Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

If you have On Demand and the Sundance channel [and if you don't you should] you can watch the documentary film [Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man] until Tuesday. It's fair to say that this film made me weep tears of joy. It was similar to when I watched Scorsese's [The Last Waltz]. I feel somewhat cheated that I didn't grow up listening to this music, but also very grateful to be able to invite it into my world today. This film is amazing, because you can see, hear, and feel how much these artist [who happen to be a collection of my favorites...a dreamteam of musicians] have been affected by Leonard Cohen's music and poetry. When they sing his songs, they give them their own interpretations but it's still manage to completely capture Leonard's message in the song. It's absolutely bloody amazing. If you can see the whole film start to end, do, but if not, try to catch what you can on-line, or better yet buy the [dvd].

Here's Martha singing one of my favorite LC songs "The Traitor."



And Antony of Antony & the Johnsons singing "If It Be Your Will." Antony's voice makes me want to cry in a good way...you know, like watching a good crying movie. I always listen to him when I'm feeling melancholy. He's beautiful...like a beautiful sadness.



And, of course, Rufus singing "Chelsea Hotel"...one of Cohen's most wonderful songs.

Recommending Mates of State

[Mates of State] is a husband [Jason Hammel] and wife [Kori Gardner] duo that absolutely rocks my world. Not only can you can look at my [Last.fm profile] to see that they often dominate my listening time, I even had the cops called on me the other day because I was playing them too loudly...yikes. How do you explain to a cop at 2 in the morning that it was the only way to listen to Mates of State? I think I have a real thang for duos: MoS, The Weepies, Blue Mother Tupelo. There's something about the way they communicate and "jive" with each other that's amazing to see and hear. The last time we got to hear BMT, my friend Micki leaned over and said, "She understood what he was saying without any words and they changed direction together." I thought it was super cool that they were that in sync. Well, my Mates of State is another fantastic combo of awesome. The first time I heard them was when I saw this video. I immediately looked it up on YouTube and watched it eleventy million times. I still have fits of needing to watch it repeatedly.



Fraud in the 80's is another great video. It's probably one of their most popular songs.



But, they're also fantastic live. This is my favorite MoS song live [This video is in my iPod] I sing this song when I'm happy [so I sing it a lot]:



They also just scored a commercial with AT&T. It was a big deal for a lot of Mates of State fans, and some thought they "sold out" because they did a commercial. I'm just happy that they're getting the attention they deserve [although AT&T sux].



Check out Kori's blogs on [Babble] about being traveling musician and parents on the road. They're really great.

Viva la Mates of State!