Pearl Jam: A Love Story.

For a review of last night's show
click HERE

These United States in Salt Lake tonight.

A very brief history of my exposure to These United States (the Band, yes)

This will be quick. Try and keep up.

I heard These United States on a compilation put out by a blogger. I still have the CD, though I don’t recall who said blogger was or even what that gem of a song was. I should correct that. Anyway, I played it a lot, I liked it a lot … and I remember being drawn to how well he could do some kinda whisper-speak flow thing behind the microphone. Not a ton of bell and whistles, no, but that didn’t matter. This was new and unique. Hooked.

First album drops last year, one called A Picture of the Three of Us. Some really, really good gems in there (and, in a past life, Jesse Elliot was a free-flowing rapper, I think). Potential all over the place. A little too quiet and sleepy for me to stay interested the whole way through, but songs like “King of Aces” and “The Business”? Nothing but money. Money in the bank.

That same year, these ambitious kids go out and partially reinvent themselves with the sometimes-countrified (and, to be fair, sometimes not) Crimes and I was more than intrigued. I knew I knew a good thing when I heard it. I don’t know if it ever did for them what it should have, but it was the sound of a band gaining its legs. If you haven’t already made its acquaintance, you really oughta be friends.

Everything Touches Everything is their music of 2009, only with its muscles fully flexed. What they sound like now sounds nothing like they did in the beginning. Had to even double check if it was the same band I once knew. They write fantastic songs, they have a sound that is easy on the ears and there’s ye-e-e-earning all up in there. I play it over and over lately, but, at the onset, I had “I Want You to Keep Everything” or “I’m Gonna Assemble A City” or “Will It Ever” on repeat. If you needed a convincer, this one would do the trick.

Now I need to see them live. And I can ... and I will. Tonight. Missed them at MONOLITH, but saw an acoustic kind something that more than intrigued me in the right direction. They’re playing tonight at Urban Lounge and deserve your time and love and devotion. Even better? Slim Cessna’s Auto Club is opening … and, from what I’m told of them, if you like gospel in your rock, this is one to tap into. And I do … I so do.

Also, if you want to check them out on KRCL around 5 today, they’ll be there. Listen to what they have to say. It’s free. What more do you want?

Bon Iver Goes Hollywood.

Don’t assume all Californians are jaded, disgruntled and spoiled. Yes, L.A. gets the unique privilege of seeing most bands that matter pass through its city (a lot like those East coasters). And, sure, one might go on to think they consider it all so pass-EH. It’s one of those tempting notions, but try biting your tongue on this one. Just for a minute?


They are, after all, the ones who blessed Wisconsin’s Bon Iver with a sold-out performance at the Wiltern a few days back, then going on to do it all over again in the wee hours of Sunday morning in Hollywood. In a graveyard. As the sun was trying really quite hard to come up. Not only did that show sell out as well, but there were reports of the last remaining tickets going for four and five times the original amount ... and those in search of experiencing the “weirdest thing [the band] has ever done” (frontman Justin Vernon’s words) couldn’t buy them fast enough.


Maybe it had to do with the band’s decision to go on hiatus for a spell. Maybe. And maybe it had more to do with the fact the band catapulted to fame on the strength of one solid album, a fairly remarkable backstory (don’t act like you don’t know it) and gone on to do pretty much everything the boys have wanted to do, whenever they have wanted to do it, at any spot in the world that felt right at the time. I’m banking on that second option, but I’m a man who holds to a couple strong opinions.


Is this what they call digressing? Is it? I blame the driving 700 miles or so to see the band, getting a bit of a nap, hitting the show and being too amped to get back to sleep. It’s nearly 5 in the P.M. and my eyes remain open. That gray matter tween the ears is all numb and tingly. And yet, the hands continue.


If this is considered the beginning of a series of send-offs, it was enough. If it all goes downhill after this, it’s still okay. And, if his was Justin’s attempt at achieving some kind of storied musical glory, he pretty much succeeded. It was like Bon Iver had planned a musical festival, only they ended up being the only band in the full eight hours long experience. Everything that led to their being that much-anticipated finale was carefully orchestrated by Justin—playing just two hours of music wasn’t enough.


