That scruffy troubadour in the Omaha studio with producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes/Saddle Creek) isn’t Jim Morrison in the Paris years, nor is it Jesus, we don’t think. That is one Pete Yorn back recording new music. The formidable Frank Black of the Pixies has also been joining him in recent months for “new explorations in music,” and all the results are expected in the form of an album rumored to be called American Blues.
Me! I want to go explore New Orleans and see some bands like R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Old 97s, Thievery Corporation, Mars Volta, Ghostland Observatory, and Sharon Jones with her sassy Dap Kings.
The Voodoo Music Experience takes over New Orleans on October 24-25-26th. Fuel/Friends has a pair of tickets to the festival to give to one of you guys because we love you. Please note, transportation no es includio. So get yourself to N’awlins and I’ll help you rock. Leave me a comment and tell me something interesting (oh, and how to contact you) and we’ll do a random drawing next Monday morning.
Don’t know how you do the voodoo that you do, as some wise sage once said.
The view out my window is slick with rain in the moonlight. When I walked outside a few hours ago I was knocked a bit breathless for a moment by the smack of near-icy wind in the face. It seems pretty clear that summer (and any reprieves we may have gotten in the form of some gorgeous indian summer days these past weeks) has moved on to somewhere south of the equator. It was a good run this year, but now I find myself rummaging for suitable autumn songs that linger in the colder air with the crisp smell of smoke from neighbors’ fireplaces.
Sam Beam of Iron & Wine released the fiesty and brave album The Shepherd’s Dog about a year ago, which took a more multihued approach than the hushed-river ebb of his songs past (gorgeous favorites of mine like “Trapeze Swinger” or “The Sea and The Rhythm”). The third track on the album, “Lovesong of the Buzzard” was released as a limited-run 10″ vinyl single in the UK on Transgressive Records (Regina Spektor, Noisettes, Polytechnic) with two excellent b-sides.
I don’t have the vinyl yet, but due to the magic of the internets I’ve been enjoying the two tunes all this quiet evening. Beam’s been steadily growing a bit more firey in his music, evoking the darker sides of an uncontrolled wilderness populated with all sorts of questionable characters. Kinda like a strong whiskey, recent Iron & Wine burns a little in the chest — and there’s undercurrent of darkness, even foreboding, in the melody and the illicit storyline of this song.
I cannot overstate my affections for I&W, especially in October. It just feels right, like bringing up that box of sweaters and other warm things from the basement.
Today I’ve been listening a lot to this ace version of “All At Sea” by British skateboarder-punk-turned-pianist Jamie Cullum. I forgot how much I enjoy this marvelous song; I just stumbled across a live version of it from the KFOG studios there in San Francisco. It’s the kind of song that’s always made me feel like the fog and the sea, SF or Seattle.
Cullum is talented, and extremely fun to watch live; I saw him once at the KFOG Concert for Kids, there at Davies Symphony Hall in SF. Between the flying kicks and jumps off the piano bench, he looked like the hyperactive kid in music class 6th period that can’t wait to get out on his skateboard in the empty halls of school after class is over for the day. You wouldn’t really know it from this melancholy tune, though.
Lately when I’m feeling overwhelmed and maybe a little melancholy, nothing salves the wound better than this acoustic Beckrecording from April 28, 2003, beneath the soaring Gothic arches of London’s Union Chapel.
His bluesy, folky, Sea-Change-heavy set is sublime, featuring warmly crystalline audio and a dang fine setlist. Amidst the sad songs of a relationship dying, Beck peppers the evening with rarities like the Sea Change Japanese bonus track “Ship In A Bottle” and his oldie song “One Foot In The Grave,” which first appeared on his debut full-length album, Feb 1994′s eclectic and experimental Stereopathic Soulmanure (alongside tracks like the minute-long “Jagermeister Pie”).
The grizzled “Fourteen Rivers, Fourteen Floods” is from One Foot In The Grave later that same year, and while “It’s All In Your Mind” eventually made it onto Sea Change in 2002, it was originally a Japanese bonus track from the same ’94 independent release.
The evening has a very cohesive theme holding together the songs, and this is one of my favorite live recordings of late.
Well his song, not actually him, despite what my totally convincing photoshopping would have you believe.
Fuel/Friends favorite Ryan Auffenberg from San Francisco has a song featured tonight on the season premiere of Private Practice on ABC (9/8c). I know that this is a great melancholy tune of his; I know nothing about the show except that it sounds dramatic and possibly involves either doctors or lawyers.
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
That scruffy troubadour in the Omaha studio with producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes/Saddle Creek) isn’t Jim Morrison in the Paris years, nor is it Jesus, we don’t think. That is one Pete Yorn back recording new music. The formidable Frank Black of the Pixies has also been joining him in recent months for “new explorations in music,” and all the results are expected in the form of an album rumored to be called American Blues.
Name: Heather Browne
