Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Paint the kids’ room pale winter but slightly playful blue and make it look like this.
Finally listen to the newest Grace Potter which I was so excited about I accidentally ordered three separate times.
And try to get someone to take me to Remedy for a scone.
Simple, but worth sacrifice, all.
The smartest kid in class isn’t always the most popular.
I read this great interview of Huey Lewis once (stick with me) about how depressed he was in the early ’80’s when his band started selling millions of cassettes and records and the whole world seemed to be obsessed with them. To paraphrase simply, his musical family had taught him that the best, quality, honest music was liked only by very few, and that popular music was such because it was done for the mass appeal, and therefore wasn’t contributing anything valuable to the world. So they went platinum and where most people would be singing praises he was totally crushed and ashamed.
Isn’t that awesome?
And when you know something is brilliant, be it a book or record or whatever, and it gets the attention it deserves (even if just for a second), you are just glowing from within. Or at least I am. When Tori Amos went from near obscurity to suddenly appearing on the cover of Spin in the mid 90’s I was nervous for her. I couldn’t believe that a little piece of my goofy world had ended up in the hands of the world at large. Would they take care of her? Would they find themselves reflected in her songs like I did? Did she have good people to take care of her and remind her this would all be over soon, and that it didn’t account for the value of what she wrote; that it was more of a lucky fluke and that she should just appreciate for a second and then get back to the business of making art?
It’s like the recent elections. It’s easy to rustle up enthusiasm for banal and sugar-coated if you’re talking to the right crowd. It doesn’t last, ultimately. You just have to wait until that awful, repetitive pop song runs its course through the minds of the uneducated* and fearful, until they’re stationed in front of American Idol again shoving Cheetos into their god-fearing nostrils. But to offer up something inspired, something that’s actually designed to do the world a whole hunk of good? That’s a harder sell.
Let’s call this post prop-8 therapy, shall we? I am utterly exhausted by elections these last few cycles. It’s too much hate and fear to work through and then just move on with your life, unaffected.
Incidentally, I really wish our public schools weren’t so awful that even I am pulling my kid out and trying to find a way to come up with an extra $20K per year so she doesn’t turn into a thug with emotional detachment issues. Test scores be damned. They have no art, no literature, no joy, no time for teachers to do anything but worry about straight lines and corresponding percentages. It’s depressing.
* I should point out I, myself, am uneducated. A small handful of semesters at a community college is as close as I’ll ever get to respectable, thank god. Smear that on your Poptarts and eat it for breakfast.
Sadly, I cannot yet just plug my iphone into my blog and share with you all the AMAZING music that has been arriving at my doorstep lately. Go on, click play.
So you’ll notice I did say “arriving”, rather than “streaming through the air and into my gadget”. I am acutely and painfully aware that actually purchasing cd’s makes me certifiably old. I blame my father for those early lessons in home recording and equalizer levels. I crave control. I crave a midrange and lossless files. I listen to music on my shuffle and it’s like god has made the world fuzzy and sad. I want the full range of sound so much that I’m willing to be an audiophile nerd. Exactly what I swore, in my teens, I would never be. You know, the dude schlepping around his eight tracks. That’s now me.
I also recently discovered this baby blanket and am seriously considering turning it into a design element in my soon-to-be son’s room. But that’s another post.
Anyhoo, here’s what I’ve got going on this week:
Sufjan Stevens – Age of Adz
Roots and John Legend – Work
Adele – 19
Phoenix – Alphabetical
Erykah Badu – Return of the Ankh
Metric – Fantasies
Samantha Crain – You (Understood)
I’m still reeling from the discovery of the free mixtape Illinoize put together by Vancouver-based producer Tor, sampling songs from multi-instrumentalist and indie hero, Sufjan Stevens (yep, I just lifted that sentence straight from his site). My favorite track, The Dress Looks Nice On You / Make You Feel That Way, features the completely stunning rhymes of Gift of Gab, MC from the Bay Area’s fantastic Blackalicous. Every time I listen to his track, I crave being in the room with him. Me and the Gift of Gab, chillin.
Lest this deteriorate into a review (god forbid) I just must tell you to download it immediately. And then write Tor to say hi, and tell him you really appreciate him for putting it up there, free and all.
