Monday, June 29, 2009 | by nathan

The Garden Show

When Brian and I first looked at our house in August of 2005, we knew we wanted to live in it when we came out the back door and saw the sunroom and gorgeously landscaped backyard. What I didn’t imagine is that fewer than four years later, the always-amazing K.C. Clifford would be doing a show in said backyard. Brian and I were honored that she’d do this for us, because we really support what K.C. and David do (and so should you. So should really you.)

What was fun about this show is that we not only got to set up a sound system and hear some excellent music just outside our sunroom on a somewhat-temperate summer night, but that we got to invite our friends, family and neighbors to come hear said music. Most of these people had not heard K.C. and David play before, and were righteously blown away. In fact, all I’ve heard from anyone who was there ever since was how much they enjoyed it.

We left the gate open, and neighbors came and went, and the music went on until almost 10 p.m. I had strung up our shortest tree with lights, and we had the lanterns on in the sun room. We had about 30 people there - maybe more.

The thing about the house concert is that anyone can do it, really. I think you should do it. I do - I think you should mow your grass, plant some great flowers, string up some lights and invite some fantastic musicians to come and play. Or, let’s say you don’t have a backyard. You clear some furniture out of your living room and set up some chairs and invite the artist to come and play there. There’s a great website to tell you how to do it all - ConcertsInYourHome.com. Really, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You get to support some musicians in your area who love to play to people and who could probably use the work and the income. You get to make super nice with your neighbors and friends, and have a really excellent time with it all. Bringing music into people’s homes is what the house concert movement is all about, really, reaching new listeners and fans one by one.

Friday, June 12, 2009 | by nathan

I Shall Call Him … Mini-Me

So, I need to tell you that I hate American Idol. I mean, I loathe pretty much everything it stands for. Now, full disclosure, I don’t hate all of the artists who have come out of American Idol; I pretty much dig Kelly Clarkson’s new album - or part of it, anyway - and I really dug Breakaway. I rather like Carrie Underwood so far, and I sorta want to have Jennifer Hudson’s baby. Still, the show gives birth to so much mediocrity that I find myself able to list only two artists it has birthed that I hate - Daughtry and Clay Aiken - and anyway, that it launches mediocre careers gives me no more reason to hate it than I have to hate most of FM Radio.

So all that is to say, I don’t like the show. I don’t watch the show. I used to enjoy the first few episodes of each season, when people who genuinely believed themselves to be talented stood before Randy, Simon and Paula and warbled like asthmatic donkeys before seeing their "dreams" crumble before them. Even that stopped being fun after awhile; you suddenly realize that every single person in America has "dreamed" of being a rock star at one time or another, and it’s very sad that some people never had that moment of dawning realization where they realized, "Hmm. I seem to have little or no musical talent. It’s possible that I should not be a rock star." The members of Nickelback seem to have missed this realization, for example, as did Ashlee Simpson.

So I didn’t watch this season, though you’d practically have to have been living in a cave not to have heard something about it somewhere. Still, I guess I’m cave-adjacent, because I’d never heard Adam Lambert sing or speak until this morning when he was on Good Morning America. And I’m just wondering if anyone else has caught on to this similarity: 

On the left, Idol runner-up Adam Lambert. On the right, Garth Brooks’ late-90s alter-ego Chris Gaines. Now, I haven’t really heard enough of these two gents’ music to compare them, but the physical resemblance is a little uncanny, no?

Monday, June 8, 2009 | by nathan

People, Dancing

We had a wonderful time at the Okemah Jazz Festival over the weekend. The music very rarely became even jazz-adjacent, however, which is fine. We got to hear Susan Herndon play, which was nice as I’ve heard her name, seen ads for her shows, and yet somehow never actually encountered her music:

My favorite part came during the act that followed Susan. They were a sort of soul/R&B/rock and roll group, and it wasn’t their music that made it the best part of the afternoon. Their music was fine, but the part of the show that had me enthralled was that I got to watch people dance, which is always a great thing to do. They were constantly calling on the crowd to come down and make use of the expanse of empty grass in front of the stage:

Now, I’m usually the kind of person that would rather die before I’d get up and dance by myself in front of a bunch of people. Be it at a bar, a wedding, a bar mitzvah - I don’t care, I don’t want to be the first person on the dance floor. Part of this is my natural aversion to being on stage or having people look at me in any way. But another part is that I don’t want to take away from what’s going on with the music; I don’t want to distract audience members away from the band. This lady didn’t have a single qualm about doing it, though; she’s living her life to the fullest:

She was the first one to start dancing, and after a few songs she was joined by a few other people. This lady in particular seemed to be enjoying herself:

I ran this photo through the "Seventies" filter in Photoshop, because, well - the haircut. Anyway, don’t tell me that if someone told you that this photo was taken in 1979 that you wouldn’t believe them. I kid, but seriously this lady was having a great time. Best among them all, though, was the little girl who danced down front during the whole set. We later found out she was the lead singer’s daughter:

Adorable, right? Seriously, keep on the watch for this one. She had the moves and was a natural performer. She’s going to be famous one of these days and I’m going to get a cease and desist order telling me to take down this photo.

