listen.

Arms with Hospitality: this saturday in alphabet city

Though this may sound like an etiquette course on appropriate arm gestures to use while greeting guests into your home, it's ACTUALLY going to be a really good show on Avenue B this weekend.

Todd Goldstein, self-described "Brooklyn-based mid-20s-type" (we already like where this is going) better known as Arms, plays the ukulele, guitar and various other instruments, and sings in a quirky, beautiful voice that at first reminds me a tad of Michael Stipe, then gets progressively more unique and unplaceable.  I stumbled upon this video of him playing the brilliant song "Kids Aflame" live in Prospect Park:

To hear what he does with this song in the studio rather than a tunnel in the park:

Arms - Kids Aflame

It will be the title track from Todd's forthcoming album, due on June 8.

This Saturday, he's playing at Midway (now called rehab apparently): 25 ave B @ 2nd St, NYC, 9pm.

Hospitality will be playing as well -- also Brooklyn-based, they're a quartet operating in a quaint chamber-folk realm reminiscent of early Belle & Sebastian and the like, with lyrics that wouldn't be out of place on Tigermilk or If You're Feeling Sinister: "You're the only girl on the team, you don't golf, you don't smoke, you don't understand the jokes" from Betty Wang, below.  It appears as though they're doing a little residency at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg right now, playing every Thursday night.

Hospitality - Betty Wang

and now for some links:
Arms website / Arms on myspace / Hospitality on myspace

see you saturday?
xoBen

Blue Monday* redux

Before we begin – let me say that I am quite a happy fellow lately.

It’s just this rain.

These gray skies and wet sidewalks.

It just begs me to fall down the (aforementioned) rabbit hole of somber folk and blues.

And fall I do – gladly.

Blues run the game, Jackson C Frank

It doesn’t get much sadder than this man’s life. And this song is just so gorgeous.

"wherever you go, the blues are all the same."

Basically his school furnace blew up – covering his adolescent body in burns, he started playing the guitar, moved to new york, and was drawn into the folk coffee house scene of Greenwich village  - then he came into money through an insurance settlement – and moved to London, released an album – which never caught on in the US – his money ran out so he had to go back to nyc and fell into a deep depression and was then cripple with stage fright.
Broke, he lived on the streets, eventually he grew very unhealthy and became a ward of the state.
A fan found him in a housing project in the Bronx and took him to woodstock, ny where he started to sing and write songs again. he died in 1999.  i mean, the man has a right to sing the blues.

fountains of sorrow, joan baez
the title says it all.  If this isn’t an evening-commute-ipod-on-repeat kinda song – I don’t know what is.

both sides, now – joni mitchell
My good friend rebecita brought this song into my life.  And shortly after being introduced to it i listened to it whilst smokin grass – and my body almost shut down. i don't listen to joni stoned anymore.  talk about a coming of age song. 

court and spark – joni mitchell
my dear friend/collaborator jesica brought this album into my life. And I am ever so grateful.

that’s a nice trend – wonderful woman bringing the wonderful joni Mitchell into my life.

Ne Me Quitte Pa, jaques brel
literlally translated it means – do not leave me – but the English version of the song is called IF YOU GO AWAY. which works – but I think do not leave me is more tragic – it’s really desperate. – especially repeated at the end.  my french pen pal, lo, sent this to me. he's filled my ipod with a lot of great music -- expect a paris-post soon...

-----------------

my knowledge of classic rock and musical tastes were heavily defined by my parents - my mom's peter, paul and mary and donovan albums (not to mention linda ronstadt and sinatra) - my dad always listening to jethro tull and the stones (and some patsy cline or hendrix) -our family taking a drive while listening to loggins and messina or gordon lightfoot.   one artist they never listened to all that much was neil young, i am not sure why - they just didn't; or they did - but i don't remember it.  as i've grown, and my tastes have matured into my own, i've folded all sorts of new genres and artists into the mix.  for whatever reason, neil young never found it's way into my music library. then this cute guy, named sean, started playing him for me -- and i am really digging it.

