SOUNDTRACK: ERIN RAE-Tiny Desk Concert #867 (July 12, 2019).
Lars Gottrich is one of my favorite NPR personalities. He picks some of my favorite loud music but he also loves a lot of quiet music. So even though I have never seen Erin Rae, he has apparently seen her many times.
Every time I’ve seen Erin Rae live, she transforms her quiet storms into different hues of squalling introspection.
She opens with “Bad Mind.” But before that,
Her performance at the Tiny Desk opens with a soft tide of ambient tones — both a way to ease into the song but also understand that life’s unease is ever-present. Then a lilting acoustic melody introduces “Bad Mind,” a stunning statement of identity from a Nashville singer-songwriter who shares the secrets we keep close.
She’s joined here by Jerry Bernhardt, a treasured collaborator and a guitarist who knows how to play decorative but unobtrusive figures. He and drummer Dom Billet both appear on Putting On Airs, taking those arrangements and stretching them out at the Tiny Desk with Mellotron/Rhodes piano player Ben Tanner and bassist Joe Garner.
It’s a lovely melody and she avoids the dreaded country twang when she sings. In fact when Bernhardt and Billet sing along, their voices are pure folk gold. Bernhardt introduces a quiet buzzing guitar solo which, along with the organ adds all kinds of neat sounds to this simple song.
Before the second song she says she and her sister used to make their own radio shows. They were a big NPR family but she thought it meant Nashville Public Radio.
“Can’t Cut Loose” is a song about letting go of things that aren’t good for you anymore. Its’a quiet slow song with a pretty chorus.
The Tiny Desk closes with “the summer jam,” as Erin Rae jokingly calls “Love Like Before,”
She says it’s their most upbeat song, although that is all relative. It’s about learning to be content wherever you may be.
It’s definitely a bit more upbeat but it’s still a slow and thoughtful song.
I won’t be going to see Erin Rae, but I did enjoy this mellow little Concert.
[READ: July 1, 2019] “Radio Summer”
The Summer 2019 issue of The West End Phoenix was a special all comics issue with illustrations by Simone Heath. Each story either has one central illustration or is broken up with many pictures (or even done like a comic strip).
Each story is headed by the year that the story takes place–a story from that particular summer.
2003: Here’s another summer job story. But this one is actually a happy summer job story.
Abdelmahmoud says that normally you want a summer job that starts in the evening so you can sleep in. But there was one job worth getting up at 8AM for: being the summer DJ at CKVI 91.9 FM in Kingston.
It was part of a school program and for the summer he was the only DJ there from 8AM to 4PM. You want jazz? Sure! A ska show from 2-3? Sure!
This was a dream job and one lucky person got it each summer. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 