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.
The comments over on the Stereogum post about the pending nuptials of Ben Gibbard (DCFC) and Zooey Deschanel (She & Him, Almost Famous, and, most importantly, Elf) have made me double over with silent laughter about ten times. Well played, Stereogum commenters. It’s worth a post just to note the guy wondering what their celebrity couple name will be (“Booey Gibbanel or Zen Deschbard? I like Zen Deschbard. Or maybe Booey Deschbard.”)
Inciting the most indignation is the fact that people didn’t know they were dating (I know, right?! I thought we were BFFs). I generally don’t care about romances of famous people, but I have to admit being pleased in my heart when I heard this announcement because I totally called it back in August when they both appeared at that awesome music supergroup event at the Democratic National Convention event in Denver:
Female intuition INTACT!
And then they went and covered the Everly Brothers together all sweet-like, and I was like, CLEARLY.
So yeah. Sorry, heartbroken guys.
[…and whoa I am just noticed I’m totally at the end of the crowd panorama in that video. Carry on.]
As I approached from blocks away, the crowd was spilling in the street as they waited to get in through the half-lowered garage door entrance. A converted police car flashed multimedia exhibits onto the faded warehouse wall, with music pulsing loud enough to be heard at the Convention Center. Pandemonium!
Inside the thousand-degree gallery, I did some general browsing of the political artwork covering the walls, and then the requisite gawking and people-watching (most eclectic crowd ever – mixing political pinstripes with the indie kids and watching them try to dance side-by-side). This non-Dem was admittedly a little creeped out by a few of the near-deistic portrayals of Obama in various painted settings; a friend and I were talking about how we felt like we’d entered his shrine. But overall it was a cool expression of passion and commitment by the artists who contributed, with a few ace lighthearted inclusions (Stephen Colbert! Slaying evil!).
Comedienne Sarah Silverman started things off with her hilariously deadpan ruminations on the convention and the election, and she was dipped into an enthusiastic two-armed welcome (totally almost like this) by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom (SCU Broncos represent!). Newsom then introduced Seattle’s mayor Greg Nickels, and after many words and rousing rhetoric, the five musicians finally climbed onto the small stage. Throughout the 70-minute show each artist took turns on lead, with various duets, group singalongs and covers. It was lighthearted and felt like a rare living-room collaboration.
This Is Not A Test (live 8/2/08, Newport Folk) – Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward Zooey was completely charming, and performed this song with her guitar. Halfway through she stopped abruptly and laughed at a small mistake she made, saying it was the first time she’d ever played guitar in public since she usually rocks the piano.
Love Hurts – Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris Johnathan Rice and Jenny Lewis sang this ’70s staple, and in a move of complete awesomeness, they dedicated it to Obama and Hillary.
Little Boxes (Malvina Reynolds cover) – Jenny Lewis & Johnathan Rice They didn’t sing this song. But they did lots of duets together, all lovey and gazing into each other’s indie-alt-country-couple eyes, and sounding good.
See These Bones (live on MOKB Sirius) – Nada Surf I loved every note and word that spilled from Matthew Caws last night (recall my fondness). I was unabashed dork fangirl, coincidentally ending up right at Matthew’s feet for the set, and I didn’t even bother to check my singalong enthusiasm. He kept eying me in bemusement as I sang “the lights of this city are more or less blinking…” with possibly more enthusiasm than he did.
Weightless (live on Leno) – Nada Surf You know those gorgeous Beach Boys harmonies at the end of this song? Picture the full gallery crowd and those other four voices on stage all swelling together behind Caws’ lead vocals. Jenny Lewis admirably played band leader, cupping her hand around her ear and waving her arms in encouragement. Nada Surf drummer Ira Elliott stood off to the right (in front of that massive Obama/Lincoln meld) and kept time with fancy claps for the whole song. You can take the drummer off the stage …
Cath (live at BBC6) – Ben Gibbard This song appeared on last night’s setlist but was substituted with “Sound of Settling,” which was great by me because we all got to “Ba baaa! Ba baaa!” heartily instead.
Military Madness (live 10-22-06, Bridge School) – Death Cab for Cutie, Gillian Welch, Neil Young The five musicians closed with this Graham Nash cover about military madness and solitary sadness. Ben Gibbard led on the piano, and despite one false ending (another chorus? should we stop? let’s do both) it was a stirring closer. This live mp3 is one I saw at the Bridge School Benefit in CA a few years ago with a slightly different lineup. ZIP: UNCONVENTIONAL ’08
One of my most anticipated shows at Noise Pop this weekend in San Francisco was the M. Ward collaboration with velvet-voiced actress Zooey Deschanel called She & Him. I could hardly overstate the level of love I have for M. Ward’s richly layered music, and Zooey has this fantastic retro-throwback vibe with a sweet coyness to her inflection. The samples I’ve heard from two of them have been promising.
And, let’s face it — much like the time I saw Russell Crowe’s band at the Fillmore (that’s Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts for those of you keeping track at home), everyone likes to go see a real live attractive movie star play with their band. It’s why folks spend $40 to see Dogstar.
After three opening acts at the Great American Music Hall Sunday night, Matt and Zooey took the stage for their hour-long set. I gotta hand it to Zooey, she is a charming and capable performer who reminded my friend of June Carter Cash a bit, I suppose in her vocal swing. I’d never seen M Ward before but he clearly enjoys those sounds he coaxes from his vintage guitars, and sings his vocal parts with the gusto and expressions of an 80-year-old bluesman. It’s fun to see them interact with each other, ending their main set on the piano bench playing the ivories side by side.
But somehow the visceral kick that I like to feel in a live show was missing last night. The overwhelming reaction I had when I walked out the doors was that it was nice, absolutely, and charming. It felt like a very engaging county fair act. They have a lot of potential as a duo, as their voices meld so well and offer each other a counterbalance. I’ve got the album at the very top of the stack of advances to take a listen to — I am anticipating that I’ll catch some layers of interest and depth in the studio album that I must have missed in the live setting.
The bloggers were out in force for this show, and as we all travel home, Aquarium Drunkard posted up a quick thought saying that the show was fantastico. The line around the block made this one of the hardest shows of the fest to get into, but I left feeling like I’d missed something in what was supposed to be the kind of glorious winner in the cool-kid olympics show of the year. It was fun. And nice.
I’d heard last summer that my #1 artist from 2006 and the honey voiced starlet from Elf (among other projects) were collaborating on a full-length album, but it slipped from my radar for a bit there. Now look, we only have 2 more months to wait! M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel will be collaborating under the name She & Him with an album called Volume One (they are wildly creative in both namings) due out March 2008 on Merge Records.
Recently the duo stopped by the KCRW Open Road program to play several songs together. M. Ward has that humid, scratchy, atmospheric sound that balances out the velvety old-fashioned (sexy) croon of the delighful Ms. Deschanel. This is one highly anticipated album for me in 2008; I am hoping for a higher ratio of original compositions to covers, but I’ll take whatever they deal. Listen:
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.
Name: Heather Browne
