Fuel/Friends dives in at SXSW 2011

On Wednesday night, as we braced ourselves for the marvelous musical onslaught that was churning ready to release onto the streets of Austin, somebody told me that the SXSW Festival was 40% larger this year than last. I have no idea if that is true because I am terrible at estimating numbers of anything, but I can certainly believe it, as SXSW continues to grow and draw so many acts down to Texas that I always leave feeling like I’ve been through a musical washing machine. Or maybe I feel like that episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ where she is trying to eat the chocolates that just keep coming so fast, and more, and more, and more. No one can keep up with all that deliciousness, but I was game to try. I’m always game.

After a splendid opening reception for media at Austin City Hall with some excellent local talent and gift bags with bottles of Tito’s (uh oh), I headed as quickly as I could over to Bat Bar for Walk The Moon, to start my SXSW 2011 off right. You know I was mightily excited. With the crowd packed close and the bar walls open to Sixth Street passersby stopping to watch, their set was crackling with the kind of kinetic confidence that comes easiest in youth. Their energetic, dancey set can best be illustrated by two texts I sent to a friend while I was trying to convince him to come over.

9:24pm: “These guys are adorable. And twenty.”
9:26pm: “And wearing facepaint.”

It was everything I had hoped for. The first show of my SXSW was also the feel-good winner. I had to stop filming a video clip because I decided I had to dance instead.

Walk The Moon

I want to join Wild Flag. I want them to adopt me as egg-shaker rocker girl (since I couldn’t depose the formidable Janet Weiss, of Sleater-Kinney, as their drummer) and take me on tour with them, so I could bask in their rock glory every night. Fronted by Carrie Brownstein, this new band of Pacific Northwest badasses were phenomenal at the NPR party, playing their squalling guitars held behind their heads. Their songs had strong driving melodies and basslines, with that singsong female voice that sounds even better with the right heft behind it.

Their MySpace helpfully says “Apt adjectives for describing the band’s music: wild. Also: flaggy.” To that I would add: really damn good. Cannot wait to get their (Britt Daniel-produced) first 7″ on Record Store Day.

Wild Flag

After lunch on Thursday I started out from the house I was staying at, and walked past the Auditorium Shores where The Strokes were due to play that night. There was already an amazingly long line of kids standing waiting in line for the free set. Even if it hadn’t been for the multitude of Strokes shirts in incarnations from the last decade on every other person, it would have been fun (and easy) to try and tell which band they were waiting for just based on the fashion.

That night was my first time seeing The Strokes, and it was long overdue. I was giddy with anticipation. For a band that saw its comeuppance in small NYC clubs and the sweaty intensity of raucous tiny shows, I was acutely aware that something was missing from the way I was experiencing them for the first time, but beggars can’t be choosers, as they say, and to me they sounded absolutely terrific. With the Austin skyline silhouetting them, their set peppered with new songs, Julian brought his lackadaisical drawl (I’ve always said it sounds as if he can’t be arsed to get up off the couch), but there was that underlying edge, the guitars and drums tight and spot-on.

On most days, this is my favorite Strokes song, and I just stood there with a big stupid grin on my face to get to see it from so close.

The set ended with a massive bombardment of surprise fireworks that started exploding during the opening drumbeat of “Last Nite.” I am a sucker for fireworks. I also thought fleetingly about some sort of metaphor in there for a band that used to cause all the fireworks themselves in small dark clubs, now playing such massive stages that they can light off pyrotechnics into the night air.

After a quick beer with my drummer friend Robby from These United States (who looks awesomely like Jesus these days, and whose sets I totally missed in Austin this year, sadly) I headed off – to church.

The rootsy new G. Love album, produced by the Avett Brothers, feels very much like the album he was always meant to make, and since it was recorded in a church, this seemed also like the setting I was absolutely meant to see it performed live in for the first time. Joined by Luther Dickinson from the Black Crowes and the North Mississippi Allstars for a few songs, he wailed and howled and stomped his way through his very solid and compelling set.

G. Love

Lord Huron from Los Angeles were more potent and feisty live than their warm and woolly EP suggests. Instead of bringing that Fleet Foxes meets Edward Sharpe vibe, they cranked up the percussion (dude was wearing a washboard on his chest and I wanted to run away with him immediately into the Texas night) and were entirely danceable, in a near-tropical way.

The Stranger – Lord Huron

Lord Huron

My night ended on Thursday watching all dozen+ members of Gayngs (with Justin Vernon, and a dude in a white cape) cover George Michael’s “One More Try” to a packed Mohawk crowd. I just looked around a little confused and tried my best not to enjoy it (longstanding hatred of GM). And then sang it all the way home, dammit.

Gayngs

Friday’s mercury climbed into the sticky-uncomfortable range, and became the day I decided to start a new photoblog called hipstersinhotweather.com. It is going to be completely amazing. From the moment I left the house, the sweat beads formed and were unrelenting, and I saw a large number of skinny jeans pulled up into man-capris, and plenty of dark clothing and impractical scarves sweat through. I was grateful for my dress.

To escape the heat, and because there is a fantastically vibrant scene there right now, our first stop of the day parties on Friday was the SXSeattle showcase at Copa, where we caught Ravenna Woods, Young Evils (harmonic, well-crafted pop with a kickass girl drummer named Faustine), and a hip-hop artist named Sol that we danced our asses off to, to spite the heat. I also had the WINNING moment of Damien Jurado showing me his driver’s license so I would believe who he was. Ummmm, the heat was scrambling my brain? Sigh. Sorry Damien. You are awesome and I know it.

Young Evils

Get Over It – Young Evils

Sol

Later that afternoon, I caught one of the most high energy sets with Middle Brother playing to a packed Barbarella backyard porch. This is the supernova collaboration between three excellent bands: Deer Tick, Dawes, and Delta Spirit. There was a genuine affinity between the three frontmen (see kiss below) and lots of interaction with / dancing in / throwing beer on the crowd to complement their crunchy riffs and early-’60s garage rock feel. [VIDEO: Me, Me, Me]

Middle Brother

I also, not surprisingly, kept finding myself at The Head and The Heart shows – I think three in 2 days, by my count. The buzz on the street for them was thrilling. After SPIN Magazine hyped them as their #2 band to watch at SXSW 2011, it seemed that everywhere I went (photographers pit, radio lunches, that welcome reception) people were asking each other if they’d seen them yet. I had a few friends to drag to see them, so I happily went along spreading the gospel.

