Vince Gill, Guitar Slinger (2011)

aka Nashville artist #2

Vince Gill makes me happy in the face. This album is the Nashville of my dreams. Although he was actually born in Oklahoma (I'm forgiving him this because there happens to be another Oklahomeboy of whom I'm pretty fond) he's been in Nashville since '83 and while we're there he'll be playing the Ryman. (No, I can not afford to go.) 

This album opens with a huge blast of energy before bringing it down a notch or four (perhaps something Sarah Siskind could learn from...) And while it's country music, it's also a 1950s rock n roll bar (see 'All Nighter Comin''), it's jazz and soul and gospel ('Buttermilk John') and blues ('When The Lady Sings the Blues'). There's ballads ('Threaten Me With Heaven',) and there's honky tonk (the title track.) And while the album is cohesive and unified it initially moved so quickly and diversely that I barely had time to keep up. I lovedit. 

I read one review which stated "this album shows the grey in his hair" - and perhaps that's exactly what I liked it about. This was classic and yea, I could hear '90s influences (such as in 'Tell Me Fool', 'Who Wouldn't Fall in Love with You' - incidentally what drew me the most about this was the beautiful delicate female vocals by Ashley Monroe - and 'Threaten Me') which I'm pretty sure weren't ironic. I'm not saying I didn't get a bit bored in the latter example, and I wouldn't want to listen to an entire album of '90s ballads, but thankfully this wasn't; it had opened with such energy and continued with enough diversity that it kept me interested. The album is called "Guitar Slinger", and it's the work of an enormously talented guitarist - most often those quieter ballads give way to face-melting guitar solos, and that kind of makes them worthwhile. 

It was, evidently, five years in the making, and it is a big album - not just in epicness, but also in length; it's over an hour comprised of 15 big tracks. Once I'd settled into it - about track 7 - it became a very easy album to listen to. It is a classic country album; it was an easy listen, and I really enjoyed it. 

Sarah Siskind, Novel (2011)

aka Nashville Artist #1 

I picked this artist first because I read a review that likened her to my beloved Gillian Welch - always bound to be an extreme compliment, or some form of sacrilege. Or, in this case, somewhere in between. I settled in to listen to this album as I made some delicious Christmas cookies - a gentle listen in a bright kitchen as I enjoyed my 'me time'. Delightful.

Siskind does not consistently have the same haunting, ethereal quality that makes Gillian Welch such a phenomenal singer-songwriter. But she does have a powerful, crystal clear voice and at times, such as in the lovely 'Feeling for You', she does demonstrate that beautiful eery sound and clever use of minor chords. The soul-inspired 'Rescue You' also has a wonderful Gillian-esque quality to it too - an excellent track, and probably my pick of the album. Or was, until I heard 'Didn't it Rain' - a real boot stomper, almost sort of gospel-ish, driven by wild steel strings and earthy vocals. Wow!

'Crying on a Plane' hit a little close to home for this weary traveller - a beautiful, soulful ballad driven by deep piano, a truly lovely song. 'Nowhere in the Middle' was actually very Martha Wainwright to me, right down to the very literal lyrics. It wasn't until spotify skipped me over to her earlier, 2008 album, 'Say it Louder' - which I definitely preferred - that I realised Siskind has a much more Martha quality to her than she does Gillian. But unlike Martha, whose literal lyrics all just seem to fit, my main issue with this 2011 Siskind album is that sometimes the lyricism is just a bit clumsy and awkward. And detached. Maybe that's what she's aiming for, but it sort of feels a bit like she's aiming too hard. And while I like her interesting timing, her soul-y, jazz-y take on folk, for me sometimes the songwriting doesn't always click. I'd love to hear her just chill out a bit.

