When Lisa at Sneak Attack got in touch with me about covering Matt Pryor and the Where’s the Band? tour, I have to admit: I was a little smirky about the tour. Besides Pryor, I made the snap judgment that it was lead singers from candy pop punk bands, it would be full of teenagers, and I would probably spend my time rolling my eyes a lot. Then I remembered:

• Once the Alpha Site drove to Roanoke on a work night to see Fall Out Boy (and it was a goddamned great show)
• Once the Alpha Site flew to Chicago to see Panic at the Disco on the pretty. odd. tour (and it was a great show)

So really, I don’t have a single smirky leg to stand on. That’s the thing about music: if you love it, it’s not bad. Or worth making fun of. People get to love what they love, and frankly, I still love Pete Wentz. (He saved my life once. That’s another story entirely.)

So I turned off my smirk, fell flat on my face in love with Pryor’s new (released yesterday) solo album May Day, and went out to shoot this show.

First I have to say: whether or not you loved the New Amsterdam, whether or not you loved the Get Up Kids, if you love deft, intimate, heartbreakingly raking songwriting, you need to pick up May Day. It’s sharp and clever and viciously sad and cruel and beautiful, and there was not a track on it that I did not absolutely adore. There were a few 4-star tracks in my iTunes. There were mostly 5-star tracks. May Day is an early contender, with the Onward Soldiers album I wrote about earlier this week, for my album of the year. It is the best break-up album ever, and it made me happy and sad all at once, and it was even better live.

Second, though, I was just staggered by all four songwriters who led up to Pryor last night; Evan Weiss, of Into It. Over It., was charming and funny, and writes in that way that I associate with some of my beloved Midwesterners — story songs about specific events, sly sense of humor — which is appropriate because though he’s from Jersey, he lives in Chicago now. Anthony Ranieri, of Bayside, reminded me of no one more than he reminded me of Dave Hause, and that’s the best compliment I can give because we all know that I think everything needs more Dave Hause. (This tour could have used more Dave Hause, too. Pocket-sized punk frontmen from Jersey! MORE DAVE HAUSE.) His songwriting’s dark and shivery, and his off-kilter voice and disarming stage presence were a delight. Ace Enders, who fronts the Early November, was clearly beloved to the crowd, which was polite and attentive all night, was hilariously self-deprecating and as good in his screamy moments as he was in his quiet ones.

And Chris Conley of Saves the Day, with his lisp and his ‘Bama bangs and his pink Chucks, played Saves the Day’s entire acoustic EP, and absolutely blew me away with his songwriting. “Jessie & My Whetstone”, the third track off the acoustic EP, made me cry, and when he followed the EP up with a disquieting cover of “Eleanor Rigby”, I was completely sold. (And you all know what I think about Beatles covers. (I hate them.) I loved this one.)

Finally: Matt Pryor. He’s charmingly pudgy, he was the only one of the five who brought a beer on stage, he wore a vest and Chuck Taylors (and pants, you idiots), he had me laughing from the first minute. He went through New Amsterdam songs, Get Up Kids songs, songs he’s written for his kids (ALL CHILDREN’S ALBUMS ARE VALID ART, DAMN IT), and songs from May Day. He made fun of the fact that the crowd was young enough to be his children. (Frankly, my Doc Martens, which will be 17 this year, were older than the average age of this crowd. If I had been indiscreet in high school, some of these children could have been my children.) He was absolutely great. I adored every minute of his yet.

It was a fantastic show. I only smirked at jokes. I found some musicians I had never given a thought to before, and I discovered that I really like their songwriting. That’s what a good show should do. This show did it.

Full set here.

Kathleen Edwards — Voyageur. Out 1/17, Zoe Records.

When I fell in love with Kathleen Edwards, between Back to Me and Asking for Flowers, it was on the strength of her songwriting: I am tired of playing defense and I don’t even own hockey skates, or asking for flowers is like asking you to be nice. And after that, it was on the strength of the wild, wide open arrangements — the guitars ringing out and the imperfections in the sounds, sometimes.

The thing is, I think that Voyageur is, in fact, a very good album — it’s Kathleen’s strongest songwriting (i don’t need a punchline from “Chamleon/Comedian” is staggering) ever, but. But. I don’t necessarily think that the arrangements — the production of the arrangements, even, I don’t think it always, in every case, suits Kathleen’s songs. It’s hard for me to write that and feel objective, because I’m been pretty vocal about the fact that I am, ah, Not Fond of the music that Justin Vernon makes as Bon Iver. Not his songwriting — I think he’s a bit of a songwriting genius. I just fucking hate that sound of his music.

