Ha, one might say they are a major sponsor of this blog because they employ me during my day job. I just had to share some really cool news out of WinCraft that is timely to the largest single day sporting event; THE SUPER BOWL.
So this year WinCraft received the rights to make and to distribute collectible pins for the event. There will be pins in retail.
Watched this film which is such a warm four minutes in anyone's life. Why in the world would there be any judgmental people out there saying anything like this isn't just beautiful. Then the phone rang and I find out a co-worker's teenage son killed himself. Harsh reality that I'll probably never know the answer, but my guess is that he saw hopelessness and just couldn't face it anymore.
I love Mary and MN Original did a great segment on her though she is really a WISCONSIN original. Love the "Name the Polka" bit, I got them all. ;-)
She said that her bed room is a little cleaner now.
Remember tonight on Fox she is the voice Dylan on Golan the Insatiable, part of Animation Domination. I like this review calls it a Dark Calvin and Hobbes.
On Twitter I'm amazed how many profiles are Lady Mary... I just am overwhelmed... I just love one, though I'm understanding she's really Michelle Dockery.. HA.
So as I'm watching posts or tweets, I am taken back to my desire to wrap my arms around the women and dance. And of course why not to a waltz I wrote, and can sing in the quiet moments in the car on the way to work.
I do also read to much, and Michelle Dockery wishes she had a band... put me in Michelle, I'd love to be in a band with you. Playing music live is such a rush of emotion... I wouldn't sleep until really late for an old fart like me.
oh yes.. .these are the words and I rarely share me singing them because it takes one of those "pretty voices'
Graceful and grand is your beauty
Tender and soft is your white skin
I gaze into your deep dark eyes
To lose myself once again.
There but a moment when we met
You fashioned my heart
In your alchemy
Casted a spell to tear me apart.
You fashioned my heart
In your alchemy
Graceful and grand is your beauty
Tender and soft is your white skin
I gaze into your deep dark eyes
To lose myself once again.
A season must pass until we meet
You stay in my mind
Each night and day
To renew a love more replete
You stay in my mind
Each night and day
Graceful and grand is your beauty
Tender and soft is your white skin
I gaze into your deep dark eyes
To lose myself once again.
Yes! I said and tweeted after I read the article where Olivia Hallinan challenged Julian Fellows to write her into Downton Abbey. I too miss seeing her wrapped up in beautiful clothes with her hair pulled up, though by season two I believe the corsets were gone. Yes I've fallen in love with upbeat Laura in Lark Rise to Candleford, and thought she was excellent in her single show appearance in The Paradise.
So what to write, simple! We've had Thomas as the gay butler, we need a lesbian of the time to float through the series, and why not an English poet in the vein of Elsa Gidlow or Radclyffe Hall I don't mean to type cast but Olivia did play an awesome lesbian in Sugar Rush, (a series I'm through the first season on in YouTube).
So now the plot line, oh it has to be with Lady Rose MacClare, an adventure filled young lady that is prone to be on the rebellious side of the world. I'd say it wouldn't last and Elsa in reality heads off to New York before Season 4 has started, though Radclyffe Hall stayed in London dying fairly well honored for her writing. And Radclyffe loved a Blues singer for a while, and we know how Lady Rose loves her musicians!
Well my passion with the Downton Abbey series lead this yankee to find a way to watch with the UK season four. So now what to do? Well someone had recommended Lark Rise to Candleford. Great recommendation and it's all on YouTube in a few channels. And Olivia Hallinan easily has won my heart; yes blog readers..."Dave's in love again..."
When I saw a new video for Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell show up in the new uploads, I had to watch it. It's a wonderful display of harmonies in a duo format, and I love the smoothness of Amanda's fiddle playing. Then I read the comments, and one said it was a great cover of a Warren Zevon song. I've never been a huge fan of him, but mostly because I probably didn't give him many listens. Had to look it up... sharp contrast... love both the original and the cover.
In my thirst for music, I drink from many recordings and rarely buy the whole bottle. I dabble in Noisetrade, and normally repay artists for free downloads with a few purchased songs in iTunes. Maybe not the way they make a lot of money at this trade, but it's the way I spread the purchases around.