Ultimately, comparisons (others this artist draws are Joni Mitchell - much more to the mark - and Carly Simon) are unfair and do no one the justice they deserve. She has a beautiful voice, knows her way round a guitar, and many of the tracks were "growers" - my second and third listens were definitely more enjoyable. There's no denying 'Novel' contains some real gems - I mean seriously, 'Didn't It Rain' is something truly special - but personally I don't think the album is arranged to display them to their full potential - there's too much wading through awkwardness to get to the tracks that really click. That said, if I walked into a bar tomorrow and paid 10 bucks to see an acoustic Sarah Siskind show, I have no doubt that I would walk away thinking I had heard something truly remarkable. As for the album: liked it, didn't love it.  

Nashville!

In a week (only 7 sleeps, people!) we are going on a little winter vacation that will end up in none other than NASHVILLE. Nashville's been #1 on my list of Must-Visit places ever since I arrived in the US, and now the lovely American has made it happen. I am beyond excited.

I've been watching the ABC show named for the city recently and I love it. Scandal, sex, politics and country music - it's the perfect storm for a TV show, in my view. (More on pop culture in my next post.) 

So between watching this truly excellent show, getting very excited for our vacation, and wanting to educate myself a bit, I have been inspired to use the blog to  look at one Nashville artist every weekday until we leave. By my reckoning that should come out as a sort of Top 5 Nashville artists. I love country music, but I'm very definitely still learning it, so any suggestions will be most welcome.

Home

in Mexico City

When I first arrived in San Cristóbal de las Casas, I was pretty sure I’d made a huge mistake and that I really wasn’t going to like it. It was misty, freezing, grey, and 6:30 in the morning. Oh, and freezing, did I mention? But after some sleep and when the sun had come out, I came to realise that this really is a quite magical little town, full of warm vibes and pleasant surprises. It’s a fitting metaphor for my experience of Mexico as a whole. As I started writing this, the hostel I was staying in was blaring The Black Keys’ El Camino, an album on which I pontificated back when I first came to Mexico, and an album that helped me deal with some of Mexico’s eccentricities. Again, it felt kind of fitting to start wrapping up my time in Mexico in much the same way as I started it.

Mexico has, on and off, been my home for about the last 10 months. I feel truly, genuinely lucky to know this country the way I do. Every day I was taken in some way by the warmth, the colour, and the sheer vibrancy of Mexico. It challenged and frustrated me, but it also delighted me and it just had a way of just getting under my skin. It was not always easy, but it was worth it.

Guatemala's Rio Dulce

And recently, as I was cruising down the Rio Grijalva towards the Cañon del Sumidero, it struck me, for the first real time, that I am living the dream. For years I remember looking at friends’ facebook pages and seeing pictures of their adventures through jungles and highlands, particularly in Central and South America, and thinking how wonderful and exotic it looked. Wasn’t it fantastic that they could speak Spanish to get around, weren’t they brave travelling through the Amazon, and how on earth did they find the money and the time off from work to have all these adventures? It all looked like such an impossible dream; something that I would love to think about doing, but which in my hectic life, would never be my reality.

Chichen Itza

Now here I am on hiatus from work and having, for a brief time, made Mexico home. But still in the midst of my day-to-day life, I’m sometimes too often caught up in what visa I need, which flight to catch where, how to fill in long days of solitude - and yes how the hell am I going to afford all of this?! – to stop and realise that this is the dream. 

In NYC

Just over a year ago, I moved out of my apartment, shifted my life into neat boxes in a storage unit, and started my love affair with this part of the world. During my travels last year (which, fittingly, started in Mexico) I met so many folks who were in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, having thrown in a job they barely tolerated to head off, travel, and have some time to themselves. I was 27, and I smugly congratulated myself on loving my job as much as I did, and on knowing exactly who I was, and where my life was headed. Not only did I genuinely look forward to going back to work, but you guys I had a plan. Such a trip for me was just a vacation to a nice place in amongst my real life. 

Coachella

16 months later, and it appears my smugness may have been premature. I did promise not to get ‘Eat Pray Love’ about it, and I’m not going to pretend that the last 16 months have been about finding myself. They really haven’t. But plans change, and with it my priorities have changed, and I’m pretty stoked to report that the world didn’t fall apart when my plans changed. And, better than that, flicking through a collection of photos (some of which I have taken the liberty of scattering through this post) it’s evident how much, among the daily logistical questions that come with travel, when I look up, I really have seen and done. 

