I really, really liked the song that was playing. This is why we all have apps on our phones that can [...]]]> A few weeks ago I accidentally hit the wrong button on my car radio and switched to an AM station called Radio K, a low-powered station run by students at the local university.

I really, really liked the song that was playing. This is why we all have apps on our phones that can identify songs for you. This is how I found out about Laura Marling. Now since this was a low-powered crap quality AM transmission I wasn’t sure if the song actually sounded the way I thought it did, so when I got home I looked it up online.

It was this song:

So I got all her albums, which at this point in time number three. Which is not bad for someone who’s 21.

And as luck would have it, she was playing a concert right here in Minneapolis within a few weeks, so I got tickets for that.

Now for some reason, since I got to do the Nellie McKay interview, I figured hey, lets try that again. Now with Nellie McKay, I basically asked her if I could do it, and she had me talk to her mom to set things up.

With Laura Marling, I talked to someone at the theatre she was playing at (The Cedar Cultural Center), who had me talk to someone else at The Cedar, who referred me to someone at the friggin William Morris agency which is only the biggest talent agency in the world. Or rather referred me to someone’s assistant. Who referred me to someone else’s assistant, who eventually referred me to Laura Marling’s publicist who never replied to my email.

So THAT didn’t happen. Which is too bad for them, really. Laura apparently forgot to bring a guitar strap with her, and apparently The Cedar doesn’t have any spares so she was using a strap from a handbag. I could’ve totally brought her one. But anyway.

Laura Marling’s music has been described as… yeah, indie. Indie-folk, in fact. Or “Nu-Folk”, whatever the hell that means. She’s gone on record saying that she doesn’t think she’s a folk musician. I have to agree. Just because it’s mostly acoustic and occasionally includes mandolins doesn’t make it Folk. It’s rock. Mostly acoustic rock, but seriously people.

Now clearly I hadn’t been listening to her music for that long, but it seemed to me that her latest album was a lot darker than the first one. I did do some research in case I do get to do an interview and apparently I’m not the only person who thinks that. Or rather thought that. I listened to all three of her albums several times and really, none of them are light and fluffy. The latest one is just a bit louder and has one song that’s very explicitly dark (and sadly seems to have much less of her real accent). Ironically it includes the track from that video up there which is one of the more folky tunes she has.

If you look at her album names and covers, though, there does seem to be a progression. Here are the covers for her first three albums (copyrights by whoever own them etc):

First album: Alas, I Cannot Swim

 
 
Second album: I Speak Because I Can

 
 
Third album: A Creature I Don’t Know.

That last one is one of those things where if your kid draws it in kindergarten they call you in to have a long talk with you about what the hell is going on at home.
 
 
Based on that, I took the liberty and designed the cover for Laura Marling’s 4th album:

(Yeah I know I can’t draw. And yeah I used a really expensive wacom tablet to do that. You do not want to know what that would’ve looked like if I had to use the trackpad, or even worse, real paper and crayons.)
 
 
Now I have to point out that, scary as this progression is, her music is still fantastic. Otherwise I don’t think I could’ve really listened to the albums long enough to pick up on all this.

So, on to the concert.

Quick note: the opening act was a group called The Bello Duo. As you have no doubt figured out from the name, they’re a couple of guys playing a banjo and a cello. They are definitely worth checking out.

Another quick note: The Cedar is a small, mostly volunteer-run organisation. This is cool but it’s absolutely no excuse for the fact that when you buy tickets and select will-call, they tell you to show up an hour in advance, even though it’s well below freezing outside, and they don’t actually open the doors until 5 minutes before the show starts. Also it doesn’t say a lot for them that the show times they gave out were wrong, whereas the show time published for this very show by a different venue were accurate. I know that makes no sense. Apparently the other venue co-sponsored this show or something and they had the times right.

