Posts Tagged music

cut his teeth on turquoise harmonicas

April 25, 2008 at 1:15 am · Filed under General Reflection ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

edit: Still not asleep, so instead I will recommend some new musicians to you:

Lloyd & Michael (tweeish, not what you would expect from the name).

Let me also point you to the myspace of The Sprites who have a song called, “I Started a Blog that Nobody Read” which kind of reminds me of the class discussion today.

I can’t tell how I feel about Mike Doughty (this page has streaming music), I’ll get back to you on it.

Scrabbel (yes, spelled that way) has a cool name, but the jury’s also out on this one. It kind of sounds like a less underwater-garbly-midwestern-retro version of Arthur & Yu (but then again, take away A&Y’s muted-like complete rip of every band from the 1960’s sound, and what are you left with?)

Don’t even get me started on A&Y though, I like a few of their songs but kind of as a musical novelty. They were opening for Iron & Wine this past September, and they were pretty bland live. They’re very much a studio band, in terms of the vast difference of sound between the stages (i.e. sounding articulated, mildly interesting, and wholly on key in the studio recordings as opposed to…)

I like bands that can hold their own live, but eh, to each their own.

Just kidding, I listened to their myspace while writing this rant about them, and they’re pretty boring in the studio too. The one good song of theirs is “The Ghost of Old Bull Lee” because it’s the only one that’s really got any complexity to it; alas, I guess it didn’t make it to the myspace.

Two more. Number one comes from the giant music dump I got in the past few weeks, (and now that I’ve had two sources, I can’t remember who this came from) Georgie James. The song I like is “Places” which you can find if you scroll down a little bit, to their embedded application rather than the standard myspace music player.

Number two, I may have mentioned her earlier, but ElfOwl is a friend of Z.’s who makes gorgeous music. She’ll be playing at this show on Saturday night, and I’m psyched to see her sing live. I particularly suggest the song “Marianne” which I definitely mentioned earlier, as it was the inspiration for my poem “Emporia and the Long Drive.”

Ok, I lied. Last one, oldie but goodie (ew, I actually used that phrase.) Matthew Sweet has always been a staple around my house, more recently in his newer band The Thorns, but I am partial to Girlfriend and 100% Fun. In fact, the song “Girlfriend” in particular has been the song I use in the mornings as of late to pump me up. Linking to him is proving difficult, apparently his website is down and his myspace is a more recent collaborative effort of covers with Susanna Hoffs, a name I haven’t heard since I was like, 12, and my dad bought me a cd of hers.

We’ll just go old school. “Sick of Myself.”

And at one point there was an actual, non-music-related entry here

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Protected: i’ll hold your hand for miles

April 14, 2008 at 11:41 pm · Filed under Artistic Endeavors, General Reflection, Poetry ·Tagged , , , ,

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in your heart there’s a spark that just screams

April 4, 2008 at 6:58 pm · Filed under General Reflection ·Tagged , , ,

Today has been interesting, a nice day to say the least. I spent the morning at the writing center, then posed for some portrait photography for this senior’s photography thesis or something. It was certainly an interesting experience, having never been asked to model before. I had this distinct feeling of, well, not dejavu per se, but you see I was clutching a fur coat around my neck, my hair somewhat teased, with a relaxed look on my face. I felt like my great grandmother posing in some portrait. I felt old and young at the same time. It helped that the camera a modern version of a very old accordion-looking camera. The kind where you use a blackened sheet to keep out the light.

I hope they come out well.

Then I had a lovely lunch with El. Without delving too much into a romantic image (which is to say this is NOT romantic) she’s the first friend I’ve felt safe around in a while. Z. noted that I have recently begun to be distrustful of all of my close friends, pointing out when they have asked me for rides as if it is some proof that they’re only using me for my resources, for my push-over nature.

Later, as fate would have it, I wound up visiting M. at his new and stole music (amicably, of course) from his impressive 200gb collection.

And now I am laying in wait for Z. to come visit me for the weekend (back to consistency, I like it.) He’s taking a different route, so we’ll see if it’s faster. Instead of the normal 421 to 77 to 81, he’s going through Tennessee.

We’ll get IHOP with El. tonight after her shift. We’ll watch tv-on-dvd and sleep and enjoy how spring is overtaking the campus.

I plucked a pinkish seed pod from a tree as I walked back to Main from my car, tucked it in my thrifted 1939 copy of Anna Karenina that I need to read (it has watercolor illustrations!) I’ve felt in a vintage (19th c.) mood today.

