5/12/15

"For you, there'll be no crying
For you, the sun will be shining."

~Songbird 

Eva Cassidy, Songbird

Not entirely sure how my day evolved from one of extreme productivity and socializing into sitting at my desk in a stuffy apartment with overheated cats binge listening to Eva Cassidy, but, here we are.

She's pretty amazing, though at first the recorded setting felt somewhat dated to my overtuned ears. Then I became adjusted, found the performance embedded in the first blush, and was subsequently taken by her unique precision and flawless transitions and exquisite tonality. Live footage memorized further. Her legend is the stuff of a blessed and tragic life, as they so often are. 

I went in looking for "Songbird," an all-time favorite from the luscious throat of Christine McVie. Her rendition is pure, and I never ever tire of these words, they will always sound like home to me for reasons I don't dare pinpoint. From there, I wound up finding her "Fields of Gold" cover - a song I had not heard in ages that brought me back to times pre-dating that. Times of dancing in basements in old costumes and party dresses, my cousins and I playing choreographer and artistic director and corps performers. Then I knew this was a pretty song - most everyone does, one could easily argue it is the only true valid post-Police contribution Sting made to modern music. Then I saw a pretty scene of fields and words my mother sang. Now, so much older and lived, I hear it as much more of a sad song, maybe due in large part to Cassidy's sincere, sustained delivery. Some research (or, um, Wikipedia) tells me this cover was one of two that sparked her success with British audiences that had her album charting posthumously. 

"I never made promises lightly,
And there have been some that I've broken.
But I swear in the days still left,
We'll walk in fields of gold."

~Fields of Gold 

Eva Cassidy, Songbird

The other song was her "Over the Rainbow" rendition. This is the live one I couldn't stop watching. This song, the Tori Amos version, was the most important contemporary solo I ever danced. I don't think I ever placed higher than third in bad local competitions. My rehearsal slot was Thursday nights after the group, winding up at home by 9:30 or 10 or so. Jess screamed at me and my sickled feet, chided me for mouthing the words even though I had  no idea that was a habit, and changed up the attitude turns when I couldn't get the timing right and wound up overstepping before the next sequence. Not everyone gets a Tori solo, I knew, and I couldn't mess it up. Years later, Jess would joke to me: "Yeah, and that was a cover." Cassidy's version is nothing like Tori's (guitar, not piano, for starters) but it is stunning in its own right. Her fingers are patient and her choices on when and where to change up the melody, weave in trills and pluck a few extra strings are unique and unexpected and altogether beautiful. Timeless in every way. This one she performed at Georgetown's Blues Alley, a place I once visited with intense adoration and disguised wide-eyed glee:

"Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me"

~Over the Rainbow 

Eva Cassidy, Blues Alley Supper Club, 1-3-96

I am grateful to have found these songs tonight. Perhaps I am sentimental of the highest possible order. Perhaps I am more than a little nostalgic and in awe of the moments that come and go with such meaning while we, so caught up, are none the wiser they are happening to us. Maybe I am just a little melancholy, no surprise there. But how interesting,to hear these three perfect songs that incite so many memories and feelings in a new way, a never before way, an of-the-moment way that leaves me grateful for the present and its joys and sorrows, and ever-moving toward those to come - because if all we know can someday, somehow, in some way sound new again, then aren't we so lucky, to know what there is to look forward to. 

5/7/15

"Where’s your heart gone
And where’s your soul?
Where did all of your faith go?
And where’s that old spark, a failure stole?
Well I bet we’ll find it in no time at all."




I do not write often enough about how much I love Mute Math, or how excited I am by the promise of new material this summer.

