“She said it was all make-believe,
but I thought you said maple leaves.
And when she talked about the fall
I thought she talked about the season.
I never understood at all.
I never understood at all.”
Great Lyrics #4256:
I love Jens Lekman. His “Night Falls over Kortedala” is phenomenal. I really want to cover “A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill” and he is one of the best performers I have seen: humble and confident.
“My dad was in television in Los Angeles–he did voice-overs, so he was friends with all these technical guys, and really when it was possible to get a ¾ inch VCR machine in your home, he taped ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, and he had a bootleg copy of ‘Jaws’. So those were the three movies that I was able to watch over and over. And the VCR was as big as this room, it was like a tank, and the tape was as big as a truck–and I would come home and watch every night, every day, ‘Jaws’, ‘Monty Python’, ‘The Wizard of Oz’.”
It finally all makes sense!
This quote is from my favorite director, Paul Thomas Anderson (“Magnolia”, “Punch-Drunk Love”, “There Will be Blood”, “Boogie Nights”, etc.), in a conversation with the amazing Lars von Trier (“Dogville”, “Dancer in the Dark”, etc.).
This is where your influences are from in my opinion: that which affects you before you are able to make conscious stylistic choices.
“The Taste (featuring a cover of Talking Heads ‘The Road to Nowhere’)” by il gato at Tin Can Ale House in San Diego, California
il gato SXSW Tour - Day 14 - Los Angeles
il gato SXSW Tour - Day 13 - San Diego and the beautiful mountains outside city limits
il gato SXSW Tour - Day 12 - Tucson, Arizona and the drive to San Diego
il gators.
Enjoy il gato. Enjoy il gato today!
Matthew singing Frank Sinatra in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Crawdaddy! SXSW Backyard Sessions.
“But the real treat was hearing the five-piece play. While stripped down for these purposes, Il Gato’s sound aims to move beyond simple genre classifications. There’s the folk elements and sing-along hooks, but to simply call what Il Gato does “folk-pop” is definitely underselling it. Their lyrics were a strange and splendid journey, and in the span of four songs, claps stood in for drums; flugelhorn gave way to melodica, and the vocals ranged from harmonious warble to fun and scattered bursts. A bonus: The neighbor’s wind chimes were a welcome addition to Il Gato’s wide array of instrumentation and melody.”
il gato SXSW Tour - Day 11 - Hanging out in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Finally a day of relaxing in Santa Fe.