one day, sean and i were on our way to the MoMA and we wandered down into the york street station to hop on the F.  the platform was empty - save for one dude waiting for the train and a subway musician (an "official" one, with the MTA sign, etc.) sitting on the bench - singing harvest moon. he was really good - and the york station is so unique and the song is so beautiful - it was like a scene out of some less polished looking wes anderson movie. definitely a moment when i was very happy to be living in this city.

harvest moon, neil young

have i posted this song:

ticket to ride, the carpenters

i mean, really? just the saddest cover of this song ever, ever, EVER. if a sadder one exists - i shan't listen to it. my head might implode.  "i think i'm gonna be sad, i think it's today."  mateo, for better or worse, emailed it to me one day - and i really appreciate it.

and what somber rabbit hole would be complete without a little indigo girls?

ghost, indigo girls.

"And the mississippis mighty
But it starts in minnesota
At a place that you could walk across
With five steps down
And I guess thats how you started
Like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me
And I start to drown"

enough said.

 

and for good measure - here's the wonderful rosemary clooney:
blues in the night, rosemary clooney

i love music. 

to prove i don't ONLY listen to sad music -- i'll post happy stuff tomorrow.

enjoy

g

*yes, it's tuesday. i was supposed to post this yesterday - but, you know, sometimes you just don't get around to it....

 

more live music!

okay, so it's been kind of a live music binge here at listen. lately.  as you know, we saw sleeping states and horse feathers (twice) last week.  in case you missed it, here are some photos:

sleeping states at mercury lounge, 10.08. how cute is markland?

horse feathers at knitting factory, 10.09.

horse feathers at silent barn, 10.10.

anyway, all of these shows were totally awesome, and i'm not going to shame you for not being there, but i will say you missed out.

but there's going to be ANOTHER totally awesome show this tuesday night at the living room. and i think it's free!

at 11:30 (late for a school night, i know) Jennifer O'Connor is playing.  Now, when i was just a young buck, fresh off the train from Idaho, I spent a lot of time at the metropolitan, which for those of you who don't know (who are you?), is a gay bar in williamsburg. (that sentence sort of makes it sound like i don't still spend a lot of time at the metropolitan, which may or may not be the case.)  well, i quickly made friends with my favorite bartender, this awesome chick named Jennifer. we talked a lot, i bitched to her about stupid guys that broke my heart, etc etc. Well, i knew she played music, and then the next thing I know she gets signed to Matador and is like this hot-shi* indie folk rocker. so that's kind of awesome, and she's totally awesome, and her music is totally awesome. so listen up:

Jennifer O'Connor - Sister
this is a really sad, honest, kind of deceptively upbeat song about losing her sister. 

i know a lot of people are haters on the indigo girls these days, and frankly i haven't heard like their last 3 records, but i used to be obsessed with them (there. i said it.), and in some of Jennifer's stuff I hear shades of earlier Amy Ray in top form.  like this next one!

Jennifer O'Conner - Exeter, Rhode Island

and one of the earlier performances tomorrow night is Hotel Lights, which incidentally is the ex-drummer for Ben Folds Five.  I'd never heard of Hotel Lights, but i checked it out and it's really great, so I'm excited to see him.

Hotel Lights - Small Town Shit

(there's more to listen to on his website, i highly recommend listening to you come and i go.)

in subway ad news, i really wanted to share with you all my own personal favorite ad these days which is the new manhattan mini storage ad featuring a painfully attractive mostly naked man that either cheers me up or makes me angry, depending on my mood, but i cannot for the life of me find a digital image of it to post.  so the next time someone sees it, can they take a photo with their phone for me? thanks.

>ben

live! music! tonight! in brooklyn! awesome!

so, yeah, as geo mentioned we've been on a live music blitz so far this week, and it's been totally awesome.

monday night we saw sleeping states, who i've seriously been waiting for ages to see, at mercury lounge. and he's so good!  and kind of surprisingly experimental. he did a lot of crazy guitar business, tapping the strings and pressing odd contraptions against them to make all kinds of discord. and, incredibly, he even did that dionne cover i'm obsessed with:

and a pretty song called london fields:

and then last night, horse feathers really kind of blew us away. and i know i might be biased because the frontman Justin Ringle is a friend from high school and we had the same summer job during college processing frozen peas at twin city foods in lewiston, idaho, but seriously, it was one of the best live shows i've seen in a long time. a really intimate space (at knitting factory tap bar) and they were just really on. Aside from Justin on lead vocals and guitar, Heather Broderick was on cello, celeste and backing vocals, Sam Cooper on banjo and backing vocals, and Nathan Crockett on violin and saw. all the arrangements i thought were really terrific, faithful to the album (Words Are Dead) but fleshed out and adapted beautifully and simply.

here's them playing Dustbowl.

