To anyone left randomly checking this, I decided to give tumblr a whirl, since I can never remember to sign into the blog here. So, if you feel so inclined, check out http://candy4ears.tumblr.com/ and I'll try really super hard to post there more frequently than once every 3 months.
Cheers!
Day 3: A song that makes you happy.
Easy. Anything. And I mean ANYTHING by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros makes me immensely happy. And in honor of the Railroad Revival Tour that I get to go to thanks to an amazing friend of mine who helped me with the financial bit of getting me a seat on a plane, I give you "Janglin."
My least favorite song. How to pick?? I could go with the recent internet sensation "Friday," but that's too easy and too much fun to parody. I could go with an annoying autotuned 3 minutes of crap by T-Pain. But no, not enough hate. The song that fills me with hatred and fury is Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue." You know the one where he talks about lighting up country's sky like the 4th of July? The song of "my patriotism is better than yours because I'm talking about killing people in retaliation." If I ever meet Toby Keith, I will not hesitate to sucker punch him in the jaw and knee him in the balls for creating this piece of shit song. Fuck you Toby Keith.
I'm not even going to post the song because I don't want it to get more plays than it already has.
This might be incredibly lame, but as an effort to get me to post more frequently I'm going to try to do the 30 day song challenge that's been floating around some of my friends' facebook pages. I'll probably get annoyed with it halfway through, but whatever. Scouring my music collection for songs that fit the day's description will be a welcome break from the last round of finals I'll ever have. Thank god for graduation in 2 1/2 weeks! Anywho, lets get started.
Day 1: Favorite Song.
God dammit. Who knew I'd get annoyed with this on Day 1. Ha. "What's your favorite song?" always makes me mad because it's damn near impossible for me to pick my all time favorite song. But, after some thinking, I *think* "Visions of Johanna" by Bob Dylan is my favorite. It's either that or "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)". But for now, I'm picking "Visions of Johanna". The amount that I love Dylan's Blonde on Blonde album is probably unhealthy, and "Visions" is my favorite track from it, so logically this would be my favorite, right? That's what I'm sticking to anyways.
mp3 - Visions of Johanna
Check back tomorrow for my least favorite song.
I love music. I go to a lot of concerts. This is my attempt at trying to remember all the great shows I went to in 2010, and the ones I'm looking forward to this spring. Here we go!
January 2010 started off with a bang when Kid Cudi came to town. Minus the onslaught of openers which lasted way too long it was a fantastic show. "Daps and Pounds," "Pursuit of Happiness," and "Day N Night" were most definitely the highlights from the show. Now that he's more mainstream, I'm sure it will be hard to get him in an intimate setting like the Michigan Theater again. January also brought the 33rd Folk Festival. Highlights were for sure Iron & Wine who played some of the most gorgeous music my ears had ever heard. Also, Richie Havens who is always superb (and I got to meet him again!), Rosanne Cash, Ben Gibbard & Jay Ferrar, and discovering the high energy folk/bluegrass band from Philly, Hoots & Hellmouth.
In March I got to see the AMAZING Avett Brothers, with the also awesome Low Anthem opening. If you ever have the chance to see the Avett Brothers, for the love of all that is holy GO SEE THEM. They're headlining the first night of this year's Folk Festival and I couldn't be more excited. I also caught the Low Anthem on their headlining tour that came through Ann Arbor. If you're not familiar with them, they make the most beautiful songs with some old and sometimes unconventional instruments (they featured a saw on one song). For sure check out their first two albums "What the Crow Brings" and "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin".
October was an absolutely fantastic month for music in Ann Arbor, it was too bad that my midterms coincided with some of the concerts so I sadly had to miss out on a few good ones. But I was still able to catch a lot and made my ears ridiculously happy. I was able to see one of my favorite bands from the last couple years when Ra Ra Riot came back to Ann Arbor to play the Blind Pig. I absolutely love them, and they always seem to put on a fantastic show (based on the 2 times I've seen them haha). I also was able to see Arlo Guthrie again at The Ark, as well as Joe Pug with Vandaveer opening. Vandaveer was probably my greatest discovery this year and I was completely obsessed for months after seeing them play. Joe Pug is another one of my favorite artists to see live. He's gotten much much better at performing since he was given a one song slot at the Folk Festival a few years ago. This time instead of playing by himself, he was backed up by a pedal steel and upright bass. The version of "Hymn 101" with the pedal steel accompaniment was mind blowing (mostly because I may or may not have been nursing a significant obsession with the pedal steel at the time) but still, it was a great show.
