You’re blinded by the dazzling attractiveness of this sextet, no? Wait until you hear them perform a stripped-down, all-acoustic set at my house on Tuesday, August 7! And then add to the mix that Tyler Lyle is flying out from California to open the show, and I think you got yourself the house concert of the summer.
Blind Pilot has been a favorite of mine ever since I heard this song in 2009, via my friend Dainon. Since then, Blind Pilot has continued to release amazing music, and most recently I just saw them wow a crowd of thousands at Red Rocks, opening for The Shins and The Head & The Heart. You also know that Tyler Lyle is one of my favorite new songwriting talents, and I am beyond thrilled to have him coming back.
TICKETS ARE HERE. This will probably fill up (please see the “HOW IT WORKS” segment on the EventBrite page). Whee!
Last time Dave Bazan (formerly of Pedro the Lion) came and played a house show for me, it was a piercing, thoughtful, riveting evening. I compared it to my very first house show I saw with Joe Pug, and how the intimacy was borderline overwhelming. I wrote:
“I still feel this way about house shows, and now even moreso after seeing David Bazan lay bare everyone and everything in that room with just his voice and guitar. As I sat there listening to his songs that he often performed with his eyes clenched shut, there was a keeling unsteadiness within me, so acutely he probed. I was absorbed into his fierce and sometimes sardonic, regretful humor, his unflinching engagement with all the super-hard questions that crouch in corners.
I was wearing a hoodie and sitting directly to his right, facing much of the crowd. I kept finding myself ferociously wanting privacy, wanting to pull my hood up and disappear inside of it as I listened. I felt like all my stories were being written in black ink in public, scrawled across my face as I listened to him. He has a way of making the listener feel suddenly small, suddenly mortal. A speck hurtling along. A cascade of failings and hopes, trying to make sense of it all, thinking about the promises we keep.”
Tyler is a 26 year-old songwriter originally from Carrollton, Georgia — although he has successfully expunged his accent (regrettably, says the Georgia blood in my veins). He was in town this weekend for a richly satisfying Fuel/Friends house show & chapel session, leaving the air in my neighborhood radiant with his songs.
“Winter Is For Kierkegaard” is a new one that we recorded Sunday morning while we were waiting outside Adam’s Mountain Cafe in Manitou Springs for brunch — because, you know — why not. I’ve probably watched this twenty+ times already, and am so in love with the phrasing, the intricate melody, the way his voice defiantly rises on the line, “and why not?!”
And yes, he was carrying a timeworn copy of Kierkegaard this weekend; I also believe the mandolin here from Thomas Lockwood might kill us all.
I have been raving about Tyler’s album The Golden Age and The Silver Girl since the very first moment I clicked play and heard the opening track. Tyler’s record was one of my favorites of 2011, and I was delighted to spin him on NPR’s World Cafe. But I am here to tell you that he is just getting even better, by leaps and bounds.
I don’t think he’ll be anonymous for long. He recently finished helping write songs for the new Court Yard Hounds record (2/3 of the Dixie Chicks) and he talked about what it was like for him to be in the presence of such talented musical greatness, how he once stopped everyone in the middle of a song just to shake his head and marvel a bit. Despite his nascent presence and clear-eyed youth, I often felt the same way this weekend — having to pinch myself at all this magnificent music that Tyler kept infusing our air with.
On Saturday night at my house concert, I was excited to realize that I didn’t know half the crowd, which is rare in Colorado Springs. There was an infusion of new people in our cozy little domestic music scene, which I interpreted as evidence that there is a buzz growing around Tyler Lyle through word-of-mouth. Even more incredible was when Tyler stumbled over the words to a fan-requested song that he hasn’t played live in a while, and a surge of voices from the crowd picked up right where he faltered. A good dozen of us sang along the rest of the words with him. I did not expect that.
Saturday afternoon I had left Tyler in my house for a few hours to enjoy some solitude, and he was working on writing songs. The crown jewel of the show that night was the first live performance of that same song: the only time it has been played all the way through, and before the ink was hardly even dry from the penning. With the marching cadence and the lyrics brimming with hope, this feels like a folk anthem already.
Right!?
Over and over again this weekend, people who heard the songs Tyler was singing turned to me in a quiet amazement: “This kid is going somewhere.” “Wow.” Yesterday I asked my friend Conor (who records all our chapel sessions) what he thought makes Tyler so special; Conor paused and with a hilarious glint in his eye, remarked: “I don’t know, man …it’s like he can rhyme ‘ramble’ with ‘gamble’ and somehow make you feel like he’s the first person who’s ever done that.”
