Last night I saw Fleet Foxes at the Fox Theater in Oakland, READ MY REVIEW HERE.

I've also gotten in the habit of chatting to folks with professional looking cameras to see who they are shooting for and if they would be willing to share an image with me. I met Paige Parsons last night who was shooting for the Ice Cream Man and she sent over this beautiful image. With generous people around like this, I'm leaving my camera at home.

Helplessness Blues is a really solid album. If you like folks like Iron and Wine, I highly recommend checking it out.

Last week I randomly came across the music blog Unbounded Song and I'm really excited about it. The premise is that the blog will eventually feature one song from each country in the world, roughly 196 of them.

The details on who is publishing this blog are non-existent other than his name is Dylan. But one thing is for sure, I trust Dylan's taste in music. That sentiment really boils down any music blog: with all the music blogs out there, what keeps you coming back? What keeps you coming back to mine? I hope it's because you trust me and my taste in music!

Each song on Unbounded Song as been fan-fricken-tastic so far.

The actual text posts are short and to the point, which I appreciate.

The song I'm in love with right now is the Polish entry: "At My Mothers" by Warsaw Village Band. This is the kind of music I want to crawl up inside. You know that feeling? When you just want to get up in it? I have no other way of describing it.

Check out this blog if you like music from around the world. There's some good stuff coming at you.

“When I fall in love with music...I want to share.” That was the email I received from a friend of mine the Fall of 2008 introducing me to First Aid Kit’s cover of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song.” I fell in love too and can’t wait to check out the two Swedish teenage sisters play the Bottom of the Hill next Tuesday, June 2nd.

First Aid Kit is Jöhanna and Klara Soderburg, ages 19 and 17. They grew up in a suburb south of Stockholm getting an early start making videos in a forest near their home and posting them on youtube and myspace. The cover caught the attention of fellow Swedes the Knife, who released the EP Drunken Trees on their label Rabid Records last year. Earlier this year Wichita Records released the full length album The Big Black and the Blue.

The Fleet Foxes cover might be what draws you in, but their original music is what keeps you there with lyrics well beyond their years and vocal harmonies perfectly intertwining the girl’s strong voices.

Other than a quick jaunt to South by Southwest earlier this year, this is the duo’s first American tour. I caught an email interview with Jöhanna, the older of the two sisters. She talked about writing songs with her sister, advice for other female musicians and how the Internet has helped First Aid Kit on their way.

Read the interview here

My Friday night at Viracocha was full of lush harmonies, unique instrumentation and quirky folks. Named after an Incan God, Viracocha is a new basement performance space located next door to ATA (Artists’ Television Access) in the Mission. The showcase was co-presented by the video podcast Chasing the Moon and the blog SeaweedSway. Michael Musika and Honeycomb performed live sets and the most recent Chasing the Moon podcast was shown featuring Kacey Johansing. Kacey is a busy lady; she performed in both bands as well!

Local recording engineer Scott McDowell, videographer Elijah Pahati and producer Brian Berberich have been at the helm of Chasing the Moon since its start just over a year ago. The podcast has featured intimate performances from folks like Indianna Hale, Steve Taylor, John Vanderslice, Oona and Slow Motion Cowboys. The SeaweedSway is a local blog by Jessie Woletz, who also has a monthly showcase at the Makeout Room.

For more info: The SeaweedSway Chasing the Moon

TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE CLICK HERE

So it's storming outside and I can't sleep. What am I doing? I'm googling myself. Well first I was googling this blog to see if it was mentioned anywhere that I didn't know of, and then I decided to search myself. And what did I find? Well other than this Jamie Freedman who's an M.D. I found that I'm on allmusic.com.

Yup. Check it out.

I know the first two entries are indeed me because I was an intern for Smithsonian Folkways the non-profit record label of the U.S. National Museum in Washington D.C. from 2003-2004 between undergrad and grad school. During that time I worked with the archivists of the label. It was pretty awesome. I got to hang with all these old LPs and cassettes. I worked on a couple of commercial archival releases including Classic Folk Music and Classic Maritime Music as a Production Assistant. The folk complication included tunes by Doc Watson, Peggy Seeger, Paul Robeson and even the song "Gallis Pole" by Fred Gerlach which Led Zeppelin later covered. The Maritime compilation has a pre-Beach Boys "Sloop John B" and "All for Me Grog," which was my favorite.

How could I ever forget "All for Me Grog"?


And here are two versions of "Gallis Pole"/"Gallows Pole."

Performed by Led Belly:



Led Zeppelin:




My part in the production of these compilations was basically making a big mix tape, which in retrospect is, well, the most perfect job ever. The main archivist gave me a list of songs that he was considering putting on the CD, and I had to scour the archive for all of the different versions of that song that it had. So I pulled recordings off of CDs, LPs, cassettes and actual reel-to-reel. There was a big switchboard thing involved and I remember getting frustrated with all those chords.

Interning for the label was pretty fun even though the interns were sort of treated like nobodies. I had all sorts of random projects to do. One other intern was archiving all these Woody Guthrie lyric sheets and sketches. That's where Billy Bragg and Wilco got the lyrics for their album Mermaid Avenue. Did you know Guthrie sketched erotic images? Yeah, he did. I've seen 'em. He was kind of party animal.

Alright, that's it. I'm going back to bed. Don't be bashful, googling yourself can be fun, you'll never know what you'll find. Have you done it? What have you found?

I've also added some songs to my playlist that I hope reflect her power and dignity as a performer and singer. Unfortunately there wasn't much to choose from on the playlist site that I use.

Since I'm on a kick of showing you guys awesome covers, here's Sweden's First Aid Kit forrest version of "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by the Fleet Foxes.  Thanks to Liz for showing this to me a few months ago.

I think I like how the day sounds through this new dawn.

And the lines have all been drawn,

I know where I belong.

From a long way down

It's well worth the time that it's taken to get here now