Calendar Worship and the Jack of All Trades

Bret Alexnder in a succinct piece for Indie on the Move:

Most, I’d dare say almost all, of my musician friends don’t play with one band anymore. They play with several. That includes me. Off of the top of my head here I just thought of 13 formats that I play in (various bands, duo formations, solo, etc). ’Tis the way of things now.

His experience mirrors mine almost exactly. Almost. I do manage to hold onto the good old days with the Bottom Dwellers and Pleasant Valley Boys. I’ve been with both groups for over ten years. In a good year, we might break even. We do it because…

[...] there is nothing like a group of guys¹ that live with each other every day and can read each others minds.

I sit in with my share of bands, but there is nothing like your home band, where you know (and like) the other players so well they are more of an extension of your chops than they are individuals. This is why we hang on.

1. And girls. I actually play music with some of those, too.  â†©

Gaelynn Lea: Winner of NPR’s 2016 Tiny Desk Concert

A beautiful song and an excellent performance.

In the original tune she submitted, “Someday We’ll Linger in the Sun,” Gaelynn creates a beautiful droning loop with her JamMan Express loop pedal and after a moody minute begins to sing a yearning tale of life’s preciousness and time’s constant ticking and why we should always care.

If you need more, she released a record in 2012 with Alan Sparhawk of Low.

One day while playing at a farmers market in Duluth, Alan Sparhawk, the guitarist and singer of the band Low (also from Duluth) heard Gaelynn Lea playing. Shortly after he texted her, asking if she’d like to play together. It was the beginning of a musical friendship. That friendship is a casual one they call The Murder of Crows. I discovered that they’d made a record together back in 2012 called Imperfecta.

Buy Imperfecta by The Murder of Crows

• on iTunes
• on Amazon
• listen on Spotify

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