Upon the Recommendation of Others Part I

I have really great people in my life. One of perhaps many reasons why I think certain people are really great is because of their great tastes in music, and through them I've been able to discover some bands/artists with which I've fallen in love.

Many people have suggested more than one band that I've loved, but off the top of my head, here is a selection of standouts that I think deserves a mention:

Most recently, I was introduced to Ingrid Michaelson. I was hanging out with Ericka one night and as we were leaving a place that had a pretty interesting mix of music, and one of her songs came on. Ericka exclaimed, "I LOVE THIS SONG!!!" to which I replied after hearing a bit of it, "I think I love this song!!!" She later linked me to the video of the song we heard that night:

I soon became OBSESSED with the song. I love the timbre of her voice. On top of that, I LOVED the concept of the music video, which Ericka mentioned when I first heard the song had this whole clown-y thing to it, which she forgave. I'm completely smitten with it. The juxtaposition of her as the freak in the world of clowns is just adorable to me, as adorable and vulnerable as she is in the video. It's really inspired me to again start exploring taking pictures in clownface. I have some ideas, and I'll have to ask a few favors to help with makeup and a few locations for shoots. On the way home, KCRW played another great song of hers (I think I've listened to her entire album online) called "Die Alone" (click for a clip). This New York based singer-songwriter plays The Fonda next month with the Carey Brothers, which should be a great show, and I really need to get on the ball on getting tickets for that.

Although I've never had a proper valentine for Valentine's Day, I've received Valentine's Day gifts. Whether it would be second hand sweets from my best friend given to him by his grandma, my penny change from a store and the cashier asking to be his valentine, to probably the most amazing sunset I've ever witnessed on Poipu Beach this year thanks to my mama, Hello Stranger came to me one very uneventful Valentine's Day last year. Tommy and I were both pretty awake and bored out of our minds late that night, and after rejecting his ideas to go to my hometown townie bar, we instead went for ramen. He picked me up in his brand new Yaris, and he had Hello Stranger playing. Their first track sounded familiar, and it wouldn't be surprising as they're LA based. Either way, "Take it to the Maxx" is just a song I love:

Though I'm not too thrilled with the video, it doesn't make the song any worse. I just love the richness of her voice, and you really can't deny a hot girl rocking the keytar and have a drummer named Joachim. I've seen them play a short set once, and they're great; they have great stage presence, Juliette is even hotter in person, and even though her voice is a bit raspier live, they still rock. I would really love to see them play again very soon.

Not a month prior to discovering Hello Stranger, Joy was at home for a bit and in the mad, concentrated efforts to spend as much time with her as possible, she happened to introduce me to the Portland-based duo (which is now a single, as the female beatmaker and vox left to work full-time on another project), The Blow. There were some pretty crazy things going on in both our lives at the time, and "True Affection" seemed to be so appropriate and effective in our attempt to deal with it all:

She was so great to burn me a copy of their album, Paper Television, before she returned to Hawaii, and even though the rest of the album is a little different from this song, it's a great album with their cool lo-fi beats and the lazy female vocals. Like many periods in my life, I associate "True Affection" with that crazy month January 2007 was for me, that included my being mysteriously sick for much too long, which led me to heavily restrict my diet, and eventually became a vegetarian mostly (save weekends and when I visited my parents'), trying to completely forget about one of the stupidest things I could ever do and then still allow it to affect me, and the inevitable weekly trips to Orange County. Those trips weren't so bad to do, so long as I had Paper Television playing on my stereo, and from time to time I'd have this song on repeat one or two times.

In the interest in getting some quality sleep, I'm posting this in a series, and these are the top three that came to my head in the order that I've been introduced to them. I figured since I started this thing, I might as well mentioned the few other artists that I am so grateful to have been introduced to their music.

We'll be digging into the archives a bit for the next one.