This Tornado Loves you.

November 2, 2009 - One Response

So I started another band. We’re calling ourselves LaVista. I’ll leave it up to you as to why that is our name, and trust that your imagination will be much more colorful than our true reasoning. We’re about a month into the project and things are coming along rather smoothly. We’ve got a solid song under our belt, and four on the way, which is not shabby for a fledgling band. We’ve agreed to wait to play shows until we have a solid set under our belt. Tyler and I want to do this right.

Tyler insists that I do the most of the singing, which is fine I guess, as long as eventually I figure out how to rock out standing with an autoharp. But that leaves me with a lot to think about. In the past I had a wurlitzer to sit and hide behind, and Gavin took the singing reigns predominantly. So, I spent weeks of idle time in the previous weeks scanning through live videos of my favorite female lead singers trying to figure out what kind of performances really inspired me.

Then I made this list: (keep in mind, these are my favorite musicians, I’m trying to think of what kind of image I could harness, this is in no way derogatory).

St. Vincent: too bird-like.

My Brightest Diamond: too spooky.

CatPower: too smoker-voice.

Camera Obscura: too child-like

Heart: too epic

Amy Winehouse: a bit too much overall

Asobi Seksu: too inaudible

Bat for Lashes: too dreary

Postmarks: too whimsical

She and Him: too sixties pop

Rainer Maria: too cool

Yeah Yeah Yeah’s: too female David Bowie.

Duke Spirit: hmm…getting there.

And then I came across Neko Case on Austin City limits. With her fiery hair and huge voice, she never fails to blow me away. Lyrically she is also brilliant. Simultaneously barbaric and feminine:

“My love I am the speed of sound, I left them motherless, fatherless. Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths, but it’s never enough…I want you. Carved your name across three counties, ground it in with bloody hides, their broken necks will line the ditch until you stop it, stop this madness. I want you.”

And that dark, rustic, americana sound is something that not only lends itself to the autoharp, but is something that vocally, I am totally capable of. That’s what I’m going to go for,  but in my own way. Let’s see how it goes.

Watch Neko Case rock your socks off here.

Categorized in Inspirational Anthems, Songs of Triumph and sing like no one is listening
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Murder By Death and Happy Hallows!

October 31, 2009 - One Response

Soundtrack of the day is “Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?” by Murder By Death. I mean, come on. It’s a horror story of an album (scroll down to the additional info and Adam has the story written out song by song).

The music is brilliant and are matched in brilliance by lyrics like these:

there’s a girl with a flower pot full of dirt and bullet shells she puts it by her window gives it sunlight restores its health after a month or two the shells start to grow into branches of barbed wire they spread across the walls the windows and the floors and their grip never tires.

And:

old scratch has dealt us a dirty hand he had the look of a saint but the greed of a man and his face was worn and wrinkled like a leather book and if i put this revolver to my head will god turn against me instead of taking pity on a broken man?

And:

set the fields on fire let the devil come let him come I’ll be waitin’ for him this time I am stronger now and I can fight it I’ll be waitin’ at the end of the line.

Happy Hallows everyone!

-Christopher

Categorized in Time to Party Tunes
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Musical Intimacy…

September 8, 2009 - Leave a Response

I remember reading an article 3 or 4 years ago that described Arcade Fire’s Funeral as one of the best make out albums of 2004. Although I do not remember the exact magazine, I picked it up free from some small indie record store in New York, the article still sticks with me. Part of the reason, I believe, I remember it so well is that I could never imagine making out to Funeral. There is an overwhelmingly intimate tone to the album that communicates delicately and indirectly but, in my eyes, never causes feelings of affection. While it may be tragic at times it never seems to evolve from a conversation with close friends and thus does not succeed at provoking an act such as making out.

This however is completely untrue of the album I would like to discuss within this post, The XX’s new self titled album. If you have not yet heard it, the lyrics have the subtlety of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. At times they verge on being absurdly affectionate ( I am yours now, So now I don’t ever have to leave, I’ve been found out, So now I’ll never explore) but always manage to emotionally evoke the listener. Like the young lovers of the before mentioned Shakespeare tragedy, the two lead singers of XX seem so blinded by love that nothing else matters. It is this since of urgency that makes the album so damn, for lack of a better word, sexy.

When we live in a time where songs like “Don’t trust me” by 3OH!3 are number one hits (She wants to touch me wahoo. She wants to love me wahoo. She’ll never leave me wahoo, wahoo hoo hoo. Don’t trust a ho. Never trust a ho. Don’t trust a ho. Cause the ho won’t trust me.) we need bands like XX to show us what being overwhelmed with affection is really like. And it is because of this forever desirable image of unrelenting love that seems so blurry in a time were everything is abstract and viewed through the lense of pop culture that I cannot stop listening to XX. In a world where music aggrandizes the one night stand and emotionless hookups, the XX forces you to again feel. For this I thank them.

