How's My Living? » loudon wainwright iii

This Week in Great Music: 7/12 – 7/18

Sarah — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:36:35 +0000

The indie music world comes to a screeching halt this weekend as Pitchfork rolls into town. Three-day tickets have been sold out for ages, so try hitting up Craigslist or something to make your way in.

Monday, July 12
Caribou, The Budos Band; Millennium Park. 6:30 pm, free
Robbie Fulks, Paul Turner; Hideout. 7 pm, $10 suggested donation
Islands, Gregory Pepper; Lincoln Hall. 7 pm, $15

Tuesday, July 13
Kevin O’Donnell’s Summer Spectacular; Martyrs. 8 pm, $8

Wednesday, July 14
The Swell Season; Ravinia. 8 pm, $22-50
Sarah Harmer, David Romano; Schubas. 8 pm, $18

Thursday, July 15
Loudon Wainwright III, Meg Hutchinson; SPACE. 8 pm, $28-65
Cary Brothers, Harper Blynn; Subterranean. 9 pm, $9

Friday, July 16
Old 97′s, Patricia Vonne; Navy Pier Beer Garden. 6 pm, free
Anne Heaton, Rose Polenzani; SPACE. 7 pm, $12-20
Jonny Lang, Moreland and Arbuckle; House of Blues. 9 pm, $40.50-43
Titus Andronicus, Hallelujah the Hills; Subterranean. 10:30 pm, $12

Saturday, July 17
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Drive-By Truckers; United Center. 7:30 pm, $49.50-125
Here We Go Magic, Sharon Van Etten, A Lull; Schubas. 10:30 pm, $12 or $6 with Pitchfork wristband

Sunday, July 18
Cains and Abels, Strand of Oaks, The Daredevil Christopher Wright, The Loom, Benjamin Ezra; Abbey Pub (3420 W Grace). 8:30 pm, $8-10
Local Natives, Yawn; Lincoln Hall. 10:30 pm, $15
Real Estate, Zola Jesus; Subterranean. 10:30 pm, $12

This Week in Great Music: 4/12 – 4/18

Sarah — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:02:15 +0000

I am too sleepy for commentary this morning, so have the below list of shows which I have deemed to be Awesome. I’ll be at the Empty Bottle on Thursday to catch Dosh’s show, and hopefully I won’t forget about the tickets I have to the Old Town School of Folk Music on Sunday, for Eliza Gilkyson and Carrie Newcomer. Folktastic!

Monday, April 12
Robbie Fulks, Robbie Gjersoe; Hideout. 7 pm, $10 suggested donation
Florence and the Machine, Holy Hail; House of Blues. 7 pm, $18-21
The Morning Benders, Miniature Tigers; Lincoln Hall. 8 pm, $12

Tuesday, April 13
Gebhard Ullmann Clarinet Trio, Chicago Cultural Center. 12:15 pm, free
The Rocketz, The Honeybees, Pearls Mahone; Reggie’s Rock Club. 6 pm, $8
Kevin O’Donnell’s Spring Spectacular, Martyrs’. 8 pm, $8
Identity Crisis, Natalie Oliveri, Leslie Beukelman, Paper Thick Walls; Double Door. 9 pm, $5

Wednesday, April 14
Aetiology, Children of Nova, Debello, Jeff Ruby; Elbo Room. 8:30 pm, $8
NIU Steel Band, Old Town School of Folk Music. 8:30 pm, $5 suggested donation
Gebhard Ullmann Clarinet Trio, Hideout. 9:30 pm, $10

Thursday, April 15
Elton John, Sears Centre (5333 Prairie Stone Pkwy., Hoffman Estates). 8 pm, $39.50-169
Vieux Farka Toure, Martyrs’. 8 pm, $25
Micah Dalton, Rachael Sage, Mori Einsidler; SPACE. 8 pm, $8-18
Blues Traveler, House of Blues. 8 pm, $30-55
Adam Green, The Dead Trees; Schubas. 9 pm, $15
Dosh, White Hinterland, Roommates; Empty Bottle. 9:30 pm, $10

