Photo #1:

Photo #2:

Can you spot the differences? I can give you some hints. One is full blooded Irish, the other is full blooded German. One is an incredible musician, one probably wishes he was an incredible musician. One is a folk guy, the other is a hippie guy. One has won an Oscar, the other has won my love forever.

THAT’S GLEN HANSARD (go right now and look up The Swell Season and the movie “Once.” they will change your LIFE) and the other is my poppa bear Daddy Hartje!!!! Aren’t they both adorable?

That was just a really quick copy and paste job I did there, so don’t judge me on my photoshop skills by that picture alone. There will probably be more of me showing off my skillz at a later day. But yeah, I just wanted to end this day with a funny little post featuring two of my favorite people in life (and can i say, when i met Glen Hansard, i fucking DIED. i don’t even remember what happened, i was actually kinda starstruck, which is something i really didn’t think i would ever be.)

Take care!

Once (2007, dir. John Carney) is about a street musician (The Guy, played by Glen Hansard) meeting a Czech immigrant (The Girl, played by Markéta Irglová). For an entire week, they write, rehearse, and record songs that reveal their unique love story.

I wanted to find out more about this film when the song “Falling Slowly” won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Song. After Glen Hansard made his speech, Markéta Irglová stepped up to the microphone to make her own speech, but was accidentally cut off by the orchestra. Host Jon Stewart brought her back onstage to deliver her speech:

Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we’re standing here tonight, the fact that we’re able to hold this, it’s just the proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don’t give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you.

A few weeks later I was wandering the mall when I saw the film on a shelf and I grabbed it.

Below is the video for “Falling Slowly.”

Jason Segal joined Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard (of The Swell Season) on stage to perform an original song he wrote. Hilarity and perfection ensue.

Now if only he’ll write and produce a full play of “Dracula’s Lament.” We can dream, can’t we?

FYI… PHOTOS of the SHOW at the BOTTOM

Like mostly everyone who is into The Swell Season (Glen Hansard of The Frames with Markéta Irglová), I got into them via the movie ONCE.  They came through Eugene after I had moved to town, but before I had gotten into them.  My brother made me watch it when we were home for my other brother’s wedding (July 2008), and I suppose I should thank him for that.   With The Swell Season’s original 2009 Strict Joy tour date press release, they didn’t have a Eugene date, but I’m glad they added one…

The opener was Doveman’s frontman Thomas Bartlett.  He played about a half of an hour of whispy piano tunes.  He seemed slightly shy, rarely looking towards the crowd… but maybe that’s just his style or how the piano was set up for him.  Due to his whispy vocals, he struck me as similar to Jeff Hanson or slimmer, beardless Sam Beam of Iron & Wine – but on piano.  He’s worked with The Frames, Swell Season, Antony & the Johnsons, Laurie Anderson, Arto Lindsay, The National, and Yoko Ono in the past – so that put him in my “he’s cool” book.  Songs he played included “Angel’s Share ” (about whisky), “The Burgundy Stain” (about wine), and a medley to the Footloose soundtrack.  The Footloose songs were fantastically mournful and sad.  Classic!

The show opened with Glen and Markéta coming out and crouching down in front of the center mic.  I wasn’t close enough to see if someone was playing the electronics / keyboards, but they started out with “Fallen From the Sky” – staying crouched down for the whole song.  Luckily that didn’t continue for the rest of the show (or my continued photos would have been lame).

After the initial song, the band came out.  The band was made up of the rest of The Frames, Glen’s band that was the precursor to Once and The Swell Season.  I’m very rapidly becoming a serious fan of Glen’s vocals… which I suppose means that I need to get The Frames’ back catalog.  Vocally Glen reminds me a lot of my buddy, Ashley Peacock.  Most of the set was Glen on vocals, but Markéta covered lead vocals for “If You Want Me,” “Fantasy Man,” and “I Have Loved You Wrong.”  As far as most powerful vocal performance… I’ll have to go with “Say It To Me Now,” where Glen played solo and off microphone.  A few songs later, Glen was killin’ his guitar on Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” and he shredded at least a couple of strings – luckily his roadie was on top of things and brought out a replacement guitar right away.

