Beethoven, or why I don't want to be your friend.

In listening to the new mates of states' cover of "Laura", I can safely say that I am not ready to make new friends. After a day of festival bonding, I am totally drawn to isolation. I am all about being sociable and extroverted and all that, but I'm not ready to discard my old friends from Eastman. I'm still processing the rise and fall of my connections with them, and even though many of them are leaving Rochester by the time I return, I can't forge new friendships yet. I just want to hold onto the ones I have, and make them stronger. Maybe it means that I'm lame for not wanting to read quartets at night, but I just don't want to be just anyone's friend. I want to be your acquaintance, and maybe your colleague, but we've only got like 9 days, and I just am not in the mood yet to make new alliances. So I'll creep into the dark velvety abyss of the internet, where I can read articles about bands on pitchfork, read people's blogs, and listen to music. (Oh and look at etsy and regretsy, and everything else.)

I'm so proud of myself for even practicing so much in the last 48 hours, and being able to play quartets today, after my longish hiatus. After that, it's hard to be motivated to socialize in excess. (Speaking of the internets, I am pleased to announce that Beach House is touring with Vampire Weekend in the fall, and yes, I already bought tickets to see them in NYC in September, but they are also playing in Boston, which means that I could see them at home instead. Tempting, although it would be great to see them in radio city music hall. Either way, I'm super excited about seeing Beach House, and maybe I'll see them in June in Buffalo (6/20). Their album "Teen Dream" is really amazing. Check it out.)

music ideas in only a few words:

*the smiths can only be in small doses, like spicy food. otherwise, everything gets very hazy.

*joanna newsom's new album sounds like joni mitchell. that's a good thing.

*lily allen is a much better popstar than most. very witty, even if she's on a major label and has some over amplified sounds.

*sharon jones is amazing. kudos to her for rocking out in her 50's.

*i'm embarrassed to say that parts of the new moon soundtrack are very good. why did so many artists think they needed to contribute songs for the sake of emo vampire teens?

*i don't think i can ever be a purely classical musican. I keep having to work on some contemporary rep here to keep from losing my mind in Beethoven.

*i'm thinking about the handmade cookbook I'm going to send to grizzly bear, and i'm very excited. i'm also allowing myself to totally indulge in my popular music habits. it's summer, and i don't give a crap. obsession, take over.

(here's a new favorite from the new moon soundtrack: grizzly bear +lead singer of Beach House=slow success. not the best recording quality, but gets the just across. and p.s., i'm still waiting to meet daniel rossen on public transportation, and have him fall madly in love with my baked goods. hey, it could happen!)

Canada, Ketchup those chips, and How I always Get Lost

This past week has been a blur of activity, trying to do random errands in preparation for my epic trip to Canada, in the midst of chaos. Everyone else has been preparing for graduation tomorrow, but today, I am in Quebec City, where I will near for the next two weeks. It's been challenging to get pumped for a music festival so soon after my recital-I've been pretty slothful, and practicing has been mostly non-existent lately, for good reason. However, it is useful to be able to play the viola when one is attending a music festival in which chamber music is paramount. So I've been cramming Beethoven down my throat, which has been rough. (But I get major points for studying my quartet scores at my 7:30 AM car oil change appointment. I felt like such an esoteric bitch there with my matcha tea and my scores.) Anyway, it's been hard to be motivated because so many of my friends are leaving while I'm gone in Canada, and I know I won't see many of them again. Some of them are flinging themselves like confetti into the wide united states, and I will be going predictably to the east. I'm basically not ready to be in a summer festival situation. And I know I'll make this music festival work, and that once I get in the swing of things and feel like I can play the viola, I'll be fine. But for now, I'll timidly pretend that I'm prepared for this. I am so lucky to have turned my failed eastman experience around, and I am so fortunate to have such amazing, loving, and supportive friends and colleagues. I only hope that I can be as caring to those that I meet next, wherever I am.

Driven: 400 miles

Listened to: multiple NPR podcasts "all songs considered"

Conclusions: the xx album sounds all the same. the beach house album is solid and dreamy. sometimes, the folks at NPR have crazy ideas and i totally disagree with them. (hello, the best album of the year was clearly Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest." Seriously. Or Animal Collective. But the xx? lame.)

