A few months ago I was in Florida with the fam (and we may or may not have been wearing matching DisneyWorld shirts that my mom made but that is BESIDE THE POINT, okay? Shut up.) and we were passing the time driving along by playing one of those conversation-question card games like “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” and “What would your ideal birthday party celebration look like?”.
I was answering the latter and found myself describing a birthday party with a ramshackle house on a Pacific beach, filled up with all my favorite friends from all around the world that I never get to see, and yes please some terrific bands and good food. Maybe a setting sun, maybe some ocean breezes and a campfire that left its scent in my hair all night. That would be a good birthday.
I should really do that someday, I thought, for a big milestone birthday. Some August in a few years when I turn a nice round number we’ll really throw down, I thought.
Then and there I decided that life is short, and The Doe Bay Fest is undoubtedly good. And there is nowhere I would rather be August 11-14 of this year. So I’ve recruited a dozen friends to help me celebrate and we’ll be there with bug spray on. Sexy!
From everything I’ve heard, the Doe Bay Fest (on Orcas Island in the San Juans, outside Seattle) is the most magical jewelbox of a music festival that you will ever experience. It is super-limited in size (the few hundred tickets will go on sale for $60 on May 1 at 10:00am, and will sell out that day) and located in one of the most gorgeous natural settings you’ll find. A heady spirit of musical joy and collaboration seems to permeate every aspect of the festival. In addition to a stellar official lineup, I am hoping for all of these things: late night campfires, slip and slides, open mic singalongs. This year there is a full moon for the fest weekend, and I can hold my breath for some midnight forest music under the brightly glowing, late summer orb.
The Doe Bay Resort? A small, collectively-owned resort that’s accessible only by ferry ride, with a collection of little cabins, yurts, and camping, an organic garden, a yoga studio, and a $2 beer garden. The chef is apparently world-class, serving up delicious organic food all weekend on the cheap. There is plentiful shade and sea and wildlife. The stars come out at night and I am going to lay on my back and watch them, with a big old birthday smile stretched on my face.
As one of the four readers who have written to me in the last week to recommend that I listen to Typhoon said, “Imagine a band like Arcade Fire, only they actually make good use of having 12 people playing at once.” Typhoon is from Portland and they’ve all just stormed into my life these last few days, leaving a glittering wake.
If junior high orchestra was this fun, you can bet money that I would have joined — everyone playing their hearts out on so many different delectable instruments, all creating this cavalcade of sound and voices that is truly overwhelming. There’s some of the shimmering, redemptive waves of orchestral joy and colossal thumping force that we find to love in Fanfarlo.
I was totally wowed by this video from the Driskill Hotel in Austin last week. It is wonderful how they weave together the last song from their album with the first from their new EP, building into one terrifically expansive song, with the common refrain that both share: “eternity will smile on me…” Singer Kyle Morton’s distinctive voice has an ineffable quality to it of sadness and wisdom and somehow an utterly convincing hope — and what smart lyrics as well. Except you have to watch it all the way through, because it becomes something tremendous.
There are so many of them apparently all living together in a charming house in Portland that I wonder if they’d even notice if I moved in and sang with them in their joyful chorus. They were named one of the best bands in Portland last year, and in the article they talked about all cramming into the van together, and the inordinate amount of mandated cuddling that ensues. “You have to—there’s no room in the van,” Morton laughs. “On the other hand, there’s all your friends. You have a posse, and you never feel scared, you always feel safe.” Their music is the aural equivalent of that today for me.
They’ve just wrapped up a tour, but are thankfully playing Sasquatch (which I am attending this year for the first time) which makes it easy for me to see them, especially since they just played in Colorado a few days ago and in my post-SXSW haze I didn’t even know about it.
When I was somewhere other than on Red River outside Stubbs last week in Austin, the four guys from Walk The Moon were playing their stupendously joyful song “Anna Sun” and a David Bowie cover under the yellow streetlights. You can feel the Texas warmth radiating even in the night.
