The other night I saw Okkervil River and Shearwater play. These two bands share three members, with O.R. adding a drummer and Shearwater adding a double-bassist and a drummer/vibraphone player. The three shared members play a mixture of guitar, keys, bass, lap-steel and mandolin, and sing. The main singer/songwriter in each is different and was the reason I really liked Shearwater but didn't quite groove on O.R. I do like O.R. fine, but Shearwater are special--Jonathan, the wünderkind-leader of the band, has a gorgeous voice and uses it, belting out the emotional parts with clarity and power, whispering the soft parts with grace and control. It's everything Bright Eyes should have been, but just aren't gifted enough to pull off (and with none of the pretension). Shearwater's songwriting is great, and the live arrangements are wonderful--the vibraphone is gorgeous and added an incredible quality to the songs in which it appeared, the lap steel blew me away, and the upright bass was solid.

They've made some songs available on their website, including this one, a standout from their latest record Winged Life (Misra).

--[[ Shearwater, "Whipping Boy" ]]--

OWNED.

Michaelangelo Matos destroys the latest "Wednesday Morning Download" column, something that I wanted to write when I read that column last week too. Matos does it much better and more thoroughly than I could have, though. The upbraiding starts in paragraph 3. A juicy excerpt:

"...writing a weekly column for a national publication and repeating yourself three times in the space of a paragraph, or professing astonishment that the music industry works the way it's worked for the past two decades, or being flabbergasted that publishing a review page devoted almost entirely to indie rock might lead to a readership that listens nearly exclusively to, what's this, indie rock--that's incompetence.

There is more. "I've never been fond of Modest Mouse," Bartlett writes, "and I can't really explain why, except to say that Isaac Brock's voice doesn't appeal to me." Guess what? You are, nominally, a writer--specifically, a music critic. That means your job is to explain why you do or don't like something. If you can't really do this, perhaps you should learn to do your fucking job. And failing that, perhaps you should find another line of work. "

Here's a song then

Inspired by the excellent David Byrne/Rufus Wainwright song posted over at TTIKTDA today, I thought I'd share a little Rufus song that many of you might not have, as it is from a movie soundtrack. The song is from the opera Le Roi d'Ys by Edouard Lalo (1823 - 1892), and this song "Vainement, ma bien-aimé!" comes from Act III, wherein the heroic soldier proclaims intent to marry the daughter of the King of Ys. It's a gorgeous song, and well-suited to Rufus's solo piano treatment. Also, I have a particular weakness for Rufus singing in French.

--[[ Rufus Wainwright: "Vainement, ma bien-aimé!" (Le Roi d'Ys) ]]--

Step by step

Snake bite update, 12 days later: I can sorta walk now. Yeah, every step hurts, but it's a pretty great feeling just to be able to get across the freaking room without those awkward crutches. I still use one crutch on my left side when my foot is really hurting, but hopefully there's just a couple more days of that. The darn foot is still quite swollen and sore up to about mid-calf. Ugh. Moral of the story: don't wear sandals in the woods.

Oh boy

StG says that Blogger is offering Gmail accounts again. *crosses fingers* Y'know, I really hope that once Gmail goes global, .Mac ups their storage space. 15MB for $99/year begins to look like a bum deal in the face of 1GB.

Lights are blinding my eyes

I think I have a huge crush on the way Mike Skinner delivers the line "That tastes like hairspray".

Like a shoe, or a drain full of hair

It's hard to resist the temptation to become (at least in part) another one of those new-fangled mp3 blogs. They're popping up everyday lately, so while I wouldn't be among the first, I'd certainly be among the first girls to do it, for what it's worth. Thing is, I'm not a SoulSeeker so my access to non-legit pre-releases is nil. But it might be fun anyway. Maybe I'll mix some songs in with the regular entries.

Also, I've decided that those mp3 blogs need a better name than "mp3-blog." Here's my first idea: if weblog=blog, then musiclog=clog. Clog! Whaddaya think?

This is the start of what was

Tomorrow should be a good day, even though I'll be hopping around clumsily on my crutches yet again. It's my birthday! The last birthday of my 20s. Also I hope to get the new Morrissey CD and an actual copy of the new Streets CD that's been rocking my world for the past month or so--both records are released tomorrow.

[ Stream the entire Streets record here ]

High on the hitlist lately has been my new favorite practice of sitting out on the deck in the evenings, when the temperature is neither hot or cold. It's a darn near perfect experience.

This is getting bizarre

There is a bird trying to get into the house. It has smacked into the window five or six times now, and I have no idea why. Each time it comes flying up to the window, each time whacks its entire body on the glass and falls down to the windowsill looking slightly dazed.

I think this bird is nuts--now it's sitting on the railing staring off into space. I know, how can you tell when a bird is staring into space, right? Well, birds don't usually stand still, they are constantly looking around and twitching. This one is just standing there with its head cocked at a funny angle. What is this crazy bird doing on my porch?

Now that I've had some time to look at this bird, it appears that it's missing a large portion of its tailfeathers or something--it doesn't look quite right. Maybe it can't fly straight without those feathers, but that doesn't explain why it wants in the window so badly. Still just hanging out on the railing. It's been sitting there for so long now that the cat has lost interest.

Whee!

Two Tylenol 3s later, things are mellow as a mushroom. My damn foot still hurts though! But at least I don't care as much. Too bad those Percocets make me nauseous, or it would be a party.

It goes on.

You know, you just don't appreciate how truly disrupting it is to be on crutches until you have to be alone in a two-story house for two days. I almost didn't eat dinner tonight 'cause I didn't want to go through the trouble of hobbling downstairs, balancing on one leg while carrying food from fridge to stove, finding condiments, dishes, silverware and napkins, and trying to figure out how to carry a beverage at all. It's difficult.

Post two

I think I like Blogger--it feels more like I'm typing in a vacuum than when I post to my LiveJournal, since the community is really LJ's strongest feature, but I guess that's okay, they're not really the same thing. LJ has always seemed like a group of friends; BlogSpot feels more like self-publishing.

I started this blog on day two of being laid up in bed due to a bite by a copperhead snake. Now on day three, slight progress has been made in healing of my foot, swollen from knee the bite spot on my left pinky toe. I still can't really stand up or even sit up, since lowering my foot from its elevated position causes it to hurt like mad.

Getting to be a total bum and lie in bed all day is great, but I'd like to be able to get from here to the bathroom without assistance soon. It's good to have goals.

Ahoy hoy

This is a test, y'all.