Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl

SOME years, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl become the highlight of the summer. I know I'll miss a lot of things about Los Angeles whenever we end up departing, but these night with the sun setting and the scent of eucalyptus from the canyon will be very near the top of the list.

This year, we've only been twice so far. We saw the fireworks on the 4th of July, a show at which I learned that Josh Groban is not the anti-Christ (and you can quote me on that.)

Our second visit was for Willie Nelson's show on Saturday night, which was devoted mostly to 1978's Stardust album. I know I'm not breaking any news to say that the show was damned good -- Willie has long been one of the most consistent major artists. Even with what at times could be heavy orchestration (conducted by Beck's father, who has a smile and body language eerily like that of his son), the richness of Willie's voice came across quite well. (The tones of his battered classical guitar, which makes Glenn Hansard's Takemine look brand new, came and went during the first song or so, but showed up quite well thereafter.)

Stardust, of course, was Willie's throwback standards record, a real about face after albums like The Red-Headed Stranger. We are now, 35 years after its release, about as far from Stardust's original appearance as it was from the American songbook -- "Blue Skies," "All of Me" -- that inspired it: It's doubly retro. The highlight for me may've been his reading of "Moonlight in Vermont." Some non-album tracks -- "All the Things You Are" -- were also strong. One of my favorite of his songs -- "Funny How Time Slips Away," the brilliance of which I was recently reminded by the L.A. band Spain -- seemed rushed. This is a number about regret and the perspective time offers. It needs room to breathe.

This said, that was about as good a show by an 80 year-old as any of us deserve. What a titan.

Texas troubadour Lyle Lovett opened. Your humble correspondent has been an admirer, in theory, of Lovett for a long time. But I've always wanted to like his recordings -- which represent an attention to detail, a worship of Townes Van Zandt, a literate take on the country-folk tradition, etc. -- more than I do.

The Bowl show really won me over. Part of it was Lovett's banter and stage presence -- here's someone who really loves doing this, and was especially honored to be opening for St. Willie. I loved his fingerpicking as well. But to large extent it was the way Lovett handled his band -- a bunch of great players, and everyone got room to take a brief solo on almost every song. It was like a great jazz band playing country -- Western swing at its best.

What the hell happened to the shuttle bus back to the LA Zoo, though? Something clearly went terribly wrong.

Classical Music on the Radio

NOT long ago I got to hang out at the Hollywood Bowl in the middle of the day -- which was a decadent pleasure in itself -- while talking to Brian Lauritzen, the KUSC deejay who has come to dominate classical broadcasting in town.

Brian is still young yet, but he has several decades of commitment to both music and public radio, and he has a deep feeling for the sometimes complex role that music can play in people's lives. I enjoyed his utter lack of cynicism and hope LA doesn't destroy his low-key southern charm.

Brian just started his broadcasting of Bowl concerts, which will continue for another couple of months.

Here's my story. See ya at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Roots of a Film Composer

THIS week, British film composer George Fenton -- he wrote the scores to Gandhi, Groundhog Day, The History Boys, lots of Ken Loach films, and dozens more -- comes to the Hollywood Bowl to conduct Frozen Planet, a documentary that's shown on the BBC to much acclaim.

I corresponded with him for my Influences column and he came up with some expected choices -- playwright Alan Bennett, who he's worked with several times -- as well as some I didn't predict, like Rothko. The whole story is here.

Glen Campbell's Farewell

LAST night, several thousand of us said so long to Glen Campbell. His Hollywood Bowl concert was a kind of cross between a straightforward farewell concert and a posthumous tribute, since the entire first program was made up of other musicians paying homage to various aspects of his work. And the farewell part is not entirely conventional: Campbell is saying goodbye because of an Alzheimer's diagnosis.

Despite a very mixed first half -- more on that later -- Campbell's portion of the program was positively triumphant, and makes clear why we'll miss him and his like in years to come. Some of the highlights included his opening number, "Gentle on My Mind," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," his cover of Hank's "Lovesick Blues," and of course Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman," one of the greatest American songs in any genre. It's hard not to smile hearing him sing "Rhinestone Cowboy" -- his last number before the encore -- though that song is not exactly in the league of the others.