[via San Francisco’s In The Open live session series]
Walk The Moon is announcing some tour dates today, for those of you who are as keen on them as I am. They were one of the most fun shows I saw at SXSW this year, all frenetic energy and catchy melodies. Come prepared to dance and maybe paint your face. Don’t judge.
WALK THE MOON SPRING TOUR
03/31 – Athens, OH – Casa Nueva
04/01 – Cincinnati, OH – Clifton Heights Music Festival
04/05 – Boston, MA – Brighton Hall
04/07 – New York, NY – Tamany Hall
04/08 – Boston, MA – Winsor School
04/09 – Brooklyn, NY – The Rock Shop
04/10 – Washington DC – DC9
04/14 – Cincinnati, OH – Cincinnati Zoo
04/15 – Tiffin, OH – Heidelberg University
04/28 – Cincinnati, OH – 20th Century Theater
05/01 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavillion
05/09 – London, UK – Notting Hill Arts Club
05/10 – London, UK – Water Rats
05/11 – London, UK – Old Queens Head
05/14 – Southampton, UK – Unit
Fingers crossed for Colorado this summer. Let’s do an outdoor house show — a backyard show, if you will. I’ll bring the twinkly white lights.
Two weekends ago on a sunny Saturday afternoon, we recorded the very first Fuel/Friends Chapel Sessions in an empty stone church sanctuary, something I have been wanting to do for years now and never had the help I needed to make it happen. The Head and The Heart and Kelli Schaefer filled those colossal stone halls with a sound that was so huge that I kept feeling like I was drowning.
The Saturday afternoon before the house show, I rousted Jon, Josiah and Charity from my couch and coaxed them over to the historic Romanesque halls of the Shove Chapel on the campus of the college where I work, and they rewarded us with a profusely vivid, simple, stunning time of musical inspiration. Thanks to my wonderful friends at local Blank Tape Records, the recording gear was running.
After multiple takes of whatever felt right, three of the four songs we ended up with here are not recorded or released anywhere else, and the fourth (“Rivers and Roads”) is reinvented with the richly profound resonance of the piano instead of the fiercely-strummed acoustic guitar that we’ve previously heard. I could not be more pleased with how these turned out. Growing from the fertile feeling of comfort that filled that space, it felt more like a private songwriting session than a concert.
It was a session permeated, for me, by a flooding sense of luckiness. There were only three of us non-participants sitting in that sanctuary watching the three of them play, their instruments and voices reverberating off the old stones and the stained glass. You can hear it on these recordings, the dusty space in the air as the light streamed in. I have a strong intuition that this band is going to be significant to a much larger audience, as they have been to me and so many of you. The three of us sitting in the pews kept just looking at each other across the room; we couldn’t believe how heady it felt when the moment resonated and the chords struck and the harmonies fit like keys and locks, or fingers interlaced, or an embrace.
After the session when I hugged each of them, they were sweaty and elated — clearly electrified from the moment we all felt hanging in the air all around that Saturday. Listen.
THE HEAD AND THE HEART ::
FUEL/FRIENDS CHAPEL SESSIONS
In The Summertime
In its purest essence, this is a song about the certainty of love, and the undeniable beauty when you just know. Some things you just know. Josiah wrote this song in the green room in Memphis before their show with Dr. Dog last month. At the beginning of our session while we were setting up mics and cords, and the band was exploring the gorgeous setting we found ourselves in, Josiah sat down at the massive black piano that was on the stage, and started to pound out these chords, then launched into the words, “Lord, give me to the one that makes me whole…“ There is a traditional structure here that made me first think it was an old gospel or hippie-church song, but I soon realized it was all his.
It was one of the first times he had played it for his bandmates, and Jon walked over with his guitar and started feeling out the strum of the chords alongside Josiah, gauging the building ferocity as Josiah’s voice strengthened and cracked, smiling at Josiah so that his eyes crinkled. As I stood there, I could almost see the bluish-purple energy crackling between the two of them when things hit just right. Then the sad sweet song of Charity’s violin pierced across the stage as she felt out the parts where it wound and fit into this new song that they created there. When they recorded it a bit later in the session, her last notes sound like a deep cold river and make it hard to breathe.
