Sunday, February 18, 2007

Happy Chinese New Year


It's the year of the Golden Pig- Happy 4704!

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Lily Allen at 9:30 Club


Friday night, I went to see Lily Allen in a sold out show at the 9:30 Club. I had a great time.
The opener was Baltimore DJ Aaron Lacrate - I think mp3s should not be used for djing because the sound quality of his set was crap- the 9:30 has fantastic sound, and it sounded like a blown speaker was playing during his set.
Lily Allen was really impressive. I love her voice and the fact that her music has rocksteady and ska beats. She pretty much did all the songs from her debut record, Alright, Still, and to fill the rest of the set she did some pretty great covers of Keane's "Everybody's Changing", The Kooks' "Naive", and The Specials' "Blank Expression".

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Vetiver and Vashti Bunyan at Rock & Roll Hotel


Last night, I went to a venue that opened last year in DC, the Rock & Roll Hotel, to see, again, Vetiver and Vashti Bunyan. The space was pretty nice, and the sound was good at low volume, but when they cranked the system, it was just ok.
I caught the last part of the opener Vandaveer from DC. They were alright- his songs were nice.
Vashti Bunyan then played. She was so soft spoken on stage, but her songs were nice. Accompanying her were some of the musicians from last week's Carnegie Hall show as well as the cellist from the Espers.



Vetiver followed, and they were pretty great. They started by playing a fantastic song by Bobby Charles. Andy Cabic said that the album it's on is not in print, but that the record was produced by Rick Danko and had members of the The Band on it.
Vetiver played a more mellow set at the Carnegie Hall show, but last night, they rocked out more, which was pretty great.

Monday, February 05, 2007

My Fav Superbowl Spot


GPS POWER!

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Ennio Morricone at Radio City Music Hall


Last night, I was lucky enough to go to the North American debut of famous soundtrack composer and pending honorary Acadamy Award recipient Ennio Morricone. Performing with him was the Roma Simfonietta and a chorus of about 100 singers. They played a lot of his "greatest hits" including music from The Mission, The Untouchables, and The Sicilian Clan. However, by far, the highlight of the evening was his medley of music from the westerns of Sergio Leone.

Welcome to Dreamland at Carnegie Hall

Friday night, I went to my first concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall to see a show curated by David Byrne called Welcome to Dreamland. The concert was his introduction to the Weird America - Freak Folk scene that has been around in the last few years.
I sat in front of Jonathan Demme, too.





First up was CocoRosie. I didn't get any pics of them, but I have blogged about them before. Sierra Cassady sounded amazing with the Carnegie Hall acoustics. They brought along Spleen to back them up, and the crowd really responded to their set. They played a few new songs that sounded good.

Cibelle, the Brazillian singer, then sang one song on her own before the next act, Adem played his set.

Adem
was really good. He definitely fell more into the tradition of British Folk. I liked that he did his song "Spirals"- it's one of my favorites. He had Vashti Bunyan sing his song "Pillow", and it was really beautiful.

Up next was psychedelic country rock band Vetiver. They played a nice downtempo set, and I can't state enough how the acoustics of Carnegie Hall really made these artists sound amazing.


Vashti Bunyan followed, and she was really good. Highlights were when she played "Diamond Day" and "Lately".


Last up was Devendra Banhart. This was my first time seeing him and he was pretty amazing. He played songs ranging in style from folk to a Portugese song to an all out psychedelic rock jam. His guitarist was pretty amazing as well.

The show ended with David Byrne and all of the artists in the show coming out and singing a Moondog song, "Be a Hobo". All in all, it was a really amazing event to have seen.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Orange Snow

Shoot- so sorry to people who stumble upon this blog for the scarcity of posts in January.
I promise to be better about blogging this month.
Did anyone read about the orange snow in Russia. The report is that the snow in the Omsk region of the country came down orange and yellow!?!
The snow also supposedly formed oily pools, and smelled terrible.
No word on the cause, but I got a sneaking suspicion some butthead trying to make a buck is behind this.