Aretha

It is not even 9:30, and already this morning I've listened to the following acts:

- Brad Paisley
- Patty Griffin
- Marc Broussard
- John Mayer
- Ray Lamontagne
- Augustana
- Kanye
- Aretha Franklin

What can I say? I've got a lot of moods...

Aretha is one of those singers that, no matter how many times I hear her sing, she still blows my mind. She is just so damn good. Effortless. A true talent. She just has it. Whatever it is that makes her so incredible, not many people have.

Every time I hear Think, it's like I'm hearing it for the first time. I know how cliché that sounds, but it's true. Listen to how she jumps an octave when she sings 'I.Q.' She just sings like she's having a conversation. It's that natural for her. She sings lyrics like most people speak.

In Ain't No Way, the background vocals in that song kill me. I mean, you could totally take away the lead vocals and that would still be an amazing song to me. Just holding that high note....Perfect vibrato, perfect tone. Just...perfect. Do yourself a favour and listen to that song on headphones.

She's just got more pure soul than anyone. Brilliant.

Wikipedia is Lame

I've been on a huge neo soul kick for a while now. D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, RH Factor, Musiq (to name a few).

I just checked Wikipedia out of curiosity, for its definition of the term and this is what I found:

Neo soul (also known as nu soul) is a marketing term for a sub-genre of contemporary R&B.

I will argue that it is not a marketing term, and anyone who says it is, is completely out of touch with the reality of what the music conveys.

I see neo soul as a throwback to the original days of R&B (Stax and Motown), blending with what R&B has become. It's about the passion for the art form, not about how to package the art form. You take something you love and mix it with something else you love. Take a funky old school bass line and a horn line with jazz sensibilities, and have Common rap over it.

That's not about how to market anything. That's musicians getting together in a room and creating something they love. I can picture Roy Hargrove and Common sitting in a recording studio with Pino Palladino laying down a bass track, and being able to do nothing more than laugh at how musically gifted he is. I picture Common in the booth, freestyling, and Roy Hargrove closing his eyes and bobbing his head, taking in the words.

You can't market that. It just is. You can't describe it in a simple term. It's an emotion or a state of mind. Passion in its purest form.

How I Feel

"I want to draw something that means something to someone. You know, I want to draw blind faith or a fading summer or… just a moment of clarity. It’s like when you go and you see a really great band live for the first time, you know? And nobody’s saying it but everybody’s thinking it - "We have something to believe in again." I want to draw that feeling. But I can’t. And if I can’t be great at it, then I don’t want to ruin it. It’s too important to me."

Replace 'draw' with 'write'. That is how I feel.

Roadtrip- The Playlist

I am enough of a geek that I decided to make a playlist on myTunes today including all songs that mentioned a city/state/country. Out of the albums on my work computer, I came up with 50 songs right away. I'm sure there are a ton more on here that I just didn't think of or remember.

50 songs that mention places! Amazing. The thing is, it's a really cool playlist! Very eclectic (Kanye before James Taylor? Then Brad Paisley and Dave Barnes? Ok). I won't get bored listening to this, that's for certain.

Why did I do it? I had myTunes on random this morning, and a few songs in a row came on that had cities/states highlighted. Then I started to think of all the others. Then I wanted to know for sure how many there were.

I know. Geeky. But I love it.

Can You Stand The Rain

No, the title isn't a reference to living in Vancouver. (Although...)

I was searching for something on my computer today and found an MP3 of a song I had completely forgotten I had. Can You Stand The Rain by Boys II Men. A Capella cover of a New Edition song. So good it literally brought tears to my eyes. (I'm a dork). But not because it's sad or anything, it's just musically THAT good.

Rich 4 part harmony that only Boys II Men can do like this. So many good parts that give me goosebumps.

Those who know me know that finding things I'd forgotten about is one of my life's greatest joys. (Eg: making tea, leaving it to cool, remembering it just as it is the perfect temperature to drink; finding chocolate you forgot you had bought; getting home to find there is enough wine in the bottle in the fridge for one glass after a long day; etc.)

Finding this song was a pleasant surprise. And now it's been on repeat all day. Fave phrase "It's kinda cold but I know, I know I'll be right there." Oh, Wanye, you amaze me.

*Note: Yes, I can tell their voices apart.

**Further note: Fun fact is that the very first cassette tape I ever bought was Boys II Men's album, II, which I still have, and pull out from time to time to listen to.

Don't Hold Your Love Over My Head

Come Back to Bed.

Simple title. Simple concept. Something we've probably all said at one point or another.

This is the kind of guy I want. Just in general. The kind of guy who just says, "tell me what I did so I can just say sorry and you can come back to bed."

Love this. Call me on the bullshit. I'm probably being irrational. Tell me, "you can be mad in the morning".

I want a guy who is not afraid to tell me when I'm being a pain in the ass, but can do so in a way that doesn't make me think he's being a pain in the ass. There's a fine line. He could come off as a jerk. The trick is knowing when I'm being irrational, and when I genuinely have reason to be pissed off. If I'm really pissed off, this may not be the best tactic.

But if he says "Don't leave me alone here. It's cold, baby. Come back to bed"? That is a good start.....