Listening to: some of the new u.o. lstn mixes, some of my library acquisitions, and beethoven.

The world vs lady gaga

So lately, there's been a lot of jousting and discussion of the infamous Lady G. She was named one of Time Mag's most influential people (on the cover along side Bill Clinton), and just by sheer nature of being famous, has pissed off a lot of people lately. I mean, if people can get ridiculously famous just by covering her, the floodgates of anger will open from the indie scene. On one hand, the girl has crazy awesome style. She wears crazy clothes (or things that we wouldn't normally think of as clothing) and challenges our perceptions of style, design, and aesthetic. At the same point, her songs mostly suck. I got the fame monster from the library, just for kicks, and pretty much everything but "bad romance," "telephone" and maybe one other song suck. "Speechless" is pretty epic, in the worst way. It's like a country music style ballad, but worse, because it's basically being done by a drag queen. (woman dressed like a man impersonating a woman). So, I can understand this comment by Joanna Newsom, whose February album is most excellent. Just take a gander at this recent Joanna Newsom ragefest: http://pitchfork.com/news/38738-newsom-takes-on-gaga-madonna/ What I like about it is that she's quite articulate, and it's rather entertaining. Here are some of my favorite lines:

"Lady Gaga is Arty Spice"

"Her approach to image is really interesting, but you listen to the music and you just hear glow sticks. Smart outlets for musical journalism give her all this credit, like she's the new Madonna...I'm like, fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna's a dumb-ass!"

(I love that last bit, because it's true, most everything Madonna's done in the last 12 years is really suspect. And the chick has weird muscles, like Janet Jackson.) Here's the more eloquent comment later:

"My problem isn't actually with Lady Gaga. But there's not much in her music to distinguish it from other glossy, formulaic pop. She just happens to wear slightly weirder outfits than Britney Spears..."

Love it.

And on a small note, M.I.A. also thinks she sucks, with these winning lines:

"People say we're similar, that we both mix all these thing in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same. None of her music's reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-Year-Old Ibiza disco, you know? She's not progressive, but she's a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I fucking do!"

Still love it.

The splendor of the sound

I was so fortunate today as to have two sonorously fulfilling experiences-my recital went well, and I just saw "Music for 18 musicians." I played the whole bach suite 6, the theofanidis "flow my tears," and the shostakovich sonata. For 5 weeks of preparation, I actually thought it went pretty well. I mean, my intonation was a bit dodgy, but I am very much humbled and impressed by the feedback I received from everyone who attended. It was so overwhelming to be surrounded by caring people who were open to my performance.

I had been feeling ok about the whole recital thing, but neither pumped nor terribly worried about it. Maybe because most of my most stressful concerts already happened, or because it was an early afternoon concert, or whatever, I simply wasn't that nervous and that ended up being a very good thing. It's possible that I'm just getting better at performing, because there were moments when I completely forgot that there were tons of people there, and I just went into this magical zone in which time stopped and bach was supreme. It was rather odd, to say the least, but a good portion of the bach occurred with my body taking control and me watching and feeling the music while the rest of me executed it. It was transformative and scary, and not entirely new. I've also found that when the lights turn out and it's just me and a solo piece, there's a weird temporal continuum that opens up and I fall in. I lose myself in the music just enough, but manage to keep enough involvement that I don't tip over like a palm tree in a storm. (That's always a risk. Falling over, dropping my instrument, or having it go terrifically out of tune.) Most of the recital happened like this, in which I was aware of things happening (finger here, forearm there, lalala) but it was a very strange experience watching the rest of me play the viola. I guess that qualifies as an out of body experience, but it was more like being "more than present." We talk so much about being in the now, and experiencing the now. I was so in the now that I stopped thinking completely and it was damn strange. Mostly successful, though, which is always a good thing.

For now, I'll just repeat the beautiful compliments that everyone paid me after the concert. What I thought was 'good' or just 'solid,' turned out to be transformative, empowering, and beautiful to the audience. I am so honored to possess that power. My ego just got a huge bar of chocolate, and decadence is essential right now.

