Five musicians I have a crush on
1.Fiona Apple
2.Jeff Buckley
3.Emmylou Harris
4.Gary Lightbody
5.Jollie Holland

Went to see Snow Patrol last night at The Empty Bottle. Really good show. The thing is, the snow patrol record is overproduced, and I didn't think it was all that good until last night. The band was just Gary L. and another fella (nate) on guitars and then bass, drums and keyboards. The keyboards, however, were generally just on the piano voice, and didn't do anything crazy. Only twice were drum loops employed, and always tastefully. There's more than two instances of that on any given Reindeer Section record, so I can't complain. What was amazing was that even the songs that sound hurried or hackneyed on the record sparkled when it came down to the boys playing through them with vintage telecasters and heart. And sweat. And Amstel Light. To make matters even more impressive, Gary (who, God forgive me, I thought used protools on his voice before) is a better singer live than on the albums. Powerful and loud enough to outshine the instruments, but still lilting and pretty the whole time. Even on the little flitty notes at the end of...I forget which track. I'll fix that tomorrow. Or later. He either has golden vocal chords or they turned up his mic hella loud...or...something. It eludes me what.

The real reason I'm writing this is that it's Tuesday morning. The new Jolie Holland record, Escondida, comes out today. Who's Jolie Holland? You know, I'm glad you asked. The answer is, she's amazing. The reason behind the reason for the post is that tonight, in my excitment for her new record, I put on her old one that I got last fall, Catalpa. I think it'd been out for a while at that point, but the only reason I recognized it at B-Side was that she wrote this song I love, "The Littlest Birds." I got it, and I was...well, I was under-impressed. Except for the name-checking of Zora Neale Hurston and a wonderful second track, I put Catalpa on the shelf because it never commanded my attention. But, tonight, tonight...it was exactly what I needed.

I had been looking forward to the studio shine of Escondida for a while--the advance track, Old Fashioned Morphine, certainly commands your attention. I put off listening to a promo copy I scored on tha P2Pz, figuring it'd sound really good during my last week of classes (which is now). And also figuring I'd need some sort of new record to cheer me up from that. Well, now, here I sit, having not heard Escondida, save for the first 4 tracks (I'm bad at saving records for later these days). And I don't know. All of a sudden, I'm hoping there's a hell of a lot more hushed beauty and...well, unpolished-ness on that record.

The liner notes to Catalpa talked kind of unfittingly about the album. It was heady stuff, and there was even praise from a reviewer reprinted in the booklet. I got snotty about it because she called the rhythm of the first track a "cabalistic intersection" between two time signatures. I didn't agree, I think it's pretty much in 4/4. There was one thing I did like, though. I used to agree with Jolie's assessment of Catalpa that was written there, something like "this record weighs more in spirit than substance."

Well, damn it all...this is the big pain in my ass about rock criticism. I would've passed the record over if I had only heard it five times. But just because the sixth time I listened to it was a clear, cool spring night and all of a sudden, every bit of the spirit on the record started to vibrate around the substance like sympathetic strings I underestimated the damn thing. And now, the crush I started to get the first time I heard her sing "The Littlest Birds" is getting so big, I don't know that I'll get it down the elevator when I move out of here in a week. And I just might have to wait until June or so to let myself get into Escondida. There's no shame in taking your time.