So Sylvie

From Big Sur With Love ~ Woodsist Fest 2014

It's been an amazing musical summer so far. So many bands, so little time. You may know by now that when I'm not in my creative realm, designing interiors and textiles and rooting around salvage yards, I'm 'on the road' with my Marcel, the magical music journalist. Last week Marcel rode around the local skate park with the guys from Andrew Jackson Jihad, followed by a great and groovy performance at the Rio Theater. Then we met up with Real Estate and Kevin Morby for a show at the Catalyst  in Santa Cruz which lead to an invitation by the Woodsist folks to their two-day festival in Big Sur! If you haven't gone to a Woodsist Fest...go now! There's one coming up in Pioneertown in Southern California on August 16th.

 

 

Having only heard Kevin Morby's songs for the second time I was hit with how familiar they sounded, as if I'd been hearing them all summer long. I attribute that to great songwriting. I told Justin the drummer that this would be one of those CDs that doesn't leave my car stereo and it's true. I switch back and forth between that and Bobby Bare Jr.'s latest.

 

Kevin Morby, Justin Sullivan, and Michael Campbell

 

My sons, Jesse and Marcel, helping out at the merch table.

 

Tim Presley and Nick Murray of White Fence

 

Ty Segall

 

Special guest Ty Segall joined White Fence onstage

 

My Robin Williams Memory

When I heard about Robin Williams' passing today it took me back to 1982. I was walking in an underground parking garage in Japantown in San Francisco when I heard someone deep inside the garage shout out, "Hey lady!" I turned to see a man in a sombrero flagging me down. So naturally, as one would do in a dark, shadowy parking garage, I waited for him, thinking, "This guy seems like fun." It was Robin Williams, beaming, grinning ear-to-ear. A ball of energy. We walked together through Japantown and he had me in stitches the entire time. I tried to talk him into going with me to the Depeche Mode concert at the Kabuki Theater but he had an appointment for massage where women would be "walking all over my back."

 

 

I can't help think when these sensitive souls pass -- like Robin Williams, and Heath Ledger, and Mitch Hedburg, and Philip Seymour Hoffman -- "If they were my friend I wouldn't have let them slip away. I would've tried to make life liveable for them." I know it's not that simple. I wish it were.

 

 

 

 

 

YSL:Hedi Slimane:Psych Rock

Where fashion and music collide, Yves Saint Laurent has been there. Witness these two video examples, more than 4 decades apart. The first is an instrumental accompaniment, L’enfant la Mouche et les Allumettes, by Jean-Claude Vannier for the 1971 YSL catwalk show. Note how cool musicians in turtle necks can be.

 

 

Now, with the nouveau moniker Saint Laurent Paris and Hedi Slimane as creative director, music and the fashion house have never been more fused, "Music is clearly, for me, the starting point of anything", Slimane says. Besides his design focus, Hedi is a serious photographer and has been capturing musician's portraits for some years. He's now been setting them loose on the catwalk as seen in the Spring 2015 Psych Rock Collection. Like singer Sam France of Foxygen (he comes into view at 7:33 in the video below), who I just saw the other day in Big Sur, and standing amidst redwood trees at the edge of an azur coastline he said dreamily, "Do people really get to live in this place? I'd be fine just livin' in those fallen down trees over there." Hmmm, nice juxto: living in the woods wearing Saint Laurent.

 

Soundtrack by Mystic Braves

Reigning Sound

I've written before on the subject of sad songs that are upbeat and danceable. Reigning Sound out of Asheville, North Carolina, by way of Memphis, have captured that beautiful juxtaposition with their song Never Coming Home (Merge Records). Let the sad dance begin!