Posts in: Music

Last night’s concert, the good and the bad

Last night we went to Red Bicycle Hall in Madison to see John Moreland. Not the best experience. The sound mix for John Moreland never seemed right: too loud, even roaring sometimes. Unpleasant listening. And I suspect it actually was the mix because Moreland’s music is usually pretty chill. Also, several people were acting like idiots, talking loudly, moving around. Even the staff was being distracting! It felt more like “a bar that happened to have live music” than an actual concert.

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Speaking of Green Lung, I’m too much of a boring middle-aged CPA dad sort of human to have what the kids call an aesthetic. If I did, though, it would be “PNW hiker watching folk horror and listening to 70s psychedelic rock.”

Now spinning — though with headphones since my wife and daughter don’t exactly like psychedelic, occult, doom (what do I call them?) rock. Also, cool liner notes.

Austin Kleon mentioned Betty Davis on the occasion of her death a few days ago - and what I want is know is how I lived 45 years on this earth without hearing her music? 🎵

The Black Belt was a region in the American South known for its rich, black soil. It was home to many cotton plantations and, consequently, enslaved black people. During the Great Migration, large numbers of black people moved out of the South into northern cities, taking the blues and other cultural creations with them. Not all moved, though. Alabama Blackbelt Blues is a documentary by Alabama Public Television on the continuing blues tradition in Alabama’s portion of the Black Belt. (Watch the trailer here.)

If you like the blues, you’ll like this documentary - simple as that. It’s given me a whole list of singers and musicians to listen to. And, unsurprisingly, the names of John and Alan Lomax come up regularly as collectors and preservers of this music. I plan to explore their collections more thoroughly soon.

Listen: “Trouble So Hard” by Vera Hall