(I actually wrote this in June of '08, and forgot about it until today.)
The lady, the legend
Cyndi Lauper is one of those songwriters that never seems to get half as much credit as she deserves. I had the LP of "She's So Unusual" growing up and, mirroring the experiences of lots of girls my age, it had a big effect on me. Cyndi Lauper represented something to girls that seemed real and tangible, unlike Madonna who was so hyper-sexualized and over the top that it was impossible to relate to her. As a kid I loved Madonna's music but I LOVED Cyndi Lauper the person, everything about her. She was scrappy, slightly strange, and just seemed to have something about her for quirky working class girls everywhere to look up to. I don't know about you guys but, at least in my neighborhood, we loved her for it. I even owned a VHS copy of her movie Vibes as a kid because I loved her so damned much.
Think about it: once you got older, did your breakups more resemble Cyndi's "ambivalently leaving my loving, slightly dirty boyfriend behind in our meager shared digs with only my sack full of records and hair dye in hand because I JUST HAVE TO BE FREE" in the video for "Time After Time" or Madonna's "things were going great until he became threatened by my budding modeling career and left me! So I quit, and then he taught me how to play pool!" in the video for "Borderline?" Case rested.
More and more often I find that my exceptions to my "sacred artists to never be covered" rule (which includes Prince, Diane Cluck, and Joni Mitchell, to name a few) are always found in covers that seem to highlight the emotions behind the songs' lyrics moreso than even the originals do. I once heard a completely mind blowing live cover of Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You," for example, that slowly built tension before exploding at the end with an uncomfortably earnest, screaming vocal. While the original is a classic, I felt like the cover sounded like what the lyrics suggest, you know? I was comfortable with it because it made sense to me.
Because of it's upbeat sound, and being the theme to the Goonies movie, not too many people paid attention to the lyrics of "Good Enough." Neither did I, for a long time, but once I did I fell in appropriate love, with an all new kind of yearning. Maybe it was because I had to be older to really understand what the song talks about? Those are my dragons to slay, I suppose.
Either way, bravo to the Acorn for doing my girl right. I wonder what Cyndi thinks?
Yes, I've gotten way off track blogging lately, for various reasons. But I was struck by all the negativity in my last few posts; not that awful music isn't funny (it is) but I don't think complaining about what's bad really gets across how much I love the things I love. So I'm going to start periodically writing about my honest to goodness, hands down, top 25 favorite songs of all songs, one at a time. Because I want to, and because it's so, so easy for me to be passionate about them.
The summer of 2005 was an interesting one for me. My grandfather had died at the end of May, which left me in a complete emotional tailspin. So I was (as usual?) mid-self revolution, only instead of the relentless crashes and booms I was used to accompanying change in my life, everything seemed to be falling away and evolving remarkably peacefully. I'd ended a relationship that I'd long been unhappy in, moved into a sublet off of Main Street in Amherst, and was having myself a (badly needed) charmingly carefree summer on the outside of the struggling I was doing underneath it.
At Quabbin, Summer '05
Renee and I had only just begun our legendary friendship the spring prior, and spent most of our time together drinking jugs of Berkshire Brewery beer, listening to bluegrass, and going on lots of long, aimless drives through all the old hill towns and farms. I had only just acquired my marvelous Betsy from the Hampshire Bike Exchange and rode her down to the center of town almost every day. The lot of us who stayed behind that summer when all the students went back home would creep into the woods near Hampshire College late at night and skinny dip in the lake there. When we weren't playing late night Scrabble, my roommates and I would have parties that almost always ended with everyone on the playground behind our apartment, playing Hide And Seek and running around like children, followed by a morning after breakfast at the Lone Wolf. I was lazily "seeing" an old friend of mine from early teenage-hood who had grown up to be a touring slam poet, and he'd take me to drag shows and hipster beer bars from time to time. He was a decent kisser and a heavenly hugger. Everything was beautiful and nothing was serious- an environment I badly needed in order to cope with my grandfather's death. And it was during this time that I really got into Sufjan Stevens' music, and first fell in love with "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, IL."
"Come On Feel the Illinoise" isn't my favorite Sufjan album by far, but this song stuck out to me immediately and has effectively nested itself in my heart forever. Not only because of the memories surrounding the particular time in my life where this song took a front seat, but also because it's beautifully crafted and downright genius. The Philip Glass-y piano throughout is mystical, sparce and beautiful, but it's the lyrics (as usual) that really took me over.
"When the revenant came down we couldn't imagine what it was. In the spirit of three stars, the alien thing that took its form. Then to Lebanon, oh God! The flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow. Oh, history involved itself! Mysterious shade that took its form... or what it was, incarnation? Three stars delivering signs and dusting from their eyes."
There's a passage in the Bible that talks about an incarnation sent from God that will come down from the sky as a sign to the faithful, surrounded by three stars and the faces of lions, and I've always assumed that Sufjan was invoking that with this song. The idea that what contemporary humans regard as alien (UFO's, moving lights in the sky) could actually be an incarnation of faith meant for a faithless world is mind blowing and something I could think about for hours. How many times have we explained away our miracles as science fiction, in our heated rush to seem intellectual and impossible to fool? Is the price of seeming gullible and simple to the world worth the gifts that faith can give?
