Boogie at the Mambo - 11.19.11
Raise your arms in the big black sky, raise your arms the highest you can so the whole universe will glow!
[Ryan Michael Ulbrich, Moderator]
2 Notes
There is a commonality to our experience – to find success we all must become fluent in discomfort.
423 Notes
Your dad played obscure musical instruments before you did and there’s a sultry flute ballad about your mom to prove it. Everyone plays guitar, it’s the English of instruments that frat dogs pick up to woo women with unoriginality. Your dad was a true musician, a virtuoso of cylindrical steel and The Pied Piper of panty dropping. His fingers could craft high notes that rang tree tops with euphoria, and sometimes he didn’t even need his flute to do it.
So hipsters, next time you’re red eyed at an Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros concert and feeling mystically inspired to start playing the accordion or viola, remember this…
Your dad could give you obscure music lessons if he wasn’t busy working to pay for your liberal arts degree.
1 Notes
![His eyes were telling of a place off-centered, distant, abandoned—Saul’s stare held strong against the morning dew, a kind that reached a thousand feet in no more than a twenty foot room. It was as if each who saw his eyes grasp so firmly the open landscapes through the window took turns whispering questions that had endlessly awaited reply and, alas, no reply ever showed. It seemed ignorant, depraving but at the same time longing and innocent.
It sure did seem like he was giving some thought to it, though, whatever it was, and those fixated eyes were always accompanied by a pair of eerily gentle brows. That gaze, that near maddening gaze, subtle but off to horizons far out of normalcy’s reach, had been let loose and was staggering along its own way, dumbfounded, lost, struck by a maelstrom of “what-the-hell,” as a child crossing paths with his first beggar or the astonishment from all the woes, anguish, and pathetic confusion brought forth by love-sickness. You know, the kind that when it hits you, the world just, well, stops.
His muse was gone, his time was ending—it was time to recapture her love again.
RMU - Short Excerpt [the stare]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llofidAM6c1qk04qno1_1280.gif)
His eyes were telling of a place off-centered, distant, abandoned—Saul’s stare held strong against the morning dew, a kind that reached a thousand feet in no more than a twenty foot room. It was as if each who saw his eyes grasp so firmly the open landscapes through the window took turns whispering questions that had endlessly awaited reply and, alas, no reply ever showed. It seemed ignorant, depraving but at the same time longing and innocent.
It sure did seem like he was giving some thought to it, though, whatever it was, and those fixated eyes were always accompanied by a pair of eerily gentle brows. That gaze, that near maddening gaze, subtle but off to horizons far out of normalcy’s reach, had been let loose and was staggering along its own way, dumbfounded, lost, struck by a maelstrom of “what-the-hell,” as a child crossing paths with his first beggar or the astonishment from all the woes, anguish, and pathetic confusion brought forth by love-sickness. You know, the kind that when it hits you, the world just, well, stops.
His muse was gone, his time was ending—it was time to recapture her love again.
RMU - Short Excerpt [the stare]
SMALL TALKS.
By: Sloan Schang
In the Elevator
Employee 1: Monday joke.
Employee 2: Ha ha.
Employee1: Weekend?
Employee 2: Weekend. Weekend?
Employee 1: Weekend.
Employee 2: Slow elevator joke.
Employee 1: Sigh.
Buying Lunch at the Food Cart
Customer: Weather joke!
Server: Ha ha ha!
Customer: Ha ha ha!
Server: Weather complaint.
Customer: Additional weather complaint.
(Homeless man runs by wearing pants over head.)
Customer: Job market joke!
Server: Ha ha ha!
In the Taxi Coming From the Airport
Driver: Destination?
Passenger: Destination.
Driver: Destination! Hometown?
Passenger: Hometown.
Driver: Surprise! Hometown anecdote.
Passenger: Pretends to check voice mail.
Buying Coffee
Customer: Background music?
Barista: Whatever.
Customer: Tattoo compliment.
Barista: Mumble.
Customer: Overly enthusiastic goodbye.
Barista: Eye roll.
At the Barbershop
Barber: Fishing?
Customer: Medical problem.
Barber: Related medical problem.
Customer: A more serious related medical problem.
Barber: Silence.
Customer: Silence.
Barber: Local sports joke!
Customer: Ha ha ha!
In the Veterinarian’s Waiting Room
Dog Owner 1: Good Dog!
Dog Owner 2: Good Dog!
Dog Owner 1: Dog age?
Dog Owner 2: Dog age. Gender correction. Dog age?
Dog Owner 1: Dog age.
Dog Owner 2: Surprise! Dog food?
Dog Owner 1: Dog food.
Cat Owner: Whispers to cat.
Monsters of Folk are far from barbaric. Their music is in fact very, very well groomed. After noting exceptionally good chemistry on tour together years ago, the group formulated a three part recording process to complete a full album under a new name and group identity. Jim James (no, not the cyanide-punch- guy from that remote jungle in the 70s, Jim Jones), Connor Oberst of Bright Eyes along with his “brother in the flesh” band mate Mike Morgis, and indie-folk soloist M. Ward “spent all the money they ever had”—according to Oberst—and built a state-of-the art instrument playground in an Omaha, Nebraska studio space.
The live escapade I witnessed was one to be seated for, and much of the audience was dressed as sharp as the group’s suits. While most tracks from their new and only album were put on display, there were a variety of their respective group tracks featured throughout. The accompanied light show was somewhat reminiscent of My Morning Jacket’s Okonokos concert footage, while the set-list was clearly a melting pot of country, blues, contemporary rock, and folk that expressed a rollercoaster ride of vocal tones and tempos. Each has mastered the musical craft by integrating their separate artist identity into one tamed sound.
They had a purely egalitarian mentality while creating the album, saying on their site that “it had to be a band with its own thing, separate from each of us…we didn’t want this to seem like, here is a Matt song with a cameo of Jim, we wanted it to be more cohesive and have its own identity.” On top of the challenges forming a cohesive yet unique sound, they also discuss the thrill of learning new instruments shared on different tracks—Ward never had played the synthesizers that James brought along, and Morgis, James and Oberst were all new to the drum kit.
This whole is something different than the sum of its parts. Give a listen.
RMU
Gawker Delay.
By: Brian Beatty
Have you ever been so stoned that you crashed your car into a tree? Then did you get out of your car and see there wasn’t actually any damage from the accident—not so much as a scratch on your bumper? Then did you notice that there also wasn’t any tree? When you were finally able to calm down and get back in your car to drive away, were you embarrassed to realize that all along it was the air freshener hanging from your rearview mirror?
Me neither.