Chasing A Ghost
This is a new song that readers first started emailing me about just in the last few weeks; the band closed the Chicago show encore with this one, a heady and molasses-sweet song with Jon on lead and the duetting “oooooh”s sweetly shading in the colors. The song has the flickering warm campfire glow of an old country lovesong, ballasted with Jon’s raspy warmth that commands notice. The lyrics detail the struggle to not fall in love with someone you’ve already kinda fallen in love with, the jumping without a rope to catch you.
There’s a point at 2:30 where everything else cuts out and Jon belts “and I am falling, falling for you…” and it shot chills up my neck, both when we recorded it and again now each time I listen to this.
Josh McBride
From what I understand of this song, it’s an older one, based on words penned by an old friend of Josiah’s. This is the same one I have been calling “Attic Ladder” or “The Seat Beside Me” for several months now since I first heard it; I love the weight of classicism and the delicateness woven throughout it. It feels very ancient somehow, timeless. As they played this song, Jon slid behind the piano and started feeling out those little piano fills you hear in between the guitar picking, for the first time. This weekend as we listened to it, my friend Michelle pointed out that the piano cadence that Jon made up sounds like the ladder referenced in the song, the up and down.
There’s a direct contrast between “you are in the seat beside me” (I picture driving in a car, knee close enough to touch) and “you are in my dreams at night.” It is a wonderful thing when the actual aligns with the nighttime meanderings of our dreams.
There is also so much resonance in me with the line about how this is “not the last time, we are learning who we are, and what we were.” Oh, we all are. This is a song for that.
Rivers and Roads
There was a Daytrotter session once with The Tallest Man on Earth where he sang his song “I Won’t Be Found” completely on piano. The first time I heard it I literally stopped dead in my tracks, riveted. That also happened with the pendulous sadness that “For Emma” absorbs when Bon Iver plays it on piano, and it’s the same way I feel about hearing this song reinvented with Josiah on piano, and Jon and Charity crowded in closely behind him, over the building chords.
It’s an undeniably great song either way but, wow, this version has my number and stole my heart; I think the piano is my favorite instrument. The tinkly top notes on the piano towards the end (after the “rivers ’til I reach you” lyric) come from Jon leaning in over Josiah’s shoulder to plink out those shiny accents. And inbetween the tapping of toes, those harmonies on the last line of this song create one of the most chill-inducing moments of the entire session — you can hear the echo and feel, truly, like you are at church. A benediction and a blessing, a hope of paths that will continue to cross. Oh, and Charity also completely knocks it out of the park on her verse here. She leaned back and opened her chest to the heavens.
Welcome to the agony of what I call “The Post-SXSW, Just-Discovered-That-Band!” blues. This happens every year, where mere days after I get home I figure out the new loves that I missed like an oblivious ship passing in the night. If the ships were holding Shiner Bock.
I objected to Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on principle of naming, really, which is stupid. I was all, hey now I don’t like NASCAR. Now I see that it is their trick to guard their secret because holy heck this is terrific pop music, all fuzz and shimmer and coolness. I can’t get enough of the daunting beat on this song, and I am totally singing along.
Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein are from Detroit and have a few catchy EPs to their name that you can enjoy now (check the tune “Simple Girl”), and their debut full-length It’s A Corporate World will be out June 7 on Quite Scientific Records. They remind me a bit of what I loved about Chester French – remember?