I will say this, though. Last time we went to The Cedar we actually left during the opening act because the sound was just too loud and it was either leave or prey for a swift and painless death. This time it was perfect. Helps that the opening act was also acoustic. And wasn’t Liam “Ruptured Eardrums” Finn.

I knew Laura Marling was young. I mean I looked it up and I’ve clearly seen videos. But when she walked out on stage, she looked really young. I have got in trouble lately for referring to younger females as “girl” instead of “woman”, but I feel that I’m justified in doing that when someone is about half my age. So basically eventually this really nervous young girl comes up on stage and says, in a very nervous voice, that being up in front of a crowd like that is not her strong point.

Here’s the thing: I’m not sure how famous or well known Laura Marling is in her native England, but she’s definitely an up-and-comer/someone-to-watch kinda thing. Since 2008 she’s been nominated for a good number of awards, and has recently won some fairly big ones. She’s lately done a tour in the UK where she played at really big cathedrals (I’m not absolutely sure why she was slumming it at The Cedar, but I’m not complaining).

She also (as you can see in that video) usually plays with a fairly big band.

The Cedar is a very small venue. It’s one of those places where all the seats are folding chairs. The stage is really, REALLY close to the audience. I can see how that would be unnerving.

So she’s up there, nervously trying to chat with the audience while tuning up (there was a lot of tuning up at this show. I really should email the banjo guy from Bello Duo about putting locking tuners on his banjo), but then she started singing.

I have to say this about the show as a whole, and I know this seems like criticism but it’s really not. The show was not very professional. And I mean that in a good way. I got the feeling that this is how Laura Marling would perform if she was alone. There was none of the nervousness while she was performing. It’s just talking to people that’s apparently scary.

She definitely has a lot of talent. I’m not an expert so I don’t know the technical terms for all the vocal things she did, but I can tell you that she’s good at it. Really good at the whole guitar thing, too, even when it’s held up by a handbag strap.

Toward the end she said that she wasn’t “cool” or “rock’n'roll” enough to do encores, so she did let us know that would be the last song. Seeing as it was getting late and the seats at The Cedar are immensely uncomfortable, we decided to take her word for it.

Now I know I’ve been a bit rough on The Cedar, but it is really nice to be able to see really good live shows for like $14. I actually gave them more money because they WERE very nice and did help me try and get that interview.

Laura Marling is on tour right now, and if she’s playing anywhere near you, do go see her.

I got Nellie McKay’s latest album on release day. I actually pre-ordered it. I don’t think I’ve ever pre-ordered a CD before.

This album couldn’t be more different [...]]]> I’ve always thought Nellie McKay was fantastic, and not just because she posed for my Photo of the Day site (I got a rare non-smiling photo!).

I got Nellie McKay’s latest album on release day. I actually pre-ordered it. I don’t think I’ve ever pre-ordered a CD before.

This album couldn’t be more different than her previous album, but that’s hardly surprising as it was a Doris Day tribute, which would pretty much enforce a certain style. So I’ll ignore that album for now that her previous album is 2007′s Obligatory Villagers.

This album couldn’t be more different than her previous album.

Alright, that might not be completely true. The album definitely has a very Nellie McKay feel to it, but it’s… almost gratifying to see that she continues to grow musically. I don’t think any of the tracks on this album would fit in on any of her previous albums, but it might not be very surprising to find them there – they’d just seem different.

Nellie is definitely exploring some new sounds on this album. From the caribbean almost-reggae Caribbean Time (not to mention Unknown Regge), to the New Orleans sounding Dispossessed and the more mellow , to the South American-ish ¡Bodega!. It also includes songs like Please and The Portal, which sounds to me like modern day incarnation of a Doris Day kind of song. There are also songs like Bruise on the Sky, which is straight-up current, but somehow without most current music’s inherent horribleness.

It was sheer luck that Nellie was playing a local venue this close to the album’s release. She played here not too long ago (right at the beginning of the year) so I didn’t expect to see her again for a while. We actually had tickets to see Richie Havens that night, but he had to cancel and Nellie came in on very short notice.

