Hate to start on a sad note, but losing Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne and Ivy (and other projects) was a real kick in the trousers. This line from a Washington Post tribute sums it up nicely:
… his sharply tuned ear for both catchiness and emotion meant that Schlesinger could do something rare: He wrote songs that were not only wonderful but also could help you understand what it was that you loved about an entire genre of music.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/02/adam-schlesinger-wrote-great-songs-helped-us-understand-why-we-loved-them
A couple of nice tributes are in the WaPo and The Ringer.
Here are a few links to check out over the weekend (and in some cases, ongoing) for your semi-live music fix.
KEXP in Seattle has a list of Virtual Concerts here: https://www.kexp.org/events/
NPR’s list is here: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/17/816504058/a-list-of-live-virtual-concerts-to-watch-during-the-coronavirus-shutdown
A few shows of note for Saturday 4/4:
- Jesse Malin plays at 4 p.m. on YouTube. Last week’s gig is here (and below)
- Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) is doing another Happy Hour at 4:30 on FB (at that link he has video of his rehearsal of the Fountains of Wayne song “Hackensack”)
- Rob Fetters is playing another “from home” show at 8 p.m.
FWIW, I think the Instagram interface is the worst of the bunch… small screen, and the artist is usually partially obscured by the comments stream.
Shows already recorded for your viewing pleasure:
Richard Thompson did a great gig. Then again, every gig he does is great.
Here’s Jesse Malin’s show from last week:
Joe Pernice is doing Barry Manilow covers here: https://vimeo.com/user6808878/videos. (This Paste interview with Joe has more details.)
Sofar has a YouTube channel with several artists’ performances: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sofarsounds
Just for fun
If you’ve never checked out the Comedy Bang Bang podcast, you need to do so. And here are videos of the host (Scott Aukerman) and a frequent guest (Paul F. Thompkins) adding their own version of the Star Wars cantina music to classic scenes from several movies. The entire playlist is below… watch all of them as it has a cumulative silliness effect.
Adam Schlesinger’s passing reminded me of this great Robbie Fulks tune:
And finally a great tweet from Craig Finn:
Stay positive indeed!
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