CD Monday update: New Lions & the Not-Good Night is a gift that keeps giving and giving. Even more in love with it than I was before. The band is heading out on tour today — get a taste of what those shows will be like here, and join the band in figuring out what their tour hashtag will be (current frontrunner is #thisisandisnotTOURture2016).
One Week One Band did Punch Brothers this week! I read a fair amount of it, but I’m planning to go back through and make sure I saw everything. Might be my favorite OWOB week since I started following along. Really thorough.
Y’all see the Lincoln commercial where Sharon Jones covers “Midnight Rider”? It’s fantastic. You even get a little Matthew McConaughey at the end.
It was so rewarding following along on social media as Sleepwalkers played Red Rocks two nights this week. This may be the most excited I’ve been for shows that I wasn’t even going to. The pictures are breathtaking — hit up their Twitter account to check a few out. Prepare for goosebumps.
I dunno about you, but I’m fixin’ to hop on that there Bonnaroo live stream a fair amount this weekend. I wrote a thing a while back about about how much I love festival live streams. As a substitute for being able to co-locate and do all of the things at all of the times, they’re pretty snazzy.
No gig tonight, but I feel compelled to share with the world that, at last Friday’s gig, I got to say — all in seriousness — the following sentence into a microphone: “This one’s for the dude in the bouncy castle who requested Skynyrd.”
I’ve had occasion to write this post a number of times, but this Oxford American piece about Hiss Golden Messenger from a couple years back is just such a great example of why I love Amanda Petrusich’s music writing, and I’d like to point out two quick things:
Thing 1: In every AP piece, there are sentences that are put together so perfectly and are so insightful that I stop reading and physically look around to try to figure out what to do next. Do I read it to the person nearest to me? Do I tweet a link to the article and quote that line? Do I take up engraving so I can engrave it on something? Here’s one from the HGM article:
If you think about art long enough—what’s good and why, how it works on you—it becomes clear that every argument for or against a work is predicated on the notion that we’re all capable of saying something true.
The whole article is great, and that section is particularly incisive, but holy crap — that sentence totally stopped me in my tracks, and I decided I had to write a post to finally satisfy this “I have to do something!” impulse that’s hit me so many times before. So here we are.
Thing 2: I savor Petrusich’s music writing like fiction. There’s almost always a moment while reading an article she wrote when I realize that I don’t want it to end, scroll to the bottom to see how much is left, and portion out the rest deliberately, so I won’t accidentally wolf it down too fast. I felt similarly about her Do Not Sell At Any Price book, which I’d recommend buying before you finish reading this post, if you haven’t already.
That’s it. I don’t mean to go on and on, I just (as described above) had to say something. Do yourself a favor and keep an eye out for her articles in The New Yorker and elsewhere. They’re consistently fantastic.
Quick non-bloggy writing update: Boomer Magazine gave me the opportunity to write an article about FloydFest, which is taking place from July 27-31 this year. I hope you’ll check it out — talking to Across-the-Way Productions marketing director Sam Calhoun was a blast, both because of his enthusiasm for the festival and because of his clear love for the bands they’ve booked. (The conversation was also thrilling because I managed to drop my voice recorder in a cup of ice water just minutes because he called, and arranging a backup recording situation resulted in a not-insignificant amount of adrenaline.)
One of the bands I was most excited about after our conversation was Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats. I remember seeing their self-titled album’s cover in 2015 when it came out — How could you forget that A+ chest hair? — but I totally whiffed on giving it a listen back then. I’m on board now though, and they’re one of the bands that make this year’s FloydFest lineup so outstanding. There’s also Gregg Allman, Warren Haynes, Bruce Hornsby… it’s looking like a great time.
Thrilled to have had a chance to meet and interview Clair, who is extremely nice and talented
Still smitten with New Lions & the Not-Good Night, which is utterly delightful and brilliant
Extremely psyched for Toddler YHT to get to know the album (between requested performances of “Old McDonald,” which is getting darker and darker, given that Old McDonald apparently had snakes, tigers, and alligators)
A few Friday News and Notes for y’all kind people:
I saw Béla Fleck and the Flecktones last night! I didn’t realize it but it seems that this is some sort of reunion tour. They mentioned last night being their “second show,” which caused a little cognitive dissonance, given how long they’ve been around. I also didn’t realize (though I think I knew at some point) that Victor Wooten is their bass player. Dude is a magician. As is Béla. What a talented group. And I can now say I’ve seen a steel drum jazz solo, so there’s that.