They played a wickedly hot midday show at Lustre Pearl for the Dickies/FILTER party on Thursday afternoon (their first “real” one, they said, meaning to a bunch of sweaty kids instead of to industry folks). Then on Friday, both the legendary Antone’s as well as headlining the Sub Pop showcase at 1am, before heading to the airport for their European tour with The Low Anthem. They left vapor trails in their wake, from an explosive week for them.

The Head and The Heart

In between Head and The Heart sets on Friday night, I popped into the Ale House for my favorite Australian from last year’s SXSW, Andy Clockwise. Completely dousing the audience with charisma like gasoline, Clockwise commands you watch him, and commands you enjoy. He brought the girl next to me up onto stage to play electric guitar and I couldn’t help but be jealous of her badassery.

Andy Clockwise

Josh Ritter played the St. David’s Church sanctuary at 10:30pm, and I got in only for the last few songs. It was quite a shift after Andy Clockwise, but it was utterly spellbinding, and –as you can imagine– transcendent. If there is a more poignant moment than Ritter performing “In The Dark” in a church, in the dark, with the crowd singing softly and spontaneously along, I don’t think I can handle it.

Josh Ritter

Saturday morning I hopped right on up out of bed (ouch, cowboy boot blisters, ouch) ready to tackle the final full day of SXSW. By that day, everyone is feeling it and you best be talking quiet. Denver’s soiree of the music year at the Reverb Party was happening at Parkside, and it was on the lovely rooftop patio overlooking Sixth Street. Since I forgot to have a breakfast taco back home, my day started gently with Great Divide’s Wild Raspberry Ale (I mean, this is Colorado, so we do up our free beer at day parties RIGHT).

Port Au Prince is the new project of some good friends from the now-defunct band Astrophagus, back with a completely different sound. They are more accessible but still smart, with call-and-response melodies that made me happy when they rang down over Sixth Street.

Port Au Prince

I headed over to the Ryan’s Smashing Life blog party at Rusty Spurs, where Adam Duritz did a cameo appearance with the rapper NOTAR that he has signed to his T Recs label. I definitely gushed on a little too much when I met him about what his music has meant to me over the years. But then again, let’s be honest I am not known for hiding my feelings, and Duritz has been a major force in my musical development over the years. It was a great moment for me.

Also at that same party I got to check out the super talented Ivan & Alyosha from Seattle who were having quite a bit of fun up there. They’ve named their band after brothers from Dostoyevsky who struggle with faith and family ties, and chats with them before their set belie a depth of intelligence that is palpable in their smart, substantial songwriting. One of my favorite unexpected discoveries of the festival.

Easy To Love – Ivan & Alyosha

Then I went and decided to Mess With Texas at their free outdoors day party on the other side of the highway, and in a shocking role reversal it ended up just completely messing with me instead. I was sending texts about !!! and people thought I was so excited that I was forgetting a word in there, but really I was just totally wowed by their live set. For a man wearing (very) short blue shorts and a purple striped polo shirt, the lead singer of !!! had charisma in droves. Despite my weepingly aching feet, I found myself dancing harder than I have in a very long time, there on the dusty field.

I’ve been googling lead singer Nic Offer today (since I’ve decided to abduct him for a dance party, after that show – and that Prince outtake they covered!), and this quote from the A.V. Club profile on him pretty much sums it up in the very best possible way:

“A few years back, I perfected ‘The Prance,’ where you’re almost skipping in place and you have a look on your face that says “Nobody’s business, ain’t nobody’s business if I do!”

I do so adore a man who isn’t afraid to dance. As one of the best songs on their new album says, my intentions with him are unabashedly bass.

Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass – !!!

!!!

I packed into the giant sweaty tent for the ass-shaking extravaganza that was a Big Freedia show that I was promised would change my life (I never thought I would see a black man with a pompadour that impressive also have those sort of limber hips) and then almost died during Odd Future (no seriously) and evacuated the premises.

The last show I saw at SXSW 2011 was Rural Alberta Advantage at the Central Presbyterian Church late Saturday night. I have an affinity for the resonance of churches, and the simple quietude that is found in the shows that happen there. I am someone who is familiar with the interiors of churches, and lately shows like the RAA are the most deeply resounding and peaceful of the connections I make. Their set sounded fantastic: affecting, urgent, and honest. There was a simple joy, and words that needed to burn their way out. Their latest album Departing has been on non-stop repeat even before their set, but so much moreso after.

For their final song, they unplugged and walked down the red velvet aisle to stand among us and perform a stripped and perfect version of “Good Night.”

rush into the woods where we first felt god
ripple through our veins from the moment when we touched

When Nils threw his head back and the veins popped out on the side of his neck and he howled, “someday if you get it together in your heart / maybe we might get back together but good night….” I started crying and wasn’t even sure why, except for identifying with the longing permeating each syllable. It wasn’t a specific loss, rather a cumulative one.

I wandered alone through loud and colorful streets for about another hour, watching the expansive Laurel-Canyon sounds of Dawes for a few minutes from the street outside the crowded Lustre Pearl, but ultimately took my iPod, cued up Departing, and started the long walk home. The air was heavy and warm, and the as I crossed the river the almost-full moon was reflecting off the ripples. And of course, with so many songs ringing in my head, I was happy. There is no festival like this one.

[all of my best pictures from the week are here on the Fuel/Friends Facebook page]

Fuel/Friends favorites of 2010

And so, another year marches to a close — another fantastic, adventure-filled, technicolor year. It’s the time when all of us start kicking around our neatly-bulleted lists of bests and worsts. For me, the more I read these lists, the more I feel that I missed more albums and artists than I heard this year.

The stats are staggering: in 2002, about 33,000 albums were released. In 2006 that number was 75,000. Last year close to 100,000 albums were released, with only roughly 800 of those albums selling more than 5K. It’s tough out there — to be heard, and to feel as a listener that you have adequately given a shot to even a fraction of a representative sample of one year’s offerings. I always feel this keening bittersweet regret at the end of each year, as so much more music was released than any one human woman can possibly digest or invest in.

That being said, I had a fairly simple time picking what my personal favorite albums were for 2010, of the ones I heard. I absolutely loved what Carrie Brownstein wrote on her NPR blog about these year-end lists.

She muses: “So I’ll admit that I’m not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast. I’ve written a lot about music bringing people together, fomenting community, and many albums still did act as bonfires in 2010 . . . but many of us are also walking around with a little lighter in hand, singing along to some small glow that’s stuck around long enough to make us feel excited to be alive.”

That is exactly, precisely what I feel. And really, what is any top ten list but an assessment of those songs, those artists, those albums that have hit us square in the solar plexus exactly where we are sitting?

