say, honey, did you belong to me?

joanna newsom is amazing. this is common knowledge.
her new album have one on me is pure sonic excellence. can we just soak ourselves for a minute in joanna’s divine performance of “soft as chalk” on the jimmy fallon show?

i think i would likely give up an appendage to see joanna newsom perform live. her voice is simultaneously so powerful and so subtly nuanced, and in my opinion, she’s the best female songwriter in music today. and the way she sings out of the side of her mouth is so darn cute!

good music i missed in 2009.

for the past two years, i’ve done a year-end music list on my blog, and while i enjoy doing it, i always run into the same problem: it is inevitable that there will be several albums that i don’t discover until the year after they’re released. because i’ve discovered them too late to be able to count them in my year-end list, i figured i should at least honor them with a shout-out/recommendation even if it’s after the fact.

tegan and sara, sainthood
i’ve been a fan of the twin sisters since high school, but my appreciation for their music is at its peak after hearing this album. their earlier albums sound wholly adolescent (probably because they were teens when they first started making music) but sainthood is a more evolved, adult sound that manages to maintain some of the youthfulness of their earlier recordings. the harmonies are subtle and wonderful as per usual, and their lyrics are a mix of wistfulness and worldliness: on “don’t rush,” the girls sing “all i said to you, all i did for you seems so silly to me now.” growing up makes for good music.
tegan and sara – don’t rush
tegan and sara – the cure

har mar superstar, dark touches
har mar superstar is a musical anomaly: he sings like justin timberlake and makes music that sounds like it’s being sung by a studly twentysomething, and yet he looks like a younger un-mistachioed version of ron jeremy. but i think that makes him all the more intriguing as an artist. the songs on dark touches are superficial in the sense that they revel in the booze-soaked booty-shaking party scene, but har mar attaches a funny and slightly ironic spin to this variation on a common pop music theme. he just makes good dance music; i’ve had “tallboy” stuck in my head for days. watch him play jimmy fallon’s show: his performances are something that must be experienced firsthand.

girls, album
i am love-love-loving girls. their sound is so loungy and retro, and their lyrics so earnest and honest (i love in “laura” when the singer sings “you’ve been a bitch, i’ve been an ass, i don’t want to point the finger, i just know i don’t like it”). listening to this album makes me feel present in another era, an era where i’m wearing something very jackie kennedy-esque, a martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other, dancing the twist outside on someone’s back patio in the sun. maybe that’s just my fantasy. i know they topped a lot of music sites’ year-end list, and i think they probably would have at least made my top ten if i could have a do-over.
girls – laura
girls – ghost mouth

a few things about this band i saw last night.

i think they are called grizzly bear? (or something like that).

1. the moore theatre is a very fitting venue. even though i was way back in the first balcony, it was still a great seat and the acoustics were perfection.
2. all four band members are so incredibly talented. usually you can pick out a band’s weakest link, the one who’s not quite as talented and that doesn’t pull the same weight as the others and is potentially expendable (can anyone say ringo starr?). there is no weakest link in grizzly bear… they are all essential.
3. i saw them a couple summers ago when they opened for feist, and one of the things that made them so unforgettable was the light show. their light technician is a master of his craft, and i would pay lots of money to see them again simply to experience the fantastic lighting.
4. i love how really good bands attract other really good musicians to their shows that i happen to attend. robin pecknold of fleet foxes walked right past me in the lobby. robin pecknold! i could have reached out and touched him.
5. the harmonies! they sounded like heaven.

neko case is a goddess.

seriously.
i have basically been listening to her non-stop for the past couple of weeks, and i’m just endlessly blown away by her amazing pipes. i impulsively bought a dvd of her performing at austin city limits on amazon, but until i get it in the mail, youtube videos will have to suffice.

i aspire to be like mates of state someday.

(preface: i have fallen off the blogging bandwagon due to the intensity of my schooling and job, so this is kind of old news because i saw them live almost a week ago. but i’m going to blog about them anyway, because i love them.)

