Fuel/Friends favorites of 2011

Note: Hear me talk about these on NPR’s World Cafe with David Dye!

2011 has turned out to be the year in music where I found myself resting, and drinking deeply. If you look at the three major music festivals I went to in 2011 (other than SXSW, which is always a debaucherous 1000-mph wonderful mess) they were all of the scenic, restorative type: camping at Sasquatch at Washington’s Columbia River Gorge, Telluride Bluegrass where I pitched my tent right by a rushing river, and Doe Bay Fest on isolated Orcas Island in the San Juans. The ethos of these music festivals, more than anything, is a sturdy summation of the music I enjoyed this year – music that sounds good by rivers, with friends, or under the stars.

Speaking of rivers, I kept finding myself near them this year, and being drawn to songs that either spoke explicitly of them (ref: autumn mix) or artists whose overall sound evoked that for me over and over (see: Vandaveer, below). Not only just rivers; this year I dreamt of swimming pools. Two years ago I remember a dream where I was forcing my way through choking growth, gnarled and thick in a jungle, somewhere unrelentingly humid. I broke through into a clearing where there was an abandoned swimming pool, which, really, if you think about it, is one of the saddest spaces imaginable. It sat there, cracked and empty, dirty in the middle of the place you need it most. A swim would have felt so good. And it wasn’t able to hold any water. It would have run out the cracks in the bottom.

And then one night not too long ago, after I returned from a fairly transformative trip back through Europe, I dreamt I was with the best kind of old friend, again on foreign shores; we slipped down clean white subway tiles into the sparkling water of that gigantic pool. My hair was getting wet, I remember I kept thinking about that. The tiles were so flawless. The water was so perfect. Refreshment. Saturation.

Reconstitution. This was a year for that kind of music.

2011 was also the year we got the Fuel/Friends Chapel Sessions rolling, after years of wanting to try something like it. The pieces all fell into place with the generous help of Conor and Ian from Blank Tape Records, and the somewhat fleeting discussion we had one night over beers: “you know, how about, like — in Shove Chapel? It’s so gorgeous in there.” We’ve now captured the acoustic songs of over a dozen magnificent bands and solo artists as they made their way through this gorgeous Rocky Mountain State, and each hour spent recording was humming with magic. We hope to welcome as many next year. The very first session we did, with The Head and The Heart, was even released this year as the UK bonus tracks on their self-titled debut album (via Heavenly Recordings). Yep, that felt pretty good, to share that sparkly sort of magic afternoon with so many people.

So: favorite albums that soundtracked my year? Here are the ten that I’ve listened to the most during the journey this year with deep enjoyment, from musicians that I am excited about. These are all bands that shimmered and exploded for me this year. All are worth some of your Christmas (or Hanukkah) money that’s burning a hole in your pocket. I continue to be grateful for albums like this.

FUEL/FRIENDS 10 FAVORITES OF 2011
(alphabetical, by band)

THE DECEMBERISTS - THE KING IS DEAD
(Capitol Records)

I’ve long had a thing for Colin Meloy’s mellifluous and flawlessly incisive vocabulary (it’s the way to my heart, you know) but haven’t really dove deeply into being a comprehensive fan of The Decemberists’ uber-literate chamber-rock for geeks. This year’s The King Is Dead bust down the last of my resistances and made me a full-fledged fan, blending rootsy gorgeousness and bluegrass twang throughout (recorded on Pendarvis Farm in Oregon) on this big and bursting album.

Joining the band on this effort was the marvelous propulsion by Peter Buck (R.E.M.) on jangly guitar, and Gillian Welch also makes her first of two appearances here on my year-end list with the flawless combination of her voice and Colin’s voices twining together throughout. In addition to the bright and jaunty jangle, there are moments of quiet, introspective beauty as well on songs like “June Hymn” and the closer “Dear Avery,” which I just love. This album has so many elements that pierce through perfectly: the wheezing of harmonica, a little banjo and the pierce of the fiddle, but also the acoustic fingerpicking on guitar and whiz-bang wordplay. Seeing The Decemberists at Telluride was one of the highlights this year, a simply perfect setting in which to experience this gem of an album.

Down By The Water – The Decemberists

DOLOREAN - THE UNFAZED
(Partisan Records)

Not to be confused with the danceable Spanish band from Ibiza named after 1985′s most bitchin time machine, Dolorean is from Portland, has at times served as Damien Jurado’s backing band, and released four records in their own right. I keep track of which band is which by remembering the Spanish word for sadness, dolor, and then listening to the record — and all things flow accordingly. The Unfazed is not a sad record, per se, but it is deeply wistful and bittersweet, and in that richness there is a healthy wash of beauty.

This is a complex, richly gorgeous album of melancholy and ache. Al James’s voice soars with this vulnerable, incisive timbre that cuts right into me. I’ve played it on the stereo for friends when they come over, and the comments I get are often equal parts Ryan Adams/Heartbreaker and Blind Pilot’s smoky, multi-hued, string-laden beauty. This is a marvelous record, front to back. Like the album cover marries “high art” with the impassioned graffiti scrawls of our most base desires, this album sings to me about knowing better, but doing anyways.

