Best of 2008

Ok, so I am dusting off the old music blog to write about my "Best of 2008" list.
I approach my year end best list by listing the tunes that I actually heard and tought were amazing in the year in question... no matter when it was actually released.

this is in no particular order...

Lucinda Williams: Real Love (of course!)
Kathleen Edwards: I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory
Kathleen Edwards: Cheepest Key
Black Kids: I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You
My Morning Jacket: Thank You Too (when I get married, this will be my wedding song... word!)
My Morning Jacket: I'm Amazed
My Morning Jacket: Highly Suspicious
Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Possess Your Heart (Not the radio edit)
Bell X1: Bad Skin Day
Duffy: Mercy
Adele: Chasing Pavements
Ray LaMontagne: Let it be me
Mudcrutch: Scare Easy
Kate Rusby: The Lark
Beth Waters: Blue and White
Sarah Fimm: December

Renee's Confused

Will someone please explain Connor Oberst to me??

There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate...

Ok, So I'm back from Allgood and I have to say... it's wan't all that great. aside from the painful lack of running water and 15 vendors all selling bullshit that nobody wants, there was one big problem that I had with the festival: most of the music was between 10:00pm and 4:00am... which in theory is a great idea, because it's not hot and the music didn't start until 3pm so... you could sleep the day away...

but they forgot one thing.

we were situated at the top of a mountain in mid July with no shade... so your gal Renee was brunt out by 12:00am each night and missed the following:

Widespread Panic
Dark Star
Govm't Mule
Bassnector

BOOOO

I promise (Brian) that I will write performance reviews soon, but for now let's check and see if my predictions for the festival came true:



1. I will find the coffee vendor on site and make BFF's with them the moment we park the car.
it took me about an hour to find them, but I had ZERO coffee this weekend... It was only 2.50 for an iced coffeee, but I took a sip of Ben's and learned why it was so cheap! :(

2. Someone, I don't know who, will cover "The Weight"
haHA!! Susan Tedeschi and Derke Trucks closed their set with it! I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!!

3. Phil Lesh will tell us about his liver and how you should give away part of yours, or a kidney, or whatever.
Of course he did!

4. Between Phil Lesh and the DSO we will hear: Good Lovin, Uncle John's Band, and Good Lovin again.

Sad to say, I will never know (well, at least not until I check out setlist.com) but I did hear Keller do Eyes of the World, Phil do Jack Straw, and some random cover band start up a 7:00am set in the camping area with a sad and warbily rendition of "Shakedown Street". That moment was a bit bitter-sweet for me, because I have always wante dto hear someone cover that tune.. just someone good.

5. I will get that weird patch of sunburn across my tramp stamp that I can never figure out how it got there.

nope... not this time, instead I have a horrible burn on both of my legs...

6. Someone will get poked in the eye with a glow stick thus ending the awesomeness that is glow stick wars during the first late night set.

you know what... even if someone did get poked in the eye, no one would have stopped anything... there were no cops and the security was so lazy... you could have brought in a thousand guns and some live Bangal tigers and no one would have cared.

7. Kisner and I will get into an argument about trying to cook with a cast iron skillet on a tiny personal grill

well, more like everytime we cooked, or talked about cooking he would bring up the fact that I didn't want to bring it... which really was annoying.

8. Keller Williams will crawl further up Phil Lesh's ass and try to jam with the Friends... uggghh
I was wrong, but he did do a bad-ass cover of "Pepper"

9. John Bell and Dave Schools will compete for the title of 2008's best looking hair blowing in the stage wind machine... Will Dave take it again this year, or with John finally win it for the wavy haired wonders out there?

there was no contest, as teher was no stage wind machine... I missed the set, but I say when it comes to the better hair with no wind, it has to be John... maybe he would let me boing his curls one day!

10. I will take photos of my feet to chronologically display the dirtiness
oh I did, and it's gross!

In addition I would like to offer up two long-shot predictions:

1. Daniela Cotton and Susan Tedeschi will play sing "Piece of My Heart" and my face will melt off
I wish, but they weren't on the same day.. however, Daniela Cotton did a SICK cover of Purple Rain! SICK!!!

2. Mike Gordon will make up for years of sucking by saying these words "Welcome special guest Trey Anastasio to the stage" or better yet "Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, and Page McConnell" after which my head will explode and I will die... a happy... happy woman!

What do you think?

I'm Gonna Tell You How It's Gonna Be...