The next problem I have is that I restored my iTunes in February thus losing documentation of when I really purchased this CD. But thanks to FolkAlley.com putting it in their blog and the 3rd best of the year, I had substantiation!
My choice for the best is The Outside Track, Flash Company! Of course when I clicked on the their link I see it was released in September 2012! HA. While I love to document these accomplishments at the end of the year, I have truly have a disinterest of holding to dates anyway.
The Outside Track has five incredible musicians, and one outstanding lead vocalist in Norah Rendell. I have documented them before in this blog, with their intensity of sound, their unique covers of traditional music, and their choice in music. Alway innovative and never stale. Norah is no longer touring with them since she's had a baby, and I'll have a chance to host her for the third time in February 2014; but that did not sway my opinion of this cd.
I must be feeling a little Celtic today, because my 2nd choice was Gaelic Storm, The Boathouse; it has their great sound in a fine collection of traditional songs rather than their normal crafted songs. It is absolutely wonderful... and a cheap download from their website as I type this blog.
Finally I'll end with the 3rd FULL cd that had many many plays this year; The Great Escape by Barbara Jean. An absolutely tightly written and performed CD from a great new artist, Barbara Jean. She won the Songwriter contest at the Big Top Chautauqua and this CD demonstrates why. I think you should read this review.
Oh my these are songs and videos that really were part of my life during 2013, thus had to be documented and shared:
10) Brett Dennen - Come Back Kid is really from 2011 but I discovered it this year and the song had many plays in all sort of iMixes I put together through out the year.
9) Summerlea - Belle Starr cover of Fred Eaglesmith tune is another video that was uploaded in 2011 but Belle Starr with Kendel Carson really got traction this year. Must see them someday.
8) Annabelle Lee - Sarah Jarosz - ANOTHER 2011 video, but this video is just slightly underplayed and it's a great recording of another favorite.
7) Swimmer by Amanda Shires.. yep go figure another 2011 video but this one was my favorite when I started looking into her music. I found her in Noisetrade.com right before she released a new CD; be careful on those rocks girl.
6) Safe And Sound - Taylor Swift with the Civil Wars... Oh my Denise from The Paradise. Can't wait for the announcement of season three.
5) Lost at Sea with Nathan Calistro bass arrangement over SHEL's song. What an innovative and talented bass player.
4) Sun to Sun with Lindsay Lou and Joshua Rilko. I had a chance to host these two with Lindsay Lou and the Flatbelly's and this Kickstarter request kicked me over to contribute. Joshua is such a lucky guy to be married to the wonderful Lindsay Lou. I mentioned to them Lindsay's way she looks at Joshua reminds me of how Joy looks at John Paul in The Civil Wars sets.
3) McCreary's Pipes by Danny Schmidt... just love this story and the day after I hosted Danny and Carrie I told him that I would have loved to hear that song and that it sounded complex. He said it's just a whole bunch of D's. Danny is such a great songwriter.
2) Flesh & Bones by Barbara Jean with David Huckfelt on harmonies on this mysterious sounding piece. MN Original also did a great job with her song "The River." I had a chance to meet Barbara twice and in addition to the most stunning eyes you will see, she's a really nice person too. Her banjo is great texture to the songs, and she is a wonderful viola player but tends to use that instrument as a backup to other vocalists. David is part of the duo The Pines.
1) Like Minded Fool by SHEL. They could have easily had 5 of the top ten, but I had to pick one and this one is so lush of color and Eva's eyes pierce thru this, basically the emphasis on all their eyes with the lyrics, "Look with your eyes..." hits me in the soul.* Sarah does such a great job with the video editing and you wouldn't know that unless you've listened to them in concert; she should put a big tagline at the end. They had a goal to record a video for every songs and they must be over halfway there, waiting for Vinyl Memories, likely 2014 number one video.
*The lure of eyes in the top two is not very unusual, I've written about them a few times. HA.
You may know me as a person who loves music, and I DO! So what do you do when you get $30 for Christmas when you really don't need anything. You make sure it doesn't get sucked up into paying for the groceries, and go buy some music.
