02.04.10
Battling the Winter Blues with John Mayer
John Mayer is an artist I’ve wanted to see since I started listening to recordings of his shows from the Live Music Archive. Finally now, a great opportunity presented when he played the Hammersmith Apollo in London. It was not only traveling all the way to England to see the show, it was great meeting friends and lots of new people while seeing the city. But the show was the absolute highlight of the journey, of course.
It was only at the show when I realized how much I have been listening to his songs over the years. I’ve never really considered myself a JM fan, but I’ve been warming up to his music more and more. Finally now at the show it meant so much to me seeing these songs you know so well for the first time, well performed!
I went to the show with friends who are huge fans, which meant lining up very early in the cold winter weather. This time it was really worth it, once we got to the perfect spot in the front row. And being used to the harsh winters of Finland, it wasn’t too bad for me. And time actually goes surprisingly quickly when there’s nice people to talk to. You just have to admire these people who have seen him so many times and still line up at noon or so for every show. Nobody in our group was drinking, you don’t want to have to leave for restroom once you’ve gotten into the first row. And seeing shows like this up close is such a natural high that there’s no need for any substance.
As expected, Heartbreak Warfare, the first track from JM’s latest album Battle Studies, opened the show. It works so well as an opener. Then came Crossroads and Vultures, which was one of my favorites of the night. I really enjoyed every moment of the show. Of other new songs he played, Half of My Heart was very good. I’ve been much more into his music than the guy himself, but now I have to admit, I’ve got a soft spot for the guy as well.
I hadn’t given much thought to the band John is touring with, and I was surprised how great they were. A great thing about the show was that there was so much time and space for everyone to play solos. For instance, the hit song Waiting on the World to Change started with a five minute drum solo by Steve Jordan and ended with a long slide guitar solo by Robbie McIntosh. It brings a smile to my face thinking of all the teenagers who come to see a pop concert and get to see all this amazing musical stuff. Maybe a couple of them will learn to appreciate music more deeply.
John Mayer with his amazing band at the Hammersmith Apollo in London
And talk about John’s guitar playing. Well, there are lots of great guitarists out there, so it’s not that exceptional to play amazing guitar. But for someone who has made his name mostly as a gifted singer-songwriter, it’s very exceptional to be able step out from singing the songs to play solos like John Mayer does!
I think he’s still got lots of sincerity in his music. If you just see a glimpse of him, read about his celebrity girlfriends and mansions, you might think that he’s just showing off. But it goes so much deeper than that, a good example of that is the song Gravity, what a beautiful performance it was! I’m glad what kind of influences John’s got around him. For example, both Steve Jordan and Robbie McIntosh are 20 years senior to him and have done a long career in music. I’m sure there’s a lot for John to learn from them.
Back to the title, winters are always a hard time for me. I tend to get down easily when it’s cold and dark. And I felt pretty much out of energy before the show, but a great thing about great live music is how it gets you going. This show was the perfect thing to cheer me up! Though very tired from standing in the line and rocking out at the show, I felt great afterwards. And even now, I feel I got so much inspiration from this experience.
For other reviews and photos from the show, see the Try JM post. The same blog also has a recording of the show.
One of the highlights of the night was Why Georgia. I love the lyrics of the song, even still after all the time listening to the song. Actually, a funny thing is that they keep getting better and better for me over time. I’ve always thought it funny how some girls scream at the front row at his US shows during this song, but I guess I was just like them now, only with a much lower voice. Here’s a video of Why Georgia somebody shot from the balcony.
01.15.10
Song of the Week: New York State of Mind
Leaving for London puts me in a New York State of Mind. This is Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen performing the song. Stay tuned for some words about the John Mayer show, next week maybe!
01.11.10
Piaf Record by Martha Wainwright
It’s funny, when your favorites artists cover songs, you suddenly find yourself listening to something you thought you wouldn’t like that much. This happened to me when Martha Wainwright released her tribute album to Edith Piaf, called Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, à Paris: Martha Wainwright’s Piaf Record.
Inspired by traveling in France, I started taking French classes last year. They’ve gone well and I’ve enjoyed learning the language, so right now I’m bound to like everything sung in French. That’s why it doesn’t mean much when I say that I like this record, but anyway, it’s a refreshing listen among all modern music. Her French sounds great to me, which is no wonder, considering I read somewhere that she went to a French-speaking high school, growing up in Montreal.
Last night I tried to search if Martha Wainwright is on Twitter. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t find her. To me, she looks like one to keep today’s fast-paced, hyped-up inventions at a distance. It’s a great thing that we have artists like that, especially American ones. Twitter, for one, can be a great tool promote your work as an artist, but it can also distract you from your art.