Friday, April 16
Ellis Paul, Adam Ezra; SPACE. 8 pm, $18-30
Laura Freeman, Davenport’s Piano Bar and Cabaret (1383 N Milwaukee). 8 pm, $15, two drink minimum
Owen, Rocky Votolato, Brooke Waggoner; Lincoln Hall. 10 pm, $15
Kevin Andrew Prchal, Arthi Meera; Uncommon Ground (1401 W Devon). 10 pm, $10 suggested donation

Saturday, April 17
OK Go, Earl Greyhound, The Booze; Metro. 7 pm, $17-19
Graham Parker, Old Town School of Folk Music. 7 pm and 10 pm, $18-22
Jeffrey Foucault, Andy Friedman; Schubas. 7 pm, $12-14
Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson, McAninch Arts Center (425 Fawell Blvd, Glen Ellyn). 8 pm, $30-65
ChickenFat Klezmer Orchestra, Relax on Milwaukee (2937 N Milwaukee). 9 pm, free
Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, Phil Cohran; Schubas. 10 pm, $12

Sunday, April 18
Carrie Newcomer, Eliza Gilkyson; Old Town School of Folk Music. 7 pm, $18-22
Legendary Shack Shakers, The Hackensaw Boys, Tangleweed; Double Door. 8:30 pm, $15

2009 Favorites: Part One

Sarah — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:14:54 +0000

So between now and the end of the year, I’ll be bringing you my 20 favorite albums of 2009. These 20 albums aren’t in any particular order, aside from the fact that I put them into four groupings of five albums each. There’s nothing scientific or measured about this, it’s mostly just an order based on which albums popped into my head first. The posts themselves are in alphabetical order. Because I hate ranking things, so there.

Without further ado, I bring you the first five albums.

Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster.

I guess this spot on the list really is more for Lady Gaga in general, not entirely for The Fame Monster, but whatever. It’s my blog, I do what I want. There is no good reason for me to love her music as much as I do. It’s not particularly original or deep or ground-breaking, but it is just some damn fun music. Time will tell as to whether or not she’s a flash in the pan or if she’ll be sticking around for a while, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. With its inventive and catchy songs, The Fame Monster showed that hopefully it’s going to be the latter. She’s definitely a talented woman, that’s for sure. Even if I am bitter that she’s younger than me.

The Fame Monster was released November 18 by Interscope.
Official Website | MySpace | Twitter
Purchase the album here.

Loudon Wainwright, High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.

If you don’t like folk/Americana/banjos/bluegrass, this probably isn’t the album for you. This release takes a look at the catalog of Charlie Poole, a banjo player and singer in the 1920s who drank himself to death. Listening to it, you feel as though Wainwright gets the material, both the original source material (Poole didn’t write any original songs) and Poole’s interpretations. In addition to the covers of old material, Wainwright and friends threw in a handful of fabulous original songs, which fit in so well that it would be difficult to guess which they were. This album would rate higher on my list if there simply wasn’t so much material – there are 30 tracks over 2 CDs, and it’s hard to get in-depth with something that lengthy. High Wide & Handsome was a great cap on the decade for Wainwright, who’s received a Grammy nomination for the project, which would be a well-deserved win.

High Wide & Handsome was released August 17 by 2nd Story Sound.
Official Website | MySpace
Purchase the album here.

Metric, Fantasies.

Honestly, I sort of forgot about this album for a little while, despite the fact that I listened to it a whole lot after I first got it. I saw it pop up on a lot of other best-of lists and decided to give it another chance. I’m listening to it right now and am having a moment where I’m all, wow, how did I not listen to this all year? It would have been a great album to listen to on days where everything else is crappy. This is a really strong collection of pop-rock songs. They may not be the most memorable (see: the fact that I forgot about the release for a while) but it shows that Emily Haines and Metric still have it, four years after their last release.

Fantasies was released April 7 by Arts & Crafts
Official Website | MySpace | Twitter
Purchase the album here.

Sarah Jarosz, Song Up in Her Head.

This album is almost too precious for me. Everything about it is cute and adorable and I just want to squish it. She even makes “Shankhill Butchers”, a cover of a Decemberists song, sound cute. But seriously, this is a fantastic debut album from Sarah Jarosz, a bluegrass musician/singer-songwriter from Texas who is just eighteen. Please hold while I have one of those moments where I wonder just what in the world I’m doing with my life. Listening to this, you would never know that this is a girl who has just graduated high school. Her music is much older than her age would suggest.

