Category: Music

things i am into right now:

• the guy on the 2 train home a few weeks ago reading the economist wearing the exact same “fat-albert-ass headphones” i wear every day
• early tom waits albums, big star, the beta band, aimee mann, nick drake
• the associated grocery store on my walk home from the train
• visiting the above a little too frequently so i can have a respectable kitchen to cook in
• eating nothing but homemade food at least one day a week
• the balcony-porch-type-thing at my new apartment: i spend a good 80% of my time at home out there
• having roommates, and siting on the above-mentioned porch, drinking beer and talking about things that don’t involve theatre in the slightest
• brooklyn lager and miller high life (see above)
• not having to leave the apartment tomorrow if i don’t want to
• tonight’s extravagant dinner at the west bank with d and em

i’m starting to think a better title for this blog might have been “the stunningly quotidian.”

so, more than a month without a post… not that anyone should be all that surprised. i found a draft of a post called “ow my liver” about a wonderful but very drunken weekend with the vanya and st. joan casts, steve cramer, and emily and entourage for her birthday. the few nights with steve were epic, and have been dubbed “all cramer’s- eve” and “steve cramer day.”

anywho.

last night, after rehearsals, miki and i headed across the street to the west bank to blow off some steam (and how). zoe and janel were there as well, and ken was behind the bar, so, of course, a good time was had by all.

the best part of the evening, though, was the cab ride home. after packing miki off in a cab, i hopped in the next one as the radio announced a piece (whose title i didn’t hear) “conducted by leonard bernstein.” i asked the cabbie to turn it up, and we blissed our way up the west side highway until the piece was finished. for the rest of the drive, he only wanted to talk about west side story, which seems to me as a rather odd conversation to have with a cabbie, but was enjoyable nonetheless. i only remember agreeing with whatever he was saying while straining to hear the radio he had turned down, responding every once in a while when something he said broke my focus on the burried music.

i have to say: some of my favorite new york experiences have been cab rides.

oh, and, as a public service announcement, don’t try to watch a subtitled movie at 2am after a heavy-handed bartender has pouring for you.

asa got rach and i tickets to horizion at nytw last night and, aside of getting bumped from row g to row a, it was an evening that sorta made me fall back in love with seeing theatre (not that i’d fallen out with theatre, but i sometimes find it hard to enjoy a performance when i spend most of my waking hours making theatre). it was inventive, interesting, and both smart and clever. i rarely see music worked into straight plays well, much less as effortlessly and intrinsically as these seemingly virtuosic performers wove it into each moment in the show. from an exacting score to naked and honest barbershop quartets to rinde’s heartstopping aria, the whole event woke me up to what i can and should be doing as a sound designer. we don’t have to pander to people to get them into the theatre, and good theatre doesn’t have be to exclusive of a wide audience.

if there were more works like this, i would go to the theatre more often.

as a side note, it looks like it might be turning into the summer of tom waits for me.

so i stayed in dc an extra couple of days to see the sea and cake at the black cat last night, as it’s been a long time since i’ve seen them live, and i’ve been obsessed with seeing a show at the black cat since i read about the working holiday bash back when i was a jenny toomey groupie in high school (not that i’ve lost my rockstar-crush on her at all). so, slightly hungover from friday night in baltimore, i headed up to the black cat where some nice lady offered me one of her extra tickets for ten bucks. nice.

i caught most of the opening set by the zincs, who were musically great, but i just couldn’t get into that guy’s voice. great drummer, though. as they packed up, i went over to the merch table to pick up a copy of the sea and cake’s new album and a t-shirt (yes, i’m that guy), which was sold to me by none other than my indie-rock hero archer prewitt. i was kinda embarrassed at being sorta star-struck, and he was appreciative that i had exact change, so i guess it all worked out.

now happily having spent almost 40 bucks on the evening without having bought a drink yet, i resumed my place near the sound console to see loney, dear, who slowly and steadily blew me away. the place was getting packed, and i got irked that no one would quiet down for his quietly fingerpicked opening solo number. when the band joined him, it was like a smaller, sweeter, simpler version of sufjan stevens’ illinoise makers. the audience was invited to sing along, even taught the dead-simple but catchy-as-all-hell nonverbs of “ignorant boy, beautiful girl,” but it was obvious that the crowd was there to see the sea and cake, and not some swedish folk-pop multi-instrumentalist and his backing band. which was a shame, ’cause i kinda fell in love with them, even the chick standing behind the keyboard that i don’t remember her playing, though she had her background singer/tambourine skills finely honed.

