tunetastic

i'd been hearing about this band for a while. a few of my friends in austin saw them at sxsw and loved their show, so i was interested in hearing their album. annnnd, i love it. it's fun and quirky , great music, great vocals- super album. if you're into tambourines, guitars and clapping, this is an album for you. i'd say, similar to deer tick, mumford and sons, edward sharpe, frightened rabbit and a little ryan adams? i dunno, i'm not really good at that kind of stuff- you know, like similar artists. i honestly just looked up a bunch of folk/alt country artists. anyway, check out this video. it's cute and i want to go to this party.

tunetastic

this week, the third album of the mermaid avenue sessions came out. if you don't know the story behind this, i'm going to give you a short (and probably not great) synopsis. let me start with the fact that you probably need to enjoy woody guthrie to enjoy this music. story goes that woody guthrie had all these lyrics to songs locked away in an attic (again, i am taking liberties with this story and i love to embellish the truth so take this with a grain of salt). his daughter had them and gave them to billy bragg, a british songwriter, who collaborated with wilco to record and produce the songs. now, what i also heard on a documentary or something at one time, was that woody had told bob dylan he could have the songs, which led to some controversy. but i could be making that up- like i said, lp always gets on me for "embellishing" (that's the nice way of saying it).

so, my favorite song is actually not from this newest volume that came out but from the first volume. if you haven't heard any of these, check them out.

i seriously love woody guthrie, and i really like these albums. on a side note, if you haven't heard much woody guthrie, you need to get on that. and townes van zandt. these guys are amazing and influenced a lot of the alt-country musicians that i love today. there are a few great documentaries on each of them. be here to love me  is about townes van zandt (if you need any more confirmation, imdb says it also 'stars' willie nelson, guy clark and joe ely) and i love ain't got no home on woody guthrie, which is a pbs documentary. sigh, i love pbs too. anyway, here's my favorite song from the sessions!!!

music: sonos

yall should know this by now, but i'm a HUGE music fan and so is lp. in fact, that's definitely one of the reasons that we were initially attracted to each other. we both love music and not just plain old regular music but we love finding new artists and independent bands and all that. music is a HUGE part of our lives. now, what i'm sure i have also talked about is how amazing lp is with technology. thank goodness because i'm a technology idiot.

when we first started dating, lp told me all about this music system he was going to get. it was called a sonos system. the idiot version of how it works: you have one/two/three/a million "zones" in your house which plays music from the internet, your hard drive or, in our case, a record player. each zone can be connected to one another and play the same thing, or if you'd like, can be disconnected from each other to play different music. you can also turn zones off, so for instance, if you are in the bedroom and want music, but don't want it to play in your kitchen, you just disconnect the kitchen and you can play music in your bedroom. one of the best things about it is that there are no wires. so you can have all this music without wires running all through your house.

we absolutely love this system. we have several of their amps:

each of these amps are hooked up to speakers to play our music (of course lp has fancy speakers that i don't even know about!!). we also just got their new Play3, which is pretty much like a portable speaker that plays your sonos. we use it in the bathroom and unhook it when we have people over to take it outside.

with your sonos, you can use rhapsody, which is one of my favorite music services ever. you pay less than $20 a month and can play allllll the music you want through the sonos. or, if you get a rhapsody supported player (like the sansa) you can run around with your rhapsody.

overall, we love our sonos. it is seriously one of the best things we have ever gotten. ever. we play music everyday and love listening and dancing around our house to all the music we can play through our sonos!!!!

tunes

i was going to write about this band i've been listening to lately called bahamas. if you haven't heard of them, check them out! i couldn't find an actual video, but i found this weird video that someone made where it's just the cover of the album and the song:

then i got to thinking about what else i've been listening to lately and let me tell you, i never get tired of listening to beirut. ugh, i am obsessed with his music. a few years ago, i listened to the flying club cup nonstop. (totally had to look that up. again, i can recognize/sing all the songs and not know one song title or album title. worst. music. fan. ) anyway, i like to look at videos because you know you never see those things on mtv anymore. they're too busy showing spin offs of jersey shore and stuff about pregnant teenagers- thank goodness for youtube!! anyway, this video is amazing!!! love the music, the dancing, the costumes. beautiful. all of it.

