My top Albums List

I've been wanting to pull together a list of my top albums for a while. I was finally inspired to do it because of how much I've enjoyed SABLE, fABLE by Bon Iver. It didn't make it that high on the list, but it's on there. This list is based on what albums I return to and listen all the way through. I'm sure I left out ones that should be on here.

Jerome's! Another chapter.

This blog performed its most important function 18 years ago when Sasha read parts of it before our blind date. She decided it would be good to get to know me. . . :) Compared to that there's not much to say, except that we're still finding ways to keep our adventure interesting.

The boys are 9 and 11 now and much more independent than they used to be. That's why it has been a good time to open a bar!

We are partnered with Ian Daly, who Sasha worked with at the House of Music. Jerome's is a casual sports bar with a slant towards board sports, New England pro sports teams, and a healthy dose of music. It's such a comfortable place, and we're having a great time!

Thanks to all our friends and family who have helped us to get this done! C'mon by and say "hi"!

www.instagram.com/jeromesofportland

www.jeromesofportland.com

Sunset Hearts New Album: Haunted Cloud

My good friend, Jesse, has been in a band for a YEAR now called Sunset Hearts. Sasha and I first saw them at Slainte sometime last year, and we were immediately won over and excited! This is good music that is very well put together!

Last night was the CD release party of the first Sunset Hearts CD, and they put on a great show!

They are also on the front of this weeks Portland Phoenix, in a article that reviews the new album. (see article)

Maine Music and Humor

There are two sites that I'm pretty psyched about:

Maine.fm is excellent! 
This site is all Music from Maine recording artists all the time! I was skeptical at first, but there really IS enough music to do this! I've heard some great new artists and recognized plenty of my local favorites.
I have high hopes for this site as a place that organizes the Maine music scene, and ultimately results in the first Portland Music festival! Yes all roads lead to the Portland Music Festival!

Hyperbole and a Half is a riot!
That's what I think. . . go see for yourself.

Thank you hillytown!!!!!

The more I visit hillytown.com the more I wonder how I ever did without it. If you want to see local bands in Portland, it's the place to go and learn your $hit.

I also want to share my love for the phrase "Hilly Town." It's a great song by the Ponys (now Phantom Buffalo) and here's the story of how I first heard it.

My good friend Toph and I were in our first year of college, and home from school for some holiday. Our typical gig was to wander around Portland until something happened to us. This method generally worked out and this particular eve was no exception. I had never even heard of Space Gallery, as I think they were in their first year.

As we walked down the best part of Congress, some kickin' music spilled out of a shop-front I had never noticed before. We went inside Space for the first time, and heard the Pony's for the first time. They were fantastic. I still love to hear the medley from the beginning of Shishimumu played live. It gives me chills and sends me back to that moment. We danced like crazy (we may have even started the dancing) and I even bought the vinyl EP with the Necktie song.

Here's where the story gets good. When the lights came up, we realized that we were at a wedding reception. We crashed a wedding to see the Ponys! I can't think of a more bad-ass way to be introduced to the Space or the Ponys. I would love to know who's wedding this was. It was in 2001 or 2002. Anyone have any info on this one?

Once again, thanks to everyone who makes seeing live music in this hilly town so awesome.

First Annual Portland Music Festival

Ok, I'm starting to get frustrated with the music venue owners here in town. There are many (too many) venues and y'all need to work t'gether y'hear.

Here's the simple one: Start coordinating more with the First Friday Art Walk. First Friday shows should be great lineups, they should start a bit earlier, and everyone should know about them.

Here's the hard one: We need a music festival. Start with say, two nights. Friday and Saturday. Every venue in town brings in a couple hot out of town acts (to draw out of town crowds) and all the openers are the many Portland bands that totally rock and need more exposure. Someone (with a tiny bit of guts and capital) puts it all in one easy to use schedule that people can walk around with. Then there's advertising.

My point is just that we have great venues and we have great bands. We just don't have enough people to support them. BRING MORE PEOPLE!

Hadestown by Anais Mitchell (WOW!!!!!!)

Well, I'm no good at reviews, as you might know if you had read my previous ones. That however will not stop me from trying to share TOTALLY AWSOME music!