These are the albums that lodged deep and sharp into my red heart and made this year richer, smarter, harder and easier, sharper, sparklier, and all the more brilliant. And some of them seriously made me dance.

FUEL/FRIENDS FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2010

THE BLACK KEYS – BROTHERS
(Nonesuch Records)

This is just one of the coolest albums released all year — maybe all decade. And I mean the kind of cool that is quintessential, untouchable, badass, just strutting down a sunny street with-your-own-theme-song type of cool. It blends their trademark swampy, bluesy, fuzzed-out guitars with crisp sharp beats that sliced right through that weight the first time I put this album in, on my roadtrip to Missouri. I think I listened to it on repeat through at least two (long, loooong) states and it was love at first listen from that point on.

Additionally – if there is a sicker breakdown all year than what happens here at 1:02, I don’t wanna know about it.

The Go Getter – The Black Keys

…Right?!

DAN MANGAN – NICE, NICE, VERY NICE
(Arts & Crafts)

This album from the Canadian side of the verdant Pacific Northwest was an unexpected discovery this year, recommended to me by a friend who helps arrange the Telluride Bluegrass Festival (another favorite thing of this year, but hey we’ll get to that). Dan Mangan has made a dense, thoroughly gorgeous album, heavy on the intelligent lyrics, his oaky-warm voice weaving in amongst a whole orchestra of instruments. This album is beautifully arranged and well-crafted, one you can swim deeply in during rainy days all winter long (although I discovered it in August and it sounded just as good in the sticky warmth).

Basket – Dan Mangan

DREW GROW AND THE PASTORS’ WIVES – SELF-TITLED
(Amigo/Amiga Records)

Drew Grow and his band The Pastors’ Wives hail from Portland, making music that easily straddles and jumps across genres to create something marvelously rich and endlessly interesting. The sound production throughout feels like an old, warm, crackly album (tip: get it on white vinyl while you can) with something urgent to say. From those fuzzy, sexy, pleadingly plaintive blues jams like “Company” to the aggressive push-and-tug of the rowdy “Bootstraps” and the dulcet golden ’50s croon of songs like “Hook,” this album has pleased me completely. Every song is a favorite.

The opening “Bon Voyage Hymn” sets the tone for this album (if it has one) of a sort of rough-hewn, honest, rock gospel as Drew howls, “Sing a shelter over me / With a mighty chorus, slaves set free.” And by that I mean the oldest spirit of gospel, in community and a shared love of singing, with our heads thrown back and our feet stomping — but while the guitar squalls and the dirty drums crash. At the house show they played for me in November, it was like the best kind of church, a jaw-dropping explosion of goodness.

Company – Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives

N.B.: Drew also has a stunning new acoustic EP.

THE HEAD AND THE HEART – SELF-TITLED
(self-released)

From the first evening back in early summer when I streamed this Seattle six-piece’s songs on my tinny computer speakers, I was reeled in hook line and sinker. The song sang about something that sounds like a hallelujah, the sheer delight of embracing with all of your heart and both your dancing shoes, and no band this year has given me more of that musical enjoyment – whether in a parking garage very late at night, or in the living room of an old house. Amidst the warmth, the uncanny wisdom, and undeniably catchy musical & rhythmic foundations of this band, there is magic. We will be hearing a good deal more from them in 2011, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Sounds Like Hallelujah – The Head and The Heart

JONSI – GO
(XL Recording)

This is, simply put, a kinetic album. Jónsi blends his native Icelandic language with forays into English, creating the dizzying effect of running fast through a dream forest, not exactly understanding what is being said and not needing to. He’s made an intricate, joyful album of grandeur that is uplifting and challenging without being overly twee or silly. It is a delicate balance to strike. The paint-spatter of colors on the album cover precisely depict what this explosive album sounds like – purple, yellow, deep red, shot through with sunlight.

This album was completely unlike anything else that I heard this year, and made me simultaneously smile widely and furrow my brow. It’s the most imaginative album I’ve heard all year, perfect at evoking things like riding the back of a jet-black dragon over canyons. Yes, and yes. Please.

Go Do – Jónsi

Addendum: I also just laughed very loudly for a good minute and a half after I just connected the mental dots to the possible inspiration for this album, or at least this song.

JOSH RITTER – SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY
(Pytheas Records)

I’ve said before that I think Josh Ritter is one of the most important and talented songwriters of our generation; this album is a stellar example of why. Through these thirteen sprawling songs, Josh demonstrates to me again exactly why I love the way that he sees the world. When I interviewed him this summer, he said he admires those who “see what everybody else has seen, think what nobody else has thought.”

Josh pens incisive, piercing, widely-varying folk songs with the comfortable intelligence of one who is in no hurry, yet is passionate in pursuing his muse and getting his stories out into the world. Highlights here like “The Curse,” “Folk Bloodbath,” “Another New World,” and “Lantern” are jaw-dropping. Josh has a remarkable way of teasing out truths about the world (seen and unseen), and poking into the human conditions in my own heart with a greater acuity than most out there.

Lantern – Josh Ritter

That song also contains one of my favorite lyrics of this entire year: “So throw away those lamentations, we both know them all too well / If there’s a book of jubilations, we’ll have to write it for ourselves / So come and lie beside me darlin’ — let’s write it while we still got time.”

LISSIE – CATCHING A TIGER
(Fat Possum)

From the first time I heard Lissie’s soulful, immensely evocative voice earlier this year on her song “Everywhere I Go,” I was riveted. Who was this slight, freckled blond gal with the echoes of an entire fifty-member church choir in her lungs? Originally from Rock Island, Illinois, Lissie has harnessed both the brilliance of the sunshine of her new California home on her debut album, as well as all the gnarls of her roots. Bluesy, confident melodies and goosebump-inducing howls are here in scads — this is a notably substantial first album from a woman to be reckoned with.

Record Collector – Lissie

MATT POND PA – THE DARK LEAVES
(Attitude Records)

“We could start tonight, slide back the deadbolts…” Matt Pond suggests at the beginning of this autumnal album with rich hues that gave me endless listening pleasure this year. I was glad I took him up on the invite. I’d admired the work of the Brooklyn songwriter in spurts and starts over the past few years, but this is the first album of his that I have really immersed myself into his uniquely lovely, thrumming view of the world.

There is a sort of expansive, wide-eyed glow in this album that seems to invite transcendent things to happen. From the specks of silver he sings about in the evening sky and the illumination all around us, I love the way things look like an adventure when I am listening. “First hips, then knees, then feet – don’t think anymore,” he sings. Good idea, Matt.

