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Archive for the ‘Sharon Van Etten’ Category

Bob Boilen–Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It (2016)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Angel Olsen, Asaf Avidan, Ásgeir, Bob Boilen, Bon Iver, Books about music, Carrie Brownstein, Cat Power, Cat Stevens, Chris Thile, Colin Meloy, Conor Oberst, Courtney Barnett, Dave Grohl, David Byrne, Fantastic Negrito, Glenn Gould, Hüsker Dü, Hozier, Ian MacKaye, Interviews, Jackson Browne, James Blake, Jónsi, Jeff Tweedy, Jimmy Page, Josh Ritter, Justin Vernon, Kate Tempest, Leon Bridges, Lucinda Williams, Michael Stipe, Nickel Creek, NPR/PRI/PBS, Philip Glass, Pokey LaFarge, R.E.M., Rilo Kiley, Sara Watkins, Scritti Politti, Sharon Van Etten, Smokey Robinson, St. Vincent, The Beatles, The Staves, The Velvet Underground, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Tiny Desk Unit, Trey Anastasio, West Side Story, Wilco on July 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

boilenSOUNDTRACK: ANGEL OLSEN-Tiny Desk Concert #333 (January 27, 2014).

angelBob Boilen has liked Angel Olsen for some time, so when she did her Tiny Desk and most of us had never heard of her, he was already a fan.

Olsen plays a long set but with four songs.

She sits very still, strumming with her thumb and singing kind of low–not unlike Sharon van Etten.  The first song, “Unfucktheworld” is only two ans a half minutes.  The second song, “Iota,” is a little longer.  She sings in an affected almost falsetto style, although the guitar remains very spare.

Between these songs, she is coy about the title of the new record although she is quick to say the first word of the title “burn.”  Later she admits that the final song contains the title of the album, if we wanted to spend time figuring it out.

I marvelled at how high the chords were that she played on “Enemy,”  She seems to eschew any bass for this song.  This one is five and a half minutes long and is just as slow as the others.

Before the final song they talk about whether this is the most awkward show she has done.  She says everyone is very alert–and indeed you can hear utter silence between songs.  But then they talk about the storm outside (and potential tornado) and how this show may never air if the storm is really bad.

“White Fire” is an 8 minute story song.  She does use the whole guitar for this one, which has many many verses.   Since I don’t really know Olsen’s stuff that well, I don’t know if this was a good example of her show or a fun treat to hear her in such an intimate way.

[READ: May 10, 2016] Your Song Changed My Life

This site is all about music and books, but you may be surprised to know that I don’t really like books about music all that much.  I have read a number of them—biographies, autobiography or whatever, and I don’t love them wholesale. Some are fine, but in general musicians aren’t really as interesting as they may seem.

What I do like however, is hearing a decent interview with musicians to find out some details about them–something that will flesh out my interest in them or perhaps make me interested in someone I previously wasn’t.  Not a whole book, maybe just an article, I guess.

I also really like Bob Boilen. I think he’s a great advocate of music and new bands.  I have been listening to his shows on NPR for years and obvious I have been talking about hundreds of the Tiny Desk Concerts that he originated.  I also really like his taste in music.  So I was pretty psyched when Sarah got me this book for my birthday.

I read it really quickly–just devoured the whole thing.  And it was really enjoyable. (more…)

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Karl Taro Greenfeld–“Fever” [Forum: How to Be a Parent] (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in A. Balkan, All Songs Considered, Basketball, Ben Lerner, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush, Emma Donoghue, Essays, Gwen Austin, Harper's, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Michelle Tea, NPR/PRI/PBS, Pamela Druckerman, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Sarah Manguso, Sharon Van Etten, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: GWEN AUSTIN-“Child” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2016).

maxresdefaultLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  I want to draw attention to a couple of them.

The production values of this video belie the quality and intensity of the song they play.

The video is set in a dark room with the only light coming from an open window.  The vocal is a bit staticy and at times too loud for the mic.  But that doesn’t overshadow the fact that this is a beautiful, sad song.  And that Gwen Austin has a powerful, somewhat haunting voice in the vein of Sharon Van Etten.