tunetastic

i don't have any new music that i've been dying over this week, so, as always, i went back to something i really used to like. that would be oh land. she's super adorable, danish, and quirky. her music varies from light-hearted fun to slightly dark and stalkerish. i like all of that. her self titled album is a good one to run to or just put on in the car. check out her adorable video for my favorite song of hers!!

tune-tastic

lately i have been OBSESSED with andrew bird. the first album i heard of his was noble beast. i have no clue if that was his first album or not. i am a huge music person, but many times i do not know titles of songs, albums songs are on or when they were released. in fact, i just had to look up the name of that album. so i'm kind of like a wannabe music snob who doesn't know anything other than artist names. whatever. back to a-bird- i loved that album. i mean, LOVED it. it's a perfect mix of sweetness and sadness and longing and love. all the things that really touch me about music. he just came out with a new album last week (or the week before, i can't really remember) and now i'm obsessed with it also. i've been meaning to talk about it on here for a while because if you don't listen to him, you should. here's one of my favorites from noble beast- check it out!!!

listen up!

right now i'm digging on lady singers. there are times when i feel like (sorry ladies!!) the ladies in music really suck it, but lately there are some awesome chicks with great voices. a few of my favs......

FIRST AID KIT

first off, how flipping adorable are these ladies???? so cute. and they're swedish (which i adore). but more than both of those things, they have the most beautiful voices. if you listen to their album, you will not know they are swedish. in fact, lp thought they were southern. southern swedish girls?!?!? awesome. their music is hauntingly beautiful, complete with guitars, flutes and the most wonderful harmonies. think, fleet foxes as ladies. love lovey love.

TENNIS

i love fun bands with happy music (duh) and this band is so fun. they sound like those scenes in movies where a girl and a guy are playing on the beach, splashing in the ocean, laughing in the sand. it's the kind of music that makes me want to turn up the volume, open my sunroof and drive to.....virginia. well, that's about as far as i'm willing to drive right now.

SHARON VAN ETTEN

i love a lady with a dusky, mumbly voice. um, that doesn't sound right. do ya'll know cat power? awesome singer/songwriter and this little lady sings in a similar way. great lyrics and her voice is that wonderful, deeper sound that so few can get away with. plus, she seems like a fun chick to hang out with.

life these days

being 31 is really turning my crank. as i sit here, lp is playing a computer game (nerd!) on our crazy huge super computer. what is this super computer, you may ask? well, when we moved in, the house came with a huge tv- because it was big and wired in through the wall and most people couldn't move it. my super smart amazing boyfriend decided that since we had a tv, we should take the old tv down, put ours up and then make the tv into a computer. yes, i know. he IS amazing like that. so we now have a 'super computer' (my nickname) and lp is playing some game where he makes his own country and manages it as i type and have a glass of wine. these are our typical nights and i have to say that i love them. i'm so low key these days that this all makes me so content and happy. lp has also found me my "heart station." he thinks that with internet radio, everyone has one special radio station that plays all the kinds of music you like. mine is WFMU's Ichiban Rock and Soul. now, i have, um, eclectic taste in music and i border on the side of kitsch at times, so my all time favorite music is old 50s/60s rock and rockabilly and this station is AMAZING if you like that sort of stuff. they even play old commercials about coke or "the mod squad"- so freakin' cool. so we have: me typing+glass of wine, lp on the super computer, favorite music on the stereo. can you blame me for thinking that 31 is the bees' knees????

and the rest.....

