Keeping Score

I got a year older last week and because of the occasion discovered that there are multiple depressing songs about turning 31 out there. I, on the other hand, had a few too many drinks with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in while and enjoyed myself thoroughly. It's always cool to see the different parts of my life intersect and interact.

I told the story that night of my experiences with The Mendoza Line's Timothy Bracy in a can-you-believe-that style of humor and then felt badly afterwards because it's as far from funny as you get. I couldn't find a link to the song on 30 Year Low, but the apt comparison seems to be to Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Compared to that, Aimee Mann's typically dour and bitter soon-to-be-released track on turning 31 is innocuous.

The live music scene has left me blah over the last week or so. I saw the New Pornographers at a sold-out 9:30 Club show last week. Yes, there was good-natured fun poked at our ugly new $5 bill, Americans in general and the audience (from the Canadian band), and the band clearly enjoyed themselves, but I might as well have listened to the record. Neko Case was cool and soldiered on despite a bum ankle, but I didn't see much of the indie-rock goddess that all the hipster boys bought tickets for. (Lest you think I'm exaggerating, I just googled "Neko Case indie rock goddess" and got 6,590 hits.)

Last night was Son Volt who seemed bored and were boring to listen to. Wilco definitely got the better half of the Uncle Tupelo break-up. There were way too many mid-tempo numbers that sounded alike. They were marginally more interesting the closer they got to alt-country (and farther from roots rock), but that wasn't enough to keep me there for more than a half-hour.

However, I liked Son Volt's touring guitarist Chris Masterson whose playing was melodic and economical but ballsy when necessary. Which was not often enough with Son Volt and much more so when he joined opener Bobby Bare, Jr. for a couple of tracks. Bobby Bare, Jr. was good though and I'd see him again. Eccentric and crazy are the words everyone uses to describe him and he definitely upstaged the headliners. Also amusing, his bassist looked vaguely like Borat had dressed him. Photos of Bobby Bare, Jr. and Son Volt.

So, final score: 1 (plus a temp guitarist) for 3. Ah well.

Life continues apace. I'm heading out of town tomorrow for a few days to shepard FMC's traveling circus around the boonies. Once that's over, I should be posting more regularly.

This Ain't No Disco

I had forgotten over the last six months how much I enjoyed wandering into my local bar after work and watching a couple of innings of baseball with frosty beverage in hand. It was nice to remember last week after the packed weeks that keep happening.

Among the fun non-work stuff, last week Puck and I were at Iota for Federal Reserve Collective, but ended up in the restaurant half of the club eating their killer french fries and drinking half-price wine. Aside from being very cool, Puck makes these which I find hilarious but don't click on the link if you're prudish or under 18, kiddies.

On Saturday, I was at The Black Cat for This Ain't No Disco which is Chris Burns and Ed Porter (Dudes) spinning. I really enjoyed it and I loved the musical selections, especially those of Chris Burns. The place was full by night's end but not packed...not for long methinks. Must track them down again.

I'm thinking about spending some of my tax relief check on either a bicycle or a keyboard. I've been having a hard time keeping up with the running lately, so it's hard to say how much a bike would get used. Still, it'd be fun to take rides up Beach Drive which gets closed on Sundays. But then I've always wanted a real piano or keyboard so I could try my hand at playing again. Can't decide.

I'll be seeing a lot of the 930 club in the next month: New Pornographers are this week and Black Keys, Son Volt/Bobby Bare, Jr., and X are coming up.

Random thought: Am I the only one who hears a tuba and thinks of elevator music? I've been shuffling through the ipod lately and have twice now come across a tune with a tuba in it and have found myself thinking of elevator hell. I got no issues with tubas or tuba players, I just think elevator music has done them a real disservice.

Alright, back to making breakfast for dinner.

Mixing It Up

My latest score courtesy of my office: The Beastie Boys' newest all-instrumental The Mix-Up. It's reminiscent of The In Sound From Way Out, which I've played at more gatherings than I can count. There are more moving parts, but you wouldn't mistake it as anyone other than the Beasties...groovy. Also, in the same batch, the Sondre Lerche soundtrack to "Dan in Real Life". He's gone all adult contemporary. Ouchie.

Radiohead's In Rainbows is growing on me. Speaking of, they got one of those remix-our-song contests going on here. Points off for mixing each instrument together for you so you only get to remix five tracks - you know they somehow used at least 48 tracks.

I was at Arts Advocacy Day on Monday. Along with media training and learning how to talk to your elected officials, I got to take a course in lobbying which included a detailed lesson on how bills turn into laws and all the detours-to-nowhere they can take. It was vaguely like my high school civics class except more interesting, possibly because I was paying attention this time around. If nothing else, The West Wing now makes even more sense.

Saw Lust, Caution the other night. It was a quiet and reserved but intense film. Tang Wei, the lead actress spins a web and then gets herself caught in it - and you watch it happen on her face. She gives an amazing performance.

Just returned from a good time in Buffalo where FMC presented a day long seminar for musicians on how to make money from their music and how to get involved in policy issues that affect them. SRO crowd that was engaged and diverse. More seminars coming at the end of the month in Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. Tell your musically-inclined friends!

OK, back to sitting on hold with the bank and the person who needs "signatory" spelled four times...

Renewal

The nicest thing I've taken away from SXSW is a renewed excitement about listening to new music. There's always so much to check out between listening to the new, looking to the past to hear the evolution and feeding the current obsessions, that it just feels endless at times. But then I went off to a place where everyone's excited about all that music. And I guess all that listening and talking snapped me out of my doldrums. Case in point: I have next month's 40 emusic downloads already used which has never happened before. In the queue for next month: Bon Iver, Sandro Perri, some old Black Keys because they're coming through town next month, and Robert Nighthawk (courtesy of Document Records). This month's downloads got decimated in my current alt-country jag: Waco Brothers, Gillian Welch, and Eilen Jewell.

