Lisa Hannigan on tour

Lisa Hannigan is wrapping up her U.S. tour with her final dates, if you can catch one of her last shows, do!!
She's definitely a much stronger set live than in her cd.
Saw her at the World Cafe on the 5Th, this is a bit I recorded that will give an idea ("I don't know", one of her lightest songs, the most popular too)- select high quality! (HQ):

Years of experience doing backing vocals for Damien Rice really show, she knows how to make the most of her singing, and her breezy, ordinary (in a beautiful and best of ways) voice soars and floats and keeps giving you unexpected goosebumps, specially with higher notes (she usually stays on lower registers though). Her music and her appearance go hand in hand, she couldn't be more natural, more up-front. No make up (at least looked like that), no "hair works", no crisp outfit. She pulls it off, seems like it's in her essence. I love that. And not to mistake that with obviousness, at all.
The only other person I've seen going onstage like that was Kate Nash. On the other hand the most put together would probably be Melody Gardot, I guess (& Coldplay!) (nothing wrong with either way, gives the show one more shade - I sort of admire it, could never do it!).

Anyway, best of the night for me was her cover of Air's "Playground love". Seriously, beats the original, wish she'd record it. In her version Air's "cold" edge is substituted by the most intense longing. Somebody uploaded it on youtube here, but it really isn't anywhere near the way it sounds live.
She played this curious (and temperamental, after her words) harmonium in most of the songs. The band playing with her (4) fit together really well, drums guy Tom Osander doing most of the backing vocals (TomO, does her photo blog, one smiling guy!).
The show was nearly sold out, which is so impressive for an Irish singer who's just released her first record, so congrats to her. Setlist:

And her lovely and most original video for "Lille" here.
BTW I've listened to "My one and only thrill" (thanks B!), GArdot's written some really beautiful tracks.
TAGS: lisa hannigan, Philadelphia setlist, lisa hannigan live, lisa hannigan i don't know, harmonium,

Compile pls! - Lily Allen and Elbow are game.

One more compilation I've come across that's pretty appealing (as opposed to its title, am afraid):War Child presents Heroes . People like Lily Allen, Duffy, Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Elbow and a brilliant idea behind it (and I quote) "We asked some of the biggest legends in music history (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, David Bowie) to select a classic track from their own songwriting catalog, and nominate an artist from the next generation to create a modern reworking of that classic song". Released Feb 24Th. I've just listened to Lily's cover of The Clash's "Straight to hell" and sounds pretty well (for the dramatic story behind those cryptic lyrics go here), even features Mick Jones. Covers, in general, tend to be pointless unless you have your own style and make the song yours. Seems these people -most of them at least- have done just that.

Last but not least, it's for a good cause (War child). If anyone could be spared from pain, it should be the children.

And the story of the little backyard faucet that could...

There's this faucet in my backyard I wrote a post about last year. One day it basically dripped and made a most curious bottle shaped ice piece that I photographed, then the piece slid from my gloved fingers and ended up broken in hundreds of mini-ice cubes. It was a winter day very much like today, so this afternoon I went to check. Well, as it is always desirable, I had learned from my mistakes (two points!) and the faucet had not dripped a single droppp... but there's a second part to the story: incredibly enough this time around poor faucet itself was an ice piece: water had dripped from the roof on that very exact spot!!!. Well, our luck is one sometimes and there's just no escaping it, I guess. I so feel like my faucet.












Didn't want to post about this, but how could I not. To fix its non-musicality a bit I'll recommend a beautiful song and video that's been around for almost a year but I've just discovered. In a weird way it matches this post. Laleh, "Live tomorrow" (it's the one with the close up pic of her eyes).

Hell no

I was supposed to be doing some very cool music stuff this morning, but mother nature had other plans...see my window, take a guess...
So instead I get to stay at home and rant, and listen to this Regina Spektor and Sondre Lerche duet I just discovered ("Dan in real life" soundtrack, I don't usually go for that type of movies, but Juliette Binoche was in it, and it ended up being a sweet movie). Because sometimes in life you can't help going HELL, NO (and "you were such a jerk" too, btw !%&!?).
But spring is coming, right?. Not soon enough, "apparently".
And if blogger wasn't so messy and complicated, today this blog would have this song on autoplay. Yess.