I found Tyler to be thoughtful, deliberate and well-read, traits that seep out all throughout his music — in the lyrics, in the questions he raises, in the bold statements of hope. There isn’t any artifice in Tyler, and I am sure there are dozens of ways we could prod at him with our collective cynicism, for his lack of a defensive coating. But see, I’m built the same way. His music is imbued with the fiery-hearted purity and optimism of ’60s folk songwriters who see a better world and aren’t afraid to tell you that, unblinkingly. Anyone who can sing this purely, “But I have only love, and I’m convinced it is enough,” as Tyler does, is enough for me indeed.
Oh, and yeah — they ended the night like this, with some help from our engaging openers John Heart Jackie. Yep. What you can’t see is our sea of wide-smiley faces crowded around them, just beaming.
The wild, celestial scale of musical largesse has tipped off its fulcrum in my favor, and we are currently splashing around in a sparkly, melodic deluge of fantastic upcoming Fuel/Friends concerts that I am hosting in the coming weeks. I feel truly awed and thrilled; all four of these special headliners have been listed in my year-end tops lists before.
You’re invited to all four warm wonderful nights, or if you have friends in Colorado, please let them know. Whoever comes from the farthest will get a song dedication and a hug.
On their way to open for some Blind Pilot tour dates, Cataldo is stopping by my house to fill an evening with music. Eric Anderson crafts plaintive, thoughtful, catchy pop that I have been head-over-heels for since I first heard it. His bio tells you all you need to know, I think: “I want to make beautiful things using people and tools around me. I believe in circuitous, round-about methods, trying as hard as you can, and fucking up as much as is necessary before you get things right. I believe in counter-melodies, gang vocals, and the banjo. Most of all I believe in singing things that are important to me and might be important to you.”
Drew Grow is a name you’ve heard me talk a lot about, because I believe in their brand of potent musical gospel. DGPW performed at the very first house concert I did, and the four of them have become my good friends, because they have beautiful hearts that create impassioned music. Their songs are soulful, varied, and incendiary live.
I’m presenting their Friday night show at Moe’s BBQ, before they head out for the month of March with The Head and The Heart; come stand underneath their torrent, feel and believe things, oh — and we can bowl and get BBQ. Nothing could go wrong with this plan.
From the first time I clicked play on a Tyler Lyle song, it was musical exhilaration, and I’ve only gotten deeper and deeper into this wonderful record. His debut album was all recorded in one day, just before he moved away from Atlanta for good. Because of that, more than anything this album feels like one exceedingly honest and humble snapshot of a moment of change and loss, without artifice, in the best possible way.
After he plays San Francisco’s Noise Pop this weekend, and after his Daytrotter session recording, Tyler is stopping by to spend the evening with us (joined by Portland’s John Heart Jackie). I can’t wait to see this fresh new voice for myself.
This is a huge one, folks. Typhoon wowed everyone at SXSW last year, with their approximately three hundred members (okay, thirteen) and their heads-thrown-back jubilance and shimmery, multicolored songs.
After their Letterman appearance and before they head out to play some big summer festivals in 2012, I’ve set them up to play a cool art gallery in town for us, all bedecked in twinkly white lights and with a sound system that can do them justice. I am co-presenting this show with our local NPR affiliate/college radio station, KRCC, and we both love Typhoon’s cavalcade of instruments and voices, and the way it feels truly overwhelming. There’s some of the redemptive waves of orchestral joy and colossal thumping force that we find to love in Fanfarlo. When they all throw their heads back and sing “alleluia, it will be gone soon,” I get chills, every time.
I am also thrilled to get to see Seattle’s Motopony, who I hear off-kilter great things about.
TICKETS:on-sale now at the KRCC studios, and at Venue 515 in Manitou Springs for $10.
This morning is grey and it’s been raining since yesterday afternoon. I slept listening to raindrops on the roof, under my big winter blanket I brought up from the basement, and was completely content.
Bryan John Appleby is from Seattle, so he’ll come into this misty town tonight and feel right at home. After completely winning the stages he played on at Doe Bay, he is playing a house show for me tonight, along with chapel session alums The Changing Colors.
I can’t think of a better rainy September record than his new one Fire On The Vine that you guys helped Kickstart. His songs are literate and richly gorgeous.
Listen to this whole song and tell me that you don’t get shivers just imagining what it’s like live. Yes, it’s like that. Glory – Bryan John Appleby
Tomorrow, friends, These United States are playing my grand hurrah mid-summer BBQ fiesta with The Lumineers. Both bands are, quite simply — amazing, and really you should come. Details about Sunday are here. Bring something to cook up and let’s celebrate the radiant heat and summer thunderstorms before they’re gone.
…and he is going to play us some music on Saturday night, and I really think you should come. If you have been reading Fuel/Friends for a while, y’all know that I think Joe Pug is one of the most piercingly insightful songwriters making music right now, and this will be an amazing night that hopefully leaves your jaw somewhere on my floor.
