Sunday, May 29, 2011

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

When my friend Sean asked me if I wanted to see this concert a few months ago, I was apathetic. I'd never actually heard of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. But, I listened to a few songs and I was sold. Best decision ever. What a show!

Sharon Jones is a fireball of energy; despite being 55, the woman just doesn't slow down. The Dap-Kings effect really did a lot to sell the entire event to me. From their CD packaging to their well-crafted atmosphere, the Dap-Kings and Daptone Records works hard to create a hip, vintage feel to the music, to their stage presence, to their website and more. Go their website to hear the songs from the new album. GREAT stuff.



The opening act was pretty terrific too:

Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears
Opening Act, Fargo Theatre May 18, 2011



I was tempted to buy their CD, despite being able to understand anything Joe Lewis sang -- his lyrics were indecipherable but the overall sound was pretty great. In the middle of the opening act, a Fargo Theatre usher approached us and asked if we'd be willing to move up the front row so an older couple could have our seats... it was too close, too loud for them. I was skeptical. I know enough about theatres and sound to know that we'd be trading quality sound for a close-up view. Still, it was pretty cool to be so close so we went for it. I tried to take pictures but my digital camera has given up the ghost so I had to rely on my Droid phone which leaves a lot to be desired. Still here's one of Sharon getting down.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Fargo Theatre, May 18, 2011


The song I was most looking forward to hearing....


The song I came home loving...


The Dap-Kings

Before the concert we stopped at Charlies for some ice cream and while we waited in line I was swaying to the awesome in-house music, doing my own little dance. All of sudden, Sean cracked up and I could hear snickers behind me. I was totally freaked--thinking, Good lord, Carmyn, what have you done now? I guess the cause for laughter was that there was a guy behind me reading the High Plains Reader doing the same thing as me--moving to the music--without knowing I was doing it too. So, to the rest of the folks it was a smile-worthy moment as Jimmy and I were dancing our way to the front of the ice cream line. Then an hour or so later, it hit me. Yep. The folks behind us in line were half of Dap-Kings line up. And my unintentional dance partner? Their baritone player Jimmy. Good times.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Blessed by Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams, Fargo Theatre, May 17, 2011

I love Lucinda Williams with her gritty voice and provocative lyrics. She's awesome and her concert was too. She didn't play a few of my very favorites ("Essence," "World Without Tears," "Little Rock Star"), but there were enough that I don't blame her for not tailoring her show to the needs of one ND fan. :)

Her second set was better, if for no other reason than the energy that the rocking bit engendered. If it were me I wouldn't have separated the song sets quite like this.

My pal, Pam said that Williams reminded her of a female Tom Petty and part of it might be her skinny little body, but I think it's all because musical sound has that stoner feel to it--some of my favorite music, people. Ironic, eh?

Set list:

Side of the Road
Jackson
Ventura
Something About What Happens When We Talk
Over Time
Blue
Sweet Love (this one was featured in the True Blood series)
Born to be Loved
Fruits of my Labor
2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
Ugly Truth

Intermission -- pause for set analysis:
I loved "Sweet Love" and "Ugly Truth" which were new to me. "Over Time" and "Blue" were terrific. I loved the guitar on these. Blake Mills was amazing in his own right. Still "Fruits of my Labor" was the show-stealer for me. Wow.


Rocking, "Bad Boy Song" set:
Can't Let Go
I Lost It
Drunken Angel
Buttercup (only "bad boy" song on the new album)
Those Three Days
Out of Touch
Real Life Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings
Righteously
Change the Locks
Honey Bee
Blessed
Joy

Best songs --"Those Three Days," "Real Life Bleeding Fingers," "Change the Locks," "I Lost It." "Righteously" is a favorite song of mine, but this version wasn't the best rendition of it. Nevertheless, it still kicks most songs asses!


Thursday, May 12, 2011

Evidence that I am Loved.

Last week, I was out sick with strep throat. I know I've had that before but I don't remember it being quite so awful. I lost 8 lbs (all gained back thanks to special ordered cupcakes), had a 102 degree fever for awhile, and generally moaned and wept in solitude because even my mother was unwilling to risk exposure to strep in the first 24 hours. Ugh. Eventually I did get a kindly visitor bearing some Gatorade and soup and of course, wouldn't you know then my mom decided it was safe to visit. Either way I wasn't totally neglected. While I am finally feeling a bit better, I was tickled to find this fantastic care package in the mail this week from my pal Emma.

Contents include some royal wedding news, packs of tissues, soups, chocolate, nail polish, a tabloid, a get well card, sunflower seeds, and some cough drops...

a puzzle to keep me occupied for about 5 minutes.