The good news is also this: my agony is short lived, only until June 11 when they come back through Colorado:
DALE EARNHARDT JR JR TOUR TOUR
Mar 23 – The Bilken Club – St. Louis, MO
Mar 25 – Schuba’s – Chicago, IL
May 11 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
May 12 – The Rock Shop – Brooklyn, NY
May 13 – The Red Palace – Washington, DC
May 14 – Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
May 17 – IOTA Club & Cafe – Arlington, VA
May 18 – The Camel – Richmond, VA
May 19 – Local 506 – Chapel Hill, NC
May 21 – The Basement – Nashville, TN
May 24 – Bottletree – Birmingham, AL
May 25 – Proud Larry’s -Oxford, MI
May 26 – Fitzgerald’s – Houston, TX
May 27 – Club DaDa – Dallas, TX
May 28 – Emo’s Alternative Lounge – Austin, TX
May 31 – Santa Fe Brewing Company – Santa Fe, NM
Jun 01 – Rhythm Room – Phoenix, AZ
Jun 03 – The Echo – Echo Park, CA
Jun 04 – Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco, CA
Jun 06 – Mississippi Studios – Portland, OR
Jun 07 – The Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA
Jun 09 – The Neurolux – Boise, ID
Jun 10 – Kilby Court Gallery – Salt Lake City, UT
Jun 11 – Hi-Dive – Denver, CO
Jun 15 – 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN
On Wednesday night, as we braced ourselves for the marvelous musical onslaught that was churning ready to release onto the streets of Austin, somebody told me that the SXSW Festival was 40% larger this year than last. I have no idea if that is true because I am terrible at estimating numbers of anything, but I can certainly believe it, as SXSW continues to grow and draw so many acts down to Texas that I always leave feeling like I’ve been through a musical washing machine. Or maybe I feel like that episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ where she is trying to eat the chocolates that just keep coming so fast, and more, and more, and more. No one can keep up with all that deliciousness, but I was game to try. I’m always game.
After a splendid opening reception for media at Austin City Hall with some excellent local talent and gift bags with bottles of Tito’s (uh oh), I headed as quickly as I could over to Bat Bar for Walk The Moon, to start my SXSW 2011 off right. You know I was mightily excited. With the crowd packed close and the bar walls open to Sixth Street passersby stopping to watch, their set was crackling with the kind of kinetic confidence that comes easiest in youth. Their energetic, dancey set can best be illustrated by two texts I sent to a friend while I was trying to convince him to come over.
9:24pm: “These guys are adorable. And twenty.”
9:26pm: “And wearing facepaint.”
It was everything I had hoped for. The first show of my SXSW was also the feel-good winner. I had to stop filming a video clip because I decided I had to dance instead.
Walk The Moon
I want to join Wild Flag. I want them to adopt me as egg-shaker rocker girl (since I couldn’t depose the formidable Janet Weiss, of Sleater-Kinney, as their drummer) and take me on tour with them, so I could bask in their rock glory every night. Fronted by Carrie Brownstein, this new band of Pacific Northwest badasses were phenomenal at the NPR party, playing their squalling guitars held behind their heads. Their songs had strong driving melodies and basslines, with that singsong female voice that sounds even better with the right heft behind it.
Their MySpace helpfully says “Apt adjectives for describing the band’s music: wild. Also: flaggy.” To that I would add: really damn good. Cannot wait to get their (Britt Daniel-produced) first 7″ on Record Store Day.
Wild Flag
After lunch on Thursday I started out from the house I was staying at, and walked past the Auditorium Shores where The Strokes were due to play that night. There was already an amazingly long line of kids standing waiting in line for the free set. Even if it hadn’t been for the multitude of Strokes shirts in incarnations from the last decade on every other person, it would have been fun (and easy) to try and tell which band they were waiting for just based on the fashion.
That night was my first time seeing The Strokes, and it was long overdue. I was giddy with anticipation. For a band that saw its comeuppance in small NYC clubs and the sweaty intensity of raucous tiny shows, I was acutely aware that something was missing from the way I was experiencing them for the first time, but beggars can’t be choosers, as they say, and to me they sounded absolutely terrific. With the Austin skyline silhouetting them, their set peppered with new songs, Julian brought his lackadaisical drawl (I’ve always said it sounds as if he can’t be arsed to get up off the couch), but there was that underlying edge, the guitars and drums tight and spot-on.
