Larry.org

So for the last two and a half years a close friend of mine and I have been working on a labor of love that is finally live.

It’s called Figment, and it’s a game for people that like to make up fake bands.

It was certainly a lot of work creating it, and now that it’s in actual use, it’ll be nice to see where it goes from here.

Now I just have to get all my fake bands into it

When I first joined the choir at the Church of the Beatitudes, our son David wasn’t born yet. We had just become members of the church, having decided to regularly go to church.

The first year in the choir I was not really sure what I was doing. I’d never sung before, but could read music well. Within two months of joining we sang the Requiem as we do every year for the All Saints Day service.

Well 4 years later, I’m much more comfortable singing in general, and certainly comfortable singing the Durufle again. This weekend we preformed the Durufle requiem again.

It was quite fun and I think the best the bass section has sounded since I started in the choir.

Seriously, you must do this in your lifetime.

I've seem him 4 times and he keeps getting better.

If you like Blues, Stunning Acoustic Guitar, Even More Stunning Lyrics.. well what the heck, just take my word for it ok?

Stunning Acoustic Guitar

Buy an album by him and listen to it. Or you could take one of his songwriting classes at McCabe's Guitar Shop.

Stunning Lyrics

one of my favorites is

though I've loved you for a long time, it can't be denied, someone sees the dreams we hide, the dreams we hide

From the song Hidden Love

what the heck

What else you going to do? Watch American Idol? Go see a show! Go see this guy specifically.. but really, shouldn't you be going to shows more anyway?

I had to study for a month to go to a rock concert. I mean, every day before the concert, my musical selections were predetermined, all so I could feel "ready" to go to a rock concert. This is probably the antithesis of rock-n-roll.

Let me explain. My husband is very musically inclined. I like music, but not as much as he does. He prefers music so much that he won't wake up to an alarm, but he will wake up to music. He will also wake up to me yelling, but that's not very melodic. However, it is song-like, in that it has several loud choruses, spaced about 7 minutes apart.

So, when the husband's new favorite band The Hold Steady was coming to town, on his birthday, we made plans. The plans included lining up Grandma for overnight babysitting, and booking the "Romance Package" at a local resort. So I had a quite a bit invested in the evening. I figured I'd better enjoy the music as well. So to do that, I had to listen to it. A lot.

My husband aided and abetted this effort by giving me an iPod Nano for Mother's Day. (We have a three-year-old son, so big ticket purchases are rare. Except if it is for him.) "You've needed an iPod for a while," he said. By chance (not), the first download included two Hold Steady albums.

So that's what I listened to, every day. In the car, Hold Steady. Doctor's waiting room, Hold Steady. At work, Hold Steady. At first my response was, "This is very loud and I don't understand the words." (Yes, I'm one of those type of music listeners.)

After looking up the words, I started to appreciate the songs. At first, I thought it was odd, since the band are guys in their 30s, singing about kids in their teens getting high and trying to deal with the Catholic version of God in Minneapolis.

Then I started to feel the common elements. I've been a teenager, I've been in my 30s. I grew up Catholic in the Midwest, and some of my family lives in Minneapolis, so I'm familiar with many of the local place references. I haven't ever gotten high, though. But I have gotten drunk. I can also appreciate a good turn of phrase, such as, "Shoes and socks, baby, socks and shoes. We spent the night last night in Newport News."

The night of the show arrives. We get to the hotel and drink the cheap champaign we get as part of the "Romance Package". We also enjoy the very large "executive" suite, complete with huge conference table. We were upgraded, since it is the dead of summer in Phoenix, and not much is happening in town. The hotel is literally 1 mile from our house, and I chose it because I wanted the fun to start as soon as possible when we left our driveway.

Many people that knew me in High School, especially my senior year, identify me with my enthusiasm for the music of The Police. They are still a band I enjoy today. I firmly believe that they are the best pop band that has ever existed.

I saw the Police live only once. By the time I became a fan they were quite popular, and I was only old enough to go to the concert by myself on the Synchronicity tour in 1983. A friend of mine Eric and I waited in line for two days to get the tickets. We ended up in the 13th row pretty much right in front of Sting's third of the stage.

You'll notice the Ticket cost $13.50. That's right. $13.50. An equivalent ticket to the upcoming police concert will likely cost you $325.00 (because you pretty much have to buy a membership in the "Police Fan Club" whatever that is) to get a shot at a seat this close.

