My friend Misty posted this story the other day about a guy sailing around on a 50-year-old wooden sailboat that he restored.
Check out Twenty-Eight Feet.
The short documentary features a song by Ben Howard called “Old Pine.”
“Hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags. I come to know that memories were the best things you ever had.”
Ben is in the studio working on new music, but it was nice to dive back into this older cut. great camping song.
As weather turns to summer on Vancouver Island, I think about camping, hiking and beach vacations and this song is the soundtrack.
***
Another British singer-songwriter fellow I came across today… James Bay. Don’t judge me, I clicked on his song today because his name is the same as a neighbourhood of Victoria. True story.
“Songwriting is difficult. There’s this little critic in my head, and all he ever says is “no, no, no, no, no.” Sometimes, (if I’m lucky) he says “maybe”, and once in a long while, he’ll say “yeah, alright.” That gets really frustrating, really fast.”
***
Finally… we travel to Sweden and the alt-pop of Tove Lo.
Ebba Nilsson performs her style of music under the banner Tove Lo. Her record Truth Serum came out in march and the song “Habit” is rising. A full length album will come later this year from island Records.
Talking to Billboard Tove Lo says of her breakup anthem, “At first I didn’t want to write something bad. But, when it was all over, being in that state of mind … I need to use that when I write. I can’t not.”
Elle explores the success of her song about heart-ache and discovers she was a grunge kid growing up. Hey Lo, me too!
“Lo cites Nirvana and Courtney Love’s Hole as early inspirations. As a teen she was immersed in grunge culture, her hair dyed black. She has a tattoo of a cartoon-like girl harnessed to the back of a bumble bee inked along her left upper arm and says she only owns two pairs of shoes: Dockers sneakers and Candies.”
Elle describes the style of songwriter and her contemporaries, Robyn, Icona Pop, Mo, Lykki Li, as “Swedish femme pop.”
The music video is pretty choice.
Go with yourself.