That summer, underneath all the easy, child-like days and the warm, simple nights, I wrestled with the loss of my grandfather every single moment. His faith was the current that kept him moving and alive his entire life. Every night I looked to the sky and hoped I'd see him; in the spirit of three stars or in any way he'd come back to me.
This is much, much easier than narrowing down my favorites, and given these honorable positions based on amount of outrage I feel at their existence when I hear them in the grocery store/mall/car.
I really am the sort of person who tries to find at least one thing to like about everything and everyone. But there is literally nothing appealing about Smash Mouth, is there? If there is, let me know, because I haven't found it yet.
Nevermind that this song has absolutely no soul to speak of, or that it reminds me of the years I worked at CVS in high school and it always came on and ruined my day while I was pricing Tylenol or therapeutic shoe insoles, but is anyone else COMPLETELY creeped out by all the weird flower opening/white gloves/virginity/vagina/sex innuendo in this video? Grossssssss.
I'm pretty sure this song would be on everybody's list, everywhere, except for maybe a few drunk townies from my hometown, sitting down at Maximum Capacity getting all fuzzy inside thinking about when they were the man in high school and constantly quoted the American Pie movies.
Fuck this song, fuck Cher, fuck her vocoder, fuck the trend she started in mainstream music where no one has a human voice anymore, and lastly just fuck. Ugh. Fuck.
Again we go back to the "no soul" issue. Is it really that hard to write a song that actually means something to you? Or to anyone? I'd rather listening to a recording of her signing all of her many, many checks- at least that'd feel a little bit more honest.
This is, hands down, my least favorite song of all time. I find something to throw every time it somehow leaks it's way into my atmosphere. No song is worse than Margaritaville, period. This is not open for debate. As a matter of fact, as I was looking for this video on youtube and played it, the baby woke up and immediately started crying. I hope someone closes Jimmy Buffett inside a steel drum and tosses him overboard somewhere in the Caribbean.
How many people do you think chose this song as their wedding song the year it came out? The year after that? THIS year? You'd think it would have gone away by now, but oh no- it's the new "Celebrate."
Thank you for Elizabeth Mitchell, and every single one of her albums of folk songs for children. They're a virtual guaranteed savior when Quinn is otherwise too colic-y to sleep (especially "You Are My Sunshine"). His colic is ROUGH, and I seriously don't think I'd have my sanity right now if it weren't for these magical, magical records.
I've lost track of the amount of times I've sung "The Ladybug Picnic" (his favorite) this past week. The songs are all beautiful, but even if they weren't- whatever calms his little heart is a-okay by me.
This morning over breakfast I somehow got on the topic of MC Hammer's "Addams Family Rap," a song I remember LOVING from my childhood. (Yes, at 7am these are the topics I often wish to discuss- feel free to celebrate and/or mourn the fact that I'm not having YOUR baby) In 1991, when the song came out, I was 9 and my brother was 11. He owned the cassette single and we played it over, over, over and over again, ad nauseum. I even have a clear mental image of my brother doing some sort of Uncle Fester dance that was sort of like the Thriller dance but way more awkward.
There is basically nothing about this that I don't love.
The Addams Family Rap was just one of many, MANY awesomely cheesy movie raps from the 80's/early 90's, all suspiciously made for blockbuster sequels to already popular movie franchises. Rap was crossing over into the mainstream and suburban white kids everywhere desperately wanted a (wholesome, watered down) piece.
Ninja Rap by Vanilla Ice, brought to us in the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Turtles in Time- ALSO from 1991 (what a great year!). I was in third grade at this time, and that year my class just happened to have a talent show. I did a self choreographed dance to "Prisoner" by Mariah Carey with a friend wherein I wore white lace footless tights under a denim jumper (yes, really). The cool boys in class, decked out in sideways hats, lip synched their way through "Ninja Rap." They also did some sort of move while "rapping" that was similar to the Arsenio Hall "woof woof" movement. I have video proof of this event. Mike, Mike, Greg and Geoff- do yourselves a favor and never run for president.
Arguably the best, probably because it was done by Run DMC, is the "Ghostbusters Rap" from Ghostbusters II, which I proudly admit is one of my favorite movies of all time. This movie came out in 1989, which (I think- correct me if I'm wrong) makes this song the PIONEER of the cheesy rap themes for sequels genre. Not QUITE as awesome as breaking down the barrier between mainstream rock and rap, but an important contribution just the same, yes?
Honorable mention goes to Prince's "Batdance," disqualified both because it wasn't made for a sequel and also isn't a rap so much as... a horrifying, seven minute fever dream.
<3 siiigh. Have I mentioned yet today how much I love that little purple pervert? I honestly could watch his masturbatory guitar solos all day.
Although there is an inevitably expensive new life entering the atmosphere of my own, slightly older life basically any week now, I have not been able to stop myself from dropping a few bucks here and there on two truly wonderful picture discs.
The first, a pre-order of CocoRosie's "God Has A Voice, She Speaks Through Me," which came with a digital download of the single and also a direct download of the song's new video. I have pretty high hopes for the upcoming album this song is on, but am becoming increasingly skeptical about it. Why? I'm not too sure. Does it have something to do with this video, although it's beautiful? Maybe.
and the second, the David Horvitz picture disc released by my beloved Parenthetical Girls, featuring an OMD cover ("Maid of Orleans: The Waltz of Joan of Arc") and a remix of a song from their not yet released new album "Entanglements," which (according to their website) is coming out September 9th on Tomlab!
