(image of Montgomery Ward’s “Telephone Dial” Airline radio by The Rocketeer)
On this gorgeous Monday afternoon in Kansas City, when a glance outside makes us working stiffs want to find an early out from the work day, it is natural to reflect back on an equally gorgeous weekend–one that went by all too quickly.
Not sure what the rest of you did, but we spent Friday evening and part of Sunday doing things to improve the look of the yard: planted grass, repaired fence boards, built a stone landing at the bottom of the deck, cut down volunteer trees, planted a few flowers (thank you Dad for all your help!!!). Sandwiched in between the work was a lazy Saturday filled with reading and listening to the music of a group that I newly discovered late last week: Angus and Julia Stone.
This brother-sister duo from Australia is probably not new to the rest of you, but blog surfing just brought them to my attention and my daughter and I are both smitten with them. Not only do I enjoy their sound, but a number of their videos showcase the kind of creativity that sparks my artistic interest.
And so, to help both myself and the rest of you start your week off on the right note…yes, I realize how lame that is…I thought I would share a few of their songs/videos with you, starting off with the video that I stumbled across online, which is a very fun video of someone’s wedding put to the song Bella by Angus and Julia Stone. More videos after the jump.
I especially love the video for this song, Just a Boy:
Julia’s voice reminds me a lot of Kate Nash:
Mango Tree:
another creative video that has some Once Upon a Time ties, Hollywood:
and finally, Black Crow:
So…I freely admit that this may or not be your cup of tea, but I’ve really been enjoying their music the last few days and thought I would share.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I have some fun giveaways coming up for the Once Upon a Time IV Challenge, so keep your eyes peeled!
Happy Monday Everyone!
We had some lovely weather here too, higher than usual for April, but then again we had snow last week, I think this spring is just confused 🙂
The internet is really wonderful for finding and sharing new music. It’s great!
well it sounds like you have had a good weekend and are having spring type weather ! How nice.. here it is already too hot .. but most would say: (quote) it’s only in the low 80’s(unquote) You may be too young to remember an old commercial that said: Calgon, take me away! How i wish that worked! lol..
Stopped when I saw Kate Nash. I love this! Thank you for sharing!
Lu: Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Deslily: Although I am sure it is hotter there, it is honestly warmer already this year than I want it to be. I’m hoping the end of April and May will cool down a bit. I’m not ready for 80 degree temps yet.
Fence: that being said, I’m done with snow until next winter! I hope!!!
I loved every song! Thanks for sharing Carl. 😀
Q: Why, when people on blogs share music, do they almost always do it via a video?
A: Probably because it’s easy to embed a YouTube video.
Personally, I don’t want to see the damn video, I want to hear the music with someone else’s (even the artists) pictures thrust upon me. I like, you see, to use my imagination, and I like to hear just the music, and the words. In a lot of ways, it’s comparable to preferring a book to a movie.
Also, it’s really not that hard to insert a CD player instead of a video, and there’s less bandwidth in use.
No, I’m not here to rant, just express my opinion, one which I doubt will be shared by many (or any) one else.
I am glad you had a really good weekend, and it sounds like you got a lot done!
That was supposed to be “I want to hear the music withOUT someone else’s (even the artists) pictures thrust upon me.”
Hauntingly beautiful music. Thanks for the intro to this band. 🙂
Susan: Great description! 🙂
Richard: We did get a lot done, but as it always is with this sort of thing, there is still a lot to do! 🙂
It is much easier, at least from a familiarity standpoint, to just embed You Tube videos, even more so now that they’ve updated their website. For me personally, I love videos. I was just the right age to get swept up in the birth of MTV and I’ve never looked back. Whenever I hear a song I like I always go see if there is a video that goes with it. Not so much to get an interpretation of the song as to just enjoy whatever visual creativity goes along with it. I like that part of it as much as the music. While I love just popping a CD into the player, I equally enjoy popping in a DVD of a live concert or of an artist’s videos. So that is why I do it.
I certainly understand your point, I just never think about it because I enjoy music videos a great deal. And even if that was a rant, it is perfectly okay. Everyone has pet peeves and things they would like to rant about once in awhile. I think is it good for the soul.
Eva: Wonderful to see you, glad you enjoyed the songs.
Carl, it’s an age thing, apparently. By the time VH1 came along, and later MTV and other music video channels, I was pretty much passed rock and they don’t play many (any) videos of classical music performances, or of jazz. So I had the same reaction when I watch for a while as I still do, as expressed above. When I listen to music I often close my eyes (except while walking or driving!) as I don’t even want to room to distract me. You, on the other hand, are part of what is sometimes called “the MTV Generation, I guess. There will also be an “iPod Generation”, I suppose…
Richard: Yep, I’m definitely part of the MTV generation. Hard to believe it was that long ago! I listen to a lot of music generally, sometimes just for the experience of the music–usually then I’m just sitting in a comfy chair or sitting outside on the deck in nice weather. And of course in the car when driving, but I still do spend a fair amount of time during an average week watching music videos.
I completely understand the imagination thing. I feel that way about stories I feel really strongly about when it comes to film adaptations. When done well they are lovely, but in 99% of the cases the reason I like a film adaptation so much, and there are many that I truly enjoy, it is because I watched the movie first and then read the book, so I don’t have the issues with the interpretation. There are very few movie adaptations I can recall of books I read before seeing the movie that lived up to my imagination. Coraline is one that springs to mind. Nothing else immediately comes up.
So, I can understand why you feel the same way about music. I’m not saying I like all music videos, many of them completely suck, but when done with some creativity and/or some feeling they add something to the experience for me.
Found this today and it reminded me of you and your ‘Join the Alliance’ poster, was wondering if you’d seen this series? http://tinyurl.com/y2e4sxu
Nice and clean, remind me of the 20’s & 30’s National Parks posters which i adore. Just thought you’d like ’em.
Thanks for the Monday morning greetings which I have finally made it to on Wednesday… so happy midweek to you, Carl. It was thoughtful of you to share music to get us off to a good start.
I am enjoying Once Upon a Time- starting a YA steampunk this weekend. I have less reading time and more baby time now! Which has turned out to be a fine trade.
And my backyard is set up and ready to barbecue!!! 🙂
Qugrainne: We barbecued on Monday night and it was wonderful. One of the things I love about the return of outdoor appropriate weather. Happy Mid-week to you as well, and babies are definitely a wonderful thing to trade in some reading time for.
SGist: No, I hadn’t seen those but I am planning on picking up one or two to go with my Join the Alliance poster. Those are fantastic!!!
Well I looked these guys up on Spotify after seeing this post, a couple of days ago and have been listening to little else since.
Thanks for pointing then out!
^_^ I had a sneaking suspicion you’d like them!
SGist: I’ve already got a post ready for Friday Favorites featuring them that I will probably end up posting tomorrow!
Darren: I’m so glad you are enjoying their music. We got my daughter the CD for Easter and we’ve been enjoying listening to it.