July 2 - Courtney Barnett, "Avant Gardener"

It's an interesting experience to listen to the epic Australian accent on this lady. Perhaps you'll even be little uncomfortable for the first listen, like I was: part of me thinking "holy shit, is she even allowed to do that?" and part of me being like "fuck yeah this chick is just totally and unapologetically being herself".

I wasn't sure I liked her at all until suddenly she was all I wanted to listen to. I actually came across her through her amazing NPR Tiny Desk performance (this is where I get all my new musical loves lately). Courtney Barnett appears to be taking America on and winning in all the ways that it counts, and I fully support that.

Her songwriting is on another level all together. There are so many gems worthy of quotation I almost hesitate to choose one:

"Halfway down High Street, Andy looks ambivalent
He’s probably wondering what I’m doing getting in an ambulance
The paramedic thinks I’m clever cos I play guitar
I think she’s clever cos she stops people dying"

Each song is a story (I completely and absolutely advocate buying her album, The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas - get it here), carefully crafted in a way that sounds slightly familiar, like a friend telling you a story about something that happened to them on the way to the party.

She's a poet and a master, and I bow down.


Wondering what I'm up to? Here's the 'why'.

July 1 - Jen Cloher and Mia Dyson, "Save Me"

Besides the super cute haloumi joke at the beginning of this clip, the song itself is beautiful.

"Save me from what I want" is a refrain that could possibly be my life, and I don't doubt many of you might feel the same way. It's tough to want things that you know you shouldn't want, whether it's haloumi or bad news lovers. Those men that never text you back, you know the ones?

I love women vocalists with deeper voices - they seem to ground a song in something a bit more earthy and solid, making their words instantly grittier and more likely to resonate somewhere in my soul.

I came across Jen Cloher a lifetime ago, when it was summer and I was breaking free of an abusive relationship. I drank beer and sat on my tiny balcony while she sang me love songs and other songs, smelling the city in big gulps to try and drown out my apprehension. Her songs are simple; the chords are ones that even I could play. Her voice is strong, yes, but it's also a bit about the way she strums a guitar with such certainty.

"We were made for ecstasy, we were made for pain. We were made to risk our love and find our way again."



Wondering what I'm up to? Here's the 'why'.

secret: the wistfulness that comes with illness

For some reason, whenever I've been sick a few days I start thinking about doing all the things I want to do that I haven't done for ages. 

Today I really want to play some guitar and sing a little. But I have a whopping great head cold. And I haven't played for so long that my calluses are gone and my memory has rusted.

I'd like to learn some new songs, or maybe even write a few. Build up those calluses in time for summer, and travel the country with a guitar and a ukulele and some good company, a bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey, in my little van and some sand in my shoes.

I'd be playing "Young Man in America" by Anais Mitchell.

treasure: music

not to be too dramatic or anything, but uh, without music i would die.

i'm so in love with my july playlist, i don't want to let it go. i'm sad it's august, and it's time for a new playlist. because i love love love it. anyway, i guess discovering new stuff is what keeps me happy. i want to make some more music of my own.

my all time best music experience lately was getting drunk with nicole and sitting on our balcony, singing harmonies for 'space they cannot touch' by kate miller heidke. the first time i ever saw her play that song was years and years ago, before she was on the radio. she played at woodford folk festival in 2003, and i was in love (foolishly as he turned out to be a crazy person) and blissfully happy in the ridiculous queensland tropical summer, sitting on a mountainside, sweating from everywhere, gloriously uncaring of every crappy thing in the world for the pure joy of sitting with my bare feet in the grass, with a teeny breeze, listening to a chick with an amazing voice.

the point of it all is, music listening is the one thing that i am always happy to do. whatever mood, wherever i am. it makes everything better, even if it makes you feel worse, for the enhancement of melancholy ... i like a little melancholy now and then (i hope i am spelling it right).

i am glad i can play guitar. i sang a song for nicole and she liked it. so now i feel brave. maybe soon i will record some things.

i like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane

... is my aeroplane