Here's the OMB cover below:
Rumor has it the album also features a cover of "Windmills of Your Mind," known best to me by having also been covered by my soul twin Dusty Springfield, adding only further proof to my assertion that I was meant from birth to love this band more than any other. I've got my fingers crossed (in vain?) that another east coast tour is forthcoming. September 9th cannot come fast enough for me!
After being a regular and enthusiastic user for 3 years (scary), I finally decided to try out a subscription to Last.fm. It was only $3 for the month, so we'll see how I like it. One of the many awesome things about subscription service is that it opens up all of my various radio stations to anyone who cares to listen. I embedded a few of them below. "Caitmary's Radiostation" just takes random tracks I've listened to since I was a member and throws them at you. "Caitmary's Loved Tracks" are tracks that I got so pumped about that I actually took the time to press a button and label as "loved." The other is various songs by artists I've seen live in my lifetime, not necessarily songs I've ever listened to. Enjoy!
Anyone who tells you that pregnancy is a completely beautiful and ethereal experience from start to finish is just flat out lying. The baby himself is awesome, but just about everything about the process of GROWING him is unpleasant. Feeling him moving around is neat, yes, but it's much less neat when he's moving around so much that he wakes me up at 4am and won't let me go back to sleep. This is the third day in a row, almost like he's on a very specific "messing with Mom" schedule that revolves around a.) waking me up at insane hours of the night doing jumping jacks in the womb and b.) refusing to move when other people who want to feel him kicking touch me, only to resume his cosmic dancing once they give up. I wish he spoke English, or I spoke his language, so I could ask him what he is DOING in there. Did you lose your keys, little baby? I promise they aren't between any of my ribs, so you can really stop prodding around in there, really.
Also, the rest of the world apparently already knew about this and didn't tell me, but CocoRosie released the first single from their next album, forthcoming in 2009, called "God Has a Voice, She Speaks Through Me." It took a few listens to grow on me, but I'm digging the new direction they're taking. Apparently folk artists from places like Madagascar and Reunion Island have been contributing to the record. According to Touch & Go, "CocoRosie is currently working on the follow up to their last full-length, The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn, slated for release in 2009. This new work will continue in the vein of God Has A Voice..., exploring spiritual dance music, driven by oceanic and apocalyptic themes." I can't wait! Touch & Go is streaming the tune here if you feel like betraying the almighty Pitchfork and making up your own mind about it.
I've been wanting to write about the apocalyptic themes I've been seeing in SO MUCH music lately in general, but I'm way too exhausted right now to get into it as deeply as I want to. Has anyone else noticed it, though? Have you all heard that new Portishead single, "Machine Gun," as a quick example? It's like there's just something floating in on the air, getting into people's bodies, turning their minds toward a new order. It excites and terrifies me at the same time.
Speaking of CocoRosie, if you haven't already seen any of the performance CocoRosie did with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam last month, it's liable to blow your mind. The clip of "Black Rainbow" is my favorite:
Holy hell, little baby, please SETTLE! I know it's cramped in there, but I'm new at this, dude. Is it food? Is it breakfast you want? Can we negotiate?
Once upon a time (or sometime in the year 2000, whichever intro you prefer) to celebrate the one year anniversary of our friendship, my friend Matt mailed me a copy of Tara Jane O'Neil's first solo record "Peregrine." Unbeknownst to me, it was the start of the longest lasting, most personally fulfilling musical love affair I've ever been a part of. Since then Tara Jane O'Neil's music has grown with me. Over the last eight incredibly formative years of my life, it's followed me from being an 18 year old girl, terrified and on the brink of everything, to a 26 year old woman, trying to preserve her individuality beneath both motherhood and adulthood.
"Peregrine" was one of the only albums I listened to during the summer I first lived in New York. I didn't know anyone there aside from Daniel, and at that point I even just barely knew him. I was (graciously) hundreds of miles away from everything and everyone I'd ever known, and my move there was one of the first and biggest steps I took toward solidifying my individuality. I distanced myself from two toxic, addicting romantic relationships, left my incredibly close-knit family for the first time in my life, and just literally disappeared. I took the time to recreate myself- a town where no one knows you is the perfect place to let yourself be the person you always wanted to be. I lived in a big house with seven strangers in downtown Rochester, paying $150 a month plus utilities. I had a Walkman then (remember those?) that I'd won out of one of those grab-it machines in an arcade years earlier- it was translucent blue plastic and covered in stickers. I'd walk around downtown Rochester daily, during it's summer which is more like spring anywhere else, listening to a taped copy of "Peregrine" and taking in my new surroundings. I'd walk to the library, down to Park Avenue where all the college kids hung out, up and down various Monroe County streets where even the book stores had bars over the windows, and the soundtrack was always the same. I even listened to the album at night as I was falling asleep- to this day the opening notes of "A City In the North" put me right back in that old attic room at night with the one window open to let the summer breeze in. It was a personality-forming time for me, my coming of age movie. In spite of the fact that my decision to move there was completely impulsive and I was equally as likely to have landed flat on my face, it turned out to be a time of intense positivity and constant reinforcement of my personal strength. I'll always remember those years fondly, as they were some of the best of my life, but especially that first summer. All of the uncertainty mixed with my naivety and enthusiastic anticipation for an unknown future was nothing short of magical. The dreamy, floating, meditative tone of the entire album meshed perfectly with my state of mind at the time. So much so that during a show at Hampshire College in 2006, when she attempted "Sunday Song" as her closer, my stomach knotted up so tightly and nostalgically that I thought I would throw up until I just gave it up and cried.
