Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Dude, I Was There!, AM & Shawn Lee Edition

AM & Shawn Lee at Bumbershoot, September 2, 2012

Happy New Year!  Here's AM & Shawn Lee, who have a new album, La Musique Numerique, coming out in 2013, performing in Seattle during last year's Bumbershoot back on September 2.  You can see the back of my head bobbing up and down right in front of the dude with the laptop throughout most of the clip.


The dude with the laptop from my vantage point in the audience:


And finally, one of my favorite songs from their last album, Celestial Electric:

Monday, December 31, 2012

Grand Prize Winner For This Year

Father John Misty / J Tillman at Terminal West, October 18, 2012

It's New Year's Eve, the traditional date for posting a "Best of 2012" for whatever category in which one is interested.  Best album of 2012?  Best song of 2012?  Best concert of 2012?  Best book of 2012?  Best interpretive dance of 2012?

I don't have it in me to make a Top 10 list for any of these.  Yesterday's Top 10 Concerts of 2012 included 14 shows, and didn't even include the winner of all of the above categories:

Best Concert of 2012:  Father John Misty, Terminal West, Atlanta, October 18
Best Album of 2012:  Fear Fun, Father John Misty
Best Song of 2012:  Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Father John Misty
Best Book of 2012: The voluminous liner notes to Fear Factor by Father John Misty
Best Interpretive Dance of 2012:  Father John Misty, various moments during October 18 performance at Terminal West


The coveted Water Dissolves Music Grand Prize for 2012, therefore, goes to . . . Father John Misty.



Sunday, December 30, 2012

Dude, I Was There!


One of my favorite concerts of the year was held during MusicFest Northwest, but wasn't actually a part of MFNW, when My Morning Jacket played an outdoor show in McMenamin's Edgefield in rural Troutdale, Oregon.  Some magic combination of MMJ's epic jams, the beautiful setting, the sunset, and the fact that my being there was totally unplanned (my itinerary had me seeing Kishi Bashi in the basement Doug Fir Lounge over in Portland) all made it a very special show.  The quality of this fan video isn't professional but it isn't all that bad either, and it does give a fairly good impression of what the show was like.  As I recall, this number was about a third of the way into the set.

I don't like to rank anything as "Concert of the Year," as that's such a relative title, and many shows deserve top ranking for one aspect of the performance or another.  But, because such things are traditional at the end of the year, here in chronological order are some of my favorite concerts of 2012:
  1. Akron/Family, Drunken Unicorn, January 14
  2. Thurston Moore, The Goat Farm, February 8
  3. Allo Darlin' & The Wave Pictures, 529, April 28
  4. Damien Jurado, The Earl, May 23
  5. Sonic Generator performing Steve Reich's Drumming, The Goat Farm, July 27
  6. Dirty Projectors, Variety Playhouse, August 9
  7. M83, Bumbershoot, Seattle, September 3
  8. Low, Bumbershoot, Seattle, September 3
  9. Black Mountain, Doug Fir Lounge (MFNW), Portland, Oregon, September 8
  10. My Morning Jacket, McMenamin's Edgefield, Troutdale, Oregon, September 9
  11. Animal Collective, The Tabernacle, September 30
  12. David Byrne & St. Vincent, Cobb Energy Center, Marietta, Georgia, October 3
  13. TOPS, Farm 255, Athens, Georgia, October 6
  14. Sharon Van Etten, Terminal West, October 27

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Winter Doldrums


No one on tour, no interesting shows at any of the local venues, and a particularly lackluster selection of New Years offerings.  I haven't been to The Earl in over two months now, a recent record for me.  Nothing new even on television - even the reruns of Portlandia are showing the same episode run just two weeks ago.

The Wiinter Doldrums are getting to me.  Here's to hoping I can maintain sanity until March Madness comes.

Friday, December 28, 2012

My Year-End 4x4


No getting around it - this is pretty much what I was listening to this year.  Here are some random clips grabbed from the above.







Thursday, December 27, 2012

Low


Back during Bumbershoot, the Minneapolis-based Low blew my mind with their subtle and melodic set, which included several new songs, including the darkly humorous Piss Cup.  

NPR has included Low's forthcoming Invisible Way in their 2013 Winter Music Preview, and are streaming the new song, which apparently has now been given the slightly  more elegant title, Plastic Cup.  Either way, it's a killer song and worth checking out.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Dude, I Was There!, Part Whatever

Akron/Family at The Drunken Unicorn, January 14, 2012

The band Akron/Family recently announced that they're planning on releasing a new album in 2013, a follow-up to last year's Akron/Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT.  To help fund the new record, the band had released a live double CD in a Namlook-like limited edition (1,000 pressings), with  the first disc consisting of their January 14, 2012 show at Atlanta's Drunken Unicorn.



Dude, I was there!  It was my first show of 2012 and an auspicious start to the year.  To make it even more special, the band has posted a link to a recording of the Drunken Unicorn show on their website, so if you want to hear the show, well, here it is:


The music gets more and more insane with each passing track, just as the evening did.  I believe the tracks are: 1. Happy Birthday/Intro (3:46), 2. Gravelly Mountains of the Moon, Part 1 (3:46), 3. Light Emerges (4:00), 4. River (6:42), 5. A AAA O A WAY (3:59), 6.Island  (9:08), 7. So It Goes (2:38), 8. Another Sky (12:08), 9. Gravelly Mountains of the Moon, Part 2 (6:48), 10. Everyone Is Guilty (12:22), 11. Silly Bears (6:21), 12. Ed Is a Portal (10:14), and 13. Love & Space (4:46).

Somehow, the order of some of the tracks in the gadget above got scrambled - for example, I'm pretty sure Track 7, So It Goes, immediately followed Track 5, A AAA O A WAY, and Track 6, Island and its guided meditation, came some time later, but I'm not complaining.  


In any event, the ATL 2 ELP CD contains the full Atlanta show plus some experimental pieces recorded in El Paso later in the year. Each copy was handmade and hand-stamped by the band.  Of course I've already ordered my copy before they all run out, and you can get yours at the Akron/Family webstore for a mere $20.