“i wonder if i could tie the ocean to your knees.”

so i saw mates of state in portland last weekend, and it was such a magical experience. for lesser reasons, it was magical because i was there with my friends and we were sharing the magic of the experience of seeing mates of state together. but even more so, just seeing mates of state perform was like magic. for those who aren’t familiar with the mates, the band is comprised of married couple kori gardner and jason hammel. kori rocks the keyboards and jason hits the drums, and their voices are in perpetual harmony.

it was magic because they perform so well together, and just watching them, it becomes apparent that they are all about each other. they have the most adorable husband-wife banter onstage. and so often in bands, each individual member is focused on themselves and what they’re doing and projecting and don’t really acknowledge the other members. kori and jason were constantly looking over at each other and smiling, and having secret conversations with each other across the stage, their mouths removed from the microphones so that it was just between them. it was such a beautiful thing to watch: two people so in love with each other, who seem to be unaffected by fame or how they’re supposed to act as musicians, and who are entirely focused on the other person.

after the show, i discovered kori’s blog, adorably titled band on the diaper run: kori chronicles her adventures on tour and her adventures with her two precious daughters, magnolia and june. she posts lots of pictures of family outings and makes really funny commentary on being a mom and the things that her daughters do… definitely a blog i will be reading consistently from now on. she seems so grounded, and she and jason seem like such a normal couple with a normal life and children that they love so much… and that makes me love them even more.
(ps. check out the mates of state song “nature and the wreck”… it’s a beautiful song that kori wrote when her first daughter was born.)

mates of state – nature and the wreck.mp3

dear m. ward: i would like to see more of your face.

so i went to an m. ward show on friday night, and it was amazing. i saw him play about five years ago (with conor oberst and jim james… such a good show) and i continue to be amazed at what a full sound his guitar-playing makes; it doesn’t seem natural that one man and one guitar can create such richness. something i noticed, though, is that m. ward does not appear to be a fan of his own face. before the show, my friend calin and i were discussing whether or not we thought m. ward would play whilst wearing a hat, because he had been wearing a hat that obscured his entire face on the two separate occasions that calin and i had previously seen him perform. m. ward did not wear a hat this time around, but the stage lighting kept his face in deep shadow for the duration of his set. i don’t feel like that’s a coincidence, so i have to wonder why m. ward wants to keep his face hidden… is he very insecure? does he have panic attacks if he knows people can see him clearly? does he just consider himself unattractive in general? i can’t say. i, for one, think that he’s very attractive. perhaps he just wants people to focus on his music instead of on him, to avoid the temptation of his outer appearance being “celebritized.”

regardless, the man puts on an excellent show.

a swede weekend.

i don’t remember ever being more sad to see a weekend end.

friday i saw lykke li perform, and that was a treat. it was my first show that i could drink at, so i took full advantage and downed a couple g&t’s before lykke came on, and it definitely enhanced the experience. she was amazing: not even just her music, but the way she moved was hypnotizing. her body was doing a lot of pumping and rocking and swaying… she almost moved like a rapper. and she did a cover of lil wayne’s “a milli” that was swede/sweet. her performance was fabulous, and i just dancedancedanced my little heart out. afterward, i went out with the crew to the george and dragon, and luckily for me it was my roommate jackie’s birthday, and she kept getting free shots, and a couple times i got a free shot simply because i was sitting next to her. after that, we all went to calin’s place and ate brownies and talked and danced and smoked.

saturday was by far the best valentine’s day i’ve ever had. josh and i woke up at 2 and made a scramble for breakfast/lunch and ate it while we watched the last episode of ‘six feet under’ and decided that he is the ted to my claire. after that, we drove up to our beach on camano island to try to catch the sunset. it was even more beautiful than the first time we went. when we got home, we cooked dinner together, and then ate our spaghetti and drank our wine with fleet foxes as background music. after dinner, grant came back, and shane and emily and nick came over, so we all watched ‘superbad’… which is the best, and least conventional, valentine’s day movie ever.

