blog

• romance

  A couple weekends ago, I saw Our Idiot Brother. It released in January of last year, but one of my favorite things about any art is that every day is someone's first impression. And while there wasn't anything about the movie itself that had much of a lasting impression on me, Taking You with Me, by Daniel Tashian and Mindy Smith did.

  Taking You with Me's intro is a reveal that the foundation of the song is going to be simple (two chords), but rich, and full of movement. And when the intro ends, the song rolls into Daniel's opening verse:

  Well you're hot and you're cold,
  not always easy to hold,
  and you're hard to impress.
  It sounds funny,
  but you might be the best
  friend that I have. 

  And I'm awestruck by just how romantic it is. Its chemistry reminds me of Sam & Ruby's This I Know, and its warmth of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' Home.

  It does so many things right. It's a conversation. It's playful. It's honest and direct, while still managing to subtly suggest more than you actually hear.

  And I guess that's what I've always imagined romance is supposed to be: that seemingly less-than-obvious magic that you'd swear you could never describe, for which you wish the magician would just reveal its trick. But then at some point, with inexplicable clarity, as Mindy sings in her verse, you see right through, and realize there's no illusion at all, that the magic is obvious, that you know exactly why you love her, that you knew it all along.

  That moment is like learning a secret you kept only from yourself. And this song is its catalyst.

• I got a jones like Indiana for ZZ Ward.

  ZZ Ward is a problem.

  If this EP, Eleven Roses, was an auction, I'd have been broke long before the auctioneer declared, "Sold!" By the time I get to the second track, Got it Bad, and she delivers

  "We can be on a park bench; make it make sense in the middle of a crowded room."

  I'm hers. She opens the track with that, and I'm just sitting there thinking, "Oh. Shit. Okay."

  And just when I start to shake off the trance in the second verse, here she comes with

  "Your tongue is like sin. You always get in."

  Christ.

  All this, against a series of beats this rich?

  The hook on Got it Bad starts with "That boy is trouble. Yeah, he's tried, charged, and wanted." And all I can think is how much (of the best kind of) trouble she is, and how much (wonderful) trouble I'm in.

  Through two tracks, and I haven't been this excited about a first listen in a long time. And she's not even to the promo'd single yet.

  Cinnamon Stix sounds like what'd happen if The Black Keys and Grace Potter went thirds on a baby who, 25 years later, released a single.

  Even the stripped, acoustic tracks connect. Til the Casket Drops maintains the same dark pace the full studio cuts before it deliver. And Last Love Song lets me know that when ZZ Ward isn't just strutting all over a record, you still don't want to turn it down.

  Download this EP. Do it. I'm not asking politely. Go.

• stubborn proclamations

  
  This is a bucket.

  Clarification: this is an empty bucket.

  Were I to fill this bucket with things I proclaim are wonderful ideas and opportunities that I need only commit to pursuing but then later realize are pipe dreams, this bucket would be overflowing. Actually, I'd probably need an army of broomsticks to carry the dozens of overflowing buckets, like in The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

  Not sure if this trait is a flaw or a strength. But I've seen it enough to know it's definitely as much a part of my character as my fear of sharks and my love of watching Discovery Channel shows about fearing sharks.

  So that proclamation from about a month ago, for example?

  If some can read a book a week, and others can see a movie per week, then I can make a show a week, right? Right.

  Yeah. About that: I got excited. I may have been slightly, egregiously, or epically mistaken about how possible it was for me to actually do that. Since writing that, I've seen only part of one show.

  This is not a success story.

  But here's to not giving up (out of sheer stubborn determination). We're set to go see Hot Chelle Rae at the 9:30 Club tomorrow night.

  "Hot Chelle Rae." Sounds like a stripper name, I know. Even if it didn't sound like a stripper name, it's a boy band, I know. And that means the show tomorrow is a family-friendly, packed-with-tweens show. I know.

  But when it says the album is "an unstoppable fireball of radio-ready tunes," the band's biography isn't lying. It's catchy - like, really catchy. And I'm not ashamed - like, totally unashamed. This counts as much towards the goal of 52 shows this year as seeing Rachel Platten in February did, and seeing April Smith and the Great Picture Show in May will.

  Hot Chelle Rae- Tonight Tonight from Ashley Harris on Vimeo.