Categorized in Uncategorized
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What Have I Done?

August 26, 2009 - One Response

It’s a strange phrase. “What have I done?” You read it, and think immediately, (I do. I’m guessing you probably do.) of the man with blood on his hands, maybe over a dead body that he killed in anger or stupidity or both, looking at them, muttering the words.

And, on the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Tim Kasher, muttering and screaming it about a man with no blood on his hands.

Weeks ago now, I saw Cursive live for the first time. I’ve loved Cursive since highschool–in fact, they’ve sat comfortably at no. 3 on my all-time top 5 since 2001–and I’ve always been afraid that they’d split up before I got to see them, as has happened with pretty much every other band on my top 5.

They ended their set with What Have I Done?, and the entire sentiment reverberated, and ever since has echoed and echoed.

I’m 26 now, and beg the question; I wonder what blood might be on my hands, whether from ending or saving a life; I wonder if there is any at all. What have I accomplished? Who have I helped? Have I made the world any better? I want the answer to be yes, and include a litany of people who feel improved by my actions or words.

Today, I asked my father where the point in life is that you harden against the world, where you decide you can’t change a damn thing? If there is one. I feel right in the void where the man in the song feels:

Stranded in Ann Arbor with a flat tire
I watched the sun sadly set
Any younger I may have wept
Much older I wouldn’t have noticed

I don’t ever want to get to the point where I don’t notice, but some days, I’m tired of weeping for it all.

Copper and stars,
christopher earl.

Categorized in Night Drive Tunes, Rainy Day Songs and Songs for Contemplation
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Let Go

August 21, 2009 - Leave a Response

It may be a little early for me to be saying this in Atlanta, GA, but today I got my first whiff of Fall. The world seems especially green and the horizon is a somber grey. Blame it on the hurricanes, but things seem to be a bit more temperate around here. I have the urge to go through my closet and pack away all of my sandals, summer dresses, and bathing suits until next season. My cardigans are beckoning. Maybe it’s a girl thing.

But new seasons need new soundtracks. No offense to Rantings of Eva, M. Ward, or Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, but it’s time for some new tunes. It’s time to tone it down, throw in some new melodies (more violins maybe?) and creep away from the boisterous anthems of May-July. When my leaves start fading to yellow, red, and orange it’s the world’s signal time to dust off Armchair Apocrypha and Fleet Foxes. Seven Swans will fly out of storage and back into my record player and the Trees of the Feilds really will Clap their Hands.  But with this musical overhaul I’m about to embark on, what song to start with?

The Postcards have a song “Let Go” off of their debut album that’s the perfect seasonal transition song. Optimistic and lighthearted, it’s flute will twitter around in your head for days. It’s the kind of song that delivers you a final dose of summer’s enthusiasm, but in between Tim and her whimsical limited range will remind you that the edge of the leaves above are turning amber, and we are all on the brink of change.

Categorized in Rainy Day Songs and Sunny Dispositions
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Ragged Wood.

August 19, 2009 - 2 Responses

I was driving down Boulevard Ave. (or Boulevard Boulevard as I like to call it) and was in need a song of triumph and glory: after a year of job-searching in Atlanta I was finally gainfully employed. 

So I shuffled through my endless cd collection, creating an avalanche over my legs, and compulsively skipped through every mix, every compilation, every cd I had. It felt as if I were taking on and off outfits  and nothing seemed to fit right. Amy Winehouse? Too dark. Au revoir simone? too tired. The Pretenders? No. Sly and the Family Stone? No. Devendra Banhart? Certainly not.

When I got home I came across Fleet Foxes “Ragged Wood.” I had been saving that album for the fall, but the minute PLAY was pressed couldn’t stop listening. Soon I was running around my apartment in my barefeet dancing and jumping for joy.

The song beckons to someone who has been gone too long. The singer of Fleet Foxes is probably calling out to someone else, some long lost love, but for me in that moment I had finally found myself again. 

 

-Laura

Categorized in Inspirational Anthems, Songs of Triumph, Songs to start your day and Sunny Dispositions
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it’s like finding home in an old folk song

July 6, 2009 - Leave a Response

My parents have very recently moved back to Muncie, Indiana, from Paris which means I’m not sure when I will return again.  It’s a bittersweet goodbye, but I’ve found myself more excited what this means for my future than what it means about not being able to visit my past.  I’ve slowly grown away from Paris as my home for the past three years and so now, with an official break, I can put roots into a new place.

When one has moved to different cities, states, and countries many times it becomes harder and harder to do so with each move.  It’s not that it is too difficult or painful to do, you just stop knowing how to plant yourself in a physical place.  This may be the case for others, but for me I’ve called other things home.  Songs, books, and friends become easier to invest in, and are less likely to dissappear as easily as a house can when you change residence.  My sophmore year summer I quickly came to call Devendra Banhart a type of home (a very weird and kooky home), and when I can’t return to a physical place it’s nice to come back to him.