Now I have to mention that I really have no idea what her concerts elsewhere are like. I gather that the venue is probably similar (smallish jazz club), but she plays with an extremely local band. And I mean extremely local – they’re usually the house-bad for A Prairie Home Companion, which is an olde-timey-radio-variety-show and could not be more Minnesotan. I’d love to see her play somewhere else, just for curiosity’s sake, but my review is based on the local shows.

This was the third time we’ve seen Nellie play at The Dakota, which is pretty much the only place I really get to see live music at since they’re not insane volume. We had the worst seats we’ve ever had there, which meant we were three tables from the stage. We were kind of behind most the musicians, but the nice thing about that is you can follow along on the sheet music. Anyway.

Some of the songs from the new album (notably the aforementioned Bruise on the Sky) have reached a level of complexity that makes them suffer slightly when played live. This is a stark contrast to many of the songs from her earlier albums, like Sari off 2004′s Get Away From Me which sounds phenomenally better live, with just Nellie and a piano, than the overly-complex rap/slam style on the album.

Those are the only things I can think of that are even remotely close to negative, though.

(Although I can think of something funny – the second keyboard player had an electric piano set to vibraphone for much of the concert… but the opening act had an actual vibraphone player, and he was fantastic, bow-tie and all.)

One thing that alway surprises me when I hear Nellie McKay live is how amazing her voice is. This surprises me because it’s better than on her albums. She has a range that she just doesn’t use in recordings. I have no idea why. She can blast out volumes that shouldn’t be able to physically come out of someone as tiny as her, and she can turn her voice into a tiny silken thread that just wafts lightly through the room, but you know silk is actually super-strong so it kinda grabs you and I think I’ve beaten this analogy to death so I’ll stop now. It’s worth seeing her live just for that, though – you’re definitely going to hear some things you don’t get in her albums.

Another thing you’ll get that’s not on the albums is the chatter. Nellie is very chatty, and she’s a lot of fun. She talks about the songs, and just about what she’s been doing in general. During our show, she showed us a pair of shoes she got at Target earlier, and how well they go with what some people have dubbed her birth-control coat.

It was also an incredibly long concert, and there seemed to be a fair amount of improvisation. I’m not sure how much of it was planned, but given that this was, as I said, a very local band, they couldn’t have possibly had that much time to rehearse (then again, one thing about being a house-band for a weekly radio variety show is that you have to be pretty good at playing many different styles with not a heck of a lot of practice).

She also made fun of Sarah Palin, which is always a bonus.

And she stayed around after the show to sign autographs, chat with people and pose for incredibly silly art projects.

If Nellie McKay is playing anywhere near where you happen to be, go see her. Especially when she’s still playing small venues. I’d like to think there is a group of people who call themselves Nell Heads who live in a bus and follow her around. She definitely deserves it.

• Nellie McKay’s Official Website, and her tour dates.
• The New Standards Official Website. They were the opening act, and they were pretty good.

So I was sitting at a jazz club in Minneapolis watching Anoushka Shankar. Something about that is really kinda cool.

For those who have no idea who she is, Anoushka Shankar is Ravi Shankar’s daughter, and Nora Jones’ half-sister. Like her father, she is a virtuoso sitar player.

The sitar being one of [...]]]>

So I was sitting at a jazz club in Minneapolis watching Anoushka Shankar. Something about that is really kinda cool.

For those who have no idea who she is, Anoushka Shankar is Ravi Shankar’s daughter, and Nora Jones’ half-sister. Like her father, she is a virtuoso sitar player.

The sitar being one of the more insane musical instruments known to man. At first glance it seems like any other (really ancient) string instrument. In that it has strings, frets, tuning pegs and a resonance chamber. However, the resonance chamber is basically a hollow gourd, the frets are movable and there are over 20 strings. Most of them provide sympathetic resonance, and only a few (six or seven) are playable. Half of those are drone strings, and the rest are used for the melody. To top it off, there’s no standard tuning on the thing! They usually get tuned according to whatever piece is playing at the time.