And I hear those fingerprints all over Voyageur, and it’s a bit hard for me. I love the songs; “Empty Threat” and “A Soft Place To Land” are both stunningly perfect examples of why Kathleen Edwards should have been famous long ago, as they’re exactly in line with the things I’ve always loved about her. I love the spaces in the songs where the wailing guitar comes through, or where the production serves the song, and there are places it does that: like on “Change The Sheets”, where the muted electronica and simple drums, the shivering wordless background vocals, they’re there to show of the wail of Kathleen’s amazing voice.

I think that Voyageur is a great album; I know it will never be my favorite album that Kathleen has made. Objectively, it is exactly as shimmering as Asking for Flowers; but it doesn’t have the sound I want. I respect, absolutely, the choice of the artist to change the way they sound, to grow and mature and move in different directions. I do. But this album, this album doesn’t suit me quite the way I’d hoped it would, and that’s subjective, which I’m also allowed to be.

Does this mean I’m not thrilled to see Kathleen at the Cradle a week from tomorrow? Oh, hell, no. I am off the rails excited about that, you can’t even know. I think that Voyageur is great, like I said, and just because it is not my great doesn’t mean that Kathleen shouldn’t be selling the place out. Cat’s Cradle, 1/31, doors 7, show 8, $21/$23. Hannah Georges opens. You should be there, because Kathleen is supremely talented.

Onward, Soldiers — Monsters. Out 2/21, Winoca Records, unless you’re in Raleigh, in which case out 1/26, at the Pour House.

The Alpha Site has had a copy of Monsters in my car for a few weeks now, and when we were driving home from somewhere last week, we were talking about why it’s good. It’s not original, shep. said, but they also don’t sound like anybody else, which is why they’re good. Which was the best description of the Wilmington, NC, quartet that I could have thought of myself; taken individually every slice of music on this record isn’t necessarily new. But Onward, Soldiers either puts them together in a new way, or a surprising way, or the song that lies over the familiar music is sharp and clever. Sean Gerard Thomas is one of the best songwriters in the state of North Carolina, and his writing, which was catchy and interesting on debut LP Ghosts In This Town is visibly more adult and subtle on this disc.

It’s the variety of sound that pulls me in, after Thomas’s lyrics; opener “Telling Nobody” is fiercely dark and full of lush piano runs, while “Cinder Blocks” is lyrically heartwrenching against a chorus that will stay in your head for days, with your brain unaware of just how sad the song is, at its heart. It’s an album about moving on, and loss, and where on some songs that’s evident, the best — like “Cinder Blocks” — are the songs where you almost can’t tell the song is devastating under its hook-filled guitars and driving drums. “Highway Calling” has a cowpunk feel to it; “Monsters” is a sweetly noir-pop love song, in a strange way. “Cry” is as close to country as Onward, Soldiers gets. No two songs sound alike; no two sets of lyrics are similar in content or structure, except for that run of loss.

It is, by far, my favorite album that has been released in 2012, by about a mile. If you’re in the Triangle, Onward, Soldiers celebrates the release with Hammer No More The Fingers and J Kutchma this Thursday, 1/26, at the Pour House. Doors 8PM, show 9PM. $10. Be there.

I read a bunch of Continuum’s 33⅓ books! Now I am going to talk about them. Behind the jump: Music from Big Pink, Exile On Main Street, Horses, Highway 61 Revisited, Radio City.

Pink Moon — Amanda Petrusich: one of my favorite things about this series is the flexibility of form in the books; you can take any tack you choose to illuminate your record. I loved this because I knew very little about Nick Drake, except that Pink Moon was a deeply culty album amongst all the musicians I’ve ever known — split between Petrusich’s history of Drake and his music and interviews with musicians and artists about how they discovered Drake and what he and his music meant to them, it’s a perfect balance to explain this album. (I love Pink Moon, too. I heard it for the first time in the Cowboy’s living room last March.) (Also, the internet in the form of Amazon tells me that people hated this one, but I thought that it was charming, if a bit overwritten.)

Music from Big Pink — John Niven: Niven calls this story about the Band, their battles and fights and demons and dreams, “faction”, that is, merging fact (what happened) with fiction (the life of his fictional protagonist). I learned in many years of fandom to call it Mary Sue Real Person Fanfiction, but I won’t quibble with him — Niven’s self-based hero befriends the members of the Band and tells the story of the group, in flashbacks and here-and-nows, especially the Woodstock period surrounding the recording of Music from Big Pink. It’s occasionally embarrassment squicky, but it is also a testament to a deep love for a seminal album, written by someone who couldn’t be there when it was made, and so tells a story where he could be.