On most days, this is my favorite Strokes song, and I just stood there with a big stupid grin on my face to get to see it from so close.
The set ended with a massive bombardment of surprise fireworks that started exploding during the opening drumbeat of “Last Nite.” I am a sucker for fireworks. I also thought fleetingly about some sort of metaphor in there for a band that used to cause all the fireworks themselves in small dark clubs, now playing such massive stages that they can light off pyrotechnics into the night air.
After a quick beer with my drummer friend Robby from These United States (who looks awesomely like Jesus these days, and whose sets I totally missed in Austin this year, sadly) I headed off – to church.
The rootsy new G. Love album, produced by the Avett Brothers, feels very much like the album he was always meant to make, and since it was recorded in a church, this seemed also like the setting I was absolutely meant to see it performed live in for the first time. Joined by Luther Dickinson from the Black Crowes and the North Mississippi Allstars for a few songs, he wailed and howled and stomped his way through his very solid and compelling set.
G. Love
Lord Huron from Los Angeles were more potent and feisty live than their warm and woolly EP suggests. Instead of bringing that Fleet Foxes meets Edward Sharpe vibe, they cranked up the percussion (dude was wearing a washboard on his chest and I wanted to run away with him immediately into the Texas night) and were entirely danceable, in a near-tropical way.
My night ended on Thursday watching all dozen+ members of Gayngs (with Justin Vernon, and a dude in a white cape) cover George Michael’s “One More Try” to a packed Mohawk crowd. I just looked around a little confused and tried my best not to enjoy it (longstanding hatred of GM). And then sang it all the way home, dammit.
Gayngs
Friday’s mercury climbed into the sticky-uncomfortable range, and became the day I decided to start a new photoblog called hipstersinhotweather.com. It is going to be completely amazing. From the moment I left the house, the sweat beads formed and were unrelenting, and I saw a large number of skinny jeans pulled up into man-capris, and plenty of dark clothing and impractical scarves sweat through. I was grateful for my dress.
To escape the heat, and because there is a fantastically vibrant scene there right now, our first stop of the day parties on Friday was the SXSeattle showcase at Copa, where we caught Ravenna Woods, Young Evils (harmonic, well-crafted pop with a kickass girl drummer named Faustine), and a hip-hop artist named Sol that we danced our asses off to, to spite the heat. I also had the WINNING moment of Damien Jurado showing me his driver’s license so I would believe who he was. Ummmm, the heat was scrambling my brain? Sigh. Sorry Damien. You are awesome and I know it.
Later that afternoon, I caught one of the most high energy sets with Middle Brother playing to a packed Barbarella backyard porch. This is the supernova collaboration between three excellent bands: Deer Tick, Dawes, and Delta Spirit. There was a genuine affinity between the three frontmen (see kiss below) and lots of interaction with / dancing in / throwing beer on the crowd to complement their crunchy riffs and early-’60s garage rock feel. [VIDEO:Me, Me, Me]
Middle Brother
I also, not surprisingly, kept finding myself at The Head and The Heart shows – I think three in 2 days, by my count. The buzz on the street for them was thrilling. After SPIN Magazine hyped them as their #2 band to watch at SXSW 2011, it seemed that everywhere I went (photographers pit, radio lunches, that welcome reception) people were asking each other if they’d seen them yet. I had a few friends to drag to see them, so I happily went along spreading the gospel.
They played a wickedly hot midday show at Lustre Pearl for the Dickies/FILTER party on Thursday afternoon (their first “real” one, they said, meaning to a bunch of sweaty kids instead of to industry folks). Then on Friday, both the legendary Antone’s as well as headlining the Sub Pop showcase at 1am, before heading to the airport for their European tour with The Low Anthem. They left vapor trails in their wake, from an explosive week for them.
The Head and The Heart
In between Head and The Heart sets on Friday night, I popped into the Ale House for my favorite Australian from last year’s SXSW, Andy Clockwise. Completely dousing the audience with charisma like gasoline, Clockwise commands you watch him, and commands you enjoy. He brought the girl next to me up onto stage to play electric guitar and I couldn’t help but be jealous of her badassery.
