I remember the first time I heard Mason Jennings. When I lived in Grand Forks, we'd go see whoever came to town, because the chances were few and far between. Mason had me though, from the first time I heard "Confidant." The dipping of his voice, never quite landing where you think it will, was unique and endearing.
After a number of years though, I've seen him a number of times. He often plays the same songs, and plays them well, despite the rotating cast of musicians in his band (I still miss Robert Skoro on bass, but that's ancient history.) So, I was expecting the same type of show last night. But, this time it was different.
No band. Just Mason, his guitar, and on two songs, a reedy upright piano he found backstage. His angry "Crown" stands out as a highlight, but I lost my little scrap of paper with my notes (I know, I know, C. - you warned me, right?) so I don't really remember what else I wanted to write about. But, from the funny songs (Your New Man) to deep questioning (Jesus Are Your Real) to the swinging hammer of "Empire Builder" and the haunt of "Adrian" it was a nice departure from the live shows where it seems like half the audience is just a bunch of drunk Minnesotans hanging around waiting to hear "Better than That."
(Not that there's anything WRONG with that. At all. I like drinking, I like Minnesotans, and that's a really good song. It was just nice that he didn't play it for a change.)
So - tonight, an impromptu trip to the newest mark of uptown's thus-far gradual, yet probably soon to be runaway, gentrification: Fat Kat.
Somewhere between a bar and a restaurant, this place is apparently hoping to survive on the fact that they're the only new, straight, bar ad grill in the area, and that they have a prime location on the corner of Broadway and Gunnison. Non-descript decor, boring music so loud I couldn't hear my friend across the table ,much less the server, flaky staff... should I go on? Decent beer list, but nothing special. Drink menu looks good, but I don't want to drink a fancy cocktail in that atmosphere. There was also too much open floor space and a LOT of those flat screen tvs that seem to be plaguing the city. So, I suppose they're waiting for the cubs to make the playoffs so that all of the overflow from Crew can stand at Fat Kat to watch the games.
Like my friend Julie said to me on the phone, we all WANT to like this place, but it's just not special enough. It looks like every new place that has opened in Wrigleyville in the last 5 years. The food was good for bar food, but they're trying a little too hard with the presentation. It's fried bar food, even if you put it on little sticks.
It was goat's milk queso blanco, and it was about the size of my fist. It was clean and white. I made it Saturday afternoon, and I've been nibbling on it, each time thinking I was eating some magical food that I conjured out of thin air. It wasn't particularly delicious, but it was good enough, and it had a perfect texture. I finished it tonight in a tomato salad. Since this was the first try, I went for one that didn't need any cultures. Just milk and vinegar. The hardest part was heating th milk to 188 degrees.
I saw the movie Pure on DVD over the weekend. I cried a lot. I'm not sure if it was really that good, or if I'm just a sucker for little British kids taking on adult responsibilities. He locks his mother in her room so she can detox, and and he is able to stand his ground and not let her out, even when things get really bad, just to be lured away by the pretty girl who lets him feel her tits. I really wish there were even more scenes with the Scottish narcotics detective though. I love listening to him talk. I think I need some Scottish friends. Maybe I should hang out at the Duke of Perth more often. I don't mind eating all those peas.
I was disappointed to find that the opening band was not made up of a talking aardvark and that girl from my summer camp, Jennifer Yu. They were good enough. i was ready for them to be done though. A little bit Mamas/Papas, a little Neil Young influence, no a lot. But,the gal, she just isn't a good fit, except on the one song "come to view." She sounds like she belongs in that one, but the rest of the time seemed like a pretty accessory.
As for the main course, I was pleased. I'm not a huge Iron & Wine fan. I have the EP with Calexico, and love that stuff. And I've listened to a handful of random bits here and there. Let it be known though, that this is probably the closest to a jam band I'll ever go.
For the first night of the tour, I thought they played pretty well together - especially since there were eight of them. There were a few things to iron out soundwise - but if you catch them later in the tour, I think it will be a pretty good experience.
We stood front and center in the balcony - a great vantage point, and at one point, I spaced out during one of the songs and was getting sad about something, and then found myself laughing, because I was looking down on this field of cellphone fireflies, blinking as people sent text and photos.
I know, I'm supposed to write about the music. Well - although the first single from the new album (out tomorrow, I believe) is relatively cheerful, a lot of Sam Beam's music chugs and races along in this slightly dark way - like the score of a film where the protaganist is making a mistake, like the person driving on their way to cheat on a spouse, or where someone is covering up an accidental death.
