How Does It Know?

Since I love random praise from strangers (in reference to my music, although if you’d like to praise me for other things, feel free), I Google myself sometimes. Today I found that I have one fan on iLike, some woman in Seattle who says “Listen to CHECK YOUR POCKETS: http://www.myspace.com/sunilsawani - smoothness of Jose Gonzales, fresh peppiness of Beatles, ease of My Morning Jacket…” and “Just a lovey [sic] group of sounds!”… Anyway, I thought those were interesting comparisons. I haven’t ever heard much Jose Gonzales, but I am pretty sure I am nothing like him. But hey, random praise is much appreciated, and I’m always interested in hearing the comparisons. Sometimes people are pretty much right on and I have to admit it (like when an acquaintance, upon seeing The Low Hello perform said “I know what you’re like! A cross between Weezer and Neutral Milk Hotel!”, and I had to say, “Yeah, you’re kinda right, I guess.”)…

Anyway, because of this, I was inspired to actually sign up for iLike and also uploaded some songs at Last.fm… Thank you random Seattle lady, for making me make an effort, albeit small.

I don’t necessarily approve heartily of this one. It was a bit too subtle on the spiciness (and overall flavor) and over salty (which was the main flavor note I detected). It smelled really good while cooking, though it smelled like almost nothing when I sniffed the just-opened jar. I am really disappointed in foods that smell better than they taste (unless it’s bread, maybe….). I’m also not a big eater of Thai green curry (in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever ordered it), so maybe I’m not in tune with what green curry should be, but I do not believe I’ll be buying this one again.

Up next… Trader Joe’s Thai RED Curry Sauce!

I mean, who wouldn’t love a family band, consisting of mom, dad and 11 year old daughter drumming, dressed in thrift-store chic, and singing songs about slides they’ve procured at flea markets and yard sales, while said slides are being projected on the wall behind them?

Sadly, I’ve never witnessed them do their show live, but last night we watched their DVD Off and On Broadway. It was very good, if a little short. But it included documentary-style footage showing them in everyday life and on tour. Jason Trachtenburg is hilarious in general, and it was cool to find out that Tina Trachtenburg was the brain behind the whole concept, even though she doesn’t normally perform on stage (she’s the one projecting the slides). The onstage footage was also very well filmed and really fun.

Hopefully I’ll get to see them next time they come through town.

In blog news, I cleaned up the Music and MP3 page so stuff isn’t as cluttered and unappealing.

I’ve been listening a LOT to Okkervil River’s newest album, The Stage Names. I’ve been really liking it. They’ve expanded their sound a bit and did some new interesting things with the arrangement (which I absolutely love, especially on the track Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene, with the short strokes on the cello-like instrument, and the use of verses that go from one line with 4 beats, the next line with 8, and then back to 4, and the rhythmic piano to fill in the spaces). However good the best songs are on this one, though, they can’t beat out the best stuff on Black Sheep Boy or its accompanying Appendix (see For Real, Black, A Stone, So Called Friend, No Key No Plan, Another Radio Song, Last Love Song For Now). I am certainly not disappointed though, and it was worth the purchase. I also really look forward to what else Okkervil River have in them for future records.

The other thing I’ve been listening to is the New Pornographers’ latest, Challengers. I’ve got kind of a weird relationship with this band. I realize what they’re trying to do most of the time (70s tinged power pop with soaring melodies and close harmonies between Carl Newman and Neko Case, with the occassional 90s-ish indie rocker with warbly singing contributed by Dan Bejar), and a lot of the time I enjoy it a lot, but most of the time I’m left wanting something. I’m not sure what’s up with that, but it seems like I should really really like this band, and I keep trying to. However, Challengers really doesn’t do it for me. It’s not nearly as good as their previous effort. But what I like the most is Newman’s solo record, The Slow Wonder. That record is killer (IMO). Great songs and melodies and great use of synth embellishment and driving rhythmic piano. This is one instance where I think the individual is better than his band, and I enjoy listening to his concentrated genius without having it watered down by the rest of the group. At this point I’m not sure if I’ll continue to plunk down cash for New Pornographers albums. But we shall see.
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Also, strangely, this book by Oliver Sacks is coming out soonish. Seems to go hand-in-hand with what I was saying about the brain and music. Or at least hand-in-foot. Or perhaps foot-and-mouth. Probably I should read it.

