Jason Anderson//So Long

Local Music Houseshow
What's up with Local Music Fridays?

Last week, Jason Anderson played a show at my house and it was totally fucking awesome and intense, as I hear most of his shows are. I could write more about it here, but I fear that once I start writing, it will be hard to stop. Let me say that his performance of indie folk songs was the closest thing to preaching I have ever seen.

I was really happy that he played this song, because I spent a lot of time listening to the album from which is comes during the summer of 2004, mostly while driving around the rural rolling hills of vermont. It sounded very appropriate.

This song also has some great lines and references to three, count 'em, three really awesome bands (Elliott Smith, Fugazi and Tears for Fears).

It seems fitting, also, that for me, this is the final weekend of May, which has been the month of (almost) all my favorite people coming to visit. I've got four, count 'em, four friends in town this weekend and now we're going to live it up.



So Long.mp3

This is like one of those awesome dreams
Where you get to hang out with the guys from Fugazi.

Mirah//1982

Now, let's travel just a few years into the future, to 1982, where future K Records all star Mirah (who has been mentioned before) is playing Atari in her living room, probably in Bala Cynwyd*, PA, just outside of Philly.
*Sidenote: I really love when people not familiar with the Philadelphia metro area attempt to pronounce "Bala Cynwyd." It's "Ba La Kin Wood," for the record, homies.

A year later, in 1983, THE HUMBLE NARRATOR OF THIS BLOG will be born in Hackensack, NJ. A few years after that, my family would frequently travel to see family friends who had, awesomely, an Atari (ready for home use in, really?, 1977) AND a pinball machine in their basement. Some particularly bright childhood memories for me were the mornings spent in their old Pennsylvania farmhouse in PJs with the family's oldest son and still dear friend Matt, playing Pac Man, Donkey Kong and some military-ish shooting game that I can't remember the name of. Matt?

Old school video games are awesome. Did you know that you can now download emulators for computers and play all your favorite games from childhood. I recently did this at the urging of some friends/bandmates and my life hasn't been the same, not necessarily in a good way. Mostly, I've been glued to a chair listening to the audio version of Game Change (which is completely cheap and salacious) while frantically trying to defeat pixelated viruses with pixelated pills in Dr. Mario.
Also, if you live in NY, you can go play all the arcade versions of these old games in person, while drinking overpriced microbrews, at Barcade in Williamsburg. I have a friend coming to town from LA this weekend and I am thinking about putting this on our list of places to hit up.

Anyway, video game digression aside, the point of this is that if you were a child of the 80s, like I was, life was pretty rad. We had the fun of video games (and, as Mirah points out, the fun drama of destroying our friends and siblings at them), Saturday morning cartoons and the Sunday funnies, but not the electronic time-suck of the internet and cell phones. We played outside a lot and would later be excited by things like snap bracelets. Public Enemy and Faith No More were just forming, while ABBA and The Eagles were breaking up. Life was good.



1982.mp3

Frogger, I'm a frog.
Breakout, you're a dog.
You're a dog for trying to run me over.
1982, I'm playing Atari
In my living room.

Time Travel Prep: Now that we're in 1982, you should probably know some key facts so you can blend in, BTTF style. In the US, we're having a recession and Toyota just came out with a new kind of car. It's called the Camry. Cal Ripken JR. is going to break records, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to win the World Series and Time Magazine's Man of the Year is going to be, for the first time, non-human: the computer. Very interesting, considering that Apple's about to introduce it's much-hyped Tablet-of-the-Future today. 1982, how far we've come.

The Blow//What Tom Said About the Girls

It’s not a secret that I’m a pretty big fan of the K Records sound. That’s partially why I thought I would like K labelmate The Blow when I found out that she was opening up for Mirah at a show in Tortonto in roughly 2004? Sadly, what I got was a whole lineup of girls wearing stupid outfits and singing over pre-recorded music on CDs that piped to a PA via a discman. I-Did-It-Myself Indie Karaoke: a serious disappointment. When Mirah got up and played her songs with an actual guitar four odd hours later, I heaved a great sigh of relief.

That said, fast forward to me actually getting to hear Mikhaela Yvonne Maricich’s recorded music and my mind was totally changed. Without the distraction of my musicsnob anger over her discman singalong, I could listen to the rhythm and the lyrics, which are extremely clever.

Tom, an anthem for modern masculinity, is no exception. The song delves into the motivation behind catcalls and car-obsession in a fresh and mildly academic way, without being even slightly school marm-y, and that I can get down with. I can also get down with the fact that, according to Khaela’s Myspace page, The Blow enjoys skeeball. Because everyone knows that skeeball is the number one jam of life.



What Tom Said About the Girls.mp3

Well, I got a ride. It's hot, I drive it.
To pay the gas, I've got to 9-5 it.
The engine turns, it keeps the heat alive for the ladies.
All the girls in pictures, girls in bars, yeah,
Everybody knows a girl requires a car.
I drove one out to look up at the stars
And she was like,
"Tom, do you ever notice the spaces in between the stars?"
And I was like, "You know, well…"

Mirah//Mt. St. Helens

You know the albums you play so much that you kind of can't even listen to them anymore? These are the ones that are so good, so burned into you, that you just OD on them. This is how I feel about Mirah's Advisory Committee.

I first encountered Mirah on one of my epic roadtrips with Stevie. He described her to me as "your new favorite band." And he was right. It was definitely love at first listen. I kept rewinding the tape and queuing it up again, as Stevie slept in the passenger seat.

After that, I had a number of funny Mirah experiences, including traveling to strange places (like Canada) to see her, friends opening up for her, friends letting her stay in their rooms. Mirah, you are everywhere.

Mt. St. Helens is a beautiful song, which showcases all her talents: great songwriting, beautiful lyrics and amazing Phil Elvrum-produced sounds and builds.



Mt. St.Helens.mp3

I could never come back home again.