Bon Iver, Album One, Track Three

It's been almost a month. Sorry :-( Fortunately the reason I have been neglecting you, internet, is because my life has been full of many fantastic things lately, including a recent influx of wonderful music. Hopefully you can forgive me.

So, while my passionate musical love affair with some of my recent standards continues (I still listen to Thrice daily and am actually watching their live DVD from the House of Blues performance right now.), I have had some new loves introduced as well. Thank you to 94.7fm for some of them, and my friends Jessica and Ansley for some others. 

I have added Justin Vernon to my list of people I wish I was cool enough to be. When his band broke up, he decided to go emotionally process everything in his life by moving into a cabin in northwest Wisconsin and chopping wood for three months. He took the time to separate himself, make life simple again, and spend his days doing basic chores and pouring everything in to songwriting and recording. Yes PLEASE. These are the things I wish I was brave enough, creative enough, (and financially stable enough) to go do. I have complete admiration for the man. I think I have listened to Skinny Love about four or five times a day for the past week.

Also new on the list- Jason Wembley in his various projects (solo and as the Jason Wembley trio, some other groups I cannot recall the names of). He is billed as "accordion-driven gypsy-folk-punk," which I think is a fantastic genre label in the first place. If you have seen Snatch, take Brad Pitt's character, make him fairly awkward and put an accordion in his hands, and you have Jason Wembley. His recorded work is good by all means, but if you get the chance, go see him live. The man could start a riot. I have never seen so many people so excited and invigorated by such music before. I'm fairly sure a gypsy rebellion in Portland was narrowly averted on Thursday.

I've listened to her as a while (first ran into her when she came up on a Pandora station with the Frames as the seed.) but I had never seen her face until I saw her latest album at a record store- Ingrid Michaelson may be THE CUTEST thing on the planet. To all her publicists- I would love to be friends with her. Thanks.

I have decided to wait for posting my thoughts on the new U2 album until it's uhh... actually released. That way I won't seem like I would indulge in anything sub-legal, right?

Some more things to check out in your copious free time:

Fleet Foxes, who remind me of an all-male Eisley

Horse Feathers

Elbow (I LOVE Grounds for Divorce)

Band of Horses

Dead Confederate

The Boxer Rebellion

I'll see you again soon, internet. I'm off to find more music to fall in love with, and please, SUPPORT THE MUSIC YOU LISTEN TO! BUY ALBUMS! I can't help but think from time to time that I must be the only person who still buys CDs in stores. A lot of these guys live off of gas station food and wear thrift-store clothing because it's what they can afford. Put some more gas in their tanks so they can support their families and continue to write amazing music instead of doing something lame like getting a real job. Thanks.

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall

Inking #1

U2, Album Twelve, Track Six

I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet. I'm certainly a fan of artists developing and pushing themselves into new things instead of being stuck turning out a new version of the same album over and over again, but there's something a little wrong when for 98% of the song, it doesn't sound like Edge playing guitar. I must be losing his character in the distortion.

At least Bono still sounds like Bono, so you know what you are listening to :-)

Overall, I am definitely looking forward to the new album, and I hope they do some fantastic things.

More substance to come one of these days.

You've got a submarine, I've got gasoline

HAPPY OBAMA DAY!!!

Thrice, Fifth Album, Track Eleven

First admission of the day- I have a moderate-to-absurd love affair with the band Thrice right now. About 10% of the lyrics are a little silly, but as general lyricists and songwriters, there are some FANTASTIC things going on in this band. It's also a band with material so diverse that everyone can find something to listen to. I could probably get my Mum to listen to tracks off of their Earth, Air, and Water EPs, but I can also blast the entire Artist in the Ambulance album so loudly in my truck that I knock a few screws loose. Since I have been listening to both that album and Vhiessu (which, side note, I think is a fantastic album name as a mis-hearing/spelling of "Wie ist du" in German), this may explain why Ginny (my truck) is a little crankier than normal as of late. 

Also, who writes songs in iambic pentameter? And who does it for the last track on each of four element-themed EPs, which happen to have the same melody in different keys? Come ON. The Alchemy Index project is just brilliant.

