the oh so quiet show

Although it’s unnecessary to say something is a note to myself, this is a note to myself: Taken by Trees (Victoria Bergsman’s solo project)

While bleeping around:

I’m quite surprised I like the above album. It’s…dancey. And I recently had a conversation with friends about my undance-itude. There is visual evidence of me dancing, but it’s more like me being dragged around by other people in a dance-like fashion.

I actually have that Phonem album…on vinyl. Which is completely pointless when you don’t have a good record player. Which I don’t.

I’m tired. Thus ends this insubstantial entry.

Becky Stark and David Byrne

Thanks to my awesome friend Janet, on Friday night I saw Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond perform a few songs at the NYPL as part of a Miranda July fun fest. The night ended with David Byrne (who interviewed Miranda during the second half of the night) playing guitar with Becky during the song, “Garden Rose” from the latest Lavender Diamond album, Imagine Our Love. It’s perty.

Lavender Diamond - Garden Rose

Although I knew that I already liked Lavender Diamond, I wasn’t set on seeing them in concert at Maxwell’s this Saturday until seeing Becky perform solo. She is…she is…quite unique. In an awkward way. To the point that I couldn’t tell whether she was really that awkward or if she was being funny for the audience. But does it matter either way? Not really. Because she sings like an angel stuffed with the love of 10000 teddy bears. She spoke softly and lightly with a wide grin on her face most of the time, every so often breaking into a strained giggle, besides the one time she cursed herself for repeating something she had just said. I really wonder what’s going on in her head. Is it just filled with looove and joooy?

“She’s goofy!” remarked a woman sitting behind me. That wasn’t the first adjective to pop into my head—awkwardly hilarious was more like it—but I guess she fits under the category of “goofy”. You forget it all when she starts singing. Her voice rings so clear. Not mature, not immature. Just…I dunno. It’s nice. You know when you have a stuffy nose and it suddenly clears up? Like the mucus has all been whisked away by a magic nose…angel? That moment of clarity is like Becky’s voice. Kinda. I think the audience was hesitant at first, possibly wondering, “What in the…” when she started playing, but I think a little more love was spread after getting us to participate in a sing-a-long (well, I stayed silent for the benefit of everyone’s ears around me).

BECKY STARK, YOU ARE THE QUEEN OF AWESOMETOWN!!!

Marie Antoinette

I saw Marie Antoinette this weekend not so much for the story (which is like 75% of the wikipedia entry) but to see the costumes and Versailles (heartstoppingly beautiful) and to hear how modern music would fit into a movie set in 18th century France.

I didn’t really know what music was on the soundtrack, so I was surprised when song’s from Aphex Twin’s Drukqs came up. The first time I heard that album I mainly though, “WTF.” It was like the auditory equivalent of a modern art installation involving random shit on the floor, ripped up fabric, broken glass, blah blah blah. I don’t mean that in a bad way; it just wasn’t something I could digest aside from a few songs, including the ones that happen to appear on the MA soundtrack. What’s different about these songs? WIKI KNOWS ALL:

At least 13 of the 30 tracks are piano compositions, both prepared piano (a style pioneered by John Cage), and normal piano. These tracks have an acoustic beauty not commonly associated with an electronic music artist such as James. The instrument used was a MIDI-controlled Yamaha Disklavier, which James programmed to play via sequencers, rather than from the piano’s keyboard. The Disklavier is a modern descendent of the player pianos of the late 19th and early 20th century, which were controlled by rolls of punched paper tape.

Uh huh. [nods] Avril 14th is one of my favorite tracks and sounds least like the rest of the album.

Aphex Twin - Avril 14th [removed]

I don’t know what I like so much about it, but it’s just…nice. It’s nice. Yes. That’s it. It makes me feel calm, not happy or sad. Just. Content. Until the next track on the album comes on and my head is shredded by random chopped up beats going at 100000 bpm.

