Laura Marling at GAMH 07-27-10

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). 

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.

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).

Back to Reality; Broken Bells at the Regency Ballroom

I've been MIA from the blog for a month or so, thanks to studying for (hopefully!) my final licensing exam- wrapped that up this week, so back to "real life." I have not, however, been MIA from live music- since my last post I saw Miike Snow, won free tickets to see Aqualung (yeah free!) and also took the aforementioned T to see the Hold Steady at the Fillmore. I have actually been getting to about one show per week - pictures and recaps coming soon!

Little Dragon at the Independent 4.13.10

Update 2015-03-17: I had a witty little paragraph here about how Little Dragon was "on fire" at the show, and the fire alarm even went off three times and the fire department showed up... but the text got corrupted in the post editor and now it's lost forever. Sadness.

It was a sold out show and the Independent was packed-I managed to get head and shoulders above the crowd somehow. Little Dragon is a pretty kooky act- Yukimi Nagano has a great, nuanced voice, and she danced all over the stage and struck some really great poses (seriously). Also some very strong work with the tambourine.

It was a great show- would have been even better if someone could have taken my extra ticket... just to have some company. And now I've just had to sell my extra ticket to the (also sold out) Miike Snow show on Friday. I'm reminded again that I have no music friends out here- kinda feel like maybe I should tape a sign on my back saying "Will you be my music friend?" when I go to shows...

Banjo for Beginners

I have acquired the use of an excellent banjo, borrowed from a coworker. So far with the help of Youtube I've managed to tune it, and establish that it is definitely harder than it looks to play- I think I'll be able to get the fingerpicking eventually, and it will be time well spent because it will improve my guitar fingerpicking skills too, which are nascent at best. Every time I try to learn a new sequence (or pattern, or roll, I'm not sure what it's called on the guitar) I can feel the brain cells shifting and straining, kind of like learning to speak a new language.

The banjo's got a great sound- it's kind of rowdy and the definition of twang, and it somehow sounds more aggressive (in a country kind of way) than the guitar when it really gets going. I'm short one or two picks (it seems that people generally wear a whole knuckle sandwich full of finger picks when playing the banjo.) Maybe I'll find one on the floor of the Little Dragon show next week, although I doubt Little Dragon has a banjo in their lineup...

The Low Anthem at GAMH 03.26.10

I stole that picture of Jocie Adams of The Low Anthem from the SF Chronicle... I was there too, but with no camera. More Chronicle pictures here.

The Low Anthem put on a great show- their style is hard to describe. They played a set of slow sort of atmospheric tunes like Charlie Darwin and To Ohio, with soft ethereal harmonies... and then the guy on standup bass (Jeff) starts playing a pretty intense solo, and the rest of the band busts out with Don't Let Nobody Turn You 'Round, and the singers are howling and the drums are banging... They played about 2/3 soft and 1/3 loud overall. I really enjoyed it, but I think my friends were a bit dismayed at the dichotomy (I took pity on their jetlag and we ended up leaving after the first song of the encore). The band members switched instruments every few songs- they all sang, I think they all took a turn on the drums, the guitar, the WWI organ, and the ringing bowed xylophone bell thingy. Also involved- the standup bass, clarinets, tenor saxophones, and a saw. Yep, a saw. I really love the "all hands on deck" multi-instrumentalist approach- it's something I aspire to. I'd love to be able to play drums, guitar, bass, banjo, violin and whatever else comes to mind at a passable level- and then just jump in wherever.