Adam and I at Giza

There we are. Don't we just look like two peas in an Egyptian pod? Sorry this is the only photo on here, but it takes so damn long to load. Anyone who wants to see photos will have every opportunity to do so when they see me in person. Love you all.

I'm Not There, I'm Gone.

As probably every person who reads this knows, I am in Rome. I'm having an excellent time but I do not have wireless internet in my room and have no real need to get on the internet. I am going to essentially abandon both phone and internet besides what is absolutely necessary to focus on reading and writing. Because of this I won't be able to keep up on all the hip new things going on in music or be able to post songs for you online. If you want new music, check out the links on the right and use the links of their pages as well. Love you all, take care.

We Shall Walk Again

Van Morrison - "Everyone"

Here Van Morrison plays a love song. Maybe you recognize it from the impeccable ending of The Royal Tenenbaums. Van Morrison's got some serious soul. I highly recommend Moondance, the album this is from, and Astral Weeks if you don't already have them. His songs don't really send you screaming the lyrics from the window, but sit you down in a chair, and lull you into their groove.

The buy link.

It's Here, It's For Katelyn

The Mountain Goats - "Sax Rohmer #1"

This is the first song released from the new Mountain Goats record, Heretic Pride. John Darnielle said that this album would be a little darker, more intense than the lukewarm Get Lonely and that seems pretty believable after hearing this tune. This one would have sounded at home on The Sunset Tree as well. I don't want to say The Mountain Goats can do no wrong, but they would have to try pretty hard.

For more info. on the Mountain Goats and this album, click it.

A Song For You, Friends

Chriss Sutherland - "La Familia"

Pretty sadness is a tough thing. Maybe life would be great if you never had tough goodbyes, but maybe that would just mean there's no one sad to see you go. There are a few people I'm not looking forward to leaving, but as we head off to different places I'm glad there are those I love enough to be sad about.

More from that guy.

Paupers, Peasants, Princes, Kings

Bob Dylan - "Song to Woody"

What differentiates a good song from a great one? I don't think there are really that many truly great songs out there, but this is one of them. The first time I heard this song it was part of a class presentation I was giving. I just stood listening with my head down and after it was over, I stumbled through some half-assed conclusion and sat down, utterly devastated. I think that while good songs make you want to sing along and stir up feelings inside you, great ones have the power to silence you completely. I'm curious what other people think on this matter, and on this song in particular. I want to encourage anyone to read this to leave me a comment about it.

Bob Dylan's website has some good resources like lyrics and stuff, and to buy click here.

Rudy

Moviola - "Rudy"

This song reminds me of a completely apolitical CCR. Relaxed down-home instrumentation and some guy singing a humdrum low-life anthem make "Rudy" a pretty fine song. I guess these guys are from Ohio and have been making music for quite a while, but it doesn't really matter. Sometimes little songs are better than big ones. Come on.

More here.

For the Sake of the Song

Townes Van Zandt - "Pancho and Lefty"

Townes Van Zandt was one of the greatest songwriters to ever live. He was a true music outlaw, living on the roads between Colorado, Texas, and Tennessee, and catering to no particular crowd. Deeply influenced by delta blues, Townes' songs were products of his travels, depression, and alcoholism. What the world lost when he died was bitter, but songs he left behind speak for themselves. Townes gave everything for his chosen lifestyle and in his own words, lived "for the sake of the song."

Though he mainly released limited runs of vinyl during his life, his albums have been recently reissued on CD. Buy them here.
Also, click here to learn more about his life.

The World

Mal Madrigal - "The World"

Mal Madrigal is a group of musicians from Omaha who have been around a while. They are one of my favorite groups from Omaha, and the reason I have waited this long to post this track is because they have a double album being released tomorrow. The Road is Glue, an album of traditional singer-songwriter songs and Life Among the Animals, a moodier, noisier incarnation of the band, are both being released tomorrow night at Slowdown. These two works were extremely long in the making, and from what I have heard, have been assembled with great care. If anyone in town deserves your support, these guys do. The show is Saturday night at 9p.

For more info and songs, click here.

I'm My Own President

Forest Fire - "Psychic Love Star"

Here's Forest Fire, another group of young people from Brooklyn making music the right way: friends, music, drugs, and melody. Each song is clearly a collaborative effort, with no single element taking center stage. A male and a female alternate vocal duties, and there's a hazy atmosphere that suggests sunlight struggling through curtains into a dusty room.

"Psychic Love Star" comes from a short and severely under pressed EP by the same name. Though it's now sold out, you can listen to more fantastic songs here.

Home

Tom Waits - "Home I'll Never Be"

Nothing can be said about Tom Waits that hasn't been said already. I could pull out some bullshit lines about his whiskey-soaked gravelly voice or his drunken cabaret balladry, but what would be the point? It's all been said and it all falls short.

Buy it all.

PS what the hell happened to my header?

