However you choose to write it, Daijams is resting.
We'll return to your regularly scheduled jamming on Monday, May 14, 2012.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
BB King: "Better Not Look Down"
GUESS WHO I'M SEEING LIVE TONIGHT!!! No, it's not Rebecca Black. It's the King himself, Mr. BB King. This is literally a life dream come true. I'm so excited, I can hardly type straight. I even made a Rebecca Black reference, so you know my shit is all out of whack. Today's jam is classic BB. You get the feeling he could go on all night. (I certainly hope so!)
So, dear readers, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm reviving and renovating my main blog at brittany-petersen.blogspot.com! I'll be documenting my travel through seven European countries over the course of five weeks this April/May. So on top of seeing one of my idols perform tonight, I've been daydreaming and shopping online and booking reservations and staring at Google maps, trying to figure out how far a walk it'll be from my Paris hostel to the Eiffel Tower. (Answer: 1.5 miles, totally walkable) I leave in less than two weeks. I'm basically about to die of happiness.
The bad news is that this blog will be on hiatus while I'm gone. Since music is timeless, you can continue to check through the artist archive on the right, as well as hit play on my two Daijams YouTube playlists (list 1 and list 2), which contain all the videos posted on this blog.
We'll return with a vengeance on Monday, May 14. Until then, bon voyage -- and happy jamming!
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Haley Reinhart: "Free"
From yesterday's soul-wrenching blues songstress Brittany Howard, we turn now to a poppier version of the strong female blues vocalist. Haley Reinhart has been a friend of Daijams since being unjustly kicked off American Idol last year; no offense to Scotty McCreery, but this girl could sing circles around you. And what's more, she's different. Her voice has an edgy growl that could work in a dank basement club or dressed up like a pop star. Clearly, Ms. Reinhart has chosen the latter -- and she's flawless in her own domain.
This performance of her first single, "Free," proves why the ones who will make it are the really talented musicians, the ones who can phrase and emote outside the studio. It's also a nice piece of pop writing, memorable and luxurious in Reinhart's voice. The official single dropped this past Tuesday, and it's already being gobbled up by fans and drooled over by entertainment reporters. The full debut album, Listen Up!, comes out May 22.
Reinhart will return to the stage of her alma mater, American Idol, to perform this song tonight. Scotty McCreery will be watching from his living room.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Alabama Shakes: "You Ain't Alone"
Welcome Juke Box Hero with my new favorite band, Alabama Shakes. This one'll send chills down your spine.
A brief note to the editor: Brittany, meet Brittany. Singer Brittany Howard and her band, the Athens, Alabama-based Alabama Shakes, haven’t appeared on this blog before, and if they’ve escaped your radar up till now, allow me to introduce you (without hyperbole) to your new favorite singer/band. I know you’re a sucker for strong, bluesy lead female vocalists, and they don’t come much more any of those than her; she’s the total package.
Already darling(s) in the eyes of Adele, Jack White, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, and a host of other musicians and music journalists -- NPR music had nothing but great things to say after their SXSW set last week -- Howard and the up-and-coming Shakes are, ironically, on a roll. The group’s super-tight live performances and solid, if not wholly unique, brand of classic Southern rock have arrived at a time when more and more American and international listeners are gobbling up roots-inspired music (Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, First Aid Kit, Conor Oberst, etc.) like hot johnnycakes of sound. Add to that the fact that Howard sounds like Robert Plant and Janis Joplin made a voice-baby, and the Shakes are about as hot as the unseasonably balmy spring the U.S. appears to be having. [Editor's Note: Chicago is confirmed as such.]
On its own, this scintillating performance of the love/lust/companionship ballad "You Ain’t Alone" oozes cool, yet ecstatic sentiment -- the visible beads of sweat might as well be liquid blues -- but give at least some credit to the filmmaker/editor here, who may or may not be the credited NowWaveManchester. Don’t get me wrong: firsthand, the set at Stubb’s in Austin, TX must’ve been other-worldly, but the fact that there’s a clear, compelling re-creation of the experience available for free online shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Who knows the specific circumstances and methods employed to film and create this stellar video, but I’m guessing it wasn’t example of the developing live show epidemic whereby listeners stick smart phones in the air to record as much of the concert as possible. I suppose bootleggers have been doing it in movie theaters for decades, but at least they’re discreet. These modern descendants have no shame – it used to be that people would periodically raise their phone for a snapshot. Now it seems everyone is shamelessly striving to become the next famous YouTube director. Do they give Oscars for that now?
Filmed or not, Howard & co. kill it on this track. I know, it takes some time to build, but boy, once you hit about 3:40, they’re going at it hot and heavy -- yes, those are your knees quivering. Howard, at one point, displays the outline of her beloved state of Alabama tattooed on her shoulder ("my heart on my sleeve"), but that’s nothing; she’s radiating some deep-seated emotions head to toe. And somehow, you get the feeling with this young a group, we in the audience have only heard the tip of the iceberg.
[Editor's Note: I watched the video and wrote the intro to this post before reading JBH's cute little opener about this being my new favorite band. He's got me pegged.]
A brief note to the editor: Brittany, meet Brittany. Singer Brittany Howard and her band, the Athens, Alabama-based Alabama Shakes, haven’t appeared on this blog before, and if they’ve escaped your radar up till now, allow me to introduce you (without hyperbole) to your new favorite singer/band. I know you’re a sucker for strong, bluesy lead female vocalists, and they don’t come much more any of those than her; she’s the total package.