Oaxaca, Mexico

I was lucky to spend my final few days in Mexico not only with treasured Mexican friends, but with friends from home; real gypsies who live in house trucks and spend their lives exploring together. They totally embody the value in slowing down and enjoying the ride, and it was such a treat to spend some time in their easy company. And after my many years of gypsydom of a different kind, I have friends like that all over the world. The kind that you can not see since you last toured New Zealand in the back of a van together, and then randomly meet on the Caribbean coast of Mexico 6 years later. Those kind of friends are truly ace. And, bless their dear souls, they introduced me to Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, who I am listening to as I finish this post. 

So, this is it for me and Mexico. I’m packed up and gone. After calling Mexico home on and off, I’ve finished my unfinished business, and I’m excited to see what happens next. I’m lucky to have homes and people all over the world, and I’m grateful that Mexico found its way into my life to be home for a while. 

PUMPKIN PIE

Ok so I've been totally sucked in by that most American of holidays, Halloween. My inner child is skipping about excitedly, annoying all the adults nearby. And so the (very patient) American in my life promised to buy me a pumpkin to carve, with the quid pro quo that I made him pumpkin pie. Seemed like a fair deal. 

I made this guy

One of the things I'm struggling with here is the lack of ingredients / recipes to make things from scratch. Every place I look there's pre-made pie shells, pre-made pie fillings, pre-made everything, and it's difficult to find raw ingredients. I'm not crazy organic-focused (and please don't get me started on the 'food miles' myth), but I do kind of like to know what's gone into the food I'm making, and if possible I try to avoid the added salt / sugar / preservatives that comes in so much of the pre-prepared stuff here. Either way, I know I'm lucky that right now I have the time to make food from scratch, and there's just something I like about it. 

I also confess to not necessarily being a huge fan of traditional pumpkin pie. I do claim to eat anything - and I will, as the Grasshopper Incident of a couple of months ago will prove - but I wouldn't necessarily choose normal pumpkin pie (or indeed grasshoppers) in the ordinary course of events.

But a deal's a deal, so I decided to press on ahead and in a stunning (if I may say so myself) display of kiwi ingenuity, I have created my very own Pumpkin Pie From Scratch recipe. It's sort of a conglomeration of a range of other recipes, all switched up, and made with (mostly) fresh and raw ingredients. And made my own pastry. And used an actual pumpkin. I know!

This is a labour of love - by the time I'd hunted high and low for raw ingredients in the store and made everything from scratch, it did take a couple of hours. But the American did commend it as "pretty doggone good" (that's an actual quote), so I reckon it was worth it. Here is the recipe. Please steal it. 

PUMPKIN PIE FROM SCRATCH

Peel and clean one small pumpkin (you want about 15 ounces of cooked pumpkin).

Cut your pumpkin into small pieces and boil bout 15 minutes until soft. 

Once boiled, drain off the water and mash the pumpkin while still warm.

Refrigerate the mashed pumpkin pulp until cool. 

While the pumpkin is cooling, you can make the pastry. 

Pastry shell:

Blend 1 + 1/2 cups flour with 100g butter.

Add: 

1/2 cup of  white sugar 

1 tsp of cinnamon 

Pinch of salt. 

Blend in: 

3 egg yolks 

1/2 tsp vanilla.

Press dough into a greased 9in ring tin, extending up the sides.

uncooked pie shell. it cooks with the filling.
a stroke of genius, adapted from my Mum's peach pie recipe. 

Pie Filling:

Put cooled pumpkin mash into a large bowl, and add:

14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp ground fresh ginger (or more to taste)

2 tsp corn starch 

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp maple syrup

pinch of salt

Pour the filling into the pastry shell. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce to 350F for 30 minutes. 

Pie filling with maple. Nom.