On Wednesday night, Dan and I headed to the Royal Oak Music Theatre to see our ex-band-mate Adam’s band (Murder Mystery) play a show. For those of you who haven’t heard of this place, it’s a pretty big venue where pretty big name bands play. I found out that on Wednesday nights they do a local band lineup, which I think is pretty cool for such a large venue (considering some upcoming acts are George Clinton, Steve Vai and D.L. Hughley). That’s what this was, and Murder Mystery was headlining with a couple other bands and a solo artist.
For those of you who haven’t BEEN there (like neither Dan nor I had), the place is really big, and the crowd that an indie rock show draws on a Wednesday night isn’t all that great. Even when personal favorites Canada are playing in the penultimate slot. So the place did look pretty vast and empty in most places, but it was fun nonetheless, and had the venue been say, Lager House, the place would’ve been packed. Dan and I agreed that had we played this type of gig, we’d have done a decent show, but drawn no kind of crowd at all. That’s just how we rolled. Not on purpose, though.
Anyway, the sound was kinda bad due to it being pretty empty and the ceilings being high… really bassy and boomy and echo-y. Kinda reminded me of the Morrissey show I wrote about earlier in this fine blog. I mean, everyone played fine, it was just the acoustics of the place. Overall, it was pretty cool to see Murder Mystery on such a big stage (which probably was the size of my high school auditorium’s stage, which I got to play on for Battle of the Bands ‘96 and ‘97) and still maintain the energy they have whilst being spread across many feet.

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Some upcoming topics: a real explanation of the “How Does It Know?” title; news of me finishing the partially complete tLH EP myself in a Song of the Month fashion; vocal booth progress.

Dosh is an artist I first heard about through listening to Andrew Bird, and then subsequently seeing Andrew Bird live and witnessing the awesome sampling/looping drum style of Martin Dosh. Dosh is his solo electronic/experimental project. On The Lost Take he has Andrew Bird contribute violin in some spots, but apparently this is his slickest production-wise (and his previous work was more solo-in-the-basement). I really didn’t think I’d get THAT into this album, but I have been enjoying it. It’s a lot of looped electronic bits with a bit of singing here and there and some nice guitar rhythms sometimes. I’ve never been huge on electronic music (in high school, I did go through an electronic music phase where I listened to Aphex Twin and Autechre, but it didn’t stick. I also listened to the π soundtrack while programming sometimes my freshman year of college. But that’s about it). Anyway, I’ve started to take a different look at electronic stuff because I’ve been getting into arranging on the computer using electronic instruments again, and it’s interesting to hear what can be done and to really think about how an artist achieves that sound. Dosh is certainly not the direction I’m going; my stuff is still taking the form of traditional song structures, but Dosh has given me some ideas on how to augment those structures with electronic elements. It’s an area I’ll keep exploring in the coming months.

I just got a new (well, used) digital recorder from a guy on Amazon Marketplace in the mail today. It’s the Olympus W-10, which doesn’t seem like it’s being made anymore, but I got it because people praised its decent quality microphone, and I really wanted to be able to connect it to my computer via the USB interface. I had a digital recorder already, the Sony ICD-8300, and I used it just fine for like a year. And it holds a lot (64MB compared to the Olympus’ 16MB). But it didn’t have a USB interface, which I quickly realized I really wanted. I’ve recorded a lot of song ideas on the thing, and the only way to get them to my computer is via the headphone jack into my soundcard. Which is just so much more cumbersome than USB. So, I decided to give up some storage space for a cheap one with a USB interface.

