Key to my heart

Did I mention a month ago that I pre-ordered Bright Eyes' forthcoming album, The People's Key?  Is it February 15 yet???  I feel like a teenage girl because I'm so giddy with excitement.  

If only Conor and co. were coming to B-more...

Music therapy

Maybe you recognize these images? Maybe not. 

They're album covers from the latest releases from Ghostland Observatory, Iron & Wine and Foals.  I'm high as a kite because all three bands are coming to Baltimore, and we've got tickets! There's nothing in Seattle that I miss more that the music scene (other than coffee), so it always feels like a jackpot when great bands tour in B-more.  

Been to any great shows lately? 

Live from our living room

What a fabulous way to kick off our wedding celebration!  Thank you, Rosie! xoxo

 

 

Kiss Each Other Clean

Iron and Wine announced that their long awaited new album, Kiss Each Other Clean, will be released early next year. 

Sam Beam, a cozy sweater, cappuccino at home and snow outside.  Winter isn't sounding so bad.

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17 Days!

This video made me well up a little.  Music is so powerful on it's own, but when mixed with the high emotions of a wedding ceremony...watch out!

Rosie Thomas. My living room. OMG.

Rosie Thomas is playing a show at our house on September 18.  

I don't think I could be more thrilled, shocked and utterly beside myself.  

I've been a devoted fan since high school-- to have her in my living room is completely wild and totally unexpected!  But somehow- by what feels like an act of God, this is really happening! 

I actually feel like I've died and gone to a little bit of heaven.  I can not wait. 

(God, grant me the serenity to act like an adult and not make a fool of myself!)

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Le Revenge

Yesterday I posted a link to a story from the New York Times, a rather sizable spread featuring a portrait of M.I.A. that painted her as a potentially naive, contradictory figure, given her position on the ongoing war in Sri Lanka. 

Apparently M.I.A. wasn't too pleased by the story. In an act of retribution, she Tweeted the personal cell phone number of the NYT reporter for all the world to see. Yowza!

"Radical chic"

"Radical chic"

ESP is real. Conor Oberst, you must know I love you.

*You should also know I'm waiting to meet up in New York to drink macchiatos, share existential musings, and sing backup on your next album that we self-release together on an independent label.

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Anyone who has been to a Bright Eyes/Monsters of Folk/Desaparecidos/Commander Venus show could tell you there are a healthy handful of young women who are most definitely NOT afraid to confess their love of Conor from the top of their lungs, albeit from the bowels of the audience seats.

Whether in the middle of a slow, quiet song, during a banjo-flickering romp, between tunes, or in the middle of Conor's own monologue, the inevitable shrieks are as predictable as the shows male to female ratio: "CONOR, I love YOU!"

Eyes roll. Other women sneer from afar.  Men sigh with jealousy.  He's the poster child of indie rock for goodness sake! 

While the "I love you's" are disgustingly cliche, somewhere inside myself I'm thinking the same damn thing... I, too, want Conor to hear and understand how his words and voice have spoken to me on plane rides across the globe, late nights alone on the couch, on long drives through mountains and valleys, or in the backseat of a land rover whilst road tripping through southern Africa. 

It's due time I curated a selection of Conor's finest work, a gushing and admittedly loving ode to the Bright-Eyed idie rock prince himself.  No need to say more than to simply recognize his creativity and document the years of tear-stained, soul-searching journal entries that this list represents.

The List

*Tracks which are italicized reference brilliance
and are linked to strange youtube montages

Album: Monsters of Folk, 2009
Track(s): Temazcal, Ahead of the Curve, His Masters Voice

Album: Dark Was The Night (Red Hot Compilation), 2009
Track: Lua (with Gillian Welch)

Album: Outer South (Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band), 2009
Track(s): Ten Women, Nikorette, White Shoes

Album: Conor Oberst (self titled), 2008
Track(s): Sausalito, Cape Canaveral, Get Well Cards, Moab, Souled Out!!!, Milk Thistle

Album: Gentleman's Pact (EP), 2008
Track: Breezy

Album: Cassadaga, 2007
Tracks(s): Four Winds, Hot Knives, Classic Cars, Cleanse Song

Album: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, 2005
Track(s): We Are Nowhere And It's Now, Old Soul Song, First Day of My Life, Land Locked Blues, Poison Oak

Album: Digital Ash in Digital Urn, 2005
Track: Arc of Time (Time Code)

Album: Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, 2002

Track: Lover I Don't Have to Love

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*Best Album Nod: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, 2005

Conor and his most noteworthy collaboration, Bright Eyes, at their purest moments...