This is Martha Wainwright performing the song C’est Toujours la Même Histoire in Brussels last summer, with a hilarious false start.
01.08.10
Song of the Week: Matt Nathanson – Answering Machine
Sing-alongs are cool and this year’s first song of the week is a cool sing-along. In the video below the audience isn’t obviously participating that well, but all the funnier in the end. If you dig the song, check out the post I did about a recording of a Matt Nathanson show over a year ago.
I can fall alone if all if I can fall away
01.06.10
Introducing Martinez and Guthrie
A couple of years ago, when I was new to MySpace, I bumped into a band from Northern Virginia called Martinez and Guthrie, who had just released their first album Gathering Change. I liked their music and they were very nice to people, which is a great thing especially when you’re new to a place like MySpace.
Just now, I was glad to notice that Martinez and Guthrie are working on new material again and doing monthly releases of their new songs! You can listen to this month’s song, You Could Be the Cure, on their homepage. That’s also the place to find more about the band. Their MySpace page still has songs from Gathering Change.
Here’s a recent video of an acoustic performance of a song called Where From Here, which is also from their debut album. Joe Martinez is on the guitar and Gus Guthrie on vocals.
01.05.10
DMB Highlights of the 2000s
If you’re not that much into DMB, this post might not be so interesting, other than the video below. Also posted in Finnish here.
Dave Matthews in Bilbao, Spain in summer 2009. Photo by Dena Flows.
True Dave Matthews Band fans often regard the band’s songs from the ’90s the best. To name a few, songs like #41, Halloween, Seek Up, Two Step, and Tripping Billies have earned their spot as fan favorites. The last decade wasn’t such a thrilling time for the old timers. DMB’s album Everyday was in a very different style, Busted Stuff was mostly remakes of previously leaked songs that never got officially released, not to talk about Stand Up. But then last year, their latest album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King got a much better reception from the fans, finishing up the decade in a nice way.
But let’s look at some of the songs the last decade brought along, they look surprisingly good. Note that this is by no means an exhaustive list what came into play, for that see DMBAlmanac.com.
Sweet Up and Down was the first new song played in the 2000s, this was on June 19, 2000 in Columbus, Ohio. They haven’t played it in two years now, but I really like it and hope it comes back into play. Grey Street also debuted on that same show. The following day in the same city, they played JTR for the first time.
One of my favorites, Grace Is Gone debuted June 27, 2000. They played it extensively in the start of the decade, and the song has grown to be quite long since then (although last year they only played short versions). The video below ends with an interpolation of Doobie Brothers’ song Black Water, which they did several times in 2007.
The Everyday album was released in 2001, and most new songs they played that year were from the album. But also Big Eyed Fish made its debut the same year. Then 2002 brought along two great new songs, You Never Know and Gravedigger, and also the beautiful quiet song Loving Wings.
The summer tour of 2004 had many new songs that I really like. Unfortunately, they don’t play them much at all anymore. The one I like best is called Good Good Time. Others include Crazy-Easy, Joy Ride, Sugarwill and Hello Again. Summer 2006 wasn’t bad either with new songs like Shotgun, Sister, The Idea of You, Kill the King, and Break Free. 2007 had #27, Corn Bread, and Eh Hee among other songs.
2008 had full band versions of So Damn Lucky and Gravedigger, and many new cover songs. Then 2009 was the fine year when Big Whiskey came out. It’s still too early to talk about those songs, time will show how precious they will grow to be.
01.04.10
John Mayer’s Battle Studies
“That was it?” was my thought after the first listen of John Mayer’s latest studio album, Battle Studies. I was simply expecting too much after his excellent third album, Continuum. Fortunately, Battle Studies has gotten much better for me with time. It’s not just your average pop rock album but a much more delicate one. The album keeps its mellow style from start to finish. It sounds melancholic but still so full of hope.
The first track, Heartbreak Warfare, starts the “love as war” theme that continues all through the album. It’s a cool song, and I’ve come to like to a lot, although I didn’t like the lyrics at first. All over the album, the lyrics may sound cliché, but after all, this is music, not poetry. And John likes to play with words and has many subtleties all over his lyrics, many that I’m sure I have never spotted.
Half of My Heart, his collaboration with Taylor Swift, is also a nice song. Just that we hear Taylor so little on the record that it looks like her name is there just to promote the album. But who can you blame, they both win, getting attention from each other’s fans. You see this kind of tricks so much in today’s music industry, some artists even have songs written to them that should be perfect hit songs. But these two look just the opposite to me, writing genuine songs themselves.