As I got older I continued to buy up every new release that TJO put out. I have every EP, every hand colored 7 inch, every strange overseas compilation, there are pieces of her art hanging in my house- anytime she released something new, I got my hands on it. Everyone has at least one band or artist like that, I think. Regardless of how my tastes changed (even when I was listening to essentially nothing but old 50's prom music) TJO remained a constant. It always seemed like as I grew and changed as a person, she was growing and changing as an artist as well, so that every new record (regardless of what was happening in my life during the time of it's release) somehow resonated with me. I won't go step by step through every album and contrast it with what was happening to me at the time, but trust me when I say her albums were always either a solace, a celebration, or some combination of the two. In all my life there has never been a musician who's touched me in as many ways as Tara Jane O'Neil has, and I say that without hesitation.
I try to catch her live every time she comes to Western Mass, which isn't often. I first saw her open for Ida at the Flywheel in 2000, touring for Peregrine, where she played the entire show with her back to the audience. The best show of hers I ever saw was in Montague, when she played at the Montague Bookmill (one of my favorite places on earth). Almost no one came- it had been raining or snowing pretty heavily that day, I think. Renee and I sat on a couch and drank tea while she performed, after dusk, surrounded by bookcases and in front of the open windows overlooking the river rushing by the mill. If I sound sentimental, it's because I am- I've seen too many live shows to count in my life, of varying sizes and in varying venues, but that show was something truly special. If you've ever been lucky enough to catch TJO live, you might have an idea of what I'm talking about.
It would be an understatement to say that the sort of music I gravitate toward has changed dramatically in the past 8 years. My taste (in most things, but most obviously the music I enjoy) has morphed into something much more abstract/bizarre and much less outwardly sentimental than it used to be, which (if you wanted to get philosophical) you could say has happened simultaneously with an identical change within myself. While that once infamous sentimentality still exists (of course), I'm not as straightforward about it as I used to be, for better or worse. The last few years have been especially rough for me, as many of you know. The quieting of my more personal urges is tied into all that; I'm not gone, just safely tucked away, growing, waiting for a time when I'll feel comfortable enough to share my voice again. According to her website, TJO is recording this month. My son will be born in July. I can only eagerly anticipate what this next stage of my life, coupled as usual with another new Tara Jane O'Neil release, will bring to me.
Fans of electronic/noise music, please do not miss! Silver Apples is legendary and mind bending, Loto Ball Show is entirely insane.
June 17 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL June 18 - Scrummage University - Detroit, MI June 20 - Grog Shop - Cleveland, OH June 21 - 31st Street Pub - Pittsburgh, PA June 22 - Mowhawk Place - Buffalo, NY June 23 - TT the Bears - Cambridge, MA June 24 - Knitting Factory - NYC, NY June 25 - Cakeshop (Loto Ball Show Only) - NYC, NY June 27 - North Star Bar - Philadelphia, PA June 28 - The Velvet Lounge - Washington DC June 29 - Local 506 - Chapel Hill, NC June 30 - E.A.R.L. - Atlanta, GA July 1 - Hi-Tone - Memphis, TN July 2 - TBA - New Orleans, LA
Oh my god, fuck it, we did it- it ended up costing us even more money than we thought (more than my first car cost, we'll leave it at that) but after we got through (the server went down a few times, but Davey is the ultimate ticket securer) and the tickets were booked we were jumping around the kitchen, shouting incoherently.
I ended up talking to my mother about it yesterday, since she's typically the one who tells me to think realistically about things (rightly, since she's tried to save me from an innumerable amount of personal disasters throughout my life, in spite of the fact that I've rarely listened) and I thought she would convince me not to buy the tickets. Instead she was excited and enthusiastic about it, and even encouraged us to get a room right inside the venue instead of a hotel room outside of it, which would have saved us a few hundred bucks. I had been looking at a lot of different lodging options, including camping, renting an RV, and staying at a Best Western a town over. But my mother, typically a paragon of parental-type reality checks, said that I have no idea how much my life is going to change after the baby is born and that I should consider this my slightly belated "babymoon" since nothing after it will ever be the same. "Go all out!" She said, "Don't put yourself in the position where you guys need to worry about traffic or driving or never being able to split up or having to sober up if you don't want to; just go and enjoy it and have the most carefree possible time." Weighing that in on top of the overall truly legendary feeling of this festival and the knowledge (as Natasha commented yesterday) that we'd kick ourselves for the rest of our lives if we didn't go finally pushed us to decide to get tickets if we could. So we did! Eeeee!