Country Clutter – Dolorean

FRANK TURNER - ENGLAND KEEP MY BONES
(Epitaph Records)

Frank Turner came blazing into my ears this summer through the persistent rallying cry from my friends at The Ruckus. From the first listen in the heat of this summer, I was knocked flat on my musical ass by several of my favorite things in music coming together in his anthemic, thoughtful, urgent bar rock that makes me feel alive. Above all, Frank sings like he’s staying hungry, with an undiluted joy in his music for me and unvarnished exuberance, even when he is singing of more heady subject matter.

The Springsteen comparisons are incontrovertible, and he crafts some whoppers of lyrics: “Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings / about fire in our bellies and  about furtive little feelings, and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering…”  YES. Or this rallying cry: ”And who’d have thought that after all, something as simple as rock and roll would save us all?” A humble sentiment, but listening to Frank Turner, much like when I first heard Gaslight Anthem or Lucero, yes – it seems obvious that something as simple as that, well — it just might.

I Am Disappeared – Frank Turner

FEIST - METALS
(Arts & Crafts)

I continue to appreciate Leslie Feist’s bottomless reservoirs of imaginative musical creativity, led by that voice steeped in a warm, classical throaty beauty that magnetizes every song that it is a part of. Feist is an artist of brilliant imagination, and I think we need more imagination in our lives, more of those unclassifiable moments and unclassifiable records like this one. We need the ability to look at one person standing in a warehouse and picture dozens of rainbow-clad dancers falling out in an arc of motion, or picture that just maybe this morning our toast will fly out the window on tiny pink wings.

That imagination also soaks Metals, her fourth album, and I really appreciate how no two Feist albums or even two songs on the same album are similar. You can have orchestral jazziness one moment, trip-hop the next, playful pop classics with stomping and snapping, and finally these mournful sparse melodies to round it all out. On this album I hear a darker weight to the songs, a level of maturity in the music. The record was recorded partly in Big Sur, California, which is near where I’m from, and if you’ve been there you know that the two things which might leave a lingering impression are the immense redwood trees and the blanketing fog. It’s an atmosphere you can see in her video for “How Come You Never Go There,” and that spirit pervades a lot of this record. A gorgeous record, this one — Metals shows the continuing regenesis and reinvention of Feist.

The Bad In Each Other – Feist

GILLIAN WELCH - THE HARROW & THE HARVEST
(Acony Records)
Together with her longtime musical partner David Rawlings, this is the first Gillian Welch record since 2003, and it’s a moody, often-dark, languid album of subtle beauty that was totally worth the wait. These two have an incredible songwriting partnership, with their intricate guitar and banjo work, their harmonies that sound birthed from the very same celestial vein. This one also feels like a chronicle of a journey, with the triplet of songs “The Way It Will Be,” “The Way It Goes,” and “The Way The Whole Thing Ends” arcing a tense thread throughout their sparse Americana, and punctuated by stunners like “Dark Turn of Mind.”

This is a smart record, loaded with lines that whap you across the face in their sly perfection. “Now I’ve tried drinking rye and gamblin, dancing with damnation is a ball / but of all the little ways I’ve found to hurt myself, well you might be my favorite one of all,” Gillian sings in a drawl, but with the precision of a scalpel. There is a spacious pensiveness in this record, and I keep listening over and over, going deeper and my toes haven’t scraped the rocky bottom yet.

Tennessee – Gillian Welch

PICKWICK - MYTHS EP
(self-released)

Pickwick is a band out of Seattle of six white guys who sound, when they make music, quite convincingly like a soul & blues band from a generation ago, but in a refreshing way, without any posturing. This was the year that Pickwick quite literally found their voice and have shot off into my stratosphere with what they’ve hit upon together. They used to be an ambient folk band, but shockingly found it hard to rise above the din in Seattle with that sound. So one day, frontman Galen Disston was in a cubicle at work and heard “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke “jump out of the speakers” — it hit him powerfully, as Sam is wont to do, and totally changed his perspective about what kind of effect he wanted his music to strive for. So, at the next band practice, they tried something completely new, and oh my does it absolutely work.

Galen seems an unlikely frontman, with his wild curly brown hair, thick-rimmed glasses, and hands that knead each other while he kinesthetically works all the songs out of his lungs. One of my favorite observations about him this year was the person who commented on a friend’s Facebook how unexpected Galen’s voice was, writing: “In a million years you wouldn’t pin that voice coming from him. He’s like, ‘Hello, I’m here to fix your Internet,’ then, BOOM. Voice.” Precisely.

There’s that ambush acapella performance in the gorgeous gothic-style reading room at the University of Washington library. Watching it, Galen is absolutely, without a doubt, is in his element when he sings — he nearly vibrates an easy tidal wave of vocal power, inhabiting and swimming free inside the song. You can see the confidence and the difference, even from the recorded songs on the album, or their KEXP performance from earlier this year, and it is electrifying. They are recording their full-length debut album right now, and will be touring in the Spring (including SXSW). I predict pretty massive and wonderful things for these fellows, and for everyone who hears them in 2012.

