Last night, as I struggled through my birthday hangover to finish my homework I overheard quite a bit of the Oscars as Marissa watched in the other room. I'd occasionally get up, frustrated by the annoying online homework system that my professor uses, to watch an acceptance speech or performance. During one of these breaks I was lucky enough to catch Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform their song from their movie Once. I hadn't heard anything about this movie, or much about The Frames in quite some time, so it was great to see such a great guy getting the acclaim he deserves. In his honor I'm pulling out an old myspace blog entry that I wrote about The Frames in 2006

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Thursday, March 16, 2006


In 2000 I went to go see The Gloria Record, the band that was made up of some of the dudes from Mineral, at The Middle East, in Boston. I went by myself, as I did to most shows around that time, and took my place on the back wall to watch the opening bands. Around that time the local openers in Boston at these types of shows were beyond bad, so I wasn't expecting much. The singer from TGR came out and introduced his "friend Glen Hansard, of The Frames" and urged everyone to listen closely. Just a dude with an acoustic guitar and a microphone, humbly dressed in poor fitting jeans and a blank gray t-shirt, the crowd seemed unimpressed. As he began to play the crowd seemed to grow obnoxiously loud and more engrossed in their conversations about... well, whatever the fuck it is that people at emo shows in 2000 talked about.

I could immediately tell that this guy wasn't some rich trust fund asshole from BC or BU, though. It was hard to hear over the jerks in the crowd, but it was plain to see that he was the real deal. He started with What Happens When the Heart Stops and by the time it was finished I'd made my way to the front and was up against the stage. A bit bugged by the conversations, he announced in a thick irish accent "hey, you know... i've got these songs and i came here to play them for you. it doesn't bother me if you're not interested in listening to them. but if that's the case, can you please step the fuck outside into the other room?"

Some people left, some people stayed. But it definitely got quieter. From there, in order from "For The Birds" he followed up with Headlong and then Fighting on the Stairs. I can't remember what he played after that. But I know that by the time he'd finished his set, the people that stayed were all in shocked silence during the songs, and in unified applause in between. He was egged on for an encore and was only the second of four bands playing. He never came back out. Two songs into The Gloria Record I opted to head back home before the Mass Ave (#1) bus stopped running.

I forget about The Frames from time to time but when I'm reminded of their existence I'm always reminded of that great night and throw on For The Birds and am still in awe at how great it is. Glen's playing solo in New York this weekend. I think I'm going to go. Maybe I'll even go by myself, you know, just for old time's sake.

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(I never did go to that New York show...)

I proposed this idea as part of a paper I wrote on digital music in 2002. Six years later, I think it's a lousy idea. I can't imagine why anyone would choose to purchase music this way on a regular basis. Why on earth would you want to drag yourself to the mall to plug into a machine that's no more capable than your home PC w/ iTunes installed to buy music? I can understand why a handful of Borders marketing execs sitting in a conference room would think that this is a good idea. After all, the business of selling plastic discs is dying and they still have revenue numbers to hit. However, if they have illusions of this type of music selling becoming a new norm and making up for what they're missing in the modern era of music sales, they'll be in for a rude awakening. This is a glossier version of the impulse candy rack at the supermarket, at best.

They're onto an idea, but unfortunately boring hell...

Weather.com tells me that it’s 32 degrees outside, but I can still feel spring in the air. There are pitchers, catchers, and the rest reporting to Florida. Fantasy leagues are, ahem, springing up. It’s certainly sunnier. This excites me. The winters in which I don’t get to ski are just something for me to get through. It’s the subsequent nine months of the year that make me feel like a human being. Here’s to hoping that our PA groundhog was wrong this year and that we’ll find ourselves with an early spring.

I’ve stumbled upon quite a few free eMusic downloads lately and have been checking out some stuff. Here’s what I’ve found…



Astrobrite – Crush

In anticipation of my Loveless 180g LP arriving in the mail I was hurtin’ for some new shoegaze stuff. I wasn’t familiar with Loveliescrushing, the band that spawned this side project, but the few samples I heard didn’t excite me as much as Astrobrite. It’s noisy as hell. Certainly less melodic and than MBV or Slowdive, but worth a listen for anyone into that type of stuff. Notable is the fact that it was all recorded to a 4-track machine without the use of keyboards… which is surprising given the overall sound. Also worth noting is that Astrobrite is a great band name in theory, but sounds much too much like Astroglide for my liking.



The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust

I thought the last Raveonettes record sucked. They took away the fuzz and uncovered that without it they were a horribly boring band. Luckily the fuzz is back, and although it’s not as prominent as it was on Whip It On or Chain Gang of Love, it’s for the better. A bit of filler, but if you’ve dug stuff by them in the past, you’ll be excited to hear this one.



Mojave 3 – Puzzles Like You

The fact that I’d never stumbled across this band makes me realize that I know even less about music than I thought I did. After obsessing over Slowdive’s Souvlaki for the last few weeks, I decided to wiki search the band to see what the members were up to. Luckily, they’ve been prolific and remain excellent. To Hold Your Tiny Toes and Breaking The Ice are two of the best new songs I’ve heard in a long, long time. It’s nothing like Slowdive, but that’s ok.

Maybe more of this blogging in the future. I miss it.