I think I've mentioned this before, but David and I are in a truly unique and uncharacteristically convenient position right now, money-wise. We're going to be living in a five room house rent and utilities free for the next two years; Massachusetts has a five year look back period to seize non-monetary assets from people in elder care, like my grandmother, if/when they can no longer pay for the care on their own. It's fucked up, but it's the law. My grandmother transferred ownership of the house to my mother and my aunt after my grandfather died in 2005, meaning there's two more years left before we'll feel comfortable selling it or whatever we decide to do. We don't *anticipate* my grandmother's other assets running out, but don't want to do anything rash just in case. In the meantime David and I will raise the baby here while saving up money for our own place, preferably somewhere a little more pastoral than Springfield. We still have to pay for food, gas, and car and baby-related things, obviously, but we've got a free roof over our heads for the time being, which is ridiculously lucky and one of the major reasons why I thought spending such a large amount of money on festival tickets would be okay (or at least not COMPLETELY irresponsible)- it's the right time and place, and we'll probably never be in a position like this again.
Focusing on the positive, here's what David and I now have to look forward to in late September:
1.) Staying on-site at Kutsher's Country Club, where all of the shows will be taking place in small, intimate, indoor venues. Everything will literally only be a short walk away at all times, and we won't have to drive at all once we get there if we don't want to.
2.) Once again: We get to see MY BLOODY VALENTINE play to 3,000 people MAX, not to mention similarly small performances by Built to Spill, Mogwai, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra, Low, Shellac, Tortoise, and Thurston Moore (performing all of "Psychic Hearts!")
3.) More performers are going to be announced soon! Who knows who else we'll get to see?!? We entertained ourselves all of last night fantasizing about it.
4.) My return to Upstate NY, where I once used to live some time ago in one of my many former lives. The Catskills aren't Rochester/Buffalo by any stretch of the imagination, but it warms my heart just the same.
I don't know if many of you know this or not as I'm (not so) woefully disconnected from music media, but a few days ago David informed me that All Tomorrow's Parties is holding it's first ever group of shows in the US this fall, in Monticello, NY. The lineup of bands so far is basically right out of what my wildest fantasies were at 18 years old, almost as if a very old prayer was only recently answered. My Bloody Valentine (!!!), Built to Spill playing all of "Perfect From Now On," Mogwai, Shellac, Low, A Silver Mt. Zion, Polvo and a ton of other bands that I'd basically given up all hope of ever seeing live, never-mind all in a row and in intimate, smaller venues. If Cat Power was suddenly added to play all of "Moon Pix" a wormhole would be created enabling me to literally travel completely back in time to the year 2000. In case it wasn't obvious, what I'm essentially saying is that this is SERIOUS dream come true territory for me.
The issues? Tickets are RIDICULOUSLY expensive- $225 for three days of shows (so $450 for both of us), not counting hotel accommodations. We're guessing that all together it would cost us $500-$700 total, which is an unbelievable amount of money to us. We have a lot of money saved and can definitely afford it, but it's still such a high number that we're having trouble wrapping our heads around it. Finding someone to watch the baby won't be an issue for us (this is my mother's first grandchild and she would basically adopt him if we'd let her), but I'm not sure how I'll feel about leaving him for three days when the time comes, especially since we're already taking off for an day in August to see Radiohead & Grizzly Bear.
Tickets go on sale tomorrow, and we're still undecided. I really and truly would love to go, only because I feel like as the baby gets older and we get more and more wrapped up in the trials and tribulations of parenthood things like this will only become LESS realistic for us. Also My Bloody Valentine last played in America half of my life ago, and who knows if and when they will again?
I have construed a cheap little poll below if anyone feels like helping me out. What to do, what to dooooooooooo!!!!
$$$$$
Should David and I spend roughly $700 to see My Bloody Valentine, Built to Spill, Low, Mogwai, Shellac, Silver Mt. Zion, Polvo and other amazing bands I never thought I'd ever get to see live at ATP NY?
Thanks to David's quick thinking the other day (we were driving in the middle of nowhere when he suddenly remembered that tickets had just gone on sale, so we detoured to my parents house where we used to mothers laptop to get tickets), he, Renee and I somehow secured tickets to see Radiohead & Grizzly Bear on August 12th at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield!
This will be the second time I'll have seen Radiohead live (the first was at Suffolk Downs in 2001) and my first time seeing Grizzly Bear, whom I absolutely love and have been wanting to see for a while now. It's going to be tough to beat the show at Suffolk Downs, though, since it was without a doubt one of the best live show I've ever seen (despite it's size). THE BETA BAND and Kid Koala opened, which was amazing enough, but then after their regular set was finished Radiohead came back for two long encores, playing for almost THREE HOURS. I got to witness Johnny Greenwood experimenting with his beautiful machines for almost 15 minutes at the end of "The Tourist." They played almost every song I wanted to hear. The weather was perfect. The outdoor crowd was so well controlled that I, in spite of my amazing lack of height, got a pretty good view from my spot closer to the front without being constantly squashed into the barriers by rowdy teenagers and excitable drunks in the back.
