Strange Pulse

Friday night I went to see one of my favorite live bands, the Frames. They’re from Ireland and they’ve been around forever, but they’re only now starting to get any kind of attention here in the States. That attention consists of college radio playing a song or two from their latest album.

Still, it was enough for them to play a slightly bigger venue in LA than they did last time. And the crowd *loved* them, but you sort of have to. They’re just so good live.

The opener was a singer-songwriter I’ve wanted to check out for awhile, because I hear a lot about him, Josh Ritter. He was really good. The DJ from KCRW who introduced him said he was the most brilliant songwriter around right now, she even invoked the name of Bob Dylan. So I was listening extra close to his set. I don’t know if I’d say he’s quite that good, but I’m definitely wanting to check out his music now.

There were some big JR fans there, one guy called out, “I’m here just to see you!” And another one yelled, “Oh my Josh!” (Like he was saying “Oh my God.”) He was really overwhelmed by the warm reception and just smiled and laughed the whole set. It’s always great to watch someone perform who is obviously enjoying it.

I thought he was from Ireland, or possibly Seattle, but it turns out he’s from Idaho. He asked if anyone there was from Idaho and one person cheered. He said something about how they entirely missed grunge out in Idaho, and commented on wearing flannel shirts with sawdust on them because that’s how they came when you bought them. I looked at my friend who was with me, who I’d gone to junior and high school with in Seattle, and said, “So did we.”

I’ll post a song of his to the radio.blog that’s is downloadable from his website.

The Frames opened with my current favorite song of theirs, “Finally.” I kept thinking, now what am I going to call out a request for? I couldn’t think of a single song I’d want to hear, because I wanted to hear anything and everything. All of their songs are amazing live. The singer, Glen Hansard, is a real showman. His personality is strong and very evident on the stage. He gets the audience involved often–directing them to sing, usually. Their music is moody, it builds to loud crescendos, it’s quiet, it’s perfect for sing-alongs.

In case any fans come across this, they did (not sure these are in correct order):

Finally
Dream Awake
Lay Me Down
What Happens the the Heart . . .
God Bless Mom
Falling Slowly
Untitled but chorus went: “No More I Love Yous”
Pavement Song
Fake
Your Face
Revelate
Friends and Foe

Encore:

Keepsake
Star Star/Pure imagination/Run (Snow Patrol )/Beautiful Widow
Glen solo : Leave

Red Chord / Here Comes the Night

When they came out for their encore, Glen introduce “Keepsake,” and I thought Oh yeah, this is the song Ishould’ve been yelling for. One of my faves. Glen introduced it by saying it might be an inappropriate time to do it, but they were going to play it. It’s a song that is long, quiet, and builds to this great loud crescendo. Unfortunately, some people right behind me were talking really loudly through the first half of the song–which is the quiet part. I turned around and glared and they stopped.

“Star Star” is a crowd favorite. It’s a cute song, good for singing along with. They’ve always gone into a bit from (the original) Willy Wonka during it–the violinist plays a riff, then Glen always quotes a line from the movie, and sings, “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.” This time, after that (later in the song), the bassist started singing “Run” by Snow Patrol–”Light up, light up, as if you had a choice…” It was awesome. (Snow Patrol being a fellow Irish band.) At the end, Glen sang some lines about a beautiful widow, but I don’t know the reference.

After that, Glen did a solo acoustic song that he co-wrote with Damien Rice when the Frames were on tour with him a couple years ago, called “Leave.” It definitely had the marks of a Damien Rice song. I’m pretty sure he said he’d never done it live before. It was really awesome.

They did Red Chord last, and went into Van Morrison near the end of it. It was perfect.

They’re touring the States and Canada right now, and if you like bands with a lot of emotional intensity, don’t miss them. I’m hoping they’re finally going to take off in the US now. It may be your last chance to see them at a small venue.

I’ll post a couple songs to the radio.blog.

I don’t have any. I mean, I’m an open book about everything. I don’t shy away from discussing personal stuff with anyone, really. Maybe I’m insane. But the whole brewhaha over at T&S about marrying non-church members made me think about it. A blogger over there posted about how it’d be better to stay single your whole life than not getting married in the temple. I was irritated by her attitude, but not offended. It wasn’t until after a bazillion comments, when she posted about how she also wouldn’t have dated someone who hated to read, that I thought, wait a minute. If I hadn’t dated someone who hated to read, I never would’ve married Daniel. And if *he* hadn’t dated someone he couldn’t have taken to the temple (a non-member), he wouldn’t have married me. That made me laugh. Here was something that could’ve been a very sensitive topic to me, but it wasn’t. Irritating, yes. Personally offensive? Nah.

