that’s a pretty nice haircut;

Published on September 1, 2010 in music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

So this is interesting and time sensitive, so I’m going to shove it up here quickly – thanks Oxjam! Although the charitable music festival does not get underway until October, some events are being held in the next few weeks to raise money for Oxfam and its campaigns around the world.

The first of these they’re calling Waxjam, which takes place this coming Sunday (5th September) at Pivo Pivo from 3pm. As the name kinda hints, Oxjam are looking for brave men and women to donate their time – and their leg hair – to raise money.

The following Thursday, 9th September, Nice n Sleazy will be hosting a “disco-bingo”, with the DJ calling out songs in place of numbers. One round will cost £2 or participate in all three (“Classics”, “Hits” and “Top 40″) for a bargainous fiver.

Oxjam Glasgow Takeover 2010 takes place on Saturday, 16th October from 5:30pm. Early bird tickets are already available for only £6.00. The line up is in the process of being confirmed but participating venues include Classic Grand, Sub Club, MacSorleys, Pivo Pivo, The Admiral, Sloans and Stereo.

it’s hard to be a good girl listening to the drive-by truckers: last month’s mix, august 2010;

Published on August 31, 2010 in music. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
This entry is part 28 of 28 in the series monthly mix club

290810 - The City Has Sex With Itself I Suppose

In which, even when she is being the world’s most rubbish and lazy music blogger, Lis puts together a selection of songs that have caught her attention through the joys of iTunes shuffle this month.

Holy down-to-the-wire, Batman! Real life keeps calling me away from my pile of half-written drafts, but I feel as if I begin every one of these monthly missives with an apology for absence real or imagined.

As I type this up on the last day of August there’s the unmistakable chill of autumn in the air, but also a gorgeous golden light as if such summer that we had is trying to cling on with its last breath. Glasgow looks a little like a fairy tale, and whispers to me: stay. Soon it will be skirts and tights weather again.

I can’t wait.

Pull All The Stops Out For Future Wife of the Month: last month’s mix, August 2010

1. Lovers Turn To Monsters: I Can Only See In The Darkness
A gentler start to this month’s playlist than usual. I met Kyle, also known as Lovers Turn To Monsters, the night before my 28th birthday. I missed his set, but he gave me a CD anyway. “I’m a BLOGGER!” I exclaimed, as full of shit as eighty percent proof vodka. He’s got a new EP out, and it’s free.

2. Drive-By Truckers: Outfit
Jason’s are the best Drive-By Truckers songs, and the night before I got married I wrapped myself in a blanket made out of his voice and lemon-flavoured throat sweets. This has been in my library forever, but I heard it for the first time the night my best friends came round to help me make wedding favours. Whitney tells me it’s always made her think of me, perhaps because of the reference to singing with a “fake British accent”.

3. Frank Turner: Poetry of the Deed
I think I’m falling in love with a singer-songwriter with a Hold Steady tattoo, which shouldn’t surprise anybody. I have hardly stopped listening to this three-minute manifesto since the first time I heard it.

4. Best Coast: Bratty B
The soundtrack to my summer. I need to write about this thirty-minute fuzz-pop wonder of an album properly, actually, since everybody else has already beaten me to it.

5. Sarah Harmer: Open Window (The Wedding Song)
Not that I downloaded this until afterwards, because that’s pretty much how long it took me to unblock my iTunes account. Still, lovely.

6. Phil Campbell: Isn’t She Beautiful
I don’t know much about this local singer-songwriter, apart from the fact that half my work seem to be obsessed with him and that this is such a pretty little song.

7. She and Him: Brand New Shoes
The lovely Zooey Deschanel’s second album with songwriting and performing partner M Ward is a slow burner, but her husky voice lends a lovely warmth to these laid-back songs of longing.

8. The Unwinding Hours: Tightrope
I was a huge Aereogramme fan, but I’m still not one hundred percent convinced by Craig B’s new project. Taken on its own though, this track is sheer gorgeous.

