I’m back from an absolutely amazing trip to Spain, but unfortunately for you, my faithful readers, you won’t get to hear about this trip quite yet. Alas, I will once again be embarking on another trip by the time you are reading this. This time however, I will be back in the U. S. of A. I am helping a friend move from Tacoma, WA to a little town in Kansas. It’s quite a road trip, especially since we have a tight deadline of four days to make the trip.
Today I will be flying to San Francisco to meet my friend to start the trip. So to celebrate the beginning of another fantastic trip, I bring you this tune sung by my love, Mayer Hawthorne.
I hate to say it, but I do have a few regrets in my life. I always admire those who claim to have no regrets, and until fairly recently I could claim to be one of those lucky few, as well. But I feel that it’s those people who have indeed lived their lives through having made some regretful decisions, who seem more “real” to me. True, the things I regret in my life, aren’t anything really drastic, but nevertheless, I seriously wished I didn’t have such mistakes in my memory.
Thankfully, the majority of my regrets are of concerts I didn’t end up going to, and those performers are still young, and their careers in music don’t seem to be ending anytime soon. Last winter, The Gorillaz were performing in Northern Virginia, and since I didn’t have anyone to go to the concert with (at least that I knew of) I didn’t go to the show. I was really bummed because not only are the Gorillaz one of my favorite bands, but due to the nature that the band is actually made up of fictional 2-D characters, their tour was a rarity.
Another concert I dearly regret not attending was when Mayer Hawthorne played The Black Cat last fall. Again, this musician is one of my favorite artists, and once more, I hadn’t anyone to go with. I didn’t even know that Mayer Hawthorne was in town, but on my commute home, I read a blurb about his show that night in the newspaper. I could have/should have turned around on the Metro and headed for the show, by myself, but I was uneasy going to the concert in a neighborhood I wouldn’t necessarily feel safe in, alone. Still, I really wish I had gone.
Most of the other poor choices I have made (usually alcohol-related incidents), while they were not the wisest ideas, I still do not regret what I did. For I feel that they were at least educational experiences. I like to think that if I had not made some poor decisions in the past, then I would not have learned from them (which I think I have, for the most part.) And thankfully, in the case of these concert mishaps, at least it really wasn’t anything drastic or extreme that occurred to me. So even though I am pretty sorrowful that I did not attend such possibly amazing events, if that’s the worst of my regrets, I think I can live with myself.
Today is apparently National Crush Day, which is not a day where you go all “Hulk-Smash” and crush everything in sight. (Just so you know.) No, apparently “Crush Day” is when you get the nerves and announce your feelings to your crush. This however, is perhaps a tad difficult if you are found without a crush. This is sort of where I find myself these days. (At least not a realistic crush, as Alex Ovechkin and Brooks Laich, have among other reasons, a girlfriend.) Alas, I am spending National Crush Day, hopelessly in love with… music.
Music is not a bad thing to fall in love with. Believe me, there are worse “things” to love. For today’s post however, I am narrowing down this broad category to my latest two favorite loves of songs. Coincidentally enough, both of these songs sound very similar. And that was probably not an accident. The first is an amazing funky and soulful song by Curtis Mayfield. I absolutely love the rhythm section, bongos and all. I also am totally digging the horns and the strings. A jam-packed band always makes for great tunes. And of course, Mayfield’s soulful voice definitely adds to the mix.
Next up, is perhaps my “real” crush (though he smokes which I abhor.) Mayer Hawthorne, as I’ve stated before, is like the coolest and cutest and basically best guy I currently know of. And of course, his rad music helps his image in my mind. One of my favorite songs of his is most likely definitely inspired by the above Curtis Mayfield jam. This wouldn’t surprise me at all, since Hawthorne plays off of 60’s/70’s soul music. There are so many similarities between the two songs, and yet they are totally different pieces. Hawthorne takes the same rhythm section that I so loved from Mayfield and even the opening of Hawthorne’s song is eerily similar. The major difference here though, is Hawthorne’s beautiful crooning which melds so perfectly with his beats. I could listen to these two songs one after the other all day long, and ne’er grow tired of either.
It’s probably also no surprise that this video has indeed, “Move On Up” playing at the end. Love it!
So I hope you have a very happy Crush Day. Maybe if you too are crush-less, you can just jam out with these groovin’ tunes. Thanks Curtis Mayfield and Mayer Hawthorne. You guys really saved the day this time.
Last week proved to be a week full of New Years resolutions and changes of heart. A fresh beginning, if you will. On Sunday January 2nd, I decided to go vegetarian for as long as I could (Still going strong, though I decided I couldn’t live without fish/seafood). I also decided to limit my carbs. I was going to lose weight, gosh darn it! In another effort to change my lifestyle, I decided to start regularly hitting up the gym in my apartment building with my friend. This week also brought about some apparently obvious (by what is shown below) feelings I developed about the dating scene. This past week was about change!
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One of my resolutions this year is to text less and talk on the phone more. I strive to use phones more often for their original intended purpose. I don’t care that so many of my friends feel differently.
