Present Joys

Last night (19 oct 2013), my brother and I went to see Neko Case at the Newport Music Hall. Despite it being game day, we managed to get there with plenty of time to spare and snag front row, leaning-on-the-security-barrier spots. Observations:

• Neko is really scary (in a friendly, cool, way, but still scary). I took this photo at the very beginning of the show, just seconds before she called everyone out for having their phones out. Phew.
• She had a super-cool roadie (stage manager?) with her who’d tune all her instruments during the show and have them ready at the precise moment. He was wearing a three-piece suit and looked like an interesting guy.
• Speaking of guitars: those funky tenor guitars are so cool to see in real life. They are beautiful.
• Kelly Hogan is a national treasure and I want her to sing on all musical things I produce. The whole band was great, really; I was really glad to see Eric Bachmann too! And the dude playing bass was rock’n’rolling all the time.
• It was a fun crowd! I spotted lots of interesting people I didn’t expect to see. I love you, Columbus. Thanks for being here, Neko.

My band, Nigel Ewan and the Orange Vic is working on a new LP. We got up very early this morning and spent most of the day in the studio with our friend Ryan. We are approximately 1/100th of the way finished.

nigel:

This is, I think, my favorite live recording of “Old College Try”, an excellent Mountain Goats song from their excellent album Tallahassee. Listen to the bass. Especially at the very end. It’s superb.

I was going to post this video but then I realized I’d already posted it so instead I will just reblog myself. How’s that for ingenuity?

My band started working on a new album this summer. Here are some of us performing a new song a few hours after making it up.

I saw Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy play the Wexner Center last night (2 aug 2013). (back in Columbus for the second time this year!) It was not difficult to get my usual front-and-center spot. The band consisted of Will, Emmett Kelly, Cheyenne Mize (who mostly played bass this time, with a bit of violin), drummer Van Campbell, and Dawn McCarthy, seated around one room mic. It was quite peaceful! I believe this was the first show I’ve ever seen where every performer was seated for the entire duration of the show.

The show was really fun. I’m still not completely sold on the music of the Everly Brothers, but I enjoyed the music-industry backstory that Will was able to share about a lot of the tunes. And the songs all sounded great; I really enjoyed Will and Dawn’s tight harmony, especially since they both have such kooky voices. But the highlight of the night, in my opinion, was the scattered bunch of The Letting Go songs: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy originals, lovingly and wildly performed. If memory serves, we got to hear “Then The Letting Go”, “Lay & Love”, “The Seedling”, “Cursed Sleep”, and (best of all) “The Seedling”. They were so rockin’.

It was a fun experience. I was still a little woozy from tonsillectomy painkillers, and I was alone, and I met some interesting, talkative middle-aged men while I was there. Another great show at my favorite venue in town!