Setlist: just over 2 hours

• Fallen From The Sky
• Lies
• Low Rising
• In These Arms *a fave of the night*
• The Rain *a fave of the night*
• The Moon
• If You Want Me
• Fantasy Man
• Say It To Me Now (Glen solo, off mic) *a fave of the night*
• Leave
• Lay Me Down
• Astral Weeks [Van Morrison]
• The Blue Shoes (Colin solo violin song)
• I Have Loved You Wrong
• Once *a fave of the night*
• When Your Mind’s Made Up *a fave of the night*
• Encore: Falling Slowly *a fave of the night*
• High Hope (new song)
• High Horses
• Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy
• It All Falls Down (with Doveman)
• Red Chord [The Frames]
• The Parting Glass [The Clancy Brothers]

After leaving the venue, I bet everyone thought they got their money’s worth… a great show, great vocals by Glen & Markéta.  While I know this was a break-up record of sort, I’m glad that they’re still able to work together.  And while it may be a long shot, I hope they do continue to work together in the future.

many more pictures below

The “Low Rising” video directed by Sam Beam (from Iron & Wine):

The Swell Season’s new record, Strict Joy, is better than the Once soundtrack, if you ask me.  You can get it at Amazon below:

The Appropriate Linkage:

• The Swell Season’s Site
• The Swell Season on MySpace
• Jason Segel guesting with Swell Season (in L.A.) (youtube link)
• The Frames’ Site
• The Frames on MySpace
• Doveman’s Site
• Doveman on MySpace
• McDonald Theatre

Check out more tour dates below.

~Dan – np: Pearl Jam – Backspacer

THE SWELL SEASON & DOVEMAN PHOTOS
all pictures (cc) 2009 Daniel Temmesfeld,
you may use freely under a creative commons attribution

(click for larger)

Higher Resolution (8 pics)

Limited to 1200 pixels wide or tall (30 pics)

Tour Dates
1 – Milwaukee, Wisc. @ The Pabst
2 – Indianapolis, Ind. @ Clowes Memorial Hall
3 – Toronto, Ontario @ Massey Hall
4 – Montreal, Quebec @ L’Olympia de Montreal
6 – Boston, Mass. @ Berklee College of Music Performance Center
7 – Providence, R.I. @ Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
8 – Philadelphia, Pa. @ Merriam Theater
9 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
12 – New Orleans, La. @ House of Blues
13 – Houston, Texas @ Warehouse Live
14 – Dallas, Texas @ Palladium
15 – Austin, Texas @ Paramount Theatre
17 – Mesa, Ariz. @ Mesa Arts Center
18 – Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Wiltern
20 – San Francisco, Calif. @ The Paramount
22 – Seattle, Wash. @ The Paramount
23 – Eugene, OR @ McDonald Theatre
24 – Portland, Ore. @ Crystal Ballroom
25 – Vancouver, B.C. @ Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts
27 – Boise, Idaho @ Egyptian Theatre
28 – Salt Lake City, Utah @ Jeanne Wagner Theatre
29 – Denver, Colo. @ Ogden Theatre
30 – Kansas City, Mo. @ Uptown Theater

December 2009
3 – Chicago, Ill. @ Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University
4 – St. Louis, Mo. @ The Pageant
5 – Minneapolis, Minn. @ State Theatre

