Concertapalooza 2008

It's nearly summer, which means concert and festival season is upon us. An embarrassment of riches abounds on the horizon for those with kickin' musical taste. Grab your sunscreen and a $4 bottle of water - here's the run-down of Southern New England shows that I find completely relevant.

Apparently, my cries were heard. While in Valencia, doing a much-needed wash (crispy jeans = overdue laundry), I checked my e-mail and read that Josh Ritter is playing with the Boston Pops. I think I may have made a gleeful noise drowned out only by the noise of a thumping drier. In fact, I can almost guarantee that I did. I jammed a few more coins into the internet-controlling box (yeah, you come up with a name for it) and snagged myself a couple of orchestra seats. June 27th: it's going to be, in the words of Roberto, EPIC.

Devotchka is playing the Paradise on the 18th, but that being a Sunday, I find it hard to drag my ass up to Boston Sunday evening, only to drag it back even later that night, so I can drag it back at ass o'clock the next morning to go to work. Tough call...

The Fratellis are playing the Paradise later - on June 11th, followed by Wolf Parade on August 2nd. The Fratellis would no doubt be a fun time, and a little rockin' dissonance with WP is sure to be memorable... for someone else... because it's already sold out. Boo.

The Newport Folk Festival has a generous handful noteworthy names (Calexico, She & Him [aka Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward], Jim James, Jakob Dylan, etc.) - unfortunately, the two I'm dying to see (Calexico and She & Him) are playing on different days and tickets are $70 per day... yowsers. And it is the Newport Folk Festival... which translates to a whooole lot of hippies and yuppies... hippies and yuppies with money. I'm not sure I can handle that.

The National is playing June 13th with R.E.M. (aka mad money for tickets). While I'm sure it's a show that's worthy the money, it doesn't necessarily translate to my money. I'm sure they'll swing around again for a club show come fall/winter.

My Morning Jacket and Ryan Adams are playing the Bank o' America Pavilion back to back - September 6th and 7th, respectively. While Ryan puts on a good (and surreal and balls-out insane) show, my faith is a little shaken considering his latest contributions to the musical world. He's on musical probation.

If you're wondering who's playing in your neck of the woods, but don't feel like hitting up different venue websites or ticketmaster (ew), then check out JamBase. Create a basic profile, add your favorite artists and bam - you're done. E-mails are sent within a day or less after shows are announced.

For no other reason than self-indulgence, here's Calexico, doing what they do best.



In other news, Scarlett Johansson released her first single, "Falling Down," from her upcoming album Anywhere I Lay My Head, a collection of Tom Waits covers. I'm not sure whether I wanted to love or hate this, but I'm not a big Waits fan, so it removes "purism" from the issue. She does a decent job with this - the production is rather intrusive, but I think ScarJo's voice is suited for rock - she doesn't have perfect pitch or slick/smooth vocal styling, but her voice does have a smoky brashness that fits the music pretty well. It's growing on me. The video is nothing spectacular (I'm not even sure if it's the official one or not), but... yeah. (Please note the "Whacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man" for no apparent reason.) Enjoy...?