9. Yahweh: Make Me Stop
Another local one: gorgeous, delicate and part of a recent split 7″ on Gerry Loves Records.

10. Cancel The Astronauts: Funny For A Girl
This was a weird little coincidence: I downloaded this Edinburgh indiepop band’s titular EP on the recommendations of a few friends, including my Radar colleagues, but before I had a chance to even listen to it I met the singer in my work. This track is great fun, well worthy of a listen – and I have a spare copy of the EP now, if anybody fancies a listen.

11. Marah: Tramp Art
The new album from my firm favourites Marah is a folkier, less immediate listen than its predecessors – but they released it on cassette tape, which was pretty frickin’ sweet even if I barely have anything left to play the things on.

12. Amanda Palmer: Idioteque
It started out with her famous cover of “Creep”, but now eccentric musical laydee AFP has put together a whole EP’s worth of ukulele Radiohead covers. Recommended if, like me, you find much of the source material unlistenable.

13. The Voluntary Butler Scheme: The Eiffel Tower and the BT Tower
This month’s track I know next to nothing about is cute-as-a-button indiepop with lyrics you can’t help but smile along to.

14. Metric: Gimme Sympathy
I’m not gonna lie – I used to really love Emily Haines’ ominously discopop songs but, having moved on to musical pastures new, had lost track of what the band were bringing out. It was the lyrics grabbed me here, on a stripped-down version of the this track for the band’s recent Daytrotter session: who’d you rather be, Ms Haines asks, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones – and I swoon, but now, for the ballsy full band version.

15. Eamon McGrath: Icebreaker
Who sent me this? Was it you, Martin Douglas? Did you say I’d like it, all smoky-voiced lo-fi rawness? Yeah, you can read me like a book.

16. Admiral Fallow: These Barren Years
Catchy flutes and guitars and heartstopping lyrics from an album that just gets better with every listen.

[ZIPPED MP3S, LEFT CLICK AND SAVE]

Monthly most played is, as ever, after the jump.

Continue reading ‘it’s hard to be a good girl listening to the drive-by truckers: last month’s mix, august 2010;’

ten artists: sleater-kinney;

Published on August 23, 2010 in music. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .
This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series ten artists

Another occasional series, this one involving actual writing and inspired by two of my favourite music boys. Scott, whose Black Powder Smoke ruminations on music and film are frequently more entertaining than the subject matter, has been working on a list he’s calling The Forty Artists That Shaped Me. While I don’t have as many as forty (that I love, sure, but that changed my life?), I really liked the idea… and then Steve pointed out that I never followed up on his Ten Albums To Tell Someone Who You Are.

So here’s my compromise: ten artists that shaped me, and quite possibly the albums they did it with.

Have you ever noticed that horrible habit I have of starting what seems to be a perfectly worthy project, only to abandon it as I get distracted or as I move onto something which at the time seems even more worthy? The other night I noticed a handwritten list of “the ten artists who shaped me” at the back of my travel journal, and I couldn’t remember how far I had gotten with it.

It’s been almost a year since my last installment, but with Sleater-Kinney next on the list and Corin Tucker’s solo album due for imminent release (here’s a great catchup with Paste magazine on the subject), it seems like the perfect time to get this project back on track.

Sleater-Kinney? Are they not estate agents? You’ll be disappointed if you show up and they try to sell you a flat.
- EDDIE, 2006

I found out Sleater-Kinney had split up (or “declared an indefinite hiatus”) from behind my old desk at my last job, trying my hardest not to cry. One of my favourite things about working in an office environment is the sense of camaraderie you get: when you’re sitting staring at the same people for eight hours a day every day without the customers or clients who are the main focus in other employment situations to act as a distraction a weird kind of shorthand develops, and you find yourself telling these people things that you maybe hadn’t even had the chance to tell your best friends yet. You become, for want of a better term, something akin to family. We didn’t always have a lot in common, but I enjoyed the good-natured teasing on who I was calling “my favourite band” in breathless, overenthusiastic tones that week (it’s where this blog’s my new favourite band tag originally stemmed from, ever-so-slightly tongue in cheek). So when I hiccuped back a tear and commented that “my favourite band” were no more, I didn’t really expect them to understand.

