July 6, 2014

what’s beautiful is broken

This Wednesday night, we’ve booked Jeffrey Foucault at the Ivywild School in Colorado Springs (with Patrick Dethlefs opening). I don’t think it would be an overstatement to say that this song below is one of my favorites of the last good number of years. Please join us.

“Jeffrey Foucault, sings stark, literate songs that are as wide open as the landscape of his native Midwest.” — The New Yorker

If you’re not in Colorado, just listen and love:

Northbound 35 – Jeffrey Foucault

Northbound 35
through the iron hills
under infidel skies
It’s two hundred miles to drive
..you won’t be home

I saw an elsebound train
on the overpass
in the driving rain
Every ticket costs the same
for where you can’t go

Mustang horses, champagne glasses
anything frail – anything wild
It’s the price of living motion
what’s beautiful is broken
and grace is just the measure of a fall

So I rolled into your town
past the smokestacks
and the ore docks down
off of Main the sky spun around
with her diamonds on fire

And we fought all night and we danced
in your kitchen
you were as much in my hands
as water or darkness or nothing
could ever be held

Mustang horses, champagne glasses
anything frail – anything wild
It’s the price of living motion
what’s beautiful is broken
and grace is just the measure of a fall

It’s just flashes that we own
little snapshots
made of breath and of bone
and out on the darkling plain alone
they light up the sky

And it’s 51 and driving south
ain’t it funny
how things’ll turn out
I never even kissed you on the mouth
When we said goodbye

Mustang horses, champagne glasses
anything frail – anything wild
It’s the price of living motion
what’s beautiful is broken

and grace is just the measure of a fall


BONUS: Man alive do I love this R.E.M. cover he did with his former band Redbird.

You Are The Everything (R.E.M.) – Redbird

Also, I posted a songwriter session back in 2008 that Jeffrey Foucault did with Peter Mulvey and Chris Smither – that’s still uploaded here if you want to take a listen (wonderful cover of Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain,” to boot).

Foucault / Mulvey / Smither Songwriter Session


Tickets for Wednesday’s show are $10, available here.

December 11, 2008

Rustic warmth and seeping wistfulness

The honest, richly-spun folk of up-and-coming local musician Gregory Alan Isakov captivated a packed house in Denver last week as he opened for the Calexico show. I’ve written about the marvelous skiffle of Isakov’s “The Salt and The Sea” tune before, and have been appreciated the bright talent of this local artist in several venues across Colorado this year. I love to hear Gregory sing; his voice is really something special in the singer-songwriter pantheon, with hints of sly knowing, balanced with a warm and soaring verve.

“Gonna write one for you, the unwritable girl . . .”

Unwritable Girl – Gregory Alan Isakov
[from his 2007 album That Sea, The Gambler]

All pictures of Gregory’s set with Calexico are here.

Isakov is playing again this Friday night at Boulder’s B-Side Lounge with Wisconsin folk artist Peter Mulvey. If you haven’t heard Mulvey’s songs before, you should take a listen to this collaborative set that he recorded on WPLN with two other excellent Americana songwriters in the same vein: Jeffrey Foucault and Chris Smither. I’ve listened to this set many times when I need an infusion of something weighty and authentic.

In addition to a cover of “Buckets of Rain” that gets me every single time, this set also includes one of my favorite sad songs of the last few years, “Northbound 35.”

DOWNLOAD THE SET:
WPLN SONGWRITER SESSION, MARCH 2003
Train Home – Chris Smither

29 Cent Head – Peter Mulvey
Stripping Cane – Jeffrey Foucault

Lola – Chris Smither

Stranded in a Limousine – Peter Mulvey

Northbound 35 – Jeffrey Foucault
**highest rec**
Crocodile Man – Chris Smither
Shirt – Peter Mulvey

Secretariat – Jeffrey Foucault

Outside In – Chris Smither

The Road To Mallow – Peter Mulvey

Buckets of Rain (Dylan) – Jeffrey Foucault

ZIP: MULVEY-FOUCAULT-SMITHER SONGWRITER SESSION

TICKETS: Gregory Alan Isakov with Peter Mulvey
Friday, Dec 12 – B-Side Lounge in Boulder

[audio via]

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Bio Pic Name: Heather Browne
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
Giving context to the torrent since 2005.

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."
—Hunter S. Thompson

Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.

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