Here We Go Magic - great live!

I'm writing tonight, Tuesday night, because on Thursday I'll be at The Show!  Tonight I went to see Here We Go Magic at the Independent.  They were great.  Really beautiful and fantastic. Even the down-tempo stuff on the album that I have a harder time getting into was great. They really brought it out and mashed it up with the uptempo stuff.  They are expert musicians, precise, complex, layered.  But also just down to jam and have a good time.

I got to see Peter a little bit after the show.  He's the drummer for Here We Go Magic, but I met him back in 2006 in nyc when he was in Trick and the Heartstrings.  I love Peter.  He's got such good, welcoming energy.  He's now pretty much a total rock-star, but he was happy to see me and really wanted to meet Abbey.  Wonderful connection.  And he's a good fucking drummer!  He was before, but his chops have obviously improved. That's what happens when you play a lot, or do anything a lot, usually. You get better.  Peter had to play some seriously up-tempo shit that had to interlock with intricate guitar work.  And the band's new bass player, this chick that looks like Florence from Florence and the Machine, she was bad ass.  She fucking rocked and can sing.

I absolutely recommend you go out and see Here We Go Magic if you get the chance.  And in the meantime buy their new album, "A Different Ship".  I love the cover art:

much love,
Anthony

ps - I'm still dancing to this song...

How Do I Know

6/15/12
pps - The Show! went great. : )

How Do I Know (Here We Go Magic (This Is the Moment))

How Do I Know

This is the moment.  The moment planets collide and explode light that rains down on the sidewalks of urban streets in happy glow beams.  Cracked sidewalks that take the moment and reflect it back to the sun, rays of light meeting in an embrace, hands and wrists interlocking -- bigger things.  This is the moment of sunlight and freedom.  This is the moment she sings a song of delight and complexity, sweet songs of mystery falling down on mankind, humankind.  This is the moment of honesty where no beer commercial will follow, no scantily clad young woman to stimulate and confuse your desire.  This is a moment when your love is your love, your truth in love.  This is the moment of your gut winning the day.  The erudition of instinct. This is the moment of kindness. This is the moment of ART in the face of death.  This is the moment. It is a moment of truth, truth and song.  This is the moment we crave, a moment of Dostoyevsky happily ushering in the embrace.  This is a moment of learning and safety, of honest decay.  This is a moment of simplicity. This is a moment of sunshine.  This is a moment of secrets and shame set free into the wild heart of a lover; this is a blazing moment of acceptance...for all things we are and all things we are not.  This is a blazing moment of justice and babies.  This is a moment of babies circling the wagons in song.  This is a moment of hallelujah.  This is surely a moment of love, big bright window panes, sunlight, love, midnight, a surreal ephemeral amphibious underwater adolescent kiss -- big hurt and hugs -- sets shock waves through fault lines.  This is a moment of platitudes conquering and slashing through the soft belly flesh of (literary) criticism.  This is one brilliant moment of freedom, separation, angst, rebellion and coming together again.

This is a moment of love,
Anthony

chasing good new music

I love new music.  I love how it makes me feel.  It's exciting and inspiring.  Good new music heals the parts of my emotional stomach that are all fucked up.  I feel good new music in my emotional stomach with warmth and happiness.  I picture parts of my stomach lighting up, like sections of the brain in an MRI machine.  I imagine my stomach split into various regions.  I imagine a chart that shows dotted lines demarcating the different areas of my stomach.  It's like a picture of a cow that shows all the various cuts of meat: rump roast, rib, sirloin, brisket, flank, shank.

 Unlike the cuts of meat, the image of my dotted-line demarcated stomach shows regions of my own personal fucked up history.  For example, one demarcated section of my stomach would have the header, "nyc: January 2007 to May 2007."  Music lights up these various areas of my demarcated stomach, and when the music lights up these areas, i feel healing happening.  Sometimes the happiness is overwhelming.

The problem is that I also respond to good new music a bit like a drug addict.  Because the feeling for me can be so euphoric, I have a tendency to over-listen to individual songs.  I feel that I need the healing happiness of the song, so I will listen to the song like 35 times in a row.  This isn't always healthy.  I don't exactly know why.

The other problem with good new music is that I'm also constantly on the look-out.  Well not always, thankfully.  But I do get into this mode of perpetually searching.  Once you discover a great new song and listen to it a hundred times, it begins to lose its appeal.  And the chase for a new song continues, which creates an insatiable feeling along with emptiness.   Then there's whole thing about trying to be cool and be the first to broadcast new music.  That's why there are so many blogs about new music.  Everyone wants to be the first to tell everyone about a great band.  Part of this is really positive.  If by exposing a friend to a new band, I bring a new joy to my friend's life, then I have done something wonderful.  But the chase for new good music can turn into something akin to addiction, at least for me.  So with all of that out of the way, here are a few great tunes you may not have heard!!!!!!!!!

Magic Bullets "Lying Around" (San Francisco band. Go Giants! Really good.)

Ponytail "Flabbermouse" (Baltimore band. I recommend checking out the band members' side projects, as well.)

Here We Go Magic "Collector" (Peter Hale, the drummer in this band, used to be in Trick and the Heartstrings, one of my favorite bands of all time.)

Yellow Alex (Alex was the lead signer of Trick and the Heartstrings. In this video he's talking about his own creative process. Check out his new band Yellow Alex and the Feelings:

Yellow Alex and the Feelings

Elvis "Don't Be Cruel" (I'm working on a post documenting all the reasons why Elvis sucks. But goddamn he was one talented son of a bitch even though he stole all his songs from black people.)


Much love and tranquility in the quest for good music,
Anthony

ps - got the postcard Maria!  enjoy your travels!