Langhorne Slim, with abandon

We went and saw Langhorne Slim at the Ottobar last night. I'd heard a couple of his songs a few times and vaguely liked them, but went mainly because of the rave reviews of his First Thursday show last week. "Don't miss this guy!" was the message. Good thing I listened.

He and his band, the War Eagles, get more sound out of an acoustic guitar, an upright bass, and a drumkit than most other groups can manage with multiple instruments - case in point, this show rivaled Friday's Justin Jones show, which had acoustic and lead guitar, bass, trombone and sax, pedal steel, drums and a backup singer. With a cute, Bob Dylan-esque hat that may or may not have had a feather in the brim, and what my friend called an 'effeminate yet sexy' butt wiggle/strut thrown in for good measure, Langhorne brought down the house, strumming complex chord changes and singing like it was his last night on earth. His voice is a little high, but strong and confident, with just a bit of the Dylan whine.

Wikipedia tells me that he went to music school, which makes a lot of sense, and would also explain why his bassist, Paul Defiglia, and the drummer, Malachi DeLorenzo, are so talented.

The opening bands, Scruggs (think very early Uncle Tupelo) and The Red Vines (Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles) were also excellent. The Red Vines had a guy on keys and trombone who, let's be honest, was most responsible for their awesomeness. Poppy, melodic, with a smattering of psychadelic organ, the only thing missing was a tambourine for the female singer to smack against her thigh. Both are from Baltimore so I'm sure I'll be seeing them again soon.

Feist on Sesame Street

I had this album growing up called Sesame Street Rock, with songs like "Can't Get No Subtraction", "Born to Add", and other modifications of hit songs. One of the last times my friend's kid was visiting the office, he was obsessed with REM's "Shiny Happy Monsters". Glad to see Feist serving it up with monsters, penguins, and chickens just back from the shore too.

That sweet outdoor sound

Tuesday was the second evening of Music in the Park. The first evening, ten nights prior, featured a very competent soul/funk band and several beers each. While taking in the music we noticed:

a) large numbers of dogs
b) the people in front of us with fancy picnic paraphenalia, including special dishes with which to put salt on the rims of their margarita glasses, a rolling cooler, and a cocktail shaker.

Jealous outdo-ers that we are, we decided to show them just how fancy we could get, too. A few ideas were thrown out - creme brulee, with blow-torched crust; champagne, quiche, and fancy cheese; and of course a rolling cooler.

So on Tuesday we rolled in with the cooler, some Old Chatham Nancy Camembert from Whole Foods, and the two lonely bottles of champagne that had been pining for just such an occasion in my fridge for the last couple months. The zucchini-bacon-Gruyere quiche I made went over very well, as did Mari's creme brulee, which we scarfed down in three minutes, our forks darting in and out of the pyrex dish with abandon.

The best single moment, however, was the pop of the first bottle of champagne, and the cork's long ascent straight up into the air. It was the sound of exuberance. We all watched it rise up over the crowd, heads turning and craning up, smiles broadening in recognition. It's shorthand for celebration, champagne, and I'm sure everyone thought we were feting a birthday or a promotion or some other event, and it was even nicer for us to know that no, we're just celebrating the fact that we're outside, the night is warm, the swing band is great and the dancers are having a blast, and we're together, at least for a few hours, to enjoy all of it.

Muxtape!

I made a muxtape. Not sure what the significance of 'mux' is, but it's basically a mixtape. You create an account and can make one mix at a time from any mp3 you have, and no one can download the songs (though there are links to buy them online).

Current faves Deer Tick, Justin Jones, and Eef Barzelay make appearances. It's sort of the "Sons of Townes" mix.

Things we get to watch at work

The ATL

I went to Atlanta last week for the CORE Group Spring Meeting. I left early on Wednesday, had an excellent egg bacon sandwich thing at BWI, and took the awesomely convenient MARTA metro from the ATL airport into the city, and then walked four blocks to the hotel. This is the first time I've been able to travel with just my laptop bag and no checked luggage, and it rocked. I felt like I was cheating.

