Our household has recently bought in to the Amazon cloud music library storage model. I’m not the primary account holder, and I don’t understand how it works very well, but it’s a nice way to get music that I actually own downloaded to my phone. We’ve begun the long, slow process of ripping our CD collection (somewhere around 500 CDs at last count, which was years ago) and uploading it to the cloud. Read More
ByGD
My Head in the Amazon Cloud
ByGD
Pollyblog: Sudden Weather Change
Pollyblog: 1. When you don’t want to say too much, but 140 characters just won’t cover it. 2. Good ideas that haven’t got their legs yet.
My first experience with Sudden Weather Change was at the Reykjavík Calling show that KEXP put on at Neumo’s in October. The show featured Ásgeir Trausti, Sudden Weather Change, and Apparat Organ Quartet from Iceland; and Redwood Plan from Seattle. There was also this cool thing where the Icelandic bands worked with local writers and the Seattle band worked with an Icelandic writer to create new music for the show, but describing that would turn this into a proper post instead of a pollyblog.
I use this picture a lot.
Sudden Weather Change lived up to their name with music that shifted from abrasive punk to melodic indie so suddenly that sometimes they were actually doing both at once. It was angular and unexpected and awesome and I couldn’t wait to see them again at Airwaves a couple weeks later. Except somehow, I didn’t, and Sudden Weather Change became one of the ones who got away.
Eureka!
Recently, I discovered this gem on KEXP, and got a Eureka! moment when I heard that the band’s first album was straight up garage rock. They weren’t satisfied with it, so they started working to develop a new sound with a producer – Ben Frost at Greenhouse Studios.
Greenhouse Studios
I visited Greenhouse Studios to interview Bedroom Community co-founder Valgeir Sigurðsson when I was in Reykjavík. Preparing for the interview, I had listened to music from each of the label’s major members, which is how I became acquainted with Ben Frost. All of the Bedroom Community folks do experimental, primarily electronic music, but each has a different take on the fundamental concept. Frost has a more industrial aesthetic, which makes him more accessible to me than some of the other members of the community.
E = mc2
Garage band + Ben Frost = Sudden Weather Change
Simple equations that tell great stories.
{2018 Update: Sudden Weather Change, like most of the bands listed on this page, have since split up. You can hear some of their members in Oyama.}
ByGD
Blessed Be the Lamb of God
Lamb of God
To use Randy Blythe’s own words, “I guess some of you have heard that I had an interesting summer.” The show we originally bought tickets for was cancelled while Blythe sat in a Czech jail. When the tour was rescheduled, Seattle came at the end instead of the beginning. Our regular babysitter was out of town. So was our backup, and the highly recommended friend of a friend. I was starting to think it was a curse. Finally, two days before the show, we confirmed with a sitter from an online referral service. We would get to see Lamb of God play after all.
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ByGD
Pollyblog: When I Go Out With Artists (in Iceland)
Pollyblog: 1. When you don’t want to say too much, but 140 characters just won’t cover it. 2. Good ideas that haven’t got their legs yet.
Some people make things more interesting by adding “in bed” to the end of every statement. I use the phrase “in Iceland.” Anyhoo, this one time at band camp, I mean in Iceland, I interviewed many bands and it was very cool and I learned many interesting things. I am fascinated by what is, to me, the mysterious process of creating something new and beautiful. And the whole time I was doing interviews with bands in Iceland, this song was stuck in my head.
Here are the lyrics to “When I Go Out With Artists,” off the Crash Test Dummies 1993 album, God Shuffled His Feet. I copied them from this website because I’m too lazy to dig out my old CD and type them in.
When I go out with artists
They talk about language and the cubists and the dadaist
And I try to catch their meanings
And keep up with all the martinis
I don’t know which should be my favorite paintings
If I could see, if I could see, if I could
See all the symbols, unlock what they mean
Maybe I could, maybe I could, maybe I
Could meet the artists, and get to know them personally
If I were David Byrne
I’d go to galleries and not be too concerned
Well I would have a cup of coffee
And I’d find my surroundings quite amusing and
People would ask me which were my favorite paintings
What if the artists ran the TV?
All the ads would be for fine scotch whiskey:
Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, the whole single malt family
The artists of the future
Will make up new things and different nomenclatures
And they’ll stand amongst their pictures
And they’ll sing and laugh and quote from scriptures and
When they go home they’ll dream of brilliant paintings
ByGD
In Which I Finally Go to the Showbox Market
They didn’t bring the sitar, but they did bring the awesome.
Despite my best efforts not to act my age, I am occasionally reminded of just how long I’ve been knocking around this town. On Friday, I got to see The Cave Singers at the Showbox, a club my friends used to call The Shoebox, for reasons that were obvious at the time. It was only after I got my ticket scanned and went inside that I realized I had never been inside this swank multi-bar before in my life. I mean, it’s only been there for what, a couple decades? Read More