The music is simple Gwen on acoustic guitar and an accompaniment of a very echoey electric guitar Russell Marshall, but she sings with intense aching in her voice.  The song comes from Austin’s feminist folk opera about the nativity story, which I’d sure like to hear more about.

[READ: February 10, 2016] “Fever”

The August 2015 Harper’s had a “forum” called How to Be a Parent.  Sometimes these forums are dialogues between unlikely participants and sometimes, like in this case, each author contributes an essay on the topic.  There are ten contributors to this Forum: A. Balkan, Emma Donoghue, Pamela Druckerman, Rivka Galchen, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ben Lerner, Sarah Manguso, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush and Michelle Tea.  Since I have read pieces from most of these authors I’ll write about each person’s contribution.

I believe that everything I know from Taro Greenfeld I know from Harper’s magazines.

The title of this one had me preparing for something very different.  I imagined an article about illnesses and not a basketball team.  His daughter played for a team called Fever and he was called upon to be a coach because no one else would (that sounds familiar).

Unlike my own soccer league with many different teams, this basketball league had but two teams, and Fever played Sky every week for 12 weeks.  Karl was a first time coach and didn’t know much about how to be a coach.  The other coach was pretty good (he had a clipboard) and somehow managed to get all of the tall, talented players compared to Karl’s less experienced ones.

Since the played the same team every week, they lost 12 games in a row.  Which is pretty disheartening.  Especially when the games were pretty much blowouts.  He even lost a few players to disenchantment. (more…)

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Mary Ruefle–“The Gift” (Harper’s, May 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Consumerism, Glacé apricots, Harper's, Mary Ruefle, Sharon Van Etten, Shearwater, Short Story, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty on May 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

harpers maySOUNDTRACK: SHEARWATER & SHARON VAN ETTEN-“Stop Dragging My Heart Around” (2013).

Shearwater-Sharon_RSDEverybody knows this song.  It was  way overplayed (overplayed enough that Weird Al parodied it in 1983).  So I can’t say I was all that excited to hear this cover.

What’s nice about it though is that if you’ve heard a song a million times, hearing a slightly (not radically) different version can reintroduce it to you in a new way.

It’s noisy and clunky in the music–giving a more folkie vibe.  And while Sharon sounds a bit like Stevie Nicks—she gives that same raspy quality to it–she’s definitely not trying to be Stevie.  The Shearwater vocalist does moderate mimic of Petty—enough to show that he knows what the original sounds like without duplicating it.  The whole feel has a kind of tossed off, less polished vibe that really works with the lyrics.

It turns out that this version is live and it was released on a  7″ single (but NPR gives it to us for free).  I like this version quite a bit although I do miss the “Ah ha has” and “Hey hey heys” in the bridge.

[READ: May 29, 2013] “The Gift”

This was a very strange little story.

In it, a woman wakes up after her house has flooded.  Not entirely, but there was certainly a few feet of water (she can see the residue marks).  What’s also strange is that she had not left her apartment for five days and she had just spent nearly $90 (the bulk of her grocery money) ordering a box of glacé apricots from Australia–in gold foil at extra cost–no less!

She feels guilty… but they just looked so good in the catalog.  Of course, so did the mosquito netting–but really what use had she for that?

She spent some time thinking about the Australians working in the glacé apricot factory–did they ever steal an apricot?  Were they hungry? Somehow she imagined them enshrouded in the mosquito netting.

She was awoken from her reverie by the water rushing around her living room–and the piglets grunting around in the mud. (more…)

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Salvatore Scibona–“Where I Learned to Read” (New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2011)

Posted in AV Club, Biography, Books about writers, Boredom, Essays, Fine Young Cannibals, New Yorker, Salvatore Scibona, Set at School, Sharon Van Etten on August 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-“She Drives Me Crazy” (2011).

Sharon Van Etten (man, she is everyhwere!) went to the AV Club studios and did a cover of The Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy.”