These people were having a great time dancing, and though I was too self-conscious to join them I did have a grand time watching. I got to sit there with my Frozen Rose, which is this wonderful concoction they have at Grape Ranch that’s basically a red wine smoothie (I think we’ll be drinking them in Heaven). Seriously, those things are the best; they give you a neat little buzz and keep you cool. So even though I didn’t get up and dance, I have absolutely no regrets.

Thursday, June 4, 2009 | by nathan

Now I Need To Find A Mop!

This has gone around the world and back this week, but I’m going to go ahead and join in the party in case you haven’t seen it yet. There are a lot of "literal" versions of music videos out there, but this one is undoubtedly my favorite.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 | by nathan

Song Circle

So basically what people do at Kerrville is sit around in circles and play music. Most of this music is so good that you find yourself in gaping awe of it; occasionally there is some that’s so bad that you wonder if the songwriter had ever actually heard a song before picking up his or her guitar. This photo is a good depiction of the former, wherein K.C. and David (the MD of Pants) play her song "Redman" for Joe Crookston, who harmonized along after picking up the chorus. And so it goes; after K.C. finished her mainstage show we walked around listening to circles like this until about 3:30 in the morning.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 | by nathan

Martin & Co.

This guitar belongs to Joe Crookston, who I was thrilled to get to meet last weekend at Kerrville. Joe’s album, Able Baker Charlie & Dog, was awarded "Album of the Year" by the International Folk Alliance last year. I could’ve listened to him play all night long.

Thursday, April 30, 2009 | by nathan

We Interrupt This Interruption

I’m back from my blogging break soon. Brian and I are celebrating our four-year anniversary today and spending the next few days at Black Mesa.

Still trying to figure out why I have a blog; don’t worry, I’m not deleting it or giving up or anything, just trying to figure out where it fits into the rest of my writing life. I’m writing new GCN columns and it’s some of the most challenging, rewarding and best writing of my life. In general I’m inspired lately; trying to make sure the blog gets its appropriate share of that without taking over.

And given that I’ve received no fewer than half a dozen requests to talk about the whole Miss California-Perez Hilton thing, I may have a go at it, though I have to say, I don’t have much nice to say about either Perez Hilton OR Miss California, so.

In the meantime, comedian Paul Scheer (you may know him as Donny the Head Page from 30 Rock) visited the Michael Jackson Auction and came back with photos that might make it hard for you to sleep for the next week or so. Click the photo for more because OH MY GOD.

Monday, March 30, 2009 | by nathan

David Wilcox

On a frigid January night, a few days before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2000, I was piloting a Texas-plated Volvo down a West Virginia highway. My buddy Tish was in the passenger seat, our friend Jen asleep in the back, and we were pointed in the direction of Chicago, trying to make the 14-hour drive in a night. We’d agreed that one person would sleep, another would drive and the third would stay awake in the passenger seat, keeping watch to make sure the driver stayed awake, and in this way we made our journey safely.

Tish and I were trading stories and music. We’d bonded over a mutual love and admiration for Rich Mullins, and now we were branching out, and she asked me if I’d ever heard of David Wilcox. I hadn’t, I said; she pulled out her CDs, revealing the man’s entire catalog.

You know that music that is in your life, that you know you wouldn’t be the same without? It’s not the same as the stuff you just listen to, say, for fun, or for singing along in the car or cleaning the house. It’s in a world all its own, and it has shaped you. David Wilcox is one of those artists for me, up there with Patty Griffin and Mary Chapin-Carpenter and Rich Mullins, who not only challenge my creativity but taught me how to be a person in the world, how to cope with such great beauty and pain so often in such close proximity and in such blinding quantities. He came along at a time in my life - sorta like now - when I was questioning loudly what it meant to be a man, and it helped to have one here that I could relate to, even just in my stereo.

Anyway so on Friday I got to see David Wilcox perform live for the first time. I won’t waste time on a review except to say it was better even than I’d hoped, and I was blown away and humbled. Rock House Films in Dallas is a fantastic listening room, and David’s even better on guitar than what you hear on his recordings.

Anyway, David’s got a new record coming out on iTunes tomorrow; it’s called Open Hand and the songs he played from it the other night were fantastic. Meantime, here’s video of David playing one of my favorite of his songs, "Rusty Old American Dream:"

So - who are some of the musicians without whose art you wouldn’t be the same person?

UPDATE: David’s new album "Open Hand" is now available on iTunes Plus. I can’t really recommend it highly enough; "Red Eye," "Open Hand," "Outside Door," "Modern World" and "Captain Wanker" are delightful, and "Dream Again" is like the opposite of a protest song about the new administration. Fantastic.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 | by nathan

Come On Baby, Let’s Get Away. Let’s Save Our Troubles For Another Day.

