenser at a fast food stop and only the carbonated water comes out. No flavor. Sorry Spoon. Enjoy your Jaguars.

We stuck around to see what Death Cab was gonna do. They definately played the good stuff first (stuff from the Photo Album and the rare song "Photobooth"), but then they quicly fell into the pattern of sort of making fake endings to every song- slow it down, get very quiet. Then build it back slowly to sort of a climax and that got sort of old, when done in every song, so we took off.

MATES OF STATE "Fraud in the 80s" video


MATES OF STATE some footage that includes recording of "Ha Ha"


DEATH CAB Actual footage from the other night playing "Photobooth"

Book Talk I (Ask the Dust)

Recently one of my favorite books was made into a movie. It's called Ask the Dust by John Fante. It's a book about an 18/20-year-old Italian American who moves out on his own to LA during the depression to "make it" as a writer. He does things like blow all his money on stupid stuff so that he can't pay rent and has only oranges to eat. He falls in love with the impossible-to-get Camilla Lopez and does things like use racial slurs and being plain old disagreeable to get her attention. Their tumultuous relationship (or lack thereof) frames the time before the semi-autobiographical character Arturo Bandini really does make it as a writer by writing about Camilla.

I read this book when I had just moved out on my own and had no money and was trying to make it as a musician and in my career. I did stupid stuff and I said stupid stuff and I felt just as bold, indestructible and yet stupid all at the same time- just like Arturo Bandini. I was so into this book, I even thought I would name my first son Arturo Bandini Gidlund because I felt so connected with this character.

Then came Colin Farrell and Selma Hayek to ruin everything for me. Watching two folks pushing 40 playing two characters who were written to be at least 20 years younger was pathetic! Ebert and Roper gave it thumbs down because they couldn't figure out why two people would insult each other and put each other down in such an immature way if they really loved each other. The answer is that that's how it works when you're 18, 19, 20. That age group is like a 2nd adolescence and love is interrupted by insecurity.

Besides that, their acting was melodramatic and half-ass. The whole story was changed. And the whole theme of growing out of an insecure youth through experience to reach real goals in a new-found adulthood is thrown out with the bathwater.

Donald Southerland does a fantastic Job as the gin loving Helfrick, but they left out the part where Helfrick takes Arturo to "get a steak" and drives him out into the countryside and smashes a calf's head in and makes Arturo help him get it back into the car. Hilarious! And I'm glad they put the Vera character in the movie (Arturo's scarred [think Sun Also Rises] and domineering 1st sexual experience) but in the book, she more like seduces Arturo rather than guilts him into sex.

Anyways, don't ever watch this movie. It will liquify your brain. However, I think Ask the Dust is an American Classic and Fante is overlooked as being one of the greatest Californian writers. Kiddin me? I'd put him right below Steinbeck.

MOVIE TRAILER:


*****************************************************
Also, yesterday was our third wedding aniversary and Jill posted a great Creeley poem on her blog that was printed on our wedding program.

Review of Friday Night's Show

"Broke my heart to leave the city
I mean it broke what wasn't broken in there already"

" I think the stars are just the neon lights
Shining through the dance floor
Of heaven on a Saturday night"

"I learned how to make a living out of making mistakes
Besides, you've got such pretty eyes for a snake"

......Just some lyrical highlights from Magnolia Electric Co.


We got to the Bottom of the Hill at about 10:00 and shortly thereafter the local Dying Californian started out the evening. They were sort of like if the boozey lurch of Palace/Will Oldham had a drummer like Mineral's Gabe Weiley or SDRE's William Goldsmith. It was entertaining and their bassist looked just like Ray Ramano. They also had an actaul real back-up singer and he even kinda looked like Will Oldham.


Next up was Ladyhawk. When they took the stage, I was a little surprised. They were basically gutter punks. Black hooded sweatshirts (hood on, mind you) filthy dirty tight pants or big shorts. They started out with a blaring rocker that had a lot of mathy parts. I think everybody in the room had their mouths dumbly hanging open. These guys have mixed mathy metal with (yes, again) boozey Palace/Will Oldham country. Their guitarist looked like another TV star- that Hobbit on Lost. He did some crazy stuff on that guitar and always had great feedback and this huge crunchy-but-warm fuzz tone. The singer, a portly gutterpunk with a beard (that was probably just there because he didn't care to shave/bathe, not because of the fashion) introduced one song by saying, "This song is about burning yourself with cigarettes." Very fun set with funny moments and moments where they did these great mathy changes and everybody in the room was like, "How in the crap did they do that?"