Song Up in Her Head was released June 16 by Sugar Hill Records
Official Website | MySpace
Purchase the album here.

Zee Avi, Zee Avi.

This is another album that’s just absolutely adorable. I have to be in the right frame of mind to handle adorable, though, which is probably why both this album and Sarah Jarosz’s don’t rank higher on my not-really-ranked list. With her ukulele and sweet-sounding vocals, Zee Avi’s created a great summertime record. Don’t let the cuteness fool you, though; this is a very grown-up record. Behind the upbeat vocals and instrumentation are terribly serious songs like “Poppy” (“My baby, he don’t act like himself no more … he spent his nights slapping his veins”) and a cover of Morrisey’s “First of the Gang to Die” (“You have never been in love until you’ve seen the sunlight thrown over smashed human bones”).

Zee Avi was released May 19 by Brushfire Records
Official Website | MySpace | Twitter
Purchase the album here.

This Week in Great Music – 10/26 – 11/1

Sarah — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:56:39 +0000

A little bit of everything in Chicago this week. Rock, electronica, folk, rap, and my guilty pleasure, cheesy pop music. I kind of can’t handle all of the different choices for shows on Thursday, and I have never been so disappointed to have to go to a Halloween party rather than a show on Friday. Sigh, my life is so difficult.

Monday, October 26
Ingrid Michaelson, Park West. 7:30 pm, $20
Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard, Lincoln Hall. 8 pm, sold out

Tuesday, October 27
The Gaslight Anthem, House of Blues. 5:30 pm, $18-20
Kelly Clarkson, Rosemont Theatre. 7:30 pm, $25-$59.50
Saul Williams, Double Door. 9 pm, $20

Wednesday, October 28
Mae with Jenny Owen Youngs, Reggie’s Rock Club (2109 S. State). 6 pm, $13-15
Taking Back Sunday with Anberlin, House of Blues. 6:30 pm, $23
The Gaslight Anthem, Double Door. 8 pm, $20
Great Lake Swimmers, Lincoln Hall. 9 pm, $14

Thursday, October 29
Bob Dylan, the Aragon. 7:30, $52.50
Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright III, the Vic. 7:30 pm, $35
David Gray with Lisa Hannigan, Auditorium Theatre. 8 pm, $39.50-65
Leonard Cohen, Rosemont Theatre. 8 pm, $29.50-250
Noah and the Whale, Lakeshore Theater. 8 pm, $15
Gringo Star, Schubas. 9 pm, $8-10
Joe Firstman, Martyrs’. 9 pm, $10
Herman Dune and Julie Doiron, Lincoln Hall. 9 pm, $12-14

Friday, October 30
Mason Jennings with Anni Rossi, House of Blues. 7 pm, $21.50-24
Five for Fighting with Angel Taylor, Lakeshore Theater. 7 pm, sold out
Bob Dylan, the Aragon. 7:30, $52.50
Monsters of Folk, Auditorium Theatre. 7:30 pm, $36-51
Chris Smither, Old Town School of Folk Music. 8 pm, $18-22
Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Empty Bottle. 10 pm, $13

Saturday, October 31
Bob Dylan, the Aragon. 7:30, $52.50
Tiesto, Congress Theater. 8 pm, $75

Sunday, November 1
Chicago Licorice Sticks, Chicago Waldorf School. 3 pm, free (donations accepted)
Los Lobos with the Duhks, Symphony Center. 7 pm, $25-50
Leo Kottke, Old Town School of Folk Music. 7 pm, $36-40

Album Review: Loudon Wainwright III – High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

Sarah — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:02:50 +0000

High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

Loudon Wainwright III’s previous release was Recovery, a reworking of thirteen of his own songs, spanning the course of his lengthy, yet mostly under the radar, career. His latest release, High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, has reached even further back than the 70s: to material popularized by Charlie Poole, a banjo player from the 1920s. Poole wasn’t a songwriter, but was an expert at taking others’ songs and making them his own. He lived what could only be considered a rockstar lifestyle these days, living hard and fast, selling nearly half a million copies of his first two recordings, and dying early at the age of 39, after a thirteen-week alcohol binge.