I think that "totally awesome" is exactly what we have on our hands with Hadestown by Anais Mitchell. It is a Folk Opera that has apparently been in process for a long time, and is recorded in collaboration with a great group of artists. To name a few, Greg Brown, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Ben Knox Miller (Low Anthem) and Ani DiFranco.

I really love all of these songs!

Way Down Hadestown - is a perfect use of a folk standard.

Wait for Me - Is beautiful, spooky and dark.

Why We Build the Wall - is written in an ask-and-answer format that sucks you in and sends the listener's thoughts way beyond the plot of the story.

Epic (1 and 2) - are beautiful narrations.

Lover's Desire - is on my list for most beautiful melodies!

Listen to this album-story-commentary and enjoy!

Hadestown - Anais Mitchell

The Liberetto

Boston Harmony

This weekend I went to Boston with Sash and my mom to see my sister sing in Boston Harmony. This is a fantastic group, and I find it incredibly inspiring to hear. Here are two of my favorite songs from the concert.

This first one is from Corsica. It was sung by just four people, perfectly in pitch. I'm am currently listening to it over and over again.

A Violetta - VOCE DI CORSICA

This song is from Bulgaria. The harmonies and melodies are traditional, but you can tell that it's a contemporary arrangement. I find the arrangement distracting at points, but it hardly matters with such a beautiful song.

Ergen Deda (feat. Bulgarian Na...

I haven't listened to "Want One" in months. This is a really good album. It has a bit of show-tune flavor to it. Just now my coworker thought I was listening to "Kid A," and I can totally hear it. I never would have thought to compare Rufus Wainwright to Radiohead.

Want One - Rufus Wainwright

Music: a backlog

I think I am going to start talking about music more often. I've been listening to more new albums lately than I have in years. This is a list of tracks that I've already posted on Facebook, but never posted here.

Facebook History

Colin Macintyre is the main guy in Mull Historical Society. His new album I've been listening to a bunch today, and I am definitely enjoying it. The music is good, and there's much more in the lyrics than I have yet appreciated.

"The Supermarket Strikes Back" is both musically and thematically similar to Arcade Fire. Great song!

My friend Jesse played "A Little Lost" for me the other night, and as a result I've been listening quite a bit to the whole Another Thought album. Authur Russel is a bit weirder than the other music on this list.

"Little Secrets" is certainly where my love for pop can be found these days. I can't think of a song that better delivers what one wants to hear. This song was also a lasting theme through summer 2009.

(By the way I got married to Sasha last August 2009! It was a fantastic wedding! We planned it all ourselves, and loved doing it together. That made me feel good. I think that if we can collaborate well on a wedding then will will certainly be rolling out more creative exploits. We also bought a house. We live in a fixer-upper in Portland, and I walk to work every day. This has been yet another product of our collaboration, and I should post some pictures of it.)

"I think Ur a Contra" is by far my favorite track from the new Vampire Weekend album. I've listened to it on repeat for longer than I should.

The newest Yeah Yeah Yeahs is very good. "Skeletons" is one of my fav. tracks.

My friend John had me listen to Hockey. There are a lot of different sounds on this album, but if it makes any sense, I like the attitude of it. "Four Holy Photos" could easily be a mockery of religion, but somehow it isn't.

Picnic: Music & Arts Festival

I'm going to be selling photography prints this weekend in Portland.  Please see the info and website below!

PICNIC Music + Arts Festival
Saturday September 13, 2008
Rain or Shine
Free! All ages! 11am to 6pm
Lincoln Park at Congress St and Franklin Arterial
Portland ME
70 vendors / live music / djs
picnicportland.wordpress.com

Thanks!

Evan

Yoga. . . .

Here is the video that I talked about last time. It was more fun for me to make than it will be to see.

Evening at Home

I did some yoga this evening to a great song from the Lost in Translation Soundtrack called "Alone in Kyoto." I enjoyed this enough to have spent the last few hours trying to choreograph what I saw while doing yoga, with the song. While that task was all encompassing, interesting, and possibly rewarding, I was interrupted by something much cooler: The sounds of fiddle, clapping and singing coming from somewhere in my neighborhood! I just walked around the block to try to see the players, and while I am confident that I have located them, I could not see them. The sound of fiddle echoing through space takes me back to my childhood when I would fall asleep at my father's band's contra dances, and that feeling is a pleasure.