Over the last two weeks I've received numerous emails from friends and family asking me about The Police Reunion Tour and if I'm excited. Frankly I'm a bit ashamed of what they are doing to the idea of The Police.

There's not much to say about how this Reunion Tour is at odds with what The Police were than to look at the ticket price.

$13.50 at their creative apex. $325 for all you kids today that wish you had a chance to see them 24 years ago.

I really enjoyed how they would tour Latin America when no other rock bands would go. I liked that, even if it ends up being "empty gestures" from a famous bunch of guys, they would try to cast attention onto the plight of the worlds poor in a constructive way. "One World, Not Three". I really dug that they were everyone one of them fantastic at their respective talents.

I can easily imagine seeing them on this tour. I would attend in ernest and forgive them the passage of time. Returned to his lead vocals and bass role, would in my mind instantly erase my sadness at the ridiculous turn Sting took his solo career in. My admiration for Andy Summers creativity, adventurousness and flat out courage as a guitar player would be more congenial when I would inevitably compare my own extra pounds with Andy Summers' aging frame. Probably the most amusing part about my imaginary attendance would be my discussing with anyone who would listen, that of all the band members, the girls we attended with were unanimous in their assessment that Stewart was the hottest member of the band.

Yet, the price of the ticket, such a simple thing.. makes it impossible for me to imagine any of that occuring. I can certainly afford to buy something that costs $325, but the exorbitant price devalues the show I saw and the Band I remember in a fundamental way.

I wish them all the best tour, and I'm sure a generation of fans that never got the chance to see them will have a great time. I'm certainly not going to resent that new fans can see such a great live band, and they will be great. Nor will I claim the band I saw was "better" because bands change and grow and it's just never the same river twice.

I guess the reason I'm not going to see the police is it would feel like buying a new memory to replace a very dear memory, and especially at the price, it's just not worth it.

I have an old post that included a compressed archive of a Wilco concert a friend of mine recorded a few years ago. Well I was showing someone the fun, and we noticed that the archive was corrupted, and that Windows has a bit of a fit with Tar.Gz files. So I’ve updated that post to link to the show compressed in the more Window’s friendly Zip format.

So blah, blah, blah.. here’s the new downloadable Wilco concert (note it’s ~94MB).

So, I love music. I don't have the time as a working adult to focus on it like I could as a young person. I miss that. One of my good friends started a music group, of which I'm a member. It's very fun.

One of the things we do is recommend bands and specific albums to each other. One of these bands that I've gotten in to directly from this experience is The Old 97s.

Most of the time I really enjoy just about any album that has real heart in it. In fact I can't tell you the last time I really hated an album and wasn't impressed with it's bravery and or commitment at the same time. The opposite of love is not hate, after all. It's indifference.

What really get's me excited about a band is how much a specific song captures me. It's that one song that turns me on to a band and then the whole thing opens up from there. The Old 97s have written such a song.

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I’ve been listening to chill electronica while I work for a couple years now, and it’s kind of hard to find good stuff in the genre, at least not without investing heavily in mix cd labels like Ministry of Sound et. al.

Lately I’ve been jamming to a podcast from Chill Syndicate and I highly recommend it.

I just bought a new album called Dog Problems from a local Phoenix band called The Format. It’s really, really bright pop, which I don’t hear very much these days. It’s sort of somewhere between Ben Folds Five’s first Album and Jellyfish’s first album. It’s quite fun.

There’s a band a family member of mine is in that I’m really enjoying. Maritime. I put a song on my mix cd from last year off of there Glass Floor album. This year they released an album called We, The Vehicles. I like it well enough to recommend it. Eric Axelson, is my sister in law Kristin’s Brother, so that makes him..my .. umm.. he’s related to me somehow. You may know him as the bass player from the now defunct Dismemberment Plan. The rest of the band is from The Promise Ring. Anyway, very poppy, very well written, great vocals. It’s really a very, very good album.

What else is new for me musically?

Collin Herring - The Other Side of Kindness. Released last year, just picked it up. Very eclectic but I really enjoy it.

Golden Smog - Another Fine Day. Kind of an all-star band, but interesting stuff!

The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed. I really am turning into a fan of this Barsuk label band.

I don't know why, but I guess about the third or fourth time I met Travis Morrison I realized I was being rude to him, and it was too late to stop.