Hacienda Motel (live on KEXP) – Pickwick

RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE - DEPARTING
(Saddle Creek Records)

Rural Alberta Advantage is an elemental band of just three people, with a chemistry that has produced this potent record of push and pull and tension —  both in the juxtaposition of the prominent percussion and the distinctive melodies, and also in the vocals of Nils Edenloff and Amy Cole. I went through a phase this summer where I was falling asleep to this record on a regular basis, which is completely weird because it’s heavily drum-based and rough, with almost a punk-rock feel, but to me the percussion literally works with a narcotic effect, helping shut down my brain. Drummer Paul Banwatt is my hero on this record, the star of every single song.

RAA is another band I crossed paths with at SXSW this past March, for a midnight show in a church. The echo and clang were riveting, but they simply took my breath away with the final song of their set, and converted me immediately to this entire record. Like the feeling of the fog-blanketed desolation in the cover art, this is a record chronicling the holding tight and the letting go in nearly every song, every line. Departing is their sophomore album, and is out on Saddle Creek Records (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley, Two Gallants), a label I tend to associate with urgent, percussive, melodic music.

Muscle Relaxants – Rural Alberta Advantage

TYLER LYLE – THE GOLDEN AGE & THE SILVER GIRL
(self-released)

This is a record from a young songwriter originally from Atlanta, a dozen songs about the ending of one relationship, told with honesty and effervescence. Tyler recorded it in one day, just two days before he moved away from Atlanta and off to the golden coasts of Southern California. He told me he spent $250 total mastering this record, and enlisted some friends to fill in the wonderful instrumentation on this record, the flutes and the cello and the banjo, to technicolor effect. Because it all came pouring out in one day, more than anything this album feels like one exceedingly honest and humble snapshot to me, without artifice, in the best possible way.

I remember when David Gray’s first record came out, the one he wrote and recorded all in his bedroom and arrived out of nowhere, there was a little sticker on the front of that record from Dave Matthews that said something like “…David Gray is beautiful in the purest and most honest way.”  No one really knew of David Gray at that time, but the same way that record pierced me reminds me a lot of why I can’t stop listening to Tyler Lyle also, especially on songs like “Sorrow” or “When I Say That I Love You.” People haven’t heard of Tyler, but they will. He’s a young wordsmith who says precisely what he means, with immense talent and a beautifully open heart. The first song muses, ”I think it’s enough to feel the fire” — and this album makes me do that.

The Golden Age & The Silver Girl – Tyler Lyle

TYPHOON - A NEW KIND OF HOUSE EP
(Tender Loving Empire Records)

I first saw this band in a live video performance from SXSW, where eleven of them crammed into an elegant ballroom in the classy Driskill Hotel and launched into a song medley together that just simmered and exploded cathartically, with all their instruments and their heads thrown back and the voices raising together. Every time I watch that video, even now, it makes me wonder where the hell else nearby I was and why I hadn’t seen them for this.

With a name that suggests a warm wet tropical cyclone, you better deliver something worthy of the moniker, and this band of early-20-somethings from Portland certainly does that, in spades, with their dozen-ish members on stage. There’s an innocence to their music, this brilliant shimmering springtime feel — but also the weight of experience with some of the more difficult parts of life, also. Kyle Morton, the lead singer and primary songwriter, was bitten by a tick when he was young and struggled for years with an initially undiagnosed Lyme disease infection, which stunted his growth some, and isolated him with health issues throughout childhood. A lot of his songs wrestle with themes of that lost innocence — the threat of death — God and suffering. But it’s not maudlin; it’s authentic, and it’s beautiful.

I love the 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. When they all throw their heads back and sing “alleluia, it will be gone soon,” I get chills, every time.

The Honest Truth – Typhoon

VANDAVEER - DIG DOWN DEEP
(Supply & Demand Records)

So I’ve been magnetically drawn to rivers for some reason this year, as I mentioned earlier, and they’ve played an important part in several pivotal memories in 2011. This record reminds me entirely and completely of a powerful river, and I’ve been stupid in-love with it from first listen in late July.

Vandaveer’s music has all kinds of wonderful nods in it to old, rich music: spirituals, dirges, and songs of rejoicing. It often feels primal and organic in the percussion (lots of handclaps), elegant in the wending warmth of the cello. The lyrics are also dang smart; one just needs to listen to a rich allegory on songs like “Spite” to know that. But the real currents that pull me throughout this record comes from the vocal pairings of Rose Guerin’s icy deep low harmonies and Mark Charles Heidinger’s wending ripples and currents that tug us around the rocks. Heidinger’s voice has this vinegar of sadness around it that actually reminds me of Nina Simone (something I would never expect); they both have that slight metallic tang and bitter aftertaste that sounds regretful all the way through. Absolutely terrific, this one.

Dig Down Deep – Vandaveer

So, there you have it — my personal ten favorites from this year, although I could have of course rambled on with twenty or thirty. Let’s do it again in 2012?

[header image by the wonderful Ryan Hollingsworth]

win tickets for Gillian Welch. win tickets for David Bazan.

In addition to Band of Horses tonight, Coloradans are blessed this week with a rash of fantastic shows. But this is a rash that you actually want — on Tuesday and Wednesday night, Gillian Welch is bringing her awe-inducing musical talents to Boulder and Arvada (holy heck have you heard that new album?), while David Bazan (of Pedro The Lion) is coming back through for another one of those incredible house shows, this time in Fort Collins and not leaving emotional carnage strewn about my living room.

