Tag: video

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Video: Heart-Ships, Undress Me To The Bone

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The last time we checked in with Heart-Ships was last October, and since then they’ve released a bunch of new music including a full-length record called Foil (YAY!) and split up (NOT YAY, MASSIVE :().

I listened to Foil late last night, and on the whole it is breathtaking. But there are a few songs that sank their claws into me. One of them was Undress Me To The Bone, which I present here in video form, because they did a “garden session” and sang it acoustic and it sounds like a diamond being wrenched out of them by force.

Heart-Ships - Undress Me To The Bone

This is the album version, which is worth listening to for the contrast: the lament sounds almost like an anthem.

Also strong: Nadine, Heart of a Wrestler and We Were Quick to Bang The Drum.

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A Good Read A Good Listen and A Good Drink: Benjamin Durazzo

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

Crisp, solid, mellow, at times a little jazzy: these are the beats of Benjamin Durazzo. His signature move is playing two MPCs at once. Here he is with Waterbed:

DURAZZO performing "Waterbed" Live on TWO MPCs at Once

A couple of months ago he was out on tour with AF the Naysayer and so I got to quiz him about his favorite book, record and drink in person. Here is what he had to say:

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A Good Read

My favorite book Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. It’s just perfectly in tune with my sense of humor. I like the satire of our country that Kurt Vonnegut writes so eloquently about.

A Good Listen

Favorite record is Fragile by Yes. Because I love prog rog and that’s like the quintessential prog rock record.

YesSongs #7: YES - Roundabout

Favorite Drink

Water – San Pellegrino, light carbonation, let’s go, baby.

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Video: Buffalo Sunn, Ocean

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Ocean, by Buffalo Sunn (formerly Sweet Jane): because y’all may have noticed this blog can be kind of . . . water themed, sometimes. I like the sea. Beach towns in winter are some of my favorite places; I love Coney Island all year ’round. By and large, if you need me and I am not where I usually am, you will find me by the seaside. Salt water and sea air: it’s good for whatever ails you.

And this song expresses that feeling perfectly. The video is . . . kind of puzzling and claustrophobic – poking their YouTube channel implies we may we walking in mid-story – so the ocean, when it finally appears, is something of a relief.

Buffalo Sunn - Ocean (Official Video)

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Covers of Note: Strangers, Stay

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So here is a story I have to tell you about Stay by Shakespeare’s Sister: The first time I heard it I was in the Arizona desert with my youth group, about three-fourths of the way through a week-long mission trip. We were out driving around looking at rocks, or something, I don’t remember, but it had been a long week. Tempers were fraying. Teeth were being firmly clenched. Required daily notes of affirmation to each other (yes, really) were becoming more difficult to compose.

But we had the radio on, a) because it was 1992 and b) I think choosing one tape or CD to listen to might have been the last straw for all of us, and – this song came on:

http://youtu.be/Tosky-ZNbRw

It was like someone had kicked down the door to a sex dungeon and it was full of fresh air. I didn’t quite understand what all was going on in there, but it surely was better than a car full of my seething peers.

I bought their CD as soon as I got home (as well as a Patty Smyth CD; I was looking for Patti Smith and missed) and had that song on repeat for some time.

Strangers have just released a cover of it, which is less sex dungeon and more new wave dance party, but still very good:

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Father John Misty, Bored In the USA

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Father John Misty (Josh Tillman), formerly of Fleet Foxes, started his solo career two years ago with Fear Fun. With it he positioned himself as a kind of post-modern Hunter S. Thompson, writing a doomed love story while high on mushrooms, self-loathing and irony. He publicly mocked critics who panned it, and audiences at his shows were often left wondering whether they were in on the joke, or just the punchline.

I liked it – I still do – but I also once described it as “Pavarotti singing nursery rhymes.”

Now, after a period of reflection and reconstruction – he put out a perfume, came unscrewed, got married, and pulled himself together, more or less in that order – he’s back with his second record, to be called I Love You, Honeybear, due out in February 2015.

Exterior signs suggest his puckish nature is undimmed at the core; the link text for his tour schedule is “I’m Coming to Your Town/Bring Your iPhone” and his Twitter reads like horse_ebooks:

Bored In the USA is the first single, and as the title suggests, is intended to echo Springsteen’s Born In the USA while also updating it for the modern era. The version below is from his appearance on Letterman, and so has a laugh track, which is accidental but nonetheless perfect.

http://youtu.be/hIFrG_6fySg

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Video: Dinner Belles, The River and the Willow

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This is the video for The River and the Willow, the title song from the latest release by the Dinner Belles of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The barn in the background doubles as their practice space and sometimes also their living space. The song is delightful, but really what I liked about this video is how cozy it feels, like you’re sitting on a porch (or, okay, river bank) with them.

DINNER BELLES – The River and the Willow from Southern Souls on Vimeo.

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Video: El Xicano, La Grande Pauro

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And now, all the way from Italy, international man of mystery El Xicano, with a deceptively idyllic video for “La Grande Paura” (The Great Fear), the first and most mellow tune from his self-titled but as yet unreleased EP.

Even on sunny days at the beach, there are flickers of darker things . . .

EL XICANO - La Grande Paura

(I’ve watched this video three times and I’m still not sure if that sunny beach is just random found home video footage, or footage from Jonestown. So there’s an extra layer of creepy-crawly uncertainty.)

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Video: Kan Wakan, Are We Saying Goodbye

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This is the video for Are We Saying Goodbye by Kan Wakan, from their new record, Moving On, and it is – unexpectedly powerful, I think, is the word I’m looking for. A visual meditation on all the ways you can love somebody, both who they are and who they pretend to be and what other people make them into (but you know it isn’t real, and hate it, but still love them) and the point where that person and all of their faces is on their way out of your life.

Are We Saying Goodbye

For more music, check out their Soundcloud page.