Those couple highly eclectic DJ sets? The ones that sounded like a schizophrenic iPod playlist, including everything from Captain & Tennille to Dirty Projectors to Ibrahim Ferrer on them? Hand-selected by Justin. Playing Bottle Rocket at one point and throwing up some jungle footage from This Planet Earth on the side of a mausoleum? Totally his idea. And I’m just spitballin’ here, but I’d guess that whole bit where the Buddhist monks came on and blessed the audience and the stage? Where they chanted while everybody was either asleep on their blankets or holed up in sleeping bags or some combination of the two? I bet Justin wanted to see that happen as well (and it somehow ties into his Volcano Choir move, I just know it).


I’d like to go even further out on this realm of thought and declare he had everything to do with the fog that hung around Hollywood Forever Cemetery, the one that should’ve caused all attendees to scribble out the “Sunrise” of the “Bon Iver at Sunrise” title on their respective ticket stubs. It’s not so hard to believe, right? The sun never did quite show up for this party, but a red sky most certainly did. And that was good enough. Several glances up at the palm trees against that sky solidified that.


Justin sounded as good as he ever did ... all raw, falsetto emotion, packaged for the masses, backed by percussion and guitar and the occasional foray into distortion. He even had his bearded buddies Megafaun out for a song. As for the rest of the band? They performed for a mellowed crowd that morphed into a “morning after” one. It even made sense to hear him do it just past six in the morning. There’s no real easily explainable reason why, either. But, well, here’s a stab: it’s that Bon Iver sounds as good at night as it does when it doubles as an alarm clock. It’s the equivalent of a lover shaking your shoulder gently to wake you up, an action you follow with the day’s first sleepy smile. Yeah, like that. Put that on the a sticker and slap it on the reissue, be my guest.

I can only imagine that he made more fans of his music Sunday morning than had even bought tickets. Who’s to say those buried in the crowd didn’t appreciate the gesture? Maybe even Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone—who both call that place home—can get behind the songs in his catalog? Either way, the living ones left happy. It was a party they didn’t want to end.


“How about we do this all again sometime?” Justin says, pausing. After some thought, he follows with: “No, how about we never do it again? How about that?” If he sealed his band’s fate with those words, you know? That’ll do.

For a few videos of the concert grabbed by Yours Truly, go have a gander over HERE and see some of what I was able to (fog included). You won't be sorry ... at least, I don't think you will be.

Blast it.

This is a quick note that I'll keep real simple and stuff ... but if you ever listen to my radio show on KRCL then you might also know we depend on our listeners to survive. Tonight's one of those rare times I'll be asking for donations to allow us to continue providing you good, good music (best in the state, hands down) with absolutely no commercials. So, provided you tune in (8 to 10:30 PM ... stream via that above link), you'll hear us talking a lot, playing some music now and again, trying to remind you why we do what we do. I hope my five listeners will donate some and help keep this fancy dream alive. Being a DJ for the past, what, four years or something? It's been a thrill ride, it really has. The station just turned 30 ... help keep KRCL alive for another 30 years. Why not, right?

Wordless Wednesday (State Fair Edition)

Wait for an Autumn day.

I want to write about so much tonight, but the words don't much want to come. They're wrapped up in this outside air, this brisk night that makes me want to open the window wider than I have in weeks (and I do). I want to lean on a poet's words and find in them how I feel instead, though Adam Zagajewski's single appropriate poem tonight, the one entitled "Wait for an Autumn Day," it doesn't quite connect like I want it to. The parallel I look for just isn't there. I want to speak of this change in seasons, the closing of a chapter, this end that we all knew would come soon enough, this end that precedes a ritualistic beginning. The words are inside. They're all trapped inside. I can only think them, as they won't come out the right way otherwise. Read these few words, then ... read into them for meaning.

Tonight I think more about how my step-grandma (the same one who'd rather punch me in the arm than give me a hug) and how she fell and broke her other hip over the weekend. The fact she'd broken the first was news to me. As she fast approaches her 98th birthday, I just sort of assumed she was indestructible. I guess not, right? Now, as these seasons change and she finds herself prisoner to the healing process, she, too, must change. One way or another, all will be made new again.

Joshua James & his Black July.