The last few weeks have been so awash in trying to roll the snowball up the hill at work, that I feel like I could write a love letter to the elevator that takes me out of that building, but the Stars already did that in this cool song but blah video.

In a random bit of synchronicity, I keep hearing about a resurgence in popularity of vinyl as a format, aka the "vinyl revival": donewaiting and idolator do the latest roundups on the topic and here's a blurb from the panel at SXSW with some exciting rumors included for those who care.

I spent last night on the roof deck of Reef trying to solve the world's problems with Andrew and Brian and Megan. Failed in that goal, but had a good time all the same.

Expressing Yourself

This apartment building burned down in my neighborhood while I was in Austin. No one was hurt thankfully, but the remains are a pretty crazy sight to walk by daily.

I got some grief when I mentioned that I didn't want Clinton to go down in flames in Texas and Ohio. For a bunch of reasons, I don't see the downside in extending the primary season to give Obama time to turn more smart, thoughtful Americans into believers, especially if his response to potshots is to turn them into opportunities, as he did in his recent thoughtful, impassioned discussion of race. But rather than go on about that speech, I refer you to The Journal of Abundant Media, who already said it better than I could.

Amusing moments caught in four days worth of World Figure Skating Championships coverage: this guy from Sweden dug out the Saturday Night Fever get-up and Sinead & John Kerr from Scotland imitated aliens, but at least he didn't go commando. I wonder if DJ Shadow knows he's got a new audience in these French ice dancers? Men's figure skating has turned into the land of sensitive metrosexuals, which makes Daisuke Takahashi's program to a hip-hop-esque remix of Swan Lake all the more entertaining. Some years you could get snockered if you turned the awful-costume-watch into a drinking game. This year, you sadly would have been stone cold sober. Aside from that, it's been a thoroughly entertaining few days of appointment television/competition.

I enjoyed myself at The Black Cat's Saturday dance night. A good time was had by all though the music was pretty unimaginative and the DJ confused the crowd at times. Still, judging by the booty-shaking, no one seemed to mind much. I'd go back since it was fun and $6 to get in.

Starbucks's record label Hear Music - for which I worked one summer when it was still a little chain of cool music stores - is learning how hard the music biz is these days: the straight and the snarky take on that.

Can I Do It Again?

In the event you're not tired of reading about SXSW yet...

Once you resign yourself to the idea that you're going to miss 99.9% of what you want to see, SXSW is a no-holds-barred great time. The whole conference has that feeling at times of a house party with everyone you've ever met. Hung out with lots of people, panels were interesting for the most part, I left with posters courtesy of Flatstock, the music was everything you want in a music festival (as long as you ponied up for a badge) and the whole shebang ran on schedule.

Bizarre sights: the blogger cage (scroll down for photo) and international speed dating.

Sadly wasn't invited to this party.

Here's the quick wrap-up on the artists (i.e. at least two songs) I caught:

Wednesday

Centro-matic

Thursday

My Morning Jacket

DevotchKa

Friday

Waco Brothers

Wiley and The Checkmates

Herman Hitson

Andrew Collberg

Deadman

Jimmie Vaughan

Headlight - misheard later that night as "headlice"

Abra Moore

N.E.R.D. Watch video

Rhapsody's Tim Quirk wandered SXSW collecting drunk-dialing stories from musicians. He managed to get installments from The Hold Steady's Franz Nicolay, The Mekons'/Waco Brothers' Jon Langford, Gang of Four's Dave Allen and more. Don't laugh, you know you've done it, too.

Even if I'd know that Bob Mould was in town on Saturday, I think I needed the silence by then. Still, would've been cool to hear Copper Blue live.

Spunky hopefuls, huh? Pun was completely intentional.

Oh, please.

Future Leads to the Past

One severely overbooked flight, four hours of waiting, a three hour flight to a place I wasn't going to (Dallas), another overbooked flight to another place I wasn't going to (San Antonio), 3 hours of driving (Dallas to Austin) that included someone nearly ramming into us on the highway...and we made it to Austin at 12:45 last night...15 hours after I left my house. Insert sigh o' relief here.

I've spent the day chatting and watching panels at SXSW to get ideas on people who can participate in FMC conferences in the future, to actually watch some panels and learn from them - something I don't get to do at our events, and to get a sense of what people are interested in learning.

This afternoon's panels included an interesting one on "Selling Music As a Service." No doubt webcasts will be available in a few days here. The concept of treating music as a service instead of as a product is hardly a new one these days. It feels like the topic du jour, much like pro- and anti-DRM debates were a few years ago. The question that inevitably comes up is "what is the future?"

If I could have the perfect world of musical discovery, what would it be? Would ownership of the music matter? There's certainly an allure to the idea of having the world's entire musical library at your fingertips from one device for you to access at any time for a fee. Portability of whatever system would be key for me. But giving up the idea of ownership would also be a shift in thinking. Our music and other collections define us in so many ways because they're indicative of who we are or were and what we deem or did deem worthy of spending money on or not tossing. What would replace that identification process? Would we have to (wow) go back to talking to each other and not making snap judgments based on that one Celine Dion or Backstreet Boys release that mars an otherwise worldly, eclectic and hip music collection?

I'm off to dinner - possibly to a benefit concert for a documentary called Body of War and My Morning Jacket later tonight and as many other bands as I can see in between now and when I collapse. By the way, NPR is webcasting and broadcasting MMJ as well as Vampire Weekend, and Yo La Tengo and R.E.M. last night.