(I'm just sayin')

I Want to be a Wrecker

I took advantage of a very rainy Saturday and played guitar literally until my fingers bled. Well, they wouldn't have bled if I hadn't cut my pinky on one of the strings, but that's not the point.

The point is I played, and wrote. Because I had the desire to, not because I felt like I should.

I came up with a couple melodies for ideas that have been swimming around in my head for a while. I just hadn't been inspired enough to actually sit down and get it out until now. I'm not saying the songs are incredible, but they exist in a space outside my mind, which is a pretty good feeling.

Then yesterday, for some reason, I went to the Wreckers' myspace page. I don't know what made me do it. I just felt compelled to check it out. And now I'm addicted to their song 'Tennessee'. I love it. It's....the kind of song I want to write. I wish I had written it. "I can guarantee/things are sweeter in Tennessee." Simple and moving. That's how I want to write. There doesn't have to be a hidden meaning or metaphor. Just say what you mean.

I want to write a song about every state. Tennessee, I already have something worked out in my head for. I've got Colorado on paper already (just this weekend!), Carolina would be easy.....Kind of like a musical road trip.

Yes, I'm that crazy.

"I Wanna Date a Musician"

I saw Gavin DeGraw live for the first time last night at the Commodore. First of all, I love the Commodore. I've never been to a bad show there, and the sound is incredible. It's a small space, with capacity for only 1000, which makes it even better.

Here's the thing about concerts: I hate everyone around me, but only until the headliner comes on. Before then, people are drinking and being loud and obnoxious, literally running through the place. Some are trying to look cooler than they'll ever be (mean, but true). Just....a lot of annoying things going on. But when the lights go down and the headliner comes on, it's like everyone in that room is my best friend. Everyone's connected through the songs and we're all there for the same reason. It's an interesting shift that happens in a 30 second time span.

My old vocal coach once told me to 'make love to the microphone'. I had no clue what she meant by that. I was working on this really sultry jazz ballad, and she explained that the way you hold the mic will either add or take away from the mood you're trying to create. I kind of understood.

Most concerts I go to, the artist's hands are usually occupied by a guitar, so the mic is on a stand. Gavin was at the piano (which he's even better at playing than I thought), or standing with a guitar, but for about a third of the set, he held the mic in his hand and walked around the stage. I finally get what my old coach was saying. He didn't clutch the mic like most people. He held it....comfortably, as if it was an extension of himself. It was the most natural I've ever seen anyone holding a microphone. No white knuckles, no unnecessary finger tapping (Carrie Underwood/Christina Aguilera, I'm talking to you).

The entire show was incredible. Between songs, he'd just riff on a few lyrics, or sing some other people's songs. I get the feeling that's how he'd be in his own house (without sounding creepy). Just comfortable and singing for the sake of singing. Singing what you feel like and what you want to hear. There were lot of chill-inducing moments during this show. Goosebumps on the arms. I knew he'd do a sing along during I Don't Wanna Be, but it was not cheesy whatsoever. 900 people, hands in the air, singing I don't wanna be anything other than what I've been try'na be lately...? Can't go wrong.

The most memorable part of the show for me was him standing, guitar in hands. He stepped away from the microphone completely and continued singing, and his voice still filled the room. Just pure power. It made me want to sing again. Really sing: do the vocal exercises, the breathing, following proper technique (more so than I do now). And don't even get me started on what this concert did for my need to write.

Gavin has a few lyrics and lines that, standing alone, could be completely lame and cliché. But the way he puts them together with other lines and notes, makes them sound amazing. I think the mark of a great songwriter is being able to take something simple and make it sound complicated. And then there are phrases like 'Your eyes tell the lies of the lines that you said' that are amazing and make me wonder why my brain can't work like that. (The next line is 'now that I love you, I wish we'd never met'...which is equally as genius.)

Plus, he's definitely sexy...I'm just saying.


Now, courtesy of High Fidelity, this is how I feel...

Barry: I wanna date a musician.
Rob: I wanna live with a musician. She'd write songs at home and ask me what I thought of them, and maybe even include one of our little private jokes in the liner notes.
Barry: Maybe a little picture of me in the liner notes.
Dick: Just in the background somewhere.

Old Love

I love old recordings. Stuff from the 50's, 60's, and 70's, before producers started to care more about the finished product than they did about capturing a mood or feeling.

I was listening to Aretha Franklin today, and got caught up in the awesomeness. It was like I was in the booth with her for a minute. I could picture her standing in front of the mic, singing her heart out and making it look so damned easy.

I love in (Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone when the horns are every so slightly off. Leave the mistakes. I'll take mistakes and mood over technical perfection any day of the week.

Some new recordings, I get bored and annoyed listening to because of overproduction. I want to feel something when I listen to music. I know with technology, it's easy to clean everything up and put it into a nice little package, but I sometimes feel like the emotion gets lost in there somewhere. A computer can't give me a feeling. I want to hear the keys of the piano as they're pressed. I want to hear the singer pull back from the microphone, straining themselves with emotion.

Music, to me, is an experience. And come to think of it, all my favourite music - the stuff I can listen to over and over again, has little nuances that are hard to find. I don't doubt that these musicians worked hard to create something 'perfect'. I just think that what some would call mistakes, is part of that perfection.