In a year that, so far, has been pretty light on new music, Ashley Monroe’s solo debut Like a Rose remains one of the bright spots.
Monroe, one third of the Pistol Annies, has a lot of the wit and flair that have made her friend and band mate Miranda Lambert a big star. This album has received a ton of acclaim and performed modestly well on the charts, but I don’t know if Monroe will hit the mainstream (or if she even wants to).
After dominating this blog in 2011 during the controversial Ron Sexsmith Weekends, Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith made only three appearances in 2012. And here we are, more than halfway through 2013 when he makes his first appearance this year.
Today’s track is probably best known (to the extent that anything Ron Sexsmith does is known) because a second version was released on which Sexsmith duets with Coldplay’s Chris Martin. I’ve even seen the song posted online as a Coldplay tune featuring Ron Sexsmith (silly Coldplay fans!).
Through some cosmic coincidence, Beyoncé happened to be playing the Staples Center in Los Angeles the very week we were in town. If fate had cooperated, we would have run into her at a restaurant or something and I would be posting a photo here of myself at her side. No such luck.
I jokingly suggested that the family should attend the show (jokingly because it was long sold out and the only available tickets online went for hundreds of dollars apiece) and my wife suggested it would be absurd for me to attend a Beyoncé concert because I don’t know most of her songs (as if that matters).
The ubiquity of Daft Punk, and their new album Random Access Memores, carried over to Amoeba Music. Versions of the album on vinyl and CD were prominently displayed.
This was just the latest example of the Daft Punk deluge I discussed in a post a month and a half ago.
In my regular life, I would probably never buy this album, regardless of its critical acclaim and ownership of the pop culture moment. I’m just not into electronic music.
I returned to Amoeba Music with my family on our last day in L.A. and we spent close to an hour browsing. This was a remarkable act of good will on the part of my wife, who hates record stores in the same way I hate clothes outlets — the endless bins of CDs analogous to endless racks of pants and blouses.
But she recognized the innate coolness of Amoeba Music, and its importance to the pop culture landscape. Plus she picked up a couple of used DVDs that she plans to use in her classroom.
Meet Me In Montauk 