By far the absolute highlight of 2010 was seeing Bob Dylan play at Hill Auditorium October 28th. My mom and I splurged on great seats in the 11th row and were not disappointed at all. He was in a great mood and played straight through for almost 2 hours. He played many songs from his newer albums, but threw in some of my favorite tunes, including "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat," "Simple Twist of Fate," and the highlight for me was "Desolation Row." I was able to sneak into the front row for the encore and Bob and I totally had a moment where he looked right at me and smiled. Swoon. Hands down one of the best concerts I've ever been to.
Finally November and December brought The Weepies, Josh Ritter, and The Carolina Chocolate Drops to the area. I liked The Weepies well enough before seeing them in concert, but after seeing them play live, I'm completely enamored with them and hope they don't take another 4 year touring break. Josh Ritter was absolutely fantastic and adorable and had a huge grin throughout the whole show. I definitely will not be missing seeing him play again if he's playing anywhere close. The Carolina Chocolate Drops were totally amazing as well. You will not be disappointed by their show at all. In addition to hearing some great music you get little music history lessons in between songs that (if you're anything like me) will make you want to go spend hours at the record store looking through old jazz, bluegrass, and blues records. Other notable 2010 concerts included Abigail Washburn, Jackie Greene, and Ray Davies of The Kinks. I probably forgot some, but I can't remember where I packed all my ticket stub souvenirs. Sigh.
One of my most favorite times of the year happens at the end of every January: the Ann Arbor Folk Festival put on by The Ark. I start to get super excited about it generally in late October when the line-up starts to be announced starting with the main headliners and slowly filling out the bills with smaller more regional acts. The first night of the festival is generally full of artists who are expanding the traditional folk genre. Past Friday night acts have been Ben Folds, Jackie Greene, Jeff Tweedy, Rufus Wainwright, and Jay Ferrar & Ben Gibbard. While the Saturday night headliners are usually the classic folk and roots music pioneers. Pete Seeger, Kris Kristofferson, Richie Havens, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, and John Prine have all been recent Saturday night guests. You can read all about the history of the folk festival and see previous line-ups here.
The Ark began announcing the headliners last week, and I'm already getting anxious for January to be here. Headlining on Friday night is one of the best bands to see live, The Avett Brothers. Words cannot express how excited I am to be able to catch them live again. Also playing Friday will be Citizen Cope (I find it really odd that he's playing a folk festival, but maybe he's got some folkie gems hidden up his sleeve that I don't know about...) and local favorite Vienna Teng. Saturday night folk legend Judy Collins will play, along with Mavis Staples (!!!), and The Swell Season as the main headliner. I find it surprising that the main Saturday headlining spot didn't go to Mavis or Judy, but nevertheless I'm super excited to catch all three acts. There's also usually a "breakout" star of the festival, and I'm excited to see who that will be this year.
The countdown to January 28th, 2011 is on!
A couple weeks ago, I caught Joe Pug at The Ark here in Ann Arbor. I've seen him a handful of times now, and he just keeps getting better and better live. He's really matured in the last year or so since I've seen him, and I LOVE the band he's playing with. The upright bass and pedal steel really add another layer of depth to his songs. I'm holding out hope that he might record a version of "Hymn 101" with the pedal steel because it was amazing.
But this post shockingly isn't about him. It's about his opener, Vandaveer. I had heard a couple of their songs before, and liked them ok, but seeing them live was unreal. Vandaveer is Mark Heidinger's folk project that brings in Rose Guerin for some of the best damn harmonies I've ever heard. Heidinger's lyrics pull you in and Rose's vocal additions effectively nail you to your chair and don't let you move until your ears are the happiest they've been in a long time. I've listened to "Dig Down Deep" at least 100x since the show. Seriously check these guys out. They just finished up a tour supporting Joe Pug, and will hopefully be back on the road sometime soon.
Woolgathering - Vandaveer (mp3)
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