like a muthafuckin' riot
Oberlin alumni acoustic coffeehouse at DaBhang on West 8th! Happy, happy, happy, happy. Unplugged music is my soul made flesh! Er...sound! Or...or some less drunken metaphor that actually works.
Woo!
This is the first all-acoustic show I've seen since starting to learn guitar, and consequently I couldn't stop staring at performers' fingers. It's amazing how wide a variety of styles there are, and how performers from so many different technical backgrounds all make beautiful music. Jared Glenn's got some great fast-strum, chord-driven songs with intellectual, driven lyrics; that Brazilian dude has restrained picking and pleasing Spanish chord progressions; Tom Curtin has Paul McCartney verve and crazy barre jumps; and Anna goes her own way and fingerpicks whatever sounds best match her poetry, scales be damned. You know how in the blitzball minigame in Final Fantasy X, whenever an opposing player hits you with Poison Shot or Sleep Tackle, "PRESS TRIANGLE!!" will flash across the screen, and if you hit the triangle button at just the right time you'll still get hit by the move, but you'll learn to do it yourself? It's exactly like that. "Learn Fingering" and "Learn Strum Pattern" are my Reaction Commands. First thing I did when I got home was pick up Shandy and improv some chord progressions from what I had learned. Felt good, and sounded better.
I don't give myself enough credit, guitar-wise. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very much a novice, and I'm still too uncoordinated to sing and play at the same time. But all that practice is finally paying off.
But back to the show. Oh man. Lots of experimental stuff--two guys who were involved in the theater production of Lost Highway at Oberlin were there, and it showed. Dueling basses, sax/trombone/percussion jazz improv, random screaming scat--it was like sitting outside the Con listening to the TIMARA people record samples. (Make of that what you will.) With some better lighting and one dollar chocolate chip cookies it would have pretty much been the Cat.
Also I met lots and lots of people I only sort of knew, and as much as social interaction wears me out and confuses me it does good to drink deep after a drought.
Oh man. I've needed this. I've needed this so bad. Sweet muuuuuuuusic. And people. And coming home and strumming those fingertips grey.
Woo!
This is the first all-acoustic show I've seen since starting to learn guitar, and consequently I couldn't stop staring at performers' fingers. It's amazing how wide a variety of styles there are, and how performers from so many different technical backgrounds all make beautiful music. Jared Glenn's got some great fast-strum, chord-driven songs with intellectual, driven lyrics; that Brazilian dude has restrained picking and pleasing Spanish chord progressions; Tom Curtin has Paul McCartney verve and crazy barre jumps; and Anna goes her own way and fingerpicks whatever sounds best match her poetry, scales be damned. You know how in the blitzball minigame in Final Fantasy X, whenever an opposing player hits you with Poison Shot or Sleep Tackle, "PRESS TRIANGLE!!" will flash across the screen, and if you hit the triangle button at just the right time you'll still get hit by the move, but you'll learn to do it yourself? It's exactly like that. "Learn Fingering" and "Learn Strum Pattern" are my Reaction Commands. First thing I did when I got home was pick up Shandy and improv some chord progressions from what I had learned. Felt good, and sounded better.
I don't give myself enough credit, guitar-wise. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very much a novice, and I'm still too uncoordinated to sing and play at the same time. But all that practice is finally paying off.
But back to the show. Oh man. Lots of experimental stuff--two guys who were involved in the theater production of Lost Highway at Oberlin were there, and it showed. Dueling basses, sax/trombone/percussion jazz improv, random screaming scat--it was like sitting outside the Con listening to the TIMARA people record samples. (Make of that what you will.) With some better lighting and one dollar chocolate chip cookies it would have pretty much been the Cat.
Also I met lots and lots of people I only sort of knew, and as much as social interaction wears me out and confuses me it does good to drink deep after a drought.
Oh man. I've needed this. I've needed this so bad. Sweet muuuuuuuusic. And people. And coming home and strumming those fingertips grey.