Now, you can’t tell from this picture (taken as “a Fuel/Friends exclusive” the other night — to which I texted back “it looks like a still from a ’70s porn”), but together with his touring mate Strand of Oaks, Joe is prepared to knock our collective socks off this Saturday, May 7th. Do RSVP here. I recommend bringing mint juleps.
So great is the obvious mutual musical affinity between these artists that they have each chosen one song of the other’s to cover. “Hymn #101” would rank up there as one of my most un-coverable songs ever, but I really admire the way Tim/Strand of Oaks is able to harness it and make it his tentative, haunting own. End In Flames (Strand of Oaks cover) – Joe Pug
The poster here is specially designed by Jupiter Visual for us, and we are super pleased to be working with them again. They’ll be on sale at the house show in very limited quantities, on I think a nice dark blue paper with silvery ink.
“I think what a lot of people don’t necessarily realize… I mean, there’s no question that as you get older you get wiser. I’m not wiser than anybody else. But I think with youth there’s a certain greater willingness to say these things I say in my songs, whereas when you get older, you’ve experienced so much and you’ve seen so many contradictions in your life that you rightfully are hesitant to say anything out loud because you’ve seen everything proved wrong, at least once, you know what I mean?
In youth, you can make broader declarations, but also at the same time – there was one artist who said, ‘The entire job of the artist is to not get beat down by the meanness of the world.’
And I’m not talking about hope, or hopefulness. Art can be about that, but doesn’t necessarily have to be about that. It does have to do with believing things, though, whatever those things are. Whether they are the bleakest thoughts on the face of the earth or the most hopeful, you have to believe in them. And even if it’s temporary – even if you just believe them for those five minutes when you wrote the song, or if you’ve believed it since you were three years old until you pass on. So maybe it’s easier to believe in things when you’re younger.”
Anyone who says stuff like that in his off-time, just sitting in a park, is going to make some damn good music. Come check it out.
Finally, this never gets old:
If you can’t come to my house show, please check him out at one of these other stops; you are in for a treat.
JOE PUG SPRING TOUR
May 3 St. Louis, MO–Off Broadway
May 4 Lawrence, KS–The Bottleneck
May 6 Denver, CO–Hi Dive
May 7 Colorado Springs, CO–Fuel/Friends House Show
May 8 Salt Lake City, UT–Kilby Court
May 10 Pullman, WA–BellTower
May 11 Bellingham, WA–The Green Frog
May 12 Vancouver, CAN–The Media Club
May 13 Seattle, WA–Tractor Tavern
May 14 Portland, OR–The Doug Fir
May 15 Willamina, OR–Wildwood Hotel
May 17 San Francisco, CA–Bottom of the Hill
May 18 Santa Cruz, CA–The Crepe Place
May 19 San Diego, CA–The Casbah
May 20 Los Angeles, CA–The Satellite (formerly Spaceland)
May 21 Tempe, AZ–The Sail Inn
May 22 Albuquerque, NM–Low Spirits
May 24 Oklahoma City, NM–The Blue Door
Last month David Bazan stopped in at my house on a quiet weeknight, during his tour of shows in people’s living rooms and gathering spaces. The former frontman for Pedro The Lion showed up sniffly in a red hooded sweatshirt, carrying his guitar case to my front step. I offered him some Gypsy Cold Care tea and we sat to chat as the (largely 20-something male) crowd began to make their way up the walk, assorted microbrews in hand.
After the very first house show I ever attended, I wrote that: “I was startled by the intimacy, as I think many of us were. I am used to (and prefer) my shows small and earnest, but often the artificial barrier between performer and audience is hedged cleanly by the drop-off of the stage to the sticky floors below. As eager as I was, it felt almost too intimate at times, especially given the songs he performs – sharper at excising things from my heart than any scalpel. It would be akin to kissing a stranger at a loud, smoky nightclub or kissing them on a quiet Sunday morning at the sun-drenched kitchen table. In such close quarters, there is nowhere to hide.”
I still feel this way about house shows, and now even moreso after seeing David Bazan lay bare everyone and everything in that room with just his voice and guitar. As I sat there listening to his songs that he often performed with his eyes clenched shut, there was a keeling unsteadiness within me, so acutely he probed. I was absorbed into his fierce and sometimes sardonic, regretful humor, his unflinching engagement with all the super-hard questions that crouch in corners.
I was wearing a hoodie and sitting directly to his right, facing much of the crowd. I kept finding myself ferociously wanting privacy, wanting to pull my hood up and disappear inside of it as I listened. I felt like all my stories were being written in black ink in public, scrawled across my face as I listened to him. He has a way of making the listener feel suddenly small, suddenly mortal. A speck hurtling along. A cascade of failings and hopes, trying to make sense of it all, thinking about the promises we keep.
