Results tagged “newsom”

If you’re gonna make an album with orchestral arrangements care of living legend composer Van Dyke Parks, you’re gonna have to go all out to perform it right. That’s why the first half of super English major/elven queen Joanna Newsom’s grandiose show last night at Benaroya Hall featured the accompaniment of local 29-piece chamber orchestra the Northwest Sinfonia to cover her last full-length, the epic five-song masterpiece Ys ("ees"). It’s not hard to recreate a lushly recorded album when you’ve got the combination of the Sinfonia, Newsom’s three-person touring group---which she’s termed the "Ys Street Band"---and Newsom plucking complex polyrhythms (and making it look easy) on an ornate harp, itself a work of art.

(This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.)

BOOKS: Suze Orman, Seattlest's unofficial accountant from television is at the Central Library tonight. Mrs. Seattlest refuses to acknowledge that her name is pronounced "Susy."

Joanna Newsom---child-voiced chanteuse/classically trained harpist/hyperliterate woodland nymph---took the stage at the Showbox last night looking just as we expected: with long, flowing hair and donning a red garment more nightgown than dress. Climbing behind her harp, she was totally Holly Hobbie at the renaissance faire. She kicked off her set solo by launching into "Bridges and Balloons" and "The Book of Right-On," both off her first album, before playing a traditional Scottish tune. Cradling the harp against her body, she delicately caressed, plucked, palmed, and stroked the strings, each technique creating a distinctly different tone.

This is the all-geek edition of Get Out. If you're a normal person with friends and fully-functional social skills you may want to stay in this first Monday in December.

Seattlest got paid today. What does that mean? Off to the record store we go.

Here's to the ice melting away because there are some good shows this week.

The P-I is reporting that the fight after the fight for the trees at Pioneer Square is for the wood from the London planes that were removed. Apparently they won't go into the fireplace of the mayor's guest cottage as we'd originally suspected. A developer (Smith) wanted the wood for trim on the waterfront street car shed that we can't believe is still being built on the edge of Pioneer Square. Another guy (Newsom) who has a business making furniture from "urban wood" had previously been promised the logs by the Parks Dept. Holy shit what's going to happen? The urban wood guy got the stuff because he was willing to haul it away yesterday.