Or maybe it’s a “sad little lonely song”. From Aphex Twin on Wikipedia:

In October 2006, Entertainment Weekly’s website ew.com reported of Kirsten Dunst; “Before a lot of scenes, she’d play Aphex Twin’s wistful solo-piano ditty Avril 14th to put herself in the right reflective mood: That was my sad little lonely song that I’d listen to a lot.”

Piano Solos, Vol. 2

One of my other favorite songs from the movie was also a piano solo by Dusin O’Halloran [myspace] (1/2 of Devics, who put out one of my favorite albums of the year) . When I heard it in the movie, I immediately went into quiet panic mode: “I KNOW THAT SONG WHY DO I KNOW THAT SONG WHERE IS IT FROM?!?!?!” After sifting through my iTunes I realized I had recently downloaded it without knowing who the song was by. Take a listen:

Dusin O’Halloran - Opus 23

The song is off Dustin’s latest album, Piano Solos, Vol. 2. Of course, you can also find it on the Marie Antoinette soundtrack. This is another one of those “Mm, I feel content” songs. Not especially happy or sad. Lullabye-ish.

..Which reminds me, I’m really tired.

really small tigers, or giant human?

I’ve been listening to Ian Love a lot lately, although by “a lot” I mean whatever’s on his myspace page since I don’t actually own his album. Yet. It’s only $10, less than what I spend on transportation for a work day, so I don’t have much excuse. By the time I finish this entry, I’ll have bought the album. Which reminds me, I have to pay credit card bills.

Even though I’m not a big fan of babies, I think the accompanying baby photos on Ian’s myspace page influence my opinions about his songs in a positive way. “Aw, babies…hey, this song is nice.” Maybe babies like his soft, sleepy, shuffling acoustic-y songs about lovey dovey things. Listening to his songs is very comforting and almost makes me feel like I’m sitting outside under a cool night sky and not in my humid room with the lights turn off because any excessive light will only exacerbate my sweat glands.

Yeah, I should just turn on a fan.

The only lyric so far that makes me go “Hmm?” is when he says, “As the stars jump side to side.” Why are these stars jumping? Are you nauseous? Is someone shaking you violently? I guess I’m taking things too literally. Thankfully, I don’t write songs; “As the stars stayed put because according to my astronomy textbook they shouldn’t be moving,” isn’t very heartwarming.

Listen to all his songs. They’re lovely. And feature different baby photos.

I wish I were that baby. Oh well.

This site died for a while. :’(

But now it’s back!

…I don’t blame ya if you didn’t notice.

the trees are attacking

I have a problem with Band of Horses’s Everything All The Time; it’s too short. In the past week, I’ve listened to it straight through about…[counts in fingers]…jagillion times. Yes, I know that’s not a real number.

I’m not sure why I like them so much, but it’s kind of rare that I enjoy something to such a high degree all the way through. So what do Band of Horses sound like? Uh. Um. Kind of like “The Shins”:http://www.theshins.com/, but not. Sometimes shouty, sometimes soft. Lots of echoing. Possibly grating, high pitches that I happen to enjoy. Happy. Sad. Swirly. Sweet.

It’s got guitars and stuff, if that helps. Which it doesn’t.

I JUST LIKE EM. To prove my point, I even uploaded mp3s! Just fer youuu:

Band of Horses - Wicked Gil [removed]
Band of Horses - St. Augustine [removed]

I just want to note this artist, Adam Stidham, on MySpace because:

# He doesn’t have an effed up customized profile that makes my eyes bleed more than they already do while looking at MySpace. You know what I’m talking about. Like neon green shit with fixed backgrounds and things that are semi-transparent.
# His music is very sweet and pleasant. Boring description, yeah. Um. Admittedly, I first thought of John Mayer, but I’m not a John Mayer fan. Well. I suck at comparing artists to other artists.
# He hasn’t released anything, but sounds like he should.
# He’s 21. Damn young’uns.

Sondre!

