Anyway, sounds. Lovely sounds...
Just heard April Verch. Wow. She's cute, sings, dances, plays violin, writes songs, leads her band, teaches...and she played at the Olympics in Canada. Her legs are like John Jorgensen's fingers. A little unworldly.
John Jorgensen's "One Stolen Night" from the album of that same name has stolen my heart. I listen to it at 7am on the train, and I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to listen to it and see morning sun angle over the marshes of the shoreline...
April Verch's kick-ass guitar man, Clay Ross, hailing from South Carolina, has a group called Matuto. It means something in Brazilian, but I don't know what, but they have put out an album that is a mix between Brazilian music and bluegrass. And from what I'm hearing right now, it's got some funky reggae-zydeco-honkytonk-backroom blues-hint'o'grunge thing going on. Yeah! That's what I'm talking about, man! He played these awesome Brazilian shakers - they look like two small balls attached to each other by a short length of string...pickchers, need pickchers...
There. Marakas. He showed me how to play them, but it reminds me of hackey-sack - I can kick it once or twice, but to actually do something cool with it might take some effort...I think I do however have the hang of the pear shaped shaker...I need to buy one of those.
What really gets me about these people is that they are real, honest-to-god, making-a-living-as-musician musicians. And they are really amazing. And they aren't making the kind of money your average hedge fund manager is making. What, by the way, is the hedge fund manager contributing to joy and happiness in the world? Oh, well, I suppose they pay the taxes that help support unemployed people...OK. That's worthwhile.
April does this Ontario step dance thing that is pretty much tap dancing. But, my god, it's so cool...and she will sometimes play violin while tap-dancing...
OK. Enough rhapsodizing.
matuto means country people.
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