Bazan would stop every two or three songs and very humbly ask the audience, “So… is there anything you guys would like to talk about at this point in the show?” At first the questions trickled back to him, but as we all grew to understand this hybrid concert/communal interview concept, they began to torrent. Someone asked him, in writing songs, how much is about him and how much is someone else? He replied, “Fiction can often represent your truest self better than non-fiction, because you’re not bound by reality.” With Pedro the Lion songs, he said 90% of them were fictional, as compared to his last album, the deeply personal Curse Your Branches, where 90% are autobiographical.
When asked about his process for writing songs, Bazan said that he’s found that “one line of a song has to emerge fully formed, and in the DNA of that lyric, the rest of the song lies encoded, if you dig for it.” We chatted about both the Black Album (“I have been listening to ’99 Problems’ on repeat in the van, that is just an amazing, amazing song”) and The White Album, in relation to what we pay for music (“If it cost $1000, I’d find a way to save up my money and buy it”). Bazan is extremely intelligent, and said things I liked immensely, such as “buying records is a good way for a culture to stay healthy.” It was fascinating hearing what all the fans in the audience wanted to ask him. There was no boundary –none– between musician and listener, and that felt quietly revolutionary.
Another thing you need to know is that Bazan has crazy-committed fans. A kid that looked all of seventeen had driven from Wyoming with his girlfriend to sit there in what can best be described as rapt reverence. I found myself watching the audience as much as I watched Bazan — watching them whisper along every lyric, watching the tough-looking Hispanic guy start to cry as he pumped his fist along to the words “The poison makes its way through my body slowly, into the pleasure centers of my brain / If you were here, I would admit that I’m an asshole, but now it’s over and I can’t stay sober — though it isn’t like I try…” When I encounter fans like these (reference: Wilco), I know I need to pay close attention, and that I will be rewarded like I was that night with Bazan. I think we all left completely sated, but with so much on our minds. I had trouble sleeping after.
Dave’s new album Strange Negotiations is out on May 24th on Barsuk Records. He played the record over the house stereo after his set ended, much to the delight of the audience that lingered over beers, then packed the CD up with him when he left the next morning (but not before he and I had one of the nicest morning coffee hours at my kitchen table that I’ve ever had – endlessly fascinating, that man).
Below is the first track released from the new album, along with a few particularly incisive older ones.
Go to: DAVID BAZAN’S SPRING TOUR * w/ Cotton Jones
# w/ S. Carey
& w/ Rocky Votolato
May
04 – PORTLAND, OR – Crystal Ballroom
June
01 – SALT KAKE CITY, UT – Kilby Court *
02 – DENVER, CO – Hi-Dive *
03 – KANSAS CITY, MO – Record Bar *
04 – COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA – West Fair Amphitheatre (w/ Bright Eyes, Jenny and Johnny) 06 – ST. PAUL, MN – Turf Club *
07 – Madison, WI – Annex
08 – CHICAGO, IL – Lincoln Hall *
10 – ST. LOUIS, MO – Old Rock House *
11 – COLUMBUS, OH – Basement *
12 – AKRON, OH – Musica
13 – PONTIAC, MI – Pike Room
14 – TORONTO, CANADA – Lee’s Palace
15 – OTTAWA, CANADA – Mavericks
17 – ITHACA, NY – Haunt
18 – HAMDEN, CT – Space w/ Via Audio
19 – CAMBRIDGE, MA – T. T. The Bear’s #
22 – NEW YORK, NY – Bowery Ballroom #
23 – PHILADELPHIA, PA – Johnny Brenda’s #
24 – WASHINGTON, DC – Black Cat #
25 – CHAPEL HILL, NC – Local 506(w/ Centro-matic, Sarah Jaffee) 27 – ORLANDO, FL – Social #
28 – ATLANTA, GA – Earl #
29 – BIRMINGHAM, AL – Bottle Tree #
30 – NEW ORLEANS, LA – One Eyed Jacks #
July
01 – BATON ROUGE, LA – Spanish Moon #
02 – HOUSTON, TX – Fitzgerald’s &
03 – DENTON, TX – Dan’s Silverleaf &
05 – AUSTIN, TX – ACL Presents: Satellite Sets
07 – TEMPE, AZ – Sail Inn &
08 – SAN DIEGO, CA – Casbah &
09 – LONG BEACH, CA – Alex’s Bar &
10 – LOS ANGELES, CA – Troubadour &
12 – VISALIA, CA – Cellar Door &
13 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Independent &
16 – SEATTLE, WA – Showbox at the Market &
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.
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.
Next Wed., Feb 29 (LEAP DAY!): 
Next Friday, March 2: 
Next Saturday, March 3:
Tuesday, March 20:
Dave’s new album 
Name: Heather Browne