Noticeably absent was that gun I requested. It was pretty touch and go there for awhile last week.

Thanks, Em, for the terrific dose of kindness and indulgence. It was just what the doctor ordered and by doctor I mean, Dr. Emma P.!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The 86 Days of Summer

Grand Beach, Manitoba

Some people create New Year's resolutions.

I create a list of...

68 things to do in 86 days of summer!


Here's the approximate breakdown:

10 items are food related
5 are related to exercise and wellness
17 of them are sports/leisure/hobby type activities
7 are literacy related
at least 12 of them involve travel
11 will help me build some mad skills
and 9 of the list items are purely indulgent

I'm sooooo looking forward to summer!

Monday, May 09, 2011

Sunday, May 08, 2011

It's All Been Done Before

These are two parts of a four-part video series by Kirby Ferguson, a NY based filmmaker and it's a fascinating look at remixing, sampling, songwriting, films, and the like. He talks about the fine line between inspiration and original art and explores Led Zeppelin's music and later its influence in Everything is a Remix part one. Then in part two Ferguson explores the remixing of films and a closer look at Star Wars and Quentin Tarantino. It's worth the 15 minutes to watch both and worth waiting for the next 2 parts. I owe this awesome little discovery to Swiss Miss. Thanks!

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.



Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.



Friday, May 06, 2011

"So help me, I don't know I might just give the old dark side a try"

Flashback to three years ago -- for my musical tastes that's like blinking one's eyes.

I was looking for this post recently and then discovered it was on a now-defunct blog and lest I forget my musical tributes of days gone by, I'd better re-post and re-post now with edits and updates! My love of The Shins still rings true and if anything it's deepened.


The Shins is an indie rock group based in Portland, Oregon featuring singer, songwriter and guitarist James Russell Mercer, keyboardist/guitarist/bassist Martin Crandall, bassist/guitarist Dave Hernandez, drummer Jesse Sandoval, and Eric Johnson of the Fruit Bats. Their sound draws on several musical genres, including pop, alternative, alternative country, and folk.

Wincing the Night Away
by The Shins was released in January of 2007. The Shins are one of many indie-pop groups that have caught my attention in recent years, though I've only listened to this album, their most recent. It's been on the playlist a lot lately. Because of that, I decided to scrutinize and offer up some of my thoughts on the album.

Update --BTW: You can hear the tracks in these places:
Australia, Phantom Limb, Turn on Me are available on myspace
Phantom Limb, Turn on Me, and Sleeping Lessons are available on their official site.
And since I can't find good places to hear all the rest of the tracks here's a link to my You Tube Shins playlist.

1. Sleeping Lessons
This might be the song I like the least on this album and perhaps the reason I hadn't discovered the album sooner. I think the spacey, Lost in Translation-esque sound isn't really my thing. The lyrics are fine. In fact something I discovered AFTER I decided I loved this disc was the lyrics. The best moment in this song is the part that is ushered in by this phrase at "And spill it out on the ragged floor, a thousand different versions of yourself" at 54 seconds in. I do have to admit, I like these lyrics:

"You're not obliged to swallow anything you despise
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life
And they got no right
As sure as you have eyes
They got no right "

The last part of the song from that point on is more like the rest of the album and I like that quite a lot.

Update--the spacey start no longer bothers me. I really like this song a lot! And I stand behind my love of the "unrepenting buzzards" line. Awesome. I wish I had a definitive band approved printing of the lyrics because they are hard to decipher and as I tell my students one word makes all the difference in poetry and songs. That said, I have a decided Alice in Wonderland feel as I listen to this. Though that can only be supported by one line for certain, "Off with their heads."

2. Australia
This one reminds me of The Smiths. Not sure why, exactly. This song doesn't seem to have any kind of lyrical hook or chorus... but it's great. There are moments toward the end that remind me of the late 60s music, The Archies, and all that,

"Been alone since you were twenty-one
You haven't laughed since January
You try and make like this is so much fun
But we know it to be quite contrary "

Update--Wow, what a weak commentary on what is one of the best songs on the album.
I guess I was alluding to the music of the piece in saying it had a light Archies tone, but that's not quite right, either. It's not pop-like. But it is bubbly? With a heavy message, perhaps.

After years of listening to this one I'm still not entirely sure where the title fits in, so I'll let that be. But the rest of the song seems to be about being tied down to an obligation, to a dead relationship, to "the man." The girl just wants "one more Saturday" and she's being directed to "keep your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters" and being warned that she'd be:

"damned to be one of us, girl
faced with the dodo's conundrum
I felt like I could fly
But nothing happened every time I tried"

Later in the song that bit is replaced with "android's conundrum".... basically a bird with wings who cannot fly; a robot that is replicating life, but cannot truly "live."