Who Says was the first single off the album. I’ve seen a lot of critique this song being the first single, because it’s not such a strong one. But it works for me. I just love the feeling this song evokes – feeling free to do anything after everything that has happened, no matter how painful, no matter how messed up you are now. “It’s been a long night in New York City” – I like how the song uses place names, names that often bring memories or images to people, and just switch to the name of the city when you are playing a show there, a trick that always gets the audience.
Perfectly Lonely starts from where Who Says ends, one my favorite tracks. Being a fan more of John Mayer’s blues stuff, I was happy to see Crossroads on the song listing of the album. But hearing this version of the song was a bit of a shock at first, it was just so different from all the previous versions of the song I’d heard. But like the rest of this album, it works for me now. And how they play it live now sounds even better.
Moreover, the album got much better for me after listening to some live recordings. These songs work well live. Which is good, because I’m going to see John Mayer in two weeks in London! So excited to travel once again after good live music and seeing the city of London at the same time.
Edge of Desire is the most beautiful song off the album. I like the acoustic versions even better than the album version, here’s an acoustic home recording.
01.03.10
The Beauty of Learning
Many times when I’m learning to play a new song, it feels so beautiful, so tempting. What comes out of my guitar most likely won’t sound any good at that stage, but the image of the song I have in my head is so beautiful, and I feel good attempting to express it. After some time of playing, the song loses its magic and becomes just one of many songs.
This is what I mean with “the beauty of learning.” I wouldn’t be surprised if this phenomenon had a more scientific name (and perhaps the lazyweb will reveal it to me). When we are learning new things, our objective is to learn them and move beyond learning them. So the learning process easily becomes just something to be done with. But it can be a whole lot of fun itself. This is a sort of note to self to remember that. Not just with music but with anything.
12.30.09
Next Year Baby
Next year, things are gonna change
Gonna drink less beer, and start all over again
Gonna read more books, gonna keep up with the news
– Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum has a new record out, which has been on my playlist among many other new records and some good old ones. It’s too early for me to say anything about it, except that that it sounds good as usual and the Rihanna cover is cool. But Next Year Baby, that’s an older song by Jamie, with the absolutely best lyrics this time of year.
Now when the year (and the decade!) is changing, I’ve been thinking about this blog. When I started out over a year ago, I didn’t even now I was starting a music blog. But soon it became obvious that music is what I wanted to write about, and I wanted to take out everything else to make it more reader-friendly.
Running a music blog felt great, I was so excited, and I thought it would last. Or rather, I knew the inspiration wouldn’t be that big at all times, but I thought it would be easy to write twice a week as least. Well, it wasn’t. Twice a week is actually pretty much over a longer period of time unless you’re just reporting something with few words and want to keep the quality good (and even if you are only reporting, you still have to stay on top of things). I think what kept me most from writing was the feeling I was repeating myself. I was trying to find fresh ways to express myself, but what I ended up with sounded like I’d said it a million times already. It’s hard to find fresh and fitting expressions to describe music. I think that’s because music is meant to be listened to and felt, instead of talked about so much.
With the new decade a day away, I wanted to set a new direction for this blog. What I don’t want to do is set goals that will be too hard to keep up with (already tried that). What I want to do is actually what I’ve been doing all along. I like to see music as a journey where I’m learning new things and having new experiences. I want to write about this journey. For my own sake, and also to inspire others on their journeys, whatever it may mean — help them find new bands or even new styles of music, help them find inspiration on their instruments, inspire them to pick up an instrument, whatever. The first thing I did was to update the about page to reflect this.
A year is a pretty short time to accomplish anything. But no problem, the decade is also changing, 10 years is much longer! Thus, my goal with this project is that when 2019 turns into 2020, I’ll be able to look back and see how far I’ve progressed on my journey of music. I feel dizzy writing dates like that, but it all starts next year. Or better said, continues. I’ll just try to stop doing things that are wearing me down.
This is Jamie Cullum performing Next Year Baby, with a long percussion intro on top of the piano (and under it).
12.29.09
Song of the Week: Tommy Emmanuel – Blue Moon
To celebrate the rare event of a blue moon on New Year’s Eve (which is reality on the last day of 2009), the song for this week is the legendary ballad, Blue Moon. According to Wikipedia, the song was written in 1934 by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and is performed by numerous artists since then. In the video below, guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel performs the song in fingerstyle fashion.