I'll keep you all updated on how it goes! No doubt that it will be a welcome break for me, seeing as the baby will be about 2 months old by then (it's happening so fast)! In the meantime, here are some more Radiohead/Grizzly Bear tour dates:
08/03 - Verizon Wireless Music Center @ Indianapolis, IN 08/04 - Blossom Music Center @ Cleveland, OH 08/06 - Parc Jean Drapeau @ Montreal, QC 08/08 - All Points West Music & Arts Festival/Liberty State Park @ Jersey City, NJ 08/09 - All Points West Music & Arts Festival/Liberty State Park @ Jersey City, NJ 08/12 - Susquehanna Bank Center @ Camden, NJ 08/13 - Tweeter Center For the Performing Arts @ Mansfield, MA 08/15 - Molson Amphitheatre @ Toronto, ON
I have to admit I'm particularly excited to see Grizzly Bear. I can usually find a way to see every band that enters into my life in some significant emotional way right at the start of when they begin to touch me (Why? and Parenthetical Girls are good examples of this) but Grizzly Bear has eluded me in one way or another for over a year now. Seeing them at the Tweeter Center opening for Radiohead won't be as wonderful as seeing them at Pearl Street in Northampton this past September would have been, but I'm thankful just the same.
This song in particular was everything to me for a while:
Before I even begin to talk about the following musical news item, I feel like I have to clarify a few points so that you understand my largely unbiased point of view.
1.) Although I consider myself to be a general appreciator of Jack White as a human being, I've never been a White Stripes fan. I've heard their singles, but was never interested enough to buy an album or see them live. There are a lot of reasons for this, none of which have to do with their mainstream popularity. Don't mistake me for a hater- I'm pumped that the White Stripes get played on the radio, if for no other reason than I get a little thrill from the kinds of the stuff they manage to get on the airwaves next to all the mediocre and uninspired bullshit that radio has the balls to call music. Does anyone else remember the shrewish, drawn out synth parts in Icky Thump? Who else could possibly get something that amazing played on contemporary radio if not everyone's favorite control freak/total douchebag Jack White?
2.) I've never heard (or even heard of) this alleged "supergroup," the Raconteurs. I discover and consume music in my own, stubborn personal way (aka: I refuse to read Pitchfork) and because of that I sometimes completely miss new music that I therefore don't end up hearing about for months or years after the rest of the world, if at all. I think this is a totally fair price to pay in exchange for thinking for myself, since my disdain for Pitchfork and it's most rabid fans could be a whole other entry unto itself.
So the record "industry" is changing, that much anyone can tell. The (still somewhat) free nature of the internet, the unstoppable juggernaut of peer to peer downloading, and an increasing dissatisfaction among artists is leading to a (much anticipated and welcomed) disintegration of the old school label model. New artists are finding it's easier to find fans globally by simply putting their music out on the internet themselves (I first discovered Beirut after Sam Dolnick messaged me about his music on Myspace; I just paid a self set price online for the MP3 version of the new Lickets album), and already well established bands like Radiohead and NIN are dropping their labels like hot potatoes to release their albums online themselves. Not too many artists seem to give too much thought or concern to radio airplay anymore either, and for good reason- no one who truly loves music wants anything to do with modern radio anyway. You don't need to be signed to a major label to "make it" anymore, rendering major labels in general completely obsolete, thank Deity.
But there's one thing that's lost in all of this awesome technological overhauling, and that's the physicality of actually *owning* a record. Does anyone else remember, like I do, the thrill they used to get bringing home a new cd and laying on the floor listening to it, reading through the lyrics and the liner notes? An album used to be an event. Now, for better or worse, you download an album, load it to itunes and listen to it, but there's something missing from the experience. Or you download so many albums at one time that you don't devote the time and attention to each record as a singular entity the way that you used to. Maybe most people don't mind losing that physicality of record ownership, but I do- and apparently so does Jack White, who (along with the rest of the Raconteurs) somehow found a way to release their album everywhere, in every format, at exactly the same time.
"The Raconteurs are happy to announce that in one week's time their second album, entitled Consolers Of The Lonely, will be available EVERYWHERE Tuesday, March 25th.
"Album" meaning: full length vinyl, CD and digital formats; and "everywhere" meaning: local mom and pop Indie retailers, corporate superstores, supermarkets, iTunes, Amazon, the band's own website and any other location that could get the record up and going this quickly (some places couldn't move this fast, so they will join in as soon as they can).
The album was mastered and completed in the first week of March. It was then taken immediately to a vinyl pressing plant. Then to a CD pressing plant. Then preparations to sell it digitally began. March 25th became the soonest date to have it available in EVERY FORMAT AT ONCE. The band have done no interviews or advertisements for this record before this announcement.
The purpose: to get the album to the fans as soon as possible and as we promised. We wanted to get this record to fans, the press, radio, etc., all at the EXACT SAME TIME so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it's availability, reception or perception."
Pushy Meanies Get Things Done!
You could easily say (and this is why I felt the need to mention the reasons for my unbiased opinion) that this move was a way to get people to buy the album before critics could warn them not to, or a way to prevent leaks and consequently make more money, but I see a different motivation behind this. Why SHOULD people be basing how they spend their money on a Pitchfork review that was probably written by a silver spoon-fed grad student who's bitter about the lukewarm reception his own mediocre band receives? Why SHOULD superfans be forced to download an album in order to hear it ASAP, therefore eliminating any motivation or desire they might have had to buy the album once it's finally released on their favorite format? I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be common practice. I whole heartedly believe that if you give people options, they'll exercise them; and that's something the old school label model doesn't seem to understand about people who truly love music.