(He's one of the rare figures of the AM radio of my youth whose work stands up really well.)

And his guitar playing, especially his solos on his very twangy Stratocaster, took me completely by surprise. Great, fleet-fingered rockabilly-inspired stuff. Great stage presence too.

The first half was much more mixed, despite fine backing by LA roots combo Dawes. The only major  misstep was putting Courtney Taylor-Taylor of the Dandy Warhols on the bill -- he's a real lightweight, here out of his vocal range, and didn't bring much to the proceedings. Lucinda Williams sounded a bit tired and under-mic'ed, but she's one of the greatest inheritors of Campbell's era. Kris Kristofferson's voice has become a bit ragged, but it was good to see him and to have him perform one of the best Campbell-penned numbers, "Less of Me." (The Everly Brothers' version of that song is a favorite.)

Part of what made these opening songs feel scattered was the range of styles Campbell has been involved with because of his early years as an L.A. session player -- the pure pop of the Monkees ("Daydream Believer"), the teenage symphonies of the Beach Boys ("I Know There's an Answer"), even Elvis (a whole-group version of "Viva Las Vegas.")

Some of the best stuff had little directly to do with Campbell: Jackson Browne captured the regret of one of his best songs, "These Days,"and Jenny Lewis' ironic and nuanced "Just One of the Guys" reminded us of what a great melodist she can be.

(The indie fan inside me feel the need to mention that GC played not one but two Scud Mountain Boys songs -- Joe Pernice's old band covered both "Wichita Lineman" and "Where's the Playground Susie?")

But all of these memories, good and bad, fled when Campbell himself came out in a rhinestone jacket, guitar in hand, for the show's second half. At 76, he's at the top of his game. For this kind of veteran performer, the words, "and here are some songs from my new album" can be depressing indeed, but even his new stuff sounded great. (Here is a full review by Randall Roberts of the LA Times.)

Let's hope we all can go out with the class and dignity with which Campbell has.

Playboy Jazz Festival

ONE of the best things about Los Angeles -- hands down -- is the Hollywood Bowl, and it's become a sign of the coming of summer for a lot of us.

Today I wrote an advance on the 2012 Playboy Jazz Festival, including interviews with several of the musicians who'll play there.

There's a range of good and bad here, as there always are at big jazz festivals. One thing that continues to confuse me, though, is why we call these things jazz festivals at all, since less than half of what's on offer can be called jazz by even the most expansive definition.

The Soul Rebels, from New Orleans

I guess it comes down to, what does jazz mean in the 21st century?

The Roots of Philip Glass

THE minimalist composer is the latest subject of my Influences column in the Los Angeles Times.

We spoke about his teacher Nadia Boulanger, sitar player Ravi Shankar, composer/philosopher John Cage, Gandhi and Allen Ginsberg, who Glass got to know well.

I mentioned to Glass before we started to talk for real that I had a new respect for anyone who wrote music since I'd started a very amateur study of music theory. He told me it's not hard for kids -- as his nine-year-old son is showing him. "Their minds are much more agile."

HERE is the full piece.

He'll be at the Hollywood Bowl next Tuesday.

Jazz, Joni Mitchell and the Hollywood Bowl

YOU'LL get less of the introverted poet of Blue and only a hint of the lipstick-and-beret chanteuse of Court and Spark. Instead, Wednesday night will summon the jazz phase Joni Mitchell went through in the mid-to-late '70s.

HERE is  my LA Times story on the Hollywood Bowl show, Joni's Jazz, which will include all kinds of good people -- including Herbie Hancock, who recently took some well-aimed criticism about the pedestrian nature of the Bowl's jazz offerings, Glenn Hansard, Aimee Mann, Cassandra Wilson and Wayne Shorter.

