“Girls of Spring,” a willowy tune by Aan, is a similar work, with its own unexpected sci-fi connection. Though I wouldn’t have known it without talking to Bud Wilson, the man behind Aan’s delicate strings and layered, octave-jumping vocals. Below we chat about the sci-fi origins of the easygoing pop track, its meaning and fitting it is for Portland’s annual city-wide winter basement retreat. Cute girls also factor in. Judging by all that, I’d say this too sounds like the recipe for an excellent film. Hey Matt McCormick, wanna helm the project? I hear you just wrapped the other feature you were working on…

Q&A with Aan’s Bud Wilson:

What is the song about?
“Girls of Spring” is about being afraid of getting lonely. It’s knowing that as the weather turns here in Portland, people disappear, stow away in their homes and basements until light returns for more than a few hours a day and we can ride around without fenders again. But also it’s a celebration of the faction of us who are not afraid of the dismal gray rain, and find ways to stick it out with fervor and maintain satisfactory relationships through the coming season. Mainly it’s about cute girls.

How long did it take to write? Why did you write it?
The song was an afterthought. I’d just finished recording a different song that took a few days to get out. I had no intentions of spending another few hours pushing record. The riff came up quickly and there was no choice but to track it. I’d recently re-read one of my favorite stories by Madeline L’Engle, A Wind In the Door. In the book, there is a terrible happening called “Echthroi;” a blackness streaking across the universe turning something into nothing. I had a visual of this “Echthroi” erasing good folks with the coming wind. It’s some sci-fi stuff, but mix love and science fiction and that’s hot shit. It all was recorded in about an hour and a half.

What’s your favorite season?
My favorite season is the fall.

Why?
Picking apples off neighborhood trees. Dressing up to keep warm. Watching things die, knowing they’ll return soon enough when I’ve forgotten about them. It’s about dismissing those things that were bringing a person down and getting skeletal, keeping what’s essential.

What will you be doing in relation to your music during winter?
This winter I’m moving houses here in Portland. I’ll be looking for a drummer. I’ll be recording constantly, I hope. I’d like to find a positive place and make something a bit more uplifting, something wholesome. I’ll certainly be playing shows at Valentines and some of the smaller venues around. I just bought a monstrous bass amp so i’ll be driving the neighbors crazy with low end rumbles. Music is always and everything, the rest of my life wraps itself around it.

“Girls of Spring” will be officially released on a self-released E.P. in spring 2009 available digitally on itunes and in physical form at shows.

Links:
AanSpace
Watch Dude, Where’s My Car? on Hulu (free).

Photo care of Myspace

 The songs in question appear on the running order with additional information in brackets after the titles, alerting the listener to the fact they feature on movie soundtracks – movies made by David Lynch, Nicolas Roeg and Wim Wenders, three of the most visually stylistic directors of all time. These men are nothing less than artists, celluloid the canvas for their often outlandish and provocative imagery, and for whom The Big O could effortlessly provide the necessarily dramatic aural accompaniment.

It was always that way, you could argue. Even fumbling adolescent urgency like Roy’s early single Almost 18 is cinematic, a two-and-a-half minute précis of countless high school coming-of-age comedies; Uptown could be read as an aspirational story of wrong-side-of-the-tracks betterment; Blue Bayou as a tail-between-the-legs return to humble home roots; Running Scared the positive denouement of a fraught love triangle tragedy; It’s Over a lachrymose credit-roll to a story of romantic defeat. Any screenwriter who can’t put together a script based on the lyrics to a Roy Orbison song ought to be back waiting on tables.

Sam Phillips famously fell out with Orbison because he didn’t know what to do with him; he wasn’t as malleable as Elvis, Jerry Lee or the rest of the Sun Records stable, and it took a car ride across state from Memphis to Nashville before Roy found the platform for his singular pain at Monument Records. Here was where the legend took shape, where an awkward, chubby and weak-sighted misfit articulated the doubts and insecurities of the vast majority of normal folk who, in common with the singer, weren’t as pretty as Elvis or as aggressive or as confident as Jerry Lee.

It’s interesting to hear those early Sun sides on the first disc of this collection, partly because it’s the sound of a man struggling to find his place in the world. At Monument, on superb records like Only The Lonely, Crying and Pretty Paper, he arrived where he belonged, but it was still a world of obstacles and uncertainties. The swagger and bravado of Oh Pretty Woman aside, Orbison was the ultimate chronicler of inescapable emotional doom.

