sub pop 20th anniversary - part 2

sunday started out much more promising than it ended. i got to marymoor park a little before 1, in enough time to see grand archives who were awesome.


next, i saw a band called blitzen trapper who i again have never heard of but LOVED (yes, that much). i can't really describe their style of music because it was not any one thing. i guess if anything, i would say wilco-ish. but not really.


one of the bands i was most excited about seeing was kinski. after them, i went to listen to the foals, who i totally did not get at all, although the singer did tell a semi-funny joke about british people having such bad teeth that they have party games where they spit out blood. ha. he also ended the first song by breaking the amp, which necessitated much hand-wringing by the crew.

seeing green river would have been awesome if i had chosen a better spot to stand.

another thing - all the bands (and subpop itself) donated their proceeds to charities of their choice, which is pretty darn cool.

marymoor park is a cool place to see a concert. i was there once a few years ago to see tori amos; wilco was playing there a while back and i thought about going, but ultimately decided not to since the park is kind of a pain to get to from seattle (especially on the bus.. don't even get me started about that). but i did think that it was awesome that a lot of the cups, plates and utensils were compostable. very cool.

now, if you will excuse me, i am going to go watch the premiere of project runway. and then tomorrow is the who tribute on vh1 with pearl jam! the hits keep rolling!!

sub pop 20th anniversary - part 1

i had a great time on saturday. first of all, i have to say that this was a great festival - the atmosphere seemed really laid back, and i especially loved the fact that they had 2 stages ("this" and "that") going on, which meant that, generally, there was no wait time when one band ended and the next band started (or if there was, it was only 20 minutes, more than enough time to go to the bathroom or get something to drink/eat). i also loved the fact that i got to see a band like mudhoney alongside newer sub pop groups, some of whom i had never heard of before. i loved being able to spend an entire day listening to music; i got to marymoor park at 2:00 and i looked at my watch at 5 and was amazed that 3 hours went so quickly.

speaking of newer bands, i think my favorite on saturday might have been helio sequence. i'd heard of them before, but i'd never actually listened to their music. i really enjoyed it.

next on the "this" stage were the fleet foxes, who i was moderately interested in seeing. i have to say that i think they are quite over-rated. their songs are okay, but nothing special to my ears. (i've seen them described as "the next big band from the northwest, and they drew a pretty big crowd). i thought they kind of sounded like the foo fighters (their later stuff, not the first two albums).

next, i went over to the other stage to see a band called the fluid, and i'll show my ignorance by saying that they were one of a handful of bands i had never even heard of. i guess that, for lack of a better description (or more knowledge on my part), they sounded kind of like nirvana crossed with mudhoney. i liked them more than the fleet foxes for sure.

then i saw low, who i had also never heard of but really enjoyed. i had lots of fun watching their female drummer who had a really great voice.

next was mudhoney who i loved, especially since i had the good sense to stay away from the mosh pit. i like this picture because mark arm looks absolutely insane in it.

after mudhoney, i saw the vaselines who kind of sound like belle and sebastian (or i guess that belle and sebastian sound like the vaselines technically). they were really good - kind of sunny but depressed at the same time pop. a good counter to mudhoney; balancing the types of music is another thing i think they did well at this festival - and the lead singer, frances, was pretty funny too. they opened with son of a gun and also played molly's lips and jesus don't want me for a sunbeam, 3 songs that nirvana covered (and, showing my ignorance once again, the only 3 songs of theirs i knew).

then there was a 20 minute break and iron and wine came on. i've never quite gotten around to listening to him, but i LOVED (yes, so much that i have to capitalize it) his first song. after that, he kind of lost my interest a little bit. he seemed to do more talking than playing, although he was clearly very charming and funny (he kept asking us to clap along and then stopping us because "i can't play that fast"), but when you have a 40 minute set maybe you should just get to the music. when he played such great heights (a postal service cover), he forgot the lyrics (to the one song i could have sung along with!)

you're every now and then on my mind...

i know that i post way too much about the swell season/the frames, but this video is perhaps the most beautiful thing i've seen in a long time. i've probably watched it about 6 times since i found it an hour ago. i don't think i ever really realized what a gorgeous voice marketa has, and when she and glen sing together at the end.. WOW. i don't even know what to say:



does this song make anyone else cry??

this is from their concert at radio city music hall yesterday. because i have a slight obsession, i have read every review i can find online of that show. sigh. why am i never at concerts like that? it seems like it was absolutely amazing. i read on the frames messageboard, that interference (an irish band who opened the show) came out to do gold , which is one of my favorite songs on the once soundtrack. if you're interested, you can find more videos on youtube, including the best version i've ever heard of glen singing astral weeks . unfortunately, it's not the complete song, but it's long enough that you can hear how wonderful he sounds. and my favorite part of the video is the little grin he has during the middle of the song. it's like he's thinking, "we made it, we're playing a sold-out show at radio city music hall." which, regardless of how you feel about the swell season's sudden popularity, is pretty darn cool.

