A band that deserves better: Spoon.

Years ago, a friend and I were discussing music (hey, it happens) and inevitably landed on the created topic, Bands That Deserve Better. At the time, I think we came up with three. The two that I can remember at present are Crooked Fingers and Spoon. Critically lauded and criminally under appreciated, Spoon continues to create album after album of the goods, whether or not it leads them in that tried-and-true direction of fame, fortune and notoriety. I feel like they could release another 10 albums in as many years and, even then, they'll continue to stay the course. Musically tight (like a dish, folks) and adhering to a sound that's more consistent than most, the video below is not just a reminder of what it is they can do (in their sleep!), but what they will continue to do. And that makes Spoon one of those Bands That Deserve Better. Who do you think should make the list? I want to hear it. (via you aint no picasso). 

Spoon | Black Like Me | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Drawlrings & things.

I was with my best friend a couple weeks back (we knowing one another for the past 20 years, having not seen one another in five) and, in the midst of everything else we did (the meals, the jokes, the countless rehashed memories of times gone by), he asked me if I still drew. If I still did any drawings. And, you know? It really threw me for a loop. I haven't drawn in years and years when, as a high schooler, I loved to tackle white space with my pencils and pens and even paints. Made me remember my granddad, the sometime policeman/newspaper cartoonist who was sought after by Disney (though he never worked for them). It's amazing how far away we can get from the things we love, for whatever that reason is, to the point you almost forget it completely. It's doubly amazing when those who know you and have known you so nonchalantly remind you of your passions. Or, well, passion.

I bought a new sketchpad last Saturday. I'm going to draw something this weekend. Thanks, Doug.

Wordless Wednesday.

Here comes the rain again.

 

I wonder what it says about me that, when the storm is raging, when my fastest windshield wipers can barely keep up with how fast the raindrops are falling, when cars are pulling over while the rest drive down the highway at 30 mph with their emergency blinkers going, the thunder constant, the flashes of lightning happening every few seconds, all while in the pitch black of rush hour traffic ... I wonder what it says about me that I am perfectly calm in the midst of it. Something about going boldly into the eye of the storm something. Thankfully, Iron & Wine soundtracked that whole drive home there.

Come for the food, stay for everything else.

I saw the sign for the Philippine Cuisine Express on my way to see the manatees and their calves being celebrated at their own 24^th annual festival (they knowing nothing of the streets so filled with old sorts and craft peddling and pulled pork eating and all of it in their name). I even made a point of turning my car around, just to see that it was what I thought it was, in fact, and that it was open for business. And it was. I made one of those mental notes to stop by on my way back and left it alone.

It was never meant to be The adventure, this place, but rather a layer of it. An add-to, like the stopping for a billboard-promised free cup of freshly squeezed OJ and peek at a dusty, 13-foot taxidermy project of an alligator, balancing precariously on his hind legs. If this were a song, say, this was supposed to be a verse in it and nothing more. The meat, the meaning, the chorus—all of that was supposed to lie elsewhere.  

It was one of those accidental acts of clambering towards some sense of the familiar, a late lunchtime reach back into my past. All I wanted was perhaps some chicken adobo, a spot of rice and maybe a piece of cassava cake. Lucky for me, it was some kind of all-you-can eat Filipino cuisine on Saturday and, though the pickings were relatively slim (Jose, the husband and cook, was away) and, though I was their only customer at that point (they having to clear a table of notebooks and such to herald my arrival), I got pretty much all the food I’d been after.

I watched in some kind of amazement as a woman sitting at a table, one who wasn’t real set on getting up any time soon, called after her son and own mother in various Tagalog commands, getting after them to prepare my plate, according to my specifications. I felt bad for both being directed, really, as they went about responding so dutifully and silently, and not without some element of sadness (him) and weariness (her). Stick around long enough, though, and you get the story. I learned that Donna, the woman directing the operation, had breast cancer and it had progressed at a fairly rapid state. In fact, she wasn’t supposed to last past the first of this year.

That changed the perspective some. Everything changes when there’s a life on the line.

This was the reason she had a handful of friends around, each so reluctant to leave, some even taking turns singing love songs on the karaoke machine set up in the adjoining store filled with various Asian foodstuffs, both frozen and not. If something was to happen and they weren’t around to lend a helping hand, see, their consciences would eat at them. It’s what I’m told. Hanging around, then, becomes some kind of preventative measure.