where were we....oh yes. we had just left timbuctu. when we arrived back in bamako, lp and i promptly took the longest (and best) showers ever. it was glorious. words cannot describe a steaming hot shower after 3 days of cold showers and then 3 days in the desert- bask in the thought. we ate a HUGE lunch (all i requested were veggies. that's it) and we watched a movie with tim, then went to bed early. also glorious- sleeping in a bed after basically camping for a week. on monday, lp and i did absolutely nothing. we woke up late, ate breakfast (that the cook made for us!), and laid out at the pool pretty much all morning/early afternoon. we showered (2nd best shower ever) and then walked to the store to get a beer and then back to laying out and reading. that night we all went to dinner at a great little outdoor place where i had fish and fries - that was one of my staples in mali. the next day, lp and i decided to go to kangaba, which was supposed to be a hiking/camping area. tim let us borrow the car and as we drove we saw the greatest place in the world:

(it says "no stress" and "pirate club" on the sides)

the day was really hazy so this is what we saw when we hiked

the next day we decided to meet tim for lunch at one his favorite places. this place had yams that were smashed and mashed into dough-like balls and then covered with a sauce (peanut or spicy tomato). you then tore off pieces of the dough ball and dipped it in the sauce. pretty good but really weird texture. anyway, they gave us some water:
yup, it was in a bag. hilarious. you had to tear it open with your teeth and then suck the water out. after that lp and i went to the national park and museum. it was pretty and we stuck around for a little while and then went back to tim's to hang out and read more. the next day (thursday) tim took off work and he, lp, cheik and i went to a fancy french restaurant. it was pretty adorable and had interesting things to eat, like porcupine. that's what i ate. seriously. it was pretty good. no spikes. and the restaurant was super cute!

inside (yes, we were the only people there. cheik called and told them we wanted to come for lunch, so they opened for us. so vip.)

these were the "christmas trees" that were all over. it was totally made of tinsel. of course, i loved it.

there were also lots of animals around outside. like a monkey.

after lunch, we went to cheik's village and his family home. it was small but pretty (like a lot of the other landscape around!).

his family house

backyard

the rooster that lived there

cheik's brother, tim and cheik

as you can tell, it was very rustic. it was also very cool that we got to go to the village, as there aren't too many white people (or "toubob's" as we're called there) that get to visit. when we got home, my feet were KILLING me with itching. apparently because about a million mosquitoes bit me.
on friday, we left around noon and flew to senegal, where we had an 8 hour layover. we left the airport and tim's friend's came and took us to their house where we hung out for a while. then lp and i went to find a late dinner on the beach. fresh fish!!
the end of our story is that we got to the airport and were almost first in line but our emailed itinerary didn't have our full names on it, so we had to run around to a get an actual ticket. when we got it, we'd obviously lost our place in line and ended up getting the WORST seats (the sucky middle seats-yuck!). we got on the plane and they came to ask lp to come look at our bag- because we had batteries in a flashlight. are you kidding? when we finally get home, our luggage is not there to meet us (of course). luckily, it got here the next day, but we were glad to get home!!!!!

timbuctu

sorry it's been so long, but here we go again.....

wednesday january 5, 2011: we wake up EARLY. tim had arranged for us to catch a ride with 2 girls who were friends of people he worked with. they had paid for a guide up to timbuctu and for the festival and there was room in the car for lp and i, so we got in (sidenote: this part of the trip was so lucky for us. it was apparently really hard to find a ride if you weren't with a tour group). so we get up and get in a land cruiser with these 2 girls, our driver and his cousin/brother/whoever in the back. our drive takes us down a dirt/sand/rocky/bumpy road that is probably the WORST drive i've ever heard of or been on in my entire life. picture us going about 60 mph, through bumps and potholes, sand, rocks, all that for 6 hours. my bottom flew out of my seat a few times (I WORE MY SEATBELT!!!) and if i had a weaker stomach, i would have lost it several times. finally we come to a long road with water on either side-the road into timbuctu! we have to drive down this road and take a ferry over to get to the city, but of course there's a huge line for the ferry so we get out and look around.

the road

the line for the ferry

the houses where the people who sold stuff on the road lived

donkeys

our ride

the rumor was that we would have to wait for anywhere from 1 to 4 hours for the ferry. luckily though, our driver knew "people" and got us to the front of the line (VIP, ya'll!). i thought we'd get to take this cute little boat over:
but he got us and our luggage on the ferry first and off we went!!!