as the bands changed over i realized that, though i was standing far enough away to hear everything perfectly, i wasn’t close enough to actually watch my geek-idols play. so, feeling absolutely foolish, i started weaving through the crowd towards somewhere with a better vantage, which i found happily under one of the massive air conditioning ducts. there were a lot of couples there to see the sea and cake, which struck me as odd, since i think of their music as lonely-single-geek music, but maybe that’s because i’m a lonely-single-music geek. and what’s with people calling their friends in the middle of a song and holding the phone out to the stage, then trying to shout a conversation over the music: you can’t be enjoying the music while doing that, and i’m certainly not having a good time with you doing that next to me.

regardless, the sea and cake rocked, of course. i was astounded to see them do a whole set sans synths: just drums, bass and two guitars. now, archer did have a sea of pedals at his disposal, and he even picked up an ebow for a couple of tunes to fake a synth effect, but they did it like a rock and roll band, and did it well. sam led them through a positively blistering “jacking the ball” with his signature scat-yelp, making me wonder if he was looking for a new spin on old material, or if he honestly hated playing what has become a chestnut for them. either way, it was kinda thrilling. eric claridge (didn’t look like how i remember him, but who knows) was a mountain of a god behind that bass, john mcentire was bewitching as always with his mad precision, and sam and archer crooned while climbing all over those guitars effortlessly. the updated/modified versions of old favorites were just as captivating as hearing the new material live, and the encore closer, “do now fairly well,” just floored me. only cats have been playing together for almost 15 years can make music like that.

today was the day when i looked into all of these things the hip kids are doing on that thar’ interweb and, lo and behold, i’ve been missing out. last.fm is what i’ve been missing all of my life: an app/site that tracks my listening habits and recommends new music based on other listeners with similar tastes. if you’re light-years ahead of me on this, befriend me so we can rock out some music-geek goodness. on that note, if you’re on virb, let me know: i’m all set up there, and haven’t found anyone i know, and being on a social site like that with no friends is kinda really depressing, so help a brotha’ out. i also opened a flickr account to start posting photos from the tour, and got kinda really wrapped up in organizing them and mapping them: i am an unabashed big fat geek. perfect things to do on a rainy day.

amongst the many things in my mac lifestyle that i love are things whose names start with “smart.” smart folders, smart searches, smart groups, and, most of all, smart playlists. a while back i had the idea to make a list to play the least-played songs in my iTunes library to try to avoid those embarrassing “i had no idea that was on my iPod” moments. and with the amount of music i acquire in a given month, on top of continually trying to import the most relevant cd’s in my collection, it’s nice to get a little cross-section of what i haven’t been listening to lately. sometimes it’s even a little audio “oblique strategies” when i’m in a sound design rut.

all that aside, i think it’s pretty fantastic to see these artists lined up together, however it happens: kings of leon, calexico, weezer, carol king, beck, el-p, ozomatli, pepe deluxe, joni mitchell, the sea and cake, tin hat trio, rammstein (what?), archer prewitt, ms. dynamite, don caballero, big star, the stills, garbage, tenacious d, the streets, laurie johnson (music for tv dinners), low, grandaddy, shipping news, operation ivy, outkast… this would be a fine time to thank everyone who has turned me on to a band, ever. sometimes i forget how much a part of my life each album can be.

“bought a tape just the other day of a band i used to listen to: set me back a couple of beers, set me back a couple of tears.” ‘down the line’ by big wheel from “slowtown.” in the midst of many days off and broke, i’ve been scanning through the web. downloaded some live recordings from the slint reunion. visited peter searcy’s site and thought back to all the good times at big wheel shows, hanging with gret listening to “could you please and thank you,” and was struck by how much of my past is interwoven with his songs. then imported all of my arial m / papa m into my itunes, and thought back to my first few years at xavier and getting nat hooked on his stuff. what strikes me now is that music seemed to be more visceral, or kinesthetic, or just more important to my life back then (yeah, like it was so long ago). not that i don’t live and die by my music now, but, like everything else in high school (and even college), things just seemed to mean so much more than they do now. though i did go see be careful little hands with em and the other matt h. the other night, and it was pretty amazing. an experience i feel i haven’t had recently. with all this time on my hands, i’m trying to get things organized and look up shows i want to see in the near future. maybe with some planning i’ll rekindle the all out lust for music that came so naturally back then. aren’t i a little young to be obsessing about my “youth?”