Fitz and the Tantrums and a Saturday Night

Fitz and Tantrums played the Music Farm on Saturday evening, and I was there with my vodka-tonic and strappy heels. Both efforts were worth the outing.

Walking in, there was already a band playing. Large drums, great musicality, and suddenly, I was listening more to The Royal Teeth than I was wondering who this was. They were mesmerizing. They were young, They interacted with the crowd. They sounded vaguely like someone I'd heard before, but of course, I hadn't. But that was OK. The hook was already set. I liked them.

But when ZZ Ward hit the stage, I quit making small talk. I quit worrying about people cutting in front of me on the way to the bathroom. She was blues in the backroom, energy, tight lyrics, but an old soul.

ZZ Ward playing The Music Farm. Photo by Holly Thorpe

I've added her to my playlist -- in fact, she's playing right now as I write this. She is my new personal theme music. Don't act like you don't know what that is. You know that soundtrack you have in your head that plays as the movie that is your life plays? Yep. That's the one.

But finally, the crowd favorite came on. Fitz and the Tantrums took the stage, and the capacity crowd was ecstatic. People around me knew every lyric to every song. They held their hands up; they waved their beer bottles in the sky; they cheered at every ending.

The band had just come from Bonnaroo, straight from actually, and while they were musically on their game, there wasn't a lot of small talk, but everything sounded like studio quality -- or better. They are not a movement, or a scene, or anything else. They play music, and lots of people liked their music.

Their sounds is at once modern and retro, and beyond just their hit "Moneygrabber." It's out of space and time, really, the sound of Saturday night when the moon is high and you're ready to leave the house. There is a chemistry there, a promise of something more, something you can't help but notice. It may be shouting or it may be kissing, but there's really not that much difference between them. It was Saturday night after all.

Music for Writing

I have had a lot of people ask me about my music collection. Or lack thereof. Or just in general, when something is blaring from my phone or computer or -- yep, even boombox -- "What is this?"

Well, you can blame writing.

There was a time when I listened to Dave Matthews, Paula Abdul, and basically anything on Kiss 102 in Charlotte. There was the same time when I was getting those cds for 1 penny (remember that?) and I checked Dr. John and Enya and even Bjork.

Fast forward a few years: I was working on a huge, semester-long writing project in my first semester of grad school, and I discovered writing to music. I had done that before. A bit. But for this project, I looped The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack. Has anyone heard this work by Peter Gabriel? Does it sound like literary criticism of The Great Gatsby to you? Well, me neither, but for some reason it did at the time. I can still see the color of the carpet of that computer lab when I hear it.

Maybe I've revealed too much, but let's keep going. I wrote a huge paper on Wordsworth and I remember playing "If I Had a Hammer and a Nail" by Simon and Garfunkel for hours on end. On repeat. It reminded me of a 19th century English fair day, for whatever that is worth. My new husband at the time eventually knocked on the office door and said, "Really? Again?" (Amazingly, that romance did not last.)

But mainly what I've learned over the years is that I need either music without words or words not in English. If I listen to too many things in English, I start typing the lyrics instead of what I need to be typing.

So what this sounds like in my day to day life is a lot of jazz, which I will ALWAYS love, and is, to me, the go-to writing music, or music with foreign language singing. You'll hear these often if you come to my abode. I've recently discovered recorded opera (I've as of yet not enjoyed live) and Fado. Oh Fado. You melt my heart.

The best tool ever for all of this is now Spotify. They have not paid me to say this -- I am just that obsessed. Discover. It's worth setting up an account.

A MAD opportunity

I was much more into The Little Princess than MAD Magazine when I was little, but I understand what a creative effect it's had on American culture for 50 years.

So, when I received a phone call from former editor Nick Meglin last week, I jumped at the chance to speak with him, despite the fact that he repeatedly asked for the last 4 digits of my social security number in order to verify my freelance writer status.

He's relocated to North Carolina, found great satisfaction in creating musical theater, and thinks that the Open Space Cafe Theatre in Greensboro is doing great things. He wanted to talk about it all, and I wanted to listen, and he taught me more about the nature of musical theater in our one conversation than all you that have tried to convince me how awesome Rent and Mama Mia! are over the years. Not that I don't love you for trying ... I just didn't get it til now.

His musical, "Tim and Scrooge," opens tonight in Greensboro. As of the moment, tickets are still available. And you don't have to provide your social security number, no matter what anybody says.

I love this Song!!!

Ooh -- the heady past days, when I first discovered the minor chords of Andrew Bird's violin, meandering in the background of a Squirrel Nut Zippers song. They were great, he was great, and I just could not get enough of where that music took me.

It was all deep 1930s nights where the stars were low in a field riding back down a dirt road from town. The smoke that clung to clothes after stepping out of a basement jazz club in 20s France. Faded beadboard paneling, and the smell of this morning's fried eggs still lingering near lunch in the back of the house kitchen where the windows were often open. And always root magic.

I'd forgotten that feeling until last week when, in the process of researching an article about the new band Screen Door Porch, I heard "Zemurray," a cut from their debut record, and remembered. It was right back there.

The full article is in today's Charleston Scene . The song is in my iTunes library. Take a listen.

Zemurray - Screen Door Porch

I'm not krackin' on Uncle Kracker

To me, Uncle Kracker's music is about shopping, possibly at Kohl's or when I am in the grocery and find myself humming something I don't even know I know while trying to decide between quinoa or just the basmati rice blend. Just because I don't willingly listen to his music doesn't mean others don't (whoa, check out that quadruple negative, Mrs. Nelson), so I was happy to have the chance to interview him.

He was calling from Allentown, PA when we chatted, and he was pleasant and well-intended during our interview. He also honestly tried to answer my questions and did not sound bored, even if he was. I thank him for that.

Here's the interview in today's Charleston Scene, complete with details about his upcoming date in Charleston.

Click here if you can't remember what he sings ...

Uncle Kracker

Music to My Ears

Please understand this juxtaposition: a busy Kohl's, filled with people searching for bonus buys, half-opened packages of boxer shorts strewn about the shelves where they once neatly sat stacked, the murmurings of two women deciding whether "She" would like a purse, a toddler's screech at not being able to touch something, and meanwhile, a Tony Bennett Christmas song brokenly looping on the intercom with its only interruptions the called codes to team members to "report to registers" and "scan sector C;" my little desk facing the wall in its spare bedroom, the light from the computer the only late-afternoon glow on a gloomy day, magazines stacked next to my right foot, and "Me and Mrs. Jones", "Cuban Blues" then Poncho Sanchez grooving his hit "Watermelon Man."

iTunes have been a great gift to my little desk, and as I'm nearing the end of my gift cards, I'm hoping for a couple more in my stocking this year. The genius button has also been a boom, and my "Writing Music" playlist is the better for it. Now my little desk has a soundtrack all its own, far from the maddening crowd.