High Wide & Handsome is a 30-song walk through traditional Americana, containing songs popularized by Poole as well as newly-composed songs by Wainwright and company, written from Poole’s perspective (including the title track). I concur with Greil Marcus’ assessment in the notes to the album that there may not be anyone else on the folk music scene today who could do as much justice to this project as Wainwright has done. The humor, wordplay, and sarcastic asides that are scattered throughout the body of Poole’s work are practically hallmarks of Wainwright’s own songwriting. Stick a Charlie Poole song alongside a Loudon Wainwright song and you may not be able to tell the difference. Wainwright has done a fabulous job here of re-imagining old songs and completely owning them, while still paying obvious respect to the music’s roots and history.

People familiar with the various musicians who routinely show up on Wainwright-family projects will notice many familiar names in the notes here, including three of Wainwright’s children (Rufus, Martha, and Lucy), Chaim Tannenbaum, the Roches, and Wainwright’s sister Sloan. As always, it’s truly a family affair. Former Nickel Creek member Chris Thile also makes a few appearances. I don’t necessarily know that this is a great album to introduce people to Wainwright’s work. I think it’s more for people who are already familiar with his catalog, or who are fans of Americana. I wouldn’t have appreciated this album nearly as much a few years ago before I really started to explore folk/Americana/roots music. If you’ve got difficulties with banjos, this may not be the collection for you.

As an aside, this is one of the nicest packages I’ve seen in a long time for an album. The two-disc release also includes a booklet discussing the origins of the project, as well as providing a biography of Poole, lyrics to all of the tracks, and photos of Poole and his band. While I’m going to have to find somewhere on my bookshelf to put this, rather than a place on the CD shelf, I don’t mind all that much. It’s refreshing to see someone put a good deal of effort into the presentation of an album, given the trends towards digital releases these days.

High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project was released August 18 by 2nd Story Sound Records. The booklet, as well as videos and bonus MP3s, are available as free downloads on the release’s official website. Purchase High Wide & Handsome at Amazon or your other retailer of choice.

Concert Review: Loudon Wainwright III; Evanston SPACE; July 8, 2009

Sarah — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:28:55 +0000

First off, to give you an idea of the place: there is a fancyish pizza/Italian restaurant in the front, and then a long hallway leading to the back, which has a stage and seating area. It’s a really beautiful space – it’s very open, industrial almost, but a swanky sort of industrial. The place had wonderful acoustics, and the only complaint I had was the seating – I don’t know if people moved chairs around or what, but the “aisle” at stage left was so narrow and impossible to get through. Also, there’s no backstage, so the performers need to enter through the crowd, AKA through the tiny, wonky little aisle where I was seated. Remember this; it’ll be important later.

Anyhow, the opening band, Sons of the Never Wrong, are a local-ish group who have been performing together for 17 years. They honestly reminded me in a way of an older, less queer Girlyman, though I can’t quite pinpoint why other than that they’re both folky, quirky, and comprised of two women and one man. Anyhow, their music is very earthy, a little off the wall, and I have to say there was kind of a feminist bent to some of their songs. It was refreshing to see older musicians, still living it up and having fun on stage. Definitely an appropriate opener for Loudon. I’d be interested to see them again in a longer set – they only played for about 25-30 minutes.

Loudon Wainwright III

So after a bit of break (wherein the opening band moved out all of their own equipment; ah, tiny indie-esque shows), Loudon came out… only to promptly realize that the mic stand was several inches too short. He commented that he must have grown a few inches since sound check. He played a lot of new/current/topical material, which he called “Songs of the New Depression.” He showed right off the bat that he might be older and more mellow, but he can still just as cynical and biting as ever. His opening song, “Times is Hard”, has a line in it about how the only thing we’ve got going for us is the price of gas – afterwards, he remarked that he wrote the song in January and it’s outdated already, given that the price of gas has gone up. Another song, about a couple who can’t sell their house, and who know that selling the house also means they’ll finally split up. And, seriously, he did a song about economist/Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. Seriously. He also did a few songs from a double album he’s putting out in August, with songs made known by, and about Charlie Poole, a banjo player who essentially drank himself to death in the 30s. (More after the jump…)

In a very old school performer style, he would generally mention the name/album of a song after he sang it, or would mention that it was new. People don’t do that anymore, so you’re left going “….” when you’re unsure of what the songs are. In the “family section” of the show, there was another new song about going through his father’s stuff after he died – his father’s girlfriend (I assumed) finally sold his apartment in New York and Loudon got a call to see if there was anything he’d want … 20 years after he died). He said that it was a new song and he had never performed it before in concert. There was also a song about “the first Loudon”, and another one about his grandmother (who said, according to the song, that “Rufus is a dog’s name” whenever she learned the name of her new great-grandchild.)

