The Swell Season “Say It To Me Now”

Five songs I’m looking forward to hearing again, in Newport.

I’m hesitant to write this post, because it does go against personal policy.

I try not to retell other people’s stories.

It just never comes off, does it? When someone retells a joke they heard on a comedy special, or tries to paraphrase Quint’s “Indianapolis” speech from “Jaws” or whatever. It loses something in the retelling. And it even detracts from the original if someone retells a story, and then later you hear it from the original source.

So if you’re going to see The Swell Season anytime soon, maybe you should just skip this post. (ed. note: you may also want to skip to the end of this post and watch the video first)

I think I was already in a bit of a fragile state of mind when I saw The Swell Season last fall. I’ve seen shows within the last week, that I’ve spent less time thinking about, than the show at Berklee in November.

Most affecting was Glen Hansard’s story that seemed to start as an aside---and yes, here is where I ruin his story, by trying to be brief and encapsulate it. He’s an Irishman, for Fuck’s Sake. A masterful storyteller. And here I go, giving you the Instant Mashed Potato version.

He was in an elevator in Chicago, the night after a show, headed down to the lobby. There was a woman in the elevator.

He commented on her beautiful coat. She thanked him and began to cry.

She explained that she’d gone through a really hard time, had lost her son. She said she’d stayed at home for nearly two years. But she decided to live again. She saw the coat in a store window and even though it was more expensive than she could afford, she bought it, as a promise to herself to seize the day.

“My son. He was in one of those fucking buildings.”

You could feel the room seize up.

Hansard didn’t have to explain to the audience what she meant. We all knew he was talking about September 11th.

The woman said she had woken up that day with a bad feeling in her gut. She’d tried to call her son, but had not been able to get through to him. She never got to speak to him.

Hansard walked her to a cab, gave the woman his email address and invited her to come see his show. “She’d never heard of us,” he laughed, lightening the mood. “We’re headed back to Chicago next week to play again. I hope she comes out.”

And then he played “Say It To Me Now.”

I still get chills, get filled up, when I hear that song, and I think about “those fucking buildings.”

And I marvel at his masterful storytelling. He didn’t say why he played “Say It To Me Now.” He didn’t hit us over the head with the point of the story, or the point of the song. He didn’t have to.

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Amazing news. I found a Youtube video of Glen telling the story and singing the song. He definitely told the story, slightly differently on the night I saw him. Hope I didn't ruin it for you.

The Avett Brothers “Talk On Indolence”

Five songs I’m looking forward to hearing again, in Newport.

With every artist, there is a dividing line.

There’s a line between the people who get it and the people who don’t.

There’s a line between the people who are passionate, and the people who are ambivalent.

There’s a line between the people who will pay up and the people who will stand up.

That night from the main stage at Merlefest 2008, The Avett Brothers made a point to say that Merlefest was a huge part of who they’d become, for better or worse.

I remember the buzz in 2006, when the band played one of the small, out-of-the-way Merlefest stages, drawing a small but really raucous, enamored crowd.

They were tapped to open the 2007 Festival, giving the prominent position of First Band On The Main Stage, which, ultimately, is a small honor since, on Thursday at 5pm, only a fraction of the weekend concert-goers have arrived.

But it earned them the plum spot in 2008. They were the Saturday night headliners. THE time slot.

I remember being in the mvyradio On The Road studio (okay, it was a caboose, actually), listening to Gary, a broadcasting veteran, have a back and forth with Nick, a recent college grad, about the Avetts.

The long and short of it was that Nick thought they were amazing, and Gary felt like they weren’t doing anything he hadn’t heard before. Nick thought the crossbreeding of punk and americana was brilliant, Gary didn’t seem to think that the combination did service to either genre.

And this conversation was being played out, across the Merlefest campus.

The Main Stage area is set up with seats in front. You have to pay extra to sit in the first 50 rows at Merlefest. And most folks who held those tickets were older. They were looking forward to seeing Doc Watson and other heritage artists.

After the rows of seats, is wide open field, and you can be anywhere, right up to the point where the seats start, and security checks your ticket. That line was teaming with young, enthusiastic Avett fans, who were jumping, craning, to get a better view of their favorite band.

As the Avetts kicked in to “Talk On Indolence” I watched the people in their seats decided that they’d seen enough. Clusters of couples rose to their feet, gathered their blankets and bags of sunscreen and amenities, and headed for the gate, leaving behind large bald patches of seating, as if the band were playing to a poorly attended house.