I have a pair of tickets to give away both to Gillian Welch on Wednesday night at the Arvada Center and to David Bazan on Wednesday at a house in Fort Collins. Both will slay you, so pick just one.

WIN WITH WORDS: Today I am reeling from lack of sleep in lieu of many words shared for many hours last night, so let’s do a wordy type contest here. Sit and think a spell, then in the comments you tell me which pair of tickets you would like to enter for, and then pick your favorite lyrics from that artist and tell me about them, and why they are your favorites.

Sounds easy enough? I’ll pick winners tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. Go.

a panoply of song

Some people are happiest when music can inspire them with new songwriting technique or melodies, but me — I often find myself most thoroughly contented when a song drives me to the dictionary. I love to roll around new words; choice vocabulary thrills me like some people love a really good meal.

Therefore it’s pretty clear that Colin Meloy and I were MFEO.

panoply (ˈpænəplɪ) — n , a complete or magnificent array

“June Hymn” is one of the most achingly wistful songs on the fantastic new Decemberists album, The King Is Dead, out today. It blossoms and blooms just like the scene it invokes. Oh –

Here’s a hymn to welcome in the day
heralding a summer’s early sway
and all the bulbs all coming in
to begin

The summer comes to Springville Hill…

This song (and its companion piece, the elegiac “January Hymn”) is a poem, of the best kind. Stream the album version here (only through today, I think), “June Hymn” is third from last and starts around 26:20.

It is so, so much sweeter with Gillian Welch‘s voice in the mix – her vocals (throughout this album) balance perfectly with Colin’s precise and incisive delivery. Theirs is one of those pairings that I never would have pictured, but then I hear it and wonder why it’s not always like this.

I sat up late into last night at my kitchen table playing Colorku with a friend (the most addicting game ever), listening to the new Decemberists album multiple times, singing along to the building ah-oooohs in “Calamity Song” and reveling that strong gust of “Down By The Water.” From the first song, the first time I heard this album a few weeks ago, I knew it would be my first favorite album of 2011. Repeated listens have only confirmed that this is a completely terrific album.

The King Is Dead is a big, bursting album that drives along propelled by Peter Buck (R.E.M.) on jangly guitar and the flawless combination of Colin Meloy and Gillian Welch’s voices twining together throughout. But there are also moments like this (and the closing track, “Oh Avery” – man alive) of quiet, introspective beauty. It blends a rootsy sensibility with the Decemberists’ smart and lovely songwriting, so you have the wheezing of harmonica, a little banjo and the pierce of the fiddle but also the acoustic fingerpicking on guitar and thoughtful melodies.

The deluxe version of the album comes with a book of photographs taken by the wonderful Autumn de Wilde, a photographer I admire so much that she’s one of just three that has their own tag on my blog. Look at her lovely Polaroids here; get one original tucked in the deluxe version, if you go that route.

Colin explains:

“One night on Pendarvis Farm, whilst merrily roasting tofu dogs over an open campfire, we Decemberists, along with our esteemed Management Representatives and a certain Missus Autumn de Wilde, photographer superieur, hatched a plan wherein Mizz de Wilde would document the making of The King is Dead on Polaroid film, a full 2500 photos to be exact, and we would then include one of those unique photographs individually in each of the DELUXE BOX EDITION of the record.

Naturally, this is the sort of cockamamy scheme that lodges itself in the minds of perfectly sane adults while under the influence of a bucolic, Arcadian Oregon summer; the expense was deemed too great. This is where The Impossible Project came in; they are a group devoted to the survival of Polaroid films of all sorts and collect or manufacture this ever-rarified breed of film in order to sell or donate it to photographers worldwide. They liked our idea; they donated us the film. And so here we are, this dream fulfilled. Ms. de Wilde followed us Decemberists around all summer, snapping Polaroids; we posed obligingly. And one of those photos could be yours.”

And if you are lucky enough to live in Portland from whence The Decemberists hail, you should go see them tonight at 7pm at Music Millenium, where they’ll be signing copies of their new album. Get one for me and I’ll totally pay you back.

I think you’ll love this album as much as I do, and I am head over heels. Go get it.

DECEMBERISTS TOUR DATES
* with Wye Oak
# with Mountain Man
January 24, Beacon Theatre, New York, NY*
January 25, Beacon Theatre, New York, NY* SOLD OUT
January 26, Beacon Theatre, New York, NY* SOLD OUT
January 28, House of Blues, Boston, MA*
January 29, House of Blues, Boston, MA* SOLD OUT
January 31, Olympia De Montreal, Montreal, Canada*
February 1, Sound Academy, Toronto, Canada*
February 2, Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, MI*
Feburary 4, Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL* SOLD OUT
February 5, Riverside Theatre, Milwaukee, WI#
February 6, State Theatre, Minneapolis, MN#
February 7, Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, MO#
February 9, Boulder Theater, Boulder, CO#
February 10, Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO#
February 12, The Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA# SOLD OUT
February 13, House of Blues-San Diego, San Diego, CA#
February 14, Fox Theater, Oakland, CA# SOLD OUT
February 18, Paramount Ballroom, Seattle, WA#
February 19, Arlene Schnitzer Hall, Portland, OR# SOLD OUT
March 4, Vicar Street, Dublin, Ireland
March 5, Barrowlands, Glasgow, UK
March 7, Birmingham Institute, Birmingham, UK
March 8, Bristol Academy, Bristol, UK
March 10, Manchester Academy, Manchester, UK
March 11, Leeds Academy, Leeds, UK
March 12, De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, UK
March 13, Trix, Antwerp, Belgium
March 14, Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
March 16, Hammersmith Apollo, London, UK

I also thought immediately when I heard this album, “Man, this would sound great at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.” Here’s to hoping.

