no, i didn't fall off the wagon and eat at jack in the box.
i was just thinking about how much better i feel doing things now; getting out, occasionally taking a step back from work to talk to someone or have dinner with a friend or, say, go to a concert. or even to stop and write on here.
i realized i feel a bit like a jack-in-the-box most of the time; lots of contained, potential energy always ready to explode, but needing someone or something else to turn the crank, to provide the impetus, for me to be able to explode that energy out into the outside world. otherwise, i just keep bouncing the energy around in my little box and i end up repeating myself...to myself.
so in that way, even for me to be expressive in my most insular way(s), i still need other people to help in some capacity. that's humbling, but also great. it's the difference between stargazing on a clear winter night and stargazing during a thunderstorm during the day.
hmm...pizza time.
Nov 6, 2008
mason jennings - knitting factory - 2008-11-05
mason rocked the shit out of the knitting factory tonight. he's one of my favorite songwriters, but he's (in my mind) notorious for putting on technically proficient but emotionally lackluster live shows that essentially recreate the album tracks exactly as they are on the album. he didn't deviate much from any of these things tonight, but since it had been almost 5 years since i'd seen him live (4th time total), and he'd put out three albums since then, and the show was in a nearly empty knitting factory in spokane AND it was only 12 bucks...the awesome more than outweighed the slightly-textbookiness.
i have no idea what the order of the setlist was (i brought a notepad to write it down, but then i decided actually getting engaged in the show and caring about shit was more important. yeah, i know, shame on me. also, i was for the most part about 6-10 feet away from mason and his mic stand the entire show, so it felt a bit like a waste to play too much with other toys while he was basically singing right into my face. regardless, i'm going to take a guess at the songs that were played:
nothing
butterfly*
california, pt. 2
darkness between fireflies (with weird baroque-style picking solo)
birds flying away*
living in the moment*
sorry signs* (really good)
adrian (oh shit)
crown* (roof came off, everybody jumping around)
ulysses*
be here now*
jackson square*
never knew your name* > jam/chant thing > going back to new orleans* (wow)
i love you and buddha too*
fighter girl*
your new man*
memphis tennessee (opening song)
how deep is that river
soldier boy*
perfect lover*
in your city
new song 1
new song 2
*played with band and/or zach gill; everything else solo acoustic/piano
so. first. the show was alternating solo/band. alternating in the sense that they switched a few times. it was interesting, and i actually mean that in a positive way. i had sort of wanted to see a rock-type set, and wasn't too excited to hear mason alone for 2 hours; at the same time, once the band came out it was honestly really weird for me to adjust to the fact that brian mcleod and chris morrissey weren't there anymore because they were such an integral part of the mason jennings band back in the day. i wanted to dislike these guys but they were solid. the bass player didn't have much to do (when does a mason band bass player have anything to do?) but adam topol and zach gill (both jack johnson band vets and great musicians) were excellent replacements, even if i still wished i could see brian and chris play again. or even rob skoro. anyway.
zach gill was a fucking incredible opener. he alternated between playing blues piano, a ukelele, a combination accordion/bass drum synth-pedal thing, and rapping with the crowd. he was an amazing performer, and even if i didn't necessarily think his songs were the greatest, he had the crowd eating out of his hand after about 10 minutes. very funny and charismatic guy. i was very happy to see him come out with the band (the second and third times they came out to play with mason) to jam on keyboard.
mason was his usual self; in the pocket and imperturbable. he doesn't come out of the box too much, but his songs are so good that he doesn't really need to.
i loved hearing him play so many songs off of the first album. i loved getting to hear "i was drivin' faster through the appalachians..." again. took me back to, yes, driving through the appalachians myself hearing him sing "darkness between fireflies" for the first time on the way home from a road trip in 2001 one and thinking "who the fuck is this guy?"
other highlights:
- jamming ending to "butterfly"
- new song 1, a funny/mason-cheesy song about all the ways we could die (hit by a car, hit by an asteroid, worrying ourselves to death, etc.) and how that meant we should all love our lives and be nice to each other...song was preceded by a hilarious monologue about the supervolcano and how it was going to kill all of us (mason: "have you guys heard of the supervolcano?" crowd: "YEEEEEAH!!!!")
- new song 2, a flat-out amazing song about the environment and how we have to take care of the earth in order to take care of ourselves...preceded by a monologue about the ice caps melting and how he was talking way too much for one night about global catastrophes
- "your new man" with zach gill on accordion and harmony vocals
- "crown" with mason almost blowing the damn harmonica out
- "i love you..." with the crowd spontaneously singing along to help with the outro...very cool somehow to be in a room with a bunch of people all singing "oh, jesus, i love you, and i love buddha too" over and over while dancing with each other. that's why i love mason music.