While I guess the Libertines were my Take That, for want of a better cultural touchstone (mummy, the pwetty boys aren’t going to sing any more songs about girls drugs/each other that I can close my eyes and pretend are about me!), Sleater-Kinney’s breakup was the one that really made an impression. There was no drama, no fanfare: just eleven years and six seven fantastic albums. It was arguably the first time that one of “my” bands had called it quits: Hole were already on their final (or so we all thought at the time) album before I even got there, and REM still show no signs of slowing down although it might have done their later output a bit of good. The Portland-based trio were true trailblazers, respected for their longevity and their talent and not just because god forbid they were girls.

As is so often the case with the most important things, I can’t really remember a time when Sleater-Kinney weren’t a part of my life or even how they got there. There was a mix from Staci at one point; and an mp3 disc from Stevie filled with albums he couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard already – One Beat being among them. But it was when I moved to Edinburgh that I started to pick up the band’s older recordings for £5 a time in places like Avalanche, and there that I began to listen to those albums constantly. There were drunken nights out, Amy and I singing “Little Babies” walking up through the Grassmarket, and there were nights in my room with the albums for company.

I saw them twice: once in London, the first time I traveled to the capital for the sake of a band. Stevie and Jo were there, and Sapph met a boy down the front. I was planning to make it a round trip with a night in Belfast too, but my boss threw a fit when she saw from the annual leave request I would have ended up jeopardising a professional commitment for the sake of words and guitar. And then, the month before the announcement, Dave M and I saw them at the Oran Mor – the only time I’ve ever seen my least favourite Glasgow venue brought to its knees, its shitty acoustics no match for a band in their prime touring the reinvention that was The Woods. That was the night I stalked Corin Tucker in the ladies’, and got her to sign my ticket with the kohl that was the only writing implement I had in my bag – a fact of which I am only slightly ashamed.


Nothing like some protruding shoulder blades to actually make you feel relieved to have put on a bit of weight.

Two months after that show, I was interviewing bands at T in the Park in my “Sleater-Kinney is for Lovers” t-shirt, prompting a conversation with none other than Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie. “That’s why you’re my favourite band now,” I told him, ever the picture of unflappable indie cool. But the words rang a little hollow, because until a certain Brooklyn-by-way-of-Minneapolis bar band came along, there wouldn’t be another band who would encapsulate that phrase as perfectly as Sleater-Kinney did.

1,000 Years, the debut album from The Corin Tucker Band, is released on Kill Rock Stars on 5th October. Carrie Brownstein appears in the video for The Thermals’ new single “I Don’t Believe You”, and Janet Weiss is currently performing with Quasi and The Jicks.

Corin Tucker Band – Doubt by Last Year’s Girl
Sleater-Kinney – One More Hour by Last Year’s Girl

BUY: The Woods (and other albums by Sleater-Kinney) at Amazon.co.uk

get off the internet;

Published on August 22, 2010 in music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve spent most of the past couple of days home sick, so it seems only reasonable that I start dreaming of the places I can go. My mate Duncan has been leaning on me to mention the Stop Making Sense Festival, taking place in Petrçane, Croatia in a couple of weeks. It seems an odd combination, but since I discovered I already know a couple of people who are going the inaugural party’s reputation clearly precedes itself.

There’s something about the summertime that makes me want to weed all the alternative country out of my iPod and play nothing but scuzzy pop and the Clash and the Ramones. Of course, I say that as it starts to rain and on a weekend I’ve been mostly spinning new or forthcoming albums by Lissie and Thea Gilmore. It’s nearly September: traditionally my favourite month. I love the sound of it, and its colours. I only hope it’s less eventful than last year’s.

The Stop Making Sense lineup is more dance-y and DJ-focussed than you’d probably normally put me down for; what the organisers describe as a mixture of “house, rock and roll, flamenco, disco, balearic, techno, south American/African sounds, blues, psychedelia, dubstep, soul and beyond” and names include Friendly Fires and Django Django as well as Glasgow’s own Optimo DJs.

