Heaven

Obsessed with this latest from The Walkmen.

Leonard

While I wait with baited breath for the new Fiona A album, I've had this track off Sharon Van Etten's Tramp on incessant repeat. You ever feel like a song was not only written for you, but with you, newly, every time you listen to it? Not only is the melody dreamy and timeless but the words find new meaning for me with every listen. Always the hallmark of an amazing track.

Well, well, hell
I am bad

Well, well, hell
I am bad at loving

Well, well, hell
I am bad at loving you

Dawes

This song touches on a complex subject way better than any Bible verse read at a wedding, Rachel McAdams movie, or V-Day card. Dawes helps its listener see love not as something which binds, or takes, or defines, or seduces, but an understanding and acceptance of another person without expectation.

Love is not convenient, it does not cease at your command
You might take and leave it,
but
Love is all I am.

Sweet Heart

Words cannot describe.

I don't know where I belong
I don't know where I went wrong
But I can write a song (Hey!)

I belong with you, you belong with me in my sweet heart
I belong with you, you belong with me in my sweet heart

Let's Make Like the 90s and Grunge

Grunge.

I'm changing the part of speech. Formerly a noun, now its verbage will include any action that implies plaid-wearing, dark gristly pianos and female voices both fragile and deeply terrifying. These two ladies take me back to the good ole days when some Fiona A's and Courtney L's were kicking ass in their combat boots while also wearing mesh tops and bubblegum-pink-lip-smackers a la Cher from Clueless. (Not to mention Portishead and Garbage were busy becoming some of the most innovative female-based alternative groups around.)

Since I've been without this blog so long it's been just that long since I've gotten to relish in late 90s nostalgia so indulge me a little with these two modern day bands rockin some barely-vintage styles I think we can all get on board with again:


The original version of this song never struck me as something with emotional depth but hearing it slowed down gives me chills.

Is it ever gonna be enough?



Similar but slightly less polished (in a fun way): Meg Myers. Brand new (and it shows) but I'm excited about what she'll do next, and not in a Lana-del-Ray kind of way but from a place of excitement reserved for raw musical emote-ing.

Back from the Dead

I don't know much about google, but I do know it's pretty much taken over the world. This is why about 9 months ago, when my college email system linked up with google chrome, or google + or whatever the hell it's called these days, I had to stop contemplating the art of the mix tape. No matter WHAT I tried it wouldn't let me sign into this thing, and every musical bone in my body cringed that I couldn't rant and rave my latest indie obsessions all over the internet anymore. This blog's absence forced me to create a tumblr (BLECH) which I still cannot, for the life of me, figure out. It did allow me to devote an entire space to poetry, all of which maybe two people read. Luckily someone thought it was okay, and I'll be reading a piece at SCU's literary arts exhibition next week.

But that's aside the fact. Five songs you need to hear:
1) Anna Sun - Walk The Moon
Try not to love this too much. Firecrackers in the east, my car parked south, your hands on my cheeks your shoulder in my mouth


2) Lorge - El Ten Eleven


3) Lay Your Cards Out - Polica
Channy Moon formerly of Roma di Luna. Broken up from her hubby/former bandmate and making magic because of it.Hypnotizing.


4) 40 Mark Strasse - The Shins
I've been obsessed with this album.


5) You're the Kind of Girl - Lee Fields
Joyful.

One Day

It's about that time in the summer when everything is filled with a hot recklessness; everything feels more urgent, at least to me. Simultaneously, lethargy is in the air and the things I most want to do include the kind of creative summer idleness usually reserved for children. (It's a shame to me that sidewalk chalk and laying on the floor first thing in the morning aren't considered nearly as socially acceptable at this age as they used to be...)

One of the biggest balancing acts I have tried to discern lately is how to grow up without losing my imagination. I know that sounds very peter-pan-syndrome to some of you but it genuinely terrifies me that gaining too much perspective on the realities of grown up existence will somehow poison the creative spark I've felt is one of the few small treasures no one can take away from me. From the time I could hold a pencil, I have been writing down the things I imagine. Ask anyone whose been forced to listen to my dreams (always fun, right?) and they will tell you that while in day to day life I can be practical, left to my own devices my subconscious mind over-flows with concepts, characters, and dreams I've always felt I had to share with the world. While the last few years have seen me attempt to garner more responsibility and take more control of my actions, that also means perhaps giving up some of the whimsy and idleness required for genuine creativity to flourish. I worry sometimes (big surprise) late at night that as I try to balance more and more things (as we are expected to do as the years go by), attempt to make my own money and finish school, I am losing sight of who I really am. All my life I've thought I'd NEVER stop writing, and in the last ten years I genuinely thought I'd never stop acting either. Now I only write for school it seems, which usually consists of defending my own writing, or writing about other people's writing, or reading what other people write about my writing, none of which are particularly fun. Meanwhile I try in spare moments to recapture any small semblance of unlimited imagination I used to possess as a child; I listen to music and see others who have fearlessly followed their dreams, read about women accomplishing more than they ever could before, and talk to friends who share the same artistic frustrations. Am I living my dream right now? No. But I'm living A dream right now, an incredibly wonderful life, a crazy beautiful life I'm blessed to have.Working and finishing school are just means to the eventual ends, they do not define me or the person I am working to become. And the fact that these creative yearnings haven't disappeared from my field of vision, the fact that they haunt me in my sleep, whisper to me late at night they will never leave as long as I remember them, gives me hope that one day they will manifest into something amazing which I can be genuinely proud of.