SWIK Summer Concerts 2010

It’s that time of year again. Summer has arrived (at least the steamy temperatures last weekend made me feel like it’s here) so I’m planning my summer concert schedule. Last year when I posted The SWIKest Summer Tours, my good friend Sadie was amused by the fact that I planned my summer concerts the same way some people plan a vacation. Yes, it may seem pathetic. But it’s so easy to miss a good show if you don’t plan ahead, at least a little. I’m generally not much of a planner. I’m more a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kinda girl, particularly when it comes to vacations or social activities. But I’ve missed several great shows this year, finding out that someone is coming to town after a show has sold out or missing the show by just a day or two. For example, I already missed Melody Gardot with The New York Pops at Summer Stage in Central Park last week. Ugh!! So frustrating. Therefore, I’m taking time to check out who’s around this summer and mark the dates in my calendar.

A SWIK Connection

I had planned to post my SWIK Summer Tours list this week, but last Tuesday I went to see Imogen Heap at the Hammerstein Ballroom and decided she needed her own post. I wrote about Heap for the SWIKs I Missed post in December, but she deserves a bit more space here. Not only does Heap remind me of Annie Lennox, but she is probably the Annie Lennox of the 21st century. Or maybe the Kate Bush of the 21st century? Yet Heap is uniquely herself and her talent is only more evident in her live show. Dare I admit? She blew me away.

A SWIK Icon with a Bad Reputation

This week is the anniversary of my first SWIK Music blog post. I want to say that I can’t believe that I’ve been writing this for a year. But I’ve barely posted in 2010, so I don’t think that I can call it a year. The anniversary does seem to be a good excuse to finally get back to the business of the SWIK Music blog. Unfortunately, it was a night of drunkenness and some karaoke a few weekends ago that motivated me to finally draft this post. I was out with my friend Michelle. She is frequently my partner in activities that involve music and drinking. I met up with her and a bunch of her friends at a karaoke bar in the East Village. (A shout out to the Jersey crew, including the birthday boy, his lovely wife, and everyone else who made it such a great night.) Michelle and I sang some classic Joan Jett tunes, reminding me of the post that I’ve wanted to write for two months. It’s Joan Jett though. I want to do her justice. With a new greatest hits and a movie about her former band, The Runaways, it’s time to get it down and pay homage.

A SWIK Soldier of Love

It’s been a while since the the last SWIK post. My iMac finally has a new hard drive. This past week, I caught Olympic fever as well as a bad cold. Both kept me on the couch and unmotivated to write. I’ve also been struggling with ‘makin’ it happen‘ (see related post). Figuring out what’s next, in my career as well as in my love life, has been a challenge. Luckily there’s a new album from Sade to help me through. Sade has been a staple in my music collection since I first saw “Smooth Operator” on Friday Night Videos circa 1984. Although Sade’s albums are released infrequently, the last one was 10 years ago, the music is always relevant and captures my mood. This time it’s the title track to her new album, Soldier of Love. The song evokes the feeling of marching through a battlefield, albeit with a slow, funky groove. The past few years of my life have felt like a bit of a battlefield. Not just in love, but also in finding a new direction and passion for my career. Yet, despite the struggles, I’m ready to jump back into the fray, getting out there, believing again. Leading me to feel like, yes, some sort of soldier of love.

“I’ve lost the use of my heart, but I’m still alive, still looking for the light…
I’m a soldier of love, every day and every night, I’m a soldier of love, all the days of my life.”

Twa Fey and Haitian SWIKs

2010 continued to be a rough start for me. Most recently, the hard drive in my relatively new iMac went down. After an hour or so on the phone with tech support last week, I was told to take my computer to an Apple store for repair. Living without a car in NYC, this means lugging a large 24” iMac on the subway or paying for a taxi. Hence, the delayed post. The iMac is still at the Apple store and nothing can be retrieved. The Apple Geniuses are installing a new hard drive. In reality, this and most of my personal problems or challenges are small and mere inconveniences. They, and even the heartbreak mentioned last week, can be overcome. In light of the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti, the trivialities of one’s daily life seem even less significant. I am reminded to be grateful. Losing everything on my computer is nothing compared to losing a home and family members. I feel compelled to do my part to raise awareness and funds for Haiti. SWIK Music provides the perfect outlet. Before writing this post, I knew little about Haitian musicians, other than the country’s most famous immigrant, Wyclef Jean of the hip-hop group, the Fugee’s. While I am only slightly more informed, I want to dedicate this post to the women of Haiti. The music and traditions of this island go much deeper than what I can cover here, but I hope that you’ll find something new and appreciate the widespread influence of Haitian music.

Makin’ It Happen in 2010

SWIK Music took a much needed vacation. Over the past few weeks, 2010 settled in while I caught up on TV shows like Glee and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (via Hulu), began working out with a personal trainer, and spent far too much money on music. Overall, it was fun and relaxing. I spent a fabulous New Year’s Eve at a party Times Square. We watched all the madness in the streets from the warmth of a friend’s office, sipping champagne and dancing. It was a once in a lifetime experience, (definitely do NOT need to argue with cops at the street barricades for a party again). But what made the evening special was being around some of my closest friends as the over-priced disco ball dropped on 2010.