Exile on Main Street – Bill Jankovitz: this was fabulous; it isn’t just a look, in depth, at the music of Exile, though it is partially that, and I was fascinated to listen to the album again with fresh ears and much deeper knowledge of the influences and the arrangements that inform that album. But it’s also a companion to A Season In Hell, which is the deifnitive book on the recording of Exile, and Jankovitz’s book is full of stories about everything that made up Exile — the Frank photos on the cover (did you know the cover wasn’t a mosaic, but a single photo of a wall of photos in a tattoo shop? NEITHER DID I), the bit players in recording, the Keef and Mick stories. It was a well-researched, passionate love letter to a great album (though, still, not my favorite Stones record, and there’s no 33⅓ on Sticky Fingers) and I couldn’t put it down. Definitely the best one I’ve read thus far.

Highway 61 Revisited — Mark Polizzotti: well-researched and well-written, and recommended if you don’t know much about Dylan, this album, or the tenor of the folk/rock scene when this record was made and released. I do, though, because there are plenty of books out there that I’ve already read, and I am not particularly interested in the details of how badly Dylan treated women, because that just makes me depressed. A good read, but not as compelling for me as others have been. (Positively 4th Street, if you’re wondering, about Dylan, the Farinas, and Joan Baez, as recommended reading.)

Horses — Philip Shaw: oh, man, you guys — I love Patti Smith, I love this album, and there was a lot good in this book, lots of moments that made my heart shiver and ache, but it also occasionally got all lit theory-ish on me, and, well: I spent my sole lit theory class in college writing poetry about the back of my friend Adrian’s neck. So that’s how I feel about Lacan, you know? I liked the parts of this that were more about Smith making art like a wild woman than I liked the bits that were about feminist theory and whatever shock value Shaw could drag out of Smith’s work. Because it kind of seemed like Shaw wrote this more to shock than Smith even made art to shock, you know? And, hell, Smith made art to shock a lot of the time. So that bugs me in some way in addition to being uninteresting. Dudes shouldn’t get to co-opt art made by women for their own shock value.

Radio City — Bruce Eaton: part Big Star, part John Fry, part Ardent Studios, part Memphis, part soul and R&B, part the South in general, parts Chilton and Fry and Hummel and Bell, this is all history, in Eaton’s narrative breaks and the staggering oral histories and interviews he did, and it is a love song to Big Star and how they changed the world. If you love Big Star, if you love Alex Chilton and Jody and Andy and Chris, you need to read this one. The best I’ve read so far.

When I Grow Up (Catherine Wiley)

I want to be the waitress snapping gum,
who leaves an orange crescent on the thick
white cup, calls the six a.m. men sagging
at the counter “Hon,” even when I know
their names. In the rumpled wallet photos,
their kids’ hair moves up, then over, ears;
tuxes lead to uniforms tight around the neck.
I’ll break after the rush, share a smoke
out back with the busboy, save scraps
for cats who hiss and whip their tails.

I want to be the one to find the newborn
swaddled in a quilt so worn its patches
have been patched, blue cord stiff, eyes squinched
against winter sun. I’ll take it up without surprise,
open it like a package in the kitchen
where the cook hums “Stormy Weather,” slaps
the patties down like prayer. I’ll grease the pan,
watch him slide the baby in the oven,
set the timer for some years. The new child
will come out done to perfection, smell
like cinnamon-baked apples, stay in our
kitchen always, forget the need to cry.

For those of you who know me, you know that I have a long and complicated history with Comedy; comedy with a big C, a stand-in for amateur and professional improv, sketch, stand-up. For those of you who don’t know me that well, well: I have a long and complicated history with Comedy. I have, for many, many years, professed that I Did Not Care for Professional Comedy, with all those capital letters in my voice.

Despite those protestations, I actually know a fair amount about the history of improv in the States, mostly run through the Chicago filter, and enough about the practice of it to be conversant. I used that knowledge to write a few short stories years ago. Mostly, though, since I left Chicago, I just Ignored Comedy. It wasn’t there, so it couldn’t ping all my triggers and make me full of rage or angst or ennui.

But then in 2011, I started listening to a handful of comedy podcasts — Jordan Jesse Go first, and later via shep., Sklarbro Country. Suddenly I was listening to people talk about comedy, and specifically, often, comedians talk about comedy. And I realized that I think comedians are interesting. I like listening to them talk about their work. I like laughing at their work. And I found a hell of a lot of inspiration in listening to comedians talk about what they do.

The first and most important rule of improv is “Yes, And”. You never shut a scene down with a “No” answer. You say yes, and then you say and, and then you move on. I’ve always liked that, but the more I listen to comedians talk, the more I believe that it should be the first rule for all artists, no matter what art you are making. Always be open to the next possibility. Don’t say no just because something scares you. (Do one thing every day that scares you, says the desk tschotke the Maternal Unit gave me for Christmas. Eleanor Roosevelt apparently said that.) Yes, and. Yes, and. Yes, and opens doors.

