Monday, January 29, 2007

Town Hall Portastatic


M.Ward played an immensely enjoyable solo set friday night at Town Hall in NYC. highlights included Carolina on piano, a guest appearances by Pat and Rachel from Oakley Hall and Conor Oberst joining Matt on o'brien to finish the show. the crowd was incredibly, reverently quiet and could be said to have been enraptured at times i think. as far as our set, it was more fun (ie less nerve-wracking) than i thought it would be, and Margaret and I had a polite reception. it was great to play such a nice-sounding room in front of a packed house...here's the set:

Bye bye pride
Noisy night
Sour shores
Sweetness and light
Angels of sleep
You know where to find me
Cunning latch
You blanks
San andreas
I wanna know girls

photo courtesy Phil's cellular telephone.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Wednesday Listening & Reading - Keep on Breathing


anyone bother to watch the SOTU last night? not me; even watching the wrap-ups with Olbermann, et al was a waste of time because you knew exactly what the jerk (bush) would say, act like, smirk like, etc... anyway, David Rees (he of the unstoppable Filing Technique) has a blow-by-blow over on Huffington Post that's worth reading.

in the cd player here at the office today:

The Delgados - Universal Audio for some reason the Delgados seemed to have fallen off of everyone's radar by the time this came out, and while not the masterpiece that The Great Eastern was, the great melodies and affect-less vocals are still totally addictive.
Thelonius Monk Quartet with John Coltrane - at Carnegie Hall man i'm glad someone dug this out of the vaults a few years ago.
Marion Brown - Sweet Earth Flying Impulse release from '74 is an interesting setting for Brown's alto and soprano saxes as it features the organ and electric piano musings of both Paul Bley and Richard Muhal Abrams, this is an awesome, spacy and hypnotic album from Brown and needs to be reissued along with Geechee Recollections ('73), and a bunch of other fine titles from Marion Brown in the 1970's. i found the vinyl recently and a friend transferred it to CD for me with a bunch of other jazz that i only have on record. a great place to read about and hear out of print free jazz like this is the Destination Out blog.

Friday, January 19, 2007

All Going Out Together


some friday afternoon listening...

Big Dipper - Heavens talk about a band in severe need of a reissue program, this is the CD that Homestead did with the amazing Heavens album plus the Boo-Boo Ep on it too...
Mouse on Mars - Radical Connector all their records are different, i like them all. i can't figure out how they do any of it.
Andrew Hill - Time Lines his most recent, on Blue Note, still unique and uniquely great
Jackie Mittoo - Wishbone i was so psyched when i read about this reissue as i thought all the Mittoo stuff was out there on various comps and stuff. this is really different sounding, full arrangments that never cross the line into cheesy or annoying, just super sunny and he even sings...awesome.

also, here's the link to the archive of Portastatic on World Cafe...

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Portastatic at Town Hall


one more date for the Portastatic calendar -- we'll be playing at Town Hall in NYC opening for M.Ward on January 26th, and doing it as a duo, which is a little frightening considering the size and esteem of the venue. i remember being really nervous when i played there in Yo La Tengo, and i was onstage with pros. Sure, Matt's playing solo, but he also has like 10 fingers on each hand so superpowers like that make it less daunting i'd think. Anyway, after that show we're playing with Yo La Tengo at the Cat's Cradle on Feb 5 and then doing the Camera Obscura west coast tour. After which i predict a radical slowdown in the amount of Portastatic live appearances for awhile...but i've said that before.

np: Alice Coltrane (1937-2007, RIP) "Ptah the El Daoud"

Monday, January 15, 2007

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Portastatic Live on World Cafe!

a Portastatic live session for the fabulous World Cafe show will be broadcast on Thursday, January 18! stripped-down semi-acoustic style though with full 5-piece band lineup... find your local station carrying the show HERE
or listen to the WXPN Philadelphia stream on that day from 2-4 pm EST by going HERE ...

Friday, January 05, 2007

Happy New Year! Cleanup Div

happy new year to all, hope everyone's holidays were as good as they could be...

i did a Random Rules for The Onion awhile back and they finally ran it HERE so check it out...

plus here's a large yet partial list of some yr-end blog love for Be Still Please:

bicameral mind
her jazz
the ratio
sunless suitcase
pleasant valley sunday
shooflypie
landscapeing
jeff levine
file transfer complete
wordnerdy
undergroundbee
timedoor
o felix culpa
lefthandedleftist
indieblogheaven
the line of best fit
mann's world
mystik spiral

whew, enough cutting and pasting for now....