Magnolia Electric Company is like if my dad was in a band that could ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE! Singer, Jason Molina is an old guy. And he rocks. He's kind of like a Hobbit, too. A Hobbit that really BRINGS THE ROCK! What can I say, an hour of Crazy Horse-esque jamband guitar assault. One standout feature was that you could actually hear the piano/keyboard! That never happens. Even though I shouted out for them to play "Hard to Love a Man" a ton of times (and probably embarassed Keith), they never played it and "Bowery" was the only song they played off that fantastic EP.

The bummer is that they had their new record for sale at this show and it doesn't come out until October! What a find!!!!! And I was like, "Oh, I'll get it right before we leave so I don't hafta carry it around all night." When I went back, it was sold out! How much does that suck for a collector like me!!???!! And it pains me to think that maybe one of the people who bought what could have been my CD was one of the MANY annoying 16-year-old girls who spent the whole show rudely text messagingtheir annoying friends (probably in the same room) and don't even appreciate how cool that early-release-rare-hard-to-find disc is. RaaaaAAAAAARRRRGH!

Other than that, we had a great time. Great show. And we didn't even start any bar fights or anything.

Hold On, Magnolia

"Punk rock was my first girl
She left me a scar, so I have her still

She's not young, but she's not old yet
We share the same sun, but hers never sets"

I listened to Beulah's (link to band website) entire cataalog yesterday while working and those few lines from the song "Silver Lining" have always rang true with me. A lot of us found punk rock because it was the only thing we felt like we were good at at that time in our youth. It was nicer to us than girls were.


Can't wait to see MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC COMPANY with my brother tonight!
Here's a live clip of them doing "At Least the Dark Don't Hide It".


Here's a fan video of the song "Hold On Magnolia" with a smash-up car derby.

Here's Songs: Ohia's (Jason Molina solo) music video of "Back on Top".

HOLY CRAP! IT'S GONNA BE GREAT!

What I've been listening to lately...

Originally Posted 8/3



Listening to a lot of music since I've been working out in the yard the last few days. A lot of instrumental stuff like the Timeout Drawer (video) and Saxon Shore (video) and Sharks Keep Moving (bio/photo). But I also can't stop listening to (and singing loudly along with) Ryan Adams and the Cardinals "Jacksonville City Nights".

It's fantastic. I've owned this for a while, but I never appreciated it like I have this week. Ryan Adams has done a full swing back to old-time honkytonk country. And I can't get enough. "Dear John" is so super sad. Also here, as on his solo debut Heartbreaker, Adams has a tendency to have a couple-three short songs that barely have one verse and one chorus and then they end without a lot of development. On Heartbreaker, these songs are drab, boring, and trail off unimaginatively. On Jacksonville, though, these short tracks (ie. Silver Bullets, September, Pa) are colored by his backing band The Cardinals, whose pedal steel, harmony vocals, violin, etc. make up for the purposefully short, intentionally unrealized compositions. Plus, holy crap! Adams covers one of his own songs- Whiskeytown's "My Heart is Broken". Homerun! Can't stop listening!

Ryan and the Cards on Austin City Limits doing "Hard Way to Fall" (video)


Here's them doing "The End"(video)

Here's Ryan doing the classic "Come Pick Me Up"(video).

Shows to see, records to get......

Originally posted 7/30

Shows to see:
Magnolia Electric Co. August 4 at Bottom of the Hill
Mates of State/DeathCabforCutie Greek Theatre Aug 11 (scored 2 tickets!)
Unwed Sailor Aug 11 at Hotel Utah (....woops, I can't go to this one)

FYI: the underlined stuff are links (usually to really great video footage). I know it's hard to tell since they're still in orange writing. Click on 'em if you're interested.

Albums to get:
Sparklehorse "Dreamt For Lightyears In The Belly Of A Mountain" September 26 release
Jay Farrar/Anders Parker "Gob Iron" October Release
Pernice Brothers "Live a Little" October Release
Unwed Sailor "The White Ox" October 17 Release
Son Volt new album Spring 06 Release

Oh, and here's a great Pernice Brothers video. It's funny and features a song from their forthcoming album.