The Head and the Heart’s new album just became available for preorder!
Xenia Rubinos’ new album is out today — definitely worth checking out. She was very, very good at Saturday’s Son Lux show. I wish I could go back in time and do that night differently. The show was happening during game 6 of the western conference finals (which turned out to be pivotal and wildly entertaining), and instead of DVRing the game and watching after, I sat at the bar and kept the game going on my phone and glanced up and down and up and down and ended up feeling like I didn’t really see either. Dumb. Lesson learned, hopefully. I’ve listened to “Lonely Lover” a bunch of times since, and I know I’m taking the lyrics out of context, but the “I just need to breathe today” line resonates so deeply. Especially this week, given that my daughter barfed all over her car seat on the way to daycare on Tuesday.
Top album lists for the first half of the year have started popping up, and they’re making me feel like an idiot for not listening to the new Chance album yet. That’s my goal for the weekend. It was awesome to see Lucy Dacus made the Spin list, and on an unrelated note, it was also awesome to see pics on social media from people who were at her Tiny Desk performance this week. Can’t wait for NPR to post video.
I’ll be gigging tonight, but Friday Cheers looks awesome — the Revivalists and the Seratones — and I can’t recommend strongly enough also heading to Gallery5 for tonight’s collaborative Girls Rock! RVA fundraiser. It’s a Jennifer Kennedy gallery exhibit AND a show featuring Lady God, Christi, Avers and Lobo Marino AND they’ll be selling Kennedy’s new coloring book. I’m a huge fan of Kennedy’s work — she draws musicians while they’re performing, and it’s astounding how much kinetic energy she manages to capture — and I love Girls Rock! RVA’s mission, which is to “empower girls, gender non-conforming, and trans youth through music, art and activism.” Learn more about Girls Rock! RVA here and listen to Doug Nunnally’s interview with Jennifer Kennedy here.
That’s it for now. Catch y’all next week, assuming I still exist next week. It’s also Greek Fest weekend, and I might end up eating so many gyros so fast that I break space-time and disappear completely. Hopefully not though.
That’s one of several crappy iPhone photos I took at the Car Seat Headrest show in D.C. last week.
It’s a borderline miracle that I was there. Deciding to go was a last minute thing — I saw they were playing at the Black Cat that morning, and I’d only been listening to his/their stuff for maybe 48 hours. Plus I’d sworn off weeknight shows in D.C. and Charlottesville. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people (with a not-entirely-subconscious “Look how adult I am” tone) that I just can’t make those trips anymore. It’s too hard. I get so tired the next day, and my completist instincts make me want to swear things off entirely to protect myself from the pain of missing out on individual parts of that thing, if that makes any sense.
And here’s the kicker: I was getting sick. I sorta-kinda knew it at the time but was playing the denial game, and I ended up with a fever the next night. But Mrs. YHT was hosting book club that night, so I was going to be out of the house either way, and I just… I had to do it.
Going under masochistic circumstances turned out to be fitting. A few days after the show, I read an interview with Pitchfork that Will Toledo did and saw an applicable quote:
For a long time, concerts were not really my bag, because I thought it was a needlessly painful experience—between the noise of the music and having to just stand there for hours, there wasn’t a lot of enjoyment for me. But I saw Swans a year ago in Seattle, and it really blew me away. I had heard a lot of cautionary bullshit about how loud they are and how it’s the most damaging concert you’ll ever see, so I was a little concerned. But for some reason, the fact that Swans were supposed to be kind of painful actually made it more enjoyable for me.
And man was CSH loud. My friend Coyle and I were standing just a dozen or so feet away from the stage right speakers — a few rows of people behind Bob Boilen, incidentally — and I felt that rush of “Is this safe? Am I in danger?” that instinctively accompanies sensory extremes. It’s been ages since I felt that at a show. (Thanks to my pasty skin, I feel that way every time I go to the beach, but that’s a different conversation.)
But volume wasn’t the whole story. Far from it. The band was excellent, in part because “loud” is only one of the gears they can choose. There were so many changes of pace — quick left turns where distortion abruptly gave way to quiet (and the other way around), nimble lead guitar that was clear as day in spots and blissfully muddy in others, a generous emotional range, from funny to sardonic to downright angry… Toledo is a gifted, restless writer, and the group he’s put together definitely takes advantage of that.