Starting – Matt Pond PA

THE NATIONAL – HIGH VIOLET
(4AD Records)

This is a decimating, gorgeous, elegant album, much like Boxer was but with additional hints of weirdness and unsettled edges that I like. I was ridiculously excited about this album (in a sort of masochistic way, since I know full well what The National are capable of), devouring every word I could read about it before it came out. The single best definition I heard came from Matt Berninger himself when he said they wanted it to sound “like loose wool and hot tar.” In that regard, they completely succeed – their music is dark, burning, sticking to your skin and all your insides.

This is an incredible album full of terse, razor-sharp observations on the worries that wait in the shadows for me and gnaw when they get a chance: I think the kids are in trouble… you’ll never believe the shitty thoughts I think… I was less than amazing… I tell you terrible things when you’re asleep. But I won’t lie when I say I found some of the strongest redemption of my year in this music as well, with the closing track “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” — singing along with lines “all the very best of us string ourselves up for love / man it’s all been forgiven, swans are a-swimmin…” The honesty of the darkness shot through with these glints is what keeps drawing me back to these guys, fiercely.

Conversation 16 – The National

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH – THE WILD HUNT
(Dead Oceans)

Kristian Mattson slays me – there are no two ways about it. When he sings on this album, “I plan to be forgotten when I’m gone,” it is almost comical because nothing really seems further from the truth. Mattson’s songs have the kind of heft and intricacy that make me certain his music will be around for a very long time after him. His guitarwork is sparkling, impassioned, and inspired. The words he selects and the way he delivers them are pointed and deliberate. I can’t tell if his lyrics are so sharp in spite of the fact that English is not his first language, or because of it – as if perhaps he can see more clearly through our muddy sea of language to pick out the iridescent rocks from the river.

Also: it’s worth noting that his EP released this year was equally good – serious brilliant work.

King of Spain – The Tallest Man On Earth

BEST ALBUM NOT FROM THIS YEAR THAT I JUST FINALLY DISCOVERED THIS YEAR:

CATALDO – SIGNAL FLARE
(self-released, 2008)

I cannot stop listening to Eric Anderson, as evidenced by the fact that I have put him on just about every mix I made in 2010, and listen to this album most days lately on my walk to work. After a chance encounter with his music on a college radio show of a friend, I’ve been smitten by his earnest, unvarnished, incredibly catchy way of looking at the world that simultaneously makes me smile and breaks my heart. You know me. I like that.

He’s got a new album “Prison Boxing” coming out in 2011, according to Facebook. I plan to be substantially more on top of that one.

Signal Flare – Cataldo

NINE SUPERB SONGS I COULDN’T GET ENOUGH OF IN 2010:
Burning Stars – Mimicking Birds [link]
Tell ‘Em – Sleigh Bells [link]
Safe and Sound – Electric President [link]
Six O’Clock News (Kathleen Edwards cover) – Paul Jacobsen [link]
If A Song Could Get Me You – Marit Larsen [link]
Second Mind (live at the SF Independent) – Adam H. Stephens [link]
Fuck You – Cee Lo Green [link]
Carry Us Over – Kelli Schaefer [link]
Baby Lee – Teenage Fanclub [link]

FAVORITE INTERVIEWS:
Bringing Jeff Buckley’s music to a new life through Shakespeare [link]
-and-
Talking to my Italian musical hero on the Santa Monica Pier [link]

FAVORITE SHOWS OF THE YEAR:
My forays into presenting house shows:
Drew Grow and The Pastors’ Wives with Kelli Schaefer (Nov 4, 2010)
The Head and The Heart (Nov 9, 2010)

Andy Clockwise at SXSW (March 2010)

Joe Pug house show (February 28, 2010)

Tallest Man On Earth (May 19, 2010)

Megafaun and their in-the-crowd rendition of “Worried Mind” (April 12, 2010)

FAVORITE FESTIVAL:
Telluride Bluegrass Festival, holy mackerel.

AND: FAVORITE NIGHT THAT ONLY TOOK 56 YEARS TO ARRIVE
This one.

*****

I started 2010 with a Polar Bear Plunge and a vow that this year was gonna be ours, a year of intentionally acquiring adventures and memories that would make me smile when I was old and withered.

I think we did it, and these were the things that soundtracked it all.

["Sound Wave" sculpture at top by Jean Shin]

broken hearts and dirty windows

I started my morning with a hearty sing-in-the-shower rendition of “Angel From Montgomery” (those acoustics!) in the sticky warmth of Florida, and am ending it tonight back in the ten degree weather in clear cold Colorado. My sister asked over coffee what song I had been singing, and a discussion on John Prine followed. John Prine has stuck in my mind today, all his perfect lyrical constructions and simple folk truth, and was the soundtrack to my flight home this evening (while I finished Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and openly cried fat hot tears on the plane, but hey that’s another story).

If you own an old pickup truck (or can borrow one) to traverse some dusty roads in the countryside, this year’s Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows compilation of John Prine covers sounds especially good. The title of the album comes from the 1972 song “Souvenirs” (“Broken hearts and dirty windows / make life difficult to see”), and I’ve been meaning to mention this comp for months. The whole record is obviously rich because of the fodder to work with and the superb gathering of artists contributing, but I think Conor Oberst and his Mystic Valley Band contribute my favorite cover of the bunch:

My car is stuck in Washington and I cannot find out why
Come sit beside me on the swing and watch the angels cry
It’s anybody’s ballgame, it’s everybody’s fight
And the streetlamp said as he nodded his head
It’s lonesome out tonight

Stylistically this absolutely fits in with the rollicking twang of their own compositions on 2008′s Outer South, and Conor’s caged, restless energy shines through brilliantly.

But there are so many great tracks on this collection, from the Avett Brothers singin’ about blowing up your TV and moving to the country, to Josh Ritter’s “Mexican Home” (which I got to see him perform live in Telluride), to My Morning Jacket’s “All The Best” (reminiscent of the golden buoyancy of the track they contributed to the I’m Not There soundtrack). Add to that a glowing Justin Vernon, the pensive Justin Townes Earle, the heartbreak of Deer Tick, then pin it all together with Prine’s first-rate songwriting and I am sold.

Stream the whole thing and buy it over on Bandcamp for just ten bucks. They’ve got it tagged with classifications of “indie, Nashville.” Sounds about right to me.

My only frown came from the fact that no one covered “Speed of The Sound of Loneliness,” my favorite Prine tune. Luckily Amos Lee did a perfect one in 2003:

Speed Of The Sound of Loneliness (John Prine) – Amos Lee

to believe in this living is just a hard way to go

So, this happened last night…

Josh Ritter and his talented Royal City Band played the final song, “Angel From Montgomery” with The Hold Steady. Never in a million years would I peg this pairing as one that would work, but it absolutely did. Listen for the eTown show in 6-8 weeks (like the secret decoder ring you sent away for in the mail).