Quasi-local* Joshua James stopped by KRCL a few weeks ago to play us a few songs off his new album (as well as one pretty spot-on rendition of Sun Kil Moon's "Glen Tipton"). He's on tour right now for a couple of months, playing his music for all to hear and, well, I'll go on record right here and now and say he deserves whatever he's got coming to him. Nicest guy in the world, it's true. Opening for Ben Harper and Ani DiFranco? Yeah, he's done that. No. 1 folk album on iTunes? He's riding that wave right now, too.

Enjoy this little stripped-down version of "Black July" ... but don't let those pretty harmonies fool you. It's one of the heavy hitters in its recorded form. Me, I'll take it either way.

Watch for his second album (Build Me This) when it finally drops next Tuesday, the 22nd (but, if you're anti-CD at this point, you can find it on iTunes already). It's so, so worth your ear time.

*Born and raised in Nebraska, but currently living in Utah, where he met his wife




click here for the vid

What's eating you?

Working out for 20 minutes in the early morningtime (and really, really hard, I'll have you know), eating a salad and sandwich for lunch and writing enough words to fill a small book by the end of the workday? It's enough to make a half-grown man die of starvation. Hey, at least I'll look fit on my way to the funeral, right? Priorities, priorities.

John Denver Polkas His Eyes Out.

I captured this earlier this week and it brings me plenty of joy each time I re-watch it. I have Snowbird and Oktoberfest to thank for this. Alpenhorns, John Denver, knickers and yodeling? It just got better and better. I'm pretty sure "Weird" Al Yankovic would approve.

Call & Answer.

I needed it. The weather was far too inviting to turn down two perfect outside nights in a row and the mountains were too far away and too much of a holiday weekend gamble, so I opted for the next best thing, the easier route ... sleeping in my friend’s back yard. He was gracious enough to allow it to take place for the small price of a baby-sized burrito and flat out refused to sleep out on that patio himself, the one with no railings he’d created with his hands the summer before ... but he didn’t need this night like I did. He didn’t hear the call like I did. No matter. I’d lease this space for seven or eight hours on my own.

It teetered on the changing of two seasons, this night, this one that wouldn’t be called hot or cold. A double wide sleeping bag and pillow just above a river, practically hugged on all sides by trees, this was a long, loud serenade belonging to the crickets (never seen, always heard). They, too, put forth the invitation, in something that moved far beyond stereo quality. (Band of Crickets should be a band name somewhere, if it hasn’t already been swiped.) I’d like to have let on that I soaked this night up upon laying down, upon switching off the nearby lantern. The mountains had me for several hours leading up to this, however. There was climbing and sweating and observing the impossibly green leaves it had on proud display, whether we were there to observe it and try to discover the poetry it was sharing, alway sharing ... or not. It just was. It just is. The legs needed this rest and the stomach? It was already trying to hibernate on account of one blessed burrito, also baby-sized. The sleep came fast and the snoring was a given.

There were dreams I fail to remember. There was a hard patio that my back unfortunately does. And there was that moon, so insistent a night light I’d never had, the one that first woke me up long enough to stumble a few steps to the ledge for a four ‘o clock in the AM pee, then attempted to keep me up for a spell after that. I clambered back into my bag all alone, wanting to observe the magnitude of what hung above me, wanting to shake off my sleepiness long enough to stare at this bright light in my ceiling, so far above but seeming so close. I couldn’t. As much as it tried (and it did, so hard, so very hard), I couldn’t be its observer. Not this night. There was work in the morning. There was drifting off I desperately had to attend to.

I woke again in that twilight to a very real presence, a definite presence. My eyes darted around in the darkness as I wanted to match an image with the feeling that had sunk so hard into my skin, the one giving my pulse a surprise kick in the flanks. The crickets still sang, the river still rushed on, never, ever stopping and I thought, maybe, maybe ... there’s somebody underneath this patio. Maybe it’s not a somebody, but a something. Were there raccoons here? Something bigger? The feeling nagged until it eventually let up, but I never got to solve the mystery. I had to chalk it up to those lost dreams and that unusually light sleep.

Now that I think of it ... it was the moon, trying again to get me to consider it. There were stories in that Labor Day moon. I’ll listen harder next time.

Saturdaysong.

Wordless Wednesday.