I enjoyed speaking to several of the above -- though I must admit Shorter and I got lost walking down memory lane a bit: He mused about his years in the army, during which he met Lester Young at a mid-'50s Canadian gig (Pres took him downstairs to the wine cellar to see if they could find better cognac than what they were serving at the bar) and raving about the open-mindedness of European jazz fans. ("The crowds -- they're poppin'. All the generations; 13-year-olds into really out stuff. Really feeling it.")

Michell's jazz period included the album The Hissing of Summer Lawns -- which has what we'd later call "world music" touches and which will be performed in its entirety at the Bowl -- and ends with her tribute to bassist/composer Charles Mingus, who died a few months before its release. (Though some very good people play on Mingus, its fusion vibe makes it a lost opportunity for me.)

Mitchell is of course a major figure and innovative guitarist -- Richard Thompson is fascinated with her alternate tunings and his old band Fairport Convention covered "Chelsea Morning" and "I Don't Know Where I Stand" -- who I find it easy to like and hard to love. I'm happy for the the Bowl concert -- which has a mix of the usual suspects and some imaginative choices -- to change that.

Eddie Izzard at the Hollywood Bowl

THE other morning -- it was the 4th of July -- the phone rang. It was Eddie Izzard calling from England. I'd had no caffeine yet. And due to the holiday -- on a Monday no less -- and a kid who'd just gotten out of the emergency room, I'd completely forgotten that he'd be calling.

Yikes.

But Izzard ended up being a perfect gentleman and we spoke for a while about his career and the figures who'd shaped him, including some of my very favorites, The Beatles and Monty Python. He talked very sincerely about his debts to earlier comic figures and referred to himself as an inheritor of a rational, humanistic tradition going back to Darwin and beyond.

HERE is my brief feature on the comedian, who I look forward to seeing perform tonight at the Hollywood Bowl. Be there or be square.

The Roots of Bobby McFerrin

IS there a more annoying song from the 1980s than "Don't Worry Be Happy"? Maybe -- a lot of bad childhood memories are now flowing back, some of them involving George Michael -- but not one of my favorite number from that low dishonest decade.

Debut LP

HERE is my brief LA Times exchange with the man who helped revolutionize jazz singing and has made an impact in the classical world as well. (He also did the right thing after George Herbert Walker Bush stole his song without permission, just as Reagan did with Springsteen's not-so-conservative "Born in the USA.")

Miles pic by Tom Palumbo

McFerrin, needless to say, is an interesting guy, and he lists his among his most important influences Miles "Prince of Darkness" Davis and the Christian savior. Now that's what I call a diverse roster.

McFerrin is at the Hollywood Bowl next week, by the way.

Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" on DVD

EVERYTHING was nicely lined up -- and then the sky started falling.

        

“The week before the filming was about to start,” Sofia Coppola recounts, “the studio changed the deal, and it fell through. And my dad came to the rescue; our French distributor got involved… But it was really nerve-wracking. It’s stressful enough, already, making your first film.” Who needs a funding disaster on top of it?

Luckily, the nightmare that preceded Coppola’s debut, The Virgin Suicides, did not repeat itself with, her latest, the ethereal, intimate Somewhere, which comes out on DVD today.

The new film, about a reckless, disoriented actor (Stephen Dorff) who drifts through life at the Chateau Marmont before a restorative visit from his 11-year-old daughter, went much more smoothly.

“It often requires a star actor,” the film’s producer Roman Coppola (and the director’s brother) says of funding for indies. “But in Sofia’s case, she has an identity and a fan-base and a cachet. So there’s a core group of people she’s worked with before, and there was a lot of loyalty.” (It didn’t hurt, of course, that Roman and Sofia co-own American Zoetrope, the San Francisco-based studio founded by their father, Francis Ford Coppola.)

“I think it’s always a challenge, especially if you don’t have a huge star,” Sofia Coppola says. “But luckily I have strong relationships with our French distributor and our Japanese distributor.” Foreign presales – along with initial funding from Zoetrope -- gave her money to get the production going, and she  later landed Focus, who had distributed Lost in Translation.

