As you may recall, Roger Maris
purchased 61 compact discs when he visited Seattle in 1961. I am happy
to announce that I beat his record by acquiring 63 during my recent trip. I would normally lay
them all out on the floor and take a picture, but I don't have a room
large enough, so here's a picture of them lined up in a yellow DJ
case. You can zoom in on the titles if you're into that kind of thing.
Beth and I went to see the Swell Season a couple nights ago. You remember the Swell Season, don't you? They're Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard from that movie Once. Everybody was talking about them last year. Add those two to Glen's old band, the Frames, and you've got the Swell Season. That's musical math right there.
The opening act was a guy named Thomas Bartlett who has unfortunately saddled himself with the horrible name, Doveman. I went in hating him just because of his stupid name. He turned out to be really good, though. He played five originals off his new CD, The Conformist. He also played a medley of songs from the soundtrack to Footloose. Good stuff all around.
What can I say about the Swell Season? I don't know. I guess it makes me happy that people who make good, quality music have had so much success. I went to Target this afternoon and saw about 130 copies of Rihanna's new one for sale. I got all depressed that shit like that is being pushed upon the listening public. Then I saw that Target was also selling the new Swell Season CD. That's how much success they've had over the last couple of years; you can buy a copy of Strict Joy at Target. It almost makes me feel like there's a tiny bit of hope for the world.
But anyway, we saw the concert at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. It's a fantastic venue and featured some of the most crisp sound I've heard in a long time. Unfortunately, the acoustics meant you could hear everything...including the crazy lady who ranted for about five minutes right before Glen's solo mini-set. I don't know what the fuck she was going on about, but she was clearly nuts. Glen played along with her for awhile, but eventually had enough and told her husband, "You've gotta do something about your lady." He said it in a friendly way, though. I think he was probably afraid of getting stabbed after the show. That was one of the strangest things I've ever witnessed at a concert. Almost ruined it for me.
Actually, now that I think of it, a lot of things happened at the concert that would normally ruin the evening for me. People laughed when Glen Hansard played a Glen Campbell song. "Rhinestone Cowboy" isn't funny. "Rhinestone Cowboy" kicks ass. Quit your laughing, you morons! That right there would normally be enough to sour an evening for me.
Also, there were far too many audience sing-alongs. I don't want to hear the rube sitting behind me belting out "High Horses". I want to hear Glen and Marketa (and maybe some Frames) sing it. And yet, I didn't really mind that Glen gave the audience parts in three or four of the songs. I even sang very quietly to the last song of the evening. It's like aliens had control of my brain.
And then there was my usual least favorite concert occurrence...when the band brings someone I've never heard of up on the stage. It's usually an audience member who gets to shake a tambourine or sing off-key background vocals. This time it was a busker named Shannon Jay (or J. or Jae) who Glen had discovered earlier in the day singing Dylan over by the downtown J. Crew. He not only brought her up on the stage, but he and the rest of the band left and let her sing a song all by herself. This woman was ballsy, too. She didn't play a Dylan cover...she played her own original five minute ballad called "The Sailor Boy". She was pretty damn good, too.
All that annoying crap took place over the course of one concert and I didn't even care. It didn't ruin my night even the slightest bit. I had a great time. It was one of the best shows I've seen all year. Still, I kind of wish they hadn't laughed so hard at Glen Campbell.
Here are the setlists for the evening:
Doveman's Set: The Best Thing/Memorize/Angel's Share/The Burgundy Stain/Footloose Medley (Footloose/Let's Hear It for the Boy/Almost Paradise)/Castles
The Swell Season's Set: Fallen From the Sky (Glen & Marketa duet)/Lies (Glen & Marketa duet)/Low Rising/In These Arms/The Rain/The Moon/If You Want Me/Fantasy Man/(crazy lady rant)/Say It To Me Now (Glen solo)/Leave (Glen solo)/Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell cover/Glen solo)/Back Broke (Glen solo)/Astral Weeks (Van Morrison cover/Glen solo)/The Count of New Town (performed by Colm Mac Con Iomaire)/Rise/I Have Loved You Wrong/Once/When Your Mind's Made Up
The Swell Season's Encore Set: Falling Slowly/The Sailor Boy (performed by a busker)/High Hope/High Horses/Breathing Out (performed by Doveman)/Red Cord-->A Parting Glass (Clancy Brothers cover)
And here are some pictures and scans relating to the evening:
Here are the new concert posters I've acquired since I wrote my original post.