One of the album’s that M. gave me was one I’d already heard a lot at home: Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend. What a brilliant album. There are a few albums and songs that give me vivid memories of home, anything by The Church, The Hollies Greatest Hits, Hanson – This Time Around (little known facts: they’re still around, they’ve done other songs than MMMBop, they are all married, they are all in their twenties, how about that!), The Moody Blues – whatever album Nights in White Satin is on, the Left Banke’s Walk Away Renee.

There is this one album that I put on my iPod, Anisa Angarola’s Irish Air’s & Dances, that my dad would play at EVERY. SINGLE. dinner party we’d have at the house. It’s so weird how the mind works, how memory will pull up a very specific image (my dining room before being redone, egg-shell linoleum floors and a giant 1970’s cylindrical chandelier that rarely ever worked right) and scent (garlicky dinners, Italian bread being toasted in the oven).

Well, M. also gave me a Tullycraft compendium which made the inner twee kid squeal. I saw them at Athens Pop Fest ‘07, heard them first in M.’s car as we drove down to Floyd for no apparent reason but to shoot the breeze, watch the sun set, cut slick down a mountain side where Virginia was tucked neatly and glittering into a valley.

Time has progressed since I began this entry. Z. gets closer and closer to Roanoke, and I find myself unable to clean up the room. I’ll greet him in my pajamas, it’s ok.

Did you know I can type 79 wpm? I learned this morning. Fascinating stuff.

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sing love, sing for me love

March 24, 2008 at 10:58 pm · Filed under General Reflection ·Tagged , ,

E. taught me the trick to telling a fake smile: a small muscle underneath your right eye will only twitch in a certain way when your smile is sincere. This is one of those secrets that has only made the world a slightly sadder place for me.

Exhausted is not the right word for how I feel, but apparently my body is in some sort of betrayal. I can never sleep anymore. I miss my blankets in Baltimore.

I keep watching friends and friends and friends of friends with the same smile, no eye muscles involved.

This week is too long.

2001: A Space Odyssey left me with the same empty, slightly disturbed feeling as A Clockwork Orange once did.

Kubrick makes beautiful and awful films (though awful as in the way I am left feeling, nothing to discredit the importance or craft of the film itself.)

Bad television always cures everything. That and a long phone call.

(Tonight’s recommendation: songerize The Avett Brothers – Living of Love)

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you don’t really care for music, do you

March 3, 2008 at 10:57 pm · Filed under General Reflection ·Tagged , , , , ,

I am listening to a version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah performed live by Beirut, listening to the airplanes overhead, listening to the wonderful silences of living alone. It’s been an exhausting day; I’m finally to the point in my college career where I don’t have time to go to my room between classes. I am on the go from anywhere between 9 and 11 AM til 9PM.

I was booked in the Writing Center tonight, something new for this semester. I felt more at ease in my last session, it’s always easiest when the tutee (that’s what we call them) is conversational, can admit faults and flaws in her own logic, and who will own up to and simply OWN her writing. It’s refreshing to meet ladies who write outside of the borders of traditional academia, stretch metaphor and grammar and write fluidly (and maybe flouncy? I love that word.)

Now I am listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, which is a crime to not hear in your lifetime. The boyfriend and I talk regularly about when we gained “musical taste;” when we stopped listening to the highschool fare of Linkin Park and… ok well my guilty pleasure was Good Charlotte, who’s first album I’ll still defend to the death. Anything past their first album, no thanks. But for both of us, it was that album, In the Aeroplane… that got us into the music we like today. The Decemberists were my second gateway band; for him, it was Wilco.

Now I am listening to Kathleen Edwards – In State, which my best friend once gave to me on a relationships mix cd; I think it was a coded hint to stop dating the unfortunate mess that I was at the time. She also gave me the Magnetic Fields song I referenced in a previous post, which applies greatly to my current situation, so I think she is very apt at applying songs to romances.

Celestial Seasonings makes this tea called Tension Tamer which is basically crack for migraines. It’s a mix of peppermint and some other things that make it totally delicious. And tension taming. I am wholly impressed at the way it’s taken care of my headache that I’ve had since watching Lolita earlier this afternoon. Kubrick is a brilliant director, but in the sense that a lot of his films I never want to see again. Lolita was definitely one of them. A Clockwork Orange is another.