But at the same time, behind the line, this song put the young folks into a tizzy. The raucous fan-favorite was sending spasms of musical joy through the passionate portion of the audience.

I’m sure the kids didn’t get why the adults were leaving, and the adults didn’t get why the young folks were staying. And the balance of the musical universe, which had tottered on that line through Elvis and The Beatles and Punk Rock and Metal and Alternative and Hip Hop . . . remained in check.




Here's the full 60 minute performance from Merlefest 2008, as mentioned in the post.

Richie Havens “On The Turning Away”

Five songs I’m looking forward to hearing again, in Newport.

I can’t say I had a ton of regard for the dehydrated Pink Floyd (no Waters). I mean, as my friend Brett said, “David Gilmour still knows how to play guitar,” but the music of “A Momentary Lapse Of Reason” seemed lacking to me, especially in the lyrical department.

But years later, I got turned around on the record, from a completely unexpected source.

I was in the wonderful town of Asheville, North Carolina, for their annual Bele Chere Festival. For a weekend, they close down several city blocks and put arts and crafts on the streets. And in each corner of the blocked off square, is a stage of live music.

I can’t remember whose idea it was to bop over to see Richie Havens. I don’t recall being a big fan or anything. But I appreciated that I was seeing a musical legend, and I knew he did some amazing covers of Beatles songs, so that was enough for me to stick through to the encore.

I knew the song from the first lyric. But I couldn’t place it.

Havens was doing this tune a capella, so there wasn’t a guitar melody that could jog the old sun-drenched brain pan. But I knew I knew the song.

It was a good 3/4ths over before I was finally able to recognize Pink Floyd’s “On The Turning Away.”

He was singing it, not like a Gilmour space-dirge. He approached the tune---with its lyrics about not turning a blind eye to the poor and marginalized---as a gospel song. And in that context, I got the song. I understood the song in an emotional way, in a way that moved me.

All credit to Gilmour for the point. All credit to Havens for making it.







Every year mvyradio heads down to Newport, to cover the Folk Festival. And every year has its share of anticipated performances. I thought I’d write this week about 5 songs I think I’ll hear in Newport, and what I’ll be thinking of as I hear them.

John Prine “Angel From Montgomery”

Five songs I’m looking forward to hearing again, in Newport.

Every year mvyradio heads down to Newport, to cover the Folk Festival. And every year has its share of anticipated performances. I thought I’d write this week about 5 songs I think I’ll hear in Newport, and what I’ll be thinking of as I hear them.

Today’s post is like one of those Russian nesting dolls---a memory inside a memory inside a memory.

In the years just prior to my time at mvyradio, I lived in Virginia, working at a station down there. I had a great group of friends---young, active music lovers.

And when we weren’t working, we were doing some combination of drinking, listening to music and singing. On a good night, all three.

There are probably hundreds of specific moments in those late, loud nights, to reflect back on. But if the director of the film of my life needed just one representative scene from that period, it would be the group, usually the girls in the group, singing “Angel From Montgomery.”

Years later, I’m on the Vineyard, working with another great group of friends, who also love listening to music and singing. And yes, raising a drink or two.

I knew that Barbara Dacey had really only had two jobs---working for mvyradio, and being a singer-songwriter. Yet somehow, even after knowing her for several years, I’d never heard her sing.

How pissed was I, the one year I left the Chili Contest early, only to hear later, that Barbara had gotten on stage with Johnny Hoy? I rode her about this for years.

Jump to 2008, and here we are again, drinking and listening to music, and preparing to sing. It’s the Newport Folk after-party, that we have at a private household, near Fort Adams. Kate Taylor is going to perform, and she’s invited Barbara to join her on stage.

Well, stage is a little bit of an overstatement.

When we come from the Vineyard to Newport, we stay at the home of the station owner, who has a house, and next to it, a large pool house, with several guest rooms. There is a large, living room/foyer where Kate and her band set up. And there’s a balcony overlooking that area, outside the 2nd floor rooms.

That was where I was standing, when Barbara took the stage. I’d gone up there, because I knew she was going to sing, and I wanted to call my wife so she could listen by cell. I wanted to be out of the first floor crowd, where I wouldn’t be noticed.

“I’m going to do a John Prine song,” announced Barbara. “This one is for PJ, because I know it’s one of his favorites. Where’s PJ?”