Fallen Angel

Originally Posted 7/22

When I woke up today I put that new Gram Parsons movie in. That guy just wasn't that great.

Sorry, I wanted to watch it because both Parsons and Townes Van Zandt (see earlier posting about Townes with link to one of the coolest songs ever!) are folks that people tried to turn me onto a while ago and I "just didn't get it", but when I watched that Townes documentary I "got it" and got really into it. So I wanted to see if that happened the same with Gram Parsons. Side note: I think I got a CD or double CD of GP at the public Library when I was living in Hayward and didn't like. Anyway, I did not get into Gram the way I got into Townes.

The doc sucked. Boring. Good thing the guy discovered Emmy Lou, because he sucked on his own. I'll give him that- thanks for giving us Emmylou Harris. All his music just seems half-ass, but I really like his fashion stizzyle.

61

Originally Posted 7/16

"There's no reason to feel downhearted. There's music in the wheels there to be found."
(link to video of Son Volt's Letterman performance of "Afterglow 61")


Thanks Jay.

Waiting Around To Die

Originally posted 7/09

Oh man, if anybody actually reads this blog besides myself, they should watch this entire clip.

Also, I'm reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Sorta can't believe that I'm gonna read another by him. This is by far his most violent. And probably the second most violent thing I ever read. But I think what I'm drawn to is this visual, like, old west "circus" type image that's always in my head. You know. He's so vague. Most of the time his writing is just a skeleton, not much description, yet, I always have this sort of creepy circus visuals in my head. You know, indians with top hats ....or.... Gypsy caravans full of Asian Mormons, or something, who are going through high desert eating their own mules as they go. I read his books and I think, man I wish I could write a song the way he writes a book.

Let's Get Technical!

Originally Posted 6/28

Still reading "Nothing Feels Good" and I'm starting to get a little disappointed. The lack of technical insight is blaring. The author keeps referring to Jeremy Enigk (of SDRE) as singing in falcetto, but Enigk doesn't go into a true falcetto but once on the whole album being referred to- Diary. Are we listening to the same CD, Andy Greenwald?

Also, in reading all of these music journalist books, music bios, I really just need more technical info. For instance, Andy should have established some basic norms of what that music sounds like and why it sounds the way it does, like: The calling card of the genre is a drum pattern consisting of 4 consecutive 8th notes from the kick drum followed by two quarter note beats from the snare while keeping four quarter notes on a ride or crash. This is accentuated when preceeded by a verse in 2/4 time, causing the listener to feel like the tempo has slowed, suggesting introspection or mental pause, when in reality it has only changeld to 4/4 time and the tempo has not changed at all. And Andy, it was nice to say that Sunny Day was one of four key bands that spawned the genre (I too am of that opinion), but how about siting specific technical examples to back that up, like: The aforementioned drum pattern was popularized by William Goldsmith of Sunny Day Real Estate and mimicked by the next generation. This can be heard quite clearly in Mineral's "Gloria", Appleseed Cast's "Marigold and Patchwork", and Weezer's "Tired of Sex".

You can use that in your next book!

And this goes to all you music journalists/authors! Stop dumbing it down. What kind of gear did they use? What time signature was the song in? What does it sound like? Tell us! I read Johnny Cash's autobiography that spent hundreds of pages desribing his Jamaican Mansion, fancy tour bus, Tenneseean ranch in vivid detail, but never mentioned what kind of guitar he prefered or what pieces were in his drummer's trap kit. And there are 15 other biographies of Cash and they're all like that.

The truth is that I think Greenwald wrote his book for 17-year-old patrons of Hot Topic, rather than folks like me. And I think Johnny wrote his autobiography for folks who can play his songs on a CD player and not necessarily on the guitar. And maybe I should just get over it.

Just Some Stuff This Week

Originally posted 6/22

Reading "Nothing Feels Good" by Andy Greenwald. I like it.

On another note.....

This Califone video is fantastic! Califone is fantastic!

Where is My Califone T-shirt Anyway?

Just blew my tutoring money on some CDs and got a Califone album called Roomsound that was out of print and has just been reissued by Thrill Jockey. Like usual with Califone, there stuff doesn't really catch you right away, but I can tell I'm gonna love it.