Newsweek covers for this week from around the world can tell us a lot:
All over the world, Newsweek‘s cover story is about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
In America, the cover story is a trivial bit about Annie Leibovitz.
Talk about using pretty pictures to hide ugly reality.
There’s nothing like going for a run under perfect blue skies when the air is cool and dry. Fall in Texas feels the way spring does in New England: sheer relief.
Shorter days and cooler air: this is the time to be outside.
Finally.
Phoebe’s favorite time of day is morning walk time. She tells us all about it, and then she leads the way.
This is Daphne’s cue to run and hide and Joey follows along to see what all this walk stuff is about.
This is from my days as a camera assistant. It was taken on the set of The Substitute Wife, a movie-of-the-week that was filmed around Austin early in 1994.
That’s me with the slate standing next to Lea Thompson. Of the three stars on that set, Lea was the only one who wasn’t full of herself. The other two managed to make life miserable for everyone from the director all the way down to the lowliest film loader (me), set PA and sound assistant (my friends).
It was my first gig on a big budget set, and for the next few years, I got quite spoiled by all the perks. It was a fun and exciting career when I was younger, but as it turned out not something I wanted to spend my life doing.
George at I’m Not One to Blog, But… has tagged me with the fresh meme he busted: Songs that make you cry.
I have a hard time trying to determine if a song has ever made me cry. Using bloggetic license, however, I am replacing ‘cry’ with ‘so moving they inspire a sudden bought of quiet and thoughtful contemplation’ (but not like the guy who had to stop everything for “Desperado” on that episode of Seinfeld).
Here we go…
“This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” by Talking Heads
I said this in the comments on George’s blog: “‘This Must Be the Place’ would probably be the first and maybe only one on that list. It was our song at our wedding. It just makes me stop when I hear it. Actually ‘it hits me on the head, ahh ohhhh…..’”
But then I remembered that the wedding DJ lost that track so it wasn’t played, still my wife and I consider it our song anyway. It has an innocent simplicity to it that captures the magic of falling in love better than any song I’ve ever heard.
When I first heard it on Speaking in Tongues, I wondered if falling in love was really like that and I hoped that it would be.
Home – is where i want to be
But i guess i’m already there
I come home – – she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I know now that it is, which makes me love this song all the more. (I even used it as the title for a post once because it so perfectly captured the depth of feeling about the subject).
“Hard Times in Babylon” by Eliza Gilkyson
This meditation on the loss of a dear friend is heartwrenching. “Gotta hang together when the air’s too thin / Pass out the masks for the oxygen.” Indeed.
“Psalm” by John Coltrane
I could pick any track off Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, but this one is so understated, so quiet, and yet the perfectly chosen notes flowing from his saxophone speak so eloquently of yearning, anguish, heartbreak, hardwon wisdom and hope. It’s all there.
Coltrane wrote a prayer and then blew it into his saxophone.
“City of New Orleans” by Willie Nelson
I remember hearing “City of New Orleans” a lot when I was a kid. It made me think of wide open possibilities and yet there’s something dark there too. Something closed off and lost in those “freight yards full of old black men and the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.”
I know Willie didn’t write it, but it’s his version that moves me. He played it at ACL Fest on Saturday and it was like everything stopped happening around me for just the duration of that song.
“Nightswimming” by R.E.M.
This sends chills down my spine:
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows.
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse.
Still, its so much clearer.
Looking back at those reckless good times of youth and knowing that you can’t (and shouldn’t) go there again because you can’t be young again, because everything changes is captured beautifully in this song. You miss those times, those people as they were then, but it’s all memories, all gone forever. “Nightswimming” nails that melancholy feeling perfectly.
So There you have it.
I now tag Chris of Lenwood, Heather In all of Her Strangeness, Fred in the marbled halls of Ironicus Maximus (even though his blog doesn’t really cater to this kind of thing), and Jessica at 4 zillion. No pressure, folks. Except that George promised to “throw a hysterical bawling fit” if the meme dies.
Whatever idiot vandalized this sign clearly has a lot more faith in this government’s competence than I do.
Most of my ACL time this year was been spent seeing bands that I already knew and liked, but on Sunday, all I saw were artists that I had previously never heard. Amazingly, not a single one disappointed. For me, those discoveries are the best part of ACL.
We started our day with Austin’s The Black Angels. I hadn’t heard them before, but their mesmerizing psychedelic drone hooked us right away. The guitars shimmered throughout their set that at times evoked such artists as The Doors and early Velvet Underground.
Afterwards we checked out Finland’s Husky Rescue. Three very serious looking guys dressed in black backed up the charming singer who wore a red dress and some fabulous boots. The music was mellow and kind of quirky in a way that reminded me of early Talking Heads but it flowed like Air while the singer’s ethereal vocals floated on top. It was a fun set that had us all smiling.
The weather was nice when we arrived. Cool and overcast, but the sun started to come out and make things steamy as we headed over to see Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, another of Bob Marley’s progeny. Damian looks very much like his father and the set was groovy as reggae should be. We left while they were playing a very cool version of “Exodus” which seemed appropriate.