There was a period, stretching over the best part of two decades, where Roy was in the wilderness, condemned to poorly-staged nostalgia shows and low-rent supper clubs, but the essence of his music could still be heard in Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run), Elvis Costello (Alison) or Tom Waits (Blue Valentines). Interestingly, all three were on board when Orbison returned to prominence via a 1988 TV special, in tandem with the tremendous Mystery Girl album – U2, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne also contributing to the rehabilitation.

Dylan and George Harrison upped the ante with The Travelling Wilburys project, again represented here, but it wasn’t so much a helping hand as an acknowledgement of the irrefutable genius in their midst. Roy Orbison was – is - a god, and The Soul Of Rock ‘n’ Roll might well be the nearest pop music ever gets to producing a Bible.

 A version of this review appears in a forthcoming issue of the UK music magazine Record Collector

Our families met about 15 years ago and they have pretty much been one big family since. In January of 2008, we started seeing each other and have been inseparable every since. Both of us have always lived for our children and from the moment we moved in together everything just seemed to fit. George proposed on Valentine’s Day and wanted to get married during his family reunion in May because his entire family has never been together for any of his past marriages.

As we were talking about how we wanted to get married, our four kids wanted to help us plan our wedding — so we let them. After watching the first season, we called the show and were amazed when we were accepted. I wouldn’t change any of it, it was a blast. Honestly, how many people can say they got married on national television with a slip and slide, Jell-O wresting, a hot dog eating contest, and go cart racing.

Most people are extremely nervous when they are getting married, but we are just an ordinary easy going family who just likes to have fun. Life is too short to not appreciate what you have been given and without the bad things, you wouldn’t appreciate the good. There were some stressful moments but the crew that was there was very willing to give us some “venting room.” We could not have planned a better wedding that reflected ourselves and our everyday life better than it did. This was an experience of a lifetime, with enough memories to last several lifetimes. We wouldn’t change this experience for anything in the world. After everything was over, and the cameras were gone, it still seemed unreal — like a dream. We would highly recommend that anyone that doesn’t want an everyday traditional wedding, to call Pink Sneakers, you won’t be sorry. It was so much fun!!!!!!!

Amyie & George

Merl Saunders recorded and performed with some of the Bay Area’s best-known musicians, including Bonnie Raitt, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Tom Fogerty and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. He never experienced the same kind of fame and recognition as those players, but his deep contributions to the Bay Area music scene were cherished by thousands.

“Merl was the sun rising over the keyboards every time I looked over at him,” comments Weir.

That sun, unfortunately, has now set.

The San Mateo native, a multi-talented keyboardist who was equally comfortable performing both rock and jazz, died early today (Oct. 24) at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco. He succumbed to a systemic infection and the lingering effects of a stroke he suffered six years ago, which left him paralyzed on one side of his body. He was 74.

Born on Valentine’s Day 1934, Saunders was proficient on the piano by age 10 and his ability to position himself in the company of greatness was also honed at a young age. For instance, he was a bandmate and classmate of Johnny Mathis while in junior high school. Saunders would later make the transition to the Hammond B-3 organ, which quickly became his instrument of choice, and manage to wrangle an apprenticeship of sorts with the great B-3 master Jimmy Smith.

In 1970, Saunders embarked on a lengthy partnership with vocalist-guitarist Jerry Garcia, a restless musical soul that was always on the look for collaborators outside the Grateful Dead. The two musicians would work together in the band “Legion of Mary” and the ensemble “Garcia/Saunders,” performing local club dates and producing Saunders’ best-known recordings, including “Heavy Turbulence,” “Fire Up” and “Live at the Keystone.” Their 1990 collaboration, “Blues from the Rainforest,” was a Billboard Top 10 in the New Age category.

Saunders obviously benefitted from his association with the Dead’s world-famous guitarist. Yet, this collaboration was a two-way street.

“When Jerry first started playing outside the Dead, he pretty consciously chose keyboard partners who would broaden his horizons,” says Dennis McNally, the longtime Grateful Dead historian and publicist. “At that point, in the early ’70s, Jerry knew rock, R&B, country and folk very well indeed.

“Merl, though he’d spend most of his career playing in rock bands, was a Jimmy Smith devotee who had at his command the Great American songbook – the classics of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway. And he really shared that sophistication with Jerry and with succeeding musicians in the so-called jam-band world who listened to him - a much wider understanding of music than three-chords-turn-it- up-to-11 rock ‘n’ roll.”