In some sense, they seemed to be waiting for her to die. In another, they were on the eager end of helping out, as long as she was alive.  

But this isn’t a sad story, not by a very long shot. When you’re the lone hungry Caucasian in the place who knows to ask for his adobo by name, the questions soon follow, in rapid-fire succession, no less, whether you like it or not. In short order, they know you lived in their country, can get by speaking a lot of their favorite words along with them and that you know the same neighborhoods. Before you realize it, you’re reminiscing along with them, all about the mother country. Food, locales, actors, musicians. You’d think it was a chore to bring all of these remembrances back to the surface, it being a whole 15 years or more since I’d lived there, but they come, just not perfectly. You can’t recall an actor’s name, but a joke he told is in there. You may not recall a certain fruit, but you can describe its taste and how it looked, felt.

You’re a kababayan of sorts, a countryman. You’re accepted as one of their own.

Soon, the focus is no longer on eating. I’m learning the stories of these women, these nurses and shop owner and beyond. I’m being introduced and maintaining two and three conversations at once. I’m cajoled into singing a couple songs in Tagalog on the karaoke machine and am even applauded (it a nicety more than it is deserved). We start to take turns passing the microphone around. All the while, scattered customers come in, walking away with their frozen milkfish, their hot sauce, their six packs of San Miguel.

What might have taken 30 minutes stretches into over four hours of making new friends out of would-be strangers. There’s a sense of family here. Afternoon’s turned into dusk. Numbers are exchanged and I’ve a takeout menu and instructions to call ahead for the sticky rice I so want to eat the next time I stop in. I’ve got a plastic bag with coco jam and tamarind candy and more inside.

They know I’ll be back, just as well as I do. This is a new destination that may fast morph into a habit.

I’m reminded of a saying I haven’t heard in a very long time, one gained and used while in the Philippines: “Walang plastik.” Translated literally, it means, well, “no plastic.” Easy enough. The meaning behind it is that, once you’ve made a friend in the Philippines, the general idea is they’ll never turn on you. Ever. It’s not in their nature. Pretense and superficiality go out the window. They are who they say they are. They will help you when you need the helping.

Another question gets asked before I make the trek home.

“How about your heart? Did you leave it there?”

The question just gets a smile and a ‘maybe’ as an answer. After an afternoon like this one, I’m not entirely sure.

Sunday morning.

Happening upon this song and video on an early Sunday morning, then getting the opportunity to turn right around and share it with the likes of all of you, there's some kind of serendipity in all of that, isn't there? The great David Williams performing a tune of his in one of the most beautiful places on earth. It makes me pine for the pretty, great state on so many more levels than one. It also begs the question: so, way out there ... what'd he do for tips, anyway? Hey, it had to be asked. I may as well be doing the asking.

Night, sacrificed.

Here's your snapshot.

January will be over sooner than later. It is coming up on 3 A.M. and the last of the downtowners are headed home in a drunken hurry. The sheets of rain have started in, they trailing flashes of night light and the kindest rumbles of thunder these ears have heard in some time. Sleep a few hours in has been interrupted, but not in one of those shake by the shoulders, nightmare sort of instant insomniac ways; it's more the sense that, well, when and where else could you possibly have woken up, thought to open the back door and hear the rain as it hits street and balcony and swirls of so much wind? It's in the mid-60s and, to be quite truthful, feels welcomed on bare, crossed legs ... maybe even as good as drops might feel during an crazed stroll inside this energy.

There is cheering in the streets, too, it coupled with horns honking, all of it adding to this music. They are the sounds of my insides. They speak the words my fingers can't say. After it falls quiet, if it does, they'll continue adding words I can't quite dig out of the fanciest hoarded words in my vocabulary, not at this time of night, not in this space of morning.

Let me close these eyes. Let me memorize this feeling.

In The Dirt.

I probably won't get enough of this man's CD, not for a very long time (if ever). S. Carey, who started down his musical path as the percussionist for the very magnificent Bon Iver, he went and released his own album last year and now? Now he's finally getting around to releasing videos. That aside, just know that he has the power to quiet my mind with his music, no matter what time of day, no matter where I am. There is so much beauty in the songs and overall feeling he creates. Observe.


