Tag: music video

Kelley Stoltz Preaches at The Chapel

“Double Exposure” from Kelley Stoltz via Third Man Records

Kelley Stoltz is a prolific musician, but more importantly he is a nice man–a nice man who makes head-boppin’ toe-tappers here in San Francisco. After falling for his album Circular Sounds (2008), I crossed paths with Mr. Stoltz while working as a music journalist and he always took the time to say hello without artifice or agenda. This fact, combined with his impeccable musicianship, is why I’ll be attending his record release show at The Chapel tonight. Supported by The Mantles and Sopwith Camel, this event–staged in a converted mortuary fresh with a buzz-worthy restaurant appropriately named The Vestry–promises to be an evening of goodness for both your hearing holes and tastebuds. See you there!

Friday Funny

There is nothing I love more than when Pop Culture mocks itself. For those who don’t know, Top Secret! was a 1984 Jim Abrams and David Zucker film that parodies World War II spy flicks, but in this absurd version rock and roll idol Nick Rivers (played by Val Kilmer) is central in the rescue of an imprisoned scientist in East Germany. I watched this movie REPEATEDLY as a kid, and while it’s a fairly terrible film I do still enjoy the mashups of imagery and sounds with which we’re all familiar, care of the Beach Boys and Elvis Presley among others. Take, for example, the song “Skeet Surfin'” that ran during the opening credits: a hilarious commentary on the place of firearms within American culture. Well, maybe not so hilarious if we think about it seriously. But (starting at 5 o’clock today) it’s the weekend! So enjoy this bit if Friday Funny.

Throwback Thursday: Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple has had her ups and downs, publicly. There is her well documented Best New Artist acceptance speech at the 1997 MTV video music awards where she told us all that the “world is bullshit,” and, more recently, she stormed off stage during a performance at a Louis Vuitton event because the crowd was inconsiderately chatty. This is unfortunate since it dilutes the impact of her music, which is damn good. Coming of age at the height of Lilith Fair meant I have a profound connection to most female musicians of that era, but Fiona always spoke stronger to me. While I can’t imagine my mother was pleased to hear her 7th-grade daughter singing “Criminal” in the shower–“I’ve been a bad, bad girl / I’ve been careless with a delicate man / And it’s a sad, sad world / When a girl would break a boy just because she can”–her music, and my butchering of said music, was an integral facet of my development as a female. The ability to play act the scenes she sang about fattened my lexicon for real-life scenarios foreign to a sheltered kid. Plus, she made playing the piano look way cooler than it is, and I appreciated that as a fellow pianist.

My love for this woman is as wide as it is strong. Tidal, When The Pawn…, and Extraordinary Machine all save space on my shelf, and all three albums have, at one time or another, been invaluable companions on monotonous highways driving south. In fact, she’s been with me for so long, been through so much with me that I feel as if we’re old friends. Not in a Single White Female way, but in the spirit of mutual understanding–much like one could have with a bartender or barista at a frequent haunt. You don’t know them, they don’t really know you but you understand one another due to a shared interest and there is no judgement, it is a safe space. No, Fiona Apple does not know me but I probably know a thing or two about her because her music is nothing if not personal; this is the curse of being an artist.

Her music bonds the fragility of heartbreak to the venom of a breakup and the vacuum of the afterbirth, so to speak: that state of purgatory where love hasn’t fully seceded to hate or ambivalence, and you’re merely empty. It’s complex yet simple, and utterly relatable for a teenage girl whose every emotion is extreme (aided and abetted by watching too much My So Called Life). Listening to her old albums now is like a trip down memory lane where each song represents a different freeze frame in my life. I see the home in which I grew up, me sprawled on the floor of my bedroom, in winter, reading skateboard magazines with the comfort of my parents on the other side of the door yet shut out. I remember driving in my first car, sun roof open and hair whipping out the windows as I rushed through the warm Southern California night from one party to another and then home. So, what I guess I’m trying to impart on this Throwback Thursday is that Fiona Apple is home to me. The faces have been swallowed by the ground and the places have changed ownership, but I’m home in the house of memory as long as Fiona is by my side. And in these uncertain times, comfort may just be the quintessential throwback.

Father John Misty, “I’m Writing A Novel”

Josh Tillman’s brain is a national treasure, and I mean this in all semi-seriousness. During performances as Father John Misty, he lights up the stage with his eccentric dexterity, his quick-witted banter and superb musicianship.  This video, for the track “I’m Writing A Novel” off his album Fear Fun, was just released on 11 September and it puts on exhibit a life most likely not like your own. Perhaps what I admire most is his irreverence, his seemingly resolute desire to make life entertaining. Take, for example, the title of directional tabs on his WEBSITE: “I’m Coming To Your Town So You Can Film Me On Your iPhone” aka Tour; “Please Buy My T-Shirts!” aka Merchandise; and “These icons may be tiny but they will take you to websites that will be around for at least another 8 months before they are bought and made uncool by major media conglomerates” aka Facebook and Twitter.

Genius. Rumor has it that he’s ACTUALLY writing a novel. I can’t wait to read that.

 

Current Obsession: Ray LaMontagne

I am not proud of the incident that first turned me onto Ray LaMontagne. It was my birthday, a handful of years now behind me, at Spec’s bar in North Beach. I was well on my way to an alternate reality when two little Yippies approached my Fella in a sort of coy, sidestep motion. They giggled, stared at one another, looked into their beers and then one of them asked, “Is your name Ray?” It isn’t, but this truth would never be sufficiently communicated to two youngsters psyched to see a celebrity. The bolder one took another stab at it: “Are you sure?”

At this point I assured them his name was not Ray. Could this have been done more gently? Probably. Did I immediately go home and Google “Ray LaMontagne”? You bet I did. Turns out, the Dude I Date bears a slight resemblance to Mr. LaMontagne, particularly in a dimly lit bar. This realization cheapened the satisfaction of my birthday snub, since what I thought was a crude ploy to undermine me was, in actuality, just two young girls genuinely excited to meet a musician.

While I’m not proud of the way he entered my life, I am quite content with his current role within it. Lately, his role is prominent for the minstrel has a song to fit any mood. His catalog features no miss: Till The Sun Turns Black, Trouble, Gossip In The Grain and my current obsession, God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise, are all thoughtfully developed and satiating. Listening to the title track from that album you can almost hear the Appalachian soil give beneath his feet as they pivot and strain from the force of performance. Which is to say this music is the perfect synthesis of the American myth; it’s small town chatter and howling at the moon. This realm of limitless possibility under an endless western sky, however, is tempered by LaMontagne’s visceral sadness. He is a pessimist who speaks of loss with a husky sincerity in “Empty”, and of love with an other-era soul in “You Are The Best Thing.” This is the broad spectrum of human emotion flowing effortlessly from one man.

Honestly, what else does one need?