Already darling(s) in the eyes of Adele, Jack White, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, and a host of other musicians and music journalists -- NPR music had nothing but great things to say after their SXSW set last week -- Howard and the up-and-coming Shakes are, ironically, on a roll. The group’s super-tight live performances and solid, if not wholly unique, brand of classic Southern rock have arrived at a time when more and more American and international listeners are gobbling up roots-inspired music (Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, First Aid Kit, Conor Oberst, etc.) like hot johnnycakes of sound. Add to that the fact that Howard sounds like Robert Plant and Janis Joplin made a voice-baby, and the Shakes are about as hot as the unseasonably balmy spring the U.S. appears to be having. [Editor's Note: Chicago is confirmed as such.]
On its own, this scintillating performance of the love/lust/companionship ballad "You Ain’t Alone" oozes cool, yet ecstatic sentiment -- the visible beads of sweat might as well be liquid blues -- but give at least some credit to the filmmaker/editor here, who may or may not be the credited NowWaveManchester. Don’t get me wrong: firsthand, the set at Stubb’s in Austin, TX must’ve been other-worldly, but the fact that there’s a clear, compelling re-creation of the experience available for free online shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Who knows the specific circumstances and methods employed to film and create this stellar video, but I’m guessing it wasn’t example of the developing live show epidemic whereby listeners stick smart phones in the air to record as much of the concert as possible. I suppose bootleggers have been doing it in movie theaters for decades, but at least they’re discreet. These modern descendants have no shame – it used to be that people would periodically raise their phone for a snapshot. Now it seems everyone is shamelessly striving to become the next famous YouTube director. Do they give Oscars for that now?
Filmed or not, Howard & co. kill it on this track. I know, it takes some time to build, but boy, once you hit about 3:40, they’re going at it hot and heavy -- yes, those are your knees quivering. Howard, at one point, displays the outline of her beloved state of Alabama tattooed on her shoulder ("my heart on my sleeve"), but that’s nothing; she’s radiating some deep-seated emotions head to toe. And somehow, you get the feeling with this young a group, we in the audience have only heard the tip of the iceberg.
[Editor's Note: I watched the video and wrote the intro to this post before reading JBH's cute little opener about this being my new favorite band. He's got me pegged.]
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Adele live at the 2011 iTunes Music Festival in London
You knew this was coming. How long was I going to last posting Full Concert Tuesdays before I got to Adele? Approximately six weeks, it seems, because here she is.
As I've mentioned every time I write about Adele, I'm obsessed with her live CD/DVD filmed at Royal Albert Hall in September 2011. A couple months before that, in July 2011, Adele performed today's concert at the Roundhouse in London, which she says during the concert is one of her favorite venues. Her monologue between songs turns into a conversation with the audience; she asks how they're doing, drinks hot honey and pines for wine, and tells the stories behind her songs and the covers. As at the Albert Hall concert, here she's charming and bubbly and excited and adorably British. The sound is tight, from Adele to the band to the back-up singers, and the space feels intimate, lit with magically floating table lamps.
Have I mentioned that I just love her? Enjoy!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Michael Jackson: "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Man in the Mirror"
It's 1988. Michael Jackson is performing at the 30th annual Grammy Awards after releasing his seventh studio album, Bad, about seven months prior. He can do no wrong. He's not up for any awards this year, though Bad's recording engineers will take home a statue. Jackson's previous album, 1982's Thriller, hit platinum and earned him eight Grammys, including Record and Album of the Year, cementing his spot as an American pop icon. After that, he will never have another album that doesn't go multi-multi-platinum and hit #1 in the U.S., including Bad. His fans number in the hundreds of millions; amongst teenage devotees, wearing a red jacket and/or one sparkly glove is acceptable any day of the week. Jackson is a demi-god.
He's also starting to get weird. In 1984, Jackson's hair caught on fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial, which seems to have been the crux moment for some sort of life flip-out. His skin has been morphing into a noticeably lighter shade; in 1986 Jackson was reportedly diagnosed with vitiligo and lupus. He may also suffer from anorexia, and he ordered a pair of rhinoplasties to change the shape of his nose, as well as chin dimple-insertion surgery.
MJ through the years.
And that's not even the really weird stuff. By 1986 he'd started leaking gossip about himself, including a rumor that he slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to stay young. He bought a pet chimp named Bubbles and reportedly offered to buy the bones of Joseph Merrick, the elephant man. Jackson's erratic behavior and changing appearance earn him the nickname Wacko Jacko, which he will never shake.
And here he is, in 1988, in the thick of it all, a superstar performing live for his peers at the Grammy's. The plan is to pair up two of Bad's most popular tracks, "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Man in the Mirror," and the beginning is quintessential MJ, with the larger-than-life dancer emerging from behind a back-lit screen. When the screen rises, MJ seems both impossibly small and incredibly powerful, gracing the stage with light dancing feet as he sings and sighs through a slowed version of "TWYMMF." He breaks it down in both regards, employing all the classic moves that defined his career, before getting distracted by a hot young lady and picking up the pace. Heartbeats quicken. MJ keeps dancing, joined by a handful of street-savvy back-up dancers, who keep up with MJ until he moonwalks away and they stand back in awe. As the song winds down, the dancers exit to the back of the stage, but MJ takes his time, all the way through the last "ooh," and then he spins and accepts his applause gratefully.
