I've rarely been so proud of my home city than I was yesterday when 75,000 folks strong gathered for Barak in Portland's Waterfront Park (yes, the same park where the 'on the bus mall' boys peddled their wares). . . phenomenal. We played a little 'opening' set, but we all were so happy just to be involved, to be present. A gorgeous day.

A POEM

There is no
excuse
for anyone
to not
own
an electric
sorbet maker.

Hello!

A few years back (those halcyon days of 2006, to be exact), I went on a solo tour of the U S of A and recorded all the shows. A tidy compilation of those recordings is set to be released by my good friends at Kill Rock Stars on April 8th. It's got quite a few songs on it, drawing mainly from the Decemberists' ouevre, and it'll be available on CD and d-luxe double LP (with an extra track, no less!). I'll be going on an extensive US tour following the release. I'll post those dates soon.

Hooray!

Colin.

So I bought my first bass the other day. I've never owned a bass. I've only ever played my bandmates'. I'd been doing some recording and for whatever reason, I felt like I'd get a better sense of the "song-ness" of the song if there was just a little more flesh on the bones. So I bought this Ibanez bass from Trade Up for $300 and started recording with it. I discovered: playing the bass is pretty easy, but playing it even remotely passably is incredibly difficult.

So here I've assembled my favorite, song-saving bass parts of all time, in defense of that much-maligned 4 stringed instrument. . .

(in no particular order)

1. Blur, "Boys and Girls" God, it's brilliant! Without it, that song would slowly cave beneath its own archness.

2. APB, "Shoot You Down" A predecessor to the white-boy no-wave of "Boys and Girls," I've never understood why this song wasn't a massive hit in its day. That bass line runs a marathon during the 3:36 brief, angular minutes of the song. . . The only unfortunate decision on the part of the bass player being that ill-advised bit of slap bass around 1:52.

3. Broadcast, "Come on Let's Go" A master-work in bass simplicity, it's that little slide he does on the 4 count during the verse that KILLS me -- so ssssatisfying!! A must within anyone's air-bass playing repertoire.

4. Red House Painters, "Grace Cathedral Park" I had this song on eternal-repeat for about 4 months straight when it came out. It's such a simple chord progression (at least it is in the verses -- he starts to move into Kozelek-land near the end of the middle-8) but it's the bass line that sells it -- the way it moves so casually around the strum of the chords, giving those simple open chords a movement that isn't there otherwise. Try playing it without at least implying the bass line: it won't work!!!

5. Anything by The Feelies. I've always said that if I were ever approached to play bass in a cover band, it would have to be the Feelies. So much fun to just sit on those root chords. . . Not that I ever imagine to be approached to play bass in a cover band. Though I do now own a bass. . . whatever, moving on:

6. Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, "Devil's Coachman." This seems to be on the waning end of the Andy Metcalfe's exclusive use of fretless bass in Egyptians records. Though I can be iffy on fretless bass in general, I have to say that Metcalfe's fretless stuff on these records helped make a sound of its own on songs that would otherwise be overshadowed by Robyn's songs. See also "The Leopard" from Element of Light.

7. The Smiths, "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now." I don't know why Andy Rourke doesn't get more love. I remember hearing something about him being the worst bass player in Manchester at the time Smiths were getting together, but he was the only one available at the time. Unless Johnny contrived all the bass parts himself -- and played them -- I think that story's a crock of shit. In fact, I would go so far to say that Andy Rourke is as much responsible for the overall sound, the aesthetic, of the Smiths as Johnny Marr. Other evidence of this: "Rusholme Ruffians," "This Night Has Opened My Eyes," "Barbarism Begins at Home," "Cemetary Gates". . . the list goes on and on.

8. U2, "With or Without You." I'm not a huge U2 fan or anything, but that's a sexy bassline.

9. fIREHOSE, "Under the Influence of Meat Puppets." It's hard to pick a Watt-responsible bass part among the brilliant mass that exists, but here's my stab. "Brave Captain" is pretty hot too.

Here it is, adored MySpace friendlies, August 3rd in all its sweet, bee buzzing glory! And a perfect opportunity, I might add, to make mention of my current summer reading list! (Being the errant blogger that I am, I've spent many a half-a-moment searching my brain pan for things that would warrant a blog. This is what i've landed on. Hmmmrh.)

So I'm currently about 100 pages into the bohemoth latest door-stop from that loveable gadabout-town, Thomas Pynchon, "Against the Day." As you might guess, any book that opens in the midst of an air balloon flight enroute to the Chicago World's Fair gets high points. I'm enjoying it -- it's a tad bit less opaque than "Mason and Dixon," my last Pynchon-scaling attempt -- but I'm realizing that it's not necessarily a book one can fly through, when there's some many other books calling out to me!! Namely:

The new Ian McEwan, "On Chesil Beach," (70 pages in) which is really gripping and a bit of a page turner, despite the fact that the narration is parsing apart every minute, every moment, of the characters' moves and thoughts. Sexy!

I would recommend "Black Swan Green," by David Michell, if not wholly, then about 90% of it, provided you do as I did and skip the "solarium" chapter entirely. I had a similar reponse to Michell's "Cloud Atlas": I adored so much of it, but absolutely loathed a few short sectons. In "Black Swan Green," he's got such a great handle on the dialogue and imagination of the 13 year-olds in the book, but totally blows it as soon as a "clever" adult steps into the picture. But anybody who has ever piloted the millenium falcon from their dad's office swivel-chair should read this book.

Also: "Zoli" by Calum McCann was fantastic. The writing was great, the characters were phenomenal. The second half of the book didn't quite zip as much as the first half, but its a great look into the lives of the Roma and the communities that spurned/accepted them.

Anyway, August tumbles on -- we just finished staining and polying our kitchen door and there's a cool bank of clouds rolling over the Willamette Valley. We Decemberists are hatching our plans, ever! Look out for an announcement in the next few weeks!!!

colin.

Okay, so I never add anything to this blog. But listen up: isn't this the MOST AMAZING video you've ever seen?



hooray!

colin.

Thanks, everyone, for so handily befriending me on such short notice. By all means: keep 'em coming.

It's finally really beautiful in Portland and the wisteria is slowly (but alarmingly quickly) crawling up the trellis of our pergola (ha! who told you I never gratuitously brandished vocabulary! Wikipedia it, dudes. . .). Perhaps a trip to the zoo is in order. Or a trip to the sorbet shop.

I'm slowly making my way through the records I bought on this last tour and have made some discoveries:

1. C.O.B. is pretty damn good. Might even prefer it to Incredible String Band.
2. Sandy Denny's version of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" with the Strawbs might be better than the hegemonic Fairport version.
3. Big Pig might've made sense in 1987, but it doesn't have much of a shelf-life.
4. Why did I buy the 1st printing UK colored vinyl of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love"? 'Cause it's rad, that's why.
5. Hooray for Marissa Nadler!

k that's it!