Also, they're funny on Twitter.
Lately I've been catching up on their live footage (which is insane, between Darren King being an octopus and Paul Meany crawling on the crowds) and random B-sides. Still I always come back to the closing track, "In No Time," on "Odd Soul," a wonderfully energized and enigmatic record, inventive with is sound and bold in its direction. This song is an easy standout. Something about the organ sound here strikes me as very Coldplay but it is far less pretentious, and is really something of a wind down after the whirlwind of the second half of the record. I love the patient-until-its-not build, with steady beats, hypnotic repetition and a melodic outro. This is one of those songs where the instrumentation tells the story as much as the lyrics, the story of rising from some sort of depths into back where you're supposed to be. Taken as a whole, it is uplifting, without being sappy or syrupy. It acknowledges the broken things and identifies the only way to fix them: time.

"Where’s your nerve gone
And where’s your hope?
And where’s that sunrise you’ve been waiting for?
And where’s that one day you got it all?
Well I bet we’ll find it in no time at all
We’ll find it in no time,
We’ll find it in no time,
We’ll find it in no time,
We’ll find it in no time at all.

When the wars start falling on the world you had
Just hold tight, in no time we can get it back
When the skies come crashing on the world you had
Just hold tight, in no time we can get it back
We can get it back
We can get it back
We can get it back."
~In No Time
Mute Math, Odd Soul

5/3/15

"You thought God was an architect
Now you know
He's something like a pipe bomb ready to blow,
and everything you built that's all for show
goes up in flames
in 24 frames."

~24 Frames
Jason Isbell, 

Something More Than Free

I knew when I woke up this morning Jason Isbell would be releasing new music this July. I did not think I would get the gift of a new song that same afternoon.

He tweeted out a single, and I saw it, so I played it, and I cried at my desk when the chorus kicked in because I am so struck by his ability to capture difficult feelings so succintly.

This song is kind of perfect. It's structured so simply, lyrically and melodically, and yet it sinks into the darkest places of hearts and minds, somehow without caving to them. Life is sort of like that, sad but ever-moving, incredibly deep and layered in meaning, but simple when taken as a whole. Isbell writes about life, all his imagined ballads, all his confessionals, all his stories woven from feelings of love and loss and longing, it's all just life, and I do believe he is among the best of modern musicians because of this.

Earlier this year, I saw him in concert for the first time. Hopefully not the last, because it was mesmerizing. He played almost all of "Southeastern," it felt like, plus the best of the DBT tracks ("Decoration Day," "Goddamn Lonely Love," "Danko/Manuel,' "Outift") and soloed for bars upon bars upon bars with a natural fluidity and masterful precision. He is never too much, but he is never too sparse. I could listen to him sing for hours. I kept meaning to write about that concert, this magical few hours where the world sort of stopped spinning, but I figured I'd just sell it short. I do know I would love to see him again, as soon as possible, and that mid-July can't come soon enough.

I tried to be still tonight. I tried to be still after a 12-hour day, and never enough sleep,and preoccupied worries of the friends I didn't call and the bills I've yet to pay and the frustrations of my own limitations and faulty connections. I tried to be still and I couldn't, so I just listened to this until I felt clear enough to at least focus my kinetic energy into something worthwhile.

(EDIT: This is my 600th published post on this here blog. I like that number).

4/27/15

"Your gross fabrication of pretense could bore,
Yet still I fall victim to syntax omitted,
Just shy of something I could understand
So blissful, I press on to the sound of the organs
Playing their most convincing tunes
As they serenade to the parade of paid-off parts.

And now the only thing left to discuss is
The details of this armistice
We've come to this agreement.

Check my vitals
The truth is vile, but vital to this cause
I've been held hostage;
A captive of this passive shell
Give me gravity, give me clarity,
Give me something to rely on."

The debut from The Receiving End of Sirens turned 10 yesterday, reminding me of how often I've been playing "This Armistice." The whole album, named off of the closing track's most poignant, memorable lyrics, is really full and profound - that opening chorus from "Planning a Prison Break" is something fierce. But this song is the perfect example of perfect post-hardcore and everything that is/was cool about it: mixing vocal prowess with guitar madness, weaving closely-related stanzas for overlapping harmonies,and playing recklessly with rhythm and keyboard effects. Finger tapping excellence abounds.