Ooh.
Out comes the hand-held mic for "Man in the Mirror," and Michael stands alone, center stage, and even when he's not dancing, his feet and his body are moving, and the music courses through. It doesn't even feel cheesy when back-up singers trot on stage around the 5-minute mark -- and at that point, we've been through a full verse and chorus, but the performance is only half done. Where else is there to go?
Then he ups the ante again with a dramatic key change and a four-minute, full gospel choir vamp. MJ is on his knees, scatting, sighing, pontificating. Whereas at most award ceremonies, the music is turned on to get someone off-stage, MJ keeps right on singing when the musical background drops out, imploring the Powers That Be to stand up, to change. Macaroni-shaped lights skim over the stage, and one of the back-up singers checks on MJ, who has collapsed out of James Brown-style musical exhaustion. All that's missing is the cape.
Later that year, Jackson will embark on the Bad World Tour, playing 123 concerts for an audience of 4.4 million people. He'll break a Guinness world record when 504,000 people -- more than half a million people -- attend seven sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium.
There is no where else to go from there.
No other artist could have made this performance last ten whole minutes, just as no other artist has lived the fever dream that was MJ's existence in the 1980's. With MJ, the performance feels perfect, well-paced, amped up at the right moments, using each key change and addition of voices to create drama and shape. I've watched this performance a couple dozen times, and I can't get over his seamless performance, how perfectly he moves from one mode to the next. He may have been Wacko Jacko, but he's also the King of Pop, and this goes down as one of the best Grammy performances in history.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Zero 7: "In the Waiting Line"
The Garden State soundtrack was a crucial element of my undergraduate study sessions. Today, as I finish up what feels like my graduate thesis but is really a creative nonfiction story for a Travel Writing class, I need all the good study mojo I can get.
My roommate arranged this song for our a cappella group, Emanon, to learn this spring. In the meantime, I'm going to be zenning out. The parallels between today and my freshman year at Northwestern are striking; I still have a Mountain Dew at fingertips' reach, along with my books, notes, and a thesaurus. I feel relaxed, confident in my abilities, but unbearably nervous; what if I'm not prepared? But singer Sophie Barker is still frozen in time in this video from 2001, calmly pointing out through what may be a drug (or caffeine)-induced haze what should be obvious: "Do you believe in what you see? / Motionless wheel, nothing is real," she sings. "Everyone's saying different things to me, different things to me. / Everyone's taking everything they can, everything they can."
Let's hope clarity emerges from the wisps of ideas. That seems to be how it works.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Flogging Molly: "Drunken Lullabies"
Just in time for St. Patrick's Day of Liver Reckoning, Juke Box Hero reminds us why you should crank up the Cali-Irish punk rockers Flogging Molly this Saturday.
Given that Flogging Molly, despite claiming to be an Irish punk band, was actually formed in LA, I’m sure the group’s Dublin-born lead singer/rhythm guitarist Dave King will forgive me for drinking bourbon while writing this rather than a proper Irish whiskey – at least we both spell it the same way. But I digress.
This Saturday is a little-known religious holiday observed in just a few parts of the world, celebrating the emergence of Catholicism in Ireland and some guy named Patrick. It’s a magical, topsy-turvy day where stout beer is used to bake cakes, entire cities dye their rivers the color of American money, and the Irish and British drink about as much alcohol as on any other day… and if you’re younger than 40, you probably turn on some Flogging Molly.
The somewhat clichéd practice is not a bad thing, just a comment on the group’s heightened popularity since 2002’s Drunken Lullabies. If you’re hosting a holiday party, chances are your guests will find Molly (named for the bar – wait, "pub" – the group played repeatedly [hence "flogging"] before making it big) agreeable thanks to their fairly articulate musicianship, generally discernible lyrics, and infectious, upbeat brand of Irish-influenced rock, especially compared to their somewhat brasher (if not more "authentic") influences and contemporaries such as The Pogues, The Dubliners, or The Dropkick Murphys. Though you could always level the playing field with an Irish Car Bomb or five.
As jams go, the folks from the "Emerald Isle" can crank ‘em out as well as anyone. Flogging Molly carries that ginger torch admirably and, despite their widespread popularity, there’s no denying FM’s ability to inspire erratic movement (read: unbridled dances of inebriated happiness) in the masses with King’s furious strumming and an accompaniment of spritely tin whistle, accordion, fiddle, etc. As the band desperately tries to escape the time signature of a fast two, their blistering anthems of nostalgia and religious (ir)reverence ("What savior rests while on his cross we die/Forgotten freedom burns/Has the Shepard led his lambs astray/to the bigot and the gun") fill the listener with a reckless devil-may-care (suck it 'til tomorrow, Lent!) energy.
Truth be told, I thought it might be fun to choose an acoustic live recording of these guys (they do exist); sometimes songs can elicit a different type of appreciation when performed with stripped-down instrumentation and at lower volume. Flogging Molly? Piss off. These blokes simply need to play as fast and loud as possible to get their point across. Anything less puts the listener in danger of losing interest – like the bus from the Keanu Reeves classic Speed of Irish-based pop rock. So, Jameson, Bailey's, and Guiness at the ready… turn it up and press play.