Telluride Bluegrass 2010 (or: two of my favorite shows in two days)

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival is a behemoth of goodness and gorgeousness. Nestled in the crevasse of huge mountains, surrounded by forests and rivers (I kept thinking of the Josh Ritter lyric, “The lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand” all weekend), it definitely wins for musical escapism. I spent last weekend at the 37th annual festival that brings a loosely-defined group of bluegrass musicians together in the mountains of Colorado, far from where the direct roads and highways go. Six or seven hours from the most populated areas of the state, it seemed like a wonderland when we arrived.

I felt like a bit of an interloper, coming to the festival for the less-traditional indie artists with crossover appeal. I was absolutely there for the opportunity to see Josh Ritter and Mumford & Sons, each playing Nightgrass shows in teensy 250-person venues. It was an added bonus for me to see artists like Ben Sollee, Dave Rawlings & Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss, and the Court Yard Hounds (2/3 of the Dixie Chicks, who I forgot how damn much I used to like). I’ll admit I was unfamiliar with many of the other musicians, being fairly unsteeped in the bluegrass tradition, but interested to hear whatever I could absorb.

On Thursday, I woke at 5am-something in my comfortable bed, threw my tent and sleeping bag into the trunk, and set off into the mountains. The drive that is quickly becoming one of my favorites in Colorado (tracing the Arkansas River) passed quickly, and I got to the festival minutes before Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band were scheduled to start. I walked down into the breathtaking mainstage area as his opening strums of “Southern Pacifica” were just beginning. Electrified, I hustled to plant myself right in the front of waves of his songs carrying out towards the mountains on all sides. Looking out between songs, Josh mused, “This is as good as it gets.”

He interspersed songs from his new album (like “Lantern” and “Folk Bloodbath”) along with some of my favorites like “Girl In The War” –I cried at these lines– “Monster Ballads” and “Kathleen.” It was also wonderful to hear a few real old ones like “Harrisburg” and “Me and Jiggs” (we are all half-crazy, and all at least half alright, indeed). I haven’t seen him live since summer ’08, and I can report that his ebullient enthusiasm is still 100% intact. The crowd cheered with as much strength as you can squeeze out of folks at 3pm on a gorgeously sunny Thursday, many hearing him for the first time. Josh looked out at the colorful crowd and laughed: “I had a lot of things to say but . . . I’m speechless.”

MY BRIEF VIDEO OF “LANTERN” @ TELLURIDE

After his set, I went to set up camp and I had gotten a parking ticket and didn’t even care. That’s what Josh Ritter does to me; careless disregard for parking laws and other mundane things of this society.

I missed the Dave Rawlings Machine set while I attended to the necessary work of tent-constructing, but I heard the glorious strains of “Look At Miss Ohio” weaving their way to the campsite as I pounded stakes. As the afternoon turned to evening, I walked over to the Fly Me To The Moon Saloon to interview Josh Ritter. You’ll hear more about this soon, but it was as marvelous as I had hoped. What a gem of a human being, as well as a songwriter and performer.

After our interview and hugs concluded, I caught just a few songs of the heavenly-voiced Alison Krauss’ set back at the main stage (she really does sound that pure and untarnished in real life, and it is amazing). My favorite part of the set was probably “Down To The River To Pray” with Union Station — the bookend to hearing another song from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in California last summer. There’s something about bluegrass music that just sounds so right amongst the trees on a late summer afternoon.

Then it was back for my second Josh Ritter show of the same day. I thought that the night concert was even better than the daytime one for me, because a) I like the nightlife and b) it was shoulder to shoulder in a small venue, the energy concentrated in every song. This one was more fiery, more urgent, more sweaty as we danced together in the tiny basement club. Moments that I remember especially clearly:

-getting to hear both “Wolves” and “Snow Is Gone” in the same set, songs that have meant a lot to me in the past year and just rupture beautifully live.

-a completely heartbreaking-in-every-way cover of Springsteen’s “The River” — the room felt so heavy and overwhelmed when he sang those lines, “now I act like I don’t remember, and Mary acts like she don’t care…”

-turning out every light in the house and singing an acoustic version of “In The Dark,” one that we all sang along to in near-reverence, and I cried like a girl with a skinned knee. Or maybe skinned heart.