During the eTown interview process last night, Josh spoke of how this current album So Runs The World Away feels for the first time like this is his party, a statement of his permanency, and that he’ll be making music for a long time. He headlines Denver’s Ogden Theater tonight, and I can’t wait.

Josh Ritter + The Hold Steady in Colorado this week (win tickets!)

Coloradans! Josh Ritter is returning to our fair state for the first time since his jaw-droppingly rich Telluride set this summer, way off beyond them hills.

This time he is coming closer to the more populated regions, playing Wednesday night (11/10) in Fort Collins for an eTown taping with The Hold Steady (what? really? I know, right?!).

Thursday night Josh is headlining the Ogden with his full Royal City Band, with support from a Denver musician who goes by the name of Thieving Irons.

WIN TICKETS, YOU SAY?!
Surely. Fuel/Friends has one pair of tickets for the eTown taping in Fort Collins to give away, and two pairs for the Denver show on Thursday night. To win, you must email me your favorite Josh Ritter lyric, and why you love it, and tell me which show you are entering for. I’ll be at both shows, looking forward to it.

[top image credit Brian Stowell, Ritter merch guy extraordinaire. Second image mine from one of the best SXSW shows ever.]

New Josh Ritter & Dawn Landes: “500 Miles”

As if Josh Ritter and his folk-singer wife Dawn Landes weren’t already cute enough together, now we get to hear their voices together on a free new download. And it is sublime. They sure as heck better have some golden-voiced offspring.

STREAM: 500 Miles (Hedy West cover) [download here]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Josh sets out on a European tour (more than 500 miles) today, before looping back around through these domestic lands in late autumn. You may recall how much I loved the Telluride shows, so you know I will be there for the Denver stop on 11/11.

All tour dates here: GO.

[photo credit Brian Stowell]

Talking to Josh Ritter in Telluride

I’ve written several times that I believe Idahoan Josh Ritter is one of the most important and talented songwriters of our generation, making music that is weighty and beautiful, that will stand up to time. Each of his six albums over the last 11 years has trod different musical ground, from folksy acousticism to uptempo soulful rock, and all shades in between. Yet all of this is ballasted by his insightful, dazzling lyrics – drawing lessons from mythology, psychology, religious narratives, archaeology, and historical figures, but never inaccessibly so.

I am an unabashed lover of words. I’ve been known to fall for folks strictly on the basis of their vocabulary. For me, the way Josh can excise things deep within me using only a handful of words is truly rare. Here is a guy who gets it, who pursues stories and emotions relentlessly to evoke them powerfully in his music. He gets my highest respect – I mean, even how created his own major at Oberlin College in “American History Through Narrative Folk Music”; I’m incredibly jealous that I didn’t think of that. Plus, he just rocks, and is one of the most ebullient live performers you will ever see.

I walked into this interview with so much apprehension, not because I thought he’d be anything but marvelous (I’d been warned how generous his hugs were, and he didn’t disappoint) but because I am so deeply impressed with what he does. My usual types of interview questions seemed to fall so short it wasn’t even funny. So under some big trees in Telluride on a Thursday evening, we just talked instead. And it was warm and wonderful. It went like this:

JOSH RITTER INTERVIEW

Fuel/Friends:I have a whole jumbled bunch of questions that I would love to ask you, but hmmmm . . . I think I want to start with something that references your new album, something I’ve rolled over a lot in my head these past months. In “The Curse” . . . do you think it was worth it for her?

Josh Ritter: Ooh, wow. That’s a really good question. I don’t know. Well, let me think . . .

I think that love is like a trap sometimes. You get deep in and you think, “This is the wrong place to be,” and by that time, it’s all built around you. I’m not sure, but I typically tend to stay away from an idea like [says grandly] “But it was all worth it.” I mean, if it wasn’t right in the end, then it wasn’t worth it. My experience with love has been this: if it’s good, then it ends good or it continues good. But if it’s not good then it’s just . . . not good. I mean what is the difference between a tragedy and any other sort of genre? The tragedy ends badly. I think of that song as a tragedy, but the interesting part to me is that he knows the whole time that he’s doing this to her.

F/F: So he knew? I always couldn’t tell if he knew, or if he just somehow hoped that it would be different this time, that his curse wouldn’t be destructive.

JR: Yeah, I do like the idea that it could be interpreted a number of different ways. But I like seeing him as calculating, like he built this thing around himself (“Think of them as an immense invitation”) so that this one day this would happen. As much as there may have been periods when he was truly in love, he was ultimately using her.

F/F: See, I was thinking about how it might not have been a bad exchange for her — I think of the lyrics about how they talk of the Nile and girls in bulrushes, and I mean, through that relationship, she got to be as close as she would EVER be to that world of Egypt that she had dedicated her whole studies to.

JR: I never thought about it quite like that. That’s really cool.

F/F: And the video is amazing. I never expected puppets to make me cry, the way his eyes twinkle.

JR: I know, I know! I feel exactly the same way! Liam (our drummer, who made the video) is a ninja.

F/F: Do you think that you are telling old stories with a new voice? Or new stories?

JR: Oh, old stories, definitely. There is nothing new. Whether it’s Cormac McCarthy, or Mark Twain, or whoever, they are never telling a story that’s completely brand new. There’s always an archetype. It reminds me of that quote about: “See what everybody else has seen, think what nobody else has thought.” (Albert Szent-Gyoergi). Songs are just reimagining old stories, old feelings. It’s like in science how an electron microscope helped us to see things that had always been all around us since time immemorial, but now we saw it in a whole new way.

F/F: There was a time you considered a career in science. Is music at all like science?

JR: I think science is like art, yeah absolutely. There’s a tendency to put your own discipline on a pedestal, and hold it above all others, but there are so many similarities. There’s an idea that scientists wear these white robes on a mountainside and write down these massive truths, but science fills a societal need of figuring out answers to questions we have, just the same as art does. For example, my parents are studying appetite and how it affect diabetes and obesity, and that’s important research, but really it is filling a need – the same thing that happens in art. You see a need out there that interests you and you follow it, and there’s gotta be a reason why you are interested in it. They speak to different needs in different ways. Science and art and religion are all very similar – all trying to fill in the gaps.

F/F: You mention religion, and many of your songs almost strike me as parables, or at least allegorical fables.