Securing early financing overseas was a natural strategy for this film: “It has more of the pacing and feeling of European films,” she says. “So it made sense that we started with a French distributor because it’s more connected to their film history.”

Says producer G. Mac Brown: “I normally do rather large budget features, filled with complexities, stress and ego. Somewhere was the opposite.  From the beginning, Sofia's wish was to have the most intimate and pure film making process possible.  There was no studio, no boss, no distractions. It was a dream.”

For all the deserved praise earned by Elle Fanning, who plays the visiting daughter, the heart of the movie is Dorff, a longtime friend of Coppola’s and someone who came to mind very early in the film’s conception. “The starting point was this portrait of an actor,” named Johnny Marco, who’s had an international hit with a generic action film called Berlin Agenda.

“I felt like he had been really successful doing some movie he didn’t care about,” she says. “So he wasn’t feeling that good about himself as an artist. He’d had his success but was indulging – so his life was out of balance.”

Getting a bigger name – Dorff is probably best known for Blade, from 1998 despite a more than respectable career that also includes Backbeat and Public Enemies -- would have allowed her to draw a larger budget, but she was dedicated to him playing the lead role.

After the sumptuousness of Marie Antoinette, this one is pretty stripped down: Many of the shots comprise either Dorff alone in the hotel or Dorff with Fanning. “My starting point is always to try to make it as small and low-budget as possible so we can keep creative freedom -- and get it made. Everybody says it’s harder and harder to get unusual movies made.”

“Sofia’s film is kind of an anomaly,” says Roman Coppola, who points out that it’s taken two decades to get the adaptation of On the Road, directed by Walter Salles and produced by Frances Ford Coppola, ready for the camera. “It’s a very tricky climate,” he says, “and it’s a matter of finding partners who are in sync with you.”

“It’s rare – and I think it shows,” in his sister’s new film, he continues. “There’s a lightness. The mood in which a film is made imbues itself into the movie. There wasn’t tearing your hair out the night before.”

The soul of an artist is rarely entirely smooth, and Coppola says she had moments of doubt. “It’s always stressful, waiting to hear from financers, or from actors. I’m sure there were things I blocked out, like childbirth. We needed to forge ahead.”

Overall she says, “Every time I start a movie it’s scary because I’m doing something I haven’t done before. But now I have enough experience to know you get through it. It always looks like it won’t come together. But it does.”

Belle & Sebastian on the West Coast.

IT'S been four years since the Glasgow indie rock band Belle & Sebastian came to America. I remember that show, in which they were accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in part because of its sheer wonder. Also, because my wife and I were such fans we left our newborn son -- less than a full month old! -- to see the group. (Yes, we got a sitter.)

Belle & Sebastian of course, are a band that mixes a gift for melody with instrumental harmonies that recall classic West Coast rock. Their early songs often resembled folk rock or chamber pop; some of their more recent stuff, and their new record, Write About Love, are funkier and more expansive. Either way they are great live, and perhaps the greatest indie pop band since Pavement broke up.

HERE is my piece on the group before their '06 Bowl show.  It begins this way:

When they started out in the mid-'90s as a project for a college business course, the group of Glaswegian students who called themselves Belle and Sebastian tried to keep things low-key. They named themselves for a French children's TV show, played gigs in churches and libraries, shunned the media and pressed only 1,000 copies -- on vinyl -- of their debut album.


I'm sure I'm not the only reader of The Misread City looking forward to the band's show Sunday night at the Hollywood Palladium.  

Grizzly Bear and Phoenix at the Hollywood Bowl

ON Saturday night I was lucky enough to catch these two bands at the Bowl. Both exceeded my expectations.

Grizzly Bear, a Brooklyn group with a bearded-hipster following and a knack for Pet Sounds derived vocal harmonies, has long been an enigma to me: I got their debut LP before it came out, and it literally destroyed my wife's car stereo even before we could hear it. But some of my most dedicated music friends kept urging me to check them out.