You know you’ve waited too long to write about something (or you take too many photos on a regular basis) when the photo you’re trying to find is on the 12th page of your photostream. BUT THERE HE IS. Sondre Lerche, I mean. I’m not uber-obsessed with Sondre, but I do like him enough that I’ve seem him two times before. Both times were free shows, but still! Friday night’s show was for charity. I will see a proper “with a band” show later.

So…I don’t remember a great deal about the show besides that it was great. How could Sondre do wrong? Well…he can’t. What he can do is bop around with hair in his face and babble endearingly about random stuff (NYC is hot, Norway is cold and has polar bears, we find celsius foreign, someone said his songs are feminine, he really loves the Duper Sessions album) while testing out his new electric guitar and being overly humble. I recorded one song since it was the shortest (even though the original file works fine for me, it’s not in sync in youtube):

He mainly played new songs (I only recognized “Minor Detail”), but threw in a few old ones as well. Music Slut wrote a more detailed review so you may as well just read that.

I’ve been listening to “Push the Heart”, the new album by “Devics”:http://devics.com, for the past week, over and over and over again, so that I’m quite sure that I love this album. But why? WHYYYY?

DON’T KNOOOOW.

…Well, that’s a bit of a lie. The album is very pretty in that sad/eerie/happy way, if that makes any sense (probably not). Members Sara Lov and Dustin O’Halloran have beautiful, soft voices that go very well with the…beautiful, soft music (that makes more sense, but still sounds moronic). Sara sings solo on most of the songs except for the duets “Song for a Sleeping Girl” and “If We Cannot See”, whose words and music are written by Dustin, as opposed to the other songs whose music is by Dustin and words, by Sara. Take a listen:

Devics - Song For a Sleeping Girl [removed]

I _do_ want to fall asleep to this song. Outside. Breezy. Squirrels. …Wait, no squirrels; they’re annoying. Reminds me a bit of Yo La Tengo for some reason. This song eases the throbbing on the side of my head. That’s a good thing.

I’m going to pluck words from “Janet’s”:http://www.escapingwords.com/ review at “kevchino”:http://www.kevchino.com/index.aspx?review=817. Sweet, sad and bitter: yup. Mazzy Star: a bit. Waltz beat: sleepy goodness. Radiohead-esque “Just One Breath”: uber (Paranoid Android-esque to be more specific).

I’d upload more songs I like, but I like _all of them_. ALL. It’s probably sad that I’m genuinely surprised that I like an entire album, lead by a female singer (it’s much easier for me to get into male singers for whatever reason)…but I can’t explain it. Actually, if I do have to pick another favorite song, I’d go with “A Secret Message to You”, which features a toy piano, accordian, glockenspiel, and tappy sounding percussive objects. You don’t even have to listen to it to know it’s awesome.

The album comes out on March 7th. “Get a copy”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E3LFZM.

**EDIT:** More places to hear songs from the album:

* “Their official site”:http://www.devics.com/index.php?galleryNum=3&currentNum=0&showImage=true (click on “mp3 player” in the top navigation)
* “rbally”:http://www.rbally.net/2006/01/devics.html put up two mp3s
* “Devics on myspace”:http://www.myspace.com/devics (OH GOD, NOT MYSPACE…I mean…yay, _myspace_)

I don’t *love* this song/video, but I really like it, which counts for…something. Not having listened to “Josh Rouse”:http://www.joshrouse.com/ in roughly forever, I decided to watch his new video, Quiet Town, “a homage to the little Spanish community Altea, where Josh first laid roots upon arrival” [”filter”:http://www.filter-mag.com/artists/interior.159.html]. It’s…comforting. Like home videos stitched together, except in a nicer fashion than most home videos and with a more artistic feel, because that’s what black and white does to you. _Mm, monochromatic!_

I don’t know why I haven’t listened to Josh in forever; there’s no good excuse. The first time I listened to him is memorable because it was kind of…random. In 1998 or 1999, I received a free cd from mp3.com and out of the gazillion mp3s on the cd, Josh’s was the _only_ good one. The. Only. One. Out of a lot. I guess it’s not like the other ones sucked, but…well, maybe they _did_ suck, a judgement I made after sampling a few seconds of each track because I have the attention span of an excited puppy. Here’s the song I was drawn to, off the album “Dressed Up Like Nebraska”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000006CBY:

Josh Rouse - Dressed Up Like Nebraska [removed]

There are other good songs on this album, but for some reason I didn’t like most of them. I wore out the songs that I loved (roughly three of them) and then not long ago while cleaning out my CDs, I sold it on Amazon. Hm. It had a good resell value. Anyhoo, it’s probably time for me to listen to his newer stuff.

