musical year in review, vol 3: the new landscape

as mj pointed out in the comments to vol 1, it's not that i am really listening to different music than i did a year and a half ago. the difference is, instead of talking with people about who's coming into town and when and which concert is better to go see, i'm talking to myself about it. that is to say, the discussion is all internal; the music i used to enjoy with others is now something i enjoy alone. have i reached that point in my life when all my tastes and preferences are basically set, and i'm now some eccentric fool trying to hang on to the community he's lost? let's hope not. it is necessary at the moment for me to enjoy a lot of music alone. i have the option of going to the concerts by myself or not going at all. sometimes, i do get caught up having fun with the friends i've made more recently, and i don't see any live shows for several months. then i get thinking about who i might want to see and start checking websites and sooner or later i've figured out what my next adventure will be. i don't know if i have failed to meet the right people where i am or if i was just uncharacteristically blessed at that crucial point in my life when i was fresh out of college and starting off with little idea who i would become. no matter what fears i may have to the contrary, i expect my next move to usher in some sort of renaissance of new friends and exciting things to do.

back to the point though; i have seen an awful lot of concerts by myself this year, and thoroughly enjoyed most of them. i think my favorite was flying out to seattle and driving to portland for that one concert. somehow that ranks similarly in my mind to my solo hike up quandary mountain in colorado. i'd been trying to convince a friend to go with me and he didn't want to, but i sure wasn't going to let that get in my way. never mind that in the course of the portland trip i called the girl i'd just gone out with and began the process of discovering we wouldn't go out again. that drive was thrilling, i was free, no one was stopping me from what i wanted. i don't really blame hollywood for linking romantic success to achievement in other aspects; it's merely a symbol, a plot device. so it's merely coincidental that one of my favorite weekends of the whole year brought the revelation that i'd be alone a while longer. as i have moved away from the people i care about, i've had to live for myself a little more, just in the sense of taking joy in solitary moments more often than usual. maybe that's a part of growing up. i can see now how people can persist in being something no one relates to; they've been separated perhaps from their favorite people and they're keeping it real when there's no one really there for them.

despite what i said already about finding new friends, when i think about moving, it's not usually about being surrounded by folks i care about; most of the time it's about hiking and camping and just burning fossil fuels by myself. i crave freedom, i crave the hideous paved roads that scar our nation, and i crave the sky and trees and the fresh wild air.

musical year in review, vol 2: out of nowhere

the august norfolk & western appearance at portland's doug fir featured ray's vast basement and loch lomond as openers. for sheer surprise factor, it was the best concert of the year. ray's vast basement has at least a couple songs that are as good as anything i really like, and then a few i found vastly annoying. still, for a few confused minutes (i didn't know there were any opening acts) i thought i was hearing new norfolk & western material, and i was pleased. loch lomond, however, turned in the sort of performance i'll be thinking about for years. they trotted out endless musicians and instruments, from celeste to cello. vocals were delivered in a disarming old world drawl, and melodic layers were enhanced by the timbral kaleidescope unfolding on stage.

loch's ritchie young is a great writer and performer, but i think adam seltzer and rachel blumberg could outdo him if they too had the benefit of seven msucians on stage for many of their songs. i would absolutely fire the bass player and violinist if i were those two. it's not that they're necessarily bad, i just didn't like their contribution to the norfolk & western sound. my problem is that i like 'dusk in cold parlors' too much to really want them to go in another direction. i guess i should consider the old norfolk essentially dead and be glad that what exists is as great as it was that august evening. i was hoping somehow m. ward would be on with the band; he wasn't, but it turns out adam has all the haunting guitar textures necessary to do justice to material from 'dusk.' the interplay between blumberg and seltzer is amazing, but i need the other band members to add something to that, or get out of the way.

somewhere early in the set, adam made a crack about hoping the openers didn't outshine him. the audience sincerely expressed their conviction that it was impossible, but it wouldn't be a bad thing. that loch lomond set was stellar. they had the benefit of obscurity; no expectations to live up to. i bought their second cd after the concert, gifted it, and have regretted it ever since. only this evening did i find it for sale online; sign me up for a copy. as for norfolk, they released a full length that either wasn't out by the time of that show or wasn't for sale. i bought 'a gilded age,' and i enjoy the cleverly-worded title track even if the instrumentation is a bit sparse and the banjo part is unimpressive. for anyone who cares, portland blew me away as much as the concert. i was pleased with myself for having wanted to move there. too bad that dream was postponed.

musical year in review, vol 1

plenty happened this year that i know nothing about. just thought it might be interesting to write about how my musical tastes evolved this past year. other things happened that are of a lot more significance than what happened to me.

2006 was significant because i moved away from the people who had influenced my musical tastes the most over the previous 2 years. it was tough; there's no way around it. of course, even if i hadn't gone anywhere, one of them moved anyway, and things might not have been the same. anyway, the most significant development of 2006 is the possible demise of thievery corporation, my favorite musical act for the past while. they fell victim to changing tastes, more than anything. i've gone more down the indie pop, singer-songwriter, americana roads lately. look at the concerts i've gone to this year: i saw rhett miller 3 times, the elected twice, jenny lewis, voxtrot, calexico, neko case, daneilson, tv on the radio, and norfolk & western. there were others - am, tom clark & the high action boys, garrison starr, the frames, ray's vast basement, and loch lomond all played at shows i saw, and most provided above-average music or i wouldn't have remembered their names. loch lomond arguably outshone headliners norfolk & western, but also turned in one of my favorite performances out of any of these acts. martha wainwright probably is the best opening act i missed; she sang on stage with neko and was excellent, so i am sorry i couldn't bring myself to head out early and see her set.