This song is composed. This song is operatic. This song throws down, boils over and doesn't look back as it leaves a trail of hopeless desperation.

TREOS was, and remains, one of the smarter bands of the post-hardcore genre, and so they endured. They write with sophisticated verbs, they sing with choral-style gang vocals before any screaming comes into play. Their breakdowns wash in and over the listener, like waves of angst-tinged distortion pushed back by off-kilter piano. With songs this moody, it's easy to see TREOS blend in with the themes of the era, but listen a little harder and I think you find pieces and parts of compositions that push the boundaries of rock music into prog territory. Bottom line, they dress up aggression in a dramatic outfit, making screaming and loud guitars part of a greater sound instead of for the sake of being loud. They do this really well.

Their follow-up to "Between the Heart and the Synapse," called "The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi," executes on a greater level. I do not think it was as critically acclaimed but I think it shows a keen sense of timing and setting, and also the blending of studio instruments with key-sprouted parts and auxiliary....just enough digital to feel modern but not enough to feel phoned in. Been a long while since I listened to it, and on a somewhat dreary spring day, their fullness and darkness exacerbates the mood.

On a related note, singer-songwriter Casey Crescenzo was in town recently but I was not available to attend. Wonder if he played more TREOS or The Dear Hunter, which is also good and worth listening to. TREOS remains one of the most yearned for reunions in the scene, I think, because their sound is so beyond the scene itself, hitting all the right notes for drama and passion and anger without sacrificing a spine or musical integrity. Among those of us who aim to create, who aim to imprint, should we all be so skilled and focused to funnel our feelings while exploring depth and ingenuity within the medium.

"Oh, how I've been teething 

In light of your misleading
You've caused this collapse 

Between the heart and the synapse

We're all puppets
We're all marionettes
We're all puppets
We're all marionettes."

~This Armistice 

The Receiving End of Sirens, Between the Heart and the Synapse

4/24/15

This new Shakey Graves record is really something - I missed them when they were in town last wweek and that's a damn shame, because their sound is old-school blues at the very heart of it, dressed up in harmonies and trendy sounds for decoration. I love this record, "Nobody's Fool," as much as I love the fact this guy has been around for a few years, under the radar in Austin, and so it is made up of rarities and B-sides and one-offs, a delightful little taste test of his sound. His trademark is a suitcase kickdrum, which he fashioned himself and is odd to look at it and apparently pretty cool. I am not one to be sold on gimmicks, but his sound is just perfect for a chilly start to spring, hints of growth and green checkered among the grey.

Alejandro Rose-Garcia has a voice straight out of the south, grizzled and rough but able to glide across octaves as if on ice, or drunk. It makes me want to bury myself in Americana songs from now until the end of time, surround myself with sunshine and strings and tepid sadness.

This is one of my favorites so far - I can't find a solo video for it, but it's worth jumping the 23-minute mark to hear the simpler side of Shakey Graves:

"Dear friend of the girl i once dated
I hated the sound of her voice
and she left me no choice
I would rampantly tear all the
frames from the wall
just to make her remember
our life in the fall

So miss me once in a blue moon
if I don't return soon
I think there's something worth loving in me.

But I run from the touch of a loved one,
I could never live patiently.

Dear friend of the female persuasion
on lonely rotation through all of the boys in the town
I would instantly answer the phone if you call
just to make me remember the point of it all.

You miss me once in a blue moon
if I don't return soon
I think there's something worth leaving in me

but I run from the touch of a loved one
you could never love patiently
you could never love patiently
you could never love patiently
you could never love patiently

Yeah miss me once in a blue moon
if I don't return soon
I think there's something worth loving in me

but I run from the touch of a loved one
I could never live patiently."
~Love, Patiently
Shakey Graves, Nobody's Fool