…I just realized I didn’t actually verbalize what his music sounds like. Wellll. That’s what the mp3 and video are for. Sorry. Too lazy to write real stuff.

“Chris reviews Josh Rouse at Joe’s Pub”:http://musicsnob.blogs.friendster.com/chris_music_snobbery/2006/01/josh_rouse_joes.html

[PS: “Hipsters are so nice and soft”:http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/081703/so-soft.gif]

I’ve been saddened by the realization that I haven’t been that into the last two Beck albums. WHAT IS THIS MONSTROSITY? I love Beck! Yes! Or. I loved his stuff before the last two albums.

So…I went through a bunch of Beck singles and found all these b-sides that scream awesome. If you’re a big Beck fan, you’ve probably heard of them. If you’re just a casual fan and haven’t felt the need to scope out EVERY B-SIDE IMAGINABLE (hell, even I haven’t), you maybe not have heard of them. Here are two that I really like:

Corvette Bummer - from the UK “Loser” single. Kinda like “Soul Suckin Jerk”, one of my favorite songs from Mellow Gold. [removed]
Alcohol - from the US “Loser” single. I think. Sounds like something off “One Foot in the Grave”. [removed]

If you want something newer, check out the Nick Drake covers at “beck.com”:http://www.beck.com. For a less annoying way to listen to them, download them through yousendit. [thanks Mellow]

Lastly, this is the coolest (or tastiest) Beck fan art I’ve seen: “Lizzy’s portrait of Beck done in chocolate sprinkles on a Christmas cookie!”:http://beckbeckbeck.net/bekkies/bekkieart_lizzy.jpg

Watch the new video for Hold On at nme.com. [via I Think So]

* Windows Media - lo / hi
* Real Media - lo / hi

I like bits of the video, but overall I don’t get a “black and white” feel from the song. Instead, I see lots of colors and…swirly things. B&W seems too drab compared to the way the song feels if you listen to it with headphones while doing nothing else. But. YAY FOR BANJOS!

I’ve been reading about Nine Black Alps a lot lately (well, about their show at the Mercury Lounge). So for no reason, I’ll share my thoughts about their music. …not really my kind of music. Actually, that’s not true, but for some reason I didn’t get into their EP after listening to it a few times. My first impression was that I’d enjoy them live but not so much just listening to a CD. Am I too picky?

As for something that I’m enjoying lately, Emiliana Torrini’s latest album Fisherman’s Woman is beautiful. I especially like the last track:

Emiliana Torrini - Serenade [removed]

Her latest album has rather sparse acoustic instrumentation (not that there’s anything wrong with that; Emiliana’s voice is the main thing here), making it very different from Love in the Time of Science, which comparatively has a harsher, electronic, produced feel. I love that album, but I prefer Fisherman’s Woman. If you can see her live, DO IT! She’s great and one of the most adorable musicians I’ve ever seen. Or THE most adorable (really). She’s playing at the Summer Sundae Festival on August 13th this year in Leicester (besides Slough, one of my favorite names for a place in England). I went to the festival last year and the line up looks better this year, dammit (not that it was bad last year but I was only interested enough in going on the Sunday instead of the whole weekend).

GO TO SUMMER SUNDAE! I would. I’d also go to Oyafestivalen. I quite sure that I LIVE ON THE WRONG CONTINENT! For more reasons than one. I’d talk about how Americans are all screwed because our food supply seems so unprotected compared to Europe (regulations and such) but …whatever. We’re all doomed guinea pigs. (Whoops, digression.)