Given that Flogging Molly, despite claiming to be an Irish punk band, was actually formed in LA, I’m sure the group’s Dublin-born lead singer/rhythm guitarist Dave King will forgive me for drinking bourbon while writing this rather than a proper Irish whiskey – at least we both spell it the same way. But I digress.
This Saturday is a little-known religious holiday observed in just a few parts of the world, celebrating the emergence of Catholicism in Ireland and some guy named Patrick. It’s a magical, topsy-turvy day where stout beer is used to bake cakes, entire cities dye their rivers the color of American money, and the Irish and British drink about as much alcohol as on any other day… and if you’re younger than 40, you probably turn on some Flogging Molly.
The somewhat clichéd practice is not a bad thing, just a comment on the group’s heightened popularity since 2002’s Drunken Lullabies. If you’re hosting a holiday party, chances are your guests will find Molly (named for the bar – wait, "pub" – the group played repeatedly [hence "flogging"] before making it big) agreeable thanks to their fairly articulate musicianship, generally discernible lyrics, and infectious, upbeat brand of Irish-influenced rock, especially compared to their somewhat brasher (if not more "authentic") influences and contemporaries such as The Pogues, The Dubliners, or The Dropkick Murphys. Though you could always level the playing field with an Irish Car Bomb or five.
As jams go, the folks from the "Emerald Isle" can crank ‘em out as well as anyone. Flogging Molly carries that ginger torch admirably and, despite their widespread popularity, there’s no denying FM’s ability to inspire erratic movement (read: unbridled dances of inebriated happiness) in the masses with King’s furious strumming and an accompaniment of spritely tin whistle, accordion, fiddle, etc. As the band desperately tries to escape the time signature of a fast two, their blistering anthems of nostalgia and religious (ir)reverence ("What savior rests while on his cross we die/Forgotten freedom burns/Has the Shepard led his lambs astray/to the bigot and the gun") fill the listener with a reckless devil-may-care (suck it 'til tomorrow, Lent!) energy.
Truth be told, I thought it might be fun to choose an acoustic live recording of these guys (they do exist); sometimes songs can elicit a different type of appreciation when performed with stripped-down instrumentation and at lower volume. Flogging Molly? Piss off. These blokes simply need to play as fast and loud as possible to get their point across. Anything less puts the listener in danger of losing interest – like the bus from the Keanu Reeves classic Speed of Irish-based pop rock. So, Jameson, Bailey's, and Guiness at the ready… turn it up and press play.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Lady Gaga live at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend 2011
It's Daijams' Full Concert Tuesday!
There is good reason to be suspicious of concerts by pop stars. Most of them don't actually sing, and when they do, it's often...downright bad. Right now I'm resisting the urge to provide a mean link to a certain country star who annoys the hell out of me, even though she's not technically done anything to deserve my ire. Sorry, Taylor, but I'm just not buying it.
Lady Gaga can sing -- she's proven that time and time again in live performances on TV shows and at festivals -- but the first 20 minutes of this show still feel like a haphazard circus, a mishmash of the weird and the absurd, a breathless race through her radio hits "Born This Way," "Bad Romance," "Telephone," "Poker Face," and "Alejandro." Through all the dancing, she hits 95% of the notes with no problem, but it lacks soul, even when she's banging on a cymbal with a stray drumstick or chiding the audience. It feels forced.
But then, just as I'm ready to turn it off and give up -- maybe a full Lady Gaga concert isn't a good idea -- a trumpet blares out from the darkened stage. What's this? A jazz interlude? Lady Gaga emerges to flirt with the trumpeter, make a few remarks about how she was a nerd in high school jazz band, and then belt a cover of Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky." Now we're talking. Her voice sounds relaxed, confident, unstrained by the pressure to dance and sing and throw out all the stops; it's the right balance of smooth vibrato and gritty growl. And proving herself as adaptable as ever, she spits a verse she penned about the Royal Wedding, which had gripped the entire United Kingdom just two weeks earlier. The audience eats it up.
For her next song, Gaga flounces to the piano to pound out a rendition of "Speechless," which she'd performed earlier in the year with Elton John at the Grammys, and suddenly the transformation from Little Monster Orgy to Lounge Act is complete. She's mesmerizing in both roles -- Crazy Head Monster and Sensitive Singer-Songwriter -- but only the latter makes me melt with affection for the pop singer. She transitions into an acoustic piano version of "The Edge of Glory," which had been released digitally just two days prior, but you can still hear a few dedicated fans who already know the words. (They probably downloaded it illegally, the Monsters.) She wraps up the acoustic section with the now-familiar "You and I," which was also on the Born This Way album released later that month.
And just to prove you should never assume you know what to expect from Gaga, she tops off the acoustic set with what appears to be a pop-induced seizure on top of the piano, a return of the trumpeter, some devil-possessed scat-singing, and a moody, Latino-infused transition song.
When she returns, it's back to business -- pop hits "Just Dance" and "Judas" -- but it's clear how in control Gaga is -- in control of her performance, of the audience, of the record industry, of the future of her own slice of pop music. She did her hits, but she also did music that meant something to her, that proved her diversity as an artist. It wasn't all great, but hell -- I'm sold. I'd see her live. Would you?
To fully appreciate the transformation, check out this performance from when she was a student at NYU, still known as Stefani Germanotta. She's right where she belongs -- behind the piano.
