Julian Saporiti with Wes Langlois - “Jolena”

Here’s another one from the show at my place on Monday.  This was the first time I heard this somber waltz in its entirety, and it was sublime.  The lyrics are vivid.  The timbre of the hollow-body, you can feel it in your chest. 

Jolena, Jolena, Belle of the West,
Heart like a paper-doll torn in her chest;
Mouth like a cannon-ball, brutal at best;
Jolena, Jolena, my beautiful mess…

Drove out to ‘sisco to settle the debt.
Raised by the wicked, we weren’t wicked yet.
Going 60 on 20 killing 10 cigarettes,
Talking black Irish sorrow, singing blue-eyed regret.

Thanks for this one, Jules.  I’ll listen to this on rainy nights, like tonight.

This picture of Jules isn’t really right for the song, but it’s great.

Passion Pit - “Let Your Love Grow Tall”

I know I just posted something from these guys yesterday, but I realized that this is the sweet song from them that I should have posted. This one rocks you on first listen the way “Rebellion (Lies),” “Seventeen Years,” “Gobbledigook,” and “Help, I’m Alive” also do.  (I know, high praise.)

I picked this one up from awesomeHaley.  Thank you.

This photo of them caught my eye because of the wallpaper/posters in the background.  Just last year I was walking down Houston street and took some photos of huge works of graffiti with this same character holding up one of those signs usually used for film shoots that says “life if beautiful.”

Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s - “As Tall As Cliffs”

this is a nice little stomp, though still a good one for going to bed—“darlin, i’m tired. i should be leavin…leavin.”  anyway, this version also reminds me of simon & garfunkel’s “cecelia,” which is also a stomp kind of about telling lies and trying to go to bed.  i immediately love them both.

this song comes from a double album Animal/Not Animal. apparently, the lead in this group, Richard Edwards, dropped a bomb on the label, Epic, and said, “if you don’t let us release the songs we want on this album, we’ll leak it to the internet” (oh, hell no).  so they compromised with this double release: Animal being the band’s picks, and Not Animal being the one the label really liked.

one blogger (linesthroughlines) had this to say:

While Not Animal begins (and for the most part continues) on the right path with the moody “A Children’s Crusade on Acid”, Animal! begins with the 6-minute “At the Carnival”, hinting at a more arduous journey ahead. Almost sadly, I think the “big-bad-record-label” got their half right. It flows and has legitimate commercial appeal (which I’m sure Epic is hoping for). Animal! is true to the band’s desires and has similar moments of moxy (closing with “As Tall As Cliffs” was brilliant), but ends up being the snoozer of the two.

since this is from the bad disc, i’m getting psyched for the whole thing.  Margot & the Nuclear So & So’s have sounded pretty consistent.