I also dig the little statement about the album having been created to be listened to as a singular entity, not in bits and pieces, which is something I've been noticing more and more is lost in the downloading of albums digitally. Singles are singles for a reason- they're meant to draw you in to the rest of the album. The temptation is HUGE for people to attach themselves steadfastly to singles without exploring the rest of an artist's creation. Roll your eyes and call me corny if you want, and maybe I am a bloodthirsty purist, but I truly feel that music should be heard the way the musicians who create it mean it to be. If a band or artist doesn't mind having their album broken up and sold in pieces, fine, but let them decide. One of my favorite records of all time, Parenthetical Girls' flawlessly produced Safe as Houses (which I own in three different formats), is probably 1000% less magical taken in bits and pieces. The songs not only flow into each other musically, but tell a story as well. The same can be said for Neutral Milk Hotel's "Areoplane Over the Sea"- that album is one singular, epic, musical EVENT. If you consider music to be art, which I think a lot of people do, how can you take it in any other way but completely? How pointless would a painting be if you only looked at certain parts of it, never knowing what it's true, complete point is?
Regardless of suspicion over the Raconteurs' motivations for doing this, I think this is a great step toward adapting the release & consumption of music to the digital age. As much as I'm almost positive I won't like it, a part of me wants to buy the album as an act of solidarity and thanks. A growing majority of consumers (heh) are eager for and enthusiastic about change in this industry, and that in and of itself is just another glaringly obvious reason why the complete elimination of the RIAA (and even- a girl can dream- the itunes-esque option to purchase tracks singularly) could someday hand music back to artists and fans.
I haven't felt up to devoting too much time to this thing lately, in spite of the ridiculous amount of "free" time I have by not having a 9-5 job. An older version of myself is so ANGRY right now that I'm not using all of this time to write or read; I can remember times where I'd resent having to go to work because I'd always inevitably seem to leave in the middle of an idea, or at the beginnings of a poem. I wish I could tap into that former inspiration at will! I wonder what sort of poetry I'd be writing now if I was feeling inspired?
I can say one thing about right now, though: I've been discovering greatnewmusic left and right. I'm discovering bands that I'm mystified I didn't know about sooner. I'm discovering music that is renewing my faith that I live in a creative, thinking world. But my hands down favorite of every new artist or band I've stumbled across over the past two weeks is Rio En Medio, a relatively new artist on Devendra Banhart's Gnomonsong label.
Rio En Medio is also known as Danielle Stech-Homsy, a New Mexico born poet, singer & ukulelist. She sometimes lifts her lyrics entirely from poets like John Ashbery and French surrealist Paul Eluard, which you might pick up on if so inclined, but somehow it doesn't take away from the personal feeling of the album, particularly if you keep in mind that most of these songs were recorded with no intention of ever releasing them. Every hand clap, whisper and deconstructed sample was done by Stech-Homsy herself. To me it sounds like ghost's music, that sort of ambient, other worldly, quasi-electronic liquid sound that seems to be catching on with more and more independent female musicians lately. I suppose it would be easy to pass her over considering that it seems like she's being marketed as the "new" Joanna Newsom (ANOTHER beautiful elf woman wearing old prairie dresses in the woods with her ears sticking slightly out of her long, flowing hair?), but musically that's pretty far from the truth. I love me some Joanna Newsom, but Rio En Medio stands entirely alone here. If you dive into her music image blind and take it for exactly what it is, it's sheer, crystallized beauty might just win you over.
Although I love "The Bride of Dynamite" as a single entity, album closer "Liberte" (a haunting eight minute long musical version of the Eluard poem of the same name) is probably my favorite. The slight static of the various samples in the background (like crowd rumbling and a telephone being dialed) thrown together with the bells and Stech-Homsy's dirgy, dead-pan vocal is a perfectly complete package for the poem itself (one english translation can be read here), which is absolutely gorgeous. The idea of musical interpretation of poetry as recorded by other poets is incredibly interesting to me- I wish there was more of it out there.
"Tiger's Ear" is probably the most accessible song on the album and also the one that reminds me most of aforementioned Newsom. But when even the album's most accessible song has background whistling as a major musical component you know you've got something truly unique on your hands.
My second favorite song on the album, "Everyone's Someone's," is as creepy as it is strangely warming. The lyrics are amazing, a mother urging her grown child not to go to war. She tells him the story of how she and the child's father ran away together in a boat, surviving only because their love was blessed. The narrator then cautions her grown son not to be influenced by other people telling him that war is justified. She reminds him that "everyone is someone's sweet little baby" and adds "you were not meant for that, you were meant for love." The only percussion is hand clapping throughout, with samples of babies laughing at the end. Perfect.