Are you still with me? All in all, I liked it. It was fun to watch the band - sometimes I couldn't figure out what sound was coming from where. I don't know my music terms, but I really like Beam's plunky picking on his guitar - but he would just confuse me even more when he would turn his back. Percussionist #2, I don't know his name, so I'll call him Animal, was pretty fun to watch. I swear he was like the guy on the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon who was always pulling shit out of his afro. I don't know where the guy was keeping all of those little bells and whistles (and blocks, bowls, chimes, rattles, and an one point, a lap-sized steel drum.)
I had no expectations, and I was very pleased. I was not, unlike one guy in the balcony with us, there JUST to hear "The Trapeze Swinger." About 2/3's through the show, his yelling for that song became a little excessive, and then at the end, he was in serious mourning, threatening a tantrum - I was really worried that he was going to throw himself off the balcony.
I was looking forward to a late dinner at Uncommon Ground after the show, but their kitchen was closed, and we ended up at the Raw Bar and Grill. Good wine, bad frog legs, and really, really weird service.
One of those movies that everyone is always quoting, but I never got around to seeing. I was waiting for some colleagues to buy some stuff at CVS on Thursday, and I was poking around in the bargain bin. I really don't think $6.99 for a Jody Watley CD is a bargain, but whatever. Anyway, Anchorman on VHS was $3.00 (I know, some of you are thinking: What is this "VHS?" I do no know this.)
I love Will F. and all, but somehow I was still expecting it would be funnier. I did laugh quite a bit though, but really, I don't know that the characters were well developed enough to really stick with me. I will say that it did contain one of my favorite scenes/lines of any movie ever, I think, and this was Steve Carell on the bear. I tried to find a photo of this to post on the blog, but all i found was this.
All the way through the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I was torn between thinking Kingsolver's nonfiction writing is too flowery for her own good (with everything from asparagus to dead tomato plants to turkeys getting personified to death) so she should really stick to telling made-up stories and wanting to move to the country ASAFuckingP. This is nothing new, I've been thinking about goat farming for about 3 years now. I'm not saying this book changed my life or anything, but I have been buying a lot more local produce lately, and I bought a book on home cheesemaking. So I'm one and a half steps closer. Now I just need the sugar______ to help me pay off my student loans while I gather eggs and plant seeds.
One of the best things about Summer in Chicago is the variety of neighborhood festivals where you can often catch a number of bands for the "suggested donation" of $5. I'm quite ready for summer to be over, so when my friend suggested going the the Old Town Grape Crush, I was reluctant. But then I saw that Duncan Sheik was headlining, so I changed my mind.
I have a short fuse when it comes to drunk women with giant sunglasses though, and when I met Corrinne at North and Wells on Saturday afternoon, I could tell I was in for it. Everyone there had been out "tasting" wine all afternoon, and it was a pretty obnoxious scene. We poked around a bit, had a glass of wine, stayed in spice house as long as we could without sneezing, and then went for dinner at Adobo. Dinner was great,and thankfully were able to eat outside, because inside was more of the same. Loud, drunk, rich people who won't move to let you get to the restroom.
Anway, this is supposed to be about Duncan Sheik. Dinner was more interesting than he was. He knew he was playing to intoxication, and so I think he was determined to just play until the clock struck whatever so he could collect his check and go home. I'm not a huge fan, but when I was working at a radio station in 2000, we got a lot of play out Phanton Moon. And I've been looking forward to seeing Spring Awakening someday. After a boring first song, things started to pick up about halfway though Casanova... but then he played his "Barely Breathing" card. He had the handful of Trixies (Okay, I was trying not to, but I had to say it) who actually knew who was on stage wailing along with that one, but he lost me... I stayed 'til the end, tried to enjoy his string quartet, hoped for him to play "A Mirror in the Heart" and went home glad that I didn't spend any realy money on it. I'm glad Broadway's working well for him.
I first became aware of Ken Loach in 1996. I was living in Germany, and would cross the border to Strasbourg, France to see films in English. There was one big place that always had a few American or English films, and there was some other smaller, artsy place where you could see more obscure thing, often in series. There was a Ken Loach series at one point, and they were running Land and Freedom and Ladybird, Ladybird. I don't even remember if I saw those films there, so I don't how I remember what they were.
In any case though, by now, I've seen most of his films, and had been waiting all year to see The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Cillian Murphy was very convincing as a blue-eyed Irish doctor who gives up his medical career to fight for Irish independence with his brother and brethren. Ireland in 1920 is something I know nothing about, and I now want to know more. It's curious that an English filmmaker was telling this story. And the English characters were so extremely ugly in this, I found myself wondering if this was accurate, or if Loach was somehow making atonement or reparations for his forefathers.
I haven't cried so hard in a movie in ages. We know, because we hear, that war makes a person do unimaginable things. When someone's loyalty to a cause wins out over their bonds with family, this becomes even harder to understand. And like many war movies, it left me crying not only for the story, but in gratitude for my own privilege and freedom.
