The Long Winters @Mercury Lounge, March 31st

John Roderick can charm the pants off a crowd. I first encountered his top-notch banter last summer briefly at the Revenge of the Book Eaters benefit during which he entertained the crowd with a few solo acoustic songs. Tonight at the Merc, he brought his same easy style in the form of his band, The Long Winters. For ninety minutes, he and the band drove through a solid, fun set of tightly written pop/rock melodies that have been compared to early R.E.M. and (perhaps unfairly) the Counting Crows. Andie thought that one of the songs sounded like Flaming Lips as well.


Whomever they remind you of, The Long Winters manage to sound interesting and engaging with lyrics worth exploring. And their lead singer/songwriter, the would-be High School English teacher, makes them worth catching live. He makes smart totally sexy!

Here's a clip of their song "Seven":



The girls and I missed most of the opener, Stars Of Track and Field, cos we decided to indulge in dinner and dessert, but the two minutes we did hear was fantastic. They managed to create a big sound with only three people on stage. Love that. I hope I can catch them again in the future. Wawa really was enthused about them.

The other opener was less to sneeze about. The Broken West were musically solid, but a bit blah. I heard some '70s influence with some Replacements mixed in, but we were a tad underwhelmed. Oh well!

Revenge of the Book Eaters @Beacon Theatre, Aug. 23rd

Met up with Fer, Dave and Stacey for Revenge of the Book Eaters, a fund raiser for 826NYC, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers to inspire their students to write." A group of fantastic humorists, including Jon Stewart, John Hodgman, Dave Eggers and Sarah Vowell were joined by musicians John Roderick (of The Long Winters), Sufjan Stevens and David Byrne.

I was lucky to land second row center seats the day they went on sale.

John Roderick played a short acoustic set.


Sufjan and a few of his band members played a handful of more recent Illinois(e) cuts.



David Byrne played a longer country set filled with covers and a few Talking Heads tunes, including a countryfied "Big Country."

As an encore, Sufjan joined David on stage for a cover song about Saginaw, Michigan, but not by Sufjan.

The evening reminded me how I used to make time in my life for volunteering, especially tutoring. I think this evening might cause me to explore some possibilities.