John Gorka's CD Release Show

Right now I am sitting in a packed house at the Cedar, enjoying John Gorka's hometown show celebrating the release of So Dark You See. Here's what he is playing for his first set:

- When She Kisses Me
- I'm From New Jersey
- I Saw a Stranger with Your Hair
- I Know (by audience request)
- I Think of You (this Utah Phillips song is on the new CD)
- Writing in the Margins
- Let Them In (a particularly nice version)
- Where No Monument Stands (a William Stafford poem he set to music)
- Fret One (a funky guitar piece--his first instrumental ever to be recorded)
- Trouble in Mind (another cover on the new CD)
- People My Age
- Branching Out

Gorka promises banjo in the second set..will let you know if he comes through!

The Clash of the Legends: Jill Sobule & Erin McKeown Take on Minneapolis

Tuesday night I met my friends Diana and Dean at the Cedar Cultural Center to see the first of 3 shows there this week. Having missed the tour posters (pictured here on the left), I was unaware that Erin McKeown and Jill Sobule were doing a whole tour together and that we'd be treated to such fabulously fun collaborations. Here's the setlist from their very enjoyable show, starting out with a poem composed that evening about Minnesota with Jill doing a dramatic reading and Erin backing her up on keyboards...

JILL SOBULE's SET (playing lots of songs from her great new album California Years):

- Minnesota Poem (w/Erin on keyboards)
- Where Is Bobbie Gentry? (w/Erin on guitar)
- A Good Life (a nice sing-along)
- Somewhere in New Mexico
- The Rapture (w/Erin on keyboards and vocals. A really catchy song inspired by an email conversation with an ex-gay minister. You can read the lyrics to this new song on The Huffington Post)
- Wendell Lee (a great accounting of some of her past relationships, going back to her high school friend Wendell Lee)
- Mexican Wrestler
- Jetpack (When she asked the audience for several different song options, I yelled loudly for the song about the jetpack...I was rewarded for my efforts because this song was very fun indeed!)
- Strawberry Gloss
- Cinnamon Park (w/Erin on keyboards and vocals)

ERIN McKEOWN's SET (playing keyboards and guitar--a nice mix of old songs and some from the new Righteous Babe release Hundreds of Lions):

- The Little Cowboy
- Fast As I Can
- Paper Moon
- (Put the Fun Back In) The Funeral (love this one from her new album)
- Minneapolis (only available as a bonus track when you buy the new CD on iTunes)
- The Boats
- The Rascal (w/Jill adding some pretty amazing percussion by hitting her lap; also added some hilarious guitar bits)
- Coucou (w/Jill on xylophone)
- Santa Cruz (first of a few songs Erin did on keyboards)
- The Lions (liked this new one a lot too)
- Cosmopolitans (liked this version much better than the one on Grand)
- Rhode Island Is Famous For You
- We Are More (w/Jill on guitar--very nice version with lots of audience participation!)

ENCORE:
- America (they got a dude from the audience to come on stage and hold the lyrics to this Neil Diamond classic while the gals hilariously imitated Neil's vocals and Erin did some pretty great xylophone work)
- Single Ladies (a folkified version of Beyonce's hit, proceeded by a great introduction by Erin about how meaningful it was to discover that she and Jill shared a love for the same music)
- Survivor (Jill introduced this as an older song that has meant a lot to her, indicating this would be more of a classic folk song...and then they launched into the most awesome version of this Destiny's Child song ever!)

This show was probably the most fun I've had on a Tuesday night in months...If these gals are coming near you, go see them! You can check out their schedule and their latest videos (including one done backstage at the Cedar, featuring their cover of "America") here.

Today's Top Tune on KCRW

For those of you who don't already know, LA-based tastemaker station KCRW offers a free download as part of their Today's Top Tune feature on their website and as part of their iTunes podcast. Today's song is from Pieta Brown's upcoming EP Shimmer, produced by the legendary Don Was (Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Rolling Stones).

Mary Travers Memorial Service

From the New York Times:

Mary Travers Memorial Is Scheduled for Nov. 9

A memorial celebration of the life and music of the folk singer Mary Travers will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday at Riverside Church.

Ms. Travers, who with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey formed the renowned trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died on Sept. 16.

Besides Mr. Yarrow and Mr. Stookey, participants in the celebration will include Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, Anne Meara, Eli Wallach, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Moyers, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and former Senators George S. McGovern and Max Cleland.