I'm glad I wasn't able to catch this in the theater earlier this year, because on the DVD is s short documentary called "Carry on Ken" exploring the director's work. Robert Carlyle, Peter Mullen and other actors from some of his best work, along with crew members and the man himself review the unique ways in which he works, and explain why they think his films are so unique.
I didn't realize it, but he forces his actors to use a lot of improv, which always intriques me in dramas. In fact, they talk specifically about the scene in Carla's Song when Robert Carlyle's character finds Carla in the bathtub. That was improv. The only instruction the actor got was to go to that apartment, find the key, and go in. Amazing stuff.
He's got a new one lined up for next year, I think it's called It's a Free World.
There were no previews... we were eating now & laters and telling stories, when the lights dimmed, and a few hebrew titles appeared on the screen. Then, suddenly it was all shaky camera and military checkpoint chaos. And somehow I was rapt from the first moment. Eytan Fox already impressed me with his storytelling in Walk on Water , but I wasn't expecting as much from The Bubble. Alyna and I were discussing this as we were walking in. The slick sexy American look of the poster made it look kinda stupid, but really it was a look into a little bubble of modern young (queer) life in Tel Aviv. A few plot twists that I didn't see coming drew things out to make a longer movie than it probably needed to be, and really - I'm not so sure about that Shakespearean ending, but I did shed a few tears. I also enjoyed listening to the Hebrew, especially the names. It also had a pretty awesom soundtrack. Bebel Gilberto, Israeli covers of Tim Buckley, some Bright Eyes, Belle and Sebastian...Nada Surf...shall I go on? All good, evocative film music. Don't rush out and see it in the theater or anything, but it is pretty good.
Fall hasn't officially started yet, and what my dad calls the "first of the burrs" came and went on Labor Day weekend with beautiful weather. But, this week, the temperature dropped. And here I am thinking about winter squash, the smell of leaves, my halloween costume (octopus or bagpipes? what a quandary) and the ridiculous amount of live music I'll be taking over the next two months.
I kicked it off on Saturday with a trip to the Hideout Block Party. My pal Joe and I were waylaid due to the fact that we got lost. I know, I know. I hadn't been there in years, and he never had, and neither of us bothered to writed down the directions. So we walked and walked. We got our excercise, but we missed our first target, which was Dan Deacon's 4:00 performance. But, I'm pretty sure that he was the vision in baby blue we saw during Art Brut's set... Barbara, who met up with us, and I were admiring his costume (Russian circus strong man on holiday in florida ca. 1978?) and wondering if he gave mustache rides.
Despite our navigational errors, we had a great time. In addition to getting $20 and free food from Kia for test driving a car, we got to take in some great and not-so-great-but-still-fun performances. I think a lot of the musicians were sitting around drinking beer all afternoon, so some numbers suffered, but at least they were enjoying themselves. It was hard to hear Art Brut's funny as hell lyrics outdoors, and I think they were drunk. I hear Mucca Pazza can be fun in a small setting, but after they paraded up onto the stage, the got pretty boring pretty fast. The Blue Ribbon Glee Club prompted me to elbow Barbara and say "My four-year-old could paint that." Not that I have a child at all, but what I meant was that anybody could get a group of friends together to belt out off-key choral arrangements of pop tunes. Yeah, I know, we could, but we don't, which is why they have cornered the market.
Now, down to business. I don't know many of the Frames' songs, but I will say that they started out strong - totally connected and playing the hell out a few tunes. But then I think that afternoon of drinking took over, and things started to fall apart a little. They brought some local chicks up from the audience to sing that overplayed song from that overplayed movie. (I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying summer is over, and so I need a break from Falling Slowly... and from Young Folks, now that you mention it.) Bringing part of the glee club back up for a kick-ass cover of the Pixies' "Where is My Mind" was a good move though, and that was a fine way to end things.
Seriously though. I've caught Andrew Bird a handful of times, and after his last performance at the Riviera back in April, I'd decided that he doesn't do as well live as I'd like him to, and so I would probably take a pass the next time he came around.
I take it back.
He had an energy on Saturday that I've always wanted to see from him. I mean, some of those tunes are pretty rocking, and I've thought that he often gets too wrapped up in the recording and looping and instrument-switching. It's a laborious process, and I feel tired because he seems like he might be trying too hard. But this time, technology was on his side, and it was a pretty amazing set. His voice has matured so much since his Bowl of Fire days. He's a pleasure to listen to, and on this night, he looked so happy in his sweaty cloud of beats and bowstrings, he was a pleasure to watch, too.
Here's someone's video. But you really had to be there.
Okay. I promise I'll work on being more succinct next time, but how was that for my first review?