Django Django – Storm by Last Year’s Girl

Stop Making Sense takes place from 3rd – 5th September at The Garden, Petrçane, Croatia. For more information, visit sms-2010.com.

Closer to home, there is fun stuff happening as well. Retreat!, Edinburgh’s DIY music festival, is back for a third year next weekend featuring previously written-about and due to be written-about acts such as Benni Hemm Hemm, The Douglas Firs, eagleowl, Meursalt and Withered Hand. The organisers have put together a free 15-track sampler of the acts performing at the festival, available to download via Bandcamp.

Retreat! takes place from 28th – 29th August at Pilrig St Paul’s Church, Edinburgh. Find out more at RetreatFestival.co.uk.

Finally there’s Rock Chic, a fashion-meets-music event hosted by Jim Gellatly at Glasgow’s SWG3 Warehouse on Friday, 17th September. There will be some familiar DJs, artists and designers, as well as sets from Miaoux Miaox, Pooch, Attic Lights and Figure 5. And it’s all for a good cause too: all proceeds from the event will go to the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre at the Beatson, who have been treating event organiser Laura Boyd since her diagnosis with the illness last year.

Rock Chic takes place on 17th September at SWG3, Glasgow. Find out more and buy tickets.

you give me butterflies;

Published on August 17, 2010 in music. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I’m developing a new-found sympathy for the promoters who swamp my inbox every day. I’m trying my hand at a bit of the stuff myself – the last time I had this many emails dingyed in one day I was selling advertising for a living.

So it’s a good thing I’ve got my own blog to foist my little projects upon the unsuspecting world, isn’t it?

Craig Bedson is a singer-songwriter originally from Campeltown, Argyll but now based in Glasgow. With his first single out now on iTunes, he’s set to play a free show in the city’s Apple Store next week which is bound to be a cracker.

The story goes a little like this: a chance sighting of an old flame across the room at the Kintyre Songwriters’ Festival last year inspired “Butterflies”, a wistful, folky little number full of teenage dreams and stolen kisses in corners. Despite his initial reluctance to play it live, the track has now become Bedson’s first single thanks to an overwhelming reaction on its live debut and the encouragement of the songwriter’s friends.

Says Bedson: “When my eyes met hers I suddenly felt that same burst of adrenalin, the same thrill when you know you’re about to kiss someone, the butterflies in your stomach as you move closer…

“The biggest issue on the night was I was there with someone and so was she, so I never got to say how she’d made me feel on that stage.

“Thinking about it afterwards, I was a bit puzzled as to why she could still make me feel like that after all this time.

“While I guess some people will always have that hold, I wondered how many times any of us miss out on the chance of happiness, how many times we let the perfect person slip away because we didn’t say the right thing at the right time and also how many times that happens without us ever knowing we’ve missed something special.”

The singer has proved reluctant to reveal the identity of the inspiration behind the tender track, but I’m a sucker for a good love story – even the ones that are yet to get past the first page – and who knows how this one could end?

Craig Bedson plays the Apple Store, Glasgow on Thursday, 26th August at
7pm. Entry is FREE.

Butterflies Studio Master by Last Year’s Girl

“c’mon laura… we’re married now”;

Published on August 10, 2010 in a little more personal and music. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .


Photo by Neil Thomas Douglas, And Do You Take…

But first…

The day before the wedding, a wise woman gave me a piece of advice (in the form of a video, all the way from Australia). “Don’t try to record everything,” she told me, “just enjoy.”

And I didn’t write down a thing until Tuesday.