After that I just kind of wrote it off, because, well... I don't know. I guess it's that sometimes in life there are some people you know you will only talk to very briefly, and you are pretty sure they are very different from you in terms of life experiences, and you just sort of don't click.. and then you are kind of frustrated about that, and then you try to figure out what the hell that's about and you just step all over yourself. So now you're embarrassed and if you mentioned to the other person, you know they'd think you were crazy, cause all of this happened in your head. You wind up pissed at yourself and you just want to forget the whole thing.

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Today Warren Zevon passed away. On the internet there are lots of posts from people remembering his talent, his voice, his passions.



I remember when Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School came out. A friend of mine played it for me and I thought it was ok. Not great, not bad, just ok.



It wasn't till years later that I really came to appreciate why Warren Zevon was different, why he mattered and why, to my surprise, I really liked his music.



I picked up his anthology a few years ago. I listened to it a few times. I liked it, the music is good. It's mostly his more popular tunes (I can't call them "hits" because only a few could be considered such). Anyway even now when I listen to just his music, I come away with the same reaction I had when I first listened to "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing Class". It's ok, not great, not bad.



But Warren Zevon, well he was great., not ok, not bad but great.. The guy had a voice, a creative courage and willingness to live his life on his terms that was very admirable. He wasn't a 'celebrity' he was a musician, an observer of life, and an iconoclastic 'excitable boy'. I'm going to miss him.

John Viega was nice enough to share it with me (which is ok because Wilco allows fans to tape their live shows and distribute copies of them).

I've gone ahead and created a tarball of the whole thing. It's in Apple's AAC format so you'll need a Mac running OSX and iTunes 4 or greater to listen to it. The sound is surprisingly good considering:

• Constitution hall is a pretty noisy venue


• John was 'toward the back'


• He was using a small portable recorder *

It's certainly good enough quality to enjoy though. He said it sounds as good as it does cause he turned the bass filter on. In fact he said it sounds better then he was hearing it in his seat.

You can download the whole concert here. It's ~94 MB so you should have a fast connection.

* It was recorded with a Sony DAT Walkman (don't make them anymore) and Core Audio microphones with a Bass Roll Off Filter.

If you haven't read a review of The Thorns cd go read one of those now. I don't care which one.


Many of the reviews I think are spot on. It's a good album, it's a refreshing sound, and a very promising collaboration. Not all the songs are good, but the ones that are, are great. I agree with all that.


What's nice about the album is that it's so damn pretty. It's rare enough to find musicians that can really write both great melodies and good lyrics. All three of these guys have demonstrated that in their solo careers. Together they are potentially much better then their solo gigs. One thing that I will say against the album is it sounds like they're not quite completely sure where they want to go. If they figure that out, and keep the song crafting up to this level, they could get really huge.


Lots of (well deserved) comparisons to CSN later, it makes you wonder why more people don't get airplay for simply pretty music. (These guys may be getting airplay actually, as I'm an old fart now, I don't listen to radio much.)


If you like the Jayhawks, CSN, or bands with great harmonies and acoustic guitars, you should check this one out.


Other albums I'm enjoying this week:

Clothesline Revival - Of My Native Land. A jazz, electronic, folk/roots album a friend lent me.

Tin Hat Trio - The Rodeo Eroded. Amazingly another jazz, electronic, folk/roots album (how could there be more than one!) that I bought cause i enjoyed Clothesline Revival so much. This one is a little more jazz oriented.

For my birthday a couple weeks ago I got a very nice surprise from a good friend of mine. Guadalcanal Diary's formerly out of print first two albums have (finally!) been rereleased on CD. The albums are called: Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man and Jamboree and are very good. In fact the first one ranks right up there as one of my favorite albums of the eighties.



Order it today!

At the beginning of the movie the song “Nature Boy” is sung. (“About a boy, a strange enchanted boy…. the greatest thing, you’ll ever learn, is to love and be loved in return”).
On the soundtrack, it’s credited to David Bowie. But I first heard it sung by Alex Chilton and Big Star. Alex Chilton is one of my favorite artists so I was wondering if it was actually written by Alex, or by David Bowie. Turns out neither of them is the original lyricist.
According to this page, Eden Ahbez wrote the song and Nat King Cole made it famous.

Trey Anastasio's solo album does not qualify as "Alternative and Punk".



