We Get Out – Niall Horan at Fillmore Silver Spring, Nov. 4, 2017

I would like to write a long, chatty post, and catch y’all up on recent musical doings, but I’m preparing for some travel and time is tight. So I’m just dropping in with a link to my latest review – Irish cutie, Niall Horan, once (and, hopefully, again in the future) of One Direction. I took pics and wrote words for AXS.com.

Niall Horan at Fillmore Silver Spring.

At the show, I gave out a few CPF biz cards to a few nice fans, and I want them to see the review if they drop by the site. More soon!

I Went, I Took Pictures, I Wrote About It

This little into bit here is always the hardest part of having a blog, trying to come up with some pithy way to say hello and fill in the gap from last we met. So I’m going to cut to the chase – I’ve been to some fine shows lately and wrote them up for my examiner.com column, with photo slideshows for all but one (the venue didn’t allow me to shoot). Here’s some links to bring you up to date, with photo samples to, hopefully, tease you into clicking through:

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, with members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Wolf Trap summer season opener, with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Preservation Hall Jazz Band

The two Daves – Cousins and Lambert – of Strawbs

The Strawbs revisit “Hero and Heroine” (an album that looms large in my personal legend) at AMP by Strathmore

The Avett Brothers

The Avett Brothers with Brett Dennen (8th row seats for an amazing show!) at Eagle Band Arena (formerly the Patriot Center)

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down (she went to high school with Dr. Daughter), plus Saintseneca (a new favorite) at the 9:30 Club

Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift (a veteran hero and a bright newcomer) at the Barns of Wolf Trap

Gaz Coombes (from Supergrass) and Piney Gir at Jammin Java

A trio of great local acts at Jammin Java – Sub-Radio, Swell Daze and Belmira

And there’s more coming soon, as I’m editing pics and writing text about another recent fine show – Nathaniel Rateliff and the Nightsweats (“S.O.B.”!!)

who opened for Lord Huron. See ya soon!

Here It Goes Again

(Days Just Past)  As a popular dorm poster once declared, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” While you could say this on any and every new morning, New Year’s Day is certainly the traditional time to commit to a fresh start in life, love and general happiness. I try not to put too much pressure on this day of new calendars and metaphorical page-turning but yeah, I’m looking to hit the reboot button and get some cool new things happening in 2016. (Note that I’m posting this on January 2, but I wrote most of it on 1/1/16.)

First off, I hope your December holidays, whatever you celebrate, were as happy as our family’s Christmas was. At our annual open house, the Fezziwig Ball, we had 81 people stop in to share food, drinks and fun. Christmas morning was the usual bacchanal of good cheer and not-entirely-cautious consumerism. I had much musical bounty to enjoy, including cool new print matter like “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Day-by-Day Trivia Calendar;” Carrie Brownstein’s memoir, “Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl;” Elvis Costello’s “Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink” (book edition; the digital download of music arrived earlier this year) and “Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting,” a massive tome that, among other purposes, serves to prove to my husband that he could have it much, much worse when it comes to how/where I store my music.

As for actual playable new tunes, I am the proud new owner of  The Unthanks Memory Box, a bee-you-tee-ous collection, requested from and obtained by my British-resident (for now) PhD graduate. It includes a vinyl 7″, a CD, a DVD, postcards, recipes and much more, all letterpress printed with love. There’s even one piece signed by the band members.

My other daughter, a Toronto resident (for now), took my request for cool new music to heart by  sharing a local favorite with me, The Meligrove Band, in two formats – Shimmering Lights (vinyl album) and Let It Grow (CD).  I also got Ryan Adam’s 1989 on gorgeous sea-foam green vinyl, given to me by my 89-year-old mother. (No, she’s not as hipster as all that. She gave me a check for $25 and I ordered it for myself, but it’s no less appreciated.)

Meanwhile, my Beatles fanboy husband scored the #1’s CD/DVD set and Ringo’s photography book, and a copy of Mojo with a CD collection called Songs the Beatles Taught Us.  Also, a gift from me to him that’s really for the both of us – Laurie Anderson’s soundtrack to Heart of A Dog.