Ed Helms from The Office is a huge bluegrass fan, and an Oberlin alum like Josh, so he came up on stage to play banjo during “Next To The Last Romantic” (the kid next to me said to his friend, “WHOA. He looks just like Andy Bernard from The Office!”). Rocking:

Finally, for the closing encore song, the whole band came out and stood arm-in-arm, next to Josh on acoustic guitar, and we all joined in to sing “Wait For Love (You Know You Will).” It’s the last song on 2007′s The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, and those closing minutes just overflowed with warm feelings — a mutual encouragement to us all. I was amazed for some reason at how everyone there seemed to know all the words, even on the verses. He certainly has created a legion of dedicated fans.

The band left the stage and the crowd started to gather their things, but Josh closed with this, all by himself, hands clasped behind his back. It felt like a benediction.

Friday started quite pleasantly, hearing the strains of Kentucky cellist Ben Sollee from the main stage as I toweled off from my camp shower ($3 in quarters for five minutes of hot water, a very decent trade). With my hair still wet, I meandered over to see him open the day with his plaintive, elegant, curious, articulate music.

Ben had opened for Josh Ritter the night before, but I was so overwhelmed and out of it from the interview that I was glad for the chance to see him again clear-headed. This extremely talented guy does wondrous things with a cello, an instrument I love. The resonance of a cello is swollen with sadness to my ears, like a lugubrious river, but Ben’s voice of clever levity cuts through it like a sharp speckled rock, parting the current.

I have been listening a lot in these past months to his new album Dear Companion (Sub Pop, 2010) with Daniel Martin Moore (produced by Jim James and starring a few of those rakish These United States-ers), as well as his 2008 debut album Learning To Bend. Ben’s songwriting is quick and intelligent, and he continues to grow marvelously as an artist. I highly recommend his music.

After a few afternoon hours spent putting as much of our bodies as we could stand into the crystalline glacial river, while the bluegrass floated from the stage in the background, we dried off and headed in for the Court Yard Hounds. Sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison were back at the Telluride festival on the 20th anniversary of them first winning the band competition as teenagers, back before they became Dixie Chicks and ruled country radio.

I was dazzled by them, their poise and beauty and sparkles, and how they rocked such a wide variety of instruments – fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dobro. They referred to their new album as being not only a divorce album, but also one about finding love, and covered Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight,” a song Emily said got them through some dark times. The only Dixie Chicks song they played was the bluegrass instrumental, “Little Jack Slade.”

Three little girls stood right in front of me by the stage, all 5 or 6 years old, twirling and dancing in various tutus and wands and tie dyed clothes. I thought about what women they are for those girls to look up to, literally and figuratively. They were strong and confident, and I was drawn to the emotional rawness and feistiness on their new songs. After they finished, and I caught me some Lyle Lovett and his (no kidding) Large Band, it was Friday night, and it was time for the Mumford & Sons show.

There is something primal and exceedingly honest in the harmonies and vocal melodies of London quartet Mumford & Sons, especially when you’re standing five feet away from their kickdrum that often provides the only percussion, and hits like a mallet to the sternum. I’ve loved them unabashedly since the first time I heard them, and I named their Sigh No More album one of my favorites of 2009. Telluride on Friday night witnessed their very first proper show in Colorado — and I imagine I will never again see a band playing their first show in a state where absolutely everyone sings along to every word, jumping giddily so hard that the floor bounces. The reception in that room blew me away, and led me to predict that this band will soon grow as huge in the States as they are in the UK, with as wide of an audience as their music deserves.

I’ve had a really difficult time trying to figure out how to tell you all about this show. I was talking to my best friend Bethany on the phone yesterday, trying to articulate what it was that so confounded me, satisfied me, and left me speechless and breathless all at once. “There’s a memory in our blood of people singing together the way those guys do,” she mused. “It triggers something bigger and older than us.” I’ve struggled to write about their show because it was so intense and meaningful, and as I wrote earlier in the week, one of the best shows I have absolutely ever seen.

Through a towering wall of power, their songs wrestle with love and grace, redemption and loss, struggling to be a better man — sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing and burning. It’s the most relatable music I know of these days, on an acutely personal level, and seeing them blow the roof off live just about overwhelmed me in the best possible way.

The basics: 300 people at a very sold-out show in the Sheridan Opera House, built in 1912 and still boasting the old warm globe lights around the stage, hand-painted detail on the balcony front. They started their set long after midnight with their four voices rising together for “Sigh No More,” quickly launching into “Awake My Soul” and an explosive rendition “The Cave,” then a huge new song called “Lover of the Light,” featuring lead singer Marcus Mumford behind an actual drum kit, instead of standing up and playing the bass drum while he strums. There was an ineffable joy and powerful hope rising up from the crowd – watch this video of “Roll Away Your Stone” from a few weeks ago in Los Angeles with the band The Middle East. I think we all felt like that.

After “Timshel” and “Little Lion Man” (crowd went nuts for their big single), they did “After The Storm,” “Dustbowl Dance,” an older song “Sister,” and another new song called “Nothing Is Written.” A tremendous version of “White Blank Page” was their encore. After those lines about “tell me now, where was my fault / in loving you with my whole heart?” at about three minutes into the song, the instruments cut out and that stirring vocal interlude begins — man, you can’t write it, but it’s the “ahhhhh, ahhhhhhhh, ah ah ah….” part (see? words fail me). The whole room started singing, louder and louder, and the walls were soaking in it and vibrating as we sang. Then the band picked up the urgent higher harmonies, and it was the closest to church I’ve been in a while.

