(Inside A Black Apple)

Off the Charts

We watch a lot of documentaries in this house (I've been known to say "It's the one genre I am always in the mood for"). It seems like there are new ones popping up every day in the Netflix "Watch-instantly" section, so we both peruse it a lot. There are lots of bad/underwhelming/dud ones on there, but some good ones to.

Like Off the Charts, a short (1 hour) film about the zany and fascinating song-poem business. This odd business model involves a songwriter/poet, who sends their poem to a "music studio" (some more dubious that others), along with a check to finance the creation of their own personal professional recording of their poem set to music.

 

It's one of the best short documentaries we've seen - and though we are mere dabblers in outsider music fandom (shout out to our beloved BJ Snowden) we can't stop talking about the sweet, sincere, and strange things we saw and heard. I think my favorite was a love ballad to Annie Oakley.

There is also a really good This American Life episode from way back about the song-poem phenomenon, focusing on the son of one of the industry's most revered titans. Anyway, the film is free to watch with a Netflix account, and can be rustled up on DVD. The T.A.L. episode is free to listen to as well.

I know it's a bit random, but I wanted to share the goodness!
Happy Thursday to you!

I Tell It As I Best Know How

Gallivanting Pt. 2: Joanna in Seattle

Even though we had just returned from our journey to San Francisco, we headed up to Seattle just a few days later to see Ms. Newsom play. She played Portland, too (two nights!) but those dates were added later, and I was so anxious about being certain to see her this time around, I didn't want to wait and see if any Portland dates would arise. She slipped through my fingers when she was supporting Ys, about which I am still blue!

 

So we headed to the Moore Theater for a "legitimate show" (I loved that sign).

The fellow from Fleet Foxes opened for her, with his angelic and huge voice. He and Neko Case could go head-to-head in a beautiful loudness contest. 

Then the lovely Joanna traipsed onto the stage, hair tucked around her ears and smiling and sweet. As a former Tori-phile, it doesn't take much for me to start bandying about words like "magical" and "fairy" and the like, which I'm pretty sure "the J. News", as Josiah calls her, isn't really keen on.

But come on. She is kinda magical.

The show was wonderful - a good mix songs from Have One on Me and older things. Lots of songs I love that make me smile sometimes and make me cry sometimes. When your songs start to average 8-10 minutes long, you really can't get to everything, so I didn't hold my breath for Colleen (which isn't to say I wasn't foolhardy enough to secretly cross my fingers).

I overheard a funny conversation between two ladies next to me:

One said to her friend "I think we should try to meet her after the show".
The other replied "What will we say? 'Oh! Joanna! I share your values'!"

I relayed this to Josiah, saying "What do you think she meant by 'values'? What are Joanna Newsom's obvious values? Love?"

Josiah shrugged and said, "I don't know...the woods?"

Whatever these ladies might've meant, cheers to Joanna and her prodigious ways and beautiful mind. And cheers to the woods, too.

Joanna

Does it ever feel like you are are having your own personal cultural dry-spells, where no music, books or movies come out that are up your alley for months at a time? These times are very sad. But when the opposite happens, it is such a happy thing

Which brings me to right now, which seems to be a bountiful time for things-Emily-likes finding their way into the world. Things like Joanna Newsom's newest three-part record. I love Ys so deeply that this new record will have to work so hard to get to me in the same way, but I'm listening to it part-by-part, and giving each disc their turn. Right now I'm really infatuated with part 2 ("Go Long" is killing me in particular), so the others are on the back burner for the time-being. But I have high hopes for part 3, because the song titles are really beautiful.

Are there any new music/movie/book releases you're particularly excited about right now? I'd love to hear what everyone else is jazzed about!

I Don't Wanna Get Over You

We got to see Magnetic Fields last night!

It was funny. It was dour. It was lush and lovely and maudlin and dear, just like one would hope. I had never seen them live, so I hadn't heard the great string arrangements of their live shows...it was so fun to see how synth-dance songs sound modified for cello, ukulele, piano, and guitar. I was dazzled at how full and sweeping some of the arrangements were.

When a band you like has hundreds of songs, it's silly to get your hopes up for particular songs, but they played a few of my/Josiah's very favorites. My heart felt so full and happy.

They played about half of their new record, Realism, which is mostly very dainty and sweet and full of ukulele and toy piano. I was so happy the other day when I hit play and heard track one, which is a perfectly wry, cheeky, catchy jingle - no more, no less. That's one of the things I find most comforting about Stephin Merritt's songs...they're content to be clever or catchy or pretty. And there was lots of clever, catchy, prettiness last night.

They gave Land gallery a little shout out at the encore, which was cute. It is a great store/space...plus, I have a show there coming up in June, and I was very tickled. 

Go Magnetic Fields!

In This House That I Call Home

We went out to the X show last night (with me hobbling on crutches) and goodness gracious, it was unbelievably good!

The whole set list was "by request", meaning the songs were voted on ahead of time. I'm not sure if this is great fun for the actual band, but watching a show that's fan-curated this way was so fun. The set was so solid, almost every song was one I was really excited to hear and sing along to (I never realized just how many X songs I know almost every single word to). I just screamed out words and did a little crutches-supported dance and had the best time ever!

They did two encores which included four (four!) songs that are very special to me. Real, honest-to-god top-favorites of mine:
-"See How We Are" (John + Exene acoustic. This song makes me cry and Josiah loves it too = big plus)
-"White Girl" (I love the haunting guitar hook in this song, and I think it shows off the odd melding of J + E's off-kilter harmonies, which is my favorite thing about X)
-"The World's a Mess, It's in My Kiss"...Possibly best X song title ever and has also succinctly summed up my feelings about romantic/general malaise at dramatic times in my life.
-"Burning House of Love" I was shocked (shocked!!) they played this, because it's an amazing song from an otherwise pretty deplorable later album of theirs called "Ain't Love Grand". I have a big affinity for some of X's later and less critically lauded music, though, and this song is really dear to me. I used to listen to the acoustic Knitters version and cry and cry.

It was just so good. John Doe's voice is one of the most comforting things in the world to me (I'll gladly listen to his sometimes-patchy solo albums to be around it) and he looks just as handsome as ever. I find him mysteriously and stupidly handsome. He's not even my usual "type"...and he's almost a little weasel-y (normally a deal-breaker). Do you remember a looong time ago when I had the UPS man who looked just like John Doe? *Sigh*

I'll stop boring the majority of you who aren't X-people with all this talk, but I'm still all giddy from last night.

Happy Friday!