(Looking Ahead)  As this new year begins, I post here in hopes of better organizing my social media presence. I’m currently most active on Twitter (@mariannemeyer) and plan to revive my Instagram account (ClosePersonalFriend) since my high tech research team (two neighborhood teens with good taste) tell me that IG is where it’s at. Nevertheless, I remain an active Facebook user, though I intend to cull my friends list to remove people whose negativity drags me down. (Nonetheless, here’s the Facebook link if you want to reach out.)

I’m still writing as a pay-by-the-click digital lackey: Digital Music Examiner (national music news and free, legal downloads), DC Concert Photography Examiner (DC local news and concert reviews with photo slideshows) and AXS Contributor  (general tour and video news).

And then there’s this...(Read on for a Freebie)

Since nobody’s beating down my door with offers to write about music for real money, I have been exploring the world of self-publishing, both POD (print-on-demand) and e-books and plan to get way more involved in the coming year.

My first foray into the latter, e-published in December, is a simple concert photo book of Aussie pop/punk boy band 5 Seconds of Summer, shot when they opened for One Direction in 2014 at Nationals Stadium. I originally intended to create an ebook of 1D photos, and still plan to do so, but decided to start with 5SOS as a simpler effort, since I had fewer photos and, frankly, wanted to tackle the learning curve with a band I didn’t love like I do my 1D boys.

Admittedly, the 5SOS nation has not, so far, risen to my bait. I am not selling well, with mostly just friends and family shelling out the $2.99 (hey, it would cost them more to buy me a holiday latte!) or using promo download codes the iBooks system gave me to toss about. Speaking of which, the first five people who send an email to my new eddress – Marianne@closepersonalfriend.com – will get a free download code of his/her very own.

Maybe not the holiday gift you were most hoping for, but what they heck – Happy New Year, m’dears!

 

Short month, long winter

February is the shortest month and yet it can easily feel like the longest, with the early-setting sun and bitter cold standing between me and spring – and my birthday, on March 1st. (Start planning now!)

At least this February, I have the sweet face of Harry Styles looking over my shoulder as I type, as his 21st birthday (can I buy you a drink, handsome?!) on February 2 makes him my calendar boy of the month.

Yes, my possibly inappropriate 1D fangirl obsession continues, but I was able to make it work with a recent story posted on AXS.com, when respected indie troubadour Martin Sexton covered a 1D song for his daughter, after she found out that Harry was following him on Twitter.

Other recent stories for that site include:

Courtney Barnett’s new single/video and upcoming album. Very excited for this as I loved her album and the show I caught last year, at the Black Cat. She was also very gracious afterwards, meeting fans and signing albums. Here I am with the cool lady. 

Sufjan Stevens’ new album and upcoming tour.

Rapper/singer Lizzo gets coveted spot opening for Sleater-Kinney’s tour.

I’ve had a few other items posted recently, so here are some other links for your pleasure:

Jukebox the Ghost and Twin Forks giving away free music and touring together.

A review of The Black Cadillacs, and Knox Hamilton (a new favorite band) at Jammin Java.

A review of (charming Southern boy) Christian Lopez, also at Jammin Java.

To recap, here are places you can find me and links to a whole lotta love:

AXS.com

Examiner.com – National Music news

Examiner.com – DC Concert Photography (reviews, previews and slideshows)

 Whatcha Gonna Play – the set list site

Thanks for dropping by and please come back soon. It won’t all be listicles (a horrible trend in journalism, with an ugly word to match!).

Goals and Guitars

So, tonight I’ll be back at the judges’ table for the second night of Jammin Java’s Mid-Atlantic Band Battle #11. It’s a twice yearly thing at the club now, and I’ve been happy to be asked to take part in many of the preceding events. Always a good time watching good regional musicians and seeing area pals who work at the club and on the local music scene.