Like this, very very much:

(all of this girl’s videos from their Dallas show are very good, and replicate almost exactly my vantage point in the crowd, and the way this show felt to me)

I left their show feeling so thoroughly sated and completely without coherent words, which is rare for me who always has words, and lots of them, for most occasions. I stayed behind to shake each of the band member’s hands, just so I could say “thank you.” Just a simple, heartfelt thank you for what they just put me through, and for the seams they ripped open and then helped mend. All my receptors were vibrant and content.

Walking home from that show at 2am on Friday night still glowing, I passed Ed Helms again, playing banjo on a street corner jam session, then a few blocks closer to the campsite I came across (pretty sure) Peter Rowan calling impromptu square dancing steps while playing the fiddle to a roiling flailing bunch of colorful folks while the cops looked on, bemused with arms crossed.

I tilted my head back at the ten million stars, a sky so dark I could see the bands of the Milky Way, and crossed a footbridge over the singing river to my campsite. Someone had left glow bracelets and glowsticks scattered in the inky blackness to help me find my way home. Welcome to Telluride.

I smiled, and was very very happy.

VIEW ALL MY PICTURES AT THE FUEL/FRIENDS FACEBOOK PAGE

All I know is I feel better when I sing (burdens are lifted from me)

I’ll be traveling soon to California for the rest of this week, to celebrate the life and mourn the loss of my uncle who passed away this weekend. He had been sick for a while, but it still came as a shock.

Uncle Lew spent time in the Coast Guard when he was younger, on an ice-breaker ship up near Iceland. I remember the exotic excitement when he’d come home from a time at sea. One of my favorite pictures from when I was little is me standing in his giant boots with his blue sailor’s cap perched huge on my head. I’m laughing. The last time I saw Lew was this summer, when I returned from my own ocean voyage on a sailing ship. His eyes lit up as we talked about what it feels like out on the open seas. I saw in his eyes a vibrant spark that belied the man lying in the hospital bed. Even after all, tonight, I’m glad he’s free.

There’s a song I keep listening to these days. Last time I was in CA it was for happier circumstances, and I made it to Golden Gate Park to see these two harmonize in the sunshine under the eucalyptus trees.

David Rawlings and Gillian Welch were woven together musically somewhere before time began. This cover reinvents old (Neil Young) and new (Bright Eyes), from their recent Daytrotter session, and when Gillian’s harmonies come in, the effect is so bittersweet, warming up the edges of Conor Oberst’s sharp original to shades of sepia. All I know is I feel better when I sing.

Method Acting/Cortez The Killer – Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch

Method Acting – Bright Eyes

I’ll see Rawlings at Telluride Bluegrass Festival next month, and I have been hearing nothing but good things about his newest album A Friend of A Friend, where you can find a studio version of this same cover, as well as the song he co-write with Ryan Adams, “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High),” and wonderful new songs. It’s good thinking music, good ale-sippin’ music.

Blind Pilot looks for Miss Ohio

I have “a thing” for this song — both the way Gillian Welch conceived of it and the way anyone else covers it. It is, quite simply, a sweet, sad, powerful song that oozes goodness. I have been known on occasion to drive around (in my Nissan Sentra, so no ragtop down) to this song on repeat, on roadtrips through the barren lands — singing how she wants to do right, but not right now.

To finally have a good quality recording of Blind Pilot performing it (one of my favorite newer bands) is just heavenly. Israel’s voice radiates an enveloping warmth, and an understandable melancholy.

LISTEN: Look At Miss Ohio (Gillian Welch) – Blind Pilot

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From their iTunes Live Sessions EP, out now, also worth it for the achingly to-die-for good version of “3 Rounds And A Sound” with ukulele, and the previously-unreleased track “Get It Out.”

You can also now order their amazing album 3 Rounds and a Sound on 180-gram vinyl, and I can think of very few albums released in recent years that sound as good that way.

And be my everlovin’ baby (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2009)

One of the highlights of my fabulously sunny, Indian-summer October weekend in California was seeing the legendary Gillian Welch with David Rawlings at the free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Saturday at Golden Gate Park. I’d never gotten to see her sublime and lovely music live, and it positively sprouted wings under the San Francisco eucalyptus trees. The Emmylou Harris made a surprise appearance with her and David to clutch a lyrics sheet and sing a wide-smiled version of “Didn’t Leave Nobody But The Baby” (from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack).

Didn’t Leave Nobody But The Baby – Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & Alison Krauss
(some video I found from Saturday)

Gillian’s longtime musical partner, David Rawlings has a new album out November 17th, which will include a version of the song “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)” he penned with Ryan Adams, and guest appearances by Gillian Welch, Benmont Tench from the Heartbreakers, Nathaniel Wilcott of Bright Eyes, and members of Old Crow Medicine Show.

