Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Like Mint and Chocolate Chips

I am back from my top-secret mountain hideaway, so maybe some posts will be written again?

Here’s something I came across while away that made me very happy. Like mint ice cream with chocolate chips, or iced-tea powder on Kraft dinner, sometimes things that are awesome by themselves are even awesomer in combination. So here’s one of my absolute favourite artists, Gillian Welch (with partner David Rawlings) performing one of my absolute favourite Radiohead songs, “Black Star”, at Bonnaroo this year. The recording isn’t great, and the guy recording it is singing pretty loudly at times, but I thought it was pretty cool, with a great solo by David Rawlings.



There’s a torrent floating around of the rest of the set, including a visit from John Paul Jones (!), that can be found at etree. The audio quality is much better than the video above.

Another game my friend Mark and I used to play with live recordings is listening for the different waves of audience recognition - some people will get the song from the first notes, while others won't get it til the chorus. There's three distinct waves of recognition in this one - the very start, after the first line, and at the first chorus.

LATER: Actually, you can only hear the first and second waves in the linked audio version, not the video above.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

September Girls


I was looking at my calendar, and noticing not only that September is coming quickly, but also that there's a bunch of cool shows coming too! Here's my list so far - I don't know about tickets prices etc., this is just what's down on my calendar so far:

September 6 - Animal Collective @ Le National
September 9 - Bill Calahan (AKA Smog) @ Sala Rosa
September 14 - Great Lake Swimmers @ Sala Rosa
September 19 - Ryan Adams at Theatre St. Denis
September 19 - Rilo Kiley @ La Tulipe
September 20 - Beastie Boys @ Bell Centre
September 22 - Nick Lowe / Ron Sexsmith / Teddy Thompson @ Club Soda
September 22 - Devendra Banhart @ Theatre National
September 23 - Okkervil River @ Sala Rosa
September 26 - Andrew Bird @ La Tulipe
September 26 - Iron&Wine @ Metropolis

        There is also a tentative show by some young up-and-comers called Katie Loves Pain, that you should all totally clear your calendars for. There are some sucky days with two concerts - the I&W v. Andrew Bird choice is probably the worst one, because I've vowed not to pay to see Ryan Adams again.

        I don't think I'll make all these shows, but I'd definitely be interested in any of them if there are posses to be formed. I think I'll definitely try for I&W, Rilo Kiley, Bill Calahan, and Okkervil River.

Monday, August 13, 2007

That's What She Said



Here's a few photos from the aforementioned camping trip. If you're on Facebook, you can find pictures with people's faces in them! But here's some nature shots.

And You Are Starry, Starry, Starry

Just got back from a totally awesome camping adventure. More to say (and pictures) later, but here’s something else in the meanwhile.

When I got back last night, I was thinking about the shooting stars we saw, and listening to Joanna Newsom explain the difference between meteorites, meteors, and meteoroids, when I came across this:



Um, wow.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Here and Now, Not Forever



...And, it looks like I’m not running out the door right away to go camping, so here’s a bit more on the above video. It’s Eddie Vedder and Tim Finn (brother to Neil) performing “Stuff and Nonsense”, from Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide concert DVD. And I’m realizing I don’t have that much to say, except that I’ve always loved the chorus:

And you know that I love you
Here and now, not forever
I can give you my present,
I don’t know about the future
That’s all stuff and nonsense


Thursday, August 09, 2007

The Dark Half

Hey, Stephen King and I have the same taste in Ryan Adams albums, but he’s a much better writer:

I think there are really only two kinds of pop music CDs these days. There are the ones you listen to only once or twice, maybe downloading the single good song to your iPod or computer; then there are others that grow stronger, sweeter, and more necessary each time you play them. Gold was that way; Cold Roses was that way; so was Jacksonville City Nights. I won't say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young...but I won't say he isn't, either.


He liked Easy Tiger a lot, so maybe I’ll try to spend some more time with it.

Last Chance To See


The Yangtze river dolphin, after teetering on the brink for several years, is now officially extinct.

Monday, August 06, 2007

It Ain't No Trick To Get Rich Quick

Here’s something that’s a little fun, but maybe only funny to me. Since I’ve been trying to do more writing and recording lately, I entered the SA Rockstar XX contest. The challenge this time around was to take a Disney song, and cover it as another artist. I picked “Heigh Ho”, from Snow White, and covered it in the style of Uncle Tupelo.

I usually don’t like explaining jokes, but the ‘only funny to me part’ comes in because a) “Heigh Ho” is a very upbeat song about the joys of hard work and getting rich mining while b) the chords and melody I used are from Tupelo’s “Coalminers”, which is also about mining, but has lines like:

mining is the most dangerous work
in our land today
plenty of dirty, slaving work
for very little pay
coalminers, won't you wake up
and open your eyes and see
what this dirty capitalist system
has done to you and me


So, uh, irony, if you will. Anyways, my entry did alright. In one sense, I got 4th place out of 11 entries, and some really nice compliments. In a more realistic sense, I got about 4% of the votes and was basically statistically tied for last with the 4-11 entries. It was a lot of fun though.

Here’s a clip of the original:



And my entry:



As I mentioned above, it uses the chords and melody from “Coalminers”, which I couldn’t find online, but is on the totally awesome March 16-20, 1992 album. It’s in a minor key, which immediately makes the “Heigh Ho” whistling melody sound completely different. In the spirit of March 16-20, 1992 the entry was conceived and written in about an hour, and recorded in one take - vocals, guitar, and whistling all through my condenser mic.