Something about Magnet! I guess Music Week had something about Norwegian artists and he was mentioned in there. I’ve never seen this publication before though…hrm. Whenever there’s something in print and in English about Magnet, I aim to find it. There’s something wrong with me.

BC Camplight is doing a residency at The Living Room on August 1st, 15th, and 29th. Check him out if you can. MAKE YER MONDAYS FUNNER! I found the message on the Living Room’s website, “All shows are 21 years and older *unless accompanied by a parent” funny–so when I turn 20, I’ll have to drag my mum with me? Isn’t there something wrong with that? (Yes.) Well. Perhaps it’s better than not allowing under-21s in at all, but really. I’m not bringing my mum–I’m staying home. Because I suck.

On a random ranty note, Myspace…wait, do I have to say anything else? All anyone has to say is “myspace” to commence the cringing of legions of Internet users. I just realized the other day that I had a privacy setting on that required people to enter my last name or email address to add me as a friend (and it’s not like I keep that information padlocked in a vault at the bottom of the ocean) so I turned it off. And then…random friend requests, WHY? I’m going to turn that option back on, along with “Block Friend Request From Bands”. I’m sure these people don’t suck but come on, that’s not cool.

Not keeping up with Bjork news = bad. She’s in Matthew Barney’s new film, Drawing Restraint 9, for which she also composed the soundtrack of (release date: July 25th). There are sound clips at the bottom of this page. Bjork.com’s description of the soundtrack’s music:

Björk has written a suite of haunting music for the sho, one of the oldest instruments in Japanese culture with seventeen reeds and fifteen distinct pipes. It is performed by Mayumi Miyata, one of the world’s foremost sho players. Björk also worked with scholars of the Noh theatre to produce new musical settings, incorporating the low, growling vocal techniques of traditional Japanese court entertainment.

And of the film:

She also features in the film, together with Matthew, where they together tell a tale of tea ceremonies, vaseline, a shinto marriage and of course the old classic whale-shapeshifting ending. I mean, who can forget back in the days when Greta Garbo swam off into the sunset as a humpback whale? It still brings a sentimental tear to my eye.

Humpback whales? YES!

“Robyn, you got a package!”

“Uhh…” The package could only be one thing: MAGNET! CD, that is. Not Magnet.

[Before I forget, happy birthday, Even! He’s 35 today. I forgot his birthday last year so I think I was ultra-determined to remember it this year. Problem is that I can’t figure out the best way to express the birthday greetings…good thing I’m not a “writer”.]

So, the package was, indeed, of CD-size and weight and of origin from another country. My first thought was that the cover art didn’t feel “right”, but I must have gotten used to it because I don’t mind it anymore. The artwork is similar to that of “On Your Side”, with organic/nature related doodle-ish drawings, faces, animals, yellows, browns, gold, black–Martin does a fine job, as usual. (And his design for The Last Day of Summer is on display at The European Design Show: awesome.) I had good reason to check the liner notes. (cough)

I’ve listened to the album about 5+ times by now (it’s 40 minutes long/short) and…well, it has grown on me in those listens. I already liked it (telepathically), but I was a bit torn because for a few of the songs, I found that I only liked half of the song. I’d like the beginning but not the end, or vice versa. Strange? As I get more used to the songs, I’ll probably like the songs in their entirety, but some of these songs just have a lot (for lack of a better description) going on in them. I know that craplods of songs are like that, but in this case it threw me off a bit.

As I’ve been told before, this album is much happier sounding than his previous albums. No freakishly happy songs here, but noticeably not as unhappy as before.

If you look at the categories, you can see that I wasn’t sure what to label this. “The Pacemaker” starts off with sounds reminiscent of kid’s toy instruments interspersed with random blips and clicks. It’d be an interesting song without vocals (although one of the best things about Magnet is the vocals). “Hold On” has that clicky start as well, and then in come the orchestral string flourishes, banjo picking, theremin-esque whizzes…you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about unless you listen to the song.