this little girl was inching up on lp. i almost had to fight her. ha!

timbuctu!

our driver drops us off at our hotel and it is great!! we went in a had dinner (oh, we hadn't eaten since like 9 am. it was about 6 by this time) and it so good! we ate roasted chicken and french fries with a beer. it was the perfect end to the day!

after meal tea they always serve. it's brewed 3 times and it is super sweet. i couldn't stop drinking it.

the next day our driver was supposed to come get us at around 11, show us around and take us to the festival. he showed up at 12:30 and by 2 we still hadn't eaten. we were super angry and had it out with him, which ended up in our favor. we ate lunch (or whatever you call a meal at 3 pm) and then headed out to the festival. when we pulled up, there are people and camels everywhere!

our tour guide, abu

we are shown to our tent and then lp and i are on our own. in the desert. in timbuctu. we speak NO french and mali is a francophone country, so this is the part i'm worried about. luckily, everyone was so so so sweet and nice and many of the people spoke "a little" english. let's just say that their "little bit" was waaaaayyy more than my "little bit"! we had a guard for our tent who we made friends with really quick to make sure nobody messed with our stuff. his name was nana.

lp, mohammoud, nana

the tents

our tent!!! note the thing in the background to the right. that was one of our "toilets" - a hole in the ground

sunset in the desert

our chefs

Tuareg's. these are a group of nomadic people who live in the desert. as they often travel, they use camels. well, actually dromedaries, which is a camel with one hump.

that's the moon up top!

we ate dinner before the festival started. dinner (and lunch) was typically rice or couscous with a vegetable sauce. and dirt. i really dislike couscous and i'm not hot on rice, so during the festival i was not very pumped about the food. anyway, we ate and then headed down to the festival. the music started around 9 or 10 each night, and lasted until about 2 am. it was super cold at night, even colder than we had expected, but luckily they lit fires around the music area and our sweet guide got us blankets from somewhere (i don't know where and i don't really like to think about it, but it was a dirty time in my life so i wasn't too concerned at the time).

fire

band

the next few days were all pretty much the same: wake up around 7-8, eat breakfast (bread and jam), come back to tent and take morning nap, wake up, walk around for a bit, eat lunch, take after-lunch nap, get up, walk around for a bit (or read in tent), eat dinner, go to concert, come back and go to sleep. here are some highlight photos:

our restroom

some of the other tents

mid-afternoon performance at our lunch tent. yeah, we ate with the VIP's!

oh! one afternoon lp and i got to take a camel ride!!! it was so much fun for me, as i had wanted to do it since i heard about camels being there. we were able to go out for about 45 minutes! it was scary and fun!

getting on my camel

yay! we're riding camels!

backside camels

sand, sand, sand. and one lone man.

low flying planes

the kids entertained themselves by flipping down the dunes. i'm jealous i was too old to participate.

our "beds"

oh yeah, i also forgot there was a camel race one day. i didn't know camels raced, but apparently they do and we got to see it. i will tell you that camels are not that fast, so this race was not the most thrilling thing in the world, however, it was something to do!

here they come!

after three days of being in the desert, peeing in a hole, not showering, sweating, dancing, and just generally being dirty, i was ready to take a shower. i mean, i smelled terrible. luckily, we had a hook up and got a seat on one of the only 2 flights to bamako that sunday (when the festival was over). the girls we had ridden up there with had to take a 2 day car ride back to bamako!!! needless to say, i was so happy to get on a plane that would take me to a shower in an hour. we got our boarding passes and i was a little nervous:

it's definitely the first time i've had a boarding pass with no name, but we ended up getting on the flight and back to bamako. as i've said, we smelled pretty bad and when tim picked us up i tried to tell him this. about 5 minutes into the car ride, he let us know that we really did smell as bad as we had thought. showers were our first activity at the house!! more on the rest of the trip next post!