JR: A parable is like a multi-faceted metaphor. To go back to what we were talking about with “The Curse,” you can see it a lot of different ways – and that’s what makes it so interesting. Elaine Pagels is an amazing writer about religion, and she talks a lot about the Gnostic Gospels, and this idea that a few parables of Jesus had been written down before he died, and then after Jesus was dead all these people came along who knew these parables, but they meant something different to everyone, whether it was Peter and Paul, or Mary Magdalene, or Mary, or James, all these people that claimed to have a secret knowledge about what that parable meant – Thomas, the gospel of Thomas is the best example of that, and the secret teachings. Even when we talk about something like the Sermon on the Mount, there are things that seem perfectly clear, and also completely mystifying the next moment. Like Leonard Cohen says, “from the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount / which I don’t pretend to understand at all.”

But maybe it’s really holding a mirror up to yourself, and how you interpret something tells you a lot about yourself. If you think A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor is funny, are you being honest with yourself, or are you just a mean person?

F/F: Well, I think my last question is…..

JR: (interrupts, leaning forward) – I got a question for you. What’s your favorite song in the world, that you’ve ever heard? If you had to choose.

(I am stunned with the vastness of this question, and Josh asking it to me. I feel like I haven’t studied for a really cool test. I cannot pick.)

JR: I think mine would maybe be “I Dream A Highway” by Gillian Welch.

F/F: Oooh! Such an excellent, excellent choice. That song has everything you could ever want. Hmm, that kind of reminds me of a song I love that I was listening to on the way here, I don’t think it is my favorite song ever, by any means, but one that speaks volumes to me – “Mary” by Patty Griffin.

JR: Oh, yeah! Yessss, that song is a SICK song. “….Stays behind and starts cleaning up the place,” (we both say in unison). It shows so many facets of her . . . and it makes you mad that she’s just being used every which way.

F/F: Agreed. So I want to talk a little about the sticky intersection between art and commerce – do you think they are mutually incompatible?

JR: I certainly hope music is a commercial venture. I have no bones about the fact that I feel I deserve to make a living off my music. I mean, what else would I do? People who choose to follow art are often ill-suited to be anything else. The best writers or directors or comedians, you cannot imagine them doing anything else. I’m curious if I could do something else – I mean I wrote a book, but I guess we’ll see if I can do that well. What I do helps me survive; I definitely wouldn’t want to do anything else. Whatever there is about God or whatever, I think it helps to believe you were put somewhere for something. And if someone decides their profession will be one of an artist, that’s a noble choice. In the end you are selling something that you think is important, because you are spending your time doing it. And also, I think people can tell when you don’t think it’s that important, and there’s tons of artists that are doing that as well.

Commerce and art are only good when you have a level of trust with the people that are buying your music. What they are actually buying is a chance for you to spend more time doing what you do – playing shows, putting out albums. That is your responsibility to account for yourself, for the money they have given you. That that’s gotten a lot harder, I think, is not necessarily a bad thing. The last 50,000 years of human history have been about artists working hard for very little, and only about 50-60 years now where that hasn’t been the case. So it is a kind of historical aberration right now. But I definitely think that the amount of stuff that musicians and other artists go through, and the relatively small returns, you know, we all deserve the same kind of normal life that everybody else has. Like I would like to have kids and be able to support them. So to those ends, there’s probably not much I wouldn’t do to be able to keep up playing music and be able to support my family.

Certain decisions would need to be made on a situational basis, like commercials. I did a commercial for Crayola with my song “Great Big Mind,” which I was really happy with. But I’m not The Black Eyed Peas, I’m not gonna go out and do, like, the Camel Cigarette Tour or anything like that. It’s also sort of a thing that sticks with me a little bit because I feel like people in the last generation have always looked askance at making money from commercials, you know? There are people like Tom Waits, who I love in every way, except that I don’t agree with him (in his staunch opposition to commercials). He came up in a different time where people sold records, and made money selling records, and that’s not a thing that happens anymore so we have to look in other places.

F/F: Do you ever feel the struggle in the balance between writing something that will sell and something that is artistically true to you? Is there a conflict selling something that comes from the deepest parts of you?

JR: There’s that point when somebody is running for office, when they are attracting the people who will vote for them based on who they are, and I feel it switches at some point (I believe Hemingway calls that the “pilot fish” – the one swimming ahead of the pack and leading all the other fish to that place). At some point it flips and then the leader becomes the follower of the other fish in his pack, the other fish that supported him to get him to where he is now. You stop becoming a leader and you start becoming a follower, you become part of the mob.

You cannot allow yourself to become that. If you try to shape your music to fill a certain hole, it’s not gonna work that way, it just ends up sounding bland. You have to do your own thing because that’s all that anybody really wants. It’s harder, but at least you don’t feel like you’re a faker. The worst thing I can think of would be writing songs desperately, trying to get a hit.

F/F: It reminds me of the article I read once about Weezer trying to mathematically analyze their hit songs, what made them hits.

JR: Everything I’ve ever seen with music leads me to think that there is no way to know what people are going to like. I think I know, but I don’t have any idea of what happens once it leaves me.

All you can do is do what you do, and hope that the side effect of making music that you yourself love is that other people are going to love it too. And when I die, I’ll leave something behind that I was actually proud of.

[photos by the luminous Sarah Law. His hands in the top picture remind me of this. Thanks, Sarah.]

Telluride Bluegrass 2010 (or: two of my favorite shows in two days)

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival is a behemoth of goodness and gorgeousness. Nestled in the crevasse of huge mountains, surrounded by forests and rivers (I kept thinking of the Josh Ritter lyric, “The lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand” all weekend), it definitely wins for musical escapism. I spent last weekend at the 37th annual festival that brings a loosely-defined group of bluegrass musicians together in the mountains of Colorado, far from where the direct roads and highways go. Six or seven hours from the most populated areas of the state, it seemed like a wonderland when we arrived.

I felt like a bit of an interloper, coming to the festival for the less-traditional indie artists with crossover appeal. I was absolutely there for the opportunity to see Josh Ritter and Mumford & Sons, each playing Nightgrass shows in teensy 250-person venues. It was an added bonus for me to see artists like Ben Sollee, Dave Rawlings & Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss, and the Court Yard Hounds (2/3 of the Dixie Chicks, who I forgot how damn much I used to like). I’ll admit I was unfamiliar with many of the other musicians, being fairly unsteeped in the bluegrass tradition, but interested to hear whatever I could absorb.