The Guided By Voices poster was a particularly good find as that was one of my most memorable shows. Robert Pollard threw unopened beer cans into the audience (overhand), and the show ended with about 40 fans dancing around on the shaky Southgate House stage. The Yo La Tengo concert was also a good one, but I still haven't discovered the title of the mysterious ba-ba song that opened the show. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and worry about it.
I might be able to get another concert-specific poster at tonight's Swell Season show. It'll probably depend on what time I get there. Oh look, here it is:
I know two things. The first is that it's probably too early in the year to start making a Christmas list. The second is that at 35, I'm far too old for a Christmas list in the first place. Well, I don't care about either of those things. To me, Christmas is about maximizing my pile of quality presents (while minimizing my own gift-related monetary outlay). Greed knows no age limits, and it's never too early to start elbowing my friends and family in the right direction. I have learned over the years that people need time to do their shopping and if I don't tell them exactly what I want, then I end up with plastic plants or a novel written by Jimmy Buffett. So here it is, my Christmas list for 2009.
I recently found the following items hidden between the pages of books. I guess the previous readers forgot to remove their bookmarks. The ticket stub was found in a used copy of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The strange thing is that I actually attended the concert in question. The picture of the woman and her dog was found in the copy of My Abandonment I checked out from the library. The laminated picture of Edie was found in a collection of Stephen King short stories. Spooky.
What can I say.... I have the most amazing job ever! I've had a couple of amazing opportunities the last couple of months - to photograph celebrities in DC and, more recently, in Philadelphia.
I have a long history of going to see bands just to hear one specific song performed live. I saw the Cardigans just to hear "Lovefool". I saw Cornershop just to hear "Brimful of Asha". I had albums by those bands, though, so I was actually familiar with more than one song at the time of the show. It's just that I liked that one song so much that I had to go hear it live. Well, I've taken it a step further by going to see a band based solely on the one and only song of theirs I'd ever heard. I'm talking about the band Girls and their song "Lust for Life". It's my favorite pop song of 2009.
Girls played in Seattle on Tuesday night with another San Francisco band, Dominant Legs. I must admit here that I sort of liked Dominant Legs more than Girls. They're an unsigned band, but they're incredibly endearing and they've got a good, catchy sound. The guy stands around and dances like it's the 80s. The girl stands around and pretends to play the keyboards. They've got five demos on their website, but they haven't officially released anything yet. My favorite of the demos is called "Young at Love and Life". It has a Stuart Murdoch-y sound to it. They made an ultra-lo-fi video for another of their songs. It's full of slam dunks, jump ropes, and one horrific mullet.
Here's the setlist for Dominant Legs. I made up titles for the songs they haven't posted yet; those titles are the ones in quotation marks:
Dominant Legs Setlist: Young at Love and Life/Just Silly Ones/"a messy house"/"I have denied myself"/About My Girls/Clawing Out at the Walls/Loving Now/"it's not like it was when we were kids" (band version)
Girls was also good, but they went on a bit too long and got kind of sleepy-sounding at the end. They played "Lust for Life", though, so I left with a smile on my face. Unfortunately, they left out the song's ba-bahs, so my smile was slightly crooked.
Girls Setlist: Laura/Ghost Mouth/Heartbreaker/Headache/God Damned/Solitude/Summertime/Darling/Lust for Life/Hellhole Ratrace/Morning Light/"dreams of you" (Ralph McTell cover???)/Lauren Marie
Encore Solo Set: "it's getting cold again"/"we're in love and it's nobody's business"/Broken Dreams Club
Oh, here are my usual concert-related pictures and scans:
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
