miles here. i’m interested in the interesting and like to curate this semi-weekly newsletter for my friends and anyone else who wants to tune in.
🎧 what i’m listening to
les gold. les gold’s dancy guitar chords and melancholic, poetic lyricism are the perfect jams to throw on for a daydreamy or brooding, top-down drive to the beach for a surf, which i’m doing a lot out here in oahu. the group just dropped a new single ‘outside,’ which is an ‘ode to the mundanity of the pre-pandemic life we all took for granted.’ frontman jenson tuomi also happens to be an old college buddy. i caught up with him about their latest release. one of the most exciting things i took away from our conversation was the impact that writing a song about the pandemic had on the songwriting process. in contrast to their song ‘silver platters,’ which mostly speaks to jenson’s experience, the pandemic has (obviously) affected each bandmate, which created a much more collaborative ownership songwriting process. moreover, in collaborating remotely and digitally, the song was under the magnifying glass and spent much longer in the refining process, which created a lot more attention to detail in the song design. in all the challenges that face artists in this era, it’s refreshing to hear about silver lining.
i’ll be tuning into their livestream this wednesday at 8:30 pm where they’ll be playing out of one of portland’s largest music venues — join me!
🎬 what i’m watching
2CELLOS - thunderstruck. fall of my freshman year of high school, two sublime events happened in close succession that made for an epic fall semester. 1) i inherited a reasonable quality sound system from my dad. 2) i discovered acdc. you can guess what happens next. this event may have contributed to my less-than-perfect hearing more so than my affinity for live music.
the 2CELLOS thunderstruck cover and music video by croatian cellist duo 2CELLOS is legendary. the video is a fun reminder, too, that even though today we associate classical music with a certain erudition, the classical composers and musicians were the rockstars of their day. this notion is portrayed well in the excellent film amadeus, which, incidentally, if you haven’t seen, makes it a priority to watch the 1984 film nominated for eleven academy awards and won eight oscars. most interestingly, the film received a double nomination for best actor, with leads hulce and abraham each nominated for their portrayals of mozart and salieri (mozart’s rival).
😮 quote i’m pondering
“In the last few years she’d come close to defining the nameless ambition that had pushed her this far: to avoid the sheep life at all costs.” - Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
🙏thanks for reading. i appreciate you.
my best,
miles