On Thursday, I woke at 5am-something in my comfortable bed, threw my tent and sleeping bag into the trunk, and set off into the mountains. The drive that is quickly becoming one of my favorites in Colorado (tracing the Arkansas River) passed quickly, and I got to the festival minutes before Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band were scheduled to start. I walked down into the breathtaking mainstage area as his opening strums of “Southern Pacifica” were just beginning. Electrified, I hustled to plant myself right in the front of waves of his songs carrying out towards the mountains on all sides. Looking out between songs, Josh mused, “This is as good as it gets.”

He interspersed songs from his new album (like “Lantern” and “Folk Bloodbath”) along with some of my favorites like “Girl In The War” –I cried at these lines– “Monster Ballads” and “Kathleen.” It was also wonderful to hear a few real old ones like “Harrisburg” and “Me and Jiggs” (we are all half-crazy, and all at least half alright, indeed). I haven’t seen him live since summer ’08, and I can report that his ebullient enthusiasm is still 100% intact. The crowd cheered with as much strength as you can squeeze out of folks at 3pm on a gorgeously sunny Thursday, many hearing him for the first time. Josh looked out at the colorful crowd and laughed: “I had a lot of things to say but . . . I’m speechless.”

MY BRIEF VIDEO OF “LANTERN” @ TELLURIDE

After his set, I went to set up camp and I had gotten a parking ticket and didn’t even care. That’s what Josh Ritter does to me; careless disregard for parking laws and other mundane things of this society.

I missed the Dave Rawlings Machine set while I attended to the necessary work of tent-constructing, but I heard the glorious strains of “Look At Miss Ohio” weaving their way to the campsite as I pounded stakes. As the afternoon turned to evening, I walked over to the Fly Me To The Moon Saloon to interview Josh Ritter. You’ll hear more about this soon, but it was as marvelous as I had hoped. What a gem of a human being, as well as a songwriter and performer.

After our interview and hugs concluded, I caught just a few songs of the heavenly-voiced Alison Krauss’ set back at the main stage (she really does sound that pure and untarnished in real life, and it is amazing). My favorite part of the set was probably “Down To The River To Pray” with Union Station — the bookend to hearing another song from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in California last summer. There’s something about bluegrass music that just sounds so right amongst the trees on a late summer afternoon.

Then it was back for my second Josh Ritter show of the same day. I thought that the night concert was even better than the daytime one for me, because a) I like the nightlife and b) it was shoulder to shoulder in a small venue, the energy concentrated in every song. This one was more fiery, more urgent, more sweaty as we danced together in the tiny basement club. Moments that I remember especially clearly:

-getting to hear both “Wolves” and “Snow Is Gone” in the same set, songs that have meant a lot to me in the past year and just rupture beautifully live.

-a completely heartbreaking-in-every-way cover of Springsteen’s “The River” — the room felt so heavy and overwhelmed when he sang those lines, “now I act like I don’t remember, and Mary acts like she don’t care…”

-turning out every light in the house and singing an acoustic version of “In The Dark,” one that we all sang along to in near-reverence, and I cried like a girl with a skinned knee. Or maybe skinned heart.

Ed Helms from The Office is a huge bluegrass fan, and an Oberlin alum like Josh, so he came up on stage to play banjo during “Next To The Last Romantic” (the kid next to me said to his friend, “WHOA. He looks just like Andy Bernard from The Office!”). Rocking:

Finally, for the closing encore song, the whole band came out and stood arm-in-arm, next to Josh on acoustic guitar, and we all joined in to sing “Wait For Love (You Know You Will).” It’s the last song on 2007′s The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, and those closing minutes just overflowed with warm feelings — a mutual encouragement to us all. I was amazed for some reason at how everyone there seemed to know all the words, even on the verses. He certainly has created a legion of dedicated fans.

The band left the stage and the crowd started to gather their things, but Josh closed with this, all by himself, hands clasped behind his back. It felt like a benediction.

Friday started quite pleasantly, hearing the strains of Kentucky cellist Ben Sollee from the main stage as I toweled off from my camp shower ($3 in quarters for five minutes of hot water, a very decent trade). With my hair still wet, I meandered over to see him open the day with his plaintive, elegant, curious, articulate music.

Ben had opened for Josh Ritter the night before, but I was so overwhelmed and out of it from the interview that I was glad for the chance to see him again clear-headed. This extremely talented guy does wondrous things with a cello, an instrument I love. The resonance of a cello is swollen with sadness to my ears, like a lugubrious river, but Ben’s voice of clever levity cuts through it like a sharp speckled rock, parting the current.

I have been listening a lot in these past months to his new album Dear Companion (Sub Pop, 2010) with Daniel Martin Moore (produced by Jim James and starring a few of those rakish These United States-ers), as well as his 2008 debut album Learning To Bend. Ben’s songwriting is quick and intelligent, and he continues to grow marvelously as an artist. I highly recommend his music.

After a few afternoon hours spent putting as much of our bodies as we could stand into the crystalline glacial river, while the bluegrass floated from the stage in the background, we dried off and headed in for the Court Yard Hounds. Sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison were back at the Telluride festival on the 20th anniversary of them first winning the band competition as teenagers, back before they became Dixie Chicks and ruled country radio.

I was dazzled by them, their poise and beauty and sparkles, and how they rocked such a wide variety of instruments – fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dobro. They referred to their new album as being not only a divorce album, but also one about finding love, and covered Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight,” a song Emily said got them through some dark times. The only Dixie Chicks song they played was the bluegrass instrumental, “Little Jack Slade.”

Three little girls stood right in front of me by the stage, all 5 or 6 years old, twirling and dancing in various tutus and wands and tie dyed clothes. I thought about what women they are for those girls to look up to, literally and figuratively. They were strong and confident, and I was drawn to the emotional rawness and feistiness on their new songs. After they finished, and I caught me some Lyle Lovett and his (no kidding) Large Band, it was Friday night, and it was time for the Mumford & Sons show.

There is something primal and exceedingly honest in the harmonies and vocal melodies of London quartet Mumford & Sons, especially when you’re standing five feet away from their kickdrum that often provides the only percussion, and hits like a mallet to the sternum. I’ve loved them unabashedly since the first time I heard them, and I named their Sigh No More album one of my favorites of 2009. Telluride on Friday night witnessed their very first proper show in Colorado — and I imagine I will never again see a band playing their first show in a state where absolutely everyone sings along to every word, jumping giddily so hard that the floor bounces. The reception in that room blew me away, and led me to predict that this band will soon grow as huge in the States as they are in the UK, with as wide of an audience as their music deserves.

I’ve had a really difficult time trying to figure out how to tell you all about this show. I was talking to my best friend Bethany on the phone yesterday, trying to articulate what it was that so confounded me, satisfied me, and left me speechless and breathless all at once. “There’s a memory in our blood of people singing together the way those guys do,” she mused. “It triggers something bigger and older than us.” I’ve struggled to write about their show because it was so intense and meaningful, and as I wrote earlier in the week, one of the best shows I have absolutely ever seen.