The other thing that I’ve learned is how hard comedians work. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. On episode 73, the Sklars talked to Andy Daly, and listening to him recount his career, and what he does now, it isn’t so different from what I did, and do, and will do. You never stop working. You hump and grind and not in a sexy way, in that hard work way, and you take the opportunities that you get — even the ones that don’t necessarily seem great at the time. Maybe they will be. Maybe they won’t. You’ll learn something either way.

I work very, very hard behind the scenes of this blog. Do I also drink a lot of whiskey and take a lot of naps and watch a lot of episodes of Bones on DVD? Sure. I read crappy mystery novels and brain-rotting young adult novels and yell at football on TV, but I spend as much time working hard, and saying yes and in ways that lead to me not sleeping much, at this photography stuff as I do at my day job.

Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I fail miserably. Let’s not talk about the time a publicist sent back a reply that simply said “No” to my carefully crafted pitch email. I fall on my face, I’m often literally covered in bruises — no, really, where did this fist-sized bruise on my ass come from? — I fight and fuck up and struggle and sometimes I have good luck and great friends and a little bit of talent on my side. I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I do know that I am always trying.

Del Close, the father of long-form improv as you may know it, once said Fall, and then figure out what to do on the way down. Yes, and. Step off the cliff, and maybe you’re going to fly.

Comedians, you guys. Ten years on from college, the first time I encountered Close’s long-form improv Harold, I’m turning to comedians to give me some guidance in making art and flailing around in the business part of it. Would I have guessed? Hell, no.

Does it make me happy? Yes, and.

(PS IMPROV OLYMPIC IN CHICAGO OVERCHARGES FOR THEIR BEERS, I’LL NEVER GET OVER THAT EVEN IF I FORGIVE COMEDY.)

The mark of a great band is this: not how they perform as a headliner, but how they perform as an opener. Last night Girl in a Coma, touring as an opener for the Features, completely owned the crowd in the 506. Not a huge crowd, but one that whooped and hollered and even danced some, and if you know Chapel Hill, man, you know dancing is a big deal.

It’s hard for me to quantify how much I love Girl in a Coma, Exits and All the Rest, the Diaz sisters and Jenn Alva, Nina’s voice and Phanie’s drumming and Jenn’s bass playing, but I love them. I didn’t really want to go out yesterday. I had a shitty day at work, I couldn’t find anybody to use my plus one, I was just grouchy and out of sorts. But I went, because I love Girl in a Coma, and they didn’t disappoint me. They’re great on recordings, but they’re stunning live. They’re captivating, they’re fierce, and good Lord, Nina Diaz has a voice that’s incomparable whether she’s whispering like PJ Harvey or wailing like Kathleen Hanna.

A great set list in a short set; they opened with “One Eyed Fool”, my favorite track off the new album, the skitter and shake even sadder and angrier live, and midway through the set, Nina said, “This one’s for all the Patsy Cline lovers,” and they launched into “Walkin’ After Midnight”. It was the best cover I’ve heard in ages, punk and sad with that country edge, and it made up for every single shitty thing that happened yesterday. Done, finished, over. That fixed my day straight up.

And that’s the sign of a great band: as an opener, Girl in a Coma fixed my utterly craptastic day. And that takes real serious talent. If they’re playing in your town, or close to your town, don’t miss them. You’ll regret it.

The full set, including shots of headliners the Features, is here.

First Poem for You (Kim Addonizio)

I like to touch your tattoos in complete
darkness, when I can’t see them. I’m sure of
where they are, know by heart the neat
lines of lightning pulsing just above
your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue
swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent
twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you

to me, taking you until we’re spent
and quiet on the sheets, I love to kiss
the pictures in your skin. They’ll last until
you’re seared to ashes; whatever persists
or turns to pain between us, they will still
be there. Such permanence is terrifying.
So I touch them in the dark; but touch them, trying.

Spent an hour Monday horsing around with Wylie Hunter & the Cazadores, rifling stock in CD Alley and being noisy in empty parking lots and trying to think up hilarious four letter words besides YMCA. Behind the jump, a couple of shots. NSFW if your employer is opposed to 20-something men spelling Four Letter Words with their bodies and fully clothed 20-something dude butt.

(I call this shot “Montgomery, Rapt”.)

A few days late but hopefully not short any dollars but what I always am, I just wanted to put a few thank yous out to everyone who made the screening of Color Me Obsessed such a success last week. First, to Gorman, who made it possible for this to even be a possibility; he and I had dinner beforehand and not only is he a great filmmaker, he’s just a great guy. To Alexis, Montgomery, Tara, and the Nightlight staff, who gave us a venue and ran the whole thing super professionally. To Chaz at Bull City Records, who talked the screening up more than I did. And finally, to everybody who came out, those of you I knew and those of you I didn’t, thanks for being there and being into it and being a fantastic audience.

Let’s see if we can get Gorman to do the world premiere of the Archers movie at the Cradle in a few years, then, huh?