The Heavy & Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings @ The Crystal Ballroom

What a good show. Hot damn. Two weeks later and I still have these songs stuck in my head. Unfortunately, we were running late. Obligatory pre-concert-pre-partying (beers and fries at Ringler's a must!), and, since it's Portland, the shows actually start when they say they will (8 o'clock MEANS 8 freakin o'clock!). We finished our brewskies at 8:35ish or so, and stood out front a bit for some mandatory smokes (no re-entry! no smoking on the premises! what to doooo!). Some chap dressed in purple descended from the black-windowed tour bus parked out front, we figured he was staff, or a roadie, not in the band, cause the show had already started and all band members should be backstage, right? So we chat, he bums a cigarette ("I love menthol!") we chat some more, we find out we all went to rival private schools in the NYC area and he's only a couple years our senior. He asks if we like the band, I say yes, we like them, and that it was good Sharon Jones went on the Colbert Report cause it got her a lot of publicity (lots of "theys" and "hers" etc on my part of the conversation) and then he lifts up the ID tag hanging round his neck with the most recent Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings album cover on it, points to a figure, and says "that's me." Well, that was a surprise. Didn't act it though, I mean c'mon, what are we, teenage girls that are gonna jump up and down and squeal "ooh we met a musician! sign my cleavage!" no. We are classy New Yorkers who don't get their feathers ruffled so easily (nonchalance!). We wished him a good show instead. But hey, we met a Dap-King, so that was pretty neato.

So we made our way inside, and The Heavy were unfortunately on their last song (tragedy!) but it was my fav, and Mary Liz's fav, so we were happy. It's most recognizable from those kia sorento commercials. But I'll post the band's actual music video here:

I'm sure the rest of their set was great, and I'm so sorry I missed it :( Anyway. I'm not sorry we missed it for beer and fries. Those we NECESSARY. Plus, the line inside for beer was bananas. We stuck to the all ages side cause the 21+ area was completely packed, and it felt over 80˚ inside, full of people, lots of heat for sure.

A long intermission, then the Dap-Kings came on, and they started to get us going again for a few songs, (we recognized our buddy up there, post-wardrobe change) until one of the guys started really revving us up by introducing Ms. Sharon Jones for a few minutes until finally she came out, in a lovely black flapper-esque dress, all frills and dangles that picked up her every movement.

And hot damn does that woman know how to MOVE! (she sure can sing, too!) They played mostly songs off their new album, some of their older ones, but the show lasted for over two hours. Sharon Jones kept bringing male audience members up to the stage to sing to for a few songs, one of the guys was totes adorbz, she asked if he had a girlfriend, and her name, and then she sang about how to treat a woman.

Then towards the end she grabbed some gals from the front for a dancefest on stage, and then let them dance one at a time off the stage again. The girls seemed to love it, and the audience cheered.

The crowd was incredible, and when the band left the stage we all kept clapping and cheering and stamping our feet for more so that finally the Dap-Kings came back and played some tunes (including The Four Tops' "Reach Out I'll Be There," to which I could not help but sing along) and then FINALLY Sharon Jones came back out on stage to sing some of their other hits ("100 Days 100 Nights" and the like). Truly phenomenal show. I can't wait to see them again in August.

Concert Series ahoy!

OMG this shit is sick. Check it out: George Clinton & Parliament on July 12. Salt-N-Pepa on August 2. Aretha bloody Franklin on August 9. And then there's the Seaside Summer Concert Series, Neil Sedaka and Brenda Lee on July 15, Beach Boys July 22, George Thorogood & The Destroyers July 29, Aretha Franklin AGAIN on August 12, and the B-52s (and Belinda Carlisle!) on August 19. And the best part is? All these shows are FREE!

I think my summer's set.

Sherlock's Daughter & Warpaint @ The Mercury Lounge

Late post considering this show happened on June 14....meh.

Australian band Sherlock's Daughter was the first one up, and they were phenomenal. Adorable Aussie accents, the singer was cute as a button, both her fashion and her personality. I really liked their music, couldn't stop moving. At one point they asked the crowd if anyone was watching the soccer (Australia had unfortunately recently lost to Germany 4-0, much like this most recent Argentinian defeat) and I swear I was the only one in the crowd to shout out "yeah!" (what a bunch of stuck-ups!)

Sherlock's Daughter!

