On the Road, Again.

Over a month since a blog post? Something must be awry! Not that anyone reads this, but so many wonderful things have happened that I have hardly had time to collect my thoughts.

First, there was the holidays. The holidays, for me, is a reminder that there are some justifiable reasons to commit suicide. If it's not the stress of dealing with pent up emotional abuse from your childhood, it's the stress of dealing with on-going emotional abuse from your adulthood. Thanks the Lord Baby Jesus for whiskey and beer, even if it's the not-good kind.

Next, there was a move. No, wait: TWO moves. Or three. You can never be sure because the sky keeps on changing. And here I sit in the Windy City (that's what they call San Francisco, right?) and the wind is a-blowin'! I just returned from a short mini-tour with my friend's band. They dropped a new record and it's good enough to allow them to take a professional like me out on the road with them. I did all kinds of heavy lifting and guttural laughing and string tuning, and light mooning. The van had no heat and we were headed north! It was great to be back in Minneapolis for a day and see some old friends and my cuss of an ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's band. Wait, my ex's ex make him my...what? Who cares. I had a blast and got to hang out with a bunch of good old boys, a girl, and a sassy three-year-old.

Has anyone ever thrown you one of these: I can't remember the last time I fucked a super model? I can. BOOSH! But enough about my dreams...

Then there was the guitar, oh, Lordy, the guitar. I am super excited to have it, even if it's only for a limited time. If I can manage to save my dollars, it'll be my second next big purchase. I'm proud that Bilt has made a name for themselves and came out of Des Moines.

Things are really heating up! Kid Rock, Los Lonely Boys, some black guy and... was that Stallone?

Netflix can't keep me entertained.

New Video!

Eric & Magill "You Make It So Good" from Liam Mitchell on Vimeo.

You didn't see it here first, but this is the brand spankin' new video from Eric & Magill, who have done more awesome things in the past year than I have this century. I was inspired by the kid in this video and used him as a model for a couple of frames in the comic I'm drawing for a final project. This is my favorite kind of music video: the kind where the band isn't playing their instruments. This is even better because Eric and Ryan don't even make an appearance.

Alabama Shakes

This is probably one of the best bands I've come across recently. They released a 4-song ep earlier this year, marrying a great combination of delta blues, soul, and rock. I am eagerly anticipating a full length.

Oh, I Forgot

"The one that loves the most is at the mercy of the one that loves the least."

Also, Damien Jurado is working on a new record with what looks to be Richard Swift. I've got a good feeling about this!

Damien Jurado at National Freedom from Lance Alton Troxel on Vimeo.

Glory Days, You're All Out!

I generally don't like cover songs. It's one of those quirky things, that I don't really know how to explain. I'd like to say nobody should sing them ever, but I've heard too many good covers to be that extreme.

I think that a good cover should somehow capture the best parts of both the person/group covering it and the original. A good cover shouldn't sound exactly like the original, but it also shouldn't venture so far away that it bastardizes the original message either. Let's use Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" as an example of a great cover. His voice alone is enough to make his version magical, but the instrumentation is also wildly different. Buckley's electric guitar is a far cry from Cohen's original synths, drums, and choir.

Another cover that I would call one of the ballsier I've heard is Cush's version of Prince's "I Would Die 4 U". It takes Prince's classic Minneapolis Industrial Dance sound and turns it on its head by stripping it down to an Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? style spiritual with only an acoustic guitar, country organ, and a dusty voice for most of the song (the solo is banged out on a typewriter). The result is something almost unrecognizable from the original. I had a roommate that was a big Prince fan and not even he recognized it until after many, many listens.

Old Derek Brown posted this version of a Springsteen song today and, although my first reaction was that he was trespassing on sacred ground, I think it's a fine example of how to properly cover a song.

Speed Trials.

I don't remember this album getting very much play when it was released, but I think it's one of Jurado's better recent efforts; much stronger than St. Bartlett, in my opinion.