This next part offered new revelation... I'm thinking all kinds of passivity accepting of the scraps or dregs life offers and of gentle oppression.

"He never dreamt of such sterile hands,
You keep them folded in your lap,
Or raise them up to beg for scraps,
You know, he's holding you down,
With the tips of his fingers just the same,
Will you be pulled from the ocean,
But just a minute too late,"

Again the next line suggests a life starved of joy. One that is quietly, suffocatingly, oppressively lived (truly my worst nightmare--how did Mercer know?)

"Watching the lantern dim starved of oxygen
So give me your hand and let's jump out the window"

It just really seems to be screaming screw the normal life, the life you could have with the ordinary Joe and be free... but be free with me.

3. Pam Berry
I don't like this track as well. The sound, maybe? Here are the full lyrics to the 56 sec. song.

"This lass
Some fifteen odd years
Is widely known
To have spat
In her teacher's lap
And will not take it back
For now I see
How after all their crap
She rightly came to that."

Update--I don't dislike the lyrics or the message. Again it's a nice little rebellion piece. As a song it doesn't do much on it's own but it serves as a nice little intro to the next song or bridge between each of them.

4. Phantom Limb
The lyrics of this song are sort of bizarre and difficult to meld together to find some kind of deeper meaning.. I guess I'm not trying that hard.. but I will say I admire any song that uses words like this: pilfered, latent, trite, zombie, and goathead. Actually, I take that back. I do have a sense of the meaning of the song, but it's full of allusion I don't understand.

Here's a snippet of lyrics that I think sum this one up a bit more:

"So when they tap our Sunday heads
Two zombies walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth our time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme,
Too far along in our crime,
Stepping over what now towers to the sky,
With no connection "

Update-- I do think I understand this a bit more especially if Pam Berry is any kind of introduction. I get the impression it's about a girl who is subjected to the all-powerful mean girls of her high school:

"And they could float above the grass
In circles if they tried
A latent power I know they hide
To keep some hope alive
That a girl like I could ever try
Could ever try

So we just skirt the hallway sides
A phantom and a fly
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection"

And if I weren't already convinced that it's about high school angst, then the line about "rolling eyes" and "pilfered booze" seals the deal.

5. Sealegs
This one is not one of my first favorites but I'm liking it better all the time. I like the imagery it brings to the concept of a love relationship.

"Girl, if you're a seascape
I'm a listing boat, for the thing carries every hope.
I invest in a single lie.
The choice is yours to be loved"


"Of all the intersecting lines in the sand
I routed a labyrinth to your lap."

Update -- "I invest in a single lie" I would strongly urge against this. Especially if you are planning to go all in. There's a very good chance you'll lose.

"We've no time to start a protocol
To hem us in."

And I like that line. Please don't "hem" me in. :)

6. Red Rabbits
Update/Original blended--This one has a strange opening bit too, much like "Sleeping lessons." Listening to it again, I can't help be see sexual images in everything. Perhaps I've been "in the desert" too long, but you listen again, you have to see what I mean.

"The necessary balloon lies a corpse on the floor..."

"We've pissed on far too many sprites
And they're all standing up for their rights"

I really like the "sound" of that last line, though it makes makes me think of that Oscar nominated foreign film from 2007, Pan's Labyrinth. This is a line that's repeated in the song.

"Born on a desert floor you've the deepest thirst
And you came to my sweet shore to indulge it"

This just has a great image to it.

This one too:
"So help me, I don't know I might
Just give the old dark side a try"

Honestly what the hell are "red rabbits"? Is this another Alice in Wonderland reference? I looked online at what some folks think this song is about and WOW, wildly different interpretations and not one like what my brain was thinking... So it goes.

7. Turn on Me
This was the first song I loved on this album and not for any particular reason. I do like the first few bars of the song. It reminds me of some 60s songs or some country song... it resonates. I like all the lyrics in this one. Here's a favorite clip:

"So affections fade away
And do adults just learn to play
The most ridiculous, repulsive games
All our favorite ruddy sons
And their double-barreled guns
You better hurry
Rabbit run run run
'Cause mincing you is fun
And there's a lot of hungry hatters in this world (or is it there's a lot of hungry howlers in this one cell?)
Set on taking it over
But brittle thorny stems
They break before they bend
And neither one of us is one of them"

Update--Oh my, now I'm seeing Peter Rabbit in this one. "Mincing you is fun" and "the tears will never mend" (maybe I have the lyrics wrong?) and the reference to the Hatters make me think of Alice in Wonderland. What the heck. Is this deliberate or is my brain stuck?