- especially if you're close to the stage, mason is one of the few performers who has this odd habit of making really intense eye contact with you when he's singing. there was this awesome moment at the climax of "jackson square" (one of my favorites) when we were both singing (i guess i was sort of yelling) the part that goes "anybody who thinks that life is clear/has never seen a mirror/or been to jackson square" and we made eye contact and it was like looking at the fucking mona lisa...like i had just fallen into this crazy black hole or was looking right into the soul of some 1000 year old yogi or something. definitely completely intense and not even a "concert" moment, more like a spiritual, connecting sort of moment. i don't know if that sounds silly, but that's how it felt.
- also at one point a bunch of people up front were screaming for random semi-rare songs, and i yelled (to shut them up) "play whatever song you want to play!" and he laughed a bit at that.
- possibly the best moment was after the "never knew your name", which broke down into this crazy piano-plinking/chanting drum circle-type jam thing, the band went immediately into "back to new orleans", which featured mason singing vocals over a completely random arrhythmic piano line (similar to how wilco plays "via chicago" live) and then ending with the line "With a head that’s heavy and a heart that’s sore/Gonna swing my hammer, Gonna stop this war" at which everybody up front threw their hands up and started cheering, LOUD. i couldn't help thinking it was an intentional response to last night.
- solo acoustic "adrian". i love this song. i got to hear it in columbus in '03 too. definitely had a lump in my throat through the entire thing.
overall, great opener, great show, great atmosphere. the venue wasn't even close to being full, but from where i was, the people who were actually there seemed really into the show and mason and the band seemed to be having a great time. hopefully they'll come back.
i got a shirt at the merch table because i'm a sucker for spending money on good artists that, you know, actually goes to the artist and not the record company (thought i feel less bad about giving my CD money to brushfire records versus, say, universal). it's cool: the "in the ever" album art on the front (which i love) and the tour dates on the back. i'd picture-ificate it right now, but i'm wearing it and am tired. maybe tomorrow.
i have no idea what the order of the setlist was (i brought a notepad to write it down, but then i decided actually getting engaged in the show and caring about shit was more important. yeah, i know, shame on me. also, i was for the most part about 6-10 feet away from mason and his mic stand the entire show, so it felt a bit like a waste to play too much with other toys while he was basically singing right into my face. regardless, i'm going to take a guess at the songs that were played:
nothing
butterfly*
california, pt. 2
darkness between fireflies (with weird baroque-style picking solo)
birds flying away*
living in the moment*
sorry signs* (really good)
adrian (oh shit)
crown* (roof came off, everybody jumping around)
ulysses*
be here now*
jackson square*
never knew your name* > jam/chant thing > going back to new orleans* (wow)
i love you and buddha too*
fighter girl*
your new man*
memphis tennessee (opening song)
how deep is that river
soldier boy*
perfect lover*
in your city
new song 1
new song 2
*played with band and/or zach gill; everything else solo acoustic/piano
so. first. the show was alternating solo/band. alternating in the sense that they switched a few times. it was interesting, and i actually mean that in a positive way. i had sort of wanted to see a rock-type set, and wasn't too excited to hear mason alone for 2 hours; at the same time, once the band came out it was honestly really weird for me to adjust to the fact that brian mcleod and chris morrissey weren't there anymore because they were such an integral part of the mason jennings band back in the day. i wanted to dislike these guys but they were solid. the bass player didn't have much to do (when does a mason band bass player have anything to do?) but adam topol and zach gill (both jack johnson band vets and great musicians) were excellent replacements, even if i still wished i could see brian and chris play again. or even rob skoro. anyway.
zach gill was a fucking incredible opener. he alternated between playing blues piano, a ukelele, a combination accordion/bass drum synth-pedal thing, and rapping with the crowd. he was an amazing performer, and even if i didn't necessarily think his songs were the greatest, he had the crowd eating out of his hand after about 10 minutes. very funny and charismatic guy. i was very happy to see him come out with the band (the second and third times they came out to play with mason) to jam on keyboard.
mason was his usual self; in the pocket and imperturbable. he doesn't come out of the box too much, but his songs are so good that he doesn't really need to.
i loved hearing him play so many songs off of the first album. i loved getting to hear "i was drivin' faster through the appalachians..." again. took me back to, yes, driving through the appalachians myself hearing him sing "darkness between fireflies" for the first time on the way home from a road trip in 2001 one and thinking "who the fuck is this guy?"
other highlights:
- jamming ending to "butterfly"
- new song 1, a funny/mason-cheesy song about all the ways we could die (hit by a car, hit by an asteroid, worrying ourselves to death, etc.) and how that meant we should all love our lives and be nice to each other...song was preceded by a hilarious monologue about the supervolcano and how it was going to kill all of us (mason: "have you guys heard of the supervolcano?" crowd: "YEEEEEAH!!!!")