There were other older, or at least previously released songs: Unhappy Anniversary, Daughter, White Winos, Swimming Song, Grey in LA, Be Careful There’s a Baby in the House. Some other song moments: one called On To Victory, Mr. Roosevelt, highlighted, of course, President Roosevelt and the Great Depression, with the last verse changing to “Hello Mr. Obama,” rather than “Mr. Roosevelt”. There was an absolutely perfect song about his guitar getting damaged by airline attendant. (“Of course, Susie’s not her real name, I don’t want to get my ass sued, but I wonder how Angela’s doing…”) It was hilarious, got a huge response from the audience, and was timely as well, given the Youtube video that’s been getting a lot of coverage of a guy who wrote a song about United breaking his guitar at O’Hare.

There was relentless, lolarious shilling for his latest cd, Recovery — complete with reminding us, via the Sharpie he carried in his shirt pocket, that he’d be sticking around after the show to sign CDs. At one point, someone asked how much the CD was. $20 was the response, to a slightly less enthusiastic response. “But,” he said, pulling out the Sharpie again, “you can sell it on eBay and clean up.” Oh, Loudon.

At the close of the show, he left the stage — now, remember that whole no-exit-but-through thing? Yeah, here’s where it’s a problem. He gets a couple of steps into the crowd before realizing he pretty much can’t go anywhere, then pretty much promptly returns to the stage. “If this place was set up differently, I would have milked that a lot longer,” he remarked.

The encore consisted of three songs – “Happy Birthday Martha”, written for her fifth birthday. He even got us to sing along during the refrain of “five years old”. He mentioned that he had talked on the phone to Martha earlier that evening. He tried to do the math to figure out how long ago it was that he’d written the song, then stopped, and said he couldn’t do the math and Martha wouldn’t want him to, anyway. This was followed by “Your Mother and I”, a song about his marriage splitting up, and ending with what I think may be a new song, “Middle of the Night” (“It’s not the end of the world, rather the middle of the night.”)

Cue exit… through the audience again, where he makes his exit even more difficult by deciding to move chairs out of the way rather than find the aisle. Oops.

So, of course, I dutifully waited in the CD line and forked over my $20 for a CD. Wainwright Bingo gets bonus points when you actually get to meet the family member, I’d say. Anyhow, I prove once again to be a complete moron when faced with someone who I respect as a musician and who sort of intimidates me, because I couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say other than the usual hi/great show/pleasure to meet you. Fail. Loudon was very nice, though, cheerful and genuinely taking time to talk to everyone who waited there for him. It’s not his fault that I apparently lose all brain cells when faced with public interaction.

For non-performance related points…
There’s always the handful of annoying concertgoers – people who shout things, try to carry on conversations with the artist who clearly doesn’t exactly want to chit-chat mid set. It was really disappointing – I’d thought that perhaps since the place was sort of swanky, and in Evanston, that your typical city crowd of talkers and shouters and generally disrespectful people wouldn’t be there. I really don’t understand. Why do people pay money to sit and talk through something?

Also, I complained on Twitter about having to go all the way up to Evanston for the concert. Evanston is far away, for little city dwelling me, and I just like complaining, and my Twitter is like 80% bitching about things. I got home and had an @ reply from the venue’s Twitter account, asking if I had a good time despite the trek. D’oh. I also complained on Twitter about how the waitresses going around asking if people wanted drinks pretty much kept walking right past me, checking in with everyone else around me. Venue tweeted back saying they owe me a drink next time I trek up to the suburbs. Sweetest venue ever! But that was this week’s lesson in Everything You Say on the Internet Can Be Found By Someone Else.

Support the Artists
Sons of the Never Wrong: Official Page, Myspace, Buy the Music!
Loudon Wainwright III: Official Page, Myspace, Buy Recovery or the rest of Loudon’s catalog
(Remember, always try to buy straight from the artists or your local independent music stores before heading to your big box retailers of choice.)
Evanston SPACE: Official Page