Interview with My First Earthquake and a warm-up Noise Pop show at Cafe du Nord on Wednesday

My First Earthquake jumps for joy for unicorns

I present to you one of my absolute favorite bands of San Francisco: My First Earthquake. I especially wanted to give them props because they donated all of the profits from their downloaded album in the month of January to the Haitian earthquake relief efforts. They will continue taking donations until this Friday February 5th. On Wednesday February 3rd My First Earthquake will be playing a FREE gig (if you RSVP) at Cafe de Nord as an official Noise Pop warm-up party and the 5th Anniversary of The Owl Magazine!

I sent over some random and silly questions just to see what Rebecca, Chad, Andre, and Dave would say, they did not disappoint.

Jamie: So what's your problem with hipsters anyway?
My First Earthquake: We haven't got a problem with them. They got a problem with us? What? Do they wanna fight us? We can take them.

J: How do you feel about the genre term I just coined called "dork rock'? Maybe "geek rock" is better?
MFE: I assume that you're referring to "dork rock" as being the type of music that hipsters listen to and not the music of My First Earthquake. Quite fitting.

J: If you could only wear one item of clothing on stage, what would it be?
Andre: Chain mail. No, wait... Mithril chain mail!!
Rebecca: The shiniest sequins.
Chad: My hyena eating a squid shirt.
David: Snakeskin boots.

TO READ THE REST OF MY INTERVIEW WITH MY FIRST EARTHQUAKE CLICK HERE

Chasing the Moon and Seaweed Sway: featuring some of the best music of the Bay Area

The ladies of Honeycomb

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

The Music Never Left You: a repost from Kirk Hamilton's Murfins and Burglars

Reposted from SF musician and friend Kirk Hamilton's blog Murfins and Burglars. I know you're out there fellow musical friends and former classmates.

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Things kind of suck right now, don’t they? It has become difficult, especially over these past few weeks, to shake the feeling that we are lying in the basin of some vast, vague ditch of malaise, frustration and crappiness – nationally, globally, but also individually. Everyone seems depressed, and not just because it’s January.

We’ll see if Mr. Obama can get up there tonight for his first State of the Union and make us feel better about things. I imagine that at the very least he’ll make those of us who support him feel a bit better about him, which should in turn make us feel a bit better about “things.” I doubt, however, that it’ll be the spiritual salve that I, at least, am craving.

But I think I know something that could be. I was browsing the Facebook statuses of my friends and fellow musicians when I saw a post by a San Francisco saxophonist I know, Bari Sax-man extraordinaire Doug Rowan, who shared the following:

Everyone that ever played a musical instrument and quit playing for some reason or another should pick it back up again and see what happens.

To which I say: YES. Doug, I love this. “Pick it back up again and see what happens.” Yes. Yes.

Right after seeing that (but unrelated to it), a singer friend of mine shared on my wall that she’d picked up her alto sax again after several years of not playing, and was loving it. And I realized: that’s it! We should go for it, we should turn that thought into some sort of unofficial national initiative.

People of the world!

Ex-band geeks, garage rockers! Dorm room strummers and lapsed fifth-grade recorder virtuosos!

Hear me, and heed the call! It is time to pick up your instruments once more!

Seriously, I am talking to YOU. Perhaps you played an instrument in your high school band, or banged on the bass in a garage punk group in college? Maybe you sang in the madrigals or were a marching band nerd? Did you rent-to-own a euphonium, or spend days learning scales on the xylophone? Is there an accordion moldering in a closet somewhere in your house?

If so, go dig that accordion up, dust of those drum cases, re-string that bass, have your folks ship out your old Squire. Find your old instrument and see if it still works, because I’ll bet it does. And more to the point, I’ll bet that you can still work it. Just place your hands on it and see what they remember. You just might surprise yourself.

And sure, you might be utter rubbish, you might give your cat a nervous breakdown. Playing again may remind you why the lip pain, sore fingers, and frustrating metronome bleeps made you stop in the first place. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll realize how much you loved music, how much you miss it, and you might start to play again. Find a teacher. Learn some new songs you like. Join a band.

I know this won’t solve anything tangible. It won’t get back any bailout money, or fix the California state budget, or re-hire all the amazing teachers who are going to be let go this year, to say nothing of what it won’t do for the suffering multitudes of the world.

But what it will do is something less quantifiable, perhaps smaller but no less grand – it might allow you to rediscover a part of yourself that you’d forgotten was even there.