"In The Dirt" - Official Music Video from S. Carey on Vimeo.

What he said.

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." — Martin Luther King Jr.

The 191-mile race that was.

Blink too long and you may miss this video recap of our Ragnar Relay race last weekend, but this will give you some idea of the fun, the deliriousness, the sleeplessness, the exhaustion, the ... well, that'll do.

Collard greens & things.

It was an accident.

I was stewing up collard greens for the first time ever (following the recipe I found on the back of the package like a newfound religion). The whole bag of green was in the pot, as were the two cans of chopped tomatoes and dab of Italian dressing. I knew some put a neck bone inside for flavor’s sake, but that wasn’t happening tonight. Not on a Wednesday night and certainly not in my house.

It was taking too long to boil. I wasn’t accustomed to this stovetop, though, so it’s entirely plausible that I hadn’t turned it up high enough. I’m plenty familiar with this almost year-old kitchen of mine, but the slipup was made. When I was stooping over a little too far and listening all too closely for the first sign of bubbles from underneath the leaves, my heart fell out. Right out my mouth and into the biggest pot I owned, and with the loudest belly flop of a sound I’d heard in these walls.  It was before the piano bar across the street had started with its nightly (and consistently awful) stabs at the Bon Jovi catalog, too. Because this was the case, it was extra loud. A plop and echo, tied at the hips neither had.

And I stared at it a long time, I guess in disbelief. The water had at last started to boil then and, in that flash that so often accompanies the memory, I was taken back to the Missouri farm of my youth, in a time when my mom would pasteurize cow’s milk and send me out some mornings to chip ice off the cow’s trough with a wee hatchet. Once (and only once), she’d cooked a cow’s heart, probably as one of her several money-saving tactics. Though I don’t remember how it tasted or even if we ate it period, I do recall it filling up a pot much larger than this one. The heart itself was the size of a bowling ball. Bigger maybe. My heart, then, was considerably smaller by comparison. Maybe it’s because I didn’t use it as much as I should have. Speculation? I’m allowed.

Anyway, by the time I had the sense to drop my excuse of a heart in a strainer and cool it off before attempting to slip it back to where it originally was, it’d been tenderized and toughened. Prepared and well done, like the steaks I never ordered (medium rare, that’s me). It sounds weird to even put this thought out there like this—and I think it’s just one of those things I can sense since it’s, well, mine—but it’s actually worlds better than it was before.  What I once thought was an accident, I take that back. There are no accidents and this was supposed to happen and you know the rest. Call it serendipity if you want. Now my once weak, pining, crybaby of a heart has been made stronger, more durable and all kinds of longer lasting, like the best sorts of advertised AA batteries. And here’s what else I know: it’s unbreakable, too. I feel a little less, lean on logic more than emotion now. I am a fixed, even cured, man.

The collard greens were really pretty great, by the way. As far as hot, stewed greens go, there was more flavor there than I’d have ever expected. Who says you need a neck bone? If you’ve never made a meal of them, go ahead and give it a shot sometime. You just might like yourself more for doing so.

Wordless Monday.

Ragnar. Ragnar. Ragnar!

If you need me, I'll be busy running (okay, jogging) from Miami to the Florida Keys on Friday and Saturday. That's 190+ miles split between 12 people, two SUVs and a whole lot of peanut M&Ms. I'm pretty sure I'll be running my middle leg in the middle of the night, which is unfortunate, considering it'll be on a long bridge of a road, completely surrounded by ocean water. Other lucky runners get to run through the Everglades, where the gators likely outnumber any other living thing in the area. Ah, bliss. Here's to smelly cars, bad jokes, strong knees and mix tapes.

cover song 'o the day.

Jesca Hoop » Bon Iver from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Top 10 Musical Moments of 2010.

Meeting Leon Redbone in his living room. And, by living room, I mean a crowded excuse of a joint for sharing music, somewhere small and warm in Denver, where he sold it out. We were able to grab a couple of chairs in the back row and, with Leon, his guitar, a piano player and dim lamp on one side of a stage, he proceeded to invite us into his world for a spell. I never truly met him, not face to face, but I felt like I did. The sunglassed and suited man of mystery took us on a scratchy, warbly, yodely trip back in time and, even though it wasn’t really his living room we were in, it, too, felt like it. It was like listening to and marveling at the radio, long before TVs bothered with being invented. 