So with the wealth of top album lists of the year, I did some research:
Didn't find much at Paste that interested me, but I did note that Jason Isbell was at 11 and I was intrigued. Next up, American Songwriter had a great list of 50 and there was Jason Isbell at number ONE! First decision made, "Southeastern" Plus iTunes had it on sale for $7.99! This list had a ton of artists that made me stop and read the writeup, but at 33 Mark Knopfler showed up with "Privateering" and iTunes had the 20 song cd for $11.99. I'm in, and I've never been disappointed with anything Mark has recorded, and it's the first one I'm listening to:
Of course if you adding with me I have $10 to go. Well I went to Spin to be surprised The Civil Wars, "The one that got away"was considered a COUNTRY recording, and that and it made an AP list I had to finally own maybe the last CD Joy and John Paul will put out. Again iTunes had for only $7.99.... I just might have to go back to the lists and find a song or two. Until the next post I have a lot of music to listen to!
My top 10 covers of 2013*, oh my I love covers, including having bought Lissa Schneckenburger's CD called Covers, and the Tribute to John Denver, Music is You! They really could have filled the entire top ten, but that would have been boring. So what did the year hold? An incredible cover of Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore, and my treat was hearing it live too... sounded a lot like this:
I of course should share the list:
Oh my there are 11... we'll eleven is better and louder than 10 and the last one you will not find anywhere because it was recorded live during our house concert. A country tinged version with 3 part harmonies of the Beyonce's hit.
A few of these are covers of traditional songs like Tom Waits' cover of Shenadoah that I got off of a Noisetrade mix, or join the Dala Girls newsletter and get Red is the Rose, but if you spend $.99 on any song the one I think is the best is Nobody Knows.... It sure doesn't sound like this:
* Now anyone who knows my 2013 criteria is if I downloaded or bought it this year... I despise annual lists that forget about "LAST YEAR's" music like it has no value anymore to be discovered.
I found this link through Lake Street Dive's Facebook page... it includes Elephant Revival a band that my son recommended to me. I like when a list includes free music.
Snow falling, I look down to see this Lady Olivia sleeping under the tree and the first two lines were written. On a day when we reflected on a Blue Christmas at church, the feeling of peace among friends was strong. Thus I shouldn't be surprised that I composed my first Christmas song.
I thought oh now I know why she takes my breathe away, it's the Hepburn inside. I did find this picture, don't you think I'm right?
Of course that reminded me of the time I sat down from lunch and a stranger who I never saw again sat down in front of me and captured that same feeling.
She walked slowly by the pieces of the past Scarf wrapped up to her short-cropped hair Somewhat out of place with Hepburn flair Stubbornly, She’s stuck with a style that lasts.
He pictured her in front of bustling Paris street, Much easier to finish the plot without any words And on cue the music switched to jig on a dulcimer He needed to leave and folded up his vision complete.
There you go, strangers at noon and never love. He looked back and she was gone from her chair Chuckled to himself, “was it real or just a dare” The devil had dialed up one that would fit like a glove.
I know enough about Burning Man events to know that they bring out the most avant garde risk taking artists of our world. Display art and burn it and tear it down. Missy's song is nominated for something maybe a Grammy... all I can tell you is you should watch this and buy the song like I did.... it has her normal passion. The portion below is the "About" from the video:
Inspired by her experience at Burning Man and by the movie Spark: A Burning Man Story, Australian singer & songwriter Missy Higgins wrote and performed this original song for the movie. This is not a music video! It is an unedited clip from the movie.
Spark is an independent film about the story and aspirations behind Burning Man as the event faces new challenges and growth. It premiered at SXSW 2013 and in theaters in August. Spark now is available on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/spa...
This is a great video on one of my most favorite Edgar Winter song growing up. Love the introduction, and oh how I love YouTube that I could search this and find a wonderful video and sound quality.
For those who are Blue during Christmas.. please listen to this song, it might help.
Of course I did quick video back this summer... sound quality isn't my best, but I think at least I'm singing in key.