Over the years, Saunders became known as a senior member of the jam-band scene, and he performed with such top second-generation acts as Phish, Blues Traveler and Widespread Panic. He was also known as a very generous band leader, one who was instrumental in providing opportunities for young talent, including Sheila E., Bonnie Hayes and Bob Steeler.

Outside of the rock world, Saunders managed a successful career in jazz and blues music. Notably, the B-3 titan performed and recorded with such true legends as Harry Belafonte, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, B. B. King, Paul Butterfield and Bonnie Raitt.

Saunders is survived by longtime companion, Debra Hall, three children, Anthony Saunders, Merl Saunders Jr. and Susan Saunders, as well as by several grand children and great grandchildren.

A remake of the classic Jason Voorhes film will be released the day before Valentines day in 2009 entitled “Friday the 13th”.

Enjoi.

According to frontman Chris Hoganson, “Unrequited Like” was the first track in Don Hellions’ catalog, written quickly by him by way of “playing five or six saxophone tracks over one drum track and then singing on top of it.” And is it based on any specific lovelorn situation or general circumstance? I turned it over to Hoganson for additional details:

“Unrequited Like” was written about a very specific situation… Although it is kind of a summation of my relationships in general. “What you can’t forget is if you try too hard you know yer going to regret… What you can’t ignore is if you don’t try enough it’s going to fail for sure.” I was feeling that way about a lot of things in my life at the time, but mostly I was trying to walk this tight-rope of telling someone that I was in love with them while still trying to appear nonchalant.

Something tells me Hoganson would’ve made a great contributor to our Valentine’s Day compilation post on the ebb and flow of love—and here’s something to keep tight until next V-Day.

Links:
Don HellionsSpace
Don Hellions official site

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

By Todd Lavoie

I just flew in from New York, and boy, are my arms tired! Ba-dum-bum.

A corny opener to this humble journal of my All Tomorrow’s Parties NY experience, but entirely too apropos for my weekend of serious ear-grinning up in the Catskills. Consider the venue choice: Kutsher’s Hotel, one of the few resorts from the “Oy vey!” heyday - Oy veyday? - of the Borscht Belt still in operation.

This place was once at the absolute dead-center of the Henny Youngman/Jackie Mason/Sid Caesar nexus of Jewish summer-resort comedy, after all, so a few yuk-yuks were more than expected by the several thousand attendees of the so-called “boutique music festival.” As it turned out, there were yuks galore - but most of them were inspired by, or directed at, Kutsher’s itself.

With its faded-glory in full flower - or, full wither, more like it - for all to behold, the hotel made for a never-boring setting for the fiercely independent, refreshingly non-corporate-sponsored music festival, curated this year by My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields. Sure, we all joked about its retina-burning gilded ornamental flair, its gaudy futuristic-by-1940s-standards frosted glass chandeliers, its endless expanses of dizzyingly spiraled carpet madness, its unshakeable feeling of being completely and utterly haunted from roof to foundation - but we kid because we love.

And why do we love? Because, honestly, there couldn’t have been a better venue to toss some much-welcome eyeball-scratching surrealism into the oh-so-familiar-and-predictable summer geek-out that is the contemporary music festival. There was something wonderfully odd and unexpected about the experience of catching MBV, Dinosaur Jr., and Les Savy Fav in a summer resort that shapeshifted between the set of Dirty Dancing and that of The Shining - few could ever prepare emotionally for the sight of a roaming Shields turning the corner down a hallway so intensely Kubrickian, or for a performance by Low in a room tailor-made for a Patrick Swayze/Jennifer Grey dance-off. Or, as my friend Jessica succinctly put it by the end of the first evening: “And we thought all the weird shit was going to happen on the stage! Boy, were we wrong!”

On Friday, Sept. 19, my friends Jessica and Tim and I checked into the ecstatically toe-curling goodness that was our room at the Festival’s adjunct Raleigh Hotel - another crumbling relic of Borscht Belt culture and eerie second-cousin to Kutsher’s, having forsaken all airs of summer-camp coziness in favor of pure unadulterated creep-out in its hasty temporary re-opening after ages of disuse. Then we headed over to the main stage of indie-rock headquarters to catch the Meat Puppets play the entirety of their landmark Meat Puppets II (SST). (All of Friday night’s performances were themed around re-plays of revered indie albums.)