The first time I heard the Fine Young Cannibals song was on MTV.   There was pretty loud guitar and then Roland Gift walked up to the screen and sing in a prposterous falsetto.  And I laughed really hard because I thought it was some kind of joke.  Over the years I’ve grown to really like the song.  I also really like Sharon Van Etten, who sounds nothing like Roland Gift.

This cover demolishes the oirginal.  Van Etten makes it her own–slowing it down outrageously.  She makes it twangy and more creepy sounding.  And obviouly, she removes those big crashing guitars and sharp angles of the original. There’s some backing vocalists (and a full band) so the song had breadth.  And it is fairly recognizable once you can follow the lyrics (it’s much slower, so it takes a good 45 seconds before you fully recognize the song.  But it is so very different. 

I enjoy the original more, bit this is a cool interpretation.

[READ: July 20, 2011] “Where I Learned to Read”

I don’t know who Scibona is.  As such, I’m wasn’t sure how interested I was in his past.  I mean, did I really need to care about him in this piece (by that token, should I really care about any of  the authors in the Starting Out series?). 

Anyhow, it’s an interesting introduction to the author.  This story talks of how Scibona deliberately tried to fail out of school.  He was happily making $3.85/hr at KFC and new he could get transferred anywhere in the country to another KFC.  It would be an easy way to travel.  So who cared about school.  Who cared about reading?

Well, he did, actually. As long as it wasn’t assigned, he very happily read everything he could get his hands on. But then senior year, a girl showed him a brochure for St. John’s College which offered a Great Books program.  It was just reading. Reaing great books.  Not books about Aristitle, but by Aristitle.  And it was in New Mexico.  He was hooked. (more…)

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Jaspreet Singh–“Mont Royal” (The Walrus, September 2007)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Arranged Marriage, Canadian Content, Culture Shock, James Joyce, Jaspreet Singh, KUT 90.5 FM--Austin, TX, New Yorker, Romance, Sharon Van Etten, Short Story, The Walrus on June 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-Live at SXSW (2011).

Sharon Van Etten has a lot of sessions at NPR.  Not too many are downloadable, but this one is.  This is a fascinating set because it’s a special breakfast show for KUT. (See in the picture she’s doing Java Jive).  (She also plays a show later that night, but it’s not available here).

The set is four songs (all from Epic) on acoustic guitar.  The really different thing about this set than any of the other things I’ve heard from her is that her voice sounds really gravelly (like she just woke up–which she may have, almost all of her between song banter is about how it’s early–it’s either endearing or annoying).  Normally, Sharon has a really amazing voice–high and soaring.  This time it’s much  raspier.  But the interesting thing is that it works well.  She never misses a note and it brings an interesting growly tone to these (somewhat) angry songs.

It’s a great (although brief) set.

[READ: March 30, 2011] “Mont Royal”

This is a very brief (three column) story that reads like a stream of consciousness piece.  And that is appropriate because it not only references Ulysses, it actually quotes the end of the novel.

There are many fascinating things about this story.  First off, it is written in direct address: “When I moved to the city, ladies, …” but we never find out who the ladies are.  Second, it begins with the humorous idea that the narrator–upon moving to Montreal–believed for many years that the cross on the to of Mont Royal was a plus sign (he is an engineer). (more…)

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William T. Vollmann–“Homeless in Sacramento” (Harper’s, March 2011)

Posted in Essays, Harper's, Homelessness, Sharon Van Etten, William T. Vollmann on March 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-Epic (2010).

Sharon Van Etten caught my attention with the song “Don’t Do It,” which I love.  The rest of this album doesn’t have the intensity of that song, but rather, it gets under your skin with some great songs and interesting and subtle textures.

There’s only seven songs (running time just over 30 minutes), so “epic” is kind of a joke.  But she packs a lot into these songs.  The opening two songs are about 3 minutes each, and they are great alt-folk songs, especially “Peace Signs.”  They are sparse but effective.

“Save Yourself” adds more instrumentation, including a slide guitar.  But it’s the harmonies that really make the song great.  “DsharpG” is a cooly brooding song that never wears out its 6 minute length.   And “One Day” also has major potential to be a hit.