I’m not actually the world’s biggest Sufjan fan, though this post seems to be going that way. It’s such a hot time for white boys doing more than just playing guitars, as they’ve been doing in mainstream music for the last 20 years, and he’s at the forefront.
Speaking of leaving the mainstream, let’s just have a moment to appreciate Samantha Crain. Did you listen to her voice? I love her. I want to invite her over for blueberry pancakes. I found her at Daytrotter, also an excellent resource for free and new music, often acoustic sets of the wavering-just-above-total-obscurity bands which you’ll likely never find anywhere else, even if you are lucky enough to live next to an Amoeba Records.
Roots and John Legend are easily the most corporate release on the list, and I am sad to say I am most excited about this one. You see, I love soul music. Donny Hathaway is as close to a messiah as will ever exist in my world. I mourn the day D’angelo up and disappeared, taking his marvelous and genius lyrical style and production skillz with him. When Lauryn Hill came out crazy, playing religious songs about redemption on an acoustic guitar after being a megastar made her fall to pieces, I cried and through it was tragic and brilliant. Even what all the white boys at Coachella are doing now comes from a place of intensity, authenticity and theatre that originated with soul music. And if that industry needs a little help from glossy and beautiful John Legend and my eternal soulmate Black Thought, I am happy to support that endeavor.
See that? It’s my youth, in a sexy charcoal case. It’s the power mixer that I bought with my High School graduation money. The all awesome, eternally youthful EV, that once hung out with some killer EV monitors before I downgraded to lighter JBLs before I downgraded to acoustic shows before I downgraded to motherhood.
Ouch.
Yeah, I said it. I don’t play shows ’cause I’m trying to raise a kid and do things like, you know, make dinner.
One day that will change but in the meantime I can at least pay respects. RIP, EV 8 channel power amp, still labeled from my last recording. I hardly knew you.
I read a great description last week of that moment where you realize the coffee you’ve been drinking and thinking is the best thing in the universe for years is actually crap. I had never actually identified the phenomenon, but the very next morning when I made my single drip cup of Peruvian Organic Coast Roast, I took a sip and said, “meh”. Blah. Not bad, but just not ME anymore. The Peruvian Organic has run its course in my soul and it’s not gonna give me anything new at this point.
So once this was all out in the open other facets of my life began to appear dated. Like the couch. Which was a prized possession twelve months ago and is now shockingly and uncomfortably narrow for a pregnant lady, her wife, and a five year old. It’s green. Why did we pick green?
And the books. How long are the essays of Leroi Jones going to sit on that shelf before I pick them up? I forced myself to rummage through it and remembered why it never made it to the bedside table. I adore Amiri Baraka with all my heart, I think he’s wonderful and inspiring and brilliant, and sitting in a small room with his booming voice reading Somebody Blew Up America with an upright bass and jazz kit along for the romp was one of the high points of my life. But the Black Arts Movement commentary of 1968 is not doing it for me. Henry Miller’s Black Spring, even, sits unloved, unopened for years. Once it was a bible.
And finally, the music. Suddenly my entire music collection is dusty, creaky and completely unrelatable. Even things that seemed avant garde last spring are just played. We have seventeen thousand Ani Difranco records but why only the ones through 2001? Did she stop being relevant or did we? Would it pain us to determine what’s happening in hip hop right now and let go of the Method Man 1993? Can we listen to girls play guitars who DIDN’T grow up listening to Liz Phair?
I’ve ordered* a batch of musical joy. And am suspicious that we may be entering what I affectionately call a “bout of minimalism” where all the schmanvas (urban dictionary. look it up.) gets re-homed, and we smile big smiles.
I’m putting all that old stuff to rest and setting a new little boat to sail. I’m thinking of writing a new record (this would be 12 years after the first was released) but approaching songwriting from a more calculated perspective. As inspiration goes, I will no longer rely on the dulcet tones or words of those old reliables. No more repositioning on the sad little IKEA chairs. Time to buy a decent chair, for crying out loud. I need some fresh, new energy to match this summer sun.
Onward!
*that’s right, I said “ordered”. As in actual discs. You can roll eyes all you want. My uncompressed files and I will still be around when your ipods start seeming like little blinky toys.