A wise choice on our part, as core members Cris and Curt Kirkwood turned in blazing performances of classics such as “Lake of Fire” and “Aurora Borealis.” At times, Cris’ cartoony face-pulling - somewhere between Eddie Van Halen and Beavis from Beavis and Butthead - proved to be a touch distracting, but his bass-playing was as spirited as his appearance on stage, thus giving playful but authoritative low-end to the show.

Guitarist-vocalist Curt was in fine form, particularly on the ever-beguiling “Plateau” and “The Whistling Song,” the latter of which offered the singer in impressive pucker for a mighty long extended solo. A seamless medley of Johnny Cash’s “Tennessee Stud” and the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” rounded out the set, all of which was bestowed with pristine clarity from the sound technicians - a common thread during the three-day festival.

Unfortunately, we missed Tortoise’s trek through Millions Now Living Will Never Die (Thrill Jockey) - dinner called, as did the need to attend to a few logistic details - but soon enough we’d hit the main stage just in time for Thurston Moore. Or, specifically, Moore’s play-through of his noisily melodic wonder Psychic Hearts (DGC/Geffen). Tough to fathom that the album is now a teenager - 13 years old, to be exact - considering how fresh songs like “Pretty Bad” and “Ono Soul” sound to these ears. Still, Moore seems to have teased out curious nuances from these numbers over the years, as witnessed on a mighty rendering of “Patti Smith Math Scratch” - a definite highlight of the set. As always, Steve Shelley was nothing shy of mesmerizing on the drums, often throttling out fiercely hypnotic rhythms while still smiling away like he probably did as a boy with his first kit.

From there, we dashed through the hallways - whispers of “Redrum” following us in shivering drifts as we whizzed past tangles of hoodie-clad indie kids sprawled over hopelessly dated, impossible-to-ever-imagine-as-fashionable sofas and easy chairs - to reach the second stage in time for Patton Oswalt, the headliner for the festival’s comedy night. With its garish chandelier - constructed out of what appeared to be hundreds of inverted, suspended liquor bottles or oversized drinking glasses - serving as the undeniable, unspeakable centerpiece of the entire space, the second stage was clearly setting itself up as the butt of more than a few jokes.

Little shock, then, when Oswalt obliged - and then some. Both of ATP’s primary sites - Kutsher’s and the Raleigh - were more or less built out of comic gold, and nearly everyone who spoke into a microphone that weekend, comedian or musician or otherwise, got in a dig at one point or another. Oswalt, however, might have best tapped into both places’ gleefully unsettling essence with his assessment of the lamps: turn one on, and somehow everything goes darker.

Further rushing past crazy diagonals of slower-moving festival-goers clearly unaware of the importance of the hour - Built to Spill was about to spell out all of the lovely particulars of their accurately monikered Perfect From Now On (Warner Bros.), and I didn’t want to miss a note. Sadly, the band suffered from a few issues with their sound, and it seemed to have an effect on their game: at times, they didn’t quite have the spark to sustain a set so firmly focused around lengthy solos and extended mantras. There were passages which dragged. And there were moments in which Doug Martsch and company didn’t exactly look like they were having the time of their lives, either. (Dirty Dancing reference intended.)

Still, Martsch’s honeyed tenor rasp was as alluring (and occasionally heartbreaking) as ever, and the inclusion of You in Reverse’s “Goin’ Against Your Mind” made for a lovely treat. As the concert hall emptied out, a host of post-lineup possibilities opened up and offered themselves: an after-party, perhaps? A late-night stroll along the pond outside Kutsher’s, soaking up some of that crisp autumn’s-coming Catskills air? In our case: none of the above. Instead: bed, bed, bed. Saturday promised to be a full day, after all, and indie-rock nerds need their beauty sleep.

Lil Wayne’s ex-wife, Antonia “Toya” Carter, is reportedly writing a book about her life with the N.O. rapper.

The former Mrs. Carter announced her decision to pen her tell-all via her Myspace page last week.

The young couple was married in Valentine’s Day in 2004 but broke up after two years due to what she claimed was Wayne’s infidelities with Nivea and Trina.

According to an interview Antonia did with Vibe, the two met in middle school and eventually became high school sweet hearts. She became pregnant with the rapper’s child at 14.

Antonia says that although their marriage didn’t work out, they still are good friends and he has become a “better father over the years.”

At press time, a title and release date for the book could not be found.

Here we go again with another person trying to come up on the book deal tip. I’m just waiting for Al “Fruity” Reynolds to announce his book.

