Eye For Music

I've been neglecting the part of me that best processes, experiences, and understands the world by Writing Things Down, and it does make me wonder -- in fits of an almost obligatory dread -- if that is a bad sign for someone who intends, in varying ways, to make a life of Writing Things Down. But the part of me that doesn't-worry-about-these-things-because-worrying-about-these-things-doesn't-solve-these-things says its piece, and all the other voices in my head nod earnestly (if somewhat eagerly) and move on with their lives, with a silent agreement (less binding than a verbalized one) to devote more time to Writing Things Down. And here I am instead, working my through a small backlog of photos from shows, taken across the past couple months. There is something to be said about justifying procrastination as merely satisfying other areas of interest, and that is that it is an excuse, and a mostly adequate one.

So these photos were all taken with either my phone or an old Sony point and shoot I borrowed from my roommate, excepting for a batch (noted below) that were taken with a Canon PowerShot S95 point and shoot (more on that below).

The Head & The Heart, at Terminal 5 on March 8th. These guys were a lot of fun -- I highly recommend catching one of their live shows if you can.

Whereas The Head & The Heart are a six-piece band that fill up the stage with their harmonies and size (occasionally swollen even more by friends and other musicians invited to join them on stage to jam out on certain songs), The Joy Formidable are made up of only three members, and play pretty much the entire show with just the three of them. And yet the band's energy, embodied so succinctly in lead singer Ritzy Bryan's sass, sneers, and smiles, engulfs the stage and crowd in the same way. They played Terminal 5 on March 28th.

My biggest gripe with most point and shoots is their deficiency in low light settings. Even a band playing at a fairly well-lit venue like Terminal 5 can be washed out in muddy blacks or blurred into oblivion by a maddeningly unadjustable shutter trying to compensate for the light level. On the other hand, you sometimes end up with interesting dazzles of color and light.

I've been hesitant to invest in a decent point and shoot because A) I already cashed in all my chips for my 5D, B) I really only have a need for one to shoot at venues that don't allow me to bring in my 5D, and C) cell phone cameras have been good enough (and continue to get better) to at the very least cast the shadow of redundancy over point and shoots. But I thought I'd do some research, and borrowed a friend's S95 because it's supposed to be a stellar low-light shooter, the only feature I would prize in a point and shoot. And you know what? It did really well. Not well enough to spur me to immediately whip out my wallet, but well enough to keep the door open on a future purchase. In any case, I'd recommend it for those actually in the market for a point and shoot.

The Naked & Famous were back in town, this time headlining at Terminal 5 (as opposed to their opening gig last year) on April 4th, and their show was the beneficiary of the S95's low light capabilities.

Jumping back to camera phone shots, this last batch is from the Memoryhouse show at Public Assembly on April 21st. Public Assembly is one of those smaller Brooklyn venues, and a fitting place to see a dreamy, shoegaze-y act like Memoryhouse in that it allows for an intimacy that otherwise would've been lost in a bigger space. That said, they spend about $35 on their lighting efforts, but even with that handicap I think it's still pretty apparent how much better the S95 is at handling heavy contrast and higher ISOs.

That's probably more than enough blathering on about cameras. How about some music to fill in the quiet until I commit to writing something more meaningful down?

Soft Serve

You can always count on A Softer World for a gem like this:

or this:

Some of my favorites over the years:

The titles that pop up when you hover over each image are an added bonus (although, to be honest, sometimes I like them better without since they often switch up the tone of the strip). Part photography, part comic, A Softer World (a collaboration between Canadians Emily Horne and Joey Comeau) illustrates, at least to me, how few words you really do need to tell a compelling story. Rich histories can be conveyed more succinctly by what's left out rather than what makes it into the final product.

I first came across these strips through Roy, who in turn heard about them from Monika (I think). It's stuff like this that makes the Internet wonderful. Self-publishing is a beautiful thing, a truly powerful asset. Anyway, the strips have been collected into two volumes thus far, and you can buy those here, or just keep checking them out for free.

On blogging

Though never what you'd call a regular updater, I've blogged for the better part of the last decade. In all that time, I never wrote about anything beyond a simple recap of my day or a poorly executed and partially guarded transcript of my thoughts. True, for much of the last decade I was a teenager; and like many teenagers, I was great at exuberance, terrible at expression. The fact that my personal blog(s) was a wasteland of inconsequential musings and inarticulate ramblings shouldn't be much of a surprise.

As I get older, though, it'd be nice to have somewhere to write and, on occasion, receive some amount of feedback. Consider it Blog 2.0. Or, to better account for the number of personal blogs I've actually started and abandoned over the years, Blog 4.0. And this is its manifesto. It will be a better organized and properly filtered repository for my brain droppings. Be it reflections of the more quotidian variety, slightly more thoughtful insights, or small writing samples, this blog will have a place for all of them.

The nature of it being a blog means it's publicly accessible, so of course this is, in many ways, meant for you. But it will always firstly, and in many more diverse ways, be for me. It's a selfish declaration, but one we all implicitly make when publishing anything to the internet in the form of a blog. So hopefully what you read here will be of some merit to you, able to provide a laugh, a smirk, a scoff, a momentary distraction. But even if it doesn't, it does provide something for me -- a laugh, a smirk, a scoff, a momentary distraction.

A voice.

So please, listen for a little while.