- new song 2, a flat-out amazing song about the environment and how we have to take care of the earth in order to take care of ourselves...preceded by a monologue about the ice caps melting and how he was talking way too much for one night about global catastrophes
- "your new man" with zach gill on accordion and harmony vocals
- "crown" with mason almost blowing the damn harmonica out
- "i love you..." with the crowd spontaneously singing along to help with the outro...very cool somehow to be in a room with a bunch of people all singing "oh, jesus, i love you, and i love buddha too" over and over while dancing with each other. that's why i love mason music.
- especially if you're close to the stage, mason is one of the few performers who has this odd habit of making really intense eye contact with you when he's singing. there was this awesome moment at the climax of "jackson square" (one of my favorites) when we were both singing (i guess i was sort of yelling) the part that goes "anybody who thinks that life is clear/has never seen a mirror/or been to jackson square" and we made eye contact and it was like looking at the fucking mona lisa...like i had just fallen into this crazy black hole or was looking right into the soul of some 1000 year old yogi or something. definitely completely intense and not even a "concert" moment, more like a spiritual, connecting sort of moment. i don't know if that sounds silly, but that's how it felt.
- also at one point a bunch of people up front were screaming for random semi-rare songs, and i yelled (to shut them up) "play whatever song you want to play!" and he laughed a bit at that.
- possibly the best moment was after the "never knew your name", which broke down into this crazy piano-plinking/chanting drum circle-type jam thing, the band went immediately into "back to new orleans", which featured mason singing vocals over a completely random arrhythmic piano line (similar to how wilco plays "via chicago" live) and then ending with the line "With a head that’s heavy and a heart that’s sore/Gonna swing my hammer, Gonna stop this war" at which everybody up front threw their hands up and started cheering, LOUD. i couldn't help thinking it was an intentional response to last night.
- solo acoustic "adrian". i love this song. i got to hear it in columbus in '03 too. definitely had a lump in my throat through the entire thing.
overall, great opener, great show, great atmosphere. the venue wasn't even close to being full, but from where i was, the people who were actually there seemed really into the show and mason and the band seemed to be having a great time. hopefully they'll come back.
i got a shirt at the merch table because i'm a sucker for spending money on good artists that, you know, actually goes to the artist and not the record company (thought i feel less bad about giving my CD money to brushfire records versus, say, universal). it's cool: the "in the ever" album art on the front (which i love) and the tour dates on the back. i'd picture-ificate it right now, but i'm wearing it and am tired. maybe tomorrow.
space bubbles!
so after being basically high all day at work today as part of our lovely "beautification" process on campus, wherein they spray-sealed all the sidewalks around avery with a compound that essentially creates massive amounts of aerosolized silicon vapors (read: pretty fucking sure it's carcinogenic) and watching pedestrians walk by during the sealing process and then watching them minutes later stumbling around gagging and wiping their eyes (yeah, it's totally environmentally safe! good work, fuckers!), i came home and spent the rest of the evening trying to forget how many brain cells i'd probably killed just by being in the building with the trapped fumes all day (fortunately brain cell death makes forgetting easier).
then, ten thousand parenthetical ironic comments later, i was walking back from IGA when my vision started to work in small bubbles of wiggly light instead of, you know, the way your eyes are supposed to work. also, my eyes keep randomly watering up for minutes at a time now. and it's been about 45 minutes and i'm still hallucinating/seeing these watery blobs floating around constantly in the periphery of my sight field. i'd like to think it's unconnected to inhaling silicon fumes. but the odds are even. i think.
then, ten thousand parenthetical ironic comments later, i was walking back from IGA when my vision started to work in small bubbles of wiggly light instead of, you know, the way your eyes are supposed to work. also, my eyes keep randomly watering up for minutes at a time now. and it's been about 45 minutes and i'm still hallucinating/seeing these watery blobs floating around constantly in the periphery of my sight field. i'd like to think it's unconnected to inhaling silicon fumes. but the odds are even. i think.