Fortunately, the lights in the room were low, and the crowd, which had all turned their eyes to me, alone on the balcony, couldn’t see the five shades of red I’d turned.

So when John Prine pulls this chestnut out on Sunday, I’ll think back to the balcony, to Barbara, to the Chili Contest, and to young, late, loud nights when my friends all sang for “one thing that I can hold on to.”

Guster “Do You Love Me”

I’m sure your wedding day was lovely. A most memorable event.

Did you have it in a church? We did not.

Did you have a traditional ceremony? We didn’t do that either.

Did church bells ring out when you said I do? Nope, not on the beach they didn’t.

And yet, I’m filled with some sort of matrimonial nostalgia, when I hear church bells.

I blame Phil Spector.

It’s was such a genius move (and he was a genius) to think of wedding bells as an instrument in his wall of sound, in tracks like “I Hear A Symphony.” Because not only was it a unique, uncommon sound for a pop song, it was a sound that had the ability to connect directly to an emotional memory that so many folks carry.

Guster gets the benefit, double-time.

Their new song “Do You Love Me” is delightfully poppy, but when I first heard it, and the wedding bells kicked in, it tapped into both my love of our wedding day, and my love of those great old Wall Of Sound songs. It filled me with a nice warm feeling.

Genius move, Guster.

Sheryl Crow “All I Wanna Do”

Seminal Moments . . .

There’s a fun, subtle moment in the movie “The Incredibles” really rang true for me.

Dash, the son in the family, is just discovering his superpowers as he is being chased by bad guys in flying vehicles. He’s running at superspeed when he suddenly looks down, and realizes that he’s not on hard land anymore. His superspeed is allowing him to run across water, skimming the surface of the ocean, without falling in.

With the realization, he smiles with delight, and runs even faster, accelerating beyond his pursuers.

In the Spring of 1994, I found myself suddenly working in radio. It wasn’t something I’d planned. I just kind of fell into it.

I’d always been a music lover, and had had a hobbyists interest in music programming. But I’d never really thought I’d be doing it as a career.

Sheryl Crow was this new, unknown artist, who had this cool, singer-songwriter tune out, called “Leaving Las Vegas,” and we played it. I liked it. It was interesting enough to make me go check out the album.

One listen to “All I Wanna Do” made me think, “Why is this not the single?” It was so catchy, accessible, breezy but deep and unlike anything else on the Top 40 Chart.

I played it for all my friends and became a champion of the song.

And when it became her second single, I said, “This is going to be a crossover, number one hit.”

But I have to tell you, that there was a part of me that was surprised, when it did, in fact, become a crossover, number one hit.

And it made me think that maybe I had stumbled into the right career. It propelled me forward, to start listening to more records, to try to find that breakthrough song and share it with people who love music.

I found my superpower, smiled, and accelerated.





This post is one in a series of Seminal Moments---stories of songs that truly changed the course of my life. For more posts in this series, click on the Seminal Moments link under "Labels."

This post is one in a series of Seminal Moments---stories of songs that truly changed the course of my life. For more posts in this series, click on the Seminal Moments link under "Labels."

Taj Mahal "She Caught The Katy"

It's going to be weird, when my kid grows up. At some point, hopefully, she's going to hear "She Caught The Katy" and say, "Hey, that's the guy that sings the Peep theme song!"

What a strange thing, to come into an artists career, late, when they've delved into the world of kids music.

Dr. John won't be the "Right Place Wrong Time" hoodoo voodoo New Orleans man. He'll be the guy who sings the "Curious George" theme song.

A generation before, little kids around the country knew him as the Narrator to Thomas The Tank Engine, without any clue that he was part of some important band. And parents would turn on the TV and wonder "Why is Ringo in a conductor's cap?"

And a decade before that, I, yes I, knew Dr. Teeth, before I'd ever heard to Dr. John.

By the way, while they may not be as hip as their hits, the two theme songs are pretty damn good, and having these veterans sing the openings, beats the Hell out of having Barney do it, any day of the week.

Sarah Blasko “All I Want”

What’s the only instrument that you play, by not touching it?

A theremin.

You may not be familiar with the instrument, but I bet you know the sound, if not from music, then from movies.

The theremin is an early electronic instrument, created in the 1920s by its namesake, Dr. Leon Theremin. It generally consists of two metal antennas. You put your hand in between the two rods, and depending on where your hand is (higher or lower, right or left) the machine emits a certain frequency and volume.

