How's My Living? » sarah jarosz

CHIRP Playlist: Friday, November 18, 2011

Sarah — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:50:28 +0000

I’ll be occupying the Friday 8-10 pm Central slot through the end of the year, so you can hear me on a regular basis on CHIRP Radio. It’ll be great.

9:58 PM Rainer Maria Long Knives from Long Knives Drawn (Polyvinyl)
9:54 PM The Unsettlers Red to Black from The Unsettlers (self-released)
9:50 PM Los Campesinos! Hello Sadness from Hello Sadness (Arts & Crafts)
9:46 PM M. Ward Sweethearts On Parade from Transistor Radio (Merge)
9:42 PM The Decemberists Foregone from Long Live the King EP (Capitol)
9:37 PM Andrew Bird Opposite Day from Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs (Righteous Babe)
9:33 PM Ani DiFranco Swim from Educated Guess (Righteous Babe)
9:28 PM Kathleen Edwards Chameleon Comedian from Voyageur (MapleMusic)
9:24 PM A.A. Bondy American Hearts from American Hearts (Fat Possum)
9:19 PM Aterciopelados Gozo Poderoso from Gozo Poderoso (RCA)
9:13 PM The Lijadu Sisters Danger from Danger (Knitting Factory)
9:08 PM Bon Iver Skinny Love from For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar)
9:01 PM Thomas Comerford Gravity from Archive + Spiral (Spacesuit)
8:57 PM The Hold Steady Party Pit from Boys and Girls In America (Vagrant)
8:53 PM Breakers Broken Last Man on the Planet from Reset (self-released)
8:50 PM Mayer Hawthorne Stick Around from How Do You Do (Universal)
8:46 PM Sensation Junkies Olalla from Once for the Money (Sarathan Records)
8:41 PM Owen The Armoire from Ghost Town (Polyvinyl)
8:36 PM Okkervil River The War Criminal Rises and Speaks from Down The River Of Golden Dreams
8:32 PM Sarah Jarosz Run Away from Follow Me Down (Sugar Hill)
8:28 PM Darren Johnston’s Gone to Chicago Love Call from The Big Lift (Porto Franco)
8:21 PM Angie Aparo Wonderland from The American (Melisma)
8:17 PM Crooked Fingers The Counterfeiter from Breaks in the Armor (Merge)
8:13 PM The New Pornographers Myriad Harbour from Challengers (Matador)
8:08 PM Cass McCombs Love Thine Enemy from Humor Risk (Domino)
8:05 PM Brandi Carlile Follow from Brandi Carlile (Red Ink Records)

This Week in Great Music: 8/1 – 8/7

Sarah — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:30:59 +0000

There’s this little thing called Lollapalooza that’s going on this weekend. I won’t be there this year (unless I happen to find someone selling a very cheap ticket), but I’ll admit that I’m looking forward to not being outside in the heat all day.

Monday, August 1
Robbie Fulks, Robbie Gjersoe; Hideout. 7 pm, $10 suggested donation

Tuesday, August 2
Sarah Jarosz; Schubas. 8 pm, $18

Wednesday, August 3
Cold War Kids, Gold Motel, Carbon Tigers, Katz Company, Rachel McClusky; Metro. 7 pm, $26

Thursday, August 4
The Joy Formidable, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Lord Huron, Little Hurricane; Double Door. 8:30 pm, free with RSVP to to www.conflictparty.com
Delta Spirit, Reptar; Lincoln Hall. 8 pm, sold out
Steve Miller Band; Chicago Theatre. 8 pm, $38-98
Tim Robbins and the Rogue Galley Band; SPACE. 8 pm, $24-38
Marco Benevento, The Hue; Mayne Stage. 11 pm, $12

Friday, August 5
Haley Bonar and the Pines; SPACE. 8 pm, $10-18
Frontier Ruckus, Jon Drake and the Shakes, Falldown; Martyrs. 9:30 pm, $10-12
Portugal. The Man, Wye Oak; Double Door. 11 pm, sold out

Saturday, August 6
The Head and the Heart, Lord Huron; Hideout. 9 pm, $15
Fitz and the Tantrums, Christina Perri; Schubas. 11 pm, sold out
Lissie, Nightmare and the Cat; House of Blue Back Porch Stage. 11 pm, $15-18

Sunday, August 7
Canasta, Jonny Rodgers, Conductive Alliance; Hideout. 8 pm, $8

Newport Folk Festival: July 30 – August 1

Sarah — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:50:36 +0000

You can tell that summer is rapidly approaching, given the number of festival line-ups that are tumbling in. The Newport Folk Festival, in (where else) Newport, Rhode Island, has announced its lineup for its 2010 festival.

Artists appearing include:

AA Bondy, Andrew Bird (in his only summer appearance in the US), Ben Solle and Daniel Martin Moore, Brandi Carlile, Calexico, Corey Chisel & the Wandering Sons, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, John Prine, Justin Townes Earle, Nneka, O’Death, Punch Brothers (with Chris Thile), Richie Havens, Sarah Jarosz, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers, Tao Seeger, The Avett Brothers, The Felice Brothers, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Swell Season, and Yim Yames, among others.

Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday.

BRB, trying to figure out how to get to Rhode Island! WTF, summer, you are not helping me tame my desire to travel long distances for music.

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.