And get this: they're playing tonight out at this loft in Ridgewood called Silent Barn (off the Halsey L-stop) with Karl Blau, another Northwesterner.  I like this song of his.

Karl Blau - My Johnny

I'll be there tonight.  Who wants to come?

>ben

Wed 7:03 pm December 31, 1969

that would be the date my ibook claims it is. 
a minute after i turned her on a sign popped up telling me my date and time MIGHT not be correct
a new window then popped up asking me if i would like to restore to my previous "firefox session"

which i guess was way back in 1969, the glory days of fire fox as it were.

also, doesn't "firefox session" sounds dirty?

regardless:
RHAPSODY IN BLUE!
and new york city...

now - it took my love for the song to investigate what, in musical terms, is a rhapsody.

and folks: a rhapsody is:
A one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation make it freer in form than a set of variations.
(thanks wikipedia!)

now -- gershwin wrote rhapsody in blue in the hopes of capturing all the different sounds one encountered as they moved about the neighborhoods of this city.  he was this guy from tin pan alley living uptown composing scores and songs rapidly.  and they were about this city.  it's amazing.  have you seen the fanatasia 2000 that uses this piece and partner it with animation inspired by al hershfield?  it's worth a viewing.


so here is rhapsody in blue....
george gershwin -- rhapsody in blue
(leonard bernstein and the the LA philharmonic)

and (further down) a little walt whitman - who also captures the voice of this city.

and a few more songs that also contains moments of life here (for me).
some specifically reference the city and others fit (in my mind).

So, listen to these songs, read the poems. do both, or: one or the other OR niether (the less good option)

life is on the sidewalk.

ani difranco - both hands (with a symphony orchestra)

now, some of you may have rolled your eyes when you read "ani difranco."

but, listen: it's epic, and i know we have all painted the walls of an apt white, especially an apt where we shed some blood, sweat and tears.

magnetic fields - i'm the luckiest guy on the lower east side.

can't you just picture the movie musical scene this song would inspire?

(i would post chelsea morning -- but i've posted two versions already ((better slow my role)))

Nick Drake - Poor Boy

i love this song!  i like how the voice and the piano react to one another. then the saxophone? you gotta love lisa simpson. and those back up singers...

jethro tull - skating away on the thin ice of a new day.
listen to the man who stands on one leg to play the flute with his rock band:
So as you push off from the shore,
Wont you turn your head once more --- and make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay,
Will live just one more day ---
To do the things they should have done.

that almost sounds like a quote on a lame journal in barnes and noble.

but jethro tull makes it work

the clientele - here comes the phantom
ben introduced me to the clientele. so we're coming full circle on this one!
but...sigh. this song?

this is such a good song to listen to as you ride around on your bicycle.... on some saturday when you don't have to be anywhere.

my heart is playing like a violin...

panda bear - take pills
it's like the beach boys smashed into a thick glass wall of animal collective. but it's just panda bear.

and make sure you wait for the shift  that happens around 2:28 -- STELLAR!

also: CYCLISTS!

they are going to build a copenhagen-style bike lane on ninth ave!

also -- on friday sept 21 - there was ticketing blitz to riders getting on and off the williamsburg bridge on the manhattan side. so watch out. the cops big thing was "obstructing traffic"  - personally i think at that specific HORRIBLE patch of nyc street most cyclists are just trying to stay alive and cross the street in the :7 second walk light they get -- not sure if they obstruct traffic.  it's just so dangerous and poorly designed and there is no choice but to brave it -- so to get ticketed is maddening.

in terms of bridges...

simon & garfunkel - the 59th st. bridge song.

our music teacher in preschool, music mary, would make us sing this song. i always think of that.