There is good reason to be suspicious of concerts by pop stars. Most of them don't actually sing, and when they do, it's often...downright bad. Right now I'm resisting the urge to provide a mean link to a certain country star who annoys the hell out of me, even though she's not technically done anything to deserve my ire. Sorry, Taylor, but I'm just not buying it.
Lady Gaga can sing -- she's proven that time and time again in live performances on TV shows and at festivals -- but the first 20 minutes of this show still feel like a haphazard circus, a mishmash of the weird and the absurd, a breathless race through her radio hits "Born This Way," "Bad Romance," "Telephone," "Poker Face," and "Alejandro." Through all the dancing, she hits 95% of the notes with no problem, but it lacks soul, even when she's banging on a cymbal with a stray drumstick or chiding the audience. It feels forced.
But then, just as I'm ready to turn it off and give up -- maybe a full Lady Gaga concert isn't a good idea -- a trumpet blares out from the darkened stage. What's this? A jazz interlude? Lady Gaga emerges to flirt with the trumpeter, make a few remarks about how she was a nerd in high school jazz band, and then belt a cover of Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky." Now we're talking. Her voice sounds relaxed, confident, unstrained by the pressure to dance and sing and throw out all the stops; it's the right balance of smooth vibrato and gritty growl. And proving herself as adaptable as ever, she spits a verse she penned about the Royal Wedding, which had gripped the entire United Kingdom just two weeks earlier. The audience eats it up.
For her next song, Gaga flounces to the piano to pound out a rendition of "Speechless," which she'd performed earlier in the year with Elton John at the Grammys, and suddenly the transformation from Little Monster Orgy to Lounge Act is complete. She's mesmerizing in both roles -- Crazy Head Monster and Sensitive Singer-Songwriter -- but only the latter makes me melt with affection for the pop singer. She transitions into an acoustic piano version of "The Edge of Glory," which had been released digitally just two days prior, but you can still hear a few dedicated fans who already know the words. (They probably downloaded it illegally, the Monsters.) She wraps up the acoustic section with the now-familiar "You and I," which was also on the Born This Way album released later that month.
And just to prove you should never assume you know what to expect from Gaga, she tops off the acoustic set with what appears to be a pop-induced seizure on top of the piano, a return of the trumpeter, some devil-possessed scat-singing, and a moody, Latino-infused transition song.
When she returns, it's back to business -- pop hits "Just Dance" and "Judas" -- but it's clear how in control Gaga is -- in control of her performance, of the audience, of the record industry, of the future of her own slice of pop music. She did her hits, but she also did music that meant something to her, that proved her diversity as an artist. It wasn't all great, but hell -- I'm sold. I'd see her live. Would you?
To fully appreciate the transformation, check out this performance from when she was a student at NYU, still known as Stefani Germanotta. She's right where she belongs -- behind the piano.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
It's My Birthday!
I'm twenty-five years old today, which seemed really old until approximately yesterday. In celebration, I give you 7 of my favorite songs of all time, some of which have been posted on the blog and some not, and in no particular order. Jam on!
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Happy 1st Birthday, Daijams! Check out the Top 5 posts of Year 1!
I was raised on music. The nineties, ie the time I spent between ages of 3 and 13, were a blur of Dave Matthews, the Smashing Pumpkins, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among many others. In 2010, my parents even started a Facebook community dedicated to posting YouTube videos of their favorite artists and songs. It's like a hereditary disease of the best variety.
A year ago today, I realized my friends (particularly my beloved but beleaguered roommates) were fed up with my constant babble about the live music videos I was collecting in my YouTube "Favorites" file. The videos were, at that time, heavily influenced by my budding Weezer obsession, and my roommate Allie took to asking whether I was going to listen to the "SWEATERRRRRRRRRR" song again tonight, or if she could go to sleep in peace. I took that as a sign that I needed some sort of outlet, beyond my parents' celebrated Facebook community. I wanted to create a searchable library, a canon of good live music, along with (of course, as I am a narcissistic writer, and this is just what we do) my own commentary.
So one year ago today, this blog was born.
In fact, the very first video posted here was a Weezer/Sara Bareilles collaboration. I began that post thus:
"The inaugural video on this blog is one that I have not been able to get out of my head for seven days. Seven. Full. Days. It's actually the reason I'm starting this blog: To try to get this song out of my head. I figure if I post a new live music performance every day, eventually, maybe in four or five years, I'll get this song out of my head."
Here's the video that started it all, in case you don't want to click through:
Happily, that song has been out of my head for approximately 11.5 months, thanks in large part to this blog. The daily chore of writing posts has turned into my favorite daily task, thanks in large part to the growing readership (YOU!) that has not only interacted with me via comments and Facebook postings, but in real life: The other day a friend texted me that she was sitting on a plane next to a woman actively engaged in a creepy vocal fry, which I'd written about a few days prior in a post about everyone's favorite white female rap-talk-singer, Ke$ha.Thank you again to everyone who has read and responded, or just read and enjoyed privately. If you've ever actually watched one of my videos all the way through, you're my best friend.