That said, there is a constant, and it’s Toledo. His voice, especially. He conveys a deadpan manner both between songs and during them, and that matter-of-fact tone makes the language in his lyrics absolutely dance in relief. I won’t be the first or last to make this comparison, but the way Toledo emphasizes certain words via long, extended vibrato-less notes reminded me of Bob Dylan, and I ended up thinking a lot about Dylan during the band’s set. Kurt Cobain, too (probably because of the quiet-loud transitions, which Nirvana did so well). Looking back, I’m struck by how Toledo’s words and delivery represent both achievement and promise: The present seems even more impressive because of how bright the future looks for him.
Saying so might make me sound older than I am, but the truth is that I was thinking about my age almost constantly at the show. It wasn’t the crowd — there was a healthy age distribution — it was everything else. It was the fact that I knew I was getting sick but was pretending I wasn’t. It was the fact that I’d told so many people that I don’t go to D.C. shows on weeknights anymore… yet there I was. And I was there listening to guitars that were louder than I’d heard in a long time.
I think a lot about a study I saw (can’t find it at the moment) that showed how people’s taste in music calcifies between 30 and 40. I tend not to worry about that, because I love learning about new bands almost as much as I love listening to the music I already know I love — and I’m fine knowing that the brilliant new musicians I’ll be learning about in the future will, for the most part, be younger than me — but it’s weird to think that the people at the shows I go to will keep getting younger by comparison. Even though the difference wasn’t especially pronounced at the Black Cat, that idea really started to sink in, and I can’t figure out whether that bothers me or not. I’d like to think it won’t, but I’m not sure. Hopefully asking and answering the question now will help in the long run.
A few days after the show, I saw that Car Seat Headrest will be playing in Richmond in September. I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time, because I’m really glad I went to this one. It didn’t make me feel spontaneous, like I thought it might. I guess I ended up feeling like myself, which isn’t a thing that should be taken for granted. In fact, I’d go a step further and say that’s one of art’s highest callings — helping people inch closer to who they really are.
This week’s CD Mon(Tues)day goes out to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Even in defeat, they were magnificent. KD is amazing. Russ is a freak. Steven Adams is unexpectedly hilarious and kind of a badass. I wanted Golden State to win — so they can win the title and fully validate the absurd number of hours of Warriors basketball I watched this season — but I hate seeing KD sad. Dude needs to win at some point, in OKC or elsewhere. Same for Russ — his maniacal efforts deserve to be rewarded. Hopefully they’ll stick together and win one eventually.
Toddler YHT is clearly ready for the weekend — are you?
CD Monday update: Mudcrutch was a hit. My daughter dug it. I dug it. A great time was had by all. There’s a great looseness to it — I’m not sure how long recording took, but it reminds me of the great, lightning-in-a-bottle spontaneity of that Shouting Matches album. Thanks so much to Marcus my coworker for loaning it to me!
I saw Car Seat Headrest on Monday night in D.C. I have thoughts about it. While I try to get those thoughts organized and typed up, I recommend reading this Doug Nunnally-penned RVA Magazine interview with Will Toledo and listening to anything and everything of his you can get your hands and ears on.
I could have met Bob Boilen on Monday night but got too nervous. So pissed at myself.
This week’s is a must-see Friday Cheers. RVA Music Night. Natalie Prass. Sam Reed. Lady God. I’ve seen the first two, and am crazy about both, but this will be my first time seeing Lady God. Very much looking forward to it. We’re going to book it down to Brown’s Island after work, and by “we” I mean the whole family. Fingers crossed everyone gets in their respective car seats in a timely fashion. I’M LOOKING AT YOU, MRS. YHT.
This is a two-show weekend, actually, because I have a ticket to go see Son Lux at Strange Matter tomorrow night. I was psyched to see that the opening act, Xenia Rubinos, has a new record streaming over at NPR. I’ve yet to hear the whole thing, but what I have heard is varied and intriguing and I’m hoping I can show up early for this one as well.
See y’all at Cheers. First round is on Toddler YHT! (JK she’s broke as a joke.)
On loan from a generous coworker. (He also loaned me a DVD copy of Runnin’ Down a Dream, the four-hour Tom Petty documentary Peter Bogdanovich made.) This is the first I’ve heard of Mudcrutch, but wouldn’t you know it, the rejuvenated Petty project just released an album last Friday. Wild, eh?
Tom Petty called the band’s name “really terrible.” I call it “really fitting” because it won’t stop raining and there’s mud everywhere and I can never remember to take off my shoes before I go in the house and Toddler YHT is laying waste to my backseat by grinding her adorable and sparkly but also muddy Crocs into the fabric opposite her rear-facing car seat.
You Hear That 