Andy Clockwise
Josh Ritter played the St. David’s Church sanctuary at 10:30pm, and I got in only for the last few songs. It was quite a shift after Andy Clockwise, but it was utterly spellbinding, and –as you can imagine– transcendent. If there is a more poignant moment than Ritter performing “In The Dark” in a church, in the dark, with the crowd singing softly and spontaneously along, I don’t think I can handle it.
Josh Ritter
Saturday morning I hopped right on up out of bed (ouch, cowboy boot blisters, ouch) ready to tackle the final full day of SXSW. By that day, everyone is feeling it and you best be talking quiet. Denver’s soiree of the music year at the Reverb Party was happening at Parkside, and it was on the lovely rooftop patio overlooking Sixth Street. Since I forgot to have a breakfast taco back home, my day started gently with Great Divide’s Wild Raspberry Ale (I mean, this is Colorado, so we do up our free beer at day parties RIGHT).
Port Au Princeis the new project of some good friends from the now-defunct band Astrophagus, back with a completely different sound. They are more accessible but still smart, with call-and-response melodies that made me happy when they rang down over Sixth Street.
Port Au Prince
I headed over to the Ryan’s Smashing Life blog party at Rusty Spurs, where Adam Duritz did a cameo appearance with the rapper NOTAR that he has signed to his T Recs label. I definitely gushed on a little too much when I met him about what his music has meant to me over the years. But then again, let’s be honest I am not known for hiding my feelings, and Duritz has been a major force in my musical development over the years. It was a great moment for me.
Also at that same party I got to check out the super talented Ivan & Alyosha from Seattle who were having quite a bit of fun up there. They’ve named their band after brothers from Dostoyevsky who struggle with faith and family ties, and chats with them before their set belie a depth of intelligence that is palpable in their smart, substantial songwriting. One of my favorite unexpected discoveries of the festival.
Then I went and decided to Mess With Texas at their free outdoors day party on the other side of the highway, and in a shocking role reversal it ended up just completely messing with me instead. I was sending texts about !!! and people thought I was so excited that I was forgetting a word in there, but really I was just totally wowed by their live set. For a man wearing (very) short blue shorts and a purple striped polo shirt, the lead singer of !!! had charisma in droves. Despite my weepingly aching feet, I found myself dancing harder than I have in a very long time, there on the dusty field.
I’ve been googling lead singer Nic Offer today (since I’ve decided to abduct him for a dance party, after that show – and that Prince outtake they covered!), and this quote from the A.V. Club profile on him pretty much sums it up in the very best possible way:
“A few years back, I perfected ‘The Prance,’ where you’re almost skipping in place and you have a look on your face that says “Nobody’s business, ain’t nobody’s business if I do!”
I do so adore a man who isn’t afraid to dance. As one of the best songs on their new album says, my intentions with him are unabashedly bass.
I packed into the giant sweaty tent for the ass-shaking extravaganza that was a Big Freedia show that I was promised would change my life (I never thought I would see a black man with a pompadour that impressive also have those sort of limber hips) and then almost died during Odd Future (no seriously) and evacuated the premises.
The last show I saw at SXSW 2011 was Rural Alberta Advantage at the Central Presbyterian Church late Saturday night. I have an affinity for the resonance of churches, and the simple quietude that is found in the shows that happen there. I am someone who is familiar with the interiors of churches, and lately shows like the RAA are the most deeply resounding and peaceful of the connections I make. Their set sounded fantastic: affecting, urgent, and honest. There was a simple joy, and words that needed to burn their way out. Their latest album Departing has been on non-stop repeat even before their set, but so much moreso after.
For their final song, they unplugged and walked down the red velvet aisle to stand among us and perform a stripped and perfect version of “Good Night.”
rush into the woods where we first felt god
ripple through our veins from the moment when we touched
When Nils threw his head back and the veins popped out on the side of his neck and he howled, “someday if you get it together in your heart / maybe we might get back together but good night….” I started crying and wasn’t even sure why, except for identifying with the longing permeating each syllable. It wasn’t a specific loss, rather a cumulative one.