OK SEXY PEOPLE: I am headed off to Good Ol' Marvin's Mountaintop to check out ALLGOOD 2008!! WHOO HOOO!!
I'm pretty excited, no cell phones, no overlapping sets, no Metallica... it's going to be a big muddy, dirty slice of heaven. Four days of music and no running water... I can grantee it's going to be hot, muddy, and smelly... but because I have not taken any mind altering substances yet, I can't se the future; thus... I have a few predictions:

Almost sure things:

1. I will find the coffee vendor on site and make BFF's with them the moment we park the car.

2. Someone, I don't know who, will cover "The Weight"

3. Phil Lesh will tell us about his liver and how you should give away part of yours, or a kidney, or whatever.

4. Between Phil Lesh and the DSO we will hear: Good Lovin, Uncle John's Band, and Good Lovin again.

5. I will get that weird patch of sunburn across my tramp stamp that I can never figure out how it got there.

6. Someone will get poked in the eye with a glow stick thus ending the awesomeness that is glow stick wars during the first late night set.

7. Kisner and I will get into an argument about trying to cook with a cast iron skillet on a tiny personal grill

8. Keller Williams will crawl further up Phil Lesh's ass and try to jam with the Friends... uggghh

9. John Bell and Dave Schools will compete for the title of 2008's best looking hair blowing in the stage wind machine... Will Dave take it again this year, or with John finally win it for the wavy haired wonders out there?

10. I will take photos of my feet to chronologically display the dirtiness

In addition I would like to offer up two long-shot predictions:

1. Daniela Cotton and Susan Tedeschi will play sing "Piece of My Heart" and my face will melt off

2. Mike Gordon will make up for years of sucking by saying these words "Welcome special guest Trey Anastasio to the stage" or better yet "Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, and Page McConnell" after which my head will explode and I will die... a happy... happy woman!

Maybe I'm Too Young to Keep Good Love From Going Wrong...

Clearly I enjoy my music to be little on the sad side, full of self doubt, heart break, men crying, the whole thing...
but there are times when I fancy myself a bit of an optimist, when the universe seems almost like it's not out to get me and that maybe, just maybe... life is fabulous.

In times like these, I cannot subject myself to the horrifying song stylings of someone like... I don't know... someone perky... "bubbly blond teenager". So what's a girl to do, when all she wants to hear is misery and teardrops in the vocals but finds herself in a good mood for a change?

Oh Oh Oh! I Know!! I Know!!!

....MASON JENNINGS....

For all of those who wondered when we would see another Paul Simon, or maybe Cat Stevens, or maybe dare I say it... Jeff Buckley, look no further than my newest pal M J.
His deceptively haphazard melodies create what seems like, on the surface, one warbally-yet-annoyingly-catchy cutsie love song after another. However, if you look closely what you will find is a series of skillfully crafted folk songs that offer multiple layers of sweetly simple phrasing supporting engaging lyrics that are just hopeful enough that you almost believe that it won't end in tears... almost.

Check out these two tunes to brighten up your day without giving you an ice cream headache:

Be Here Now
from the album Boneclouds.

Adorable lyrics:

"Be here now no other place to be this whole world keeps changing come change with me. Everything that’s happened, all that’s yet to come, is here inside this moment it’s the only one. You are the love of my life. You are the love of my life. Yeah you know you are."

And

Fighter Girl
From the album If You Need a Reason

Adorable lyrics:

Hey little fighter girl
Its you and me up against this whole wide world
Sleeping together in the lions den
Got your earrings in my pocket till I see you again
Yeah yeah yeah yeah...Come on kissing me


So sweet... but of course... so fleeting...

An Open Letter to my BFF Ryan Adams

Dear Ryan,

I know what you're thinking; "Renee, you're a "fair-weather" friend." and I understand why you might feel that way. You and I have been pals since I first heard your ingenious cover of Wonderwall back in 2003. You know I loved your version of that song, because it did, in fact, make my "covers that are better than the original" list. But then something happened... you lost your identity and tried to channel Jerry Garcia and honestly, I was hurt.

So, I thought that it was over between you and I because I felt as though I couldn't trust you... until you released Easy Tiger... You, David Ryan Adams, are a GOD DAMN GENIUS! It took me finally sitting down and really listening to that album, in full to truly appreciate what you were trying to do. Your variation a theme is perfection, yet imperfection at the same time. your attention to detail is staggering, especially in The Sun Also Sets where you gently introduce a banjo riff (can banjos have riffs?) into the chorus. I know your heart was being ripped out when you wrote all of these tunes, but they are truly sublime and I thank you for them.

