Wedding Playlist

One of the details I could really get excited about during Wedding planning was the playlist for the reception.  We didn't hire a DJ - I wanted each song to be selected by hand and for the order to be carefully planned exactly to my specifications.  For the reception itself I rented a PA system and hooked up a laptop to the console.  My brother Dan ran the PA during the event and did an awesome job - we didn't have even one squeal and the music sounded great for the whole time.

As with all things, the reality of the "dancing" part of the reception wasn't quite what I envisioned.  My friends are a little more reserved and didn't all participate to the extent I thought they would.  For the first few songs it was pretty much Jen and I plus a lot of kids.  Also, the playlist is kind of long and we didn't quite get through the whole thing.  Overall, I'm really proud of this playlist and its importance to us and our relationship.

Here's the playlist:

Song #	Song Title	Artist	Purpose
1	Sweet Darlin'	She & Him	Perfect first song - fun and makes me feel like I do w/ Jen.
2	Say Hey (I Love You)	Michael Franti & Spearhead	Fun new song that's about love and great to dance to.
3	La La Love You	The Pixies	Jen's request - a favorite love song
4	In Case We Die	Architecture in Helsinki	Fun up-tempo dance song
5	Lloyd I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken	Camera Obscura	Nostalgic dance song
6	U-Mass	The Pixies	Get it rockin'
7	My Doorbell	The White Stripes	Keep it rockin'
8	I Feel It All	Feist	Easy to dance to, slowing things down
9	Love and Some Verses	Iron & Wine	Slow dance and extremely romantic
10	Sweetie	Josh Rouse	Jen and I used to listen to this song all the time.  Has the lyric "We'll sleep on rooftops/We'll ride on Bicycles/Honey, we'll get married/Don't you want to sweetie?"  Seems perfect for us.
11	Oregon Girl	Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin	I always tell Jen this is my song about her
12	Never Had Nobody Like You	M. Ward	Love song from M. Ward
13	Idioteque	Radiohead	At least one Radiohead song
14	Expectations	Belle & Sebastian	For a year I had this as the wake-up music on my alarm.  We used to wake up to it every day.
15	Sweet Sweetheart Killer	Say Hi To Your Mom	Fun dance song
16	1020 AM	Spoon	When we were very first together Jen and I used to stay up late listening to this song.
17	I'm the Man Who Loves You	Wilco	A song from me to Jen.
18	O' Valencia	The Decemberists	A favorite of the kids'
19	Absolutely Cuckoo	The Magnetic Tapes	Funny song - give people a break from dancing
20	LTWTMS	The Trouble with Sweeney	Groovy 70's sounding rock song
21	Mr. Tough	Yo La Tengo	Fun silly song to dance to
22	Simple X	Andrew Bird	This song makes me want to move every time I hear it.
23	Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye	AMFM	Slow-dance song, cover of a Leonard Cohen song.
24	No One's Gonna Love You	Band Of Horses	Slow song, one of Jen's favorites
25	1234	Feist	Pick things up a bit
26	Letter to Memphis	The Pixies	Rocking Pixies song, very romantic
27	Big Time Sensuality	Bjork	Sexy dance song
28	All My Friends	LCD Soundsystem	Up-tempo dance song for all my friends at the wedding
29	Chinese Translation	M. Ward	A little buddhist wisdom from one of my favorite artists
30	She's Losing It	Belle & Sebastian	Another favorite of Jen and mine from the past
31	The Navajo Know	The Pixies	One of my favorite Pixies songs
32	Eyes on the Prize	M. Ward	Great romantic love song for Jen.
33	Here Comes Your Man	The Pixies	Jen's song for me (her "Oregon Girl")

M. Ward March 8th at the Aladdin

photo credit: vassego in Washinton, DC 2/21/09

I went to see M.Ward March 8th at the Aladdin theater here in beautiful Portland with my friends Chris and Audry.  The opening band was Port O'Brien, who I really enjoyed.  Port O'Brien plays a whole lot of guitar.  In particular the lead guitar player was playing a reverbed Rickenbacker that sounded incredible.  The singer has a kind of Neil Young / Kurt Cobain screamy nasally thing going on that I quite enjoyed.  They had a female banjo player, but I couldn't really hear the banjo too much.  In all they were quite enjoyable and I plan on picking up their newest record.

M.Ward was incredible.  He played quite a bit off his new album but also mixed in quite a few songs from Post War for those of us who hadn't quite caught up with him yet on Hold Time.  One of the best things about M.Ward was the total groove he laid down, whether it be by himself or with the band.  I was really impressed how he could sing with the acoustic guitarists laying down the chords but still come off so tightly in his phrasing and musicality.  Quite impressive.

Of course, he has an incredible voice that's just one of those things he's blessed with, and he used it to great effect.  His songs are sensitive and thoughtful, and I loved the way he put arrangements together.  He's also a far better guitar player than I had anticipated.  He did a great instrumental guitar song that showed off his Bakersfield style Buck Owens skills quite nicely.  It was very impressive.

He must be a pretty shy person because the lighting was very dark.  For the most part he was in a blue shadow and not very visible.  He had a really cool lighting effect of a window pane on the back curtain.  As the concert went on the window went from showing a day scene to a beautiful night with lightning bugs flying around back to morning orange sunrise for the encore.  It was really cool.