It Doesn't Hurt to Try

Nathan Lawr and the Minotaurs - "Righteous Heart"

Nathan Lawr is a Canadian songwriter who sounds like his record collection spans the entire history of American music from folk to soul. His new record with his band the Minotaurs, A Sea of Tiny Lights, is a great display of songwriting. Obviously influenced by Dylan, the Stones, and Neil, Lawr channels his influences in his own clever, literate way. Clinking pianos and wailing harmonicas blend seamlessly, as the band settles into a groove easily, but never stays too long.

Pick it up here.

I Think I'm Fine Now!

The Shaky Hands - "The Sleepless"

The few people who read this probably weren't expecting any feel-good songs from me, but here's one. Saturday morning's cloudy-headed cruise of the internet proved successful, providing me with several great new bands to listen to. One of which is The Shaky Hands, a rock 'n roll band out of Portland. Their sound is straightforward, upbeat, but not without reservation. It's like walking down the street during a parade and laughing at the absurdity of it all, but having a great time anyway.

Buy their album, I know I'm going to.

Been So Long

Vetiver - "Been So Long"

I'll admit that I was initially a little hesitant about Vetiver because of both the "freak folk" tag and the association with Devendra Banhart. I really wasn't interested in hearing anyone else sing about diminutive animals or Asian adoptees. What I found, however, was something much more genuine. Vetiver, led by Andy Cabic, play a lovely brand of sunny 70s sounding gentle rock and folk. They truly have their own sound and ought to have Devendra Banhart dragging along behind them begging people to listen to him. "Been So Long" is a gorgeous song, nostalgic almost to the point of being painful.

Learn more and buy here.

Like a Bird on the Wire

Leonard Cohen - "Bird on the Wire"

This song, the first track off Leonard Cohen's second album, Songs From a Room is the beginning of maybe the most depressing collection of music I have ever heard. Its sound is completely hopeless and the production is spare and flat. Cohen never sounded like a cheery guy, but he never sounded more down than he did here. Still, nearly 40 years after its release, the song endures because of its beautiful honesty and tragic self-deprecation.

If you don't have them already, do yourself a favor and buy his first three albums.

American Hearts

A.A. Bondy - "There's A Reason"

I missed the boat when American Hearts was released earlier this year, but I'm on board now and couldn't be happier for it. A.A. Bondy's first solo album of folk tunes channels the both southern charm of Gram Parsons and the rustic romance of Neil Young. He's not rewriting the book on singer-songwriter music but he is doing it really damn well. Each song is a front-porch slow burner not befitting of the weather we've been having. So close your eyes and imagine you're someplace warm.

To learn more and buy his record, click here.

I am a Mountain.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - "The World's Greatest (R. Kelly Cover)

Will Oldham has this creepy charm that allows him to sound sincere while saying the most absurd things. Here he takes R. Kelly's self-laudatory "The World's Greatest" and turns it into something believable that sounds like his own. This song is from the new EP, Ask Forgiveness, an mini-album of 7 covers and one original. Each song is living proof of Oldham's transformation from the purposefully sloppy backwoods songwriter of the Palace era to the gentle, affecting folk of his current Bonnie "Prince" Billy days.

To buy his albums, click here.

The Moon

The Microphones - "The Moon"

The Microphones/Mount Eerie/Phil Elv(e)rum: what you want to call him is pretty unimportant. Having carved out his own niche in the northwest, he is one of the most brilliant and least commercial songwriters currently writing. His sound is exclusively his, which is not to say that he doesn't have influences or that he hides them, but that he fleshes out his visions to their desired ends unwilling to compromise for the sake of songwriting convention. He has a natural sense of melody and he channels his most intimate thoughts effortlessly. Here is a stripped down version of "The Moon," from the album Song Islands. If people are around, wait until you're alone. If it's light, wait until it's dark.

To learn more and buy his albums, click here and here.

Goin' To Acapulco

Jim James & Calexico - "Goin' To Acapulco"

Todd Haynes' new Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There is something else. It's definitely a good film but I probably wouldn't recommend it to a casual Dylan fan. It's confusing by nature and highly referential to events in Dylan's life. With that said, the music on the soundtrack is mostly fantastic. "Goin' To Acapulco" is one of the few songs performed in its entirety in the film. A classic song from The Basement Tapes, Dylan's 1975 album with The Band, "Goin' To Acapulco" is given a beautiful treatment by Jim James of My Morning Jacket backed by Calexico. My view towards My Morning Jacket was pretty neutral until I saw them open for Bob Dylan this past summer in Colorado. As exhibited here, Jim James has quite the set of pipes.

To buy the I'm Not There soundtrack, click here.

A Little Bird Whispered In My Ear...

Nate Henricks - "Selfish Sparrow's Old Song"

I found this song in my iTunes, once downloaded and immediately forgotten. After its resurrection this afternoon, I'm feeling much better than I was before. Nate Henricks is just a guy writing songs for the fun of it. No labels, no t-shirts, just music. This song is a playfully orchestrated pop song, kept short and sweet at barely over 2 minutes. It says something but not so much that it scrambles your brain. It's not a song to defy genres or to blow minds, it's simply to be enjoyed.

To learn more, click here.