Afterwards we went to Waterloo for the traditional purchasing of CDs by bands we’d discovered. We picked up CDs by The Black Angels and Husky Rescue both of which sound as cool on CD as they do live.
Despite leaving, ACL wasn’t over for us. A friend had managed to secure tickets to an Austin City Limits taping of Sufjan Stevens followed by The Raconteurs at the KLRU studios. These are hard to come by so it was a real treat to finally – after eighteen years in Austin – get to see a taping.
The studio is very small, there couldn’t have been more than 200 people in there, and they serve free beer so we were all pretty happy when Stevens started his show. I’d never heard him before but I was highly impressed. He was backed by a full orchestra all of whom wore giant butterfly wings. Wearing gigantic bird wings, Stevens played a haunting set that fully captivated the audience.
The Raconteurs came on next. They rocked. I hadn’t heard them before either, but I was impressed with their sound and intensity. I don’t know when these episodes will air, but both of them will certainly be worth watching.
Finally seeing an ACL taping and getting to see two such talented acts was truly the perfect way to end yet another awesome ACL weekend.
We arrived around 3:30. Missed Galactic, but we’ve seen them before. The heat was intense and the crowd was thick so we went over to the Washington Mutual Stage to hide under the big trees in the back until Los Lobos started.
While enjoying Sweet Leaf’s honey and mint green tea, we listened to some of The Long Winters set. I hadn’t heard them before, but it was solid indie pop. While they were playing, dark storm clouds took over the sky, blotting out the sun, but never giving rain. In short, the day turned perfect.
By the time we headed over to Los Lobos, the temps had dropped to the mid nineties and a strong breeze kept us cool. We set our chairs up in between the AMD stage and the AT&T Blue Room stage since everything we wanted to see was on one or the other stage. This made life easy since after each set all we ever had to do was turn our chairs around to face the opposite stage.
One passerby told us we were brilliant. That’s not true. It’s just practice.
Los Lobos was as always fantastic. I don’t know why I only have one Los Lobos CD (Colossal Head). I should probably do something about that.
Next came Calexico, truly one of the best working bands out there. I saw them at ACL 04 and several times since, and they were about perfect. The sound was as big and expansive as ever, their cinematic soundscapes shimmering like the Arizona deserts from which they come.
Beautiful. If I went home then and called it quits for ACL 06, I’d have been happy, but fortunately there’s more to hear, always more to hear.
We turned the chairs around next for String Cheese Incident. Now, I likes me a good jam band, and I’ve never seen String Cheese Incident despite the fact that they play ACL every year. Jam bands tend to need more time to explore than a one hour festival set provides, but they were good, and I’d go see them again.
Around went the chairs for Kings of Leon. I’d never heard of them before, but we didn’t want to move. Good decision. Kings of Leon were fantastic. The ACL Fest guide said their sound evoked the Stones and the Velvet Underground and you could hear both influences in the band’s music. Definitely something to explore further.
Finally, it was time for Willie Nelson. We decided to stay for Willie and try to catch Massive Attack another time. The crowd was thick at first and Willie was hard to hear. Too many idiots having private conversations and yelling into cell phones. I mean, just as you don’t talk in church, you don’t talk while Willie’s onstage. We moved up and the talkers and scenemakers dispersed until we could hear him perfectly. I think they turned up the sound as well.
Willie’s guitar work is amazing. The guy can just flat out play, and Trigger’s sound is as familiar and wonderful as Willie’s voice. He opened with “Whiskey River,” and his set was exactly what everyone wanted: all the classics. He closed with two new, very funny tunes: “Superman” and “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore.” By the time he said goodnight, the crowd was happy and feeling that magic that only a master like Willie Nelson can supply.
Perfect end for a great ACL day.
We arrived late on Friday, but caught the second half of Nickel Creek’s set. They were pretty on, a group of very talented musicians who clearly love their work. The amplified tap dance routine was amazing. Who needs a drummer when you can tap?
After Nickel Creek, we cruised over to check out Thievery Corporation. We saw them last year on a smaller stage, but they were on the big boy stage this year. We were pretty far away, but I got this shot of their set:
Obviously, the view from where we were wasn’t great, but the sound was good and the energy level was high. Thievery Corp are at the core two DJs with killer taste in world music, but their live sets include bass, sitar, percussion, and several vocalists doing ambient, rap, reggae and a host of other styles.
After Thievery, we caught the Tragically Hip:
Tragically Hip are one of my all time favorite bands and I’ve seen them a number of times. Unfortunately, their sound was off. The vocals were too hot, a shame considering singer Gordon Downie’s performances are full of his off-the-cuff stream-of-conciousness explorations, which are one of the things that makes seeing the Hip so fun. With the vocals so hot, the music sounded buried and muddy.
Still, “Courage” and “100th Meridian” came through just fine and were highlights of their set. Downie also dedicated “Ahead by a Century” to “Annie Richards,” a gesture which seems truly appropriate considering that she really was ahead by at least a century if not more.
Rounding it out, the heat wasn’t as bad as previous years, the grass was in good shape so dust wasn’t a problem, and despite the crushing crowds you have to deal with when the music you like suddenly becomes popular, it was a pretty good day.
