If you’ve never heard of William Fitzsimmons, trust me, you’ll love William Fitzsimmons.

Anyway, give it a watch if you like good songwriting and great music.

You can pick up his music here, here, and here.

A few days ago, John posted a video explaining what the song is all about. It’s worth watching.

So now, without further ado, Balmorhea:

Balmorhea – Take Away Show – Remembrance from valerie toumayan on Vimeo.

Your imprint lingers
October, oh October
Crisp air, crunching leaves

Watching this group of people play together is such a treat; the lineup is heavy on talent, including the likes of Andrew Osenga, Jill Phillips, Andy Gullahorn, Ben Shive, Pierce Pettis, and multi-instrumentalist Gabe Scott.  All in one room.  All creating something beautiful together.

Suffice to say, this was one of the highlights of my December.

Anyway, a while back I ran across a video someone had compiled for the Behold the Lamb of God performance at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, KY.  It’s really well put together and gives a good preview of what it is like to attend one of these concerts.  Take a look at the video below (be sure to click “HQ” to view it in high quality!) and prepare to block out an evening or two this coming December to go watch them play.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A62FE2925410EF7F

If you don’t already own it, you can purchase Behold the Lamb of God in the store over at The Rabbit Room.  It’s one of my favorite albums, and I could listen to it all year long.

(Yeah, I know it’s August, but I was unable to find an embeddable version of this video before now.  It’s still worth watching.  )

The Grain of Sound

A banjo maker in the mountains,
when looking out for wood to carve
an instrument, will walk among
the trees and knock on trunks. He’ll hit
the bark and listen for a note.
A hickory makes the brightest sound;
the poplar has a mellow ease.
But only straightest grain will keep
the purity of tone, the sought-
for depth that makes the licks sparkle.
A banjo has a shining shiver.
Its twangs will glitter like the light
on splashing water, even though
its face is just a drum of hide
of cow, or cat, or even skunk.
The hide will magnify the note,
the sad of honest pain, the chill
blood-song, lament, confession, haunt,
as tree will sing again from root
and vein and sap and twig in wind
and cat will moan as hand plucks nerve,
picks bone and skin and gut and pricks
the heart as blood will answer blood
and love begins to knock along the grain.

- Robert Morgan

Watch the video; there’s a reason why Hammock if one of my favorite bands.

The song comes from Fitzsimmons’ latest record, The Sparrow and The Crow, which is excellent.  I like the video, too. If you like what you hear, consider picking up the cd or buying it online from Amazon or on iTunes.

Hope you like the things I post there as much as I do.

There’s a funny short film parody put out by CollegeHumor.com called The Matrix Runs on Windows, and it features none other than my friend Winston Noel as Neo.  I went to both high school and college at the University of Virginia with Winston; after graduating, he moved up to New York City to pursue a career in acting.  I’d say he’s on his way up.

Congratulations, Winston!

Brock found it via a post on Gizmodo, where they wrote

The crew at CollegeHumor have outdone themselves with their latest short, The Matrix Runs on Windows. The concept is pretty self-explanatory: the movie The Matrix if the construct was run on Windows XP. It’s incredible that content shot for the web is reaching the quality of the movies that it spoofs. Seriously, how good does this look?

Pretty cool.