(music for eighteen musicians is like the ultimate minimalist dance tune. steve reich should have encouraged people to get on the stage and start dancing. in my heaven, we would all have a huge dance party to all sorts of music.)

Eastman Just Redeemed Itself

So my experience at Eastman is being redeemed, slowly. I found out today that I won the annual viola award of sorts, which is great and all, but more importantly has a CASH prize. Not just any cash prize, but $1000. Cha-ching. Wow. (Now, I'm planning on paying off most of the $800 on my credit card with this check, but really, it's the thought that counts. And maybe I'll go shopping for the first time 4.5 months. And buy my new strings.)

To think that a year ago today, I was tragically upset about my loss of the Performer's Certificate? Dude, money means way more to me than a piece of paper. So Eastman, you've proven to me in the last year that nothing makes sense, but in that way, it seems to be favoring me. Take that, stupid orchestra seating! Take that, performer's certificate! Take that, concerto competition with evil unsavory people in it! Take that, TENDONITIS! All of the stupid things I've endured at Eastman are slowly becoming worth it, now that I have a reward for my suffering. Now to just keep it together for the next two weeks: recital, Brandenberg, papers, tests...

Listening to: MGMT. Will be listening to some new records from the libs.

The Grizzly Bear Video Catalogue

Due to a brief inquiry from McMillan as to the nature of music videos, I'm listing all of the Grizzly Bear music videos, because all I do in my spare time is read the newspaper and watch music videos. Let's go in reverse chronology:

While You Wait For the Others-from Veckatimest, also available sung by Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers.

Ready, Able-also from Veckatimest, and strangely creepy. The artist is Allison Schulnik, whose other work is also pretty disturbing and depressing.

Two Weeks-the original video, not the sweet fan video that I usually post. Love the bow ties, but somehow the cuteness factor and oversized anime eyeballs are a little creepy, although it makes the drummer look kinda adorable in a weird twisted way. It really is just a reinforcement of my unresolved love for Daniel Rossen (last on the right and half of Department of Eagles) since his cheeks are just so pinchable.

Two Weeks-awesome fan video. This just blows my mind for CG animation possibilities. Being a humble computer challenged person, I didn't realize it was all CG until I'd seen it 3 or 4 times.

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Granny Diner/Hobo Clown-Animated Short, also by Allison Schulnik. This made me cry the first time I watched it-nothing is really more pathetic than sad claymation creatures. The track is a bonus track from "Yellow House" and it's also on the "Friend" EP, which I highly recommend because of its amazing electric version of "Little Brother," one my favorite songs of theirs.

"Knife" from Yellow House. It's been covered by lots of bands, and it's a winner of a track. Just add some weird quicksand and a creature that looks like it's made out of stale pieces of bubblegum stuck together, and we're in business.

"Central and Remote" also from "Yellow House."

"Fix It" from that way early Grizzly Bear album "Horn of Plenty," when it was just an Ed Droste project, before Daniel Rossen tempered his wayward ways.

And because I wanted to end with an oldie, but goodie, here is one of my favorite videos ever from Department of Eagles, "No One Does It Like You."

that's enough videos to keep y'alls entertained for awhile, I think.

Snakey Weirdness

I have a traumatizing amount of things that need to get done in the next 15 days. Good thing I have the new MGMT album to keep me crazy, in only the best possible way.

I can pretty much count on MGMT to consistently deliver weird ass videos that totally blow my mind. The new album is totally from the first one, but I rather like it. It's a weird pastiche of 60's pop music styles: surfing, weird instrumental interludes, cheesy drum and bass lines, subtle beach boys pyschedelia references...I couldn't be happier. This video is pretty much everything stranger than I could ever imagine. It is a strange allusion to the disease in the book "Black Hole" by Charles Burns, but also just weird things with old people, a strange machine, puppets, military figures with eye patches (malcolm in the middle?). Either way, I have no idea what the fuck is going on and I love it. It's just like my life, only with old people in it.