Go buy Spirit Family Reunion. It’s like pouring joy into your ears.

April 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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 My favorite song on the album is a cover called Green Rocky Road (MP3). It was really, really fun and powerful to see performed live and 5 feet from me in Austin. The whole album is a fantastic folky bluegrass collection. The CD packaging is simple and letterpress printed. I ordered mine from their Bandcamp page and got the instant download. You should do that right now. I’ll wait.

They were at a SXSW showcase sponsored by Paste Magazine, Sennheiser and Newport Folk Festival.  For a song or two I simply enjoyed their music and hipster folk style, but after a few I realized I’d heard them before. Last summer I listened to the stream of The Newport Folk Festival on NPR and remember loving a band. This was that band!

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Here’s their Tiny Desk Concert from last Fall. It makes me want to pick up my banjo and actually learn how to play it. To be fair, though, lots of my music catalog does that. 

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , ,

Why Monday was so damn great

April 9, 2013 By 4 Comments

If you follow me on social media you noticed some intense vague tweeting yesterday. By the end of the day I was getting phone calls and texts from close friends who were beginning to get concerned for my health and welfare.

I tweeted that because a property management had poured a few gallons of buzz kill right on top of my head. I decided a couple of weeks ago to rent out my house and move to a new place, even though I’ve never done anything like that before in my life. Hi, I’m Sheri. I am leaning into the discomfort. Please pass the carbs.

Let me back up, though. The buzz that was getting killed was a conversation I had just walked out of with my new landlord. We were talking about my plans and she was advising me on my situation. “Sheri, you don’t need a property management company. You can do this all on your own. It’s easy!” After asking her a bunch of questions I got a little confidence in the notion. Then, a few minutes later, we discovered that who I’d love to rent my house to was an applicant she was about to turn down for the house I was renting.

One of the four women called me yesterday afternoon and we set an appointment for them to stop by in the evening. I came home last night (grateful I’d vacuumed, mopped and cleaned over the weekend) and raced around the house wiping down counters, making beds and picking up Legos. They arrived, absolutely flipped out at how awesome my house was, were totally fine with the amount of rent I’m asking and said yes to the house. If I’d had had contracts ready they would have signed them. They even have a 5th roommate to loop into their arrangement. This is huge, epic, perfect, exciting news for them. And this is huge, epic, perfect, exciting news for us. They even know the guys who are renting 2 doors down. All of them are current or former students at the medical school 5 blocks away.

 Let me back up again… Late last week I was surfing Craigslist and plugged in a search term for my favorite neighborhood. There’s *never* anything in this neighborhood. Most of the houses are huge and 300k or more and the smaller rentals are hard to come by because they get snatched up and people camp in them forever. But there was a new listing. I clicked it. I blinked. I rubbed my eyes. I blinked again. I recognized that house.

I didn’t need to look at the address. I knew that house. It was immediately next door to the house of my dear friends, David and K.C. The same people who let me wail my eyes out on their sofa 6 weeks ago. The David who used to teach me guitar. The K.C. whose concert I took my kids to on Friday night. Where I sat and listened to this song, with my son on my lap and my daughter on my shoulder. I listened to this song and dropped tears onto their little heads.

 

May those who love is a stranger find in you generous friends. ~ K.C. Clifford

 

 

Filed Under: Music, People Tagged With: , , ,

Go listen to Ben Howard. You are welcome.

April 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment


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If I’ve listened to Every Kingdom by Ben Howard once in the last couple of months, I’ve listened to it 50 times. I discovered this, like lots of things I discover, from Maggie Mason of Mighty Girl. On my first listen I thought, “Ooooh…nice.” Then I started listening to it every hour. Then, about 6 weeks ago, I listened to it 5 times a day for a few days. I’m back down to 3x a week with this one but don’t see it leaving rotation anytime soon. 

Part of the appeal is that it has no connection to my history. I’ve been struggling with music things as of late because it seems every album in my library is somehow connected to that 
relationship. I know I’m being too sensitive and someday soon I can again enjoy all of Antifogmatic without having to skip the first track. I’ll be ecstatic when even the thought of listening to The Head and The Heart doesn’t make me queasy. There’s lots of Paul Simon to skip, along with Fruit Bats, Van Morrison, Bright Eyes and all sorts of others. We didn’t just share hearts, we shared songs and losing that is like losing him twice. It sucks. I digress.

The main part of the appeal, though, is that it’s just a damn good album. The lyrics are very well written, the music is rich and the whole album feels like a long, warm hug. Or a really good run. Or belly laughs with people who truly know each other. It’s a lot of emotions for me and none of them are sad. 

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