Then Warpaint came on, and they were all drop dead gorgeous, and some sleazy bastard told one of the band members to take her shirt off (totally out of context, made no sense, total sleazeball). Took no pics of them unfortunately, mostly cause I was pissed off at the quality of photos that were coming out of photographing Sherlock's Daughter I didn't even want to bother anymore. They covered all the songs from their album "Exquisite Corpse," "Elephants" came last of course. They were fantastic, even though one of them claimed to have lost her voice we couldn't tell. They even switched around their instruments, bassist became drummer, and vice versa. Really good show, very ethereal.

I was disappointed Sherlock's Daughter had no CDs to sell at the venue, but they are selling them online (direct from Australia!). Anyway. Incidentally, Sherlock's Daughter are playing a show tonight at The Cake Shop at 8. I highly recommend them.

Telekinesis(!) & Updates to come

Telekinesis (one my favorite Seattleite bands, players of excellent pacific-northwest-summery-indie-poppyness) have another show in NYC! Woot! September at The Bowery Ballroom. Northwest represent!

I still have to write up on two concerts I've seen in the last couple weeks. Those will be up over the weekend, or later today, maybe, and with some awfully dreadful quality phone photos.

Soon to blog:
Sherlock's Daughter / Warpaint @ The Mercury Lounge
The Heavy / Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings @ The Crystal Ballroom


FUTBAL
I've been too wrapped up in this world cuppery. But I'm allowed: it happens once every four years. And while I do not consider myself a fan of sports, I cave absolutely for The Cup. (Who painted her nails orange and was all decked out for the NED v CMR game yesterday?? This gal! Although I felt a little bad for Cameroon, as The Netherlands had it in the bag for moving on to the next round..).

RIP Lala.com

Oh Lala, we hardly knew thee!



And so, lala.com is officially no more. With its passing goes all the scratched up music I had uploaded that lala magically played sans skipping, the random obscure songs I cannot find anywhere else (Lena Horne covering The Beatles, for example), and the cheap albums that could be purchased oh so cheaply. Sigh. Not to mention the fact that I could access my entire music collection from wherever I was as long as I had an internet connection (came in handy at parties! and when one wanted to play a random song for a friend!). Sigh. Of course I blame Apple for its demise, when did Apple become The Man? A little competition is healthy, surely! It's going to be tragic indeed if, after having purchased lala.com and all of its coding, Apple were not to even bother to utilise it in a way that could have our music from iTunes on the web for streaming purposes. Hopefully something will be announced shortly, one can only wait and see.

Until then, I'm going grooveshark. They don't have everything, but they have obscure enough stuff, including songs that I never even knew existed from bands I love, AND it's like it mated with Pandora and produced a pretty awesome radio option. Plus you can upload your stuff now. But not all of it. It's picky. And you have to pay $3 a month if you want some of the things that came for free with lala.com (following friends' activity, scrobbling to last.fm, etc.). It's not perfect, but if I need to access some of my music from elsewhere and I don't have my computer, it'll do.

Crooner

I frequently feel like I was born in the wrong time period, considering all the old fogie stuff I like. BUT, if I weren't born NOW, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it all quite so much. So THERE.


I have a crush on a crooner from bygone days. And oh, when he sings, I melt.


Dear me, I can't stop laughing at this one.


Or this one. The choreography! How fluidly he moves! /s

And here I WOULD post a video of Danny Kaye doing "Choreography" from White Christmas, but alas the video has been taken down from youtube. Blast! In any case, my point is, as good as Andy Russell sounds, he sure can't dance.

Although, now that I think of it, he reminds me of Michael Bublé...

And the world’s like a science and I’m like a secret

New She & Him album out today!

Same happy peppy 60sish poppy swoony beats. I already have the new songs lingering in my head.

A new Arctic Monkeys album is out too, that's next on the playlist.

Aaaaand tonight? Richard-centric episode! ohemgee.

She & Him Volume Two

Eeep! New She & Him album to release 3/23 now streamable here!

Concert fail

No Akron/Family show tonight. In Oregon. Cannot make it to Williamsburg, obviously.

Uch, I wish I could see these chicks perform live:

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't incredibly jealous of Barry & Corina seeing Warpaint and Akron/Family tonight.

Feist on Sesame Street

How did I not know about this sooner??

Song Evocations

Oh, that play, "Viral"! It was so good, so depressing, twisted, beautiful, etc. But they just HAD to play "I Feel It All" as the exit music.

But finally, FINALLY, after MONTHS, Feist's "I Feel It All" no longer makes me think of suicide (thank you very much, Viral!). Huzzah for things no longer making me think of other things!

Buddy Guy

Aaaah! Buddy Guy has a show in May! Holy CRAP and OMG!