The service will be open to the public. Tickets will be available on the day of the event on a first-come-first-served basis. Half the seats will be reserved for invited guests. The church is at 490 Riverside Drive, between 120th and 122nd Streets, in Morningside Heights.

Looking forward to the John Kerry/George McGovern version of "500 Miles."

Bono Supports Obama's Nobel Prize

One of the best things about having my sister move in with me is that the New York Times now is delivered to my door every Sunday. You'd think I'd be better at keeping up with it, but sadly it's taken me a few weeks to discover this opinion piece by Bono, making the argument that President Obama does indeed deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. If you missed it like I did, it's worth the read.

Andy Bean Moving Beyond Just Two-Man Music

The latest update from the Two Man Gentlemen Band includes the news that

Andy Bean will be plucking his banjo & guitar along with Lauren Ambrose's No Name Rural Jazz Band Sunday, Nov 15 at Joe's Pub in NYC.

Wow! I had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Ambrose in the Shakespeare in the Park productions of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and would so much like to see her making some music with S. Andy Bean -- by which I mean making some music, just for the record.

Lauren Ambrose, I would also like to note, is New Haven, Connecticut, born and bred!

Falcon Ridge Going Back to Three Days

Word just came through the Falcon Ridge newsletter that they're scaling the festival back to just Friday, Saturday and Sunday this year:

FRFF will be returning to a 3 day format, next year's dates are July 23, 24, 25, 2010. The pros and cons have been discussed a good deal on the FR Forum, it's basically a preservation of quality over quantity issue. We've ADDED ON so many things over the years, the whole structure is wobbling a bit. We still plan to open for earlybird camping maybe even on the Weds before but all stages will begin on Friday.

I've enjoyed the four day festivals -- Richard Thompson played on a Thursday night, for instance, so how can I not have fond memories of that fourth day? -- but I also understand why three days makes everything just a little bit easier for the organizers.

I do like the idea of opening the camping up early, too. When I've thought about whether I'll try and arrange my schedule such that I'll be in the Northeast in July, I've thought about Falcon Ridge mostly as an opportunity to hang out and make music with friends, so a Thursday of just doing that would be great.

Hot Brazilian Guitar

Wikipedia tells me that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Brazilian guitarist of all times [sic]," so color me embarrassed for not having heard of him before, but my political science colleague Milan Svolik hipped me to Baden Powell last night.

Dig this:



(The red border indicates either my embarrassedness or his hotness -- your call.)

Stumbling Upon Bluegrass in the Strangest Places

My gym is located in the Lincoln Square Mall here in Urbana. The Lincoln Square Mall is one of the strangest places that I have ever been -- it looks like a mall, and it sort of even feels like a mall, but there's no one there for the most part, except when there is (sometimes but not always) a sudden influx of people on the weekends. Much like I am not sure if I will ever stop saying, "Wow, it's really flat out here," when driving on I-57, I'm not sure if I will ever say, "Wow, this place is weird," every time I walk into the empty Lincoln Square Mall.

Today as I was leaving the gym, I heard a familiar noise. And I saw in the distance a circle. And lo and behold, there was a bluegrass jam going on -- in front of the empty Lincoln Hotel's mallfront entrance.

I only stayed for two songs, since I had to come home to write lecture notes -- and you can see how that's going -- but there was a good vibe, and I enjoyed what I heard.

What Do The Swell Season and The Zambonis Have in Common?

As far as I know, they don't share a similar history of dating and then continuing to be in a band together after the break-up. No, they both record their albums in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the ol' Arsenal of Democracy itself!

The Swell Season is the collaboration between Glen Hansard (of The Frames) and Marketa Irglova. They played a couple that falls in love through music in the movie Once, and then they went and fell in love themselves, except it didn't quite work out, but they still make music together!

And according to the article in the New York Times from this past week, they recorded their second CD, Strict Joy, at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport.

Now, Tarquin Studios is no slacker operation -- Peter Katis has recorded The National, Interpol, Spoon and some other big-time acts there, including my beloved Zambonis. (See my concert review from February here.) And Peter also sometimes plays with the band, too, although his brother Tarquin (the namesake of the studios) is more regular (along with Dave Zamboni, Jon Aley, and the Hockey Monkey, of course).

Will The Swell Season appear on the next edition of The Tarquin Records All Star Holiday Extravaganza? I can only hope. (Although good luck producing anything that tops The Happiest Guys in the World's "I am the Groundhog (And It's My Day!)")



Update: Apparently, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova even attended a Bridgeport Sound Tigers game while they were in the Park City.



(HT: Beth Popp.)