here’s the documentation of lily’s first haircut. she tried to be brave. she really tried. but the whirling blades and liquids being sprayed at her face got the best of her. i hope you enjoy the show.
so, saturday september 3rd, i went to see a band that i’ve been eagerly anticipating for a while now. the retribution gospel choir is a musical surprise comprised of two men from bands that i’ve been heavily into for years. alan sparhawk from low and mark kozelek from red house painters. seperately these respective bands are the embodiment of mellowness, but when their forces are combined, the rockers buried deep within their hearts are set free and unleashed on the crowd.
this new side project is definitely still rough around the edges as they are themselves figuring out just where they want to go, but the spirit of it is there and resonates clearly. they played mostly obscure covers from bands like the rolling stones, and pink floyd and occasionally played a tune from their own catalogs. below are links to photos that i took as well as some videos that i shot. i hope you dig it.
our friends, brady and dena, had family in town and dena’s father is a photographer. well, he took some really great pictures of lily and brady and dena’s daughter, maddie. check them out.
these songs are by jeff buckley.
if you want some music with soul, you want jeff buckley. if you’ve heard of jeff buckley then i’m sure you have heard the story by now: a mega-talented, one-in-a-million artist gets discovered and records a landmark debut album that is critically acclaimed by just about everyone. in the middle of recording his second album, he drowns and the world has lost a legend in the making. seriously tragic. well, luckily many live recordings of buckley exist. on of which is ‘jeff buckley live at sin-e’ which features 4 amazing songs. well, columbia released the legacy edition of ‘live at sin-e’ a couple of years ago. the legacy edition is pretty much everything they recorded during those two sessions. it includes 33 tracks on two discs and one dvd with four live songs. if you like what you hear at all here, go out and buy his first full length, ‘grace’ which you can pick up rediculously cheap. once you’ve got that down i recommend this legacy edition of ‘live at sin-e’. before he died, his second album was in the works and the bulk of the tracks were recorded. they mixed it post-mortum and released it as ‘sketches for my sweetheart the drunk’. i have to say that that album is really rough. the skeleton of the songs is in place but it’s really apparant that these songs are not the way that they were meant to be heard, so i would save this album until later on in your jeff buckley development.
recently, i had a post about a band i like, death cab for cutie. well, a friend of mine, neil, had something to say about it. over the course of 3 days we emailed each other back forth about the subject of music, ‘the man’, and pop culture in general. for your enjoyment, i’m posting all of those emails in their entirety. it’s a pretty interesting read. long, but interesting…
these songs are by death cab for cutie.
it seems, for some strange reason, that there are still people out there who don’t listen to death cab for cutie. whether this is because of lack of exposure, or simply because you don’t like them, you need to get over it. if you’re reading this, here’s your exposure, if you don’t like them, here are a couple of reasons that will hopefully get you headed in the right direction. here’s the deal: death cab for cutie are arguably about as good as it gets with indie music today (in my humble opinion). check these songs out and tell me just what it is that you could possibly dislike.
okay people, here are the tentative designs for the new heller trading, inc. business cards. i submit these to you to get some constructive crticism. do you have any changes you would like to see?
i’m (obviously) not going for a really professional look. i’m not thomasville, and i’m not going to try and fool anyone. (see here) anyway, what do you think?
front
i just wanted something for the front that people would remember. maybe even something that they would laugh at and want to show their friends.
these songs are by the album leaf.
here’s another band that was brought into my life by the o.c. the o.c. truly is a great place for new music. anyway, i came across the album leaf in my search for that great song on the season finale by imogen heap. in my searchings, i stumbled across the album leaf, and though it wasn’t the music i was searching for, it was definitely the music that i was glad to have found. it’s very mellow with a bit of sigur rós vibe.
these songs are by the ditty bops.
so, there’s this really great radio station down here called KEXP that plays the best music of all time. indie 103.1 in l.a. has nothing on KEXP. sorry, california. well a few weeks ago i was tuned in and heard this really catchy tune. now, the beauty of kexp is that they archive every show for two weeks, so as long as you remember when you heard the song, you can go to their website and plug in the time that you heard the song and it will play the show. pretty cool, huh? well, it was this very method that i employed to discover this great new band, the ditty bops. the ditty bops are a total throw back to the roaring 30’s when flappers ruled the day and prohibition was in full swing. this band has harmony down to a science. so pour yourself some moonshine, and dive into the melody.
as weird as it sounds, lily seems to sense when a camera is being pointed in her direction. she just starts posing. it’s really bizarre.