The Swell Season just played at the Paramount this evening. My insides are still spinning. This is the second concert I have seen this week and this one, hands down, blew the other one out of the water, and I love the other band, I’ve seen them at the Triple Door three years in a row! There was something so Authentic about these two. Glen told stories that gave context to many of his songs. They had us sing along. They met a girl singing on the streets of Seattle today and asked her to play at their concert tonight… so she did!!!  He honored the Clancy Brothers, The Frames (his band before the Swell Season), a woman in an elevator with a blue coat, the woman up in the third tier who “opened up” to him and the entire audience, and he honored us, his audience… each with a song. He played one of his songs as he stepped away from all the mics… and the place was silent, you could have heard a pin drop. The Van Morrison song he played, made me nearly float, it was so amazing. The man can play a guitar!!! He broke strings on 3 guitars before the song was over!!! He told stories of real people in a way that you knew he valued them, not just the story he was telling about them. All of that was bonus… because then, they played their sweet music…. and all was well within me. …and did I mention the 6-song encore???? There is something so nice about seeing someone be who they are instead of putting on a show.

Tonight The Swell Season starts kicks off their US tour with a performance in Seattle. The Swell Season are Glen Hansard (from the Irish band, The Frames) and Marketa Irglova (classically trained Czech pianist and vocalist), both are known for their performance in Once, the 2007 music film from Ireland. The two were a couple and now they’re not but they’re still making beautiful music together.

Falling Slowly is one of those tunes you’ll hum for hours after you’ve heard it, mainly because of the repetitive melody, but also because it’s one of those “I could’ve written that” type of tunes. Want to learn it? Scroll down a bit on this page – Mario Ajero has a podcast lesson for you.

There are few more satisfying things in life than discovering two separate (and disparate) awesome things can combine together to form a single, even more awesome thing.

For every peanut butter and bubblegum letdown, there is a Jason Segal and Swell Season moment of clarity.

The freakishly tall Judd Apatow running mate is no stranger to music, having played a drummer in beloved television series Freaks and Geeks before penning a vampire musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. With puppets!

Segal recently hopped on stage with the once Once couple and sang a song that really cuts through a lot of the bullshit in today’s society. Who knew being honest could be so sweet? This song was in fact so incredible the crowd began singing along to the chorus. Did I mention the chorus was Segal’s phone number?

Perhaps Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard could learn a little about song writing from their non-special effects altered friend.

And no, I haven’t called 315-329-6673 yet, but please come back to report your results if you do.

Vid after the jump.

Jason Segel joined the Swell Season onstage at a recent show to perform an original song of his. The results included the display of his actual phone number and lyrics claiming there were no special effects involved when he showed his manhood to the world in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Needless to say, hilarity.

Here’s a video from 2007 of The Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) performing “Lies” from the “Once” soundtrack:

Click here to watch actor Jason Segel join The Swell Season onstage for a special song a few days ago.

Jason Segel, o ator, está ficando cada vez mais conhecido. Nos últimos dois anos ele participou de Ligeiramente Grávidos, Ressaca de Amor e Eu te amo, cara, além de poder ser visto semanalmente na sitcom de sucesso How I Met Your Mother, atualmente em sua quinta temporada.

Já Jason Segel, o cantor, não aparece com muita frequência, mas ele já deu amostras de que leva algum jeito para a coisa – em Eu te amo, cara, faz dupla com Paul Rudd tocando sucessos do Rush, e em Ressaca de Amor seu personagem escreve e estrela o próprio musical. Além disso, Jason já cantou em nada menos que quatro episódios de HIMYM.

Um dos ‘hits’ de Marshall Eriksen em How I Met Your Mother

No último dia 18, o The Swell Season fez um show em Los Angeles, e Jason dividiu o palco com a dupla vencedora do Oscar, Glen Hansard e Marketá Irglová - a quem, após a frustração de não ser indicado à estatueta de Melhor Canção Original pelo mini-musical apresentado em Ressaca de Amor, Jason pediu conselhos sobre como compor belas canções. Marketá lhe disse que escrevesse com o coração, e que incluísse o máximo de informações pessoais que pudesse (talvez ela não tenha dito exatamente isso, mas…).

Jason Segel dá uma palhinha do Dracula Musical

E, assentado ao piano, ele cantou. Uma composição própria, com o máximo de informações pessoais possível (até demais!), como ele mesmo entregou. Além de esclarecer que em Ressaca do Amor não houve efeitos especiais na sua cena de nu frontal, falando abertamente sobre o tamanho de seu pênis, ele dá seu número de telefone. Anota aí: (315) 329-6673.