Nashville, Tenn.– “I’m two sheets to the wind,” a rejected would-be lover announces on the upbeat title track on Empty Pockets, the second independent recording from Brooklyn-based Americana quintet Yarn, set for release on September 23, 2008, “and I’m callin’ on the bar again.”

Edgy, straightforward, occasionally defiant songs of life’s personal losses, outrages, and embarrassments, warmly delivered with a homey, good-natured, “whatcha gonna do” musical embrace–that’s not a combination commonly heard on many roots rock, alternative country or old school country string band records. But that’s the lyrical heart and textured, skilled instrumentals that mark Yarn’s harmonious, winning new song set. “Yeah, we may be in a sunny groove,” says the band’s lead singer and songwriter Blake Christiana, “but when you pay attention to what we’re actually talking about, it may be kind of heartbreaking.”

Several who’ve been paying attention to the rising band jumped in to join in on the music, often after just one Yarn encounter. Empty Pockets features affecting fiddler and vocalist Caitlin Cary (of Tres Chicas; Whiskeytown), “New Bohemian” Edie Brickell (harmony vocalist on the lazy ballad “I’m Down”), bluegrass and rock fiddle wizard Casey Driessen (of the Sparrow Quartet) and veteran newgrass banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka.

Yarn’s first album, a self-titled record released in 2007, reached #14 on the Americana Music Association’s Top 40 chart. Since the release, the band, which features Trevor MacArthur on guitar and harmony vocals, Andrew Hendryx on mandolin, Rick Bugel on bass, and Jay Frederick on percussion, has developed a passionate following up and down the East Coast, and on some side trips to Nashville. The band formed in the spring of 2006 as both an evolution and a break from Christiana’s long-lived jam-centered electric band, Blake & The Family Dog. Electric instruments sometimes appear in Yarn’s live shows, but this band focuses first on energetic acoustic instrumentation. As the band’s name, which references both the handmade and the saga, reflects on crafted, storytelling songs.

Yarn may be a city band that gelled into the harmonious unit it has become. The process took place in hard-working, regular landmark stands of New York clubs, including Kenny’s Castaways and Hill Country. There’s a lot of Gram Parsons-inspired county soul in the songs they deliver, from the hard honky-tonk of “I Feel So Low” to the Whiskeytown-channeling, alt-country tones of “Christopher Street,” to the exuberant string band pyrotechnics of “Can’t Slow Down.”

Knitting together the band’s distinctive tone are Christiana’s smooth, controlled, and expressive lead vocals, which reflect an unmistakable core toughness for all of their polish. The vocals put Blake right in line with a group of singers he admires and is receiving comparisons to in early reviews - Chris Isaak, Lyle Lovett, Ryan Adams, Rick Nelson - or Jerry Garcia in his Old and In the Way string band vocalist mold. And Andrew Hendryx’s fluid, contemporary mandolin stylings add to the “old and new, flinty but friendly” Yarn tone across their varied song set. The addition of fiddle, dobro and lap steel on Empty Pockets adds instrumental breadth.

“We’re not trying to say anything too deep,” Blake Christiana says, of the yarns spun on Empty Pockets, “though maybe some are deeper than others! Mainly, these are just some easy-to-swallow songs. We mean to entertain people.”

Praise for Yarn’s Empty Pockets:

“Empty Pockets — an unusually smooth, low-key collection of heartfelt, bluegrass-tinged alt-country songs.” - T. Ballard Lesemann, Charleston City Paper

“…simply great writers and musicians playing songs that the common man can relate to…” - Jeffrey Kurtis, Today’s Country Magazine

Tour Dates:
September 23 - New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall
September 25 - New York, NY - National Underground
September 26 - Burlington, VT - Nectars
October 2 - New York, NY - Hill Country
October 3 - Albany, NY - Valentines
October 18 - Chestertown, MD - Andy’s
October 30 - New York, NY - Arlene’s Grocery
November 1 - Charlottesville, VA - Fellini’s
November 2 - Raleigh, NC - Slim’s Downtown
November 5 - Knoxville, TN - Blue Plate Special
November 6 - Johnson City - Cahootenany’s
November 7 - Asheville, NC - Jack Of The Wood
November 8 - Harrisonburg, VA - Clementine Cafe
November 14 - Manchester, CT - Main Pub
December 4 - New York, NY - Arelene’s Grocery

Yarn Website