The best day of my life went a little bit like this:

  • Joking on Twitter that a mention in the trending topics would be a fantastic wedding gift turning into us being the highest ranking topic in Glasgow by about 12pm;
  • An impromtu photoshoot in the park behind my house, culminating with me falling off both a swing and the goalposts (I have just been sent photographic evidence of the latter, but no chance am I sharing). The petticoats protected me from most of the damage, but you should have seen the bruise on my leg…
  • Showing up at the venue, being continually surprised to see people I loved there and having to take a minute each time to remember that it shouldn’t really have been;
  • Managing to walk in early (what bride does that at her wedding!) while everybody was trying to sing the Bridal March because we forgot about entrance music;
  • Stevie heckling the celebrant after his reading, from Love Is A Mixtape: she mentioned that she really ought to read the book; and he yelled from the floor, “you should!”
  • Struggling to get Jay’s wedding ring over his knuckle so just leaving it half on. Figuring nobody else would notice. Um, now you know;
  • What my Web Hedgehog said to me afterwards. I will not repeat it for the sake of all of our modesty;
  • Striding through a conveniently-erected funfair to get some impromptu wedding photographs with my bouquet hanging low like a rockstar in a music video*, and some East End old timer yelling after me: “you’re gonnae get it tonight, hen!”;
  • The epicness that was my brother’s written, composed and performed on guitar-by best man’s speech. And my sister’s verse, with the best line you never made out: I especially like all the cool stuff she lets me steal, now let me think // makeup, shoes and clothes and my new party dress, wink-wink;
  • SHE MEANT MY WEDDING DRESS. GET IT?!;
  • There were cupcakes. There was dancing. There was everybody I loved in the same room, and me running around like a kid in a sweetshop MADE OF FRIENDS;
  • And of course, at the end, it descended into a guitar party as my family + alcohol is wont to do. I won’t tell you what I sang, but there’s a video on Facebook and let’s just say that my indie credentials are completely ruined.

If I have one regret, and it isn’t one really, it’s that I didn’t have enough of the delicious food because I was too busy being a social butterfly (and drinking all this gin that just kept appearing…). We were brought chocolate-covered strawberries in our hotel room that night, and I’m sure they were meant to be used for something kinky, but by that stage I was so starving I pretty much just ate them whole and then stuffed all the little jars of jam from the room service breakfast into my overnight bag the next day. As you can see, there would have been no point in abandoning my own name as I haven’t changed a bit.

Thank you to everybody who made the day what it was. Thank you to my new husband (!) for just being a bit of a legend; and to Jody Vickery, a minister from Georgia, who in coining the phrase “narcissistic cleavage convention” in the Guardian at the weekend managed to sum up our day perfectly. What can I say. Best. Day. Ever.

And there might not have been ice cream, but there was gin and tonic sorbet.

A couple of people have asked, and since this is predominantly a music blog it makes sense to also share with you our first dance. Making the final decision about half an hour before we took to the floor from a shortlist of five, it was:

Marah – So What If We’re Outta Tune (With The Rest Of The World) [mp3]

Thanks Whitney for not being too mad at me for borrowing it for a while.

[*Incidentally, if anybody knows what I did with my bouquet after the photographs, let me know? It would have been nice to hang onto it...]

excerpts from a travel journal: half-awake in my fake empire;

Published on August 5, 2010 in music and travellin'. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I heard someone say once that writing doesn’t happen when you’re too busy living. It seems as good an excuse as any for leaving the rest of my travel pages until I’m back perched on my own bed, surrounded by yellow lamplight and the detritus of my living.

Some things you remember without help. The red, white and blue light of the Empire State Building that last night; yellow taxicabs in shadow and Matt Berninger in my earphones like the voice of my subconscious and the soundtrack to the city. I feel like I’m in a music video on Lexington and take a moment to just breathe.

empire state

Put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us…

This time we even leave the state. A day trip to my beloved Princeton as it meant I could meet my even-more-beloved Ms Lucero halfway with Dorinda in tow to provide hugs and baked goods and a damning indictment on the state of New Jersey’s highways. To me, Princeton keeps its toes firmly on the right side of twee – while its knowing quirkiness is as obvious as its sky-high property prices its so beautiful that I don’t find myself gritting my teeth by the chorus. And it’s home to some of my favourite places: Paper Source, where I pick up kitten-shaped Post-Its and some bits and pieces to create a scrapbook of the wedding cards (“How did you know about us?” asks the girl behind the counter when I tell her that despite my accent I’m already on the mailing list, and I blush as I think of the two-hour browse and giant shopping bag that punctuated my September); The Bent Spoon, now serving ginger cookie awesomeness in a cone; and PREX which still holds the honour of being my second favourite record store in the whole of the US.

