Megan Hazen

Today i got an order from Amazon (and i have declared Amazon off limits to me until June). It contained three books, and one book of sheet music - Bach for beginners. I am totally excited about that book of sheet music. I love Bach.

The first piece is the minuet i was working on last fall. I have been sort of working through the Grade 1 book a friend lent me, but i admit to being a little uninspired by the piece selection. I am going to start spending my time working through some Bach. yay.

Last Monday night Josh and I (and Sheryl and Dan) went to see Andrew Bird at the Moore. It has been a really long time since we got to a concert (actually, honestly, probably since we saw Andrew Bird last summer at zoo tunes), so it was a real treat.

Josh and i are definitely old. We like venues that start the show on time, that have space (and maybe assigned seats), that have good engineers, and don't rely on volume to cover a host of sins. The thing is, i really do enjoy music, and i enjoy live music, so its great when we can get to a well produced show.

Andrew Bird is a really dynamic and entertaining performer. No matter what else you think, his shows are quite interesting and fun to watch. I think his music is pretty danged unique, too. And good. I enjoy his music, i enjoy the complexity and structure and erudition of it. I also enjoy his voice, and his lyrics. He has a four piece band in this show, which is two more pieces than we've seen with him in the past. As a result, the productions were much denser than what we normally hear. Sometimes that worked for me, sometimes it didn't.

The opening band was Loney, Dear (http://www.loneydear.com/) which was also a decent set. These guys are a lot less polished, but Emil Svanangen was pretty entertaining, and the band did some interesting things. Sheryl wasn't impressed by the recorded music she'd heard on line, but i think i'd like to give it a listen. I feel like the band is a little immatures in some ways, but, that doesn't mean they have nothing to offer.

It has made me think about how we need to get Madeleine to live shows. I think i might look into the tots symphony series for next year.

In other musical news, i picked up a windows machine at work. This means, among other things, that i can look at web sites that require flash. As a result i've been playing around with Pandora this week at work. It is quite entertaining, and i'm enjoying hearing what sort of music they come up with for me. (Synopsis of Pandora- you send it a seed (a band, song, album, whatever), and then they stream music that is somehow related to that seed. The software seems to be good at choosing music that is similar enough to the seed that it is largely appealing when i start with a seed of a band that i really like. It is not quite as good at supplying novel off-shoots and variations, so i expect it will get boring after a while. Still, when that happens, i can switch to straming KEXP, or whatever juke-box thing it is that Josh uses at work. (Also, Pandora does have an 'add more variety to this station' option that i haven't tried yet.)

In short, its been a really good musical week for me, and i'm enjoying it.

Last night we went to see The Wedding Present (http://www.westnet.com/weddoes/) perform at Neumos. It was worth every second, and any money, and then some. If you're unfamiliar with this band, you should check them out. Which you can do, conveniently, at KEXP streaming (http://www.kexp.org/streamarchive/archive_time.asp, 2/21 @ 3pm).

You know, i used to know html. I probably still could, but i can't be bothered. Sad. Aint it.

Anyway, they opened with Corduroy
(...I'll make you laugh, when you see this photograph
It's not from that day, I threw all those away
Its just some boy, probably dressed in corduroy
He grew up fast, but you've not changed at all...),
which is possibly my favorite song. I'm not entirely sure why, because it is not as connected with an event as Gazebo
(...I knew it was you from the minute
You strolled into the gazebo like you'd never been gone...),
nor lyrically meaningful as a host of others, but, there you go.
Partway through they played Suck
(...We've talked so long, suddenly it's Tuesday...), which is also in contention for favorite song, for much better reasons.

Also a couple of Cinerama songs (which just goes to show that the key here is neither tWP or Cinerama, but rather David Gedge), and a host of other stuff that i knew well, and a few i didn't. The concert was pretty tight - Gedge held the connection with the audience from when he stepped on stage until he stepped off, and the band worked well together. All in all, yay!

Neumos, it turns out, is a decent place to see a show. This is partly because there are good cheap eats near by (Frites, last night), as well as bars in case the noise of the opening bands is scary. But, its also just not completely nasty like some of the other Seattle venues. Sound quality last night was, well, it could have been better. But, we also could have given up our spots right next to the stage for something more front and center where the mix might have been better.