mp3: Head Home

Dear Midlake,

So I was having another existential crisis the other day. I was driving somewhere with my friend Emily and was listening to The Trials of Van Occupanther and she commented how this was like every other band that I listened to, a regurgitated version of some older band. She told me to go listen to Neal Young instead. Ummm…that guy is way too old. It made me ponder a lot of things in my life. I need to stop…my psyche is fragile.

Anyway, I like you’re record a whole lot. I recently moved home after living in Utah for quite a while. And while I think Phoenix was the official band of summer while I was there, I think Trials will be my official album of the end of my Washington summer. Plus “Head Home” encompasses two themes that are running through my life right now: 1) wanting to be home and 2) willing to take any job that anyone would be willing to give me. I also love how the beginning of “Young Bride” reminds me of a Zhang Yimou film. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I know that it is one of them.

Wow, that psyche really is fragile.

Thanks,

Rob

centersea

mp3: Wyoming

Dear JP,

Thanks for letting me record you the other night.  Its been a while since I had the chance to record some musical act that I wasn’t someway involved with, and the experience was so much fun and great.  Usually, I spend months sitting in front of a computer, pulling my hair out because I can’t get my bands recordings to sound all that great.  I think what I needed was to turn up the talent a little bit (I’m not saying that my bands are not talented) and let the music stand on its own, live.  Instead I try to make some Frankenstein creations out of inadequate equipment, and off-timing.

Regardless, I am glad that you are home, happy, and making wonderful music once again.

Peace out,

Rob

jp’s blog 

mp3: Late Blues

Dear Ida,

While checking out hot bands of recent I stumbled across the video for “Late Blues”. The song itself was pretty darn good, but more importantly it sent a wake up call to me reminding me of how great your band is. I think there was a time in my life post mission that I was obsessed with married bands. And I think for a good solid chunk of early 2001 all I listened to was your first three albums and low.

And to tell the truth the music wasn’t really helping me all that much. I was hopelessly single, and destined to remain that way for a while, and listening to your music was torture. The stuff is practically a soundtrack to kissing girls on the mouth! Yet I still kept listening to it — in hopes that someday my fortunes would change.

Ironically, my fortunes have changed, but listening to your music is still torture. In the best kind of way.

Rob

i know about you 

mp3:Non Violent Taekwondo Troopers

Dear Song Poets,

For years i searched for a way to get my hands on this cd. It has been like my own personal holy grail. you are geniuses. all of you.

i would encourage anyone who has never seen the documentary to buy it, and the soundtrack. I was going to post “blind man’s penis” but i don’t feel like the world is ready.

with so much admiration

nathaniel

jimmy carter says YES!

mp3: Borderline

Dear Sufjan,

I am sorry that I have been neglecting you as of late. I think there was a period of oversaturation — I mean, everything was about you. But this song is a reminder on a Sunday of why I shouldn’t forget you.

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day,

Rob

a brand new vcr

mp3: Central and Remote

Dear Grizzly Bear,

I love that feeling when some hipster pitchfork band turns out to be really wonderful. I’ve come to the point where I kick against that site a little bit — “Why is all this rap on the top 50 albums?” So when I heard you, and how your album Yellow House was towards the top I was like “Meh.”. But then I saw this (please watch it) and I was totally wrecked forever. I didn’t know it, but I wanted a clarinet and a melodica to be in every song that I ever heard again.

So those events and my subsequent listens of Yellow House have brought me to the point where I need to see you this Valentines Day. Lets meet in secret, up in Salt Lake, at Kilby court. I have no Valentine anywhere close, so I think it will work out. Maybe I will even bring you a heart shaped box of chocolates.

Rob

thank pitchfork for this

mp3:Broken World

Dear Black Heart Procession,

This weekend I spent a few days in the state of Utah, specifically in the city of Salt Lake. I enjoy visiting there. It reminds me that the last 5 years, though mighty turbulent at times, really hasn’t been all that bad. Even though I love Seattle and living here has been something I always knew i wanted to do, sometimes I think I might have jumped the gun and left Utah just a little early.

I can’t fix that now. I’m happy where I am and my life is in no need of any such shake up and while I can’t deny that there are people I left behind that i don’t care to ever see again, I also hope this song never applies to any of the people i saw this weekend as well as many I didn’t.

the one who has disappeared,

nathaniel t.

how many waiters?

mp3:Carrissa’s Weird

Dear Iron and Wine-

I’ve been thinking a lot about summer lately, and nothing says peaceful warm summer afternoon more than your music. Two other things i’ve been thinking about lately: Weird girls that i tend to have crushes on, and how i would kind of like to get a kitten. Do you have a song that adequately addresses these topics? Oh! You do!

Much Appreciated,

Nathaniel

warm fuzzies

mp3: Murderer

Dear Low,

How are you doing? I am deciding to write you in letter form rather than in person. I saw you in person recently, last saturday night in Park City, and I would have asked you these questions, but you know, they are kind of difficult to ask directly to your face.

Mainly: how are you doing? No really, how are you? Because I have been a fan for a few years now, and I have delighted in your music. It was beautiful, and most importantly, cryptic. I could spend hours sifting through lyrics, looking for gospel messages — “Two-step” is about marriage, “The Plan” is about just that. But now the messages have become mixed, and interviews in the media point directly to your sickness, and that sickness is evident on songs from your new album, Drums and Guns. the songs are about mostly death, and not really death in that kind of Eric Clapton way, but rather death with your own hands. And when you recently sang songs from the aforementioned album I felt that intensity, that desire to kill in your eyes.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all about you growing as an artist, and frankly I really like some of the things that you are doing with your music. But I still want to help in any way that I can. I think when we watched you on Saturday, we totally loved it, and yet we all wanted to help. I know happiness isn’t something that could be magically granted, but if I could I would. So good luck with this album — and lets just hope that the next one is a little more upbeat. Not for the sake of the music, but for your sake.

Love you guys, Rob

someone to do your dirty work

mp3: Windy

mp3: Chariot

Dear Page France,

Within 5 minutes of listening to your song “Windy”, I had to listen to it again. And again. It was a sucker punch coming out of left field: Sufjan without all of the overblown production. Ben Gibbard without the new, really lame lyrics, and his generous heaping of self-awareness. Just at the point when I thought that I had reached my limit on acoustic musicians trying to make it above the noise of Myspace musicians and You Tube kids doing covers, your chariot comes along to show me that there can still be magic found in folky strums.

Thank goodness.

Rob

when our eyes close we’re the same