I loved the concert - definitely one of the best I've seen in a while.  Can't wait to get the new record.

Andrew Bird at the Roseland

Photo credit: gussifer (this is actually a picture of the show the night before at the fillmore in san francisco)

Last night's Andrew Bird concert was the best I've seen in a long time, which is saying something because I've made it to my share of shows recently.  Anyone familiar with Andrew Bird's style of performance has an idea of how this might go, and if you aren't just plug his name into youtube and you can get a pretty good idea.  AB loops bits of music - many times starting with a plucked pizzicato violin part, could be for four bars or sometimes 8 or 16, and then begins layering on all kinds of accompaniment, including whistling, hand claps, vocals, bowed violin parts, etc until a song emerges.  He's perfected the art of doing this in such a way that at a certain part of all these loops the song just kind of snaps together.

Loney Dear, a band from Sweden, opened the show.  This wasn't the kind of show where you're blown away because everyone is so good.  AB definitely was the part that will stick in my mind.  Loney Dear had a couple of flavors of indie-pop, the acoustic/plaintive/quirky kind of song (which I generally like a lot) and the overwrought epic (which I generally do not) loaded with keyboards.  They were fairly inventive in their stage show, singing off mic or conducting sing-alongs (generally a risky move when you're the unbilled opener) which were quite enjoyable.  Overall though, I won't be buying the album.

When AB finally came out he played mostly songs off of his new album Noble Beast.  I do have this album, although I haven't had a chance to get into it as much as I might like (due to my newfound obsession with The National).  My unfamiliarity hardly mattered, though, as AB's infectious excitement over the new material sold the songs and the melodies flawlessly.  He is one of those performers who puts heart and soul into what he does.  The concert reminded me of the aspects of music that go back for centuries, as a cross between a religious service and a communal gathering.  If I hadn't bought his album already I definitely would have after this show.  In fact, I recommend you do so as well.

The one slight criticism I'd have of the show is that AB is perhaps just a wee bit bored of playing material off of Armchair Apocrypha, his last full album.  I say this because on some of those songs he was loose or inventive with the melodies and their rhythms in a way that kind of detracts from the original song.  For instance, one of the best things about the song "imitosis" is the syncopated rhythm of the vocals in the verse, and when they're stretched and stylized they lose some punch.

But this is a small trifle in an overall great performance.  I loved it and I can't wait to see him again.

Andrew's Band Concert

Brianna wasn't the only one with some end-of-the-school-year musicianship to show off.  Andrew's end of the year band concert was quite interesting.  He's taken up alto sax and is doing quite well with it.  He's a naturally talented musician who can pick up just about whatever he puts his mind to, and so for most of the year he was far ahead of most of the band.  He would make up his own songs or figure out Morphine songs on his sax to keep himself entertained.

The highlight of the night was the Laurelhurst Elementary perennial favorite "Let's Go Band".  Here's his feature (you can see him with the blond hair and the sunglasses):

Brianna's Piano Recital

Brianna has been taking piano lessons at this great place called Ethos Music, which is right here in our neighborhood in Northeast Portland.  This is a fantastic program, which is dedicated to building communities through music.  This place is right up my alley, so I'm happy to let anyone know about the great work they do.

The folks at Ethos did a great job running the recital.  Each child came to the front, bowed or curtsied, proceeded to play their peace of music, gave a bow or curtsy again, and then returned to their seat.  Most of the kids played piano, but there was one drummer, and one little girl accompanied herself on piano as she sang.

Brianna was accompanied by her piano teacher.  She was so proud of herself after she was done.  It's great to see her get that kind of self-confidence.

Of course, Brianna had a friend from her classes.

Everybody Knows

I guess Ryan Adams is just as prolific a video blogger as he is a musician.  Check out this neat little video... a poem from RA, kind of kerouac or bukowski style followed by "Everybody Knows" and a very clever ending credit.

Spoon at the Crystal Ballroom

 

                                          Photo credit:Squid Vicious 

Last night I went with a few friends to see Spoon at the Crystal Ballroom w/ the Shaky Hands.  Believe it or not this is the first real show (ie concert you have to buy tickets to at an actual venue) I've been to since I moved to Oregon, so I'm excited about getting back into the flow of that again - this is definitely something I missed a lot.

I'm not too familiar with the Shaky hands, but they seemed to be pretty good and put on an energetic show.  They'll warrant follow-up.  Unfortunately, they had the classic opening-act problem of having to set up in front of Spoon's equipment and it seemed like they didn't benefit from the house PA which made them kind of hard to hear from the upper balcony where I was.  

Spoon's set was amazing.  They mostly stuck to tracks off of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and Gimme Fiction.  There were about four songs I wasn't familiar with and based on the lack of programmed lighting choreography, I'm thinking they might be new songs being road-tested.  Standouts from the show were the opening "Don't Make Me a Target", "Cherry Bomb", "The Ghost of You Lingers" (with amazing sound work by whoever they have running the boards), and "My Mathematical Mind".  I was glad that they pulled out a classic from Girls Can Tell "Anything You Want".

The one complaint I would have about the night was that Spoon only played one encore, and I was hoping they would play a lot more.

Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.

Here's me on guitar and singing one of my favorite Ryan Adams songs, Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.  Andrew's on harmony vocals and Brianna's on hand claps - her specialty.

Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.