In an act of sentimentality, today we look back at the five most popular posts in this blog's first year of life. Let's dig in:
5) Kelly Clarkson: "Express Yourself" and "Already Gone" (posted July 13, 2011)
In this post from last July, I mused over the talent of the only artist (save maybe Carrie Underwood) to have truly transcended the American Idol stamp on her career. Kelly Clarkson is wicked talented, and the post included two videos: her 2002 audition video and a 2009 live studio performance of her then-smash hit, "Already Gone." The progress was striking. Thank God her career didn't end with From Justin to Kelly.
4) The Rolling Stones: "Time is On My Side" (posted February 2, 2012)
After a run-in with Bill Murray at the end of January 2012, I felt the need to delve deep into this song and its history, as well as the Rolling Stones' start on the coattails of the Beatles, their progression of live show style (they got a LOT more outgoing), and the artists who did this song before the Stones made it famous.
3) Nikki Yanofsky: "Lullaby of Birdland" (posted May 19, 2011)
This then-17-year-old jazz singer has a voice beyond her years, and you guys seem to agree. Her phrasing and confidence still takes my breath away. Originally posted in May 2011, this song was in the lead for a long time until the next two artists completely obliterated her pageviews.
2) Hanson: "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" (posted December 1, 2011)
The Hanson brothers are proof that if you're talented, and you stick together long enough (as family is hopefully apt to do), you're going to find not only the slow-soaking success that is the Holy Grail of the music industry, but also that people will really dig it when their favorite band from 5th grade is still awesome. More than three months after I posted this, and I'm still obsessed with this song.
1) Pink: "Bohemian Rhapsody" (posted November 29, 2011)
After only three months, and with more than three times the pageviews of the runner-up, Pink's version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" is by far the most viewed post on this blog. I'll credit Freddie Mercury's fashion sense, Pink's gusto, and our country's undying love of all things Queen.
Thanks for sticking with me through Year 1! If you're just joining us, Year 2 kicks off tomorrow with a post celebrating a bevy of my favorite musicians from all over the spectrum -- pop, blues, rock, even rap. Why? Because tomorrow is my birthday, and I can do whatever I want!
Until next time -- jam on!
A year ago today, I realized my friends (particularly my beloved but beleaguered roommates) were fed up with my constant babble about the live music videos I was collecting in my YouTube "Favorites" file. The videos were, at that time, heavily influenced by my budding Weezer obsession, and my roommate Allie took to asking whether I was going to listen to the "SWEATERRRRRRRRRR" song again tonight, or if she could go to sleep in peace. I took that as a sign that I needed some sort of outlet, beyond my parents' celebrated Facebook community. I wanted to create a searchable library, a canon of good live music, along with (of course, as I am a narcissistic writer, and this is just what we do) my own commentary.
So one year ago today, this blog was born.
In fact, the very first video posted here was a Weezer/Sara Bareilles collaboration. I began that post thus:
"The inaugural video on this blog is one that I have not been able to get out of my head for seven days. Seven. Full. Days. It's actually the reason I'm starting this blog: To try to get this song out of my head. I figure if I post a new live music performance every day, eventually, maybe in four or five years, I'll get this song out of my head."
Here's the video that started it all, in case you don't want to click through:
Happily, that song has been out of my head for approximately 11.5 months, thanks in large part to this blog. The daily chore of writing posts has turned into my favorite daily task, thanks in large part to the growing readership (YOU!) that has not only interacted with me via comments and Facebook postings, but in real life: The other day a friend texted me that she was sitting on a plane next to a woman actively engaged in a creepy vocal fry, which I'd written about a few days prior in a post about everyone's favorite white female rap-talk-singer, Ke$ha.Thank you again to everyone who has read and responded, or just read and enjoyed privately. If you've ever actually watched one of my videos all the way through, you're my best friend.
In an act of sentimentality, today we look back at the five most popular posts in this blog's first year of life. Let's dig in:
5) Kelly Clarkson: "Express Yourself" and "Already Gone" (posted July 13, 2011)
In this post from last July, I mused over the talent of the only artist (save maybe Carrie Underwood) to have truly transcended the American Idol stamp on her career. Kelly Clarkson is wicked talented, and the post included two videos: her 2002 audition video and a 2009 live studio performance of her then-smash hit, "Already Gone." The progress was striking. Thank God her career didn't end with From Justin to Kelly.
4) The Rolling Stones: "Time is On My Side" (posted February 2, 2012)
After a run-in with Bill Murray at the end of January 2012, I felt the need to delve deep into this song and its history, as well as the Rolling Stones' start on the coattails of the Beatles, their progression of live show style (they got a LOT more outgoing), and the artists who did this song before the Stones made it famous.
3) Nikki Yanofsky: "Lullaby of Birdland" (posted May 19, 2011)
This then-17-year-old jazz singer has a voice beyond her years, and you guys seem to agree. Her phrasing and confidence still takes my breath away. Originally posted in May 2011, this song was in the lead for a long time until the next two artists completely obliterated her pageviews.
2) Hanson: "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" (posted December 1, 2011)
The Hanson brothers are proof that if you're talented, and you stick together long enough (as family is hopefully apt to do), you're going to find not only the slow-soaking success that is the Holy Grail of the music industry, but also that people will really dig it when their favorite band from 5th grade is still awesome. More than three months after I posted this, and I'm still obsessed with this song.
1) Pink: "Bohemian Rhapsody" (posted November 29, 2011)
After only three months, and with more than three times the pageviews of the runner-up, Pink's version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" is by far the most viewed post on this blog. I'll credit Freddie Mercury's fashion sense, Pink's gusto, and our country's undying love of all things Queen.
