Jenny Lewis - I'm Your Silver Lining

Well maybe I'm not Ms. Lewis's silver lining, but she was golden at Mr. Small's, a venue in a sleepy neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Like many things here it's in an old church. I didn't quite expect such a crowd, but all the Pittsburgh hipsters were out in full force. Well except hipsters here still use glowsticks, maybe they are so uncool that they've become cool again? I missed that memo.This is most likely my last concert in Pittsburgh and it was a dream realized. I did pass up seeing Rilo Kiley last year at Terminal 5, but this certainly made up for it. Though honestly I much prefer smaller, more intimate concerts where there is a connection between performer and audience. Not that Jenny didn't connect with the crowd, they loved her.
The first several songs were all ones I was dying to hear live, though by the time she got to "Happy" things mellowed a bit for me, but they picked back up with "Carpetbagger" and "Silver Lining." In all it was a great show.Forgive the blurriness of the pictures, I did not have height or my camera's settings on my side.

These are tough times, but it'll happen

While everything is in transition and the economy is so bad, this is kind of what life feels like.



And this is what I keep telling myself.

My music scene

This blog post explains a lot about the NYC music scene which I can't often put into words. Basically it is what it is and the genre fusions that are going on there make complete sense in a place where the industry does not rule the downtown clubs. Though the audience is a large part of this as well, because they are open to all of this genre bending.

Yeah, I just can't say it as well.

Last night

I dreamed that we were in midtown and it was snowing. You needed to go to the west side. I walked down the street and asked you for the street number of a building. "Three thirty-three," you said. I realized you were on the north side of the street so we turned left and started walking. The city was quiet, still and white and the buildings felt so close together. I was cold, so you gave me your blazer and put your arms around me.

Even in dreams it's still kind of surprising what I can remember.

Dusters in the 'Burgh

I saw the Infamous Stringdusters on May 14th at Club Cafe, which is actually the second time they've come through in the nine months I've been there. It's great that they're touring around here so much and I hope they keep with it so they can get more of a following. The bluegrass scene here is slightly smaller than what I was used to in NYC, in fact when I saw Crooked Still in March I heard a girl there remark that she didn't know why more younger people were into this music. I almost went up to her and told here to go to a bluegrass show in NYC, so many young people obviously excited about this type of music.

Anyway, I was reminded that I was intending to post something about this show when I saw a friend this weekend.The show was great and I loved that they played one of my favorite-favorite old songs, 99 Years, as an encore. And they did it acoustically, which was even better. Though, obviously I could work on my picture taking skills a little bit.
(99 Years and One Dark Day- great prison song, where the protagonist kills his "woman with a 44" because what is bluegrass without killing some girlfriend)

On a lightly related note I just noticed that Sarah Jarosz's album comes out June 16th; I'm really looking forward to checking that out.

Spring!

I haven't had a yard for several years, so it was a nice surprise to see a few Spring flowers sprout out of it. I still am too used to the flowers in front of my house being at the deli one door down and not in my yard. But here they are, the red tulips in the front yard. I watched them start to bloom all week, this morning when I left they were still closed tight, but now they have all opened up.

Only funny to me

In class on Monday our guest speaker remarked, "The living is a pretty cool place." Sadly, she wasn't speaking about this living room, which is a pretty cool place.