prex

An in-store poster informs me they’re looking for a blogger. I wonder if locality is an issue (and, if so, whether they’ll sponsor our visa application…)

New Jersey has always held a special place in my heart, and it’s when we’re waiting outside the record store that the reason why roars up in a black car with a pink skull sticker on the back. The second friend I ever made online, Jill used to send me Hot Topic goodies and my yellow Hello Kitty pyjamas and calling her was the only thing I could think of to do on 9/11. When you’ve known somebody for eleven years, you can’t imagine what a relief it is to finally blast some Hole and go play minigolf with her and her boyfriend even if you quickly prove that you suck at it.

we are stardust

One day we spend five hours trailing around the American Museum of Natural History, guided by the Museum’s own iPhone app which turns out to be the only way to find the food court (verdict: overpriced, but if you can’t enjoy an incredible ten-dollar salad on honeymoon then when can you?). It’s the sort of place you could easily spend a week in, even if like me you find the history of man stuff more tedious than you ought to. It has dinosaurs! and a planetarium! Which I find myself returned to, giggling over the references, as I read my favourite fictional crime writer Richard Castle’s latest thriller which Jay buys me for the flight back to a Glasgow that feels a little less like home.

dylan's candy bar

I still deserve to spend the evening shopping for sweeties and Sephora though.

excerpts from a travel journal: we’re burning up the bowery;

Published on August 3, 2010 in travellin'. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

“So… when are we moving here?”

It’s funny. No, it’s not funny at all. But in recent years I have let myself become distracted from my original goal of moving to the City. I can’t bear to live another four years without this place. Yeah, sure it’s ridiculously hot in the summer and I’ll do unclassy things like flash my knickers like Marilyn Monroe walking over a subway grate; and I know it’s not as simple as I spend every day here and I’ll never be miserable and I’ll always be inspired; but I don’t need to look any further to find that place Jesse Malin sings about where you’re safe to be more yourself than anywhere. I’ve found it.

And Jay gets it too. His legendary sense of direction has already memorised the grid, even as I want to turn in the wrong direction with a head full of certainties. Sure, he’s still got some things to learn, like the skeezy-looking guy is saying hi to the cute girl in the yellow dress and not you (maybe because she was flashing her knickers on a subway grate), but he’ll get there.

I brought four pairs of shoes for a five-night stay, which I was initially annoyed at myself for – this determination, you see, to never be one of those “shoe” girls – but something which has proven itself to be a blessing. Flat feet and a tendency to overheat make footwear a nightmare in the summer, particularly when walking the distances we have done, but this way I can trade off between cracked heels and aching knees. I kicked my sandals off at one point on the Brooklyn Bridge because I just couldn’t take anymore and my toes were raw and bleeding. In these temperatures, though, the pavements are more hospitable than the subway platforms.

that first new york cupcake

Our first full day we have lunch with my husband’s literary agent, which is the sort of statement Facebook was invented for, at a barbecue place called Hill Country. Texan barbecue is not real barbecue, my Southern friend Lilit reminds us later, but the place plays Ryan Adams and serves imported Coca-Cola with the real sugar we are used to and the food is mighty fine. We then sneak Lilit out of the office for a coffee at a little place two doors down from the Museum of Sex’s pretty window display of a basket of colourful dildos: we’re upstairs in a library with huge, comfy chairs and they’re advertising daily meditation sessions and a crossword club. There’s a Chinese girl with the latest issue of Cosmo, and Lilit borrows it to gleefully show me her article (she’s got a book coming out, you know, and it will be reviewed here about as soon as I can import a copy).