Anyway, one of the complaints I had about the Sony was that there was TON (seriously A TON, ONE METRIC TONNE) of microphone hiss. Just the amount of touching from pressing record and setting it down would be all HISSSISISISISISISI. Then there was hiss in the background of the recordings. I didn’t care as much till I started playing around with the Olympus. The improvement in quality is drastic. And USB! And it also has a little camera on it, which seems to work OK, but needs a LOT of light to even know that it can take a photo. The only drawback is the storage space, but that is easily fixed by the ease with which I can copy the files to the computer (they come out as WAVs) and start over.

The new one didn’t come with the USB cable (luckily it’s a standard USB A to Mini B 5pin cable) OR the software, but I easily found the software online and have a USB A to Mini B for our camera. I also ordered up a couple more from a guy on eBay for $1.99 each. So, pretty sweet all around. The thing was $30 including shipping. My Sony was over $50 I think. Now I just have to get all the ideas off it, clean out the memory and give it to my wife to mess around with, as she wants to do that. And I let her do what she wants. I’m cool like that.

Last Monday, a couple friends and I went to see Morrissey at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor. F lives in Ann Arbor as it is, so we met up at his house. The show was fairly good, but not as good as when I saw him in 1997 after Maladjusted came out. This time, since I’ve fallen out of touch with any new Morrissey albums since Maladjusted, I didn’t recognize a lot songs. It was still fun to hear the hits he did play, though, and the old Smiths songs. One complaint I had was that the drums seemed to be really overpowering a lot of the other players and Morrissey’s singing on the more rock-type songs. I’m not sure if that’s due to the acoustics of the theatre or the drum mics, but they tended to be really bassy and thud-y.

In Ann Arbor, we walked around and had dinner at a food co-op. And it kind of made me want to live in Ann Arbor. I did live there as a student, but it’d be a great place to live as a homeowner and professional, I gather. I love that everything is walkable (for the most part), though it could get rough in the winters. And there’s just so much good stuff going on all the time. I used to LOVE living in Ann Arbor in the summers, when campus was kind of empty and I had an easy job at the Space Physics Research Lab. Ahh, memories.

Anyway… Last night the Low Hello played a pretty successful show at Mac’s Bar in Lansing. After some initial song tuning difficulties (my tuner was telling me my G string was in tune, but for some reason, it was tuned like a half step lower than G. So we ended up playing the entirety of I Got Carpet that way, but no one seemed to care. Once again, the crowd was great and appreciative and seemed to enjoy themselves), everything went nicely. We actually made a little money this time, too, which is nice to offset the cost of giving away free CDs.

Today I pretty much chilled. We have these parts for the dryer that got mailed to us (so that the repair guy can just use them when he comes), and I attempted to see if I could just do the work myself and save the trouble and cost of having him come out. Turns out the job is a bit more than I envisioned and would involve taking too many things apart to make it worth our while.

Oh, has anyone been watching Human Giant on MTV? I have and have been really really liking it. Damn that’s some good sketch comedy. And it’s nice to see a brown bearded man be so awesome on TV.

Just a quick note before I go to bed (soooooo tired… for some reason):

Pick up a copy of Real Detroit Weekly tomorrow (it comes out on Wednesday), because there will be a several-paragraph column about the Low Hello in the Four Track feature. Oh, it’ll also be online if you don’t like paper, here I believe.

After a bit of digesting we’re going to ride our bikes to the park and try to fly this kite my wife got for donating money to NPR. It’s a This American Life kite. This one:

EDIT several hours later: the kite flying was great, and we actually managed to get slightly lost in a subdivision out here on suburbia. All the houses look the same! And all the streets end in cul-de-sac NO OUTLETs! And the bike ride kicked my ass pretty well. So begins me getting into better shape. Such a good day!

* As far as Indian buffet goes, we** tend to like Ashoka here in Troy. Strangely, their actual menu items were unsatisfying last time we tried them. Totally screwed up the vindaloo (it was strangely creamy and non-vinegary) and a couple other bad things. But their buffet is generally awesome. A co-worker and I have also been enjoying (with great regularity) the buffet at Ruchi (in Farmington Hills). But it looks like they let their domain lapse and their site doesn’t really say much about Indian food.

** me, my wife, and my immediate family