Songs of the Week: Beck’s Song Reader Performed Live

The songs in my head this week, of course, are the songs I’m rehearsing for a concert called Beck’s Song Reader Performed Live.  The show is next Thursday, February 28, 2013 at Somerville Theatre in Davis Square (on the Red Line) at 8:00.  Beck released his 2012 album Song Reader entirely as sheet music, and 150 of Boston’s best musicians, dancers, and performance artists will be presenting their interpretations of all 20 songs.  My choir will perform an arrangement of one song a capella and provide accompaniment to four other songs.

Get your tickets now for $25/seat as this show is sure to sell out!

The choral centerpiece is a song called “The Wolf is on the Hill.”  In this video, you may hear us rehearsing a couple of weeks ago.  We sound even better now.  At the end of this clip you can also hear a small portion of “Title of the Song” which is the grand finale of the concert.

The choir is also accompanying Sarah Ribdau and Peter Moore on their rendition of “Please Leave the Light On When You Go” and Peter Moore’s take of “Heaven’s Ladder”:

The choir is participating on a fifth song as well, “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard” by Molly Zenobia.  This may be my favorite of all the songs I’ve heard, but you’ll have to take my word for it and come to the concert to hear it, because there is no demo.

Some other songs you will hear at the concert include:

• “Why Did You Make Me Care” by Mary Bichner:

• “Now That Your Dollar Bills Have Sprouted Wings” by The Highland Drifters

• “Sorry” by Endation

• “Old Shanghai” by Mary Bichner

This barely scratches the surface, as there will be a dozen more songs plus choreographed dance performances for each number.

So buy your tickets now!!!

Beck’s Song Reader Concert

Next week, I will singing in a 50-person kick-ass choir as part of a concert called Beck’s Song Reader Performed Live.  The show is next Thursday, February 28, 2013 at Somerville Theatre in Davis Square (on the Red Line) at 8:00.  Beck released his 2012 album Song Reader entirely as sheet music, and 150 of Boston’s best musicians, dancers, and performance artists will be presenting their interpretations of all 20 songs.  My choir will perform an arrangement of one song a capella and provide accompaniment to four other songs.  Get your tickets now for $25/seat as this show is sure to sell out!

• Beck Explains Song Reader (an NPR interview with the artist)
• Producing Beck’s Song Reader Live (article by Brendan Burns, one of the producers of the show)
• YouTube Playlist of Promo Songs
• Beck’s ‘Song Reader’ and Sarah Rabdau (Boston Globe preview)

 

Walking Tour of Davis Square in Somerville

I’ll be leading this Boston By Foot Tour of the Month of Davis Square in Somerville (which I also researched and co-wrote) on Sunday, July 29th from 2pm-3:30pm.  Admission is $15 per person, $5 for members (and you can become a member on the day of the tour).  No reservations needed, just show up a few minutes before 2 pm on Sunday at the plaza opposite Somerville Theatre.

Beer Review: Slumbrew Porter Square Porter

Beer: Porter Square Porter
Brewer: Slumbrew (Somerville Brewing Company)
Source: Draft
Rating:  **** (8.3 of 10)
Comments:  This is a nice porter.  It’s a deep, chocolaty black with a thick, foamy head.  The mouthfeel is very smooth and the taste is sweet with hints of cocoa and coffee.  Seek this out!

Beer Review: Baby Tree

Beer: Baby Tree
Brewer: Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project
Source: 22 oz. bottle
Rating: *** (7.6 of 10)
Comments: The beer is reddish-brown with a thick head, although the head quickly dissipates and does not leave lacing behind.  Sweet malts dominate the flavor with hints of fruits and kind of a caramel & alcohol aftertaste.  The aroma is a bit too sickly sweet which is a little off-putting, but otherwise this is another brilliant beer from Pretty Things.

Artisan’s Asylum

I’m generally skeptical about people posting links in this blog’s comments section asking me to promote things, but I took a moment to consider the following comment Frances Haugen on my Avenue of the Arts post.  I looked into it and it appears that Artisan’s Asylum is  legit and as a former Somervillian I’m all for supporting the arts.  Since that comment had nothing to do with the Avenue of the Arts I’ve moved it to its own post for all the (admittedly limited) promotional power of Panorama of the Mountains has to offer.

Hi Liam -

There’s a new open-access community workshop in Somerville called the Artisan’s Asylum that is trying to make available all sorts of tools (think wood working equipment, welding tools, circuits, sewing machines) so that people can create the things they’ve always wanted to.

We’re trying to measure interest in different kinds of classes that might be offered in August/September and find out what kinds of things people would like to learn about. We’re trying to get as many people as possible to fill out our class interest survey – could you post a link to it on your blog?

The survey is at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/werelistening

Thank’s so much!
F

Charles River Basin Walking Tour

I promote a lot of tours on this blog, but if there’s one tour you must take this summer it’s the Exploring the Charles River Basin tour offered by Boston By Foot guides (including myself).  The tour steps off at 2 pm on Sunday, July 26th from Nashua Street Park just opposite the exit from the Science Park MBTA station (exit away from the way to the Museum of Science.  Admission for this tour is $15/person and $5 for card-carrying members of Boston By Foot.  A great excuse for getting a membership now!