It’s nearly impossible to offend me.

And I think that’s because of everything my family’s had to deal with. In my family we always say, we’d rather laugh than cry. And we have lots to laugh about. Here’s a quick list, off the top of my head, of things that have happened in my family/issues we’ve had to deal with:

Death
Suicide attempts
Mental illness
Sexual abuse/child abuse
Domestic violence/restraining orders
Prison
Comas/diabetes
Rape
Did I mention death?
Homosexuality
Cancer

And that’s just one person. Ha, just kidding. But when I say death, I mean all my grandparents, a brother, a sister, a nephew, an uncle. When I say prison, I mean my brother-in-law, my uncle. When I say rape, I mean more than one person. When I say mental illness, I mean several people in my family are mentally ill–both sisters, a cousin, an uncle. When I say comas, I mean I’ve been in more than one.

I think I’m usually very empathetic to others going through rough times. But sometimes I feel rather calloused about it. I find myself thinking, “So?” That’s not good. But because I don’t consider these sensitive topics–I can talk about any of them, no problem, fire away–I think I’m not that sensitive to other people’s sensitive topics. But maybe my self-perception’s off, I don’t really know.

Actually, my ears work fine. It’s not my hearing. It’s processing what I hear.

It’s called a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD).

The hardest thing for me to process is people speaking. It’s not a constant thing–seems to be a lot worse when I’m tired or preoccupied. But someone can say something to me, and I won’t understand what they say. It’s not that it sounds garbled. I just can’t process it. It’s really frustrating when I’m concentrating super hard on what they’re saying but just can’t get it. I’ll actually repeat the words in my mind as they’re saying them, sometimes, and it’ll still take awhile to click.

It’s really bad if I can’t see the person, only hear them. Which is why I hate listening to the radio. DJ’s drive me crazy. And baseball games on the radio? Torture. My husband LOVES to listen to games on the radio. I’ve learned to not even bother trying to follow the game, just let it flow past me. He’ll get all excited over some play someone made and I have to ask him to tell me what happened. (Even then I’m not always sure what took place.)

I’ve gotten really good at faking it. Especially on the phone. I don’t hate talking on the phone. But if the person I’m talking to starts going on for a bit, I can’t process it. I’m really good at faking it though. “Yeah, totally.” “I know!” “Mmm-hmm.”

I once called an auditory center to find out about what sorts of treatments are available. (I didn’t pursue it because it cost $5,000.) The woman on the phone went off forever about what they do and what they offer. Then she asked, “What makes you think you have an auditory processing disorder?” I said, “Well, I only took in about half of what you just said.”

Gabby had a recent post on her blog about old songs reminding her of old boyfriends. I think the song she mentioned was Chicago.

For me, it’s Big Black. Because my high school boyfriend had a cassette tape with Big Black on one side, and Jane’s Addiction on the other. J’sA doesn’t really remind me of him, though, because after we broke up my husband and I saw Jane’s several times together. We even took our oldest to see them when he was about 1 year old. (We used earplugs on him.)

This is the finest teenage anthem. What teenager doesn’t feel this way? I read somewhere the song is about using kerosene to race cars.

This song represents all the abrasive stuff I was into–Butthole Surfers, Jane’s Addiction, etc. I’m still bummed I never saw Big Black live. Steve Albini’s current band, Shellac, recently played a whole slew of shows in one weekend here in LA, but we couldn’t make it to any of them.

Steve Albini’s most well known now for his work producing records. He wrote an interesting essay about how bands get screwed over by major record labels. Check it out here (warning–some swearing):

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

I’ve put off making this post because there’s just too much I could say about Soundgarden, not to mention grunge in general. But it’s been taking me too long to get to it, so instead I’ll point you to a big post I made on Kulturblog about “growing up grunge.”

Grunge was a huge part of my later teenage years, but all I used for this mix is Soundgarden. I first heard about them from a friend, who’d recorded a song (”Incessant Mace”) off of the UW’s radio station, which was from a demo, before they had any records out. But I didn’t actually hear them until I saw them open for Love and Rockets, and they totally blew me away. So heavy. They defined heavy for me.