I would like to share my yoga experience as well. I recommend watching this full screen, in the dark, with headphones.

(video to come. . . sorry)

Grade A Day!

An exclamation. . . today was really nice! (Really nice is just a silly phrase to me. . . so I'm laughing at myself.) Seriously, fall has arrived. Hot, not too hot, clear, high clouds, windy. . . awesome! Made better by the fact that I got two Erin Mckeown CDs last night and Winterpills CD today. (updates on the music part of my blog to come) These CDs were happily purchased with a gift certificate I earned for house hitting last week with 3 cats. (never mind the beer that was stashed in the fridge for my leisure) There, good things recorded.
In other news:
I complete my thesis this weekend back at RDub. That's keeping me a little busy this week.

A little vacation. . . a lot to think about.

What a weekend! Falcon Ridge Folk Festival from Thursday to Sunday. It may have rained most of that time, but it didn't seem to bother anyone there. There were barefooted people running through the mud everywhere!

Lots of thoughts:
Can Al Gore run in the presidential campaign as pres or vice pres again? I sort of think he is one of the few people who could rally the left right now. (As the result of his movie.) I think rallying the 'left" is important because it hasn't been done in many years (for one thing) and for another, there is no point in competing with McCain for the "moderates" if he indeed runs as all think he will. That all said, I think the Al should run with Hillary, although I am not yet sure who should be running for president. Probably Hillary, although I support Gore more. Hillary has potential for new across the board support.
These suggestions for candidates represent a new thinking for me: I now admit that this is just politics. There are very likely better people positioned to run, but in my opinion these two would be the most likely to win combo for the Democrats. And right now, winning is extremely important. VERY VERY important. For world opinion, for global warming, for the Supreme Court balance.

Continuing thoughts: Why returning to Portland, was a great decision:
1. I am near my grandparents
2. I can bike into the country side.
3. I can bike into Portland.
4. I can bus into Portland.
5. I can bus to Boston.
6. I have a job with good people and a very fair boss.
7. I can have lunch on the wharf.
8. The head of moveon.org just moved to town. (he's 24 years old)
9. I see people who I used to know all the time, and I'm reconnecting with them.
10. Westbrook and Portland are definitely up-and-coming cities.
11. I get to swim in the Saco River and in the ocean.
12. I can contra dance as much as a want.
13. I get to do a cappella improvisational singing once a month.
14. I get to much people who are homeless on the bus.
15. I can easily get involved in Westbrook and Portland politics.
16. My home (at my mom's house for now) has an amazing yard, with a screen house and a campfire ring.
17. The Old Port on Summer weekends.
18. Friends from high school are around and still great to see.
eighteen is a good number I guess.

More thoughts:
It occurred to me that there should be a website with a title something like "wikilaw." The site would have laws and explanations, and implications of these laws. It turns out the is a "wikilaw" but there is hardly anything there. Maybe it will get better. We all need a good place to turn to understand our countries policy. Does anyone know a good place?

I am thinking that when I have time, my "truth crusader" site still has a ton of potential. It should really be a site that links and organizes sources of information that help people make decisions. Basically, it would make "truths" more accessible. It could link "wikilaw." It could link that site that shows ownership trees of corporations. It could link sites that breakdown that health aspects of materials in our homes.

that's it for now. . . although there could be more. . .

Hot Sextet

These guys aren't really a band anymore, but they're all still around. It was really fun following them around and taking pictures last year. One day I'll have a better camera. My point and shoot (with a few other minor adjusters) really doesn't cut it in concert situations, but its all I have for now. Anyway lets see the pictures!

I lived with Tony Hollums last year. He is one of the most energetic capable musicians I know. He's doing cool stuff in the Boston area now.

Tony C. is still here at SAAHP. Great sax player! I'm not sure what next year will be for him.

Heather was the last addition to the band, but her trumpet style was a great addition.
Here's Liam, one of the two guitar players. I never got a good picture of the other guitar player.

This shot is from the cafeteria at our school.