One of my most favorite films is Leaving Las Vegas, but mostly again in the sense that it’s not a movie I really want to watch more than maybe once a year. It’s devastating, it’s possibly the most sincere and truest love story in a movie, and yet it’s awful to watch. It’s about a man who’s come to Las Vegas to drink himself to death (literally,) and a prostitute who meets him. They fall in love, but through the terms of an agreement; their relationship is asexual and based solely on companionship. Their love story is tragedy at its truest form.

With that, I guess I am going to end, because I am hungry and have to finish all of this homework. School is kicking my ass, majorly.

Totally.

Bummer.

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i love it when you read to me and you, you can read me anything

February 20, 2008 at 11:44 pm · Filed under General Reflection ·Tagged , , , ,

 

I checked youtube for the original of this song, fully intending to post some arbitrary video with the song playing behind it to talk about the inherent beauty in Stephen Merritt’s low notes. For one of the first times in a while on youtube I found an amateur cover that I almost like better than the original recording. The Magnetic Fields do it a little more like they are in slow motion in the middle of an empty ballroom.

The simplicity of the song is what strikes me about it I think, and how even in plain words there can be a line that strikes like:

“the book of love is long and boring/ and written very long ago/ it’s full of flowers and heart shaped boxes/ and things we’re all too young to know”

It’s so true, Stephen Merritt, it’s so true.

The song itself struck me today more than most in that today has been a day I’ve let my mind wander to an idyllic future, one that doesn’t involve papers and instead involves friends and family, music and laughter. I’ve begun to think immensely about my future life, questioning the up-till-now firm career plans I’ve made (such as my devotion to not becoming a teacher.)

I moved across campus this past weekend which is something I’d like never to repeat; sweat and sailor’s curses down narrow hallways at three in the morning (put a procrastinator and her procrastinating boyfriend together and you get a moving job that’s started on the last day at midnight.) But the view is lovely, front quad gridded in my window; and to be honest, it’s alot nicer to have a giant room again rather than the shoebox I had in Tinker.

I’ve written a little poetry lately, not much, and certainly not as much as I’ve devoted to a gargantuan screenplay project of epic (but not ‘an epic’) proportions. It’s enough to make me feel confident that I will indeed become a prolific poet again. I’m reading to high-schoolers on Friday at my old high school; this is a tradition I love to keep. I get to play the cool kid in a place where I never inhabited the role before, I get to answer questions as if my life up until this point is a novel that can be broken into chapters, as if my experiences are “examples” of how college life is. The question inevitably comes up, “Your school is all girls?! Don’t they fight all the time?” The answer I’ve always given has been something along the lines of, “Ha ha noooo.” (note: I still do not, and doubt I will ever, find offense in the term all-girls vs. all-women.) Now, who knows what I’ll say; perhaps I’ll flatten my smile and say something like “People who want to fight will fight, and that’s life.”

I wanted to write, “It’s too bad that this time all of the poignant vignettes about best-friends-forever and ‘crazy times downtown with friends’ will have to be nixed,” but then I realized, to be honest, last time I visited the high school I couldn’t really come up with one I wanted to tell. Foreshadowing, perhaps.

I’ll be going home to Baltimore this weekend, the first weekend in– really? can it be? the first weekend in MONTHS that I haven’t spent with my boyfriend. The three hours is a plight in our relationship, but somehow we’ve made it to see each other for long spans of time these past months. The budgets have caught up with us now, and like every tragic love story, we had to put a “To Be Announced” on the next visit’s date.

I am excited for the visit home, the inevitable video game battles and “come listen to this, come listen to this;” the three am jam sessions, the jokes at everyone’s expense. I am not looking forward to (but in a sense, I suppose I am) the adult chat, the budgeting session, the revealing of super-secret-super-future plans, those of which I can’t disclose but can only say that I am looking forward to 2009. It will be a successful unwinding of stress, the first time I’ve seen my parents since twice moving rooms and visiting the hospital. And then I will have nothing to look forward to until spring break, until july, until oh-nine.

So, I like the way Kafka keeps his journals; they’re the best I’ve read so far.

“There is a certain hothouse delicacy in the way in which I shrink from a puff of wind, if you like, even something affecting in it, but that is all.”

I empathize with his writing style, the way its a mix of metaphor and fluid language, with words like delicacy and seduction, with words like hollow sophistry. He’s fun to read.

“18 October Eternal childhood. Life calls again.”
(that’s my brother’s birthday, p.s.)

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