Thanks for sticking with me through Year 1! If you're just joining us, Year 2 kicks off tomorrow with a post celebrating a bevy of my favorite musicians from all over the spectrum -- pop, blues, rock, even rap. Why? Because tomorrow is my birthday, and I can do whatever I want!
Until next time -- jam on!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Tallest Man on Earth: "This Wind"
Juke Box Hero joins us with a bevy of tunes from Sweden, Mississippi, and Detroit to keep you jamming all Wednesday long.
Courtesy of our friends at the YouTubes, allow me to transport you, dear listener, from Sweden to Detroit, by way of Mississippi. No, this isn’t part of some cheesy re-urbanization program, bringing culture back to the Motor City. Just a little bit a of a musical merry-go-round.
So Sweden. That’s the home of Kristian Matsson, aka The Tallest Man on Earth (he isn’t, literally, just for the record), aka the 28-year-old, one-man folk dynamo whose scratchy, grows-on-you voice and slick yet considered songwriting and strumming make him sound like a proper peer of Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger, etc, rather than just an influenced youngster. He’s toured with Bon Iver and made a big impression on fellow countrypeople First Aid Kit. He’s also a man-crush of my man-crush, NPR’s Bob Boilen, so by the associative property, I had to develop some feelings for him.
Matsson is known for what has become the garden variety of YouTube stardom, releasing his own recordings and playing singer-songwriter acoustic pieces in open tuning. Though not bluegrass, his tracks move along at a swift folksy clip, with him deftly picking the guitar while his gravelly vocals, which sound grating at first, hover overhead.
"This Wind" isn’t – judging by the average pageviews – one of his more popular tracks, but I like how Matsson plays with the song's speed within the ¾ time signature, as opposed to the majority of his more straight-ahead cuts. As a result of this variation, the song just seems to have a little more feeling coursing through it. I wonder where he learned that trick from…could it be American blues singer Son House, who Matsson covers oh-so-creatively here?
A Mississippi native, House was known for throwing himself – mind, body and soul – into each song, each performance. The blues took him over, possessed him, like the holy spirit he studied as a budding Baptist preacher. Fortunately for us, House chose instead to share those deep, eternal feelings through song, and he appears to have been very much in possession of his soul, however troubled.
As the intertubes remind us, House’s repetitive style, excessive use of the bottleneck in his playing, and just general roughneck, man-against-the-world attitude influenced many artists, including Mr. Detroit himself, Jack White. White’s rendition of the Son House classic is a bit more true to the original than Matsson’s, though still with his trademark piercing shrieks and wicked banshee guitar licks.
Now, Jack, how exactly do you plan on getting us back to Sweden?
Courtesy of our friends at the YouTubes, allow me to transport you, dear listener, from Sweden to Detroit, by way of Mississippi. No, this isn’t part of some cheesy re-urbanization program, bringing culture back to the Motor City. Just a little bit a of a musical merry-go-round.
So Sweden. That’s the home of Kristian Matsson, aka The Tallest Man on Earth (he isn’t, literally, just for the record), aka the 28-year-old, one-man folk dynamo whose scratchy, grows-on-you voice and slick yet considered songwriting and strumming make him sound like a proper peer of Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger, etc, rather than just an influenced youngster. He’s toured with Bon Iver and made a big impression on fellow countrypeople First Aid Kit. He’s also a man-crush of my man-crush, NPR’s Bob Boilen, so by the associative property, I had to develop some feelings for him.
Matsson is known for what has become the garden variety of YouTube stardom, releasing his own recordings and playing singer-songwriter acoustic pieces in open tuning. Though not bluegrass, his tracks move along at a swift folksy clip, with him deftly picking the guitar while his gravelly vocals, which sound grating at first, hover overhead.
"This Wind" isn’t – judging by the average pageviews – one of his more popular tracks, but I like how Matsson plays with the song's speed within the ¾ time signature, as opposed to the majority of his more straight-ahead cuts. As a result of this variation, the song just seems to have a little more feeling coursing through it. I wonder where he learned that trick from…could it be American blues singer Son House, who Matsson covers oh-so-creatively here?
A Mississippi native, House was known for throwing himself – mind, body and soul – into each song, each performance. The blues took him over, possessed him, like the holy spirit he studied as a budding Baptist preacher. Fortunately for us, House chose instead to share those deep, eternal feelings through song, and he appears to have been very much in possession of his soul, however troubled.
As the intertubes remind us, House’s repetitive style, excessive use of the bottleneck in his playing, and just general roughneck, man-against-the-world attitude influenced many artists, including Mr. Detroit himself, Jack White. White’s rendition of the Son House classic is a bit more true to the original than Matsson’s, though still with his trademark piercing shrieks and wicked banshee guitar licks.
Now, Jack, how exactly do you plan on getting us back to Sweden?
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Jack Johnson live at the Kokua Festival
We return to Daijams' Full Concert Tuesdays with Jack Johnson and his Kokua Festival in Hawaii. This hour and a half concert was filmed over two days in April 2008. I listened to a lot of Jack Johnson when I lived in Hawaii between 2005 and 2009; his is my kind of island music: light, relaxed, sentimental, and sans shoes. (If you want to skip to my favorite song, "Bubbly Toes," start around 26:50.)