The Velvet Fog

I don't know why I never knew of Michael Bublé until I watched him on SNL with Jon Hamm this past Saturday, but now I do, and omg, he sounds JUST like Mel Tormé! Bublé needs to cover "Moonlight in Vermont," like now.

This song's a fav of mine:

Ticketmaster can bite me

She & Him sold out in two minutes. TWO MINUTES. Is that even POSSIBLE? Both shows? And now scalpers are selling tickets for $100+ which is ridiculous. Good news though is that they'll be coming out with another album in March (the songs of which, I'm sure, would be performed at their shows). Maybe I'll swing by the theater on that Monday night after class anyway, maybe someone will be selling tickets, or something. Maybe. SO lame Ticketmaster, you laggard.

Oh yeah. Other good news: I got my ticket for The Flaming Lips show in April (which was NOT available through Ticketmaster, and probably why I was able to get a bloody ticket), which is awesome, and they're sold out too (which DOES make sense). Still need to get a Spoon ticket, though...

*Update 1/31*
Aaaaaaaand there are no longer any two seats together for the Spoon concert. Oh well.

March is Music Month

OK. Of COURSE Joanna Newsom's sold out already. Pfft. Already got tix for Akron/Family, She & Him goes on sale the 29th, still need to get Spoon & Magnetic Fields. And in other musical news: Oh No Oh My is apparently coming out with a new album Mid March (!) Eeeeeep! March is going to be bananas, music will be coming out of my ears (and pouring into them).

*Update later same day*
And to ADD to the ever-growing list of concerts in March, there will now also be The Flaming Lips and Air. Oh my goodness, I just don't know what to do with myself!

Shows to See

Sooo many favorite bands are coming into town! Joanna Newsom, Josh Ritter, Spoon, and The Magnetic Fields, oh my!

I absolutely MUST see Spoon. I've been listening to them since high school, have not seen them live once. Same with The Magnetic Fields. Must must MUST see at least those two.

*Update 1/24*

Aaaah! She & Him! She & Him! (!!!!!) She & Him have a show now, too! OK. Absolute necessity to see She & Him. Are you kidding? The last time they toured was in North Carolina or somewhere not near me at all, and oh my goodness, there's no way I'm going to miss their show.

You're the Greatest #1 (Mirah @ the Bowery)

Mmmmm, Mirah. Unbelievably adorable is she. Norfolk & Western kicked off the evening, great sound, didn't see a Victrola, the band members played every instrument switching amongst themselves, some even played two at once (trumpet + piano!). Mirah chimed in for their last number, cute as a button of course. She sang a lot of songs from (a)spera, recognized a couple from my brief listen-through before the show. I wish I'd jotted down which songs she played, I listened to her so much before and after the concert I'm sure I'm mixing up what was really on her setlist. She played most of (a)spera, and a bunch of songs from C'mon Miracle ("You've Gone Away Enough," "Exactly Where We're From") and Advisory Committee ("Mount St Helens," "Light the Match," and "The Garden"). "Light the Match" was wonderfully burlesque-ish, red lit stage, what a performer she is! She encored with a song (that I cannot remember either) that melded into "The Garden," much to my delight. She was sublime, acknowledged the audience, cute and bubbly, modest "thanks," and had Norfolk & Western join her towards the end of her set as well. Marvelous performances. Her voice is spectacular. Exudes such warmth.

Mason Jennings @ MHoW

If there was an over-arching theme to tonight's concert I would say stand-up-for-your-rights-angry-love. Love mostly. Even the songs protesting the war and the previous president were really about love. And the angry ones had love within them too. He encored with "Ballad for my One True Love," cracked on the same note twice, laughed at himself, v cute. No "Nothing," nor "I Love You and Buddha Too," but "Big Sur," "Your New Man," and "Duluth" made up for it. His new songs were great, went over really well with the crowd, opened with "Pittsburgh" and "The Field" (accompanied by a shout from the audience: 'that's the best song ever!'). Closed with "Blood of Man" before the encore. A wonderfully cathartic evening.

I've Mirah on the mind

"Words Cannot Describe"

Don't worry about tomorrow he-eee-ey

[Nostalgia entry. Ignore!]

See Creed play!



This song, like other songs, transports me back in time to specific feelings, people, visuals, and smells. This one brings me back to the house on N Main, the odd moldy old house smell there, the cool temperature inside my tahiti and aqua ice painted bedroom, Amy's burritos, silkscreening ink, the boy with the voice, Lauren in the kitchen with produce fresh from the farm, and three little orange kittens. I did not visit that house when I was back for commencement. I kind of wanted to. Just for a whiff of the past.