Hm. Well. You’ll have to wait a bit as the album isn’t coming out in the US until autumn (what a shame!). And now that I can see that the sun has risen, I’m off to bed.

I’m not in a particularly good mood.

This song is appropriate to listen to when I’m happy or sad. I don’t know why. If you don’t like it, you suck. In my opinion. Not that my opinion matters much:

Even Johansen - Quiet and Still [removed]

I first heard this song almost four years ago. …god, now I feel old.

Mmmm Kings of Convenience on KCRW mmmm better than pancakes mmm. Better because if I eat too many pancakes I end up getting sick of them but listening to too much Kings of Convenience is just…a good thing. [via I Think So]

There are a bunch of new videos at Emiliana Torrini’s website. I like the video for Heartstopper (from her latest album Fisherman’s Woman, which I haven’t gotten yet because I suck) in particular. It’s got…puppets! And. Yeah. Puppets. If there’s one thing the world could use more of, it’s puppets. Watch it: Hi | Lo. Watch the interview video as well, because it’s funny and Emiliana extrudes cuteness. [via it’s a trap!]

On an unrelated note, mp3s sounds like poop (choppy) when I play them on iTunes using my new laptop. Songs work fine in Windows Media Player. So. iTunes. WHAT HAPPENED? WHY DO YOU CRAP UP MY SONGS? Help? Maybe it’s just me. Nevermind, this helped.

I’m still happy from the Beck concert. Superb. Superduperb. I ended up listening to random old Beck songs and came across Satan Gave Me a Taco. As hard as I tried I could never memorize more than a few stanzas, but it’s a great weird song. Listen to it:

Beck - Satan Gave Me a Taco [mp3 removed]

I’ve finally gotten around to buying the deluxe version of Guero. Or…I’m VERY close. Even though shipping is $9 at the beck.com emporium, the price still seems better than at other websites I’ve looked at. I thought most places priced shipping based on THE ITEM BEING SHIPPED and not how much it costs, but that would actually make sense. Oh well, tax refunds get translated into Beck CD buying!

You can download the Boards of Canada remix of Broken Drum at scissorkick. The first time I heard the remix I thought, “I really like this.” I listened to it again while walking home tonight and thought “I LOVE THIS.” I don’t know why though. Maybe it was just a good moment; comfortable weather, clear black sky, bright moon, Verizon building looming nearby, airplanes flying overhead. It made me want to romp around the street if I hadn’t been hauling a laptop on my back.

This Filter SXSW blog is updated way too much. Is it wrong for me to find it extremely amusing? Perhaps a little too amusing? There’s something funny about all the crappy photos and…beer. Sadly, when I came across the words “pecan pie” I had to find the Salt Lick (the attention I pay to desserts shouldn’t surprise anyone who has eaten with me). I was hoping for more info about this pecan pie but alas, it’s mainly meat. Meat isn’t exciting–PIE IS EXCITING, GOD DAMMIT!

Okay, this blog is about music. The last thing I should do is stray into food as that usually ends in weeping and bad things.

Food gives me loads of stress that can only be ameliorated by live music. As long as I’m not surrounded by douchebags, live music makes me happy. WEE! I went to Pianos last night with Arthur to see Levy. They’re playing at Pianos every Wednesday this month but as I have class on Wednesday nights and this is my vacation week, last night was the only time I could go (actually, they went on after 10PM so in theory I could catch them next week but I’m lazy).

Last night was my fourth visit to Pianos and the first time the guy at the door looked at my ID and said I was underage. “Okay…but I came here last week…?” And that makes it okay. OKAY! Maybe the place is 18+, but 21+ is the suggested age. I hate silly rules. Then again, I don’t drink.

Some history that no one cares about but anyhoo, I first found out about Levy on 15 Megs of Fame, which is how I met Arthur and became his drummer, somewhat. We haven’t gotten to practice much and I suck the crap out of playing drums. But we both like Levy so hoorah! Okay! This paragraph sucked so I shall move on.

