Jason Collett has a clattery sound to his music that I love, with a free-keeling howl in his voice that he plays fast and loose. He is mightily impressive live, friends with Feist from their mutual Broken Social Scene days, and has just announced an aptly-named new album Rat A Tat Tat coming out in March on the impeccable Arts & Crafts label from Canada.
The first listen from the new record is seriously addictive.
Well today is a snow day in my part of Colorado, bringing everything outside to a deadened, frozen, thickly-blanketed crawl. It’s gorgeous and quiet, and perfect weather for putting the finishing touches on my annual Christmas mix. I do love Christmas music, as you might remember from pastyears, but I also have a picky palate and am always amazed when I turn on the radio (as I did last night while we played cards) at how many many Christmas songs should have never been made. If I have to hear “Wonderful Christmastime” again, I might gouge out my eardrum with a candy cane to the beat of those synthesizers.
Even though there’s room on this mix I’ve made for the fun and light-hearted (I am in love with the opening remix track), I do tend to find myself drawn to the reflective and traditional songs at this time of year. Maybe it’s some slight seasonal affection disorder, or the natural rhythms of winter — or an internalization that this is a month of hope and light but that there is such need out there as well. I went to an ecumenical advent service this weekend at the old stone chapel on the college campus where I work, and one of the professors from the Classics department read a bit from the book of John about how the light shines into the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. I found the simplicity of that inspiring in a way that surprised me. I sat there in the candlelight thinking about dichotomies of light and dark, hope and despair, kindness vs. letting ourselves be hard and stony.
Anyways, there’s a bit of reflection from me on how this season is wrapping itself into my thoughts, as I sit here beside this pretty twinkling Christmas tree, warm under a fuzzy blanket. I also delight in how all these music blogs have made such a rad collection of alternative holiday tunes available for the endless mixing.
Now I’m gonna go watch Elf.
…Oh! and we’ll hope Edward Hopper won’t mind the bastardization of his moody Nighthawks painting too much. It made me smile, and is exactly how I feel today.
It turns out that the new Phoenix album barely missed my top ten this year, but I know I’ve listened to it a whole heck of a lot. In fact, it’s in my car right now and it hasn’t left the player in another one of those weeks-long stints.
It’s catchy and sleek, but there’s weight and depth behind the songs, and you cannot understate the lure of that ephemeral exotic attraction — it’s the same reason American girls like going out dancing with foreign exchange students.
The formidably marvelous filmmaker Vincent Moon recently followed them about in Paris, and as always, the results on La Blogotheque are stunning.
This weekend is one of my personal favorites of the year, as I review back over a year of good shows, albums, and moments in music to start work on my year-end lists for 2009. I’m prepping to record my World Cafe conversation for NPR on Tuesday morning (it’ll air January 1st), which is always a process of squeezing 12 months of marvelous aural music wonder into about twenty minutes of talking. It’s never easy, but always fun, and always a privilege.
So I was sitting here watching some of the videos of shows I’ve seen this year when I realized that my very favorite concert video of the year was something I never posted. The current 300-something views of this video on YouTube may be mostly due to me since I feel like I’ve watched it many dozens of times and still am not tired of it.
It’s a video I shot of The Gaslight Anthem from the second night of their Colorado run in April. They sold out the Gothic Theatre with almost a thousand passionate fans who sang along with their whole hearts, and that night they played “I Coulda Been A Contender” (from their 2007 album Sink or Swim) for the first time yet on that tour.
Not only is this a terrific song that captures an innocence from some other time, but it also just plain rocks live. The video has a couple of those spots of regrettably fuzzy audio (my camera doth protest too much) but captures a tightly wound, spot-on, passionate performance of a great song. The band leapt and twisted themselves around their instruments, smiling with eyes closed on the very best lyrics, while the crowd roiled and yelled along. It captures both the joy and yearning of this band.
Make sure to watch to the very end.
I Coulda Been A Contender – Gaslight Anthem
I’m broke and I’m hungry, hard up and I’m lonely
I’ve been dancing on this killing floor for years
and of the few things I am certain
I’m the captain of my burden
I’m sorry doll, I could never stop the rain.
Once you said I was your hero
you would dance with me on a dime
we could spin this world right right right round
and catch back up on the flipside
I was gonna get this real big engine
I was gonna get them Broadway stars
you were gonna be my Judy Garland
we were gonna share your Tin Man heart.
There’s a dirty wind blowing
there’s a storm front coming in
there’s an SOS on the seas tonight
steady now steady now
soldier hold fast now
it’s heads or tails on heart attacks and broken dreams tonight…
Next Thursday morning I’m boarding a plane bound for Nashville. That sounds like the first lyric of a good song.
I’ll be visiting one of my favorite people in the world, and together we are going to cram in a good deal of musical fun into four days. On Friday night we’re heading to the Exit/In (this show happened there, among others, which makes it some sort of hallowed ground) to see the newly-birthed supergroup Works Progress Administration.
This civic-mindedly named band is an “expandable collective” formed this summer, consisting of Glen Phillips (of my terrifically-beloved Toad The Wet Sprocket), Sean and Sara Watkins from Nickel Creek, Benmont Tench from The Heartbreakers, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello and the Imposters), Luke Bulla (Lyle Lovett’s fiddler), and the pedal steel talents of Greg Leisz. In addition to tapping some of the coolest icons and typefaces of the last century, their independently-released album sweetly blends bluegrass and pop and I cannot wait to hear it live.
You can listen to their entire debut album above, and purchase it here (they’re doing it all by themselves, with no label). The vocal duties shift between four band members, and my favorites are still the ones where Glen sings (lead track “Always Have My Love” is an instant classic, and “Rise Up” is an introspective piano-based gem that feels like twilight). But the richness of other tracks are growing on me too — like Sara Watkins’ take on the Ray Davies/Pretenders “I Go To Sleep.” It’s clear that these folks love playing together.
My innards still get happy every time I hear Glen sing, not even kidding. I’ll be interviewing him on Friday afternoon in Nashville, and I will try not to knock him over with all the pent-up enthusiasm of fifteen+ years of fandom. Cross fingers.
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION / WINTER TOUR
Dec 3 – High Noon Saloon, Madison, Wisconsin
Dec 4 – Ladies Literary Club, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Dec 5 – The Ark, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Dec 6 – Old Town School Of Folk Music, Chicago, Illinois
Dec 7 – The Basement, Columbus, Ohio
Dec 9 – Southgate House, Newport, Kentucky
Dec 10 – Birdy’s, Indianapolis, Indiana
Dec 11 – Exit/In, Nashville, Tennessee
Dec 12 – Phoenix Hill Tavern, Louisville, Kentucky
Dec 13 – The Kent Stage, Kent, Ohio
Jan 6 – Sellersville Theater 1894, Sellersville, Pennsylvania
Jan 7 – Infinity Hall, Norfolk, Connecticut
Jan 8 – Arden Gild Hall, Arden, Delaware
Jan 9 – City Winery, New York, New York
Jan 10 – Stone Mountain Arts Center, Brownfield, Maine
Feb 21 – Cayamo Cruise, Miami, Florida
Mar 27 – Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara, California
May 1 & 2 – Merle Watson Memorial Festival, Wilkesboro, North Carolina
I am also taking suggestions for things we can entertain ourselves with in Nashville. You might not know this about me but I can belt an absolutely absurd number of country songs with great passion and without skipping a word. I think there might be some funmusic-relatedthings to do in Nashville…
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.
Phoenix are from a suburb of Versailles, and their humbly-named fourth album 
is out now on V2/Glassnote Records.
You can listen to their entire debut album above, and 
Name: Heather Browne