Anyways, enough lauding and laurel-laying, on to life.

Yesterday was rough, but I had a fantastic time with the folks I live with and some people who came over last night. I am apparently better at Texas Hold'em than I used to be. It was also re-affirmed to me that I can usually imbibe enough to knock a standard person sideways and still be completely unaffected. It's a good thing I don't ever drink to get drunk. 

I went hiking in Forest Park yesterday, and I am so glad that we have been blessed with some sunshine this weekend, even if it was 30 or 40 degrees in the forest. It was so beautiful. I need to spend some more time in Forest Park, and some more time seeking the quiet that can be found there. I was going to go the beach this weekend, but hopefully the weather will hold out next weekend as well and I will be able to take a trip and spend some more time in peace, searching my heart and soul to find what I am looking for. There is a lot to find.

A friend told me last night that "The measure of our yieldedness is the measure of our usefulness." I'm going to take that to heart.

Wake and feel your worth, O my soul

Speak the word, the word that can save us all

Awed by Grace, I fall on my face

And scream the word that can save us all.

Paramore, Twilight OST, Track Two

Some songs are simply fun to play, and some songs, when I play them on my guitar, just move me to tears. They become channels of emotion. This is the beauty of song.

I said in my last post that I really appreciate raw honesty in music. Tragedy can be so beautiful if we take the time to search for it, and to realize that the ability to feel is a fantastic gift in itself. As much as we hate experiencing tragedy in our own lives, to see it expressed in other mediums can be key to release. It's one of the original forms of drama, and it is a common theme in all lives. I often find it impossible to voice my own tragedy, even and possibly especially when I try to write songs or short stories or poems or the like. I've found myself confounded in the past because the song I felt my heart wanting to write had already been written by someone else. This particular song is one my heart wanted to write, but the words are already written down.

The beauty of recorded music is that when you are all alone, singing by yourself, or playing piano or guitar or anything you can get your hands on, in the right key or not, with the proper rhythms or without, you can OWN that song if your heart wants to write it all over again. If your heart can claim it, it becomes yours and you have every right to scream it from the mountaintops, to feel it and express and proclaim its truth. Lawyers be damned, in that moment you have written that song. 

I hope each of you have moments where your heart finally finds its voice, even if the words are borrowed. 

We're gonna make such fools of ourselves.

Gary Allan, Seventh Album, Track Two

It's been a difficult but fantastic day. The two seem so often intertwined, beauty only being recognized for its true value in juxtaposition to the ugly, or perhaps just the sightly less pleasant. 

I listen to Country music for two reasons. The first is when I am feeling rowdy and need something that inspires a little outdoor wildness is my heart. It's perfect for late spring drives, and for every adventure to be had in the summer. It is the soundtrack to winding drives through the forests, to football games on the beach, to campfires and trudging through the woods. It provokes adventure.

The second reason is for wistfulness and emotional exploration. There is something raw and honest in the music written in this genre that can be so hard to find in other artists. There is the standard junk you find in every genre of course, the cheese and the pop and the shallow lyrics that are written only to manufacture hooks, but the genre lends itself so well to the ugly and the painful, and the beauty that can be found within the unpleasant. I love Gary Allan because lately he has been recording songs that can be nearly painful to listen to. It's tragic that he does so because of his circumstances, but it makes it real. His voice is perfect for conveying a torn heart, and with a torn heart fueling the singing, it's impossible to ignore it. I cannot imagine being in his place, with the pain he has suffered, but I have a heart that sympathizes. It is often so hard to find the right words to explain emotions, to voice thoughts and even understand the self, but when you hear someone else say what you are thinking, or summarize your feelings, it becomes possible to express what was previously inexpressible. 

 

Pain is so often an opportunity to seize upon joy. The world presents us with difficulties daily. We are attacked and impeded, but if we choose- if we dare- our greatest struggles will become our greatest victories. Our lowest depths give rise to His greatest heights. And the journey is always worth the travel. Hold fast hope.

We touched the sun