After a wonderful little “staycation,” as the kids call it, returning to work was brutal. Unfortunately, Monday Jan 4 arrived along with some sobering news about an ex who, apparently, I wasn’t entirely over. According to Facebook his relationship status is now “In A Relationship.” (Ok, I get it. We live in the 21st century. Everyone we’ve ever dated, unless you can’t remember their names, can be connected to you. Is this a good or a bad thing? I have no idea.) In addition to returning to work and seeing the relationship status update, I was terrified about the steps required for some major life changes in 2010. My friends and I have declared 2010 “the year of makin’ it happen,” in contrast to 2009 which was “the year of no regrets.” I’m eager to make things happen this year, but also scared – to the point of paralyzed – about taking the required first steps. As I paced around my (very tiny) apartment (one change will be a new home), Yaz’s classic 80’s dance song, “Situation” kept running through my head. Yet the album I spent most the week listening to was La Roux’s self-titled debut album.

SWIKs I Missed in 2009

Podcast delayed due to technical difficulties.

As 2009 draws to a close and everyone compiles their best of lists, I’m taking the opportunity to cover a few new albums that I never got around to writing about this year. In the R&B category Mary J. Blidge and Alicia Keys released albums at the end of 2009. There were also some excellent greatest hits collections from Janet Jackson and Dolly Parton that I never reviewed. All of these women deserve their own SWIK posts. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there were so many great SWIK releases this year that there’s not enough time or space to cover everyone. In addition to some of my favorites mentioned in SWIK Music such as, Imelda May, The Raveonettes, Melody Gardot, Diane Birch, and Camera Obscura, following are a few new artists, at least new to me, that I discovered this year.

SWIK Holiday Classics

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Let’s face it, this time of year Christmas music is unavoidable. While a thousand different versions of “Silent Night” can be annoying, there is actually some good holiday music out there. I should know, as I seem to have made this an area of musical expertise. I created my first mix tape of holiday music in 1989 (ironic, considering last week’s post). I realized that many popular and alternative artists recorded holiday tunes. I began to compile them so I wouldn’t have to suffer through yet another year of Barry Manilow and Mannheim Steamroller. For example, one of my favorites is “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses, which manages to turn Christmas into a humorous dating saga.

SWIK Music from 1989

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A few weeks ago the Economist ran a story on 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The cover had one of the iconic images from that year, a punk sitting a top the crumbling wall. For those of us who grew up during the cold war, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall was probably one of the most significant political events of our lives, at least until September 11, 2001. Looking back, 1989 was quite a year. The event in Germany prompted Eastern European countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland to undergo peaceful transitions out from under Soviet control. Earlier that year student demonstrators took over Tiananmen Square in Beijing in what led to, while not the political opening of China then by all accounts its economic opening. In 1989 the Exxon Valdez spilled 10 million gallons of crude oil on Prince WIlliam Sound, Alaska in what remains the worst environmental disaster to happen at sea. In other news, the U.S. invaded Panama and bailed out the Savings & Loan industry. An earthquake in San Francisco held up the World Series. At Hillsborough stadium in England, 96 people died at a football (soccer) match.

For me, one of the most significant events of 1989 took place on December 6th at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. On that day, a 25 year old man killed 14 women and injured many others, before turning a gun on himself in what became known as the Montreal Massacre. He claimed that he was “fighting feminism.” His suicide note supposedly mentioned women who had succeeded in non-traditional female work such as firefighters, police officers, and journalists. On that date I was in college only an hour and a half from Montreal. Many of us spent a lot of time there, so the shock waves from the event rippled to the dorms of University of Vermont. This week, as I look back on 1989 and the female artists who were shaping the next decades of music, I dedicate this post to the women who died senselessly at the hands of a madman on December 6, 1989.

Waiting for Love and Gardot

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Comedienne and social commentator Sandra Bernhard once wrote, “love is the only shocking act left on the face of the earth.” In contrast to last week’s SWIK post and the sexually explicit music from Peaches and Amanda Blank, which in this day and age is really not all that shocking, Bernhard may have been onto something. Amid the eroticism, the commercialization of sex, and the horrors of the daily news (recession, war, terror, torture, starvation etc.) an act of love may, in fact, be truly shocking. This weekend, I was thinking about love. No, I haven’t met a new man. But autumn is the time that I most want to be in love. It’s my favorite season. I like the colors and the crisp, cool air that tells us winter is coming. I find the season romantic. Maybe it’s because many of my relationships began in the fall? Or it’s that When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite romantic comedies? Whatever. As fall comes to a close and the weather gets a little colder, the season evokes the kind of love that warms you inside. Comfortable, but still sexy. My sentiments about love and the season are captured in Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald version of “Autumn in New York.” I’ve been waiting to find more songs like this and have finally found a slew of them in Melody Gardot. She captures what sounds like love, or at least a wonderful love affair, on her latest album, My One and Only Thrill. Perhaps this is the beginning of something shocking?