The Cobble Hillbillies came on before Levy and I was completely stunned, in a good way. My first thought was “Holy crap, I never listen to this kind of music outside a Disney theme park” (and of course, in the theme parks it’s only in Frontierland or whatever) which translates into “I never listen to this kind of music because…I dunno…what the hell?” On that note, the band was awesome. Really awesome. Awesome enough for me to buy their CD, which means I am listening to this kind of music outside a Disney theme park. Everyone seemed to have mastered their instruments (hell, I dunno how to play a banjo or even a harmonica–then again, I can’t whistle or snap my fingers) and they looked so damn happy. Or not unhappy at least. The harmonica guy had a BELT OF HAMONICAS which isn’t something you see every day, or in my case, ever. The mandolin guy’s fingers danced across the strings, possibly with the help of an illicit drug that makes people play the mandolin

I want a banjo. I’ve wanted a banjo for years but not badly enough to get one. What the hell would I do with a banjo? Play it? Oh.

Levy gave a good performance but I probably would’ve been more into it had I not been in a total bluegrass mood. I didn’t need earplugs for the Cobble Hillbillies but I would’ve been deaf without them during Levy. It would really suck to end up going deaf because you like listening to live music, but life is like that (I mean, life sucks). Levy seemed to have a bunch of fans in the audience, or at least in the rows in front of me. Usually being in the front row at shows made me forget how short I am (quite short). They played some songs that aren’t on their CD (which you should get–come on, it’s $10) or website that I liked so I guess those’ll pop up on something in the future. If you have free Wednesday nights you should check them out next week. I just realized I didn’t describe Levy’s music at all but you’re best off listening to it yourself. You’ll probably like it. YOU HAVE MY WORD.

Last thing: Ed Harcourt is playing at Pianos on April 20th and 27th. That surprised me since Pianos is quite small and Ed Harcourt is pretty big (not in the same sense but you know what I’m talking about). I have two of his albums but haven’t gotten the latest one yet. Last summer I saw him play at De Montfort Hall and while he was good I would’ve rather seen him play with a band than solo. If his shows weren’t on Wednesdays I’d think of going…doh.

Quickie that I’ll edit later or else I’ll forget, some songs that were played although not in this order:

• Twist
• To You
• Morning Rain
• Proof
• Strange Arrangement of Color
• Cuckoo
• No Fear of Falling
• Life in a Day

…oh crap, that didn’t really work. I can’t remember the other songs and I’m sure there were others that I knew. There were a few songs I didn’t know; I ought to get Natural History. I think they played a new one as well.

Anyhoo, it was cool. Diana and I stood right in front of John Bramwell, giving me a clear view of his guitar playing, which was pretty awesome because…because. No pick. I don’t like picks. The band played nearly perfectly as far as I could tell.

—– [returns much later to blab some more] —–

My ears didn’t ring this morning! It’s a miracle! The show was awesome and was a damn good way to spend $8. Also good was BC Camplight, which I found out stands for Brian Christinzio…Camplight. He had the flu but still sang well; I was impressed. Drinking like a fish, he apologized for sounding more manly than usual (he said he’s supposed to sound like a girl) and pounded out lovely tunes on the piano with a drummer, bassist, and acoustic guitarist in tow (and a few times, a female singer, as in the photo). I love his voice (if you didn’t download the mp3s, go download!) and it was a bit weird hearing it in all its…manliness. But he was funny and all was good. And stuff. And he’s playing at SXSW so if you’re going to that you should see him. I was feeling poopy all day but BC Camplight tunes cheered me up so I’d be ready for I Am Kloot.

I Am Kloot was great and seemed to enjoy themselves (they looked happy!). The show was sold out, the crowd was good, it was the first time I saw someone use a crate in lieu of a guitar strap, all the songs sounded solid, and…the end. If you can, see them during their tour. For more Kloot-ness, they’ve got a new album and single coming out! I LOVE the single “Over My Shoulder”, a version of which (I’m assuming it’s not the same?) you can download at epitonic.

On a completely unrelated note, pancakes are a very good thing.