Okkervil River also absolutely completely blew me away. I reacted like a good Generation X-er and texted every music lover I know with (hardly strictly Moose-Drool-influenced) words of fawning and amazement. This Austin, Texas band puts on one of the very best live shows I’ve seen all year. Their songs grow and shimmer (and yes, kick) live, and the early afternoon audience scaled trees to get a better view, hooting and hollering. As we walked to their set, I tried to define their sound for my companion who hadn’t seen them before, and found that I couldn’t, and once they started in on their first song I conceded to her simply: “Man, I need to dive so much deeper with these guys.”

Effing watch this amazing set closer; my insides wanted to leap out of my chest:

Unless It’s Kicks – Okkervil River
Unless It’s Kicks (demo version) – Okkervil River

What gives this mess some grace unless it’s fictions
Unless it’s licks, man
Unless it’s lies or it’s love?

What breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan
Exploding up from the stands
With her heart opened up
And I want to tell her, “your love isn’t lost”
Say, “my heart is still crossed”
Scream, “you’re so wonderful”
What a dream in the dark
About working so hard
About glowing so stoned
Trying not to turn off
Trying not to believe in that lie all on your own…

[read the rest]

M. Ward rocks the Music Box in L.A.

Wednesday night while I was being wowed by Murder By Death (more on that in a minute), I had two friends separately attending the very sold-out M. Ward show at the Henry Fonda Music Box in Los Angeles. In between enthusiastic texts telling me about how awesome the show was, these two friends who hadn’t yet met tried to find each other to say hello, with me as an intermediary. “tell her i have close-cropped hair, a goatee, and a black jacket,” he helpfully supplied. “that is EVERY GUY HERE,” she replied. I found this amusing. They never found each other.

But Zooey Deschanel came out to both introduce the night and sing four songs with Ward, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings played near the end of the set, and opening band Delta Spirit also shared the stage. Talk about star-studded — it was a hootenanny.

UPDATE: “M. Ward’s management does not allow unauthorized fan recordings of his shows.” Files removed by request. That’s unfortunate.

M. WARD
MARCH 4th, 2009
MUSIC BOX @ HENRY FONDA THEATER
Hold Time
One Hundred Million Years
Paul’s Song
Lullaby & Exile
Chinese Translation
Epistemology
Requiem
Fisher of Men
Post-War
Poison Cup
O, Lonesome Me
Rag Medley
Zooey’s intro / You Really Got a Hold on Me
Change Is Hard (with Zooey)
Rave On (with Zooey)
Never Had Nobody Like You (with Zooey)
Fahey
Vincent O’Brien
Roll Over Beethoven (cover)
Big Boat
Encore Break
Gillian Welch / David Rawlings Intro
To Save Me
Magic Trick

ZIP: M WARD AT THE MUSIC BOX

[thanks to Philip for emailing me his taping of the show (!!),
photo by Andrew Youssef for Stereogum]

she says i wanna do right, but not right now

The New Frontiers from Dallas dropped their spacious and glowing cover of the Gillian Welch song “Look At Miss Ohio” into my inbox today, like a little gift. That aching original has been one of my favorite songs to attempt harmony with on the chorus for a few years now, but where Gillian’s voice often takes on that haunted and weary edge, this version burns a little with spreading warmth — like a good glass of whiskey. It sounds like roadtrips that start at 4am after too much talking and dreaming about the wanderlust.

Look At Miss Ohio (Gillian Welch cover) – The New Frontiers

The New Frontiers have a new album called Mending out on The Militia Group label, and check the Daytrotter session they did to hear two songs from the album and two unreleased tunes.

They are on tour now, hitting Denver’s Cervantes Ballroom on Monday night.

LOOSELY RELATED UPDATE (because it was playing in my head all night long): My favorite cover that Gillian Welch does, of a Radiohead tune. Gutting.

Black Star (Radiohead cover) – Gillian Welch

Ryan Adams 10/28/99 :: Exit/In Nashville (with Gillian Welch)

While I am enjoying some of the warm California sun, it feels like a good time to share my favorite Ryan Adams bootleg ever. There is a pristine, immediate, warm quality to the sound that makes you feel like you are inches from Ryan. The talented, haunting Gillian Welch comes out for some songs, and there is a wonderful variety of rare songs for the setlist. In between his endearing banter, Ryan brings out unreleased gems, early versions of songs I love, and several terrific covers.

RYAN ADAMS (WITH GILLIAN WELCH)
EXIT/IN, NASHVILLE – OCT 28, 1999
Born Yesterday
Funny How I’m Losing You
Memories Of You
Oh My Sweet Valentine
To Be The One
Hey There, Mrs. Lovely
In My Time Of Need
Onslow County
Folklore
Revelator (with Gillian Welch, her song)
Dancing With The Women At The Bar (Whiskeytown song, with Gillian Welch)
– with I Want It That Way (Backstreet Boys) at the end
Helpless (Neil Young cover, with Gillian Welch)
Return Of The Grievous Angel (Gram Parsons cover, with Gillian Welch)
16 Days (Whiskeytown song, with Gillian Welch)
Nighttime Gals
Statuettes With Wounds Avenues (Whiskeytown song)
Avenues (Whiskeytown song)

…and THAT, folks, is one of my favorite live shows ever recorded. I have listened to it more times than I can count. It feels like a whiskey, warming the insides.

[full show/other formats here]