"The worst part is over,
Now get back on that horse and ride."

Amen.

Actually this remains my favorite song on the album. It's one of the few songs to which I know most of the words in the sing-a-long style I love. I find the Shins songs aren't typical of the kinds of catchy little tunes that sort of embed in the brain. Instead each seems to be a single story, picture, word craft that isn't full of repetition and lyrical hooks at least not in the same trite way I typically fall subject to. And that doesn't make me love it more or less... just differently.

8. Black Wave
This one has minimal lyrics and yet seems just as poetic as the rest. While it's not my very favorite, it's still not one I'd skip.

Update-- Here are the lyrics as far as I can tell.

"This goose is cooked, these tongues are tied,
Around the block and airborne blind,
But looking on the brighter side,
There's far less to which I’d be obliged,

In the meadow where the black breeze blows,
Where underneath the waves, you were most alone,
Can you hear a subtle, aching tone?
Through the water, through the Earth, trimmed up bone,

Looking on the brighter side,
Looking on the brighter side,
Looking on the brighter side,
Looking on the brighter side."

Again, this is some dismal business. It seems to suggest heartbreak or something that's now over. but this line "But looking on the brighter side, There's far less to which I’d be obliged" seems to say it all.

9. Split Needles
For some reason, the music in this one appeals less to me. It's funny to say that since so many of the songs are alike in sound. It's hard to put my finger on it.

Update-- I have to laugh. Most of these songs say that I like it less than others. Which begs the question which song or songs do I really love? Right now, I'd say all of them. I love this album. It's complete and good. But when I originally posted about this had I listened to it one or two times? I mean, what the heck? Lame reviews, Carm. Perhaps, these updates are no better, but it's still a fun exercise listening to the full album and reflecting song by song on a happy Saturday.

This one reminds me of a song by the Police. Not sure which song. But there's a feel.

This song has a great image of feeling out of control:

"It's like I'm perched on the handle bars,
Of a blind man's bike,
No straws to grab, just the rushing wind,
On the rolling mind"

Also there are some bizarre sorts of cartoon painting of holes and jumping in going on in this song. At least that's how my brain is interpreting it.

10. Girl Sailor
This is a good one. It has more of a clear story than any of the other songs. And the sound is great. Totally my kind of tune. "Oh girl, sail her, don't sink her"

Update-- I officially heart this song. It's freaking awesome. I think it's the story of a girl who has been in control too long and been too good at it and tends to burn bridges and sink ships and walk away.

"You've been at the helm since you were just five,
While I cannot claim to be more than a passenger,"

And there's a boy who's out there admitting he can't give her anything if this is her view:

"You've made it through the direst of straits alright,
Can you help it if plain love now seems less interesting?"

Maybe? Maybe not? I don't know. But I love the song. She sounds scrappy.

I also love the line "never give it more than a frowning hour."

11. A Comet Appears
This is a dismal ditty, but it's still worth a listen.

"One hand on this wily comet,
Take a drink just to give me some weight,
Some uber-man I'd make,
I'm barely a vapor"

Update-- This is a wee bit more of the dismal. But I like the idiomatic images: pie in the sky, hitching posts, sinking stones...

"But with each turn,
It's this front and center,
Like a dart stuck square in your eye,
Every post you can hitch your faith on,
Is a pie in the sky,
Chock full of lies,
A tool we devise,
To make sinking stones fly"

Yep. And that's all she wrote. Thank you, Shins for the lovely album. When is the next one?

Rumours

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, 1977

I'm typically hard-pressed to admit a favorite song, a favorite album, a favorite band... sure I can name a current fave but of all-time? Forget it. During one car ride my friend Sarah heard me exclaim, "Oh, this song is my favorite" one too many times and she laughingly said something like "they're all your favorites," but even though that statement is true, I don't mind. I'm full of joy for a LOT of good songs.

Usually I am more of a single song gal, than a fan of the full album. But there are a few albums out there that are rock solid from start to finish. Rumours is one of those albums from me. And Fleetwood Mac makes my list favorite favorite artists, if you will.

I'm trying to relearn whatever shallow knowledge I once had on the guitar and I crave the skill to be able to play one of my very favorite songs from that album. "Never Going Back Again." Of course I can't learn something simple with three chords and a strum... Nope. I go for the gold.

I love that Glee did this album this week. I know that some folks are disgusted with Glee and with musicians who are letting them cover their music, but honestly, it's fantastic in my eyes. It brings to another generation a fresh look at some awesome classic music that people might not otherwise experience. It begs the viewer to seek out the original and then it really is like discovering treasure.

Here's a link to the episode for as long as it stays on their website.

Even better, here's Fleetwood Mac's official site.

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