I am, however, worried that you will never be able to again achieve this level of artistic expression of anger and bitter misery, because you have been to rehab and you lost a lot of your hearing. So, Ryan, I ask one favor... please go back on the sauce and date inappropriate and emotionally unavailable women so you can make another amazing album ohhh and maybe go on tour! We can totally hang out and get burritos!!

love, forever... I swear,

Your BFF Renee

I'm Worried About Meatloaf.

Are gas prices so high that poor Meatloaf has to do Go Phone commercials?

You're Such A Nasty Little Girl...

As summer approaches, us music junkies are bombarded by a variable deluge of live performances from which we must select the few that on which we are willing to spend our limited concert dollars. That's pretty f'in hard to do if you're like me and obsessively crave live music like it was high-grade street drugs that you are desperate inject in between your toes five times fortnightly.
To that end, I have begun my show selection process, and was fairly content with my modest set of about 15 concerts and two festivals until I heard a rumor that Ms Lucinda Williams is coming to town.. with one drawback... she's playing a double bill with John Horrible Meloncamp!


WHAT THE SHIT?!?! They don't even sound alike...

but let me not lie... Lucinda Williams could open for a poo catapult machine and I would pay to see it.

The tricky part is convincing someone to go with me... because no one wants to see John Meloncamp. I have no issue with paying 50 or 60 bones to go to this show, because I know that it will be well worth it once Lucinda saunters on to the stage, beer in hand, rocking her signature cowboy hat. Just like I knew it would be well worth it when I spent, en toto, about $1200.00 to attend Bonnaroo just so I could see Gillian Welch perform a 50 minute set.. but I also watched that set alone, because my friend didn't want to see her...


If anyone out there in blog-land wants know.. here is the sweet and dirty lowdown on Lucinda:

Sounds like: A lower voiced happy Emmilou Harris who just got dumped and is drinking and smoking while singing with a band in the back of a bar below the mason Dixon.

Why you should listen: Lucinda Williams does not hold back, whatever she is feeling she puts it on the table. Throughout her career she has evolved from paying homage to her folky roots in twangy spare blue-grass to creating rich to warbling compelling songs fueled by two fisted anger and bitterness with just a touch of gun blazing sweltering humid whisky soaked sexuality. She is a sick-amazing song writer and has some bad-ass tattoos!

Best Lyrics: from Come On

You think you're in hot demand

But you don't know where to put your hand

Let me tell you where you stand

You didn't even make me, come on!

You weren't even worth it

I'm sorry I ever flirted

The effort wasn't even concerted

You didn't even make me, come on!

All you do is talk the talk

You can't back it up with your walk

You can't light my fire, so fuck off

You didn't even make me, come on!

What's not so great: everyone thinks that Mary Chapin Carpenter wrote Passionate Kisses... but Lucinda Williams did... BUMMER!

Lights, Camera, Elitist Cultural Enjoyment...

The Philadelphia Film Festival is upon us once agian, not that Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, mind you, but a good time none the less. I am not a big movie person, but I have a good friend who knows movies who went to SXSW and checked a few out.

Taking his recomendations I am going to partake in the following...

Medicine for Melancholy

USA 2008, 90 min

The day after a one-night-stand, a young man and woman wander the streets of San Francisco attempting to fill in the blanks of the past evening while reflecting on what it means to be black in a city whose cherished ideals of progressive thought and inclusion coexist uneasily with marginalized minority groups and ruthless gentrification in this unsentimental love letter to the City by the Bay.

Mister Foe
aka: Hallam Foe
Great Britain 2007, 95 min

A troubled Scottish teen still traumatized by the suicide of his mother runs away to Glasgow and falls into an Oedipal love affair in this intoxicating coming-of-age story with the dark passion and desperate romanticism of Trainspotting.

Then I picked out this one...

Beloved
aka: Saawariya
India 2007, 137 min

Ablaze with music and luscious imagery, this big-budget Bollywood adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "White Nights" tells the story of an idealistic young wayfarer who becomes entranced by the smoldering beauty of a young woman waiting for her true love's return.

Stay tuned for reviews!

She fell in Love with the Drummer, Another and Another....