girl with a peach

The walking takes it out of us though. With our friend Josh we tramp around the East Village and then down into Williamsburg: a comic shop, frozen yoghurt, a slice of pizza, the Joe Strummer mural outside Jesse’s Niagara bar, a record shop full of dusty 7″s with a gorgeous cat sprawled lazily on the counter. I buy Best Coast and the reissued Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers record, something on Kill Rock Stars and a bowl made from a warped vinyl copy of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Then there’s the Cake Shop: venue, record store, server of bacon-topped Elvis-themed cupcakes. It’s like somebody invaded my brain and live-streamed my vision of heaven.

a pilgrimage

burning on the bowery

It’s the hottest day so far and even though some brief, spitting rain provides temporary respite it only makes us feel stickier as our clothes dry into our skin. It means for the second night in a row we miss out on evening plans, preferring instead to hole up in our hotel room with the A/C up high, trying to figure out what it is about the only-very-intermittently funny 30 Rock that people keep raving about. Last night we ended up in the Hard Rock Cafe of all places before a midnight showing of Toy Story 3 because I slept through the gig we’d planned, drinking overpriced but oversized cocktails in souvenir glasses served by a waitress called Amber whose chest tattoos barely peeked through her shirt’s buttons; feeling for all the world like being married is the coolest thing in the world.

excerpts from a travel journal: livin’ or dyin’ in new york means nothing to me;

Published on August 2, 2010 in travellin' and wedding of awesome. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , .

By the end of my first hour back in New York City I’d already been sworn at by somebody and had somebody else complement me on my Scrabble tile necklace.

Ah, it’s good to be home!

270710 - Times Square

Nowhere else feels like this, smells like this, sounds like this: exhaust and caffeine and chatter and hot dog stands and car horns. Nowhere else is as loud and as brash and as honest. I think a lot about the personalities of the cities I visit – how most of them you could identify with your eyes closed just by the way they make you feel. New York gets under your skin, and I can’t tell if it’s the people who make it or it makes the people. Jay says that as you walk along the streets and look up the image of superheroes swinging from building to building doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous.

times square

I settle into a routine quite easily. Once again the first night is spent around Times Square but the difference, I suppose, is that this time it is local to our hotel. But there’s no comparing that sight as you round the corner for the first time, even if you’ve seen it before – it still takes your breath away. I suppose it has been four years. I can’t begin to put into words the feeling of… contentment? completeness? I get in the pit of my stomach. I’m not sure if I want to. People are hustling for change, holding up signs with everything from tales of economic disaster to I need money for weed. There’s a guy dressed up as Elmo and I ask for a photograph. “Only if you tip,” he replies in a hispanic accent.

elmooooooo!

What? It’s honest, and it’s enterprising. Frankly, he deserves it for wearing the suit in this heat. But there’s air conditioning in most places and, as evening becomes nightfall, there’s a summer camaraderie. Folding chairs in the road, table tennis in Bryant Park and an ice lolly for the walk back to the hotel.

and if all was well and you heart could find the words // would we be for better, baby, would we be for worse;

Published on July 20, 2010 in music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
This entry is part 27 of 28 in the series monthly mix club

2010-07-19 at 14-23-54

In which, even when she is being the world’s most rubbish and lazy music blogger, Lis puts together a selection of songs that have caught her attention through the joys of iTunes shuffle this month.

One of those nights I walk two miles through my home town because the sky smells that fresh, sharp way it often does after the rain and I can’t help myself. Along the way I train my iPhone to recognise the only two voice activation commands you’ll ever need: “call Teuchter Barbie” and “play songs by the Gaslight Anthem”. As my bus passes through Paisley I see this guy about my age sitting on the sill with the window open. Our eyes meet, and I wonder if he is thinking the same things that I am.

I feel the disconnect. On one hand the timing couldn’t be worse, but on the other… this is my weather, and my heart feels fuller than normal and I want to find the time to squirrel myself away to write. “Then what’s stopping you?” says the boy my heart is full for, not least because he understands better than anything… even if he knows exactly what is stopping me.