The good Doctor developed this instrument for symphonic use, but much to his chagrin, its sound is synonymous with 50s Sci-Fi movies. The theremin was used for the spaceship sound effects in “The Day The Earth Stood Still” among many other movies.

But the theremin made its way into popular music, thanks to experimental popsters like Brian Wilson. In perhaps his most famous song, at the penultimate moment, a theremin is employed. You know the end of “Good Vibrations”? That electronic whistle of the melody is a theremin (actually a tannerin, a cousin of the theremin).

But what if you want to work backward, and go analog?

You can make your electric guitar, acoustic. You can trade your keyboard for a piano. And your loops for a drum kit.

But how do you have an acoustic theremin?

Sarah Blasko figured out how. She does it with her voice.

It took several listens to be convinced that the theremin sound, is actually Sarah singing. Pretty amazing human recreation.

Cake "Wheels"

Saturday night, the Mrs. and I had a date to go see the band Cake, a long-time favorite for both of us.

The show was at the Newport Yachting Center, so we decided we'd go out to dinner somewhere near the venue.

We had a hilarious, only-in-Newport type of encounter, while looking for a place to eat. As we strolled the early-evening streets, which were teeming with the well-dressed, the over-dressed, and the showily-dressed wealthy summer crowd, we spied an interesting, upscale looking place that we hadn't seen before. There was a young woman, standing in front, who noted our interest, and asked if we'd like to look at a menu.

I had about 10 seconds to look over the thing and start to think, "A little overpriced, but it could be interesting," before the woman said to us, "If you'd like to join us for dinner, the next available seating is at 10pm tonight."

FIVE HOURS FROM NOW!!!

I just said, "Uh, no thanks." We handed the menu back, and strolled a little further, to a completely unassuming barbecue joint, where we were greeted with laid-back enthusiasm.

We were near the venue, so I was not surprised that there were a whole bunch of folks in the place, who were headed to the Cake show.

But as our meal progressed, something odd developed.

Now, it's no real secret that Newport (not unlike parts of the Vineyard, and Nantucket) is fairly, um, monochomatic.

But suddenly, we were surrounded by white people.

Meaning, there was a group of 20-plus folks, who had picked this restaurant as their meet-up place, and they were all dressed in white. Everybody had a white shirt. And many of them had white pants, or a white skirt. One guy even had a white fedora.

As they were leaving, my wife tapped one of the guys on the shoulder, and asked what the deal was with the group dress code.

He explained, "We just thought it would be fun, if Cake looked out at the audience, and saw our big group all dressed the same, and then (singer) John McCrea could say 'Hey, look. The white people are here!"

Yes, the audience was pretty monochromatic, and even if McCrea didn't see that group, it wouldn't have been inappropriate for him to deliver that line.

Ever been to the site, Stuff White People Like? Let me pitch to them, two new entries: "Newport" and "Cake."

"Close Encounters Of The Third Kind"

You know, they don't have to all be singles on the radio.

Some of the songs that you know by heart, that bring you back to a certain place and time, weren't experienced on a record player.

Though I would count "Close Encounters" among my all-time favorite films, I have to admit, it had been years since I'd really watched it. But it was on cable yesterday, and I can't believe a) how much it brought me back to the 70s, and b) how I really experienced it in a completely different way, as an adult.

That 5 note sequence. I can't recreate it in writing, but you know what I'm talking about. The Beep Beep beep boop boop, that appears throughout the movie.

Just those notes, are enough to take me back to The Brandt Theatre in my hometown, an old moviehouse, where our whole family would go out to see epics like "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" (or I would go with my grade school friends to see non-epics like "Candleshoe" or "Sasquatch!"). That theatre isn't there anymore, and I'm not sure that there's a unifying movie in the modern universe that could motivate all four members of my family to get out to a theatre.

The thing about "Close Encounters" that sailed over my head as a young boy, is practically my raison d'etre today.

Music as a universal language.

It's so simple, it's fucking brilliant. I was watching the movie, thinking, what a genius concept, that our first communication with extra-terrestrials would be through music. The scene below, though I've seen it dozens of times before, just knocked me out, again.

That sequence of 5 tones is recognizable to folks who speak French or Farsi, Swiss or Swahili. And so is "Let It Be" and the riff from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

I can't say that "Close Encounters" put me on my musical path. But every day I write, and every day I listen, and every day I play songs on the radio, because I believe in the beauty and the power of music as communication.