If you live in a hectic big city like me, you probably need a bit of respite now and again, but maybe can't afford the time and dough needed to get somewhere as far-flung as you'd like. If this is your lot in life, and you just need a little escape, I can't recommend Alela Diane's new record To Be Still enough.


The songs are bittersweet fables, longing recollections and evocative bits of each season in turn. It's all perfectly lovely, laid out with production work by Alela's own father and recorded partially in his studio in Nevada City. Alela is helped out on a few tracks by the always amazing Mariee Sioux and the legendary Michael Hurley, whose duet with Alela couldn't be more delectable.

The album chugs and flows along, from one memorable melody to another. The songs won't stay out of my head-- whether I am walking the street or attempting to sleep, Alela's always whispering in my ear. Her music has an openness and honesty that are quite reflective of the artist herself. The album can't help but be natural and real just as Alela is, yet it still has the power to pull you away from your reality and into an alternative existance, even for just a few minutes. Stay tuned for an interview with her on the Amoeblog sometime in the very near future! [It's up now! Check it out here.]

Just wanted to say I found out there is an Island Camping Festival this Saturday, July 12 on Angel Island.  It's pretty much impossible to find any info on this secretive fest, but...


...I do know that amongst the performers set to entertain those at the campgrounds on the island are Michael Hurley, The Sarees, Lucky Dragons, Little Wings and maybe even Devendra Banhart!  Of course, the few camp sites on the island are long reserved, but if you can find a way, this sounds like the definite hot ticket for the weekend.  Hurley's songs alone were made for singing around the campfire, looking up at the stars.  It's gonna be an island jamboree!

San Francisco band Vetiver's latest album, consisting entirely of hand-selected covers, Thing of the Past, will be released today, May 6! I spoke to frontman Andy Cabic about the recording of the album, the frustration of his first guitar, and his new obsession with the mushrooms in his backyard.


Miss Ess: What is your first musical memory?

Andy Cabic: I have an odd memory of a large sunlit room with light hardwood floors, very reflective and bright, and a there being a step in front of me, and as I'm crawling towards it, Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" is playing. I grew up listening to a lot of Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers and stuff like that, so...it's possible this was an early apartment of my parents’ or something, I'm not really sure. It's one of those weird memories that feels like a dream and I'm not really certain of anything solid about it except for its strength in my mind and how vivid the light and the scene are when I remember it.
 
ME: What was the first record that really blew your mind and made you think about making music your life?  What albums formed your young musical mind?

AC: Well, I don't know that any one record made me come to a decision to make music my life. I just sort of played music, and looked back one day and realized music had become my life and there wasn't a whole lot else I seemed able to do. Whoops!

Growing up, the public library near my father's house was very good. I used to visit it every weekend I spent with him and check out cassettes, as many as I could, and a lot of what I found there had a big influence on me. VU by the Velvet Underground and At Yankee Stadium by NRBQ are two albums I remember renewing for months from the library. I grew up in the suburbs with no older siblings, pretty out-of-the-loop from any signposts pointing the way towards what "the good stuff" was, so...I would spend all my allowance on cassettes, read Star Hits magazine and Tower Records' Pulse, watch 120 Minutes every Sunday on MTV and just figure out stuff through trial and error. I loved anything out of Athens, GA and Minneapolis, and bands like Rain Parade, Camper Van Beethoven, Big Star and Fugazi meant a lot to me growing up.

When did you pick up your first instrument?

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Michael Hurley played at the Cafe du Nord Wednesday night, so I busted on over there after my weekly Bravo reality tv date, and I made it just in time for his full set. 

Hurley is one of the last standing of the 60s folkies, and he's still playing out often. I think in about the last 3 years I have seen him play maybe 5ish times? Oh, and though he is in his 60s he's still expertly writing ghostly, beautiful songs. Some of my favorites of his entire career have been on records from the last 15 years. He's been recording since 1965!  Despite the fact that most people associate folk music with serious, political topics, Hurley has always had his sense of humor intact and out front in his songs.

He's come back into fashion in these last 10ish years mainly because lately other artists have been giving him the shout-outs he's always deserved and have been covering his songs. Two of the more notable artists to champion Hurley lately have been Chan Marshall of Cat Power and Devendra Banhart. (Weirdly, Chan Marshall's Covers Album is almost like a song for song version of Hurley's Armchair Boogie.)  A few years back I saw Devendra with Vetiver, Chris from Espers, Carrituck County members and Joanna Newsom covering one of my absolute favorite Hurley songs, "Be Kind to Me" at the Swedish American Hall, and they tore it up, made it the raucous and ramshackle-y number it's meant to be.

Anyway, Hurley's a quiet, modest guy, but he is quite the renaissance man-- in addition to all his writing and touring, he creates the artwork for pretty much all his cds.