It’s like finding home
In an old folk song
That you’ve never ever heard
Still you know every word
And for sure you can sing along

Rebecca P.

Categorized in Rainy Day Songs
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Was I more alive then than I am now?

June 30, 2009 - Leave a Response

Life after college has been quite the decrescendo. Slowly my daily planner has become less colorful, causing me to wonder if my life has followed suit. It’s an easy enough conclusion to reach, and from the surface it would seem so, wouldn’t it? It’s easy, especially in college, to put your self-value in what you do: Laura: musician, student, barista. But then came the real-world, and I realized, those student films I worked on, those songs I recorded, those lattes I made, those tests I aced,that diploma they gave: none of it mattered.

Yes, to a certain extent it did matter, but not to anyone else. I have to show the world what I’m made of again. I’ve realized that my problem has been perspective. If all of those things are the solely responsible for my self-worth,  that leaves me with nothing now. So where does true substance come from?

The lyrics to “Objects of My Affection” spread my cards out on the table.  I’ve realized that nothing can be a winning hand.


“And the question is, was i more alive then than i am now?
I happily have to disagree; I laugh more often now, i cry more often now…I am more me.”

-Laura Celeste

Categorized in Inspirational Anthems, Songs for Contemplation, Songs to start your day and sing like no one is listening
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To Know a Better Day

June 30, 2009 - Leave a Response

I suppose I could blame it on a good night’s sleep after a long stretch of not-so-good-nights’ sleeping. Or maybe on the coffee and croissant I had at the Monon Coffee Co. with Jeremy. Also, the possibility of it being a perfectly weathered morning, coasting (or not coasting, considering that I ride fixed, but it felt so effortless in the moment, that I felt as though I was coasting) up the Monon Greenway on my way to work yesterday. It was just one of those mornings, and I can’t describe it in any other way than simply “infectious joy.”

Don’t chide me. I ride my bike with headphones sometimes, when I know that it’s safe to ride with headphones. You see, I had The Tallest Man on Earth singing over the wind in my ears. The sun was like confetti through the trees. And, I was dancing as much as a person can dance on a bike, singing loud, at times playing air drums (though there are no drums backing The Tallest Man on Earth, I was playing them), and other times, when necessity necessitated that my hands should be on the handlebars, I strummed along on the bars. For some reason, The Tallest Man on Earth conveys to me an air and countenance of Beirut’s, Zach Condon, but yet dusty with the creaks and groans of say, an ancient wooden trade vessel or a ghost of a cabin deep in the woods of Georgia or Mississippi.

I passed people, and they smiled at me; some laughed. It’s probably hard to see a large, tattooed man riding his bike in this manner, singing and carrying on, and not take part in the joy he is feeling, to be affected by it. I felt as though lilting lines of music and notes were wafting away n my wake. It felt good to believe, to want to believe, that those people who saw me, who smiled and laughed, knew a day better than they would have otherwise, simply because I cared to sing.

christopher earl.

Categorized in Dance like no one is watching, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions and sing like no one is listening
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I’ve Purchased the Skeleton of a Home

June 24, 2009 - Leave a Response

It’s a strange feeling, really, for a guy who has spent a good 80-90% of his life if not wandering, wanting to wander–to have finally closed on my own house, to have moved my small apartment of belongings into a place that I plan to spend at least the next 5 to 10 years of my life.

Wanderlust of the sort that I and a good portion of my friends have (a couple of whom also write for this blog) is at once a wonder and a torment. It keeps us sharp and alert, always looking around to see the things around us, and most especially to see the things that most would see as trivial, we see as miracle.

But, it also keeps our minds loud, spinning, at times like a playful top, and others more like a whirlpool. We’ve ruined relationships with our whirling–at times, we’ve ruined ourselves. I’m not sure that you ever grow out of it; like I’ve written before, I think there are still hints of my wanderlust in the relative life of minimalism I lead. I used to be able to fit all that I own in a sedan, just in case I needed to make a break.

Sounds a bit overly dramatic, I suppose, and I suppose, it’s because it was. There was a time I never thought I’d settle in somewhere, and now I have a mortage payment, and I am marrying a wonder of a girl in just a few months. My mind still spins sometimes–I constantly beg for instances of good in the world, sometimes I ask Jesus or whoever to come back soon and fix everything, sometimes I just have a hard time with memories that I’d rather not carry so much weight.

The first chance I got to play music at the new house, all I could think of was the refrain of Sufjan’s “Majesty Snowbird”:

Don’t stop, don’t break
You can delight because you have a place
Quiet room, I need you now

I spun my finger around the dial of my iPod, and pressed play. I looked around, saw the dust of the remodeling still hanging in the sunlight, sat down on the floor, and listened to the house breathing around me, growing lungs, a beating heart, wrinkle upon wrinkle of new memories making a home. Something I was never sure I’d find.

-christopher earl.

Categorized in Songs for Contemplation
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