Tuesday night T and I went to GAMH to see Laura Marling. I've been listening to her for awhile on KCRW and I still can't get over the disparity between her voice and her age/appearance- she's 20 years old, has two albums out already, has been playing high profile gigs since she was at least 15- and her music sounds like it comes from a much older person (whatever that means).
19 July 2010
Writing Music Again
I moved out of SF, to the East Bay. Two things have come out of it: my commute is shorter by a whole hour a day, and the living room of my new place has a great acoustic quality. It's fun to play music in different parts of the room facing different directions, and hear the reverberations change... the sound reflects in such a way that I can actually hear my voice coming back at me, which is very cool. Whenever the house is empty I close the windows and make some noise (our neighbors are very close).
Another thing I've been trying is to keep a sort of journal. Not a sit-down-at-the-end-of-the-day-and-write sort of journal (which has never worked for me) but more of a stream of consciousness thing. Sometimes if I'm in the right mood, I keep a word doc open on one screen (I have a dual monitor setup at work) and I write down what occurs to me... I started doing this awhile ago to try and work out the source(s) of my on-again-off-again general malaise, but what's come out of it has been some useful lyrical material here and there. I have a few half-songs in the works that are starting to shape up... feels good to be writing music again, but it's sort of annoying to have my own song stuck in my head, especially when I don't know how it ends yet.
16 July 2010
Imogen Heap
I'm awful! Ok, first- Imogen Heap eye candy.
On a particularly miserable day at the end of last month, I had a ticket to see Imogen Heap at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga (CA), and I was not in to mood to drive an hour and a half down the peninsula on a friday night. I'm so glad I did it anyway. The venue was unique and awesome, my seat was (unexpectedly) close to the stage, and Imogen Heap put on a great show, with some well-coordinated audience participation, and set list apparently chosen by ticketholders online prior to the concert. It's an open-air venue on the top of a (small) mountain, and once the sun went down it got pretty chilly up there- the two women next to me, wearing nice dresses with bare legs exposed, had to leave early because they were too cold (Californians! Sheesh). I will admit that even with my REI shell and fleece vest on, I was shivering through the last two or three songs, and a lot of other audience members had blankets and coats. That's June in the Bay Area for you.
It rocked anyway! Her harmonizer thingy is awesome... it was windy now and then, and it would harmonize the wind (kind of screwed up "Hide and Seek" a little bit). She did a version of "Wait it Out" accompanied only by the piano, (said during the performance that was how it was originally written) and I thought it had more emotional impact than the recorded version, which I like very much.
I've pretty much run out of concert tickets now... eyeing some late summer/ fall tickets for Swell Season, School of Seven Bells, Shawn Colvin, Ray LaMontagne and David Gray, and giving a little thought to Outside Lands festival and Treasure Island festival (even though I hate festivals).
On a particularly miserable day at the end of last month, I had a ticket to see Imogen Heap at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga (CA), and I was not in to mood to drive an hour and a half down the peninsula on a friday night. I'm so glad I did it anyway. The venue was unique and awesome, my seat was (unexpectedly) close to the stage, and Imogen Heap put on a great show, with some well-coordinated audience participation, and set list apparently chosen by ticketholders online prior to the concert. It's an open-air venue on the top of a (small) mountain, and once the sun went down it got pretty chilly up there- the two women next to me, wearing nice dresses with bare legs exposed, had to leave early because they were too cold (Californians! Sheesh). I will admit that even with my REI shell and fleece vest on, I was shivering through the last two or three songs, and a lot of other audience members had blankets and coats. That's June in the Bay Area for you.
It rocked anyway! Her harmonizer thingy is awesome... it was windy now and then, and it would harmonize the wind (kind of screwed up "Hide and Seek" a little bit). She did a version of "Wait it Out" accompanied only by the piano, (said during the performance that was how it was originally written) and I thought it had more emotional impact than the recorded version, which I like very much.
I've pretty much run out of concert tickets now... eyeing some late summer/ fall tickets for Swell Season, School of Seven Bells, Shawn Colvin, Ray LaMontagne and David Gray, and giving a little thought to Outside Lands festival and Treasure Island festival (even though I hate festivals).
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