Segel se apresenta com o The Swell Season

Easily the best thing I’ve seen online all week, maybe all month! Further proving Jason Segel might be the coolest guy that ever lived. Watch him preform an original song with The Swell Season below:

Endlich ist das neue Video von The Swell Season da. Der Song heißt Low Rising und ist wie so ziemlich alles, was die Band aufgenommen hat, sehr schön.

]]> http://doctorbeatnik.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/busker/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:30:37 +0000 Steven Harris http://doctorbeatnik.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/busker/

When I was hitching around, I often ended up in strange towns needing to busk to earn myself enough to get some food and try to build up an emergency train fare fund. I’d head for the centre and start playing. When I was gigging with bands in those days I was keen to perform mostly original material but when you’re busking you do have to throw in a lot of songs that passers by might know. So I’d give them Beatles and Stones or Motown stuff, easy on the ear and hard to hate. The biggest single donation I ever received when I was busking was a twenty pound note. I was astonished but the person who’d put it in my guitar case did so casually and did not stop for thanks. Of course I’d regularly get foreign coins or buttons from jokers who had nothing better to do that day than try and wind up the musician. And sometimes there would be people clearly hanging around wondering whether I might get distracted by anything and offer them a chance to steal my earnings. No-one ever managed it but I saw the glint of theft in many a person’s eye out on the streets. Partly for that reason I would take out the bigger denomination coins every so often. This can also play a psychological role in how much people decide to donate: if they see you have only small coins they might take pity and put in something larger than they were intending to at first. But don’t get the impression that I was obsessed with how much people paid me for singing and playing to them. As far as I was concerned once I was caught up in the music I was as much playing for myself my own enjoyment as I was to earn cash. The way I see it, buskers should never demand money: we’re making music happen on the corner of a street, or down a subway, or wherever, but everyone is free to walk by, enjoy it or not, stick a few pennies in or not.

There was one occasion when I was convinced that four young lads with skateboards were going to try and pinch my hat and all the money inside. For several songs I tried to keep half an eye on them as well as making sure my hands were playing the right chords and saying “Thank you” if someone donated at a suitable moment in the song for me to take a breath. Eventually the lads came closer and I stared at tousle-haired kid at the front who looked like the ringleader. He was no more than twelve. “Hey,” he said. “Yes?” I asked, thinking this might be a diversionary tactic and trying to keep his mates in view too. “You’re really cool.” He beamed at me and the mates all nodded their agreement. For a split second my cynicism was still engaged and I still thought this might be a diversion. But as I looked into their faces I could see they actually meant it. “I want to learn the guitar,” said the one who’d spoken, “And I’ll do what you’re doing one day.” So I told them how privileged I felt, at times, being allowed to do this. I pointed out all the people walking by, in their suits and work clothes, off to grab a bite of lunch somewhere or rushing to the bank before they have to get back to the office. And here was I, bellowing and strumming in amongst them: the lucky bugger who can make his money from performing. They all nodded again, wide-eyed. And they asked for my autograph. Now I’ve been asked for autographs a fair few times in my musical career but I also find it a little odd. You want me to grab a ballpoint pen and scribble my name down on some slip of paper for you? Well, if it means something to them then who am I to deny them this most curious of pleasures? So I asked the first lad his name, and underneath it I wrote ‘Skate or Die’. The boys were even more in awe. “See,” said one to another, “He knows.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them I had no clue what it meant: I’d seen it on a friend’s T-shirt once.