Topping:

 

You could make the pie without this, but I don't know why you'd want to cos I reckon it's the best bit. I wanted to use walnuts to go with the maple in the pie, and for the rest I basically copied the classic kiwi apple crumble topping.

Combine:

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white flour

1 tsp cinnamon

Rub in 3 tbsp butter

And add a cup of chopped nuts. (Due to lack of raw walnuts ANYWHERE, I used pecans which were awesome, but I reckon walnuts would be as good or better.)

Spread the mixture over the top of the pie, and bake for a further 8 minutes

Add a swirl of maple syrup around the top, and bake for a further 2 minutes. 

Quiet beauty in Florida

When I think "Florida" I don't typically think "understated". But that's exactly what it was last night as I sat with the company of a large brown heron and some jumping fish and watched a beautiful, quiet sunset.

Destin, FL: quiet and understated.

Bombay Bicycle Club, LIVE, Granada Theatre, Dallas Texas

I once went to Turkey based solely on an International Relations class I had taken.  I've risked over-zealous Serbian border guards to backpack into Kosovo where my dissertation was based. And of course there's the time I trekked over two continents to see Bright Eyes. I'm kinda big on pilgrimages. But I can't ever say I have driven 14 hours across 4 states to see a band. Well, I couldn't until yesterday. 

I first came across Bombay  Bicycle Club by virtue of their 2^nd album, the lovely stripped back ‘Flaws’, or as frontman Jack Steadman described it last night, their "easy listening" album. But, as they demonstrated over and over again last night, there is so much more depth to this band.

The first thing that hit me was big, fat, funky bass, and lots of it. The bassist looks like a classic 90s grunge bassist, and plays like it too. And I mean the in only the most complimentary of ways. (This wasn't the last time I would compare this band to a 90s grunge outfit, and that kind of surprised me. In a very pleasant way.)  In fact the whole rhythm section was ace. I know I always have a thing for a tightly functioning rhythm section but, as Miike Snow demonstrated, it can make or break a live show. In this case, chunky bass was met with another incredibly hard-working drummer, and helped along by some subtle but excellent synths.

‘Your Eyes’, from ‘A Difference Kind of Fix’ was perfectly complemented by an explosive version of ‘Dust on the Ground’ and ‘How Can you Swallow so Much Sleep?’. Energy was high and the small but perfectly formed crowd ate it up.

All night I was struck by the magnificent female vocals; earthy and rich, with a beautiful tone and an impressive range. I’ve noted the use of female vocals in a number of their albums and found myself wondering last night if this beautiful vocalist wasn’t perhaps – gasp moment ahead – slightly underutilised. In any case, the vocal strength of this band is everything to write home about – Steadman’s unique tone is as clever live as recorded, and at one point I did notice all 5 band members singing BVs. And I do love me a multitalented band.

Heavy on ‘A Different Kind of Fix’ as you’d expect, the band then moved into “quiet” mode, and totally wooed me with a delightful rendition of ‘Rinse Me Down’ from ‘Flaws’. I love ‘A Different Kind of Fix’, and I love this band when they’re making a wall of sound. But I also love ‘Flaws’ and it was a delight to hear a couple of numbers from the album. It takes a brave pasty Englishman to stand in front of a down home Texan audience and suggest a hoe-down, but that’s exactly what they did with ‘Ivy and Gold’ and the crowd loved every minute of it. 

Steadman moves with the kind of self-assured cockiness of an artist who really knows his craft – every syncopation, every hook, every drum beat. He is a joy to watch, and… that voice. I love bands that sound as good live as recorded, or better. I reckon Bombay is in the latter category. They blew me away.

After 14 hours driving I can’t remember every track that was played, but I was taken aback by the new song, ‘Carry Me’ in the encore – a tricky and technically very cleverly timed song, with an interesting melody that really challenged me, until it all fell together in a phenomenal crescendo of sound. Clever indeed.

My back still aches from the long drive, but the energy and pure musical skill of these guys had me dancing all night, and the trek to get here to see them was worth every second.