Mostly I love her choice of sounds, and specifically where she chooses to put them. It's not flashy and doesn't seem like it's done mainly to be "experimental" or "weird" - everything seems to be exactly in it's place, regardless of how odd or unconventional the instrument or sample she uses might seem. If you like artists like CocoRosie, Joanna Newsom, Marissa Nadler, etc.- PLEASE pick up this album. Rio En Medio is honestly a rare light at the end of a long tunnel of mediocre "new folk" artists. Rio En Medio @ Myspace Interview w/ Danielle at Identity Theory
I tried to pick tracks this week that sort of reflect how I've been feeling this past week. Things are just getting worse and worse with my grandmother, and I'm trying so hard to balance all that stress, responsibility and worry with also being a !!!! future mom. I have good days and I have bad days, just like my grandmother does. Today is quickly shaping up to be not so great a day, so as usual I gave myself some self therapy through mixing. What I ended up getting was ridiculously personal, and I hope that you like it.
"My Teacher Died" by Diane Cluck is one of my favorite songs, probably because it reminds me of my grandfather. I feel like so much changed for me after he died; mentally I felt lost for a long time. I try to remind myself that if *I* felt lost after his death, my grandmother must be in a completely different orbit now. I followed that up with "The New Sane Scramble" (if you can find the album version of this song, you should- it's much better) because I feel like that song (the tone, the lyrics) is where my grandmother is right now in her mind. Her dementia has taken her over so completely ; every day for her is a scramble of sadness and paranoia. The rest of the songs all follow that same theme- strange, strained, looking for a way home. There's a trippy overall feel to the entire playlist because I feel like living in this house with her is a little like living in Wonderland- there is no solid reality.
Leave it to me, as always, to over think the feelings behind everything- at the very least my predictability must be comforting to some of you, yes?
Seriously guys, I'm sorry my entries lately have been so short or otherwise non-existent. Living here with my grandmother has been so much more draining to me than I thought it would be. She needs so much care and attention, but because of her own notoriously strong-willed personality it's virtually impossible to give it to her. We've had a lot of really bad, scary nights because of her dementia, and I was starting to think that I'd gotten myself in over my head. But I've been opening up to a lot of her visiting nurses and therapists about my own feelings and thankfully they're working toward getting BOTH of us the help we need, and soon. I won't get too into it, but the possibility of her ever being able to live alone again is slim to none. I've been trying my best not to dwell too much on death and being elderly, since I SHOULD be focusing on babies and new beginnings, but it's hard sometimes. I'll just say that I hope when it's my time to go that I just get hit by a bus the day after my 70th birthday- anything quick, painless, and dignified.
I also need to say how in awe I am of people who can devote their lives to taking care of older people. Every single person who's been here to see my grandmother, whether it's her home health aide, her physical therapist, her dementia nurse, etc, has been absolutely amazing with her. I don't know how they do the work they do every day and still have hearts un-broken enough to love their own families with at the end of the day. One of her nurses (my favorite) even takes care of her own elderly mother with Alzheimer's in her home when she's done taking care of everyone else's! Thank god for them, thank god.
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Aside from that, not too much has been going on that's terribly report-worthy. My baby belly is finally significant enough that I don't just feel like a giant trucker/blob anymore, and the idea of going out in public is starting to seem more appealing to me than it has in months. My mother is taking me out this weekend to buy some spring weather maternity clothes and I'm actually excited about it. It's hard to find maternity clothes I like, though, especially since it's hard for me to find clothes I really like in stores anyway. But my mind is open! Hopefully in the sea of shapeless black sacks I'll be able to find something colorful and flowing.
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I've been working on a mix for the lovely Miss Erica, a mix I've been tweaking and perfecting for nearly a year now. It's a story mix, or a mix that acts as sort of a stand alone soundtrack to a very specific time in my life, with the story told in the lyrics of the songs I choose. I'm notorious for getting caught up in story mixes for months and sometimes years at a time, "perfecting" them beyond perfection like some kind of mad scientist. I spent a good deal of time on it yesterday and I think it actually might be finished, or, you know, as finished as it will ever be. I should just burn and mail it before I have the chance to change anything else; finally getting all of that painful negativity out of me and into someone else's objective hands will do me nothing but good, I'm sure.
One of the songs on the mix is "I Only Have Eyes But You" by the Flamingos, and every time I listen to that song I'm overcome with the urge to write about how much I fucking love it. One of the main reasons for my obsession with doowop in general is my preoccupation with how every doowop recording itself is a record of a musical event. Back then every instrument (including vocals) was recorded all at once, in one room, so when you listen to an old soul or doowop record you're hearing a true musical moment caught on tape. "I Only Have Eyes For You," when you listen to it thinking about that, is an absolutely mind blowing song. I'd love to cover it, but I know I would never be able to do it's original naive dreaminess any justice.
Another reason to give doowop a shot: there's literally nothing better to put on in the background on summer nights, when everyone's just hanging around having beers and talking. Doowop IS the sound of summer nights. Try it and you'll see exactly what I mean.
I know it's possible that it might have more to do with her theremin's affect on me personally, but it seems like whenever I play Clara Rockmore the baby swims around more obviously and I feel an increased warm heat coming from my belly. Believe it or not, I even feel tingles sometimes that seem to start in my stomach and flow out! "The Swan" in particular seems to be his favorite; maybe I'll send him for theremin lessons someday!
note: That amazing Nina Simone song is actually called "See-Line Woman" - my nemesis Feist apparently covered it as "Sea Lion Woman" (I can't even imagine how terrible it probably sounds) and confused the world. Why won't she just go away?
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