On the 30th of October, I met with Caithlin De Marrais and her friends at St. Paul Episcopal Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, which happens to be the same church where Sufjan Stevens recorded piano parts of his album, Illinois, and Caithlin recorded parts of her newest, My Magic City. She wanted to play a few songs with her friends at the church, and Kyle Fischer, who previously played in Rainer Maria with Caithlin and William Kuehn, got us the space to ourselves. They ended up playing for over an hour, and probably continued to do so after I left. For “Carefully”, the very last song I taped, Josh Kaufman gave in to the temptation of unlocking the gigantic, gorgeous church organ, which came alive like a fabulous beast. Also present was Seb Leon, who did a Bowie-esque duet with Caithlin on her song “Outer Space Is Still Sexy”.
I generally find it difficult to wholeheartedly love music videos: in the given format, the number of things you can do is ultimately quite limited, and there is an overwhelming tendency to do the same things over and over again, out of which some that I’m wary of are: linear stories, a literal interpretation of the lyrics, a typical ending where something explosive happens and we revel in the band’s performance, dream-like fluidity where random otherworldly things happen, and an overemphasis on tricks and effects. These tendencies aren’t always bad by nature, but they do seem to make awesomeness especially hard in music videos.
In these words of George Orwell, from his 1940 essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”, how I feel about a lot of people; most notably one outgoing President, but more suitably, another that almost was:
One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed. Several dukes, earls and whatnots were killed in the recent campaign in Flanders. That could not happen if these people were cynical scoundrels that they are sometimes declared to be. It is important not to misunderstand their motives, or one cannot predict their actions. What is to be expected of them is not treachery, or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable. Only when their money and power are gone will the younger among them begin to grasp what century they are living in.
But really, you should continue for a little bit of George Orwell hilarity on socialism and bombs:
Of the several noteworthy gatherings hosted this year by New York Public Library’s Live from the NYPL series, the last one I attended was Zadie Smith’s lecture on “Speaking in Tongues”. Poking right away into the nature of lectures and how a novelist is faced with “tonal challenges” when attempting to deliver one, she rolled her premise out: whereas a speech demands a singular true voice, a novelist–whose area of expertise is the imagined, after all–speaks his truth in a diffused voice filled with multiple personalities. But is this ability to be many-voiced, moving from one register to another, also useful for citizens and Presidents, and not just novelists?
Not that anyone’s even awake today, but here’re a few more presents. Dark Dark Dark’s set at Union Pool was much more fun than the relatively stiff one at Cake Shop. The last song they played was “Flood”, which isn’t on their album, but was performed for a forthcoming Daytrotter session, I hear. Nona got off the stage and joined the audience for a massive bout of swaying and singing. The video of this, and “The Benefit of the Doubt”, which features a few heart-gripping cello lines, are after the jump; as is ”True Believers All” by the Loom, whose front man John Fanning was celebrating his 28th birthday that night.
[Update: Pictures added]
Over the holidays I’ll be posting a small amount of leftovers and other unused material that will serve as my holiday gifts to you. This is the first of them, Bon Iver’s cover of The Outfield’s “Your Love”, as performed at Music Hall of Williamsburg on December 12, 2008, as taped by me (it’s not the same recording as the You Tube video that’s floating around). Also included is “Beach Baby”, as performed at the same show. It’s off the forthcoming EP, Blood Bank, which comes out January 20 and is available for pre-order.
hooves on the turf is a mostly-music blog based out of brooklyn. i can be reached at hoovesontheturf [at] gmail [dot] com - please send me your lovely music as an attached mp3 or an mp3 link. if i like what you send, i'll be sure to ask for more.