You don’t have to sound “good.”

You don’t have to sound like anything at all.

Just give it a try. See what happens.

Sleeveface: an awesome blog

I've noticed that Sleeveface.com has been getting more creative lately. I wanted to share some of my favorites with you.

Sleeveface: one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion

Follow Sleeveface on twitter.

PBS's new music program "Sound Tracks" explores relevant music around the world

Some of the world’s best music has been created out of great passion and great struggle.

I was listening to Forum on KQED/NPR this morning driving my cat home from the vet and heard about an exciting new show that will air next Monday night at 10pm called "Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders." I didn't get to hear the whole report (a cat in a carrier is not a happy cat), but I am very excited about this show.

Producer Marco Werman and international correspondents Alexis Bloom, Arun Rath and Mirissa Neff have created a show that will take viewers on journeys of discovery from the bayous of Louisiana to the backstreets of Havana, from the nightclubs of Paris to desert music festivals in Mali. They'll interview everyone from Rock 'n Roll Hall of Famers to Bollywood singers, violin virtuosos to bluegrass musicians. It's not just good music they are looking for, but good stories behind the music.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF MY ARTICLE ON EXAMINER.COM

Click here for the "Sound Tracks" official website

Awesome musical moment: "Nicotine and Gravy" by Beck

You know those moments in a favorite song that you just want to play over and over and over again? And it NEVER gets old? I have favorite songs that never get old, but this is really more specific.

This particular moment has become a joke between my brother and me, and between other friends. Every time I hear it, it makes me happy.

Beck's Midnight Vultures from, 1999, (it's over 10 years old, WOW) has a fabulously silly, funky, energetic vibe all the way through it. It was my favorite CD to cook dinner to while I was living in a co-op in undergrad and now it's great for driving.

My favorite moment? At about 3 minutes in (on this youtube video) there's an instrumental breakdown and Beck screams something that you just can't make out, something like:

Ellaba, mugumweeeYEAAHHHHHH!!

check it out, click to 3 minutes in. Is he actually saying anything?



I know, it's ridiculous. I LOVE IT!

Makes me happy everytime.

Googling myself at 2:45 in the morning

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 it's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog
All for me beer and tobacco
Well I spent all me tin on the lassies drinking gin
Across the western ocean I must wander

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?

Hanging out with Julia Nunes at In-N-Out and her show at the Swedish American Hall

Julia and I prepare for Animal Style awesomeness

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Julia Nunes play live at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco. Since I showed up with Jack Conte of Pomplamoose, I got to meet her backstage before the show. This East Coaster told me that she had never been to In-N-Out before, so I offered to take her after her show. Like I NEED and excuse to get to In-N-Out. I know I've lived back on the West Coast for two-and-a-half-years, but it's still a novelty.

The show was so fun. Julia's stage banter, like her online humor, is very self deprecating. When seeing her sing live you really get to hear the power of her voice. Her songs are pretty straight up pop songs played on the guitar (which she has decorated with black sharpie marker and blue guitar strings) and two different ukuleles. I really enjoyed her random stories about meeting strange characters at the airport and witnessing her first rate beat boxing (but she might want to not quit the uke, *wink*).

Julia is the #27th most subscribed to musician on youtube and has some of the most loyal enthusiastic fans out there. After getting rockstar parking right outside the Swedish American Hall a good hour and 45 minutes before the opening band was supposed to go on, I spotted three fans hanging out on the sidewalk playing cards on the cold Market Street sidewalk. Yup, they were Julia Nunes fans and they wanted front row seats.

Julia has just released a new EP called "I Think You Know" and it was produced by Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn of Pomplamoose. I was playing it in the car on the way home last night and just couldn't get enough of the vocal harmonies of "Through the Floorboards." Theses songs have got Nataly Dawn's vocal arrangements written all over them. They are just gorgeous. I also love the song titled "Grown a Pair" written about a guy one of Julia's friends was dating.

If you are somewhat in the dark about what this youtube-musician thing is, check out the videos below. Julia makes them in her dorm room with her college friends. These two are pretty special, as most of them are just her and her uke in front of the computer. But these two are way more intricate. Watch her silly banter after the song is over. This video of "Binoculars" consists of video she asked her fans to send in which she edited together.

Julia is heading up to Seattle tomorrow and then to Minneapolis and Chicago.