And I'm sure that plenty of you that are going don't know who she is, although she's from your hometown and she's AMAZING. If you don't make the festival, take the chance to see her somewhere in your hometown before she becomes a rare commodity that's constantly on tour.
RIYL: nature, melody, amazing vocal harmonies, literate songwriting, poetry of the highest order.
for something completely different, check out J.C. Brooks and The Uptown Sound from Chicago
They are also playing Lambert's on 10/5 which is a great small room. The food is a little pricey, but definitely crafted with care. Frito pie with brisket and goat cheese? Yes, please. You might have to talk your parents into chaperoning you, but if you can't make the festival, or just don't want to deal with the crowds at Zilker, or you just plain like bands in smaller venues (raises hand, that's me), then this would be a killer chance to see them. J.C. Brooks is a force of nature on stage.
So there's a couple tips for those of you that ARE going to ACL from my class.
Yeah, I like Radiohead, and yes, Flea was probably the biggest reason I started playing bass, but it was 1991 and I was 14. I actually didn't start playing bass till much later, but that's neither here nor there. I also dug Thom Yorke's solo album, The Eraser.
I'm not sure how I feel about Atoms for Peace, but I went with one of my roommates so he could pick up the album on vinyl, and it's beyond gorgeous. It's a trifold foil blocked debossed piece of art. That sounds like gibberish, right? Go to the record store, hold a copy of it in your hands and stare at it for awhile. Now tell me it doesn't make you want to buy it and open it up to see what's inside.
And while it looks black and white here, it's anything but. It's all silver foil ADHD breathtaking shiny-ness.
Musically, i'm on the fence, but Radiohead hasn't gotten me hot under the collar since maybe Kid A, but my favorite album is The Bends, and I feel like Eraser and Amok both sound like retreads of post Bends Radiohead. I kind of feel the same way about Wilco. The last album I went ape over was Summerteeth. Both bands are fantastic live, but I'm not in love with their albums. This might be a function of me getting older and not of the quality of their albums.
However, watching my roommate open that Atoms For Peace album made me think again about artwork for my album. If it's the only album I ever make, I want it to be visually pleasing but what does that mean for me? So I started thinking about albums I love and which of those have great artwork. Do I think the artwork is greater than it actually is because I love the music? Anyhow I can't get extravagant but I don't think it has to be extravagant to be iconic.
I guess I have to figure out what I'm calling the album first. Wow, that's a stressful thought.
I like the album art more than I like this song or video. I don't want people to like the artwork more than my music.
I guess I'll edit this with albums that I like the artwork for. Feel free to comment with images, etc...
Ken Stringfellow - Danzig in the Moonlight. I haven't seen the cd, but I do own the vinyl and it's a very similar effect, you hold it in your hands and it's breathtaking.
The illustrations feel textured and the whole thing looks like it's from another era. Out of my price point though.
I think many of the Beatles covers go without saying. Elvis Costello's first four albums, especially the illustration on the back of Armed Forces.
In august I took a few days to visit some very close friends in Seattle. I officiated their wedding and now they have a beautiful little daughter, so I went to visit them and bask in the perfect weather.
See? Cheeks for days. Also, note how green and not blisteringly hot it looks. The weather there was PERFECT.
Before I left for the trip, my friend Justin (I played on his album and did some arrangement work) lent me Mo' Meta Blues, the memoirs from Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, the drummer and musical mastermind of The Roots, quite possibly my favorite hip hop group of all time. It's a fantastic read, and as a result I have been listening to the incredibly dense album "Voodoo", by D'Angelo (one of two acts that actually piqued my interest from the ACL lineup). "Voodoo" has been in constant rotation for me since it came out in 2000, and even more so now that I have picked it up on vinyl. It's beautifully packed as a double album on 180 gram vinyl and has a depth of tone that comes from the way it was recorded. Nothing about it sounds brittle or crisp like so much of what you hear on the radio. That album is a warm blanket of soul that sounds like it was recorded in the early seventies.
Here's an NPR link to an excerpt from the book and also to interviews. Questlove is quite well spoken, and compelling. I think that is part of why The Roots are one of very few career acts in the hip hop world which is so fashion conscious that it eats its young.
Other than that, I've been listening to a lot of Elliott Smith as this year will be a decade since his death which was ruled a suicide. However, I believe it was murder. Also on the turntable has been Bobby Womack's stellar 1972 album, "Understanding". In the vehicle it's a steady diet of NPR, the rough mixes of my album (I'm trying to figure out a track order) and local band Auroravore's album that came out earlier this year. If you want a taste of it, let me know and I can play you a track. Here's a link to one song if you just can't wait that long and you have a burning desire to hear them. http://auroravore.bandcamp.com/
RIYL: U2, Yeasayer, Local Natives, melodic atmospheric dance rock
2013-14 students
you have three assignments due this week.
Assignment 1:
Step 1: Sign up for a gmail address in the format of firstname.lastname@gmail.com
Step 2: Create a blog at blogger.com. Publish a new post telling us about the music in your life and the role that it plays.
Step 3: After completing steps 1 and 2, email me at mr.ajjarapu@gmail.com and in that e-mail, state your name, and provide a link to your blog.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Don't create a new blog for every post. Create ONE blog, and publish new posts to it. Also, feel free to come up with a clever blog name. For example, last year Claire Orton's blog was http://icanseeclaire-lynow.blogspot.com/ ... clever, huh?
This first assignment is due by the next class. It's a completion grade, either you completed it or you didn't. You will either get a 100% or a 0%. It will not get erased. You will eventually have to do this assignment so you can complete your other assignments. If you don't have internet or a computer at home, or a smartphone to post from, you may complete this assignment at the school library during YOUR free time, or at your local public library.
You will not be graded on spelling or grammar, but you will be graded on content. That being said, bad grammar and spelling doesn't help your cause as far as making your content seem clear. Please consider drafting your blog posts in Word and spell checking your work, and THEN copying and pasting into the Blogger publisher. Your blog posts should be thoughtful, contain opinions whether they are popular or not, should use appropriate language (pretend your grandmother is reading your work weekly), and should be compelling. You may embed youtube links into your posts to make them more interesting and compelling, but they ARE NOT a substitute for original thought, they are merely a visual aid to help you articulate your point of view.
Assignment 2 and 3: You will have two more blog entries due by midnight on Friday this week. This will be a recurring assignment, and you will ALWAYS have two blog entries due by midnight on Friday EVERY WEEK. No late work is accepted. If you would like to raise your grade, you may post make up blogs that will be weighted the same as normal assignments. This means that you should get your work in on time, or you will have to do many make up assignments to eradicate the effects of that zero. There is no limit on the number of makeup assignments you can do, but there could be a limit on the amount of makeup assignments I am physically able to grade at the end of the six weeks if everyone deluges me at the end.
NOTE: Every week, AT LEAST one of your blog entries should be over material we cover in class. Both of your blog entries can be over material we cover in class. NO MORE THAN ONE blog entry may be over the music that you personally listen to. All of the above criteria, which is subjective, applies. BE COMPELLING.
