Sunday, April 21, 2013

Christopher Owens Coming to The Earl


Hell, yeah!  Word Productions has announced that America's greatest living songwriter, Christopher Owens, will be playing at The Earl on Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

Get your tickets now before this one sells out.  Also, and this is very cool, you can download a free, all-acoustic version of his album Lysandre at Christopher Owens' website.

As if you needed any more motivation, here's a little song you might remember from Owen's previous band, Girls:


Meanwhile, I just learned that Josh Rouse, America's greatest living songwriter, will be live-streaming his show in Nashville tonight (4-21-13) over here at 9:00 pm CST (click the "Listen Live" button and it will open a player for you).  The stream is courtesy of Nashville station Lightning 100 as a part of their Nashville Sunday Night series.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Josh Rouse at Terminal West, Atlanta - April 19, 2013


Friday night, Terminal West, Atlanta - Josh Rouse performing with his band.  But before that, Nashville's Matthew Perryman Jones opened.


I wasn't familiar with his music before last night, but he has a fine voice and good songwriting skills.  He played a set of mostly originals, closing with a Tom Waits cover.



But like the rest of the audience, I was there to see Josh Rouse.  We last saw Rouse at Variety Playhouse in 2010, when he was touring in support of his El Tourista album (I still have the t-shirt).  That record marked his move to Spain, and was followed by a couple other latin-bossa-nova-tinged releases, but now he's back, touring again in support of a new album, this time The Happiness Waltz.



Rouse's back-catalog of songs hold a lot of meaning to his fans, as they do to me, too.  I "got on board" back in 2003, when he released 1972, a concept-album of sorts of songs written in the style that he imagined musicians played in the year of his birth.  It had a great Philly soul vibe to it, and listening today brings back two distinct memories: cuddling with my girlfriend as the record played in the background, and consoling myself with the songs after she and I broke up.  With that kind of emotional connection, it was easy to become a fan.


Rouse played several songs from his new album, most notably the single, Julie (Come Out of the Rain), but also played a lot of songs from his various other albums, including Lemon Tree and I Will Live On Islands (the world's cheeriest prison song) from El Tourista, 1972 and Comeback from 1972, Hollywood Bass Player from Country Mouse City House (which I bought a vinyl copy of last night at the merch table), Dressed Up Like Nebraska from the album of the same name, and Quiet Town from Subtítulo.


The audience was small (the show did not seem to be promoted very well) but enthusiastic, singing along on many songs.  On one number, Rose just played the opening chords on his guitar, stood back, and let the audience sing the first stanza before joining in himself at the chorus.  Everyone was having a great time, and I hadn't heard this much singing along since The Head and the Heart in Athens.


He  ended his four-song encore with an eminently danceable version of Love Vibration from 1972.


My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that he didn't play his song Flight Attendant (he did at Variety Playhouse back in 2010), so I'll have to play it for myself.




Josh Rouse has embodied the indie singer-songwriter for a decade now, composing songs that reflect his residency in Nebraska, Nashville, and Valencia.  It's great to have someone of his talent and sensitivity in our sphere of music, and it would be great if he stuck around a while and let us hear him live more frequently than once every three or so years.

Update (4/22/13): I listened to the Nashville broadcast last night and think we in Atlanta were treated to the better show, although he did perform Flight Attendant in Nashville.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Savages


OMG. 
“The world used to be silent. Now it has too many voices, and the noise is a constant distraction.  They multiply, intensify, they would divert your attention to what's convenient and forget to tell you about yourself. We live in an age of many stimulations. If you are focused, you are harder to reach. If you are distracted, you are available. You are distracted. You are available. You want flattery, always looking to where it's at. You want to take part in everything and everything to be a part of you.  Your head is spinning fast at the end of your spine until you have no face at all.  And yet, if the world would shut up, even for a while, perhaps we would start hearing the distant rhythm of an angry young tune, and re-compose ourselves. Perhaps, having deconstructed everything, we should be thinking about putting everything back together. Silence yourself.”
Savages.  Shut Up.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Josh Rouse


Spain's (by way of Nebraska, by way of Nashville, by way of points in between) Josh Rouse has released a new video for his song Julie (Come Out of the Rain).  You gotta love the neo-Hitchcockian, film noir look of this thing

Josh Rouse will be playing at Terminal West this Friday, the second stop in his current tour, which starts tomorrow in Birmingham, Alabama.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Paris


San Francisco's Foxygen, who put on a great show at 529 opening for Unknown Mortal Orchestra, have a new Takeaway Show over at La Blogotheque.  If you didn't care form them before, prepare to be won over, and if you liked them before, you better take a seat before watching this.

It's fun to see Foxygen's Sam France scaring random crowds of kids.  It's good to see Foxygen. It's good to see. It's good.

But, yeah, this is great stuff.  Enjoy.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Boston



As Patton Oswalt said:
I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.  
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.  
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.  
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."