Photography by Me…
What a fun weekend! For those of you not following along on the intertubals of love (i.e. me twitters & me facebooks, ARR!), this weekend, I played jet-setter, hopping on a plane down to Arizon-I-A to see my baby cranes, swooping them up and driving up to Sedona & then to the Grand Canyon! Our first times! Wow, what can I say, Sedona is absolutely beautiful…
Our approach..
Wandering around..
View from our hotel’s property..
Sunset…
It was stunning. We went hiking around and exploring before hopping in the car for 2 hours to get to the Grand mother fucking Canyon!
Oh god.
Okay… I need to be honest with you. I have a thing about heights. It’s not that I’m afraid of heights, per se, I can ride on planes and shit all day, though put me on top of the Empire State building and I get a bit jacked-up. But, the bigger fear is the “hey, look at how high we ar-” *poof, dead* that things like the Grand Canyon shoved into my brain, down my spinal cords, and made me shudder with fear.
Yeah. I was terrified. For myself, for my girls. It was intense. I mean, for fuck’s sake, they don’t have barriers on some parts! One little trip up and POOF, gone! Then I read about how once or twice a year, sure enough, someone falls. Last year it was some 4 year old, just there one second, gone the next. There’s no ifs about it, it’s a straight drop to nothing. It should be renamed The Ridiculously More Massive Than You Could Imagine Canyon. It’s that big.
Woo.
You may note that all the photos are from my phone. I had my camera and shot photos & film, but what I didn’t have, a first for me, was a computer. Yep. Computer-free on a trip for the first time ever. Smartphones (I have an Evo) are great, but they are really just crippled substitutes for a computer. I had a hard time staying in touch with some projects, and writing a real email was a challenge, but for the most part, not too shabby! Getting there technology… getting there.
Conversely, oh man, on the plane back last night… A woman in a seat near me had, are you ready for this, an iPod, iPhone, iPad, AND a Mac! 3 of which she was actually using at once at one point on the flight. Quite possibly the most idiotic thing I saw all trip. Didn’t help she was a loud bitchy person.
Anywhosals.
The trip required a quite a bit of driving, 2 hours to Sedona, 2 to Grand Canyon, 2 back, and 2 back to the airport. So, as you can imagine, music was key. Sountracking our trip was new Cake, new Decemberists, new Iron & Wine (more on that in a sec), some mixtapes (of course), and eventually my first official introduction to Lady Gaga.
I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. Woefully generic music. Oh well. Oddly, when it was just her & a piano playing live or some raw version of one of her songs, it was 10x better, but man, the official released songs? I don’t know. Just don’t get it. Oh wells.
But, one thing that got stuck on repeat, not only on the long plane ride down, but during a couple hours of the drivin’ was Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron & Wine!
I’ve always liked Iron & Wine, not loved, just a song here and there, though I really did like his last album. Beyond that, his whispery folk was really not my cup o’ tea. But then I heard “Biting My Tail” and my mild enjoyment went to a weird mix of wtf, worry, and enjoyment. Like fellow acoustic aficionado, Sufjan, Sam gone ee-lectronical! After the initial shock, I liked the song, but I had no idea how far he’d take it on the album proper. Was it going to be filled with silly autotuned vocals & blips & bleeps & lasers like the aforementioned sensitive bear?
The answer was, thankfully, no.
I read somewhere he as going for this AM radio thing, and I certainly hear that (see: “Walking Far From Home” & “Tree By The River”) in some of the tracks. At other times, he drops into tribal “Rabbits Will Run” or funk (see: “Big Burned Hand” or just something otherwordly beautiful (see: “Godless Brother In Love”). It’s an amazing progression of sound, bold, and sure to piss off old time fans. But, all I can say is wow. Amazing. My only complaint? ”Biting My Tail” (so much fun) & “Summer In Savannah” (a jazzy awesome tune) should’ve both been included. Fortuntely, due to the iPod world we live in, mine “copy” does now.
Now this is full-on Major Label now (still can’t believe the dude signed with Warner Bros, dropping, I think, Subpop… oh well, no accounting for taste). Because of that, we are not sharing shit, but we do have the promo viddy:
And… the full album stream via a live performance on NPR that we previously shared and are more than happy to link again here!
Iron & Wine Kiss Each Other Clean (Full Album Live via NPR)
Plus the vid…
I think you can stream more here, but best to just pre-order this bad boy and enjoy for yourself!
Cheers,
T.