I wandered alone through loud and colorful streets for about another hour, watching the expansive Laurel-Canyon sounds of Dawes for a few minutes from the street outside the crowded Lustre Pearl, but ultimately took my iPod, cued up Departing, and started the long walk home. The air was heavy and warm, and the as I crossed the river the almost-full moon was reflecting off the ripples. And of course, with so many songs ringing in my head, I was happy. There is no festival like this one.
I’m freshly home from the radiant heat of Austin, feeling simultaneously drained and energized, emptied and full. As I drove home from the airport today on a suddenly warm spring day, all the windows in the car open and the plains wide around me, I played this song on repeat for about an hour (because I do that).
For as many times as I have heard this song, it hit me fresh today; it sums up everything I am feeling right now, a celebration of long days left to breathe and breathe deeply. It explodes with an irrefutable joy, from the opening intricate handclap percussion to the final chimey tones that sound like stars coming out one at a time. The vibrancy of the string section threatens to overwhelm, and the bright golden horn cadences sound like a mariachi band coming to take me away to an adventure.
Silhouette seasons and faraway reasons are all I have now
borders can’t keep me if Rio will have me, to dance and to drown
take to the harbor like sails to set
sleep for the evening and failed regret
hold on to skylines of pale and cold
clouds on horizons and love to grow old
On the way I will go
where the days left to breathe
are not gone
are still long
I am traveling on
Love is a hazard in lower Manhattan
you cannot escape, and mustn’t be saddened
by men who abandon your eyes for another’s;
there are always Brazilian boys to discover
So set your sights straight now and don’t forget pain
drink ’til the morning becomes yesterday
think of the shorelines you have yet to see
men who will hold you with eyes you believe
There was a very nice feature in The Denver Post this weekend about the house shows we’ve been putting on here in Colorado, with some words also from David Bazan who will be playing for us on Wednesday night. I was in Austin and didn’t see the article, but my awesome dad texted me a photo, after warning me, “give me fifteen minutes” when I asked him to. It takes a while, this technology.
This weekend was drenched full of soul-refreshing music, to the point of overflowing.
So wow, in the span of 24 hours, I got to see The Head and The Heart combust their second sold-out show at Moe’s in Denver before a happy, sweaty crowd (including them dedicating their encore song “Gone” to a very blushing and shocked me), record my very first two acoustic Fuel/Friends Sessions in an empty stone church (stay tuned!), and then host a joyous house show for a packed crowd of about a hundred enthusiastic music fans. It literally was too much for me to absorb, leaving me totally zoned out and kind of wordless on Sunday after the bands left.
This is the condensed, live-wire way that music is supposed to be heard and felt.
At both the Friday night show and the Saturday night house show, one thing that amazed me about the audience was that this time around, it felt like everyone was singing along to all the words for The Head and The Heart’s songs, just in the span of four months since the last time they were here. It was amazing to stand in the sea of that. I also was introduced this weekend to the music of both Ravenna Woods and The Moondoggies through stripped bare-bones performances. Ravenna Woods opened the house show with frontman Chris Cunningham pacing and roiling across the floor with a contained fervor and a song to sing. With just one drum and a xylophone backing him up, their music soared – and they ended with a cover of Radiohead’s “Karma Police” that was driving but haunting. They really made it their own.
The Moondoggies were even more elemental, relying mostly on their four voices to carry the audience along with them. They were also the first of the bands to breach the imaginary stage line on the carpet, pushing into the audience which immediately enveloped them and stood with appreciative smiles on their faces. Their humble, affecting four-part harmonies (reminded me a lot of Neil Young) with the round notes plunking out from the banjo are definitely something I have to check out more – I just downloaded two free mp3s from their label Hardly Art.