Sweet Fancy Moses has it been a hectic couple-a weeks. For starters, Brian’s company raced inexorably toward their year’s biggest deadline. When people ask me what my husband does for a living, I tell them, "He makes the internet happen," which is almost unequivocally answered with the question, "WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS, AL GORE?" This, in turn, is followed by a loud laugh from the person making the joke and a blank, flat, dead-eyed stare from me.

So that happened. I’ve been dealing with a difficult situation in my life, one that has ruined my mood even on days when it was far away, and one which I’m handling but not with as much grace as I’d like. In addition I realized recently that someone from high school blocked me on Facebook, which doesn’t really bother me as it does just strike me as remarkably lame and passive-aggressive, but it’s okay, because if you’re reading this, which I’m sure you’re not, all I can say is, wow, you really showed me.

I think I can chalk all this rambly difficulty up to the fact that it’s February, which is my second-least favorite month of the year behind August. It would be my least favorite month except for the fact that it’s so mercifully short. It’s February every year when I decide that winter is not going to relent this time, that it’ll be cold and dark forever and that we’re all going to die soon. All of which would be true, except that I have a teaspoon of hope about Obama and the stimulus package, and I just designed next month’s banner for this website and I think it’s my best one yet. Also, in addition to two plane tickets from JFK to Dublin, I am also now the proud holder of a hotel room for the Fourth of July weekend in Washington, D.C. and, soon, a set of plane tickets that will get me all these fabulous places we’re going over the summer.

But it’s not enough that we’re planning to spend a week away from our lives and our country in July, because somehow we have ended up with tickets to see David Wilcox in Dallas over the last weekend in March. I can’t say for sure of course, but I’m reasonably certain that my life would be completely different if, on a random road trip over Martin Luther King weekend in 2000, my friend Tish hadn’t introduced me to David Wilcox. I’m pretty sure it would be very, very different. He and his music have had a profound impact on the person I’ve become in a way that not many artists have, and yet I’ve never seen him live. In addition to smiling like an idiot on LSD throughout the whole show, I also am considering knocking on every door in our hotel to see if he’s staying there, as the people who own it also seem to own the space where David will be performing.

As ever, we’ll be staying here:

Because, no matter how many times we go to Dallas we never get sick of lounging by their kickass pool. This year I’m going to try a Cucumber Collins or a blood orange martini and be nice and calm and relaxed and secreted away from all that currently stresses/bums me.

Prospects for future travel include a possible weekend at the Price Tower in Bartlesville, though that’s more of a work-type thing as I’m considering it for my current article series, and there’s a "literary" conference going on in Tulsa in April that I’m considering attending. I will tell you, though, that no matter where or when we get away, that once Daylight Savings time arrives (is over? I never know) that you will find a much calmer, more relaxed and well-adjusted person who will have miraculously survived his 29th February without shooting up a post office, and for no other reason than that, I deserve that damn drink.

Monday, January 19, 2009 | by nathan

So Long, Dubya (A Playlist)

It really is George W. Bush’s last day as President. Like, it really is. I cannot believe that that sentence is true, or the next one. Tomorrow, Barack Hussein Obama will become the President. Of the United States of America.

Squee.

It occurred to me today that music is what’s gotten me through so much of the awful Bush Regime. Earlier this year a good friend said to me, "There’s no good protest music being written now. There’s not a single good protest song that’s come out during the Bush administration." And I got to prove him so incredibly wrong by sharing some of the great songs that have gotten me through these times. Some of these songs are direct condemnations of The Current Occupant (though for less than 24 hours now!), while some of them are songs that have just helped me, personally, to put Dubya into perspective. This is by no means a complete list.

Anyway, here’s the playlist, (alphabetically by artist because I wanted to get this post written in a timely manner, which precludes arranging them as artfully as I’d like). All these links open into iTunes:

1. Bob Dylan - "The Levee’s Gonna Break"

2. Bright Eyes - "When The President Talks To God" (free on iTunes)

3. Bruce Spingsteen - "Radio Nowhere"

4. Cyndi Lauper - "Same Ol’ Story"

5. David Wilcox - "Good Man"

6. Derek Webb - "A Savior On Capitol HIll"

7. The Dixie Chicks - "I Hope"

8. The Flaming Lips - "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song"

9. Flobots - "Stand Up"

10. Johnny Cash - "Personal Jesus"

11. K.C. Clifford - "Supernaturally Blameless"

12. Mary Chapin Carpenter - "On With The Song"

13. Neil Young - "Let’s Impeach The President"

14. Pink - "Dear Mr. President"

15. Patty Griffin - "Up To The Mountain"

16. Sufjan Stevens - "Flint (For The Unemployed and Underpaid)"

17. U2 - "Pride (In The Name of Love)"

Those are some of the songs that are getting me out of the Bush years and into the Obama ones; what are some of yours?