Through a towering wall of power, their songs wrestle with love and grace, redemption and loss, struggling to be a better man — sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing and burning. It’s the most relatable music I know of these days, on an acutely personal level, and seeing them blow the roof off live just about overwhelmed me in the best possible way.

The basics: 300 people at a very sold-out show in the Sheridan Opera House, built in 1912 and still boasting the old warm globe lights around the stage, hand-painted detail on the balcony front. They started their set long after midnight with their four voices rising together for “Sigh No More,” quickly launching into “Awake My Soul” and an explosive rendition “The Cave,” then a huge new song called “Lover of the Light,” featuring lead singer Marcus Mumford behind an actual drum kit, instead of standing up and playing the bass drum while he strums. There was an ineffable joy and powerful hope rising up from the crowd – watch this video of “Roll Away Your Stone” from a few weeks ago in Los Angeles with the band The Middle East. I think we all felt like that.

After “Timshel” and “Little Lion Man” (crowd went nuts for their big single), they did “After The Storm,” “Dustbowl Dance,” an older song “Sister,” and another new song called “Nothing Is Written.” A tremendous version of “White Blank Page” was their encore. After those lines about “tell me now, where was my fault / in loving you with my whole heart?” at about three minutes into the song, the instruments cut out and that stirring vocal interlude begins — man, you can’t write it, but it’s the “ahhhhh, ahhhhhhhh, ah ah ah….” part (see? words fail me). The whole room started singing, louder and louder, and the walls were soaking in it and vibrating as we sang. Then the band picked up the urgent higher harmonies, and it was the closest to church I’ve been in a while.

Like this, very very much:

(all of this girl’s videos from their Dallas show are very good, and replicate almost exactly my vantage point in the crowd, and the way this show felt to me)

I left their show feeling so thoroughly sated and completely without coherent words, which is rare for me who always has words, and lots of them, for most occasions. I stayed behind to shake each of the band member’s hands, just so I could say “thank you.” Just a simple, heartfelt thank you for what they just put me through, and for the seams they ripped open and then helped mend. All my receptors were vibrant and content.

Walking home from that show at 2am on Friday night still glowing, I passed Ed Helms again, playing banjo on a street corner jam session, then a few blocks closer to the campsite I came across (pretty sure) Peter Rowan calling impromptu square dancing steps while playing the fiddle to a roiling flailing bunch of colorful folks while the cops looked on, bemused with arms crossed.

I tilted my head back at the ten million stars, a sky so dark I could see the bands of the Milky Way, and crossed a footbridge over the singing river to my campsite. Someone had left glow bracelets and glowsticks scattered in the inky blackness to help me find my way home. Welcome to Telluride.

I smiled, and was very very happy.

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My favorite song on the new Josh Ritter album: “Lantern”

This song made me cry in the car on the drive up to our listening party, the first time I’d really sat down and listened:

STREAM: Lantern – Josh Ritter

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Be the light in my lantern, be the light
I need light in my lantern, light in my lantern tonight

It’s a hungry world out there, even the wind will take a bite
I can feel the world circling, sniffing round me in the night
and the lost sheep grow teeth
forsake the lambs and lie with the lions

Where the living is desperate, precarious and mean
and getting by is so hard that even the rocks are picked clean
and the bones of small contention
are the only food the hungry find

I need light in my lantern, light for my lantern tonight

Where the thistles eat the thorns and the roses have no chance
and it ain’t no wonder that the babies come out crying in advance
and the children look for shelter
in the hollow of some lonesome cheek

And the sky’s so cold and clear, stars might stick you where you stand
and you’re only glad it’s dark cuz you might see the Master’s hand
and you might cast around forever
and never find the peace you seek

I need light in my lantern, light for my lantern tonight

For every cry in the night, somebody says, “Have faith!”
“Be content inside your questions,”
“Minotaurs inside the maze.”
Tell me what’s the point of light
that you have to strike a match to find?

So throw away those Lamentations, we both know them all too well
If there’s a Book of Jubilations we’ll have to write it for ourselves
So come and lie beside me darling
let’s write it while we still got time

So if you got a light (hold it high for me)
I need it bad tonight (hold it high for me)
cause I’m face to face (hold it high for me)
in a lonesome place (hold it high for me)
With all the hurt that I’ve done (hold it high for me)
that can’t be undone (hold it high for me)
light and guide me though (hold it high for me)
I’ll do the same for you (hold it high for me)

I’ll hold it high for you, cuz I know you’ve got
I’ll hold it high for you, your own Valley to walk
I’ll hold it high for you, though it’s dark as death
I’ll hold it high for you, and then gets darker yet
I’ll hold it high for you, though your path is blocked
I’ll hold it high for you, through the thieves and the rocks
I’ll hold it high for you, keep you safe from harm
Hold it high for you ’til you’re back in my arms

After hearing the new record, I’ve decided to go see Josh at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June (with Mumford and Sons, Dave Rawlings, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, among others).

Come.

[PS - "The Curse" is also an astounding song; I wrote some thoughts here. I'm laid out by it. Listen here.]

Fuel/Friends Listening Party: new Josh Ritter (4/27, Denver)

Fuel/Friends is excited to be hosting an advance listening party of the new Josh Ritter album next Tuesday for happy hour at the Meadowlark in Denver!

So Runs The World Away won’t be out until May 4th, but I’m teaming up with the fine gentlemen at Gigbot host this opportunity for you to listen early, and enjoy some drink specials ‘n stuff while you’re at it. Come and hotly debate with me if Ritter is one of the most important songwriters of our generation, as I once postulated. I do love him so.

The Curse (live on Daytrotter) – Josh Ritter
[from their session released two weeks ago. I love how Ritter keeps tying together the idea of love with the vast unpredictability of the sea.]

Listen to another one of the new songs here, and the earlier version here.

FUEL/FRIENDS AND GIGBOT PRESENT:
Josh Ritter Listening Party
So Runs The World Away
(out May 4 on their own label, Pytheas Records)
6-8pm on Tuesday, April 27th
The Meadowlark – 2701 Larimer St, Denver
$1 PBR $2 Wells $2 Domestics

Other nationwide Josh Ritter listening parties can be viewed here.

Also, there’s an open stage that night at The Meadowlark starting at 8:30 with Tyler Despres and Maria Kohler, if you feel like hanging around for even more good music. We won’t kick you out.

[photo credit Gigbot's own Todd Roeth]