Although the USA vs. Belgium World Cup game is highly distracting at the moment, I thought it would be a good idea to stop in here at the (long-neglected) blog to update some of my recent activities since, when the judges are introduced, the host/MC (hoping it’s Nate Ihara again) usually mentions the blog, where I’ll be posting photos and saying a little bit about each performer – but I won’t reveal the thoughts behind the judges’ scoring.

Because it sounds good, it’s usually mentioned that I write for Rolling Stone and The Washington Post. The correct tense should be have written, as it’s been some time since I’ve had a byline in either. RS was back when I lived in NYC, many years ago. As for the Post, I had a nice 5-year run doing a local arts events (mostly concerts) column for the Fairfax and Arlington regional sections, but when those were switched to a generic “Local Living” section, I lost that gig. And, as anyone who follows media knows, newspapers have been shrinking their staffs for some time now and freelancers like myself are the first to be shown out.

But I still writing about music, albeit online, where the pay is lousy and junk journalism runs free. I keep my hand in the game and my body in the photo pit by writing features and reviews and creating concert photo slideshows for examiner.com. I have two columns there:

Digital Music –  interviews and album reviews, plus links to free, legal downloads

DC Concert Photography – concert previews, reviews and live photo slideshows

There will be a new review up soon – country/rock/punk from Nikki Lane, whom I saw, and thoroughly enjoyed, this past Friday at Gypsy Sally’s in Georgetown. Here’s a pair of pics as preview:

whassup, Nikki Lane?

Lane was down to a terry-cloth bathing suit by show’s end. (The club was hot.)

And then there’s my own special “baby,” a web site that I designed and run, dedicated to concert photography and the sharing of my personal holy grail at shows – the set list. Like a fingerprint, each one is different. Like a mixtape/CD, how it’s put together gives you insight into a band or artist’s own feelings about his/her/their music. Here, for example, is one from a recent Foo Fighters show:

The web site is called Whatcha Gonna Play.com and I hope you’ll take a look.

We’ve just hit the mid-game break and the score is Nil-Nil. (I know a kid named Nils and he’s not nothing.) Gonna wrap this up and concentrate on sending the US team my positive karma for the second half.

Thanks for dropping by. Band Battle words and pics coming soon!

Where I’ve Been, What I’ve Seen, What I’ve Written

Hey there, CPF people. I’m not sure how many of y’all (as we say in Virginia) follow the articles I write for examiner.com or the postings I make to the Set List Site, WhatchaGonnaPlay, where I share concert photos and actual set lists from shows I’ve seen. (I would love to hear if you do via the comments section or direct email.)

Being busy elsewhere often keeps me from this here blog and I don’t want to be repetitive. But since I can’t assume that you know what I’ve been up to,  I thought I’d do a little catch-up summary here to remind you where else you can find my work…

Over at examiner.com, I write two columns. One is for reviews and previews of DC area concerts. Since my last posting here, the following have run:

Glenn Tilbrook at Jammin Java

Sept. 20 weekend preview – Travis, Virgin FreeFest, Laura Veirs, The Selecter

BOY at the 9:30 Club

Atlas Genius at Fillmore Silver Spring

I also have a Digital Music column, where I write about free, legal downloads and review albums and, as in the case of the One Direction movie (which I thoroughly enjoyed. So there!), other music-related stuff:

Freebies from Matt Pond, Army of Me, Wolfcolony,  samplers from the Mountain Oasis EDM fest, and the ATO label

“One Direction: This Is Us” movie review

And then, as I mentioned, there’s Whatcha Gonna Play, the set list site. I’ve been very lucky lately in that I’ve gotten lists from every show l’ve been to in the past month, and I’d love for you to check ’em out:

Glen Tillbrook

BOY

Atlas Genius, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (below) opening

And here’s a link you won’t find anywhere else yet. While I’m still working on the examiner.com review of this show, you can see the set list and pics from Wednesday night’s 9:30 Club appearance by Noah and the Whale.

I hope this collection of links offers you something new to see or at least explains my absence from CPF. I’ll try to be better about staying in touch.

Hope you’re well!