Of course for me the highlight is still “Don’t Do It” which gives me goosebumps with each listen.

What’s really impressive about the disc is how on the surface it seems like a simple folk album and yet every song has subtly different sounds and textures to makes this a really complex recording.

[READ: February 16, 2011] “Homeless in Sacramento”

Vollmann wrote a lengthy piece about death in the November issue of Harper’s.  Now, four months later, he’s back with an 18 page (!) article about homelessness. Now, normally I wouldn’t read an article about homelessness, because, well, because its a major bummer, but also because there isn’t anything that I can do about it and it doesn’t seem like there’s much new to say about it.

But I decided recently that I was going to try to read Vollmann whenever I encountered him, since it was unlikely that I’d ever go back and read his vast output.  So, here I am.

Vollmann does, in fact, manage to say something new about the homeless.  He begins by explaining that the house he bought had a vacant lot next to it.  And he has been tacitly encouraging homeless people to sleep there when they need to.  He has learned to like many of them and he finds that the frequent users have become “friends”–as much as you can in that situation. (more…)

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Lauren Hall (editor)–I Live Real Close to Where You Used to Live: Kids’ Letters to Michelle Obama (and to Sasha, Malia, and Bo) (2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Barack Obama, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Heather Woods Broderick, Holidays, Lauren Hall, McSweeney's, Michele Obama, Political Humor, Sharon Van Etten, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert on December 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-Tiny Desk Concert #91 (November 14, 2010).

I was introduced to Sharon Van Etten via NPR’s All Songs Considered, so it’s no surprise that they would have her on a Tiny Desk Concert as well.  I loved her song, “Save Yourself” more than I could imagine.  There was something about the way the intensity built and built that really blew me away.  The rest of her album is really enjoyable, but it has less intensity. It’s almost like an acoustic album.

So it’s funny that I find her Tiny Desk show mildly disappointing because it is also an acoustic set. In fact, it is just her and her guitar (and her singing partner who sings wonderful harmonies).

Okay, I shouldn’t really say disappointed because the set is quote good.  Her guitar laying is fine and her voice, he unique and slightly unsettling voice is in fine form here.  There’s just something about the stripped down nature that takes away that extra sparkle that I really love about the disc.  I imagine that if I hadn’t heard the whole CD first, I would have been blown away by this live recording.

The four songs (“Peace Signs,” “Save Yourself,” “One Day,” “For You”) are all from Epic, and they’re all really good.  It’s a nice accompaniment to the album, but I think the album is a bit better.

[READ: December 13, 2010] I Live Real Close to Where You Used to Live

Back in early 2009, McSweeney’s published Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids’ Letters to President Obama as a friendly kick off to the President’s new term. We’re now at the end of the second year of that term and the “Have Fun” part seems to be rather unlikely.  But just in time for the rise of Boehner, McSweeney’s has published this companion piece, letters to the rest of the Obama family.  And it is just as sweet, clever and at times odd as the first.

The kids from 826 National in several cities were asked to write letters to the first family.  It’s interesting to see how the different regions ask different questions, but perhaps more interesting is how some things seem to resonate no matter where the kids are from.  Two kids ask about Pokémon Black and White (this must be the hot new game).  Several kids ask how many rooms there are in the White House.  Naturally, several ask about her garden (what she has in it or what kind of fruits and veggies she likes).

But the most fun is the advice the kids give.  My favorite is the girl who says that her aunt thinks Mrs Obama should have one more child (but only if she wants to).

Sadder are the children who are clearly having a rough time.  One child talks about her parents’ separation, and another’s entire letter is: “Can you help my family? We’re about to lose our house. Make the world a better place. What is your favorite food?”  It must be tough to be a prominent person who clearly wants to help yet who is for the most part, impotent to do anything.