Oh, and sitar pieces are usually 10-25 minutes long.

Being able to play the thing competently is an achievement in and of itself. Anoushka Shankar is one of (if not THE) best players in the world.

A few words about the venue before I go back to actually writing about the show.

The Dakota Jazz Club is an interesting concert venue. They usually feature, believe it or not, jazz acts. In recent years they’ve been expanding their horizons a bit, which is why I was able to see Nellie McKay (who is a BIT jazzy at times), Suzanne Vega (who’s not really jazz at all) and Judy Collins (a mainstay of folk) there over the past few years.

It’s basically a restaurant – during the show you get to sit at the restaurant tables/booths/bar, and the full menu is available. It’s a bit pricy and sadly very fish-heavy (though they’ve recently become accommodating to vegetarians). You can basically get dinner along with the show.

What I like most about it is that it’s not loud. I don’t know why concerts at ‘real’ venues, even small ones, tend to be so unbelievably loud. The Dakota is a very small place and they use the bare minimum of amplification. After all, it’d almost be possible to hear the music with NO amplification.

Being a small restaurant-ish place, you also get to sit pretty close to the action. We’ve gone to a couple of shows there where we literally had our feet on the stage.

They also seem to be pretty much OK with cameras. Most shows I’ve been to had people taking photos (with the flash on!) all night long. I hate being intrusive so I tend not to do that. Today I actually brought the REAL camera, which should be able to take decent photos without a flash (50mm f/1.4 lens, high ISO, this should be on the other blog).

And of course today they ask people to please not take photographs. I’d have tried to sneak some anyway, but it’s hard to be subtle with a huge camera. I did take one ‘photo’, and yeah, that’s it up in the corner. Great photo if you’re a ghost hunter.

Oh yeah, there was a concert in there somewhere, too.

The first thing you notice when Anoushka Shankar walks onto the stage is that she’s tiny. Really tiny. I had no idea. And sitars are HUGE, and played whilst sitting cross-legged (did I mention THAT up there?).

She had an ensemble of musicians playing other traditional Indian instruments. Two percussionists, a guy playing various flutes, and a guy playing a… uh. A drone instrument that’s very similar to a sitar (stop me if I’m getting too technical). They all got to feature their own solos (except for drone-guy) and were all amazingly talented musicians in their own right. The vocal percussion demonstration was especially impressive.

Anoushka was definitely headlining the thing, though. It’s always great to watch someone who’s just so good at something that they make it look easy, and this was no exception. Oh, another thing about the sitar, you play it while it’s basically facing away from you so you can’t actually see the strings or frets. Not that it really matters, since she had her eyes closed for a lot of it.

They played some of her own compositions, one of her father’s (though re-arranged by her), and a couple of traditional tunes.

One of her compositions was a collaboration she did with a flamenco pianist who’s name escapes me even though I was going to look him up when I got home. There was no piano in this show (The Dakota usually has a near-ubiquitous grand piano on stage, but sadly did not this time) so the composition was rearranged for the current group of instruments, and is apparently still evolving. It was very interesting to hear recognisable flamenco strands coming out of a sitar!

Another composition was a collaboration between Anoushka and the two percussionists. That was the one that had the vocal percussion. Vocal percussions is exactly what it sounds like, and yet it sounds nothing like you’d think. It was presented almost like a musical discussion between the two.

They played for a bit over an hour, and I think they only played five different pieces!

If you enjoy sitar music, or even if you’re not sure you do and are curious to find out, and this tour ends up anywhere near you, I highly recommend it. Or you can buy some of Anoushka Shankar’s CDs (her “Live At Carnegie Hall” album is my favourite). Or look her up on youtube!