(poems 19 and (part of) 20 of song of myself)

     19

  This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
  It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments
     with all,
  I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
  The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
  The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
  There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

  This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of
     hair,
  This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
  This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
  This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

  Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
  Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the
     side of a rock has.

  Do you take it I would astonish?
  Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
     through the woods?
  Do I astonish more than they?

  This hour I tell things in confidence,
  I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

     20
  Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;

-----

  I know I am solid and sound,
  To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
  All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

  I know I am deathless,
  I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
  I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
     stick at night.

  I know I am august,
  I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
  I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
  (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
     after all.)

  I exist as I am, that is enough,
  If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
  And if each and all be aware I sit content.

  One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
  And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
     million years,
  I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

  My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
  I laugh at what you call dissolution,
  And I know the amplitude of time.

 

love is (not so) simple

somehow i missed the precise moment that this album came out, so i'm a little over a week behind here, but the new Akron/Family outing, Love is Simple, has spent the last few days blowing me away.  It also has one of the more beautiful album covers I've seen in a while:

it kind of sums up the whole album, that delicate, vulnerable, complex beating heart, just floating there in a void of white.

anyway. it's all about love. love. love. and it's wonderful and heartbreaking and optimistic and full of surprises and deceptively complex.

the album is bookended by two versions of its anthem, "Love Love Love (everyone)", entreating its listener to go out and do just that. please do. listen, and then do.  Love everyone!  Here's the opener:

Akron/Family - Love, Love, Love (everyone)

my other favorite track features the album title in singalong:
...
don't be afraid, it's only love
love is simple
don't be afraid, you're already dead
love is simple
...

Akron/Family - Don't Be Afraid, You're Already Dead

i first listened to this song on the subway on my ipod and had the inspiration that if i were ever to make a music video of this song, it would start on the subway, morning commute, people annoyed and tired and crowded, during the don't be afraid part. and then when "love is simple" comes in, people would slowly start singing, until the whole subway car was repeating "love is simple" with smiling joyful faces. and then during "don't be afraid, you're already dead", the train would pull into union square, everyone would get off the train and run up the stairs, and for the final "love is simple" repetition, everyone would emerge into union square, the sun would be shining, and EVERYONE would be smiling, and singing "love is simple" and holding each other, and loving each other. the entire video would all be one shot, and at the end the camera would rise above them all high into the sky, and look down on a union square full of singing, smiling, loving people.

can someone please give me $3 million to make that?  please?

here's my favorite song from their 2005 debut.
Akron/Family - I'll Be On The Water

They're playing this Sunday at Bowery Ballroom (click if you want to see them all in their swim trunks).

Buy the new album here please.

love, love, love everyone,

xoben

Brooklyn of ample hills was mine

hey you kings of maine and princes of new england!

sometimes the universe will clearly set your post up for you.
(you thought the universe had bigger things to work towards aligning than a post on a small music blog? you thought wrong...)

so i saw one million forgotten moments this past weekend, and it was truly wonderful.

in my opinion, an amazing and exciting celebration of this city full of millions of different ideas and voices all running into and around each other on the blocks and parks of this city while we try to not get hit by a bus or a taxi.  stopping only to sing or dance or for a little slight of hand.  or, as only could happen here, to pull a chicken wing out of your bra, rub it on your butt, then eat it, with eyeballs painted over your eyelids as a record plays and bubbles blow and your friend wiggles his penis whilst another pours salt on her breast. for real. it was kind of hilariously amazing.

anyway! on my seat as i entered the beautiful little theatre, was a walt whitman quote.  from time to time i get quite obsessed with reading walt whitman.  in many ways i find his poetry unparalleled (in terms of american poets, but how much american poetry have i read? i plead the fifth)
regardless here is the quote:

Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edged waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!

(it is from CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY. i suggest reading the whole thing.)

anyway - as i rode home along the east river - i kept thinking about that quote and this river and this city. and then i saw a man fishing and i thought, dear god, please tell me you don't eat something that lived in this river.  then i almost hit a chinese lady jogging backwards.

i digress.
so this fall at listen. we shall spend a lot of time sharing music and the poetry of WALT WHITMAN!

so get ready for it.
here's a video to prepare for it.