Which isn’t to say I’m not looking forward to it.

BRB. We’re away to get married. But here’s something for you to listen to in the meantime.

These Things Get Louder: last month’s mix, July 2010

1. The New Pornographers: “Moves”
While their solo and spin-off projects tend to grab me more, what I love most about the New Pornographers as a collective is the way the way the melodies seep out of what seems like a collage of duelling harmonies and snippets with repeated listening. This, the opening track from new album Together is an excellent example.

2. Shabby Rogue: “The Mountain”
This was a submission that I’ve sat on for absolutely ages – bad Lis! – perhaps because I never really warmed to the accompanying album. This track, however, is a magnificent slice of country rock from the London four-piece.

3. The Killing Floor: “Shout”
You’ve got to imagine this one half-shouted, and smelling slightly of sweat and vodka and hips and leather, and perhaps then you’ll get a better impression of The Killing Floor’s support slot with Jesse Malin a few weeks ago.

4. We’re Only Afraid of NYC: “Warm Heart Cold Hands”
Fresh after playing the second Ayetunes vs. Peenko night, another of my favourite Glasgow bands gets a long overdue inclusion on one of these mixes – I’ve been working on a profile of them for the Radar lot, so I guess I’ve had them on my mind of late, but regardless: their new EP (free download, kids!) is just that good.

5. Bottle of Evil: “Stay”
I remember being a little bemused when I got this submission. I might have read it out to whoever I was with. I think I was drunk at the time. This one is definitely a case of don’t-judge-the-band-by-the-name – describing themselves as “electro/shoegaze/folk, inspired by miserable Scottish weather”, Bottle of Evil’s music is dreamy and delicious.

6. Beach House: “Walk in the Park”
Beach House have long been one of those hipsterish bands I have just never gotten. I’m still not sure that I do, but there’s something pretty lovely about this one from their latest release – particularly in conjunction with the Bottle of Evil track preceding it.

7. Jesse Malin & the St Marks Social: “Angel In Blue”
Unreleased J Geils Band cover performed as part of the St Mark’s Social’s recent Daytrotter session.

8. Wintersleep: “Weighty Ghost”
It looks as though I bought this track in August 2008, but have only gotten around to listening to it now. The curious thing is this band were actually recommended to me a couple of weeks ago on the strength of an upcoming opening slot for none other than The Hold Steady. Intriguing…

9. Phosphorescent: “The Mermaid Parade”
This is breezy, bittersweet summer listening with the windows down.

10. Wilco: “Pot Kettle Black”
I’ve been creating a lot of “genius” playlists recently. It’s proving a great way to rediscover old favourites.

11. Wheat: “El Sincero”
A band who sneaked into my life on the back of the Elizabethtown soundtrack, although I’m not sure how this track in all its complex, layered beauty sneaked its way into my music library. I’m not complaining though.

12. Evening Hymns: “Dead Deer”
This month’s track I know next to nothing about, other than the fact that it is soft and subtle and earthy and just a little bit folky.

13. Griffin House: “Liberty Line”
A recommendation from my longtime gig buddy Mad Rachel, downloaded immediately on the strength of a “he’s a singer-songwriter from Nashville with an acoustic guitar, trust me, you’ll like it!”

14. The Indelicates: “Anthem For Doomed Youth”
Very nearly this month’s title, if I hadn’t had too many anthems of late. Taken from the follow-up to beloved-around-these-parts American Demo, which is just as clever if maybe not as catchy. And available on a pay-what-you-like basis so, you know, do it. It’s really not that hard to stay alive when you’re twenty-five…

15. The Gaslight Anthem: “She Loves You”
Oh, band. There are so many reasons that I love you, but the fact that even your bonus tracks make my heart beat that little bit faster is definitely up there.

[ZIPPED .MP3S, LEFT CLICK AND SAVE]

Monthly Most Played is, as ever, after the jump.

Continue reading ‘and if all was well and you heart could find the words // would we be for better, baby, would we be for worse;’