PIZZA TIME! P-P-PIZZA TIME! P-PIZZA TIME!
so what the hell is up with frozen pizza in this town lately? this is one of my bizzaro pet peeves, so brace yourself.
why do pullman grocery stores constantly refuse to stock vegetarian options despite obvious demand? i'm going to use frozen pizza (obviously not the best example, but one that i have vast personal interest in) to make my point.
so. in the IGA freezer (and this complaint isn't IGA-specific, but again, an easy example) there are, say, six types of pizza. of these pizza types (brands), there are six or so "flavors" of each. there's the obvious (cheese, and pepperoni) and then four other random, specialized kinds. so, of these six "flavors" you start with the same amount of each: that is, say, 10 pizzas of each flavor, every week. in-fucking variably (and this is something i've been noticing now over almost FOUR YEARS) they will sell out of the cheese pizza OF EVERY BRAND within two or three days of restocking. by the end of the week, they will regularly have not sold out of ANY OF THE OTHER FLAVORS. yet, they not only refuse to respond by stocking more of the cheese flavor(s) (which people obviously buy more of), but lately various stores, including IGA, have started just not stocking cheese-only flavors at all for weeks a time, and stepping up their stocking of things like "meat trio" and "taco beef" pizzas...which constantly just DON'T SELL, compared to cheese-only options which consistently sell (and this isn't me making a vegetarian point, this is just pure economic logic). why the fuck do they do this? it makes no sense to me, and IS INFURIATING.
not to mention the fact that if i have a huge hankering for cheap pizza now i have to buy a pepperoni pizza and be really careful to pick off ALL the damn pepperoni slivers and tiny microscopic bits before cooking.
i'm so glad i took the time to bring blogging back down to what it was originally designed for: impotent, incoherent wailing about completely inconsequential bits of everyday life based on the assumption that other people will give some fucks.
why do pullman grocery stores constantly refuse to stock vegetarian options despite obvious demand? i'm going to use frozen pizza (obviously not the best example, but one that i have vast personal interest in) to make my point.
so. in the IGA freezer (and this complaint isn't IGA-specific, but again, an easy example) there are, say, six types of pizza. of these pizza types (brands), there are six or so "flavors" of each. there's the obvious (cheese, and pepperoni) and then four other random, specialized kinds. so, of these six "flavors" you start with the same amount of each: that is, say, 10 pizzas of each flavor, every week. in-fucking variably (and this is something i've been noticing now over almost FOUR YEARS) they will sell out of the cheese pizza OF EVERY BRAND within two or three days of restocking. by the end of the week, they will regularly have not sold out of ANY OF THE OTHER FLAVORS. yet, they not only refuse to respond by stocking more of the cheese flavor(s) (which people obviously buy more of), but lately various stores, including IGA, have started just not stocking cheese-only flavors at all for weeks a time, and stepping up their stocking of things like "meat trio" and "taco beef" pizzas...which constantly just DON'T SELL, compared to cheese-only options which consistently sell (and this isn't me making a vegetarian point, this is just pure economic logic). why the fuck do they do this? it makes no sense to me, and IS INFURIATING.
not to mention the fact that if i have a huge hankering for cheap pizza now i have to buy a pepperoni pizza and be really careful to pick off ALL the damn pepperoni slivers and tiny microscopic bits before cooking.
i'm so glad i took the time to bring blogging back down to what it was originally designed for: impotent, incoherent wailing about completely inconsequential bits of everyday life based on the assumption that other people will give some fucks.
i has a winter
it's winter. already. how do i know? well, two things:
1) even though we just turned the clock back like 2 days ago, it's already almost completely dark by 4:15pm.
2) i just had my first lonely/quiet/cold/eerie/sad/dark walk to dissmore's of the season. this gets to be a habit when the days get shorter, my stomach gets emptier, and the oppressiveness of the long pullman winter makes my cozy/cuddling urge grow to the point that it makes me sad and it starts effecting my sleep/my ability to keep myself from walking around outside in the middle of the night for no reason. i always get exceptionally fragile in some weird way by like december, to the point where i feel like if i got a papercut i would just bleed to death because my immune system would be like "aw, fuck it", or if i got my heart broken or something i would just dissolve like the alterego-character in the illusion of gaia for SNES, and drop through the floor and just disappear into some trans-dimensional basement.
i love winter, but it really intensifies the good and the bad for me. considering my tendency to insist that nothing matters in spite of all evidence, maybe it's a good thing.
1) even though we just turned the clock back like 2 days ago, it's already almost completely dark by 4:15pm.
2) i just had my first lonely/quiet/cold/eerie/sad/dark walk to dissmore's of the season. this gets to be a habit when the days get shorter, my stomach gets emptier, and the oppressiveness of the long pullman winter makes my cozy/cuddling urge grow to the point that it makes me sad and it starts effecting my sleep/my ability to keep myself from walking around outside in the middle of the night for no reason. i always get exceptionally fragile in some weird way by like december, to the point where i feel like if i got a papercut i would just bleed to death because my immune system would be like "aw, fuck it", or if i got my heart broken or something i would just dissolve like the alterego-character in the illusion of gaia for SNES, and drop through the floor and just disappear into some trans-dimensional basement.
i love winter, but it really intensifies the good and the bad for me. considering my tendency to insist that nothing matters in spite of all evidence, maybe it's a good thing.
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