I went to a morning session but all the people I knew well were involved in running the show, so at lunch I skipped out and hit the Georgia Aquarium. It was fantastic! Cute otters, huge whale sharks, happy children and families, and some freaky jellyfish.

Walking back for a 4pm session I called my friend Adam Klein, a singer-songwriter friend from PC Mali. It had been a long time but that's no thing for Adam and me, and pretty soon we had plans to meet up at Eddie's Attic in Decatur for a show by a band I'd just recently discovered, Romantica from Minneapolis. Eddie's is a listening room and as Adam says, even if you don't know who's playing that night, you should go, because it'll be awesome.


Now, I didn't know where Decatur was but I was sure hoping it was easy to get to, and sho'nuff, the concierge at the hotel told me not only is Decatur on the MARTA line, the stop is one block from Eddie's! I gave thanks to the Atlanta city planners and silently cursed the architects of Baltimore's public transportation system, just for good measure. I mean, the MARTA links the airport, the Greyhound station, and the downtown area. Genius!

After the 4pm session I lit out for Decatur, bought some tickets, wandered around the expensive and adorable clothing and kitchen supply shops, and bought two bars of Vosges chocolate for 6.95 each. Adam arrived and we had a nice dinner of mix and match sliders (pulled pork, falafel, fried chicken!) and talked to the guy from the Bittersweets, who were opening. They just moved to Nashville from San Francisco and now they hang out with all their hero singer songwriters. Their set was great, real heartfelt duet stuff.

Then Romantica came on. Adam hadn't heard of them but I knew, if you put the stuff Adam likes in a box, and wrapped it up all nice and shook it around for a bit, when he opened it, it would be just what they were playing. Pedal steel, great lyrics, solid rhythm section, an Irish crooner. My favorite moment of the night was a rocking cover of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, of course made famous by the late Jeff Buckley. They pulled out all the stops and made it new again.

After the show people sort of trickled out, and when the guitarist came by I started talking to him about Minneapolis. Three hours and several few beers later it was 2am and we all had standing invites to crash at each other's houses next time anyone was in town, and I'd discovered the Bittersweets guy had gone to high school with a bunch of my Carleton friends from Amherst. A nicer group of dudes (and a lady) one could not hope to meet. Probably the highlight of the month.

Please listen to these guys and buy their music!

Your Biscuit's Big Enough for Me

Oh yeah it is.

And you missed this

You all missed this - Justin Townes Earle

And it was free!

Indie Rock Trifecta - now all DC!

Selling my Swell Season tickets to go see Bluegrass night at the Velvet Lounge in DC (Justin Jones is playing - saw him Thursday, he and the band are FANTASTICO. Please go see them!). He does bluegrass/blues/rock, covers Townes, plays harmonica and has a banjo and a horn section (and keyboards sometimes, but not Thursday). Also the band were super nice.

So goodbye Irish-Czech downer rock, hello super fun Bluegrass Night!! What a good deal.

Indie Rock Trifecta in May!

A Friday through Sunday Baltimore-Washington Indiefest!

Friday May 16th: Devotchka @ 9:30 Club
Saturday May 17th: The Swell Season @ The Meyerhoff
Sunday May 18th: Bishop Allen @ The Black Cat

Good thing I am not going to the RBM Board Meeting!

Shows - Beach House Papercuts

Thursday February 28th
BEACH HOUSE (cd release show)
PAPERCUTS
DIAPENSIA
The G-SPOT
2980 FALLS ROAD
Doors open at 8pm/ Show at 9pm- ALL AGES
buy ticket

Beach House is from here and they get a lot of blog press. I find them kinda eh, but the Papercuts have one or two good songs on a pretty decent album. I tried to go to this same show last year and at first thought I was seeing a leftover ad for 2007, but no I think it's for real, since the 28th is really a Thursday.

Terrible Band Name

But on first blush, an truly excellent dreamy alt-country band from the Cities. Plenty of steel guitar to get you through those cold winter nights.

www.myspace.com/romantica/

New Music

Have stumbled across some fun new music recently.