Kelli Schaeferwas so good that I almost had to excuse myself for a moment — the pounding, intensely gorgeous waves of her music were threatening to drown me, if that makes any sense. Ask anyone who was there or who has seen her live: there is something astoundingly special about this girl. Not only can her voice command a room with seemingly no effort on her part (the best definition of a gift?), but her lyrics read like the truest gospel I’ve heard in a long time. The crowd pushed up close around her at her request, so we were face to face in the strongest of communions.
Trying to see all our faces, she climbed atop a chair to sing the riveting “Better Idea” from her new album. Her searing words grapple with the divine meeting the profane; in this song she sings, “Well I can’t treat my body like a temple when it is failing / are you kidding / was that your plan to keep my grounded? It’s not working / and this seed that you have planted is needing things that I can’t give it.” Instead of watching Kelli as she sang, I too watched everyone in that room, and saw a host of intense darknesses and joys flicker across their faces.
The Head and The Heart started their set in the waning minutes before midnight to a room that had sweltered and convected to sauna temperatures, a stark contrast to the refreshing night outside. I appreciate the freedom inherent in a house show that seems to make artists more willing to try out different arrangements and versions of their songs. Last time, THATH did “Cats and Dogs” totally a cappella, and this time it was a stripped-down and resonant version of “Lost in My Mind” that delighted us. And when they lit into “Sounds Like Hallelujah,” I was a bit worried about the stability of the floors in supporting all that dancing.
The house show got some pretty rad coverage, with folks in attendance from KEXP, The Denver Post (for Sunday’s paper?!), and the Seattle music blog Sound On The Sound. I am grateful that they were also there with their lenses and their journalism because as we’ve established, I was completely overwhelmed in all that happiness.
A few pictures and words from KEXP’s James Bailey (full article here, gorgeous shots) who made the trek from Seattle:
(Ravenna Woods, opening the evening)
(bartending Charity invented the signature drink of the evening, The Whiskey River)
(we were actually singing David Bowie’s parts from Labyrinth. wow.)
Also! The silvery screenprinted posters for the house show turned out even more stunning than I had thought. We have some left, and even if you weren’t there, you might like this lovely piece of art of your walls. They are for sale now over at Jupiter Visual for $15.
Our show caught all four of these bands on their peregrine journey down to SXSW, so if you are also (like me, in the morning, once I, uh, pack) please check all of them out. So very worth being on your shortlist. And remember I have David Bazan coming through next week as well (from Pedro The Lion), with tickets still available.
I am ready to do this again. Just give me a few months to recover.
[all my pictures are here; top photo & Kelli Schaefer bluelight shot credited to Michelle who first told me about this great band playing a tiny venue by her house in Seattle…]
One of my favorite reader/commenters Adam beat me to compiling a Springtime mix, so completely loaded with terrific songs from artists that I had not yet heard much of yet, but fit this nascent springtime glow I am feeling lately. I am reveling in his selections from folks like Hooded Fang, Lemolo, James McMorrow, New Animal, Andrew Belle, and Seryn.
The Seryn song he chose was instantly my favorite on the mix, because it builds up that same type of barely-contained, loosely chaotic joy inside me as that Matthew and The Atlas song did a few months back. Simply marvelous – take a listen.
Seryn are from Denton, Texas and their rainbow-washed debut album This Is Where We Are is out now via Spune/Velvet Blue Music. And they are also playing SXSW!
03/17 – Austin, TX @ SXSW Stage on Sixth / Paste Magazine Showcase 1pm w/ Sarah Jaffe, J. Masics
03/18 – Austin, TX @ SXSW Showlush’s Backyard / Ramble Creek Party 4pm w/ Telegraph Canyon
03/19 – Austin, TX @ SXSW Domy Books / KVRX show w/ Castanets
Now (right now) — listen to Adam’s whole Springtime 2011 mix right here, because you will love it:
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.
Also! The silvery screenprinted posters for the house show turned out even more stunning than I had thought. We have some left, and even if you weren’t there, you might like this lovely piece of art of your walls. They are 
Name: Heather Browne