Not to frighten anyone off but this tour covers about two-miles of some-times rough ground with little protection from the elements.  So come prepared with appropriate clothing and fresh liquids.  The tour lasts approximately 2 hours but you can duck out pretty easily at the 90-minute mark.

While Exploring the Charles River Basin,  you will:

• discover three brand-new parks that most people don’t know exist.
• history of the Charles River and its ever-encroaching banks
• hear mellifluous words like bascule, freshet, and sluiceway and find out what they mean too
• cross not one but two dams
• see the only city jail with a waterfront view and a park across the street
• ponder our litigious society
• find what remains of Miller’s River
• get a new perspective on the world’s widest cable-stayed bridge
• and without fail you’ll see all manner of transportation, roads, railways, bridges, and waterways

Come join us by the banks of the Charles River and find the Lost Half Mile!

Massachusetts & Me: A Decade Together

On this date in 1998, I pulled my rental van into Somerville and became a resident of Massachusetts.  Ten years later I’m still here, now in Boston, having now lead nearly a third of my life in this Commonwealth.

Here were some of my hopes and goals when I made the move:

• Escaping the heat & humidity of Virginia and return to lovely four-season weather ¹
• Resume my identity as a New Englander ²
• Live in a city and enjoy the cultural benefits therein³
• Make good use of public transit and go car-free⁴
• Continue my career in history museum education⁵
• Live among a more liberal populace⁶
• Form a circle of friends⁷
• Find love. Get married.  Raise a family⁸

So I pretty much got that all covered.  Pretty good considering that I moved here with no job prospects, not really knowing anyone, and saving money by staying in a tent at Wompatuck State Park while looking for places to live.

Anyhow, it’s been a good ten years, and may the next ten be just as good.

Footnotes:

¹ Virginia seriously has only two seasons: Summer which consists of 90° / 90% humidity from March to October and the rest of the year where it just rains. Of course, I didn’t realize that in Boston, Spring doesn’t start in May or that fresh snowfall is immediately packed down into bumpy and sooty ice formations, but at least it’s only hot for like two weeks in the Summer.

²People in Boston apparently do not consider southwestern Connecticut (where I grew up) to be New England. Screw them, I say.

³Check.

⁴Check.

⁵I did get a job offer at Plimoth Plantation but they were offering $8/hour, the same pay rate I made in Virginia where the cost of living is half that it is here.  So I went into libraries and haven’t looked back.

⁶Massachusetts isn’t as liberal as I imagined it to be, but I’m probably not either.  Also now Virginia elects Democrats and is now considered a swing state.  Go figure!

⁷They say it’s hard to meet people in Boston.  I found it easy to meet lots of people, extremely difficult to make lasting connections.  But persistence pays off and I’ve met some of the best people ever, mainly through work, volunteering, church, and alumni groups.

⁸None of this happened remotely in the way I imagined it would, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

Previously:

• So Long Somerville
• Come Back to Jamaica Plain

links of the day for 24 January 2008

• Faithful Progressive asks Can It Be That the Right Was Partly Correct About the Clintons? (1/23/08).
• Let’s hear it for Tom Gilbert Hero, armed with a shovel, cleans up bus stops in Somerville (Somerville Journal, 1/23/08) – it always annoys me how sidewalks go unshoveled without anyone responsible for them.
• Check out Bradley’s Almanac to listen to clips from the Kristen Hersh + Tonya Donelly show at Brattle Theatre back in October.  This makes up for missing the show because we were too fatigued.
• That’s it for today. I quit! I’m joining the Jungle Patrol!

So Long Somerville

 

Today is my last day as a citizen of the city of Somerville where “Municipal freedom gives national strength.” While in many ways I’m moving on to a brighter future, leaving Somerville is bittersweet. I’ve lived here just four days short of nine years, the longest period of time I have ever lived at one address. By contrast, from 1984-1998, I lived at 8 different addresses in three localities in two states, not counting moving in and out of college dorm rooms four times. My sister and I grew so adept at maneuvering cumbersome furniture up narrow staircases that we joked about starting our own moving company.

So my time in Somerville has been one of great stability. It has also been a time of change. I went from a disillusioned museum educator, working as a hapless temp to working in a library and earning a MLIS. Susan and I went from friends to housemates to dating to engagement to being happily married and preparing to have our first child.

Somerville was a great place to be in your late 20′s/early 30′s. Proximity to Davis Square, Union Square, Inman Square and Harvard Square was key for enjoying pubs, music, movies, restaurants and hipster lifestyle of the “Paris of the 90′s.” Our neighborhood is wonderfully diverse including an entire house of an extended Tibetan family next door. Winter Hill may be the only place in New England where you could hear a pin drop after the Patriots and Red Sox won championships, but exploded with festivity when Brazil won the World Cup.

There will be a lot of things I’ll miss about Somerville: the view from the top of Winter Hill at Paul Revere Park, SoundBites and Yaser, walking/biking up and down the seven hills, the Somerville Public Library, Somerville Theater, the path around the Mystic River, sharing my name with the nearest T stop. Of course, a lot of things I liked about Somerville are long gone, so maybe it is a good time to move on.

In preparation for moving, I took a series of photographs of some of the landmarks around Somerville that I pass each day that I will miss most.

 

• Somerville: A Walk from Davis Square
• Somerville: A Walk to the Public Library
• Somerville: Commute to Work

Farewell fair city!