Bishop Allen

Broadcast 2000

Nina Nastasia - at the Black Cat Jan 31st.

Daniel Johnston is at the Ottobar February 24th too. And at the Black Cat the 23rd.

Youssou N'Dour

Youssou is one of the malaria spokespeople for Roll Back Malaria. Lisa his manager in the states (sort of) got us tickets for the Kennedy Center show last night. We had nice drinks and food at Dish beforehand, where I mistakenly ordered my salmon medium (OOPS!) but it was still pretty good. As always UNF and BASF picked up most of the bill.


Jumana and I went right up front and danced. Fun. I saw Jamaica from PSI (ex PC-Guinea) in the other aisle. Every other white person was an RPCV. This pic of Jumana is not nearly as scary in large format as it was on my camera, when she looked straight out of "Lost Boys".

New Radiohead

Their new album, In Rainbows, is superb. And you can download it for whatever you think it's worth. Some economist is going to have a field day with this, but I wonder what effect having to register your name, address, mobile number, etc will have on what people pay? I found it to be a little guilt-inducing. Not saying whether or not that resulted in my paying 'fair price' or not. After all, every price is a fair price in this situation.

Dance Dance Revolution

I only have fun dancing in Africa, specifically in Bamako. We had drinks on Claudia's roof last night then went out to the Monte Cristo nightclub, which is newly renovated (and next door to PSI's original offices). The Congolese music and the salsa had been playing at Claudia's and continued at the club. I LOVE Congolese music. It reminds me of selling condoms in Ndende and having a good time with my buddies around a table full of empty Regab bottles. Areana and I danced until 3:30 in the morning. That never happens in the States. I don't know why. Ok – so I will admit that here I tend to consume more alcohol since I am never driving home. But that’s not the whole story.

This makes me wonder about that split personality - Bamako/Gabon H vs US H. Here I will go up to random strangers and quiz them about their jobs to see if they're Russian mafia (they were Air France execs). I know it has something to do with my increased sense of my own (comparative) attractiveness here, and my hankering for spy-type activities (and ability to carry them out). My social confidence is greater here than in the States. And because of my Peace Corps experience and Bambara ability I feel I understand my surroundings much better than I often do in the US, where I'm thrust into work situations that fancier than I am used to on an almost daily basis. Here I have things to show and teach people - at home I am still learning. Here I'm a point person and in Baltimore and DC I'm the one asking for directions and advice.

So - the goal: being more like Bamako H in the US (without the hangovers, hopefully).

Festival in the Desert

The BBC has a nice slideshow about the Festival au Desert in Essakane, Mali, with music and lots of pretty pictures of camels. I told a few people not to go to this (from the US) because it's super expensive and hard to get to. But if you're looking for a way to drop several large and spend days in a broken-down SUV driven by a crazy ex-nomad guide, then maybe it's for you. I admit I've never gone and only heard the horror stories of travel, and ok, how great the actual show was. Four thousand people went this January. Now that Ali Farka Toure has died though, it's less of a draw, for me at least. Salif Keita was on the program but I wonder if he actually played. He's notorious for ditching out. Matthew McConaghey is also notorious for doing yoga half-naked on top of his SUV in the cool morning air at the festival - so I suppose you'd have to weigh those two things.

Thanks to Mom for the link.

Free Weekend

Virgin Fest was this weekend, over 12 hours of pop music, drunk folks, lame t-shirts and people watching. I got a pair of volunteer passes from Johanna at MPIRG, so Nate and I tabled for the city smoking ban from 10-3 in full view of the main stage, then went off to fully rock out. I guess all together I saw Kasabian, Wolfmother, The Raconteurs; Brazilian Girls, Gnarls Barkley, Scissor Sisters, The Who, The Flaming Lips, and the last two songs of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Raconteurs were excellent and I'm excited to see them for real with Bob Dylan in November. Drive By Truckers played the first slot and I snuck away from our booth for 15 minutes to see them put on their now-standard performance, which for the uninitiated or die-hard fan is a hard-rocking show. Unfortunately it was noon and I wasn't prepared to rock and donc, found them lackluster. I had a great time at their show a month ago in DC so I slipped away to safeguard that memory rather than witness a less-than-stellar gig.