And for me that has to be the hardest part about writing to the first lady.  She has no clear “role.”  She’s a public figure and she advocates for good, but she can’t really “do” anything.  And that has to be hard to grasp.  Although judging by what the kids say, maybe they have no problem with it. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“My Bird Problem” (New Yorker, August 8 & 15, 2005)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, All Songs Considered, Birds, Death, Essays, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Phoenix, Public Image Ltd, Radiohead, Sharon Van Etten, Superchunk, The New Pornographers, Tom Waits, Unlikable main character on December 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered (Podcasts).

For a couple of months now I have been exploring the All Songs Considered Podcasts.  I recently stumbled upon a link to a whole slew of Live Recordings that are available for free.  All of them are available for listening and most of them are available for downloading.

Some of the recordings seem to be acoustic in-studio sessions that last about 15 minutes (called the Tiny Desk Concerts), but there are many which are full concerts recorded from the soundboard.  I happened upon this site because of a 2008 Radiohead show which runs just over 2 hours.  Some other full concerts (most of which are recorded at the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. include: Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., New Pornographers, Public Image Ltd., Tom Waits, and a whole bunch of shows from SXSW.  The Tiny Desk shows include “Weird Al” Yankovic, Phoenix and my new discovery Sharon Van Etten.  And there’s even videos of many of the shows, too.

I’m pretty excited to have discovered this, as there are a surprising number of great shows available here (as I’m scrolling to the bottom of the list, I keep finding more and more bands that I like).  And all you need is to download iTunes to hear them (and if you’re a geek like me, you download Audacity and insert track numbers for ease of cataloging).

[READ: November 21, 2010] “My Bird Problem”

Of all of the Franzen non-fiction pieces that I’ve read, this one has been my least favorite.  And one of the reasons for that is that it made me feel kind of uncomfortable.   Not because of the main content of the article (bird watching) but because of some of the personal information that he (as per usual) included in the article.

The first uncomfortable part concerns his at-the-time-wife.  It feels the like he is including information that seems like he would have needed her permission to write (especially since we know who he is and therefore know who she is,  I can’t believe she would give it).

The second thing was just how misanthropic Franzen is.  When he goes out into the woods to look for birds, he finds that the mere awareness of other people sends him into a fury.  (“Oh no, were those human voices coming up behind us?”).  And while I’ve certainly felt like that, to see it in print and to see it so often is more than a little unsettling. (more…)

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Nathan Englander–”Peep Show” (New Yorker, July 26, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Cocteau Twins, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Masturbation, Nathan Englander, New Yorker, Sex, Sharon Van Etten, Throwing Muses, Woody Allen on November 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-“Don’t Do It” (2010).

This song is available from NPR’s All Songs Considered.  I’d never heard of Sharon Van Etten before, so I didn’t know what to expect.  And this was a great way to learn about someone new (to me) and to find a song that I fell in love with.

This is a dreamy kind of track, sort of like later period Cocteau Twins, but less ethereal.  And I have to say on first listen I was really blown away because what starts as a simple song really blossoms into a full blow epic.

The song isn’t staggeringly original, by which I mean I can hear many precedents in the song (Throwing Muses, perhaps, but again, not as extreme).  And yet, she takes this template and really makes it shine in her own way.  This song is layered and textured with more depth of sound coming on each verse.  And it feels like by around the third minute or so, you’re totally caught up in the song.

On further listens, that effect is still there.  It’s very subtle, but really effective.  And I keep getting sucked right in.  I’ll definitely check out her full length, Epic.

[READ: October 20, 2010] “Peep Show”

This was the final story of the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 40 collection that I read (there’s one more after this, but I read them out of order).  The excerpt in the main issue was intriguing but very short and the whole story blew my mind with its unexpected surrealism.

Allen Fein, a man with his shit together, trips over a curb on his way to Port Authority.  It throws off his stride and his whole day.   When he straightens up, he looks up to see a barker offering peep shows for 25 cents.  Fein had been to a peeps how once before as a teen, and he sort of thinks that his day is a mess anyhow, so why not.

When he goes in, things are not as the were when he was a kid.  In fact, the glass that usually keeps peeper from peepee is removed, and the first word that the woman says when the door goes up is “Touch.”  And Allen finds himself in a weird position, especially when he touches the woman and his erection won’t subside. (more…)

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