Month: January 2007 Page 1 of 2

Hey, London!

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I’m back in little Providence, RI but not really HERE. Not in the blogging sense, anyway. London was wonderful and amazing as always —it feels like my home-away-from-home, you know? Which makes it awfully hard to leave. This trip was a nicely social whirlwind, which is to the good. I brought records and chocolates home with me.

Interview with Luke Sutherland [Long Fin Killie/Bows/Music A.M.] | Buy Bows/Long Fin Killie etc. |
Unrest

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MP3Unrest, “Hey London”

MP3Bows (AKA Luke Sutherland) remaking Billy Mahonie, “We Accept American Dollars”

PHOTOS BY ANDREA FELDMAN © 2007

Home Is Where the Heart Lies

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I fell hard for London. From the moment I set foot there I’ve felt a kinship with it that’s hard for me to pinpoint. I just know that, no matter how long it’s been since my last visit, it always feels like home.

Well, maybe not always. There’s always a transition period in any city you live in or visit. One night I missed the last tube home from a club (the Sausage Machine in Mornington Crescent, probably). I was broke. So, no cab for me. And I didn’t want to wait for a night bus.

So I walked.

It was this beautiful, cool, clear night.

I was a little scared, because I didn’t know the city all that well. And I was a little scared, because I knew I shouldn’t be walking on my own so late at night.

But I didn’t really care.

I wandered through neighborhood after neighborhood. Through Leicester Square, down Charing Cross, through a Picadilly Circus empty of tourists but still bathed in that warm, garish neon glow. Past Green Park —also eerily quiet. Occasionally I passed an inebriated businessman trying to walk it off a little before he got into a cab to go home. Past darkened shop windows —fancy high street shops I’d at that point never even dared to go into. I wasn’t afraid to linger and look when the lights were dark, though.

Kensington Palace was dark, the gates shut. By contrast, Royal Albert Hall was all lit up —preening and a bit smug even in the quiet of early morning.

I was listening to a brand-new cassette tape of the as-yet-unreleased Throwing Muses album “University” and, rounding the corner to my street while Kristin Hersh sang, “Shake barrels of whiskey down my throat, I still see straight,” I suddenly got it. I couldn’t stop smiling.

Somehow, on my long, winding walk, and in my bleary-eyed, blissful state, London had transformed into home. And it was certainly home when I put my key in the lock at my little, shabby flat on Queen’s Gate, tip-toeing in so as not to wake the roommates (all five of them —I can’t even remember their names at all, except for the one we’d inexplicably nicknamed “Fluffy Bunny”).

And it’s still a home that always welcomes me with open arms, even when I go away and forsake it for other, lesser cities.

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And on that note, I’m off to London for a few days. I’ll see Kristin Hersh there. Should be fun. Have a good week everyone!

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Throwing Music | Buy “Live at the Middle East Café, 2006” | Buy University

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MP3Throwing Muses, “Shimmer”

MP3Throwing Muses, “Shimmer” [Live at the Middle East, 8/11/06]

Universal Hall Pass

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My friend Melissa has just released Subtle Things, a six-song follow-up to Mercury, her debut album as Universal Hall Pass. The EP is perfectly balanced between three new songs (“Sally’s Song”, “Cave Radio”, and “Forms of Imprisonment”) and three remixes of Mercury material by Freezepop’s Kasson Crooker.

Full disclosure: I designed the artwork. (It seems that I’ve been bugging Melissa to let me design one of her record sleeves since we were in high school. She finally relented.) In the name of impartiality I should probably refrain from commenting on the music. That said, the thoughtfulness and care that’s been taken with these songs speaks for itself. Melissa’s music has an Old World formality about it —something out-of-time and almost courtly, even with the glimmers of futurism. Yet this is no hackneyed Retro-Futurism either —there’s nothing kitsch about this music. There’s a rigor and totality to Melissa’s wryly philosophic songs. As for musical antecedents, well, you can pick out strains of John Barry here, Les Mysteres des Voix Bulgares there. A little Getz & Gilberto, a little Raymond Scott. But Melissa’s music is her own through and through.

It’s a beautiful record.

PS: This song is from UHP’s debut album, Mercury. If you’re looking to hear the EP, you can sample all of the tracks over at Sneaky Records’ website.

Order: Sneaky Records. | Universal Hall Pass: website + MySpace | Kasson Crooker/Symbion Project |Splashdown [Melissa’s previous band, also featuring Kasson]

MP3Universal Hall Pass, ”Dragonfly” [Original Mix]

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