Though I don’t wake up with post-show ink-stamped hands that often anymore, my current temporary tattoo is a souvenir from Owen Pallett’s performance last night at Baltimore’s Metro Gallery. He’s touring his latest, Heartland, and since a distinctively employed violin is a personal weakness of mine, I had to see how this guy did it first hand. Nitsuh Abebe, who turned me on to Pallett’s work in the first place, already paid the new album his compliments and, well, what he said. Pallett creates the kind of music that encompasses so much detail and subtlety you can’t catch it all live and so I’m now spending a rainy afternoon pouring over it on record, but here’s a stripped down live version of a track I loved during last night’s set.
Pallett’s show was probably the only reason I wasn’t too jealous when, elsewhere, my well-traveled husband spent his evening in the company of Jónsi’s tour for Go. If their route doesn’t cut through your town, you can still take a taste here. Just try and stop yourself from pounding your heel on the floor under your desk while you type.
And okay, since we’re already playing six degrees of Nico Muhly, I’d be remiss if I wrapped this post without checking in on Sam Amidon’s latest awesomeness, I See the Sign.
All those who have been asking what’s good out there and getting that blank look from me these past few months? Yeah, the stereo is back on, and this is the set list.
Lately when I consume media online, I’ve noticed that I read a few graphs or watch a few minutes and then, in an increasingly frequent breach of self-control, I skip down to the comments to see what kind of discussion the piece generated. The comments can be pretty pointless, but in many places readers offer additional information, alternative viewpoints, etc. that fill out the topic at hand in some cool/useful way. Particularly if it’s something like a recipe, I can look for tips or corrections to the original. In an age that has decided it can largely do without fact checkers, I guess I’m also going there to check the public vote count on how trustworthy the reporting source is deemed to be. And such ready access to feedback has actually changed how I digest new information. Back in the days of paper and ink, I trusted what writers told me to a much higher degree because there was no peanut gallery (aside from whatever family member was in the room) to affirm or question the accuracy of what I had just read. There was certainly no Googling it.