I spent 17 bucks on the cab to Pimlico and nothing else the entire weekend. We got free lunch for volunteering and I scored water from Nate and one drink from Allison and Darien, who worked magic with factory-sealed water bottles, knives, ziplock bags and lighters and brought in enough booze to kill a horse. How Ali was still dancing at the end of the night having eaten and drunk nothing but vodka and diet Pepsi I will never know; I was impressed. I couldn't really get into the festival even after my shift was done and ended up wandering, lone-wolf style, from stage to stage, avoiding pukers and Bill Gates lookalikes.

[As I'm searching my bag for my schedule]
Bill Gates: "Hey, you got a piece of gum in there?"
Me: "No, sorry."
Bill: "Aw, too bad, cuz I ate this onion and pepper pizza and my breath is pretty bad right now,"

That might be the worst pickup line I've ever heard.

I talked to the Roller Girls whose booth was two away from us, and they recruited me for tryouts after I revealed I'd played hockey. Later on in the evening they waved hello to me which totally appealed to my inner middle-school student (the cool girls said hi!). Not sure I have the time or funds to put towards this activity (other things would have to move, like climbing or the bike coop), but since I already have my rollergirl name (Chrome Molly) and number (103) I am tempted to hit up Play It Again Sports for some old school skates and give it a try.

To pass the time Nate and I created a ladder of tshirt coolness:
5 (least cool) - Virginfest tshirt
4 - Band tshirt (if the band is playing at Vfest it's a high 4) or college tshirt, or brandname tshirt (except Old Navy, which is a 5)
3 - slogans
2 - clever slogans (I didn't think these existed and that all slogans were inherently tacky, but Nate disagreed) or kitschy tshirts (Seseme Street, for example)
1 (most cool) - cool designs that I did not recognize. Small monsters, or a line drawing of an owl, no words allowed. If I know what you're trying to associate yourself with, it's not cool.

We gave an exemption to kids under 15 because their enthusiasm is cute even if their clothing isn't.

By the end of the night I was dog tired from being on my feet for over 12 hours. The Flaming Lips guy made his entrance in a huge plastic bubble which he rolled over the crowd. I ran into James from Lake Trout but did not say hi to the rest of the band (Biggest Error of the The Night). The Who were good, everyone was good, but I just didn't have the werewithal to fully enjoy myself. If I had paid the 100 bucks for the ticket I'm pretty sure I would have had a better time, according to behavioral theory. But for 17 bucks I cannot complain.

Today I went with Allison and Darien and their friends Corn(elia) and Matt to the O's/Twins game, which was company organized. So we got free tix and free lunch (bbq beef mmm). O's put together a rally late in the game, thanks to Tejada's two solo homers, but then the rain hit and we left. They lost the game, the last one of the season. Tant pis.

Bob Dylan at our Family Reunion

My mom is visiting DC and Baltimore in November for the annual Slavic History meeting (or something). Bob Dylan is playing the same weekend (Friday) in Fairfax. Perfect! I email her this and she writes back:

"It is SO tempting, but I actually have to participate in sessions Friday late and evening. So sorry!"

This is bullshit and I tell her that.

In the meantime I pull Dad in, as he is doing nothing that weekend and might as well fly out to hang out with me and Mom and Bob, and Ede's family. Mom reevaluates her priorities (and her schedule) and discovers she is done with sessions at 6:30. Brilliant! "COUNT ME IN!" she says. Only fitting for a woman who was first in line to buy the new album from the Moscow books and music store, Pages.

So Dad will fly in on Friday and I'll pick him up, go meet up with Mom somehow, see Bob, hang out in DC, then everyone comes back to Baltimore Sunday and we dine chez Edith, two big happy families, and then we do touristy Balto stuff Monday before their flight back. Perfect!