My friend and pea-in-my-pod Autumn and I went out last night and we were talking about being music-obsessed islands in the archipelago of contemporary society and how when you find someone that loves music as much as we do, it makes them much more attractive to you, than they might be otherwise. It's sad but it's true, those music-lovin' boys are dangerous, I have been wounded by more than my share...

But lord as my witness, there is nothing hotter than someone who loves good music.

Like Satan himself holding the apple…

I’ll still take it, bite it, love every moment, and knowing that it will lead to nothing but trouble…

do it all over again.

Bert and Ernie

So last night I had this dream that I arrived in Armenia to serve in the Peace Corps and my counter-part was none other than Trey Anastatsio who was serving in the PC to do community Service. It was a pretty crazy dream, but I did wake up with one very cool idea:

If Bobby Weir and Trey got together and played Frank Zappa tunes they would create a force that would rock so hard that all of the world's problems would be solved and everyone would become best friends!

That would be the jam heard 'round the world!

+

EQUALS.... AWESOME!!


I would argue that Frank Zappa set for gold standard to which all guitarists now strive to achieve and cultivated a generation of musical connoisseurs that have a thirst for awesomeness that lesser artists' musical ramblings could never satiate.

Bitches Were Robbed!!

Poor sexy Viggo Mortensen... DENIED!

I always have mixed feelings when it comes to watching award shows, because I feel like a major loser for not making anything of myself. Mostly I am reminded that it is impossible and will never happen because, seriously...

but there are the awards given to artists who make a small film or writing a catchy tune... people like the duo that wrote Falling Slowly from the film Once who give me a tiny seed of hope that one day, maybe one day I could come up with a smart ditty or something like that and I could be on that stage winning an Oscar. That is, if I were not so damn lazy... oh well, there is always next year.

I was disappointed that Kate Bush wasn't nominated for her song from the Golden Compass. It wasn't exactly the greatest song she has written, in fact... it's kind of bad, but it's Kate Bush! BUMMER!






Cate's GQBess can't cut it ten years later!

...I am Trying to Break Your Heart...

I just got back from the Wilco show at the Tower Theatre. I have seen Wilco a few times in the past few years and it has become clear to me that I will never be a super-delegate for Wilco. I really like their sound, but I am not sure that what they are doing is all that innovative, rather, it seems as though they are trying to create a non-cohesive wall of sound full of pits, peaks, and valleys. Slutty, dirty, dirty pits, peaks, and valleys!

I started to get excited because Jeff and the Wilcos were surprisingly honky tonk at the beginning of their set, but the... he changed guitars, and they became the Beatles (well, more like the Beatles falling down the stairs.) They soon stopped being the Beatles for a minute and started being Wilco, but that only lasted a few songs. I like them in the studio, but their songs, when performed independently from an album, do not go together well.

With that said... let me not lie... their songs are amazing. Not every tune has a hook and there are many different musical elements in one song. If you don't know their material very well, it's almost like you don't know what to expect and you are unsure where you are going to end up. Wilco is exciting because they present clean and well packaged pieces of music that are driven by these bursts of hot sexy nasty riffs which end quickly and make you desperate for just a little bit more. Sadly, they move on, and you're left to ponder what was.

Final Thought:

Good show

Jeff Likes his brown jacket

John Bonham aside, Glenn Kotche is quite possibly the hardest working drummer ever... EVER

Go see them! It's a great time and they have good merch!

I don't know if anyone is really ever going to read this,and I suppose that's fine... I only started this because I thought it was pretty awesome that Autumn's blog was linked up to her Pandora and I wanted a blog to which I can link up my Pandora.

If someone were inclined to read this, here is what I have been listening too lately:

Sarah Fimm.

Sounds like: a non-irritating 1996 Sarah McLaughlin, only much smarter and with way better boobs.

Why should you listen: her music makes even the most mundane moment sexy and sophisticated, seriously... I was shopping for a new toothbrush this afternoon in a soggy coat and I felt like I was drinking a Manhattan on the upper east side wearing heels and slutty cocktail dress.

Best Lyric:

from Be Like Water

"Don’t chase ghosts, don’t get too close, Don’t get caught, don’t get spent Don’t get bought Don’t sell out, don’t get bent Don’t fuck your best friend If everything is just the way it should be Why am I why am I still hungry"

What is not so good? Her albums are hard to get, not in stores, used on amazon and ebay which are like... 30 bucks each!