Emily Wells
Last spring, somebody posted a link to this video on a message board I am on:
Go now and buy her music, it is one of the most unique and amazing musical experiences I have had in many many years. We saw her perform this piece live. She mixes her stuff in real time on stage and it’s a really cool experience to behold.
A nice little interview with her recently:
I still exist, honest
I have not had the best work-life balance of late. It is one of the reasons that my musings on music have been few. New musical adventures have been sparse but they still exist. I need to write about Emily Wells both on CD and in concert, the Decemberists show at the Edgefield, Explosions In The Sky, The Boxmasters, My Brightest Diamond, John Doe & The Sadies and my impressions of the latest Wilco album. More soon, I hope.
My Obsessive Collecting Gene
While organizing my MP3 collection today I discovered a rather disturbing fact: I now have 38 live Wilco shows that I’ve collected over the years. This adds up to 9.82 gigabytes of music, 950 songs and over 3 days of continuous live Wilco and does not take into account the large collection of Jeff Tweedy solo shows I have. The only other live music in my collection that beats that currently is my Grateful Dead bootleg collection. Besides owning Dick’s Pick’s 1-35, I own a ton of other releases that add up to 20 gigs of music, over 1500 songs and over 8 days of continuous live Grateful Dead. My current count of my music collection is over 37,000 songs, over 260 gigabytes of music and I could play music for 24 hours a day for 113 straight days and never hear the same mp3 twice…
Roll on down the road
A few months back I went to see J.J. Cale with my friend Mark. At the time, I only knew of him as the “guy who clapton covered” and not much else. While waiting for the show to start we were watching what first seemed to be stage hands tuning the gear. Soon we realized that it was the band itself and a short while later JJ Cale came out and fiddled with his gear to. Without so much as an announcment or even the house lights dimming, the band kicked into song and the night got under way. I really enjoyed the show even though I only knew one or two tracks. I found myself grooving along with the rest of the crowd. Since then I’ve picked up a lot of his back catalog and his latest release ”Roll On
While I was driving to southern Oregon to go camping two weeks back I played Roll On a couple of times. Like a lot of Cale’s music, I unconsciously find my self grooving along with it. This latest effort has a couple of weaker efforts on it but all in all it’s a strong album that I find myself putting in rotation more and more. ”Down To Memphis” is probably my favorite stand out along with “Cherry Street”, “Who Knew” and “Roll On”. Cale is often criticized for sounding the same with each release, I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing in his case because of his musical talent the changes are a lot more subtle. With a band like say “The Cars”, after a while all their songs sounded like the same stale New Wave beat a few albums into their career, I don’t feel that way with Cale but of course I’m still very new to his sound so I may change my opinion in the future.
Wilco (The Stream)
New Wilco album streamed off their website until it is released. Go check it out: http://beta.wilcoworld.net/records/thealbum/
Wilco Album Due In June
Track List & Album Art have been posted. A few of the new tracks performed live below.
Wilco (The Album)
Wilco (the song)
Deeper Down
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
You And I
You Never Know
Country Disappeared
Solitaire
I’ll Fight
Sonny Feeling
Everlasting Everything
“Wilco (The Song)” performed live at a political event:
“One Wing” performed live at Lollapalooza last year:
And finally just a little slice of “I’ll Fight” from a crappy cell phone video at the Bridge benefit:
New Wilco Track
A cover of Woody Guthrie’s Jolly Banker is up on their site for a donation download.
Five Star Song: Dreamer in my dreams
Dreamer In My Dreams solo acoustic performance by Jeff Tweedy on March 3rd, 2007 at a private residence charity event. I never really appreciated the song on the original Wilco album. I liked it but there were a lot of distracting elements to the song (the coughing, the laughter). This version was totally stripped down and made me really pay attention to how sorrowful the lyrics are. I’m assuming it is a bit autobiographical in nature. Tweedy really captures the uncertainty of how ones life can change with major events. His visual imagery of his dreams hanging from a belt in a garage is pretty vivid and a brutal way to end the song.
Well there’s a dreamer in my dreams,
Swing from the beams,
(With a) light shining off the snow.
Well there’s a singer in my heart,
Burning up the charts,
With songs about things we all know.
Well there’s a blister on his brain,
That’s driving him insane,
Cause all good things they gotta go.
Well there’s a child on the way,
It could be any day,
But how this life will change him, that we don’t know.
Well there’s a child on the way,
One day, he’s gonna say, “Ain’t you my dad?”
Then he’s gonna look down and smile,
and after awhile,
He’ll say, “That’s for sure son, cause you got my eyes.”
Well there’s a dreamer in my dreams,
He’s hanging from the beams,
With light shining off the snow.
Well there’s a blister on his brain,
It’s driving him insane,
And all good things have to go, all right.
There’s a dreamer in my dreams,
Swinging from the beams,
With a light shining off the lake.
Well, I know I made mistakes,
I’m passing then all on.
But I hope he gets some before there gone, all right.
Yeah, that’s it.
Well there’s a dreamer in my dreams,
Climbing up the back,
Of a car they used to call a Cadillac.
It’s got a brand new set of keys,
It’s got a new look, it’s got a new look,
And his young one is gonna take it all away.
I believe it…
Well there’s a dreamer in my dreams,
Swinging from the beams,
All wrapped up in my garage.
He’s hanging from a belt,
He don’t know what he’s done,
Just don’t forget to day goodbye when he’s gone.
That’s it.
Sonic Chaos
So last weekend, I put The Hazards Of Love on the iPod on while mowing the lawn. It was a dull roar underneath the noise of the lawn mower, only coming clear when I stopped to empty the bag. For some reason it made me listen closer to the sections that I heard clearly and gave me further appreciation for this latest release by the Decemberists. This week I put the same album on the iPod while sitting in the dentists chair for quite a while. Again I was only hearing samples of it when the drill was off otherwise it was all just a sonic chaos mixture of music, drill noise and stress. Somehow it seemed fitting.
I am really enjoying this album and it’s been in constant rotation for a few weeks now. It’s not one that is easily listen to in parts, it is mean to be taken as a whole. I am planning on seeing them in Portland this summer and I’ve read that the first set of the show is the whole album from start to finish.
Ruff Life