Touching Matt Berninger on the hand. It was in Chicago at Lollapalooza, after a world of wrong had gone my direction, when I forgot it all and gave into the magic of seeing The National for my very first time. I’d lost a camera, had my hooves taped up from three days of flipflop chafing and had to scramble for a place to lay my head at the last minute. Standing dutifully near The National’s stage for two hours before they went on, hearing familiar song after song and then suddenly rushing it when their lead singer wandered in our direction? Well, I wouldn’t have expected that last part, either, but it is what it is. It was what it was. The show, in a word: absolutely thrilling. (Okay, two words.)

The Lower Lights on a snowy November night. Nobody knew this would pan out (myself included), not until it actually did, but surprising some friends (both musician-related and not) and some family members by landing in Salt Lake City for 36 hours or so, then seeing this fantastic show on a particularly wint’ry night, I still smile when I think about it now. It’s certainly not easy for me to describe this kind of improvised, organic, harmonious, gospel-driven collective, but let’s just say T-Bone Burnett more than likely dreams about this kind of music. It’s the soundtrack of his dreams, I venture.

Iron & Wine at The Florida Theater in Jacksonville. Sure, I’ve seen Sam Beam do his thing plenty times before, but not like this. He made everything sound new again. The old stuff was there for the diehards and his new songs took us elsewhere. It helps that everyone in the place was holding their breath for the duration. This kind of leap forward demands a certain kind of reverence and, that night, he got what was coming to him. And he should have.

Being a slave to the riot rhythm in favor of the Sleigh Bells. This two-person band did all I expected them to. Things were half undressed and sweaty and filled with dancing (and so much of that driving bass!) at this teeny tiny club in Jacksonville. For a whole $10, I ended up voluntarily throwing myself into the happiest, danciest mosh pit I’ve been privy to, I grinned like a buffoon for an hour straight and left a bigger fan than when I’d arrived. Can you judge a good show based on how bad you want to have the singer’s babies when it’s over? Throw in the beach sunrise the next day and a visit to the Fountain of Youth and it’s not just one of 2010’s brightest music memories, but one of my year’s best, period.

Hearing “Play Me” performed in a New York subway. I wish I’d heard the whole song before our train scooped us up. If I had recorded it, maybe I could relive it 100 times. If I’d taken some photos, maybe the guy singing would have been mad at me for doing so. I have neither. Some songs get reborn in such places, by people who might not have albums out. You are the sun, I am the moon, you are the words, I am the tune ... play me.

Fruit Bats return to Orlando, seven years later. When I was new to the city and knew hardly a soul, I was able to feel at home at The Social when the Fruit Bats showed up. Not because I knew them personally, but because their songs are such close friends of mine. It was a warm, perfect, gentle show, one that had me shaking my head and excitedly complimenting one Eric Johnson at its end. I wonder if he’ll ever completely understand that Mouthfuls really is in my Top 5 all-time albums? Those statements don’t fall out my mouth all that easily.

Mark and Lorna, still in business. Others already know about these two diehards over yonder at the Red Fox Lounge. It was a surprise when a bunch of co-workers and myself landed there, but it was a beautiful one at that. Still doing lounge medleys and inviting the audience to play the tambourine with them more than two decades later. If I had a lot of wishes, one would be that they’d live forever.

Starting with the Frightened Rabbit at one place, then seeing These United States at another, then going out for backyard campfire s’mores after both. Triple threat. Triple win.

Justin Townes Earle at The Social. He was coming, then he wasn’t. Rehab has a way of throwing a wrench in the spokes. But he cleaned himself up and came after all. Justin on guitar, a bowtied wonder on the fiddle and a lady on the standup bass, slapping it like crazy. Everything felt and sounded older than it really was that night. It’s a show that will live on in some kind of infamy, in some unknown realm.

Honorable remembrances: Damien Jurado, that perfect Sarah Sample album, Phantogram, Rappin’ Pappy.

Also? Overhearing this exchange, courtesy of a four-year-old and his dad.

 

Boy: "Why does he have such a sad voice?"

Dad: "It's Tom Waits, buddy. That's just his thing."