OMG There was an old lady in the gym who I swear wasn’t wearing any pants -just a really long t-shirt.
“Sex For Dinner.” -What I perceive most guys want to do on a date. This could also be a fantastic name for a (dating) blog or book.
New Years Resolution: Have fewer jerks in my life. Guess I would rather be single than be hopeful that at least I’m dating someone- even if they are a jerk. Cue this song:
After exercising at the gym a couple of times, I have concluded the following: the first 15 minutes are the hardest, the next 30 are fine, but it’s the last 15 minutes that makes you feel great. …I LOVE the feeling you get after working out.
Song of the Weekend:
My brother was being bitter around me and my family because he was having troubles with his girlfriend. When I expressed my dissatisfaction with his mood, he said something like, “You would know about this if you were in a relationship.” Ouch. That is a harsh, low blow. A LOW blow.
In leu of the typical blog entry, today I am opting for something a little different. Lately, I have noticed that this blog of mine doesn’t have enough about the visual arts in it. I need to change that. I am an artist, after all.
In the past, I have done a few of what I like to call, “Photo Outline Drawings.” Today, I have a few new ones for your viewing pleasures. My new favorite person in the world has been musician and cutie, Mayer Hawthorne:
So today I have given him the high honor of being the subject of my latest and greatest artwork. First we have the original photograph that I worked from:
And next up we have the two Outline Drawings I did based on the photograph:
This is my artwork. Please do not use without my expressed written permission.
This is my artwork. Please do not use without my expressed written permission.
Back in March, the Express paper wrote an article about an up and coming musician that was slated to perform in D.C. at The Rock and Roll Hotel. The musician’s name was Mayer Hawthorne, and after reading the article, it sounded like a musician I had to check out. The article painted Hawthorne as just the kind of musician I enjoy listening to:
By adding touches of hip-hop, rock and reggae to the classic sounds of Motown, Hawthorne has generated a small, but devoted following.
“What I’m trying to do with this soul music is… honor the original Detroit soul but also update it, Hawthorne said. “I think a lot of kids, they might choose not to listen to it because they feel like it’s more music of a previous generation. So, I’m bringing… young blood into that music and bringing it into 2010 and making it fun again.”
Since reading the article, two months ago, I had been wanting to give his music a good listening to, but for some reason, never got around to it. Today, as I was sifting through the contents of my desk, the article I saved about Mayer Hawthorne fell to the floor. I picked it up and decided that this lazy Saturday morning would be a great time to give a first listen to his music. The first song I chose to listen to was, “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out.”
I loved it. The story to the video was cute and definitely something I could relate to. And the music was wonderfully soulful and catchy. I could immediate understand what the article was saying about his Motown sound, yet also bringing it into the 21st century. It was hip, with it’s hip-hop undertones. I decided to check out more.
The next thing that stuck with me was this simple Barbershop Quartet tune, called, “When I Said Goodbye.”
This was more mellow and smooth and reminded me of something I would hear on an Oldies station. It was reminiscent of the early crooning of The Temptations. It was easy to listen to and I enjoyed the four-part arrangement. I wanted to make sure that Mayer Hawthorne could keep up his style successfully, after only listening to two of his songs.
The next song I happened upon might be my new favorite song:
“Maybe So Maybe No” was fun, catchy, and was great to sing a long to. Like with the first song, “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out,” I also became very fond of this video. The video is just Mayer having a good time at a beachy town. You see him with skateboarders, other performers, music lovers, and it ends with an outdoor party. The video just emphasizes the feel good vibe that the song brings out, despite the lyrics about how love can be mysterious and unsure.
His music reminded me a lot of another band I really like, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings (this song is maybe my favorite of theirs). It brings to mind the sounds of funk, soul, and RnB; all types of music that I love.
The funny thing with Mayer Hawthorne, is that upon looking at him, you wouldn’t necessarily guess that he sounds the way he does:
Yes, that’s right. I am being mildly stereotypically racist and I’m saying that in my mind he looks pretty White. Just look at the hair, the Buddy Holly “birth control” glasses, the cardigan, the cheesy-goofy “nice Jewish boy” smile he has:
What a cutie.
The goofy smile, the cardigan...
And yet he has this hip, soulful, Black sound. He is, after all (according to the article, I referenced above), from “Ann Arbor Michigan, in a home filled with soul music [that] both his parents loved.” But I love that his music sounds so different than the way he looks. Sometimes I secretly aspire to “look Black” when I am in fact White. I know that really, this is all just silly that one can look like another race just by the way they dress, but it does ring some bit of truth. And yet, why shouldn’t he be that way? Notably, Beyond Race Magazine, even landed Mayer on the front cover:
And Mayer looks like he could be remotely Black here. How beautifully ironic. And how awesome. This Jewish boy, who grew up going by Andrew Mayer Cohen seems to have come a long way into his moderate fame. He’s my new favorite person.
CAPSLove 
