Ray Lamontagne tonight and Elephant 6 orchestra at NPR

I know I'm a bit behind on this, but you have to give me a break. So I missed a blog post on Monday, sue me!

If you are unfamiliar with Elephant 6 you are either 1. under the age of 18, or 2. in need of a serious Neutral Milk Hotel injection. Either way, you can go to the all songs considered site today and download a recording of a live show of the Elephant 6 orchestra in Chicago on Oct. 21st.

Elephant 6 was a record label in the 90's that released albums for classic indie rock bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power, The Apples in Stereo, and Beulah. It eventually came to an end after most of the bands stopped releasing music. However, it has left us with the Elephant 6 orchestra, a musical grab back consisting of some 15 musicians that once played for the many bands involved with Elephant 6 through the years (can anyone say Of Montreal?). The recording up at npr.org has the often reclusive Jeff Mangum of NMH which should be enough for many of you to stop reading now and go download it.

Also, tonight Ray Lamontagne will be at Saltair. If you're not already going, and you read this, and you have money, and your wife/mom/girlfriend/cousin (who knows?) will let you, you should go. Paul Jacobsen will be opening. He played at the cafe once upon a moon, when we still existed. It was one of my favorite shows we had there, small, intimate, great music, good friends, happy memories to be sure. I'm pretty excited.

I'll take some pictures tonight, however my camera situation is, well... bad. We'll see if they ever make it to the internet :)

With all humor aside, I honestly believe tonight has the potential of being on of those "stick in your memory, remember the smell, taste, sound, girl, perfect night" situations. You should honestly consider it.

Tim

the uphill battle, or: seeing iron and wine in concert

last night was a testament to how much tim and i wanted to see sam beam and company...here are a few of the uphill battles we had to face:

problem 1: the rain and snow while waiting outside
solution - undisclosed. rest assured, we didn't sit out in the snow.

problem 2: arthur and yu
solution - sadly, there was none. we had nice spots on the balcony and as bad as arthur & yu were, we were forced to sit through every plodding song. it was seriously pretty rough. on the plus side, they made the whole crowd REALLY excited to see iron & wine. of course, after their set i was REALLY excited to step on a rake. in case you missed it, here's what they looked like and sounded like. just switch the keyboard and you're there.














problem 3: the drunk underage guy standing right next to tim
solution: well he was so annoying that i left and stood down below. i'm not sure how tim put up with him, but in addition to tim and i, there were about four other people ready to toss him over the balcony. seriously, if talking for three hours is your thing, why pay $30 to go to a show? why not just talk annoyingly loud at home? news flash man: you're never going to double date with your friends you bumped into and your lady is dumping you sometime just after christmas.

problem 4: the weather home
solution: some sweet defensive driving...otherwise this post would never have happened (i guess it really is like that butterfly flapping it's wings thing). no seriously, God apparently wants tim and i alive for a little bit longer because there was a soccer mom in a white van dead set on wiping tim and i off the planet.

as for the show...it was amazing. it was worth the uphill battle. my only disappointment was that many of i&w's catchier, upbeat songs were played down tempo. this was a cool effect for the first few songs, but as a hyperactive person, i wanted him to open the throttle a bit. he shared the stage with seven other talented musicians, i wanted to see their range. that's such a minor critique though: the show was amazing. they played for nearly two hours, everything sounded amazing, the crowd was appreciative and hopefully their tour made it out of utah and on to denver.

for those of you looking for vanessa's top five from 2007, she had some computer difficulties this weekend. she'll post soon! thanks for being patient.