A great weekend
Had a great weekend in Madison. Good showing at Avols, where our crew picked up some nice art books for a great price. Drinks at State Street Brats, Mondays, and The Red Shed followed up by some macaroni and cheese pizza at Ian's made for the perfect weekend. Ah, Madison, we'll miss you.
Hope to have plenty of music to share with you this week. In the meantime, make sure you check out the Threadless sale with tees as low as $5.
Got plans Saturday night?
Got plans Saturday night? Live in or near Madison, Wisconsin? Why not join me at Avol's Bookstore on Gorham where I'll be listening to friend and author Brent Goodman read from his newest poetry collection, The Brother Swimming Beneath Me.
In addition to publishing The Brother Swimming Beneath Me, Brent is also the author of two chapbooks, Trees are the Slowest Rivers (Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press), and Wrong Horoscope (Thorngate Road), which won the Frank O'Hara Award in 1999. His work has been featured in Diagram, No Tell Motel, Court Green, Rattle, Poetry, Green Mountains Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Zone 3, among others.
You can learn more about Brent's work and the painstaking steps involved in working to publish a poetry manuscript at his website. You can also order his book via Paypal at the same site.
The Brother Swimming Beneath Me
is not dead yet, though the water
he moves through is green and dark,
and the shadow from the bluff presses down
like a hand over us both, and the eelgrass
must catch lightly against his legs, must bend
with his passing and lengthen, and stay,
this boy who is not dead yet gliding flesh tone
and wavering hair past, though I want to say
I'm floating in an oar boat and his face is hidden
or blurry, I can see him again and again,
all snorkel and fin and dolphin kick, reaching forward
through handfuls of wavering light;
and ten years before his death his blood is still whole
and smooth through his veins - no - I mean to say
my brother swimming beneath me isn't only that day
on the lake, I'm saying this now because we live
on water and the dead move through us
and we bend with their passing, and lengthen, and stay;
I can feel the dull pull of the oars as I follow him
back to shore, tracing a rise of air through water
meeting air, his hands reaching forward
as the shadow from the cliff darkens us both
and he glides through it into the smell of wood smoke;
my shoulders work sore and that first weight in my chest
I would later call grief; while now I turn the words
bowline, half hitch, cat's paw over and over again in my hands,
I should say I'm tying this thin rope to splintered wood,
I'm careful and maybe too slow or didn't pay attention
when my brother showed me this because
he's already just footfalls on the pier and fading now,
the note of each board heavy and muted, me floating
there on the water, stepping out onto the pier, this pull,
this weight, my brother's footsteps small wet splashes
on the wood grain already soaking through, shrinking and gone
before he reaches the top of the stair - I have to say
his footprints disappear before I can put down my own
though I can still hear him rising, rising.
© Brent Goodman
originally appeared in POETRY
DoublePlusGood
What are you up to this evening? We're currently watching a little Big East basketball, waiting for The Office, and checking out the Portland electro-pop trio that is DoublePlusGood. If you haven't heard a lot of electro-pop, or are looking for a casual entry point into the genre, you should check out DoublePlusGood as well. Their fractured beats and uptempo glitch-pop sound might be just the thing you're looking for if you're looking for something a little less mainstream this Thursday evening.
DoublePlusGood's new release, an EP titled Dancipation Proclamation (awesome name, right?), will be out in May on SoHiTek, but you can check out two of the EP's six tracks below:
DoublePlusGood - "All Directions"
DoublePlusGood - "Rivers May Rise"
To learn more about the band, check out their MySpace page.
Pitchfork Music Festival Tickets on sale tomorrow!
Midwesterners and music fans alike, remember that tomorrow starting at noon CDT you can get your tickets to the Pitchfork Music Festival, taking place July 17-19 at Union Park in Chicago. This year's prices will be:
-$75 for a 3-day pass
-$60 for a Saturday/Sunday 2-day pass
-$35 per day for single day tickets
We had gotten some 2 day passes last year before we had to pull out at the last minute, but we're hoping to attend this year. Some of the acts that have been announced so far include Veritas Lux Mea favorite The National, as well as Built to Spill, Jesus Lizard, Yo La Tengo, with more to be announced in the coming weeks.
You can get your tickets by following this link starting noon tomorrow.
Love Like Fire "Signs" download
Hey all, welcome back. Sorry for the long delay...been adjusting to a new (er, additional) job at work so haven't felt much like writing now that I have to actually write for a paycheck. But that will change I'm sure...
I'm admittedly not a huge fan of woman-fronted bands, but lately I've really been digging the trend thanks to recent efforts from bands like Heartless Bastards and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs record. Following in that same vein, I've also been enjoying the musical stylings of Love Like Fire, fronted by the very talented Ann Yu.
Having recently fled the Las Vegas scene for San Francisco, Love Like Fire are getting ready to release their self-titled EP on Heist or Hit Records. You can snag a preview of it with the track "Signs" below for as long as the download lasts (usually like 15 days).
To peep their tour dates and recent news, make sure you drop by the band's MySpace page, where you can stream a few other songs as well.
Love Like Fire image courtesy of Yuan Zhou, SF Gate