(it's kinda not safe for work. well, there are a few naked people shown briefly)
but it's funny - it makes me laugh, at any rate. and i like the walt whitman chorus.

it's by MY ROBOT FRIEND (5 points to anyone who can figure out who they are.)

SO what music to begin it with?!?!?!

well. i asked my friend mateo to send me some john denver tunes to post and talk about them and this is what he wrote:

Rocky Mountain High is a beautiful description of an epiphany that the narrator experiences in his 27th year.  Similar to the type of spiritual insights Walt Whitman described in "Leaves of Grass" (oh yes!), John Denver sings beautifully and simply about being born again, seeking grace in every step, and getting high with his friends around a campfire.

Here's a picture (of Denver).

Love,
Mateo

SEE! the universe! whitman! rocky mountain high! it's all so clear!

ENJOY!!!
as whitman wrote:
  I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;

Leaving On A Jet Plane.mp3

Rocky Mountain High.mp3

Take Me Home Country Roads.mp3

g

you didn't even know you WANTED a laidback late summer d-d-dance jam

but then Junior Senior charmed you with their new single, Can I Get Get Get, from their new album Hey Hey My My Yo Yo!  (word repetition theirs, exclamation point mine).  If you're skeptical at first, stick around for the glorious shimmery harmonies in the chorus at 0:38. they just might win you over. this song makes me want to throw a burger (local grass-fed beef please) on the barbecue, crack open a Corona™, and start an impromptu patio dance party. too bad i don't have a patio or a barbecue. or even a Corona™, at the moment. One can always dream.

Junior Senior - Can I Get Get Get

For the video, apparently they invited their fans (I don't remember getting the memo, but oh well) to make home-made videos to the song and send them in, and then they edited their favorites together. here 'tis.

Does that guy on the Williamsburg Bridge look familiar to anyone else?

Also, just FYI, the little guy at the very beginning is "Junior" who I think plays most of the instruments, and the guy in the letterman's jacket in the desert is "Senior" who does most of the singing.  And likes dudes.

These two sang about their charming gay-straight pairing on their last album.

Junior Senior - Chicks and Dicks

<

Which sort of reminds me of when I was in a lo-fi duo (for about 5 minutes in '03) in Lewiston, Idaho with my friend Shon.  We called ourselves 100m Dash and did mostly covers, but we had a theme song which Shon wrote called Sorry, Ladies.  The chorus, sung by shon, went: "sorry ladies, i've got a girlfriend, and he likes your boyfriend."  we thought that was pretty clever.

Now.  Word on the street is that some people in my social circle aren't CRAZY about Can I Get Get Get, and for you, I offer another dance masterwork from another Scandinavian glorious shimmery pop outfit, also about wanting to explore something a bit further with someone who maybe doesn't seem quite as interested.  I have no idea what that must be like.

Abba - Take A Chance On Me

>ben

speaking of somber covers...

When geo and I (and sean!) saw camera obscura at the seaport friday night, we were pleasantly surprised by the Brooklyn-based opening band, The Last Town Chorus.  At first we were perplexed by the fact that the entire band was seated, but then we realized that the frontwoman (Megan Hickey) plays the lap steel, which clearly requires her to sit down.  And when the frontwoman is sitting down, everyone else onstage better be, too.

They played a genius cover of David Bowie's modern love -- all countrified, slowed-down, gorgeous, and sultry.  Her voice makes me think of Cat Power and Joan as Police Woman, and that oozing lap steel calls to mind Brightblack Morning Light.  Good stuff.  Here's the album version of the bowie cover, from TLTC's new long-player, Wine Waltz.

The Last Town Chorus - Modern Love (David Bowie Cover)

And just for reference, here's Bowie's totally upbeat original.

David Bowie - Modern Love

And TLTC's ode to what might be my favorite non-homestate state, Oregon, from their first (eponymous) album.

The Last Town Chorus - Oregon

-ben

[Addendum: I was wrong. the TLTC Modern Love I've posted here is not the album version. It was recorded live on Minnesota Public Radio in May. Apologies. >b]