Here are some pictures I took in 1987 when they played Bumbershoot:

And I didn’t make this playlist at work today, either:

Dark End of the Street - James Carr
Bright Side of the Road - Van Morrison
Fear the Sea - the Gathering
Walk into the Sea - Low
I Will Follow - U2
I Will Not Follow - Waterboys
Still on Fire - Aztec Camera
Has My Fire Really Gone Out? - Paul Weller
I Can Not Have Seen The Light - Magnolia Electric Co.
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight - Richard and Linda Thompson
Under the Hedge - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
Up On The Hill - Mark Burgess & The Sons Of God
Winter of a Broken Heart - Alison Krauss
Summer’s Kiss - Afghan Whigs
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - Wilco
Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart - Whiskeytown
Questions - MikeScott
The Short Answer - Billy Bragg
One Morning - Gillian Welch
In the Evening - Led Zeppelin
I Would Hurt A Fly - Built to Spill
I Didn’t Mean To Hurt You - Paul Weller
The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret - Queens of the StoneAge
I Confess - English Beat

I’m not going to post the first two songs to the radio.blog. And Van Morrison’s song was not inspired by James Carr’s song.

I really hate listening to them both together.

My older sister was mentally ill. Paranoid schizophrenic, to be exact. She had hallucinations, saw and heard things that weren’t really there. She’d often hear God and Satan arguing over her. God would tell her to stop smoking and lose weight.

She was in and out of halfway houses and mental institutions her whole life. One would take her in, and she’d do ok with staying on her meds under supervision. Then they’d let her go, and left to her own she’d go off her meds and end up in trouble. She tried to kill herself once after going off her meds and having a hallucination of God in the sky. She told me he was so beautiful she just wanted to be with him.

She had two kids that were raised by her in-laws. Her husband was in jail for years–I think for robbing a jewelry store. Her mother-in-law took in the kids when it first became apparent how bad off my sister really was. Her m-i-l called her and asked her how the kids were doing, she could hear one of them crying in the background, but Jenny didn’t even know they were there.

She was always saying crazy stuff. Often funny crazy stuff. We all have stories of crazy things Jenny told us. One of my favorites is one my dad told me. She called my parents up at 10pm one night, all excited because she’d just taught herself how to tap dance. She put the phone on the floor so he could listen to her tap.

She was wearing socks.

You can tell which photos are from my old camera because they’re mostly in sepia tone. I liked it better than black and white. My newer camera doesn’t do sepia though.

This is a band called Biblical Proof of UFO’s. It’s hard to get good shots of drummers, unless you’re up on the stage with them, because they’re always hidden behind their drum kits. But this guy has a pretty low kit and this venue had a short stage. He also sings lead on a lot of their songs.

This next is a band called Three Inches of Blood. Actually, this guitarist is no longer with the band. They’re old school metal. Really, really fun live. The band was going to use this photo on their cd artwork, but then the guitarist left the band.

The other reason it’s hard to get shots of drummers is that they’re always in motion. This is a band called Big Business. This guy used to be in a band called the Murder City Devils. He’s a great drummer. So is the guy above.

This is Mudhoney at the Showbox in Seattle, opening for the Melvins. I don’t usually like blurred live shots but I think this one is pretty cool.

This next is one of my favorites I’ve ever taken, the bassist for the Melvins. They were wearing goofy tunic-like clothes–well the singer, Buzzo, had a black tunic on with a big red cross on it. The bassist was wearing this crazy flamboyant colored one.

That’s all for now.

Two of my favorite local bands. Fu Manchu and Fatso Jetson. Friday night. At a tiny bar–much smaller venue than either band should be playing. Life is good.

Fatso:

We’re friends with the drummer, Tony, and haven’t seen him for a long time so it was great to meet up. Some of the best musicians around are in this band, and I don’t say that just because I’m friends with one of them.

Fu:

Fu Manchu are always a good time. Always.

My in-laws will be here in about an hour. Visiting from Washington. My poor husband has to give a talk today in church, and in front of his parents, too.

Because he misses me. How sweet is that. He’s just been working long hours–some of those hours at home, on the computer. But we’re both quality time people–have to spend quality time with those we love–so it’s hard on us.

Here’s a picture of us before we got married.

So young.