I entered a Street Performer’s competition once, and had various time slots over two weeks to try and impress the secret judges. I did not expect to win as my competitors were serious entertainers who did fire-swallowing acts, or magic shows, or puppetry and whatever. But I took along my best friend Rob as well as a low, flat, wooden stool and a red velvety cloth. Covering the stool with the cloth made a tiny stage for me to perform on and Rob stood nearby juggling. Another mate came a couple of times too and did the ‘hatting’ (holding out a hat or other receptacle for people to put money into if they so wish). After a couple of okay but fairly tame sessions I started to try and spice things up. “Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen. I shall now perform ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis whilst lying on the floor as my assistant here juggles three, count them, three juggling balls above my head.” Or I would jump off my little stage mid-song and follow someone as they walked past, singing straight at them, occasionally going down on my knees in front of them. And, my personal favourite was another ‘Roll up, roll up’ trick. “Ladies, gentlemen, small children, stray dogs. I shall now attempt to leap over this stage and play an A minor chord at the same time. Stand back please, it’s a very dangerous stunt to try and we wouldn’t want anybody squashed by music.” Rob would make a drum roll sort of noise and I would jump over the stage and strum the appropriate chord. As I said, I never expected to win the competition and sure enough I didn’t. But I had a great time and learnt a few new tricks to incorporate into my more regular busking.The strangest place I have ever busked is Heathrow Airport, but more of that tomorrow.

Once

Música da Trilha sonora:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoSL_qayMCc

“Falling Slowly”
Escrita por Glen Hansard / Markéta Irglová
Interpretada por Glen Hansard / Markéta Irglová

Depois dos créditos, eles ficam juntos. Ela, tcheca, tímida e com uma voz angelical. Ele, irlandês, toca um violão – o mesmo do filme – que traz as marcas de sua descarga emocional quando canta. É ele que , com sua virtuosidade e bom-humor, está à frente de tudo. Não mais um casal, Glan Hansard e Marketa Irglova são agora o duo The Swell Season. E mostram que, fora da tela, também sabem nos entreter.

O duo, acompanhado de integrantes do The Frames, está em turnê divulgando seu segundo cd. Seguindo a linha das músicas de Once, mas com um som um pouco mais maduro, Strict Joy mostra que, o que pode parecer apenas um ato conveniente para suceder o filme, é, na verdade, um projeto a ser levado a sério.

Na passagem por Montreal, a noite contou também com músicas de Van Morrison, Bob Dylan e  Leonard Cohen. Veja alguns vídeos do show:

Primeira música do show (o gorrinho logo vai embora)

Lembrando seu papel de músico de rua, Hansard não precisa de microfone

Em homenagem à cidade, o dua canta Leonard Cohen

Descobrir dois músicos de talento como Glen Hansard e Marketa Irglova foi um achado que agradeço até hoje. Na cerimônia do Oscar 2007, a melhor canção original revelou  a melhor dupla de folk rock desde muito tempo, em um dos melhores filmes desse mesmo ano, onde  também atuaram, contando uma história de amor embalada pelas melodias mais belas e verdadeiras. Como eu disse, um achado.

E eis que agora, dois anos depois, The Swell Season, banda formada pelo irlandês Glen Hansard e pela tcheca Marketa Irglova, mais a colaboração de outros ótimos músicos de apoio, lança o álbum Strict Joy, caminhando pela mesma trilha do primeiro álbum, The Swell Season (2006).

As canções permanecem no mesmo nível do álbum anterior, com letras carregadas de melancolia, nostalgia e claro, doces palavras de amor. É o retrato da banda. Ao ouvir I Have Loved You Wrong, você percebe o que há de melhor em termos de harmonia e melodia. Low Rising lembra bastante When Your Mind’s Made Up, com um toque mais forte, assim como a bela Fantasy Man remete a If You Want Me. A mais agitada, Feeling The Pull, dá um toque mais ágil em um álbum marcado por músicas melódicas e  introspectivas. In These Arms é um exemplo delas.

Acredito na máxima que as mais belas canções precisam de apenas três acordes e a verdade. Isso é música na essência. E de verdade. O folk rock, com o álbum Strict Joy, está mais do que bem representado. E deve ser apreciado. Sem moderação nenhuma, afinal, com que frequência você encontra uma banda como The Swell Season?  Sem trocadilhos com Once, o filme que revelou essa dupla incrível, posso responder que, dependendo do caso, apenas uma vez!