The first couple minutes are an intro by Johnson describing the Kokua Festival, which benefits the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, Johnson's own organization aimed at giving back to the Hawaiian community through environmental education. The whole festival is as green and low-impact as possible, with refillable water bottles, locally produced biodiesel, and so forth.
Next month a "Best of the Kokua Festival" live CD will be released featuring Johnson, Willie Nelson, Ben Harper, Eddie Vedder, Jackson Browne, Dave Matthews, Ziggy Marley, Jake Shimabukuro, and more. The album drops April 17; more info here.
And for all my Hawaii buddies: Johnson will be touring the islands next month with John Cruz and Paula Fuga! Tickets ($50-$75) went on sale two days ago and are available at the venue box office (ie not online). Details:
April 19th - Kauai
Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center
April 21st and 22nd - Oahu
Hawaii Theatre
April 25th and 26th - Maui
Castle Theatre
April 28th and 29th - Big Island
Kahilu Theatre
UPDATE: 9:45 a.m. Apparently all the Big Island and Kauai shows are already sold out. Maui and Oahu show info here.
Monday, March 5, 2012
BB King: "How Blue Can You Get?"
In the theme of rhetorical (answerless) questions, I'll posit a ponderer grandiose enough for a Monday: Why do we love music?
Music is a transportive experience. That is, music can make the world around you melt away. You close your eyes and listen to the melody, the chords, the way the musicians wade through their composition with frenetic energy or relaxed candor or both. In the music we love, the music we listen to over and over again, we find a respite, a place of comfort and familiarity mixed with awe that this piece of truth managed to eek its way into the world, despite all that's stacked up against it: apathy, a top-heavy music industry, discord in the writing and recording process, egos and billing rates and false starts. We are thankful for this familiar escape, the contours of which become a tangible reality, a piece of music broken off from the larger fabric, music we can hold in our hands like a totem.
Music is also a transformative experience. It can help us see the world differently, thanks to heartrendingly true lyrics or the simple beauty of a well-crafted cadence. We respond to music emotionally because music is born of emotion, a singing and humming and strumming demonstration of human desires, joys, fears, neuroses, imperfections. It is the highest form of poetry, rhetoric matched to aural movement. In the space of a moment, a bar chord can thump us straight in the heart and jolt us out of stupor, out of the doldrums of our most boring and unengaged thoughts, and remind us of that ever-shifting category of What's Important. Music can change us.
Music is also transitive. It is created with a purpose, and in listening, we seek to identify that purpose and apply it, transfer it, to our own lives. As today's jam evidences, blues is a beautiful medium for this, the slow and steady progression of blues chords providing an even backdrop for the rise and fall of the iconic BB King's whining guitar and plaintive lyrics. The song itself is simple and funny. The narrating character lists the reasons for his blues, all relating back to his woman, whose love peters in comparison to his own roaring flame. "I gave you seven children, and now you wanna give 'em back!" he cries on his way to the final chorus, signaling just how much this romance has faltered. And yet there's humor: We laugh at how silly this woman is, the triviality of her complaints, the grandiose ridiculousness of her expectations, as if she could return her children to their place of origin and get a refund. BB sings to her, "I gave you a brand new Ford, and you said 'I want a Cadillac.' I bought you a ten-dollar dinner, and you said 'Thanks for the snack.'" No reason for her distaste is given, so we are to assume she's simply a snob, maybe just a bad person. But BB suggests no escape -- there isn't one -- and so we wallow in the pain and sorrow and levity of his one-sided love story.
I've come back to this song a lot over the years, mostly due to its inclusion in the under-appreciated sequel Blues Brothers 2000. In that movie, which I owned on a tape-recorded VHS (complete with commercial breaks), BB King is joined by dozens of iconic musicians to perform this song and win a contest over the Blues Brothers. Of course, the heroes prevail, but the ridiculously massive conglomerate of blues talent led by King puts up a dizzying performance, with each music star singing a line, popcorn reading-style. (Unfortunately I can't find an embeddable video, so jump over to YouTube for a few minutes to check that out.)
I can't really explain why this song calms me, why the first few notes immediately put me at ease whether I'm at the office or on the train, whether I'm lost in thought or barely hanging on to thoughts as they stream by, flashing of importance as they pass and then sinking back into shadowed anonymity. No matter where my head is at, this song grounds me, brings me back to earth. The song reminds me of being a kid, of watching that movie, of hearing and really listening to the blues for the first time, of my shockingly implicit understanding of a music format that relies as much on template as improvisation. I realized, and am continually reminded, that you could have a plan -- assemble a group of musicians on stage, marry the person you love -- and still have no idea what it will look or sound like five minutes from now, five months or five years or five decades. This song was originally recorded in 1949, and it's been a standard cover of BB King's live set for almost 50 years, since it appeared as a single in 1964.
I'm seeing BB King perform at the House of Blues in Chicago in a couple of weeks. If he plays this song, I may start to have a panic attack out of pure excitement. The good news is that the song itself will immediately center me again. Funny how that works.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Beatles: "Paperback Writer"
I'm headed out early this morning for the AWP Conference in Chicago -- which will be full of aspiring as well as established authors, journalists, editors, professors, and other people with jobs that I would like to have. We all have one thing in common...we wanna be...paperback writers!
Okay that was cheesy but I gotta get moving because of course the day I get to sleep in is the day I'm running late. Jam on!
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