Other Stuff You Might Like: Sleepover Shows
Sleepover Shows is the brainchild of husband and wife duo Kelly and Rob Ribera (with emeritus member Aviv Rubenstein). The site is dedicated to filming musicians as they pass through Boston in my home state of Massachusetts. The results are impressive, covering a wide range of styles and settings in much the same vein as They Shoot Music or La Blogothèque. Here’s how Sleepover Shows describes its mission:
Sleepover Shows are three song sets of acoustic or stripped down versions performed by bands that we love as they make their way through Boston. Though it started as something we did when bands needed a place to crash on the night of their shows, we now mostly film the sessions before or after a show and let the bands find their own ways home (though the offer still stands).
Basically, we try to use our spaces as creatively as we can. We’ve filmed in the back seats of cars, on top of playground equipment, in doorways and alleys, in bathtubs and stairwells. We try our best to get the bands to take their music outside of the confines of the studio and have some fun.
And that’s the point: to capture some great music that maybe isn’t always as polished, but shows these artists having a good time doing what they love. We’re doing what we love too, and hope you enjoy the videos!
Gathered here are some of my favorite sessions from the site, but I strongly encourage you to head over and browse for yourself!
Damien Jurado
Horse Feathers
Boston String Players
Veronica Falls on They Shoot Music…
Continuing their tradition of featuring awesome bands in unusual settings, They Shoot Music has a recent session with London-based Veronica Falls. Here’s a bit from their description of the session:
Walking over cobblestone under the eyes of stone statues, Veronica Falls find themselves in the spring idyll of Porto’s Cemitério de Agramonte. Once the London-based band comes across the first snoozing cat, they are taken by these serene graveyard creatures. The bassist Marion Herbain is especially fond of them and goes stalking for more moggies. Roxanne Clifford, the band’s singer and guitarist, swarms out to take some more analog photos. In this picture-perfect setting of infectious tranquillity Veronica Falls perform their brand new single “Teenage”.
Check it out:
Here Comes “The Flood”
Hi Everyone,
Today, in the form of Here Comes the Flood, I launched the first part of my plan to return to regular music blogging. The site is based on a very simple premise: I get way too much stuff. This is, of course, a wonderful problem to have.
And yet, it’s still a bit of a problem. So, every week (on Saturdays, beginning with 12/29), I’m going to post 15 new bands for you to look through. The plan is to keep it simple: a photo, a bit of press for context, and something to listen to. The nifty part is that you get to vote (see the little stars below each post) on how well you liked it. The things that get the most votes, each week, will migrate over here and get an expanded write-up.
I really like this idea because it lets me give you access to my sources. It also lets you help to shape this site that we’re all sharing. 🙂
That said, there will be a lot of regular blogging here – independent of “The Flood.” Even so, hopefully you’ll find this a really neat experiment. I know I do! So, head over, and let me know what you think.
~Jon
Mix-Tape Monday: Guest Edition!
My friend Chris recently staged a play – Crossroads (or The Piano of Death) – in Portsmouth, NH. For part of his pre-show music, he put together a mix of covers with ties to our own little part of New England. So, when this week’s mix came around, he suggested taking that soundtrack and sharing it with you lovely people. Here’s Chris’ description of the process:
The pre-show entertainment for my recently produced stage play, Crossroads (or The Piano of Death), was broken into two parts. Both parts were designed to set the scene for the story that followed, and though we’re still working on putting together a recorded version of the songs that the fabulous Mary Casiello played during the live part of the pre-show, we’re happy to share now the songs we played each night to build up to Mary’s set.
When I began assembling this list, my goal was simply to build a playlist of songs by local artists I loved. The trouble was that I had too many songs to choose from. So, as I so often do in my storytelling endeavors, I set myself an artificial constraint. Because the play is about a character who becomes well known for her strange cover songs, I used only cover songs in the mix. The result was a strange but fun blend of tunes that established a mood for the audience from the moment they walked into the theater.