Album Cover

The Swell Season

“Strict Joy”

October 2009; Anti Records

By Emily J Ramey

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are an exquisite pair.  The two gathered public acclaim with their glowing performance in 2007’s indie Irish film musical Once.  Now performing regularly and internationally as The Swell Season, Hansard and Irglova exude lyrical and melodic luminosity.

With their contrasting vocal presences, The Swell Season’s new album Strict Joy alternates between a singularly desperate tone, like dashing through an airport after a woman because you just can’t lose her again, and a sweeping, magnetic quality, like a current oh-so-gently drifting you farther and farther away from land.  Together, their music is religious in same way as that long stretch in Central Park where the trees line either side and their branches meet creating a canopy of glorious green filtered light, and sad like finishing your favorite book for the fourteenth time.

Glen Hansard is reminiscent of his fellow Irishman Damien Rice with his ragged, pleading, passionate vocals, and Czech native Marketa Irglova’s hushed, delicate voice harmonizes nobly with Hansard’s like fine wine and cheese or scotch and a foreign cigar.

A few of Strict Joy’s standout tracks are “Low Rising,” with its raw soulfulness and smooth acoustics; “Feeling the Pull,” a galloping melody made memorable by its imperfect urgency and blazing instrumentation; “In These Arms,” with its subtle and old-world romantic lyrics like, “I quit my rambling and came home,/because maybe I was born to hold you in these arms;” Irglova’s solo piece, “Fantasy Man,” lilting and poetic, with lyrics like, “In the station, you were standing/Not knowing what you want,/And the secrets that we’re defending/Have become our only bond;” the ballad “I Have Loved You Wrong,” natural and tender, heart-wrenching and quiet; and “Back Broke,” which is slightly haunting with its minor tones and poignant simplicity.

Hansard and Irglova once enchanted us with their sweet harmonies on “Falling Slowly,” crooning together about melancholy hope and lovely possibility.  I still know those words by heart: “Take this sinking boat and point it home;/We’ve still got time./Raise your hopeful voice; you have a choice/You’ll make it now.”  I am happy to report that The Swell Season is still acoustic emotion at its very best.  Glen and Mar, as their fans have affectionately come to call them, radiate warmth and smoldering artistic intellect.  Strict Joy is an ideal soundtrack for a November afternoon.  Just relax and let the current pull you under.

407 words

I’m not sure how many of you are fans of the Irish band The Frames, but… Back in 2005 their lead singer Glen Hansard was in Prague working with Marketa Irglova on a score for the film Beauty In Trouble. They ended up recording some tunes and released a self titled album, The Swell Season, in 06′. It’s been a couple of years and The Swell Season has released another album titled Strict Joy. I’ve been listening to it on and off for the past few weeks and it’s really growing on me. Their voices are amazing, it’s a relaxing and lyrically powerful album.

The Swell Season – Feeling the Pull

(This has already been posted on PopWreckoning, but I thought I’d post it here anyway to spread it around as much as possible.)

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It’s almost not fair that the U.S. never got to experience Glen Hansard before 2007’s “Once,” because as of 2009, he has a 15-year history of making great bluesy-folk Irish rock with his band The Frames. And his experience mixed with 21-year-old Czech songwriter Marketa Irglova’s unsullied piano and vocals, the two once again creative a dynamic and poignant album, Strict Joy, following their 2007 Oscar win for “Falling Slowly” from the film “Once.” On their second record together, The Swell Season has expanded their musical and emotional repertoire without going too far out of their original intention.

Strict Joy opens on a bluesy Van Morrison-like tune, “Low Rising,” which was an odd choice to open the album, as its somewhat repetitive melody doesn’t hit me with a strong sense of what the album is going to encompass. And to be honest, the rest of the album doesn’t sound a whole lot like “Low Rising.” It’s a cool instance of showing the breadth of Hansard and Irglova’s songwriting, but I would have embedded it in the record as a nice change up, and started the record on track number two, “Feeling the Pull,” as it sounds to me like a sunrise. Like waking up to a sunny day with frost on the windowsill. That shows more what the album is – joyful, but still with those cold moments.

