raising heller

warning to parents: you can probably tune this one out…

musically speaking, i’ve had 2 experiences that fundamentally changed my life (once again, musically speaking). the 2nd was sitting in melissa garriott’s car. she told me she had an album that i just HAD to hear. i can’t tell you the number of times that i’ve heard that only to be met with some crap that i knew i would soon forget. she threw in fevers and mirrors by bright eyes. after getting over the shock of just how good this music was, i remember thinking, ‘oh man, this changes everything.’ and it did. for a while, at least, until bright eyes (and conor oberst) went to crap.

the first experience occurred about 12 or so years ago. a fairly new found friend of mine, ethan smith, introduced me to pedro the lion. well, he told me about pedro the lion. i never actually heard them. but he swore that i would like it. ethan seemed to have some musical creditability so based on his suggestion i bought their debut album, it’s hard to find a friend. once again, after a couple of listenings i was hooked in a BIG way. i knew that this album was going to be in my personal rotation for years to come. the band continued to release albums (and i’ve loved each one) but recently disbanded. the singer, david bazan, continued to release solo material. this wasn’t a big deal as bazan wrote all of the music for the band (which was just a constant rotation of his friends) anyway.

i’ve been heavily into his newest release, curse your branches. thematically, it’s pretty heavy as it’s about bazan becoming disenfranchised with modern Christianity and questioning all that he was brought up to believe. that having been said, it’s a GREAT album. in support of the album he’s been touring, but in between tours he’s been playing these small house shows. they sell a max of 40 tickets and it’s usually in a large living room or some other very intimate setting. well, i saw that one of his upcoming house shows was in renton, wa, our town. i knew i couldn’t resist seeing him on home turf so i bought tickets for jana and i. apparently not a lot of people like to make the trip to renton as we were among about 14 other people that were there at the show. i set up a camera (Canon 5D Mark II) and shot another angle with a hand held camera (Canon T1i) and managed to catch the whole show. i’m really happy with how it turned out. i’m posting it here for your enjoyment (or curiosity).

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