Last week I was pretty swamped with parental obligations and didn’t get to listen to as much music as usual. But I saw Meshuggah at the Showbox, (post pending), so you can probably guess some of what I was listening to. Read More
ByGD
Music I liked Last Week – Meshuggah, Led Zeppelin
ByGD
Music I Liked in the First Week of 2018
Image by Gratisography
I like to listen to music while I work, and one nice thing about working from home is that I don’t have to use earbuds. I can enjoy it, like Lena Lamont, “nice and loud.” Of course, since I work with words, a lot of lyrical music interferes with my concentration. So I often listen to heavy metal instead.
Sometimes the music pushes through my concentration. Last week, I spent a lot of time going through the backlog of unread posts on No Clean Singing, which meant a lot of year-end lists. I heard a lot of 2017 releases for the first time. Here are some of the ones that pushed through my concentration and forced me to enjoy them even though I was trying to concentrate on work. Read More
ByGD
The Atlas Moth
The Atlas Moth at Studio Seven in January, 2013.
The Atlas Moth at Pacific Science Center, 2015.
I dug them both.
ByGD
Summer of Silence
Dancing with Adra Boo onstage at Ra Scion’s 2014 Doe Bay Fest set.
Last summer was all about the festival. I walked down the street to the Fremont Solstice Fair, traveled to a remote fjord in Iceland for Eistnaflug, to a remote island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca for Doe Bay Fest, and rode the bus to Bumbershoot, dragging my kids along to three out of four. When I left my day job, I knew that one of the sacrifices I would have to make, at least initially, was live music. There was no justifying the cost of tickets plus babysitter, especially when I am sometimes paid to cover shows. I would have to limit myself to work-related concerts.
As a result, I stopped following the concert calendars, which resulted in my missing many new releases as well. It’s just easier to miss shows you don’t know about. Then the kids were off for summer vacation, and it’s hard to seriously listen to new music with kids running around, so for the past couple months, I just let music go. During Solstice I hung out at the block party, but didn’t catch any shows; I followed Eistnaflug wistfully on Twitter, and plugged my ears at any mention of Doe Bay. Timber was supposed to be my Doe Bay consolation prize, but the dates conflicted with a family event.
At least I could count on Bumbershoot, I thought.
ByGD
Icelandic Bands to Watch Meta-List
Asgeir: The main reason people visit this site.
Right now everyone is caught up in year-end listmania, but a while back, there was a spate of “Ten Icelandic Bands to Watch.” They caught my eye because of my fascination with Iceland, but they stayed on my mind because there was so little overlap between them. It all started with a Pigeons and Planes feature “Icelandic Bands That You Need to Hear.”