“The Rain,” “Feeling the Pull,” “High Horses” and “The Verb” provide the upbeat core of Strict Joy, which is what makes it different than The Swell Season’s first effort in 2006. This album isn’t nearly as melancholy, although it does have its moments. Stand out-tracks include the choir-laden acoustic ballad “In These Arms,” “Fantasy Man” led by Irglova’s slow lilt, and the Frames-esque throwback “Paper Cup,” which features a great guitar solo that almost sounds like Spanish finger-picking and Hansard’s soulful rasp.

Strict Joy also features a diversity of instruments and mixing, with more strings, harmonica, and even some more high-tech mixing on “Two Tongues,” and an almost Celtic-folk vibe on “I Have Loved You Wrong.” Strict Joy shows how an unlikely pairing can come together in such a way that makes perfect sense. Hansard and Irglova don’t sound like a couple of people who just got together to make music, they sound like they’ve been making music together for much longer than you’d expect because of Irglova’s age. But that may be just a sign of the group’s musicianship and undeniable chemistry. Strict Joy isn’t quite as fresh as the Swell Season’s first effort back in 2006, which people forget preceded “Once,” but just as beautiful. I’d like to see where they go next, now that the songs aren’t as strongly engrained in our minds as the story of “Once,” whether it is fact or fiction.

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<3 Abby

Att summera Bob Dylans artisteri känns som en tämligen omöjlig uppgift. Hans produktivitet kan närmast liknas vid en värphönas och kultstatusen överskuggar alla samtida musikikoner. Todd Haynes spelfilm ”I’m Not There” från 2007 hyllades av en samstämmig kritikerkår, men att tro att den på något sätt skulle ge en djupare inblick i Dylans sinnevärld var att hoppas på för mycket. Trots strålande skådespelarinsatser – inte minst från Cate Blanchett – lyste den etablerade schablonbilden igenom allt för ofta.

Hur som helst är filmens tillhörande soundtrack det bästa coveralbumet som gjorts. Det finns ingen skiva som har spelats mer flitigt i min iPod det senaste halvåret.

Jim James och Calexico – Goin’ To Acapulco

Albumet på Spotify:

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to watch a movie more than once (in my lifetime), unless I really like it. Movies that I’ve actually watched and enjoyed multiple times include Good Will Hunting, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Lizzie McGuire Movie…you know, the classics. Then this one time, back over a winter break in college when all I had to do was lie on my couch at home and get yelled at for eating too many pretzels (as opposed to now, when I go home for winter break and get yelled at for eating too many pretzels AND using too much profanity on my blog), I rented a movie called Once. I probably intended to watch it with my mom, and she probably fell asleep reading a magazine four minutes into the credits. The next day, when everyone was “at work,” and I was, you know, “figuring out what I wanted to do with my life,” I watched Once. And then I watched it again. And then I watched it a third time, this time with actor commentary.

As someone who doesn’t like to watch movies more than once, this was HUGE. I mean I watched the thing three times in a row! And it’s sort of kind of a musical, which is even huger because I almost always hate musicals! I promptly emailed all of my friends and insisted that they see this movie immediately.

Long story short, I really love Once, and the movie made me love Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Tonight, I finally got to see them in concert, and they were spectacular, which is to say that both the performance and Glen’s beard were top notch. I mean, who doesn’t love a great ginger beard?

Exactly.

Anyway, tonight was lovely and I got to dress like a faux hipster (though SOME of my friends claim that maybe I looked like a full hipster, if one were to assume that my flowery J.Crew headband was ironic) and you guys should listen to this, because they played it well tonight:

To quote the Clancy Brothers, goodnight and joy be with you all.

[Posted by Mallory]