So I guess to me, Bob Dylan plays pretty much the quintessential rainy day music, as I mentioned in my last post. I love Bob Dylan, and overall, I'm not a big fan of many of the covers out there of his songs. I mean no one quite can play 'em like he can. But there are always exceptions, and I found one today.
Anyone love David Kitt as much as I do? He was born in Dublin, Ireland and grew up surrounded by music (like me!). He started playing gigs while he was at Trinity College studying music technology. After graduating, he recorded and mixed eight beautiful tracks in his bedroom, and released his first record. What a great story! In 1999 he toured Ireland with The Frames, Glen Hansard's (from Once) band and the Jubilee Allstars. Currently, David is collaborating with his brother Rob in a band called Spilly Walker, and continuing to write and play some beautiful stuff.
Check out this gorgeous, minimal version of A Girl From The North Country which he performed live on Ireland's The View on RTÉ on May 22, 2001 in honor of Bob Dylan's 60th birthday:
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
the sea, that gambler
I have lucky stars. I work for an amazing company called Pump Audio, and my job is to listen to music. Not just any music, this stuff is created by independent artists from all over the world.
I hear a lot of tunes, and appreciate them all in different ways, but sometimes a song just warms me to the core of my soul and makes me want to listen over and over and play it through speakers big enough to wash through the whole Hudson River. Makes me want to play it to all my friends and listen to it on my drive home even though my ears are as tired as my body would be if I was a farmer at the end of a long day.
I used to host the mid-day show for an independent radio station, and my favorite days to DJ were always the rainy ones. Soft days, you know, the kind when you want to be wearing your favorite shirt. When I moved out to Vancouver for a year in 2004, my friends in Portland and Seattle warned me of the never-ending rainy stretches. Don't get me wrong, sunshine is great, but I loved every one of those rainy days, and heck, I still do, even now that I'm back in New York where the sun comes out a little more often than it does in Vancouver.
Music just sounds better on rainy days... the grey sky makes all the colors pop out against it. Driving home, your windshield wipers are keeping time to a Josh Ritter song that sounds so good you'll sit in the car till it's over even though you're already parked in the driveway. Or how about sleeping in on a stormy morning, cuddling with your lover under the blankets and making love to just about any Bob Dylan record. That's what it's all about.
So instead of making you mixes or podcasts or radio shows, I'm just gonna use this little site to keep track of some beautiful songs that you can listen to when it's raining or not. Oh yeah, these songs will also sound good on the train. So either way, they'll come in handy at some point.
Let's start things off with a video-track from "That Sea, The Gambler" by Gregory Alan Isakov (this is his new solo record; he also plays in The Freight).
Black and Blue
I hear a lot of tunes, and appreciate them all in different ways, but sometimes a song just warms me to the core of my soul and makes me want to listen over and over and play it through speakers big enough to wash through the whole Hudson River. Makes me want to play it to all my friends and listen to it on my drive home even though my ears are as tired as my body would be if I was a farmer at the end of a long day.
I used to host the mid-day show for an independent radio station, and my favorite days to DJ were always the rainy ones. Soft days, you know, the kind when you want to be wearing your favorite shirt. When I moved out to Vancouver for a year in 2004, my friends in Portland and Seattle warned me of the never-ending rainy stretches. Don't get me wrong, sunshine is great, but I loved every one of those rainy days, and heck, I still do, even now that I'm back in New York where the sun comes out a little more often than it does in Vancouver.
Music just sounds better on rainy days... the grey sky makes all the colors pop out against it. Driving home, your windshield wipers are keeping time to a Josh Ritter song that sounds so good you'll sit in the car till it's over even though you're already parked in the driveway. Or how about sleeping in on a stormy morning, cuddling with your lover under the blankets and making love to just about any Bob Dylan record. That's what it's all about.
So instead of making you mixes or podcasts or radio shows, I'm just gonna use this little site to keep track of some beautiful songs that you can listen to when it's raining or not. Oh yeah, these songs will also sound good on the train. So either way, they'll come in handy at some point.
Let's start things off with a video-track from "That Sea, The Gambler" by Gregory Alan Isakov (this is his new solo record; he also plays in The Freight).
Black and Blue
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