sunday i laid low: josh and i ran errands for most of the day, and while we were at fred meyer, we bought a box of v-day chocolates at 50% off, and between the two of us, split every single chocolate in the box; we hung out with katie ann for a while and i finally got to see her beautiful house; we had dinner with two of josh’s friends from home were shopping in seattle for the day; and went to bed so early.

yesterday, i had just planned on doing homework, but paige came to fremont coffee and kidnapped me. we drove east to roslyn, but almost everything was closed, so we drove to the nearby town of cle elum, where paige had apparently spent a lot of time in her early youth. the drive out there was beautiful: it was so clear and we could see the mountains perfectly, and everything had a blue tint to it. it was so sunny and mild in seattle, but once we got past north bend, there was snow everywhere; it was like we were transported into a little winter wonderland. we ate dinner at a quaint mexican restaurant, and i had a really good margarita with my chicken enchilada. it was such a good day-trip, even though we didn’t really do much except drive and eat. but paige and i had a really good conversation on the way back, and it was worth it to forsake my homework and spend some time with her.

and now: back to school.

kray-zay.

oh. my. goodness.

last night was utter madness. and i loved it! i attended one of the best (and craziest) shows i’ve ever been to.

SSION

gaaaah, so amazing! paige and i were going to skip the opening act since we were mainly there to see tilly & the wall, but i’m so glad we didn’t. the fellas had their faces painted as they do in the above picture, and the lead singer’s fu-manchu was beyond sexy. he came out wearing high-waisted, skin-tight black pants and a leopard print sleeveless shirt and a leather jacket that spelled out “boy” on the back. their songs were so hilarious and yet danceable at the same time, and they had a projector screen set up that played some fantastic visuals. the lead singer was a riot: at one point he was screaming and then spit a little and drooled all over his microphone, and a few songs later, he said to the crowd “take some pictures or something… i know you guys have cameras!” love it.
(ps. the pronunciation of ssion is “shun,” like a suffix. kind of confused me for a second.)

ssion – bullshit.mp3
ssion – warm glove.mp3
ssion – street jizz.mp3

TILLY & THE WALL

amazing, as always. when they were setting up, neely passed out candy to the people in the front row, and threw out a bunch of blown-up balloons into the crowd to keep us all entertained. so considerate. the guys came out in long wigs, and the girls were dressed in wild clothes as usual. jamie presnall’s tapping was impeccable, and i noticed that she cut all her hair off. they played a lot of songs from the new album, and between every song, derek presnall would yell “seaaaaaaaatle!” paige and i danced so hard… we were both drenched in sweat afterwards. when they were done playing, i went to their merch booth to buy a poster, and i was gushing to the merch guy how much i loved tilly & the wall, and how i danced so hard that people around me probably thought i was on drugs. his response? “fuck ‘em.” exactly.

tilly & the wall – dust me off.mp3
tilly & the wall – poor man’s ice cream.mp3
tilly & the wall – nights of the living dead.mp3

CSS

by the time css went on, paige and i were so dehydrated that we felt like we were going to pass out any minute, but we did stay for the first three songs… and luckily for me, they were my three favorite css songs. i’ve see some wild photos of the lead singer, lovefoxxx, in spin magazine, so i really wanted to see what kind of crazy get-up she would be wearing. when css came on, lovefoxxx bounded onto the stage in a giant hooded coat that looked like it was made of shiny metallic confetti. it made her look like a giant bear. she pulled her hood off when she started singing, and she had a gorgeous pseudo-beehive that i was very jealous of, and from the distance i was standing at, she looked like a brazilian maggie gyllenhal. after the first song, lovefoxx shed the bear coat and emerged wearing a sparkly unitard with a sash of huge colorful flowers. she was so adorable.

css – jager yoga.mp3
css – meeting paris hilton.mp3
css – this month, day 10.mp3