- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
3
Without music I am one-thousand and ten percent that I would be dead right now.
That being said, here are some musical musings of mine in no particular order:
The day after my girlfriend broke up with me I think I got out of bed around dinnertime. I'm not sure whether it was because I had slept that late or because I was trapped in my bed underneath a colossal pile of all the “it will get betters” everyone I knew had been hurling on top of me the day before. What a meaningless statement in the midst of a meaningless time. Well, sure enough sixteen months went by and things did indeed get better, and when spring came my heart had thawed enough that I at least felt half-alive instead of half-dead. I remained caught in that web of numbness until about three months ago, when on one autumnal night I drank more Famous Grouse than I had ever seen my father drink, all those years he spent filling up the glass to be carried off to some seemingly better place after a long day at work. I dragged myself over to my MacBook and cut on my iTunes and before I knew it I had fallen into some dark, dismal place with all the memories I had spent months erasing from my mind. I spent quite a bit of time there, until I saw the clouded outline of a seraphic figure descending towards me with open arms and a voice like something not of this world. She grabbed me with her opposite hand and carried me off away to a much warmer, brighter place, where we talked and talked and talked until four-thirty in the morning. With a stomach full of salt, I made a waltz to my empty bed and woke up the next morning with the worst hangover I have ever had, my heart fully thawed, and the melody of Joanna Newsom’s “Inflammatory Writ” stuck inside my head. My life has not been the same since.
My my my, Bon Iver. The voice. The emotion. The story. I’m pretty sure this album is going to be on everyone's Lagomorph, so I'll let them tell you how good it is. And yes, it IS that good. Did you know he wrote it locked up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? Just kidding...
I stumbled over this song on Autumn de Wilde’s Myspace page on a rainy day, and fell in love with it. It was the only song I could listen to for the next 72 hours. The arrangements of this song are flawless and really showcase Binki Shapiro’s buoyant and charming vocals. Next time it rains, visit their myspace and listen to the song. You will not be dissapointed.
www.myspace.com/littlejoymusic
I felt like I was watching a magic cup trick as I tried desperately to pick one song off these brilliant records to write about. Every time I thought I had found out which track was it, the cup was lifted up and there was nothing underneath of it. And, let me just say that if you have not yet heard either of these recordings, stop reading this and go out and get them! I'm serious, go, now! Anyway, Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes. I honestly don’t think there is any collection of words that could collectively express how much this record changed my life as a musician and songwriter, so I'm not even going to try. Calling it the best album of 2008, or calling their live show at the Black Cat the best show I have ever seen and probably ever will see just doesn’t get across how good these guys are. These are truths that are exclusively a posteriori. Matt, I am forever in debt to you for introducing me to these five fine bearded fellows. Also, Robin Pecknold is the second coming.
I had not been able to cry for three years. Many things had happened to me that should have conjured up at least one tear, but it just never happened. (And yes, that was a formal invitation to the pity party I’m currently throwing for myself) Anyway, in October of this year, I revisited this album. This song came on and Jeff Mangum’s elephant-sized voice (no pun intended) rose higher and higher and louder and louder, and for reasons I still cannot fully explain or understand, the tears began to come. And they came and they came and they came...
Two years ago a friend of mine who lives in Boston and I began sharing our various musical recordings with one another via e-mail. As we both headed off to college, the project began to fizzle out and was hanging by a thread, until one day in September when he sent me the latest track he had written. I listened to it over and over and over and over. It is truly a mini-masterpiece, and one of the best songs I have ever heard. After a couple of listens, the piano part will fasten itself to the pattern of your heart. Many a critic have dubbed this guy the next Ben Gibbard, and when you hear his stuff you’ll know why. So start listening to it now.
You can listen to “Post Card,” and the rest of his mind-blowing songs here:
http://www.myspace.com/citiesandstates
Every year I get excited about Christmas for two reasons:
1. Christmas
2. Sister Winter
Soon after I had gotten my driver’s license, as a freshman in high school, I made my first solo road trip to see Iron and Wine play the 9:30 club, so it was going to be a historical night regardless of how good the show was. But this was smack-dab in the middle of the biggest Sam Beam phase I have ever undergone, so it was also going to be a good show regardless of how good the show was. Sam came out with just his guitar and played the most epic one-man set I have ever seen. As his smoky voice filled the room, the notes made their way into my ears and throughout my body, pushing all the worries and anxieties I had as a seventeen year-old up my spine and out of my body. They would not be seen again until the next morning. Throughout the song whispers began to spread throughout the venue like a spilled drink and I knew what everyone was talking about. No one had any idea what the song was, and neither did I. I wouldn’t find out until later that week when they posted the set list on NPR. It was a song called “Hickory”, off a rare set of recordings he had sent to Sub Pop prior being signed there. I spent the next four years listening to the live version of the song on NPR’s website, and traversing every corner of the world wide web in hopes to find an mp3 of the original song. I never stopped looking, and Christmas came early this year when earlier this week I found a link for an Iron and Wine torrent buried seven feet below the ground in the southeast region of Google. It had the entire Iron and Wine discography including a one compilation entitled “9/20/02.” There were only a handful of songs on it, one of which was my long lost friend Hickory.
The live version can be heard here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5029368
(click on “Iron and Wine in Concert,” it's the first song he plays)
E-mail me at birdatsea@gmail.com if you want the original recording of the song. And oh believe me, you want it.
If the Trinity could be represented by three albums of 2008, they would be:
- The Father: Fleet Foxes
- The Son: Visiter
- The Holy Spirit: For Emma, Forever Ago
Meric Long’s finger-picking skills are unmatched, his voice is perfect, and Logan Kroeber is probably the most innovative drummer of our generation. You MUST check these guys out, and you MUST see them live. You will have your face melted by loop pedal wizardry. With this record, Meric Long completely pulled the rug out from under everything I thought I knew about song structure, and raised the bar for anything I could ever hope to achieve musically.
That being said, my grandfather is old enough that he has begun to go crazy and take his anger towards old age and aching bones out on anyone and everyone around him. He is also old enough not to be able to cut this grass anymore. One day this past summer, I was called in to do it for him. The dark clouds in the distance I had hoped would arrive before I started cutting the grass arrived halfway through cutting the grass, and it brought more than rain. Hail began falling like I have never seen hail fall before, and I quickly retreated to the safety of my grandfathers porch. He proceeded to tell me that if I was a man I would go back out and finish, and that if I didn't do it he was going to go do it himself. I had no choice. The hailstorm was short-lived, as most hailstorms are, but the rain was just getting started. I grabbed my iPod and headphones from my car and listened to this album in its entirety while cutting the grass. I could see my grandfather watching me from inside the house. When I got back in, his pendulum-like state of mind had swung back to a happy side. He handed me a cold beer and told me that he wanted to hear what I had been listening to. We sat there drinking our beers, sopping wet, and listened to Visiter all the way through. Afterwards, he made me burn him a copy of the record. I went back over there for Thanksgiving this year, and when I knocked on the front door, I could hear the percussive strumming of “Red and Purple” billowing throughout the entire house.
***