The day before filming, Timo Sullivan from Motel Motel told me that the Staten Island beach he wanted to takes us to was the same distance as Coney Island. That was entirely untrue. It was a while to get there. But it was the most fun we’ve ever had making a Secret Garden video, and his super secret spot was so worth the trip that I made sure he dropped a pin on my google map before we parted. To this day I only know it by this pin as the Motel Motel beach.
(Photo by Sahara; colored by Sarahana)
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Here it is: a four-song edition of a Secret Garden mini-movie with Sweden’s The Tallest Man on Earth. It was shot the last time he was in New York (he returns this weekend for two shows!). Kristian Matsson was barely up when we infiltrated the Brooklyn apartment he was staying at. His tour manager, Ryan, led us to the stairs that was, who knew, the perfect spot for Kristian to sing “This Wind” and a cover of Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” (the best versions of both that I’ve ever heard). And you know how it is with a perfect hint of reverb: you cast aside your head and pull your heart out your neck (that’s right). We wandered around to the windy rooftop for “Over the Hills” and locked ourselves in an old-fashioned elevator for “Steal Tomorrow”.
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Before heading over to Sycamore to play a show that night, I met with Iceland’s Ólöf Arnalds and her equally impressive friend Davíð Þór Jónsson, who had played a fantastically whimsical show with her at Union Hall the previous night. As we walked past a large tree towering over a mound, Ólöf’s head turned, and we decided she might as well sing under it. First song is the catchy “Klara”, which she wrote for her younger sister, the second is Caetano Veloso’s “Maria Bethania.” Before singing this song, she realizes she is missing her lyrics notebook. Davíð keeps company with a short bout of singing and dancing. One more song in Icelandic follows.
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When Washington DC’s Middle Distance Runner was in town to play The Annex, they were staying at their friend’s hotel room at Times Square, though they told us it was really their label who’d put them there. In preparation for songs they were going to play for us, they’d recruited a few things lying about the room, including a towel, an ice bucket (?) and a tray. We decided to leave the TV on, though muted, to faithfully honor the Times Square hotel room atmosphere. Between gulps of coffee and screwdriver, the band also gifted us with an impromptu song that involves wearing a skirt and stealing a checkbook, amongst other things. All that and more in the video we bring you here. The band will be playing Union Hall with Pretty & Nice on May 14th.
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When Maryland’s Cotton Jones showed up at Grand Army Plaza the morning after their short set at Le Poisson Rouge, the only thing they’d grabbed from their van was an acoustic guitar. Despite the inevitable traffic noise, we decided it’d be worthwhile to have Michael Nau and Whitney McGraw jump into the empty fountain and try a song there (for an opportunity to see Whitney sit on the lap of some frozen Greek hunk, if nothing else). We then headed to Prospect Park across the street, where they played several more songs, and the rest of the band lent doo-woops and finger-snapping while drummer Chris Morris settled on a pair of sticks, of different dimensions, to use for percussion.
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While we were in Austin for SXSW, we swung by the Red House Pizzeria for a pizzastic breakfast one morning. Out in the backyard a host of bands were readying to kickstart another day of endless music, and England’s Fanfarlo, who was scheduled to go on later, had prepared a few songs for our mini-musical-documentary series: the Secret Garden. We walked a short distance away from the venue and halted outside someone’s house, where I was drawn towards a white garage and the entire British crew towards a car draped in a car cover behind a chain link fence. They played three songs there —”Finish Line”, “Luna” and “Comets”, all from their new album, Reservoir. Plenty of bird chirps were available for accompaniment!
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On a rainy Sunday afternoon I went to meet the amazing Sara Lucas and Ryan Seaton of Callers. The location was Trophy Bar, in Williamsburg, which at that early hour wasn’t open for business yet. Sara was catching up on a late lunch and Ryan was getting a head start on getting the bar reading for the evening. Though they usually play as a trio, drummer Don wasn’t around. Ryan played the guitar and Sara sang, and we immediately realized how fabulous the acoustics was at this place: it seemed as if Sara’s voice leaped up to the ceiling, from which little hands protruded to hold the notes and sway them until she closed her mouth. So they tried out many many songs, out of which you’ll hear in this video, “Meet Between”, a Willie Nelson cover of “The Ghost”, and “Valerie”. I’m sure I’ll be posting some of the outtakes at the end of the year.
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After Matt Jones played his set at Union Hall, we led him and a few of his friends to an abandoned couch that was a block away from the venue. The lighting was poor, but that comfy bulk of green sitting amongst the continual swooshes of passing cars seemed like it was just waiting for us. Matt was joined by cellist Colette Alexander, who miraculously lifted a folding chair out of the venue without anyone noticing, and Carol Gray, who played the fiddle. They played three songs, “Lady Dawn”, “Threadlines” and “Hand Out the Drugs”, out of which the first two are from his latest, Black Path, and the last one features a little clap-along. Soon after they started playing, the person whose house we had settled in front of came out and stayed for the street show, as did a camera-happy couple who lived nearby.
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Before playing their Spike Hill show in Williamsburg, Caroline Smith & The Good Night Sleeps were to perform a few songs in the ever-so-mobile Secret Garden. Their bright-eyed bassist Jesse Schuster had wanted to play an upright bass, but when we couldn’t find a spot that housed one we could borrow, we thought a well-lit patch of a quiet-ish sidewalk, by which their van was parked close to the venue, suited us just fine. Drummer Arlen Peiffer grabbed a glockenspiel and a shaker, and the other three—Alex Ramsey-Blood, Caroline Smith and Jesse—fared well amongst a guitar, a banjo and some finger-snapping. Their sweet songs reigned on the sidewalk, turned a few heads, and evoked kind words from a passing stranger. We topped it all off with a cover of a pretty filthy song, though. All three originals heard here are from Backyard Tent Set.
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A few days after I saw tUnE-yArDs open for Beirut at Music Hall of Williamsburg, I went to film the amazing woman behind it, Merrill Garbus, in Bed-Stuy, where she was staying at a friend’s apartment for a short visit. She asked me if I had specific requests, and though I said she could play anything she wanted, she ended up picking three of my favorites, “Little Tiger”, “News”, and “Hatari”, and one new song, “Harold”. We tried the first performance out on the stoop, but it was amazingly noisy–multiple airplanes, spontaneous banging, and one “just yell it out and somebody will hear it” conversation. So we headed back inside, walking around in the apartment and singing in the bathtub, talking about the band’s young history, promising future, make-up tradition, and so on
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hooves on the turf is a mostly-music blog based out of brooklyn. i can be reached at hoovesontheturf [at] gmail [dot] com - please send me your lovely music as an attached mp3 or an mp3 link. if i like what you send, i'll be sure to ask for more.