In fact I'm not sure most of the albums I've received with this heading were not really "rock" but I suppose I'm just not into parsing every little category the way some people are. Why do we need all these categories anyway. I don't know a band that's qualified as "Emo" that likes it, for example. My brother in law's band, The Dismemberment Plan, is a good example of band that should be classified as a Rock band but isn't.



Side note - Electronic music is the worst too. What's the difference between Acid House and Drum N Bass? I'm sure someone out there can tell me but so what? It's enough to make Linux Distro's look organized. My iTunes library has I think 6 categories, and two of those are Comedy and Soundtracks (and I have about 1/3 of my CD collection in iTunes).



Trey Anastasio as either Alternative or Punk.. that's quite a stretch. So next time you are actually going to submit something to CDDB.. do us all a favor. Don't spend much time on this. Basically if an electric guitar is involved and the album is predominantly 4/4 time.. it's probably rock. So just call it rock and move on.

I could be wrong of course as most songs by you men involve not so much falling in love as expressing their love, which is certainly a good thing too.



At any rate Laura likes the song I Woke Up in a Car (by Something Corporate if you're curios).



It's a catchy little pop tune with nice crunchy chorus. Anyways I've heard it quite a few times as Laura really likes it. So I figured out what I think it's about.



It's about a young man pinpointing the moment he fell in love with America. Which is an admirable thing to be able to point to as most Americans just gradually realize they love this country and some don't really know if they love it or not. I suppose if I was pressed for I'd say it was about more specifically about a falling in love with the idea of America. Of course, if you ask the songwriter he'd probably say it was a song about getting laid and why his parents should get off his back. Which isn't really that much different to me, but what the hell do I know.



It is encouraging that a young band would write a song about something that didn't involve some aspect of their lives sucking. Nice little ditty.

So Laura clued me into a song called "Heaven Right Here" by Jeb Loy Nichols (she wants it on the Birthday CD I create for her every year). Turns out the whole album is really good. Kind of a 'roots/folk' sound mixed with a very James Taylor vocal style.



She also likes a song on last years Trey Anastasio solo cd (Phish band leader). So I was only too happy to pick up that CD for her. It's really good in a not quite Phishy way.

Caught this band on Letterman a few weeks back. Another Swedish band. Really solid album, "Behind the Music". It hits me as kind of a retro-album in the spirit of a sixties kind of aesthetic. Second track is really good. Still getting to know the rest of the record but no real bad songs on it and seems like it could grow on me.

Blinding glimpse of the obvious aside, I'd just thought I'd take a moment to log that "Lost In Space" is another excellent album from one of our best singer songwriters. You should buy it. In some areas it's a little quieter than her last couple efforts but where she succeeds on this one she really nails it. The Moth is my current favorite. Back to work!

So granted I'm not that up on new music anymore. And sure I'm an old fart that doesn't 'get' what the kids are diggin on today. But a couple nights ago I was watching Conan (at 9:00 PM on my TiVo, I don't stay up that late anymore) and there was a band from Detroit on called Ok Go.



It's nice to know that there's still a place in the world today for straight ahead Rock and Roll .



So earlier tonight I swung by Zia Records and asked if they had the album (see the kids today call them discs but to me they're still albums), but it's not due out till Sept. 17th. They did have, and gave me, the promo disk that has Get Over It on it (and some other track that's not nearly as good that sort of reminds me of The Knack, and I don't mean that in a good way). It sounds a little harder on the studio version than it did when they played it 'live' on Conan, but still worth a listen. I'm just glad I don't listen to the radio as it's entirely possible this could be one of those tracks that gets totally overplayed.

I've been driving Laura's car a lot this week as she took the day off on Tuesday (she was very run down from all the travel). So I grabbed a CD from the desk to listen to and it turned out to be Change by The Dismemberment Plan. After repeated listening I can now say this is really a pretty interesting album. The lyrics are a little weak, but the music is really inventive and Travis actually sings in tune on this album. To be fair he started doing this on the last album Emergency & I but he's really on on this album. Now if we could just knock the lyrics to a new level...



I'm really impressed with the dynamics, and they get some wicked cool chords on this disc too. As usual the time signatures are all over the map and jammed up against each other. This time though they never go off on a rhythmic rant like they do on their other albums. On repeated listens I find myself reminded of bands that surprise me. Bands that I would have never thought the plan could remind me of (XTC, The Talking Heads) leap to mind on a couple tracks. Very nice stuff.