Saturday, May 30, 2009

it's been wonderful tonight

just a quick note before i go to enjoy the sunshine (three weekends in a row???!! is this really seattle?)...

i think that this video might be the embodiment of why i love eddie vedder.



it's funny because this has always been one of my least favorite songs on my least favorite pearl jam album. i never even gave it a second chance until recently when i took the time to listen to the lyrics.. it just so perfectly captures that feeling of restlessness and hope that i have most of the time.

on another note, i was cleaning my living room the other day and found a pearl jam show under my couch cushion. it was nashville 2003 - i took that as a sign that i should go ahead with my plan to go there. heh. less than 3 weeks! i just realized that the day i'm leaving is also our first field trip at work. so hopefully i will be tired enough to sleep all night on the plane.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

wave to all my friends

this is for kristine, who told me that she misses reading my blog, although i can't fathom why. i am a very uninteresting person i think. but.. anyway, here are a few things i'm liking lately.

goodness/kim virant/and others at the tractor 5/23


i had so much fun seeing these guys on saturday night at the tractor tavern in ballard. kim virant is awesome - i highly recommend the song love ain't for the weak, i'm a little obsessed with it at the moment. goodness is also incredible - i'm sure i've written about them before. i adore the lead singer, carrie akre, and devour almost anything she puts out - be it goodness, hammerbox (her pre-goodness band, which i have started listening to a little... 'tis good, in my humble opinion), the rockfords, or, especially, her solo albums. an aside that really has nothing to do with anything is that when i moved to tacoma in june, 2001, the very first show i saw in seattle was kim virant and carrie akre at local 49, which was the vera project's all ages venue at the time.

plus, during most of the show, i was standing behind rick friel. if you've seen my posts about shadow, you probably know how much i like him. my inner teenager was excited by this. (i have no idea what that means, but it's late so i'm just going with it).

here's someone's video of superwise from the show. i think whoever made this must have been standing right next to me. you can see rick friel playing the air guitar. heh.


folklife and, sunny weather
i went to folklife today, which is a free festival at seattle center that basically kicks off the summer. to me, anyway. my favorite thing about living in seattle is probably all the summer festivals. and, it was sunny and warm today! bonus! here are some pictures:



perhaps my favorite part of folklife is the rhythm tent, where people go to basically sit in a big circle and play drums. there's just something about being part of that that is great. i spent about an hour there when they were doing west african drumming.

i also love the street performers; i don't particularly like the artists that play on the stages (just not my musical cup of tea), so i prefer to wander around and let whatever happens happen. really, at what other festival can you listen to a man playing the didgeridoo, walk ten feet and see a band playing the steel drums, and be passed by a guy carrying a washboard? heaven, i tell you.

eddie vedder
not only have i been on an into the wild soundtrack kick lately, but i have decided to see him not once, but twice next month. i had already planned on seeing him in memphis with my fanclub tickets. but as i was contemplating booking plane tickets and making hotel reservations, i had a crazy idea that i could make the whole thing into a mini roadtrip and also go to nashville. so off i went to ticketmaster with this hare-brained idea in my head, and lo and behold, a ticket for the 6/18 show in nashville came up! of course i had to buy it. so, that's that story. plane tickets to nashville are actually quite a bit cheaper than tickets to memphis. who would think that? i'm even more excited for this trip now than i was before. less than a month!!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

a few random things

sometimes, i wish i had a time machine. i want to travel either backwards or forwards in time at my own discretion. for example, i want to fast forward to next friday when i will be at safeco field watching the red sox and then will be getting ready to spend the weekend in vancouver. after that, i want to go to june 20th, when i will be in memphis seeing ed vedder. and, hey, while we're playing, can i also go to an unspecified point in the future when i will be seeing pearl jam from the front row at the gorge and glen hansard will come out to sing indifference with ed? basically, i just want to skip the suckiness of my life right now, and get to the parts that will make me happy.

some things that ARE making me happy...

minus the bear is recording a new album! this makes me smile. i can't wait to see them again. hurry and play a show, please.



goodness (plus kim virant, et. al) will be playing at the tractor on may 23rd. yay!

and last but certainly not least, rob pattinson. or, specifically, the movie how to be. i've seen the movie two times now, and i think i can unequivocally state that he is the best part of it (i know.. it's shocking that i think that!) it's a quirky, funny film about a guy who's not really good at anything he does, but wishes desperately that he was. boy, do i relate to that.

How To Be Trailer (film festival version) from How To Be on Vimeo.

Monday, May 4, 2009

maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank

kristine and i are going to try to see iron & wine do an in-store at sonic boom records in capitol hill tomorrow (i saw *try* because i'm sure it's gonna be crowded given how quickly his seattle shows sold out [darn it] and we are coming from work. yikes!) i know that it's unlikely, but i'm going to put in a request (with the two people that read this blog) for him to play this song:



beautiful.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

"and this is mike on the guitar"



shadow, loaded, flight to mars
showbox, seattle. may 2


every year i've lived in washington, i've gone to the CCFA benefit show mike mccready, et. al put on at the showbox. and every year i've had a great time, but i gotta say that this year was probably the best. seriously, i have always believed that pearl jam is greater than the sum of its parts, but in the absence of them, i sure as hell am enjoying all their side projects (i swear that PJ's guitar tech - who was working on the show - had a shirt on that said "ev tour crew." i can't wait until june!!)

just like he did in august and december, mike came out first to do a couple acoustic songs. then chris and rick came on stage and they did their jimi hendrix stuff (which is great - LOUD, but *great*). as a pearl jam fan, you might never know that there's this whole other side to mike, one that he probably doesn't often get the chance to express in the confines of PJ (not that that's a bad thing, it just is what it is). also, i love when he sings. the other thing i love is when he points to people in the audience when he plays. makes it seem more intimate, somehow. towards the end of shadow's set, mike said that they were going to bring out a special guest... stone gossard! cool. 2/5 of pearl jam makes me a happy girl.

honestly, i don't remember what stone sang ;) it was good, though. then he left. (wow, this is an insightful review, huh?)

i wasn't really expecting to like duff mckagen's band, loaded. but i was pleasantly surprised. quite pleasantly. i really really thought they were great.

they ended with a cover of i wanna be your dog that absolutely floored me. in fact, flight to mars also did that song later, and i must say that i preferred loaded's version.

flight to mars came on around 11:30.

as we were driving home, i told my friend kristine that it seems like it's not often we get to see old-fashioned rock-n-roll like that. during the encore, they brought out this guy named jeremy who had the highest bid on an online auction (to benefit CCFA) and got the chance to play guitar on stage with flight to mars.