i really need to quit my job and win the lottery so i can follow the frames/swell season/pearl jam from city to city. sometimes i doubt if anyone would miss me.

i finally bought my ticket to for the subpop 20th anniversary in july. it's july 12 and 13 at marymoor park. i was only going to go on saturday, but green river is playing on sunday and i don't want to miss that so i just ended up buying a two-day pass. and now i notice that on friday the 11th, they are having a comedy show at the moore theatre and david cross will be there. the one time i saw him, in 2004 at the showbox as part of vote for change, he told a joke about finding an ad for a schoolbus on craigslist that is probably one of the funniest things i've ever heard. i wish i could remember it exactly, but it must have been funny because just thinking about it makes me laugh. really, who needs to eat when there is so much to do??

also, i've been meaning to post about this: a few weeks ago, my mom sent me a brochure for this company that does walking tours of ireland. i think that would be a really neat way to get to know a country. my only trepidation about something like that is that i would be traveling with a group of people but would ultimately be alone. does that make sense? a while ago, i checked an ireland travel book out of the library and made up the itinerary of my imaginary trip. it was fun. also in my mind, i am going to go to tibet, italy and spain.

picture a cup in the middle of a sea...

do you ever feel like there is some kind of big joke that everyone is in on but you? that's kind of how i've been feeling all week. it sucks.

this will be a somewhat random post.

so, sub pop records is (i've heard) planning a 20 year anniversary reunion show this summer. according to seattle sound magazine, it's going to be july 12 and 13 at marymoor park in redmond (seems to me that that's kind of a small place to have a show like this..) and the exciting part, for me, is that one of the the rumored acts is a reunion of green river. from their myspace page: In 1985, they became the first grunge band to release a record, kick-starting the Seattle music scene and later helping to establish the Sub Pop label. However, Green River are even more famous for the bands that sprang from their breakup: Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, the latter of which also contained the roots of Pearl Jam. That lineage somewhat overshadows Green River’s actual music, which helped lay out the blueprint for grunge but didn’t necessarily rank among its most transcendent expressions. the festival is apparently going to fill an entire weekend, so i wonder who else they will have play. the possibilities are very interesting.

*the rest of the festival lineup: Beachwood Sparks / Comets on Fire / Fleet Foxes / Flight of the Conchords / The Fluid / Foals / Grand Archives / Green River / The Helio Sequence / Iron & Wine / Kinski / Low / Mudhoney / No Age / Pissed Jeans / Red Red Meat / The Ruby Suns / Seaweed / Wolf Parade

the other night, i saw an interview with a man named randy pausch. he was a professor at a university in pittsburgh who was diagnosed a few months ago with pancreatic cancer (one of the most deadliest cancers). last fall, he gave a lecture at his school in a series called "the last lecture" - you can find videos of it on youtube. he was on oprah a few months ago, and gave an abridged version of the speech. one of the things i remember from it is that he talks about not letting go of your childhood dreams no matter how silly and out of reach they may seem. he says that brick doors are put there for people who don't want things badly enough. after hearing that, i can't stop thinking about my own life and wondering what it is that makes it so easy to forget those dreams and instead fall into a life of routine and of not always following your true passions. maybe that's what being an adult is about, although i sincerely hope not. i used to lay awake at night dreaming about living in a big city, being a famous writer and traveling around the world. i wanted to be a librarian or a museum curator. instead, i am a preschool teacher who is only marginally satisfied with her life on a good day. although i like my job, there has to be something more.. life can't only be about going through the motions can it?

... i have no idea what i'm trying to say. but does it make sense to anyone? maybe i'm having a quarter-life crisis or something. but if so, it's been going on for about three years now. in garden state, zach braff is able to resolve his in less than 2 hours.

in 4 minutes, ed vedder is able to say what i mean:


i feel like i should write something about kurt cobain, since this week marked the 14th anniversary since he died (i can't believe that). i was in 8th grade in april of 94, and i had just started falling in love with pearl jam and, to a lesser extent, nirvana the year before. i remember the exact moment i heard that he died - i was home from school watching a game show on mtv when they cut in with the news. so beginning a weekend of being glued to the television non-stop. i remember watching fan memorials at the seattle center.

mtv's nirvana unplugged is by far my favorite performance of theirs. even more than their albums, i love to listen to this, because there's something about it that is so raw and emotional. i really wonder what my cd collection would look like now if nirvana as a band or kurt in some other form had continued making music.

i'm not like them but i can pretend..