an amazing song played in a UK bookshoppe…that’s bookstore with two p’s and an e…

“white blank page”
mumford & sons

fortunately for me, i live in the future and youtube is replete with shaky-cam-style-video-coverage. as promised, the band played ‘sisters of the red death‘ in it’s entirety followed by an hour-long encore of favorites.

the seattle PI had an article regarding all the controversy surrounding the reunion show—specifically the absence of founding VR member Erik Chapman.

when asked about the lineup for the reunion show lead singer/frontman zach davidson said:

“The thing with Vendetta Red — it was, kinda like whoever I could get to play with me at the time,” he says. “Throughout the years, some people stuck around for longer than others, and I did it until it stopped being fun. And all I know is that it’s fun right now.”

notably for those of us from bakersfield, ca the absence of VR drummer, joseph childres. a quick google search reveals that we’ve lost joseph to christianity and the xtian music scene…fingers crossed we get him back soon.

here are a few highlight clips from saturday’s show from some rad dude who lives in georgia and made the flight to seattle for the show…you’re a better man than me, brother.

opera music played as the band made their way to the stage and played track one: ‘vendetta red cried rape on their date with destiny’

‘a joyless euphoria’

classic VR from 2002 with the ‘original’ bandmates playing “seconds away” into their mainstream hit “shatterday”

the show will be the first in 5 years for the band who will be playing ‘sisters of the red death‘ in its entirety.

if you’ve stumbled upon this post and you’re in the seattle area, consider yourself doubly-blessed and do not miss this show.

those of us land-locked in southern california will be anxiously awaiting your handheld-youtube-video-coverage of the show…

You dropped the paper in the water…and it all begins to bloom.”

–”Old Soul Song” Bright Eyes

folk revisited.

Antony Hegarty’s voice is simultaneously cool & haunting without feeling forced or contrived. i’ve had this tune stuck in my head for days.

hope you dug it too.

once you’ve heard the stipe-infused-duet, the original track finds itself screaming demands for stipe’s baritone influence.

enjoy “hands down” by dashboard confessional featuring michael stipe (track available on iTunes):

all of this being said, no one can question Chris Carrabba’s ability, inspiration or command. compare, contrast and enjoy:

p&l

here’s a great video featuring Billy Preston aka The Fifth Beatle (may he rest in peace) sitting in on the studio recording of “get back“.

billy preston sat in and contributed keyboard tracks for the White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be; he was one of george harrison’s best friends and contributed so much of what we love about these records. if none of this beatles talk rings a bell, billy wrote/composed “you are so beautiful (to me)” which joe cocker made famous.

billy preston IS “the 5th beatle” and frankly, Ringo needs to watch his back b/c 4th place is up for grabs.

p.s. god-damn-fucking-yoko

everyone on campus was pissed to have to be back to work after the holidays; i tried my best to swim out past the breakers.

tonight i’m relaxing and downloading hundreds of photos from my vacation and of course interacting with you, my little snowflakes.

tonight’s soundtrack is dj minty fresh beat’s jaydiohead mashup of Radiohead & Jay-Z. if you’ve been around 1LS since the early days, then you’ll remember how much i loved “the grey album”.

you can download the whole deal right about here.

you’re going to dig this track:

[See post to listen to audio]

personally, i’m digging on “crossed out name” but your mileage my vary. here’s classic ryan adams courtesy of youtube. i think this is my favorite ryanadam’s performance and keeps me squeaking on my harmonica in attempts to duplicate his sound. so far, my harmonica skills are slightly better than FAIL but not quite up to being just “suck”.

in unrelated news, today i helped teach a 4hour lab to first-year med students. the topic was blood histology and it was exhausting. to compound the monotony of teaching blood histo was the fact that the class was divided into 2 sections which meant teaching it once and then repeating it 120mins later. this effect was also compounded by the fact that the class was broken up into 12 small groups per lab period.

by the end of the day, i felt like i had repeated myself 1000x and caught a glimpse of what it must be like to give a political stump speech and hit the same talking point ad nauseam. I guess the only difference was that everything I said was true…everytime I said it.