When they played Disney Hall a few years back, I was all set to go, but our babysitter fell through and we missed the show. I picked up their latest LP, which came out last year, and have found some of the harmonies interesting, but there's something sterile about it.

But those vocal tapestries, outdoors at the Bowl on a cool late-summer evening, had far more emotional directness, without losing their mystery. And the guitars and other instruments were edgier, dirtier, than on the overly smooth Veckatimest LP. Grizz is not just neo-psych with a Radiohead swoon, but something fresh and weird.

Phoenix is everyone's favorite French band since Air. They've got a knack for catchy melodies, slinky, funk-inspired basslines, and really cool haircuts. I expected a high-energy performance and they pumped it up a bit higher without losing their shy charisma. Members of the group came into the crowd a couple times -- once about 10 feet from where I was sitting -- and somehow it didnt feel cheesy.

As with many bands, especially from other countries, the group was quite clear about how excited they were to be playing the legendary Hollywood Bowl.

Parking was the worst ever -- especially getting out -- but my wife and I were reminded that the Bowl is one of LA's greatest institutions.

ALSO:
Let me update this blog to the recent Echoplex show by one of our favorite bands, the folky British group The Clientele. I've seen them twice and admired the perfectly crafted, delicate Arthur Lee-meets-Nick Drake songs, but this show brought the Television-inspired, high-on-the-neck guitar playing to the fore. This was folk rock without the delicacy, played by a kickass live band. They're touring on a fine EP called Minotaur: I hope it's not the last time we see them.


At right: The gentlemen of Grizzly Bear

She & Him vs. The Swell Season at the Hollywood Bowl

Because seasonal change tends to be pretty subtle in Southern California, summer doesn't officially begin for me until the first show at the Hollywood Bowl. Last night's performance was dedicated to retro-minded guy-girl duos: The Bird and the Bee, She & Him, and the Swell Season. The evening, at the end of what was by far the hottest weekend of the year, was very fine without being especially surprising.

The opening band at Bowl shows has to perform while it's still quite light out, and somehow hard to sink into the performance. The Bird and the Bee played with spirit, but it didn't make much impression despite tuneful songs and some hot dancers. (I have not really forgiven them for dedicating an entire album to Hall and Oates and kicking off that hipster revival. Though their cover of "Sarah Smile" -- a song my wife Sara was tormented with as a kid -- was not bad.)

Similar but with more impact was She & Him. As much as I want to like the indie-minded, John Fahey-loving, integrity-rich M. Ward, his records are just, with a few exceptions, too introspective for me. But when he becomes Matt Ward and plays with actress Zooey Deschanel, it's light, frothy and winning -- retaining some of his vintage cool -- and last night was better than the pretty decent LPs led me to expect.

The played songs like NRBQ's "Ridin' in My Car," the bouncy "In the Sun," "Change is Hard," and a smokin' cover of Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got a Hold on Me." Ward played acoustic guitar as well as what looked like a '50s Gretsch (with a whammy bar) but which turns out to be a Gibson Johnny A model -- he really made it sing and was far more fun than you'd expect from his dour photos. But the show was more about Zooey's voice and stage presence.

The rockabilly "Roll Over Beethoven" and a torchy "I Put a Spell on You," which concluded their set, may've been the best thing they played.

(She & Him came together when the two adapted Richard and Linda Thompson's "When I Get to the Border," which is here on youtube.)

I'd expected She & Him's lightly ironic, stylized trip into the past to the eve's highlight, but The Swell Season, the Irish-Czech duo from the movie "Once," won me over.

First, a question: Why is so much Celtic rock so bombastic, and why do the most ironic people in the world write and sing songs that are so deadly earnest? (I ask this as someone who is half Irish and spend a lot of time looking for contemporary Gaelic music that is not embarrassing.) There were moments of Celtic bombast in last night's set, but only a few. Glen Hansard, the former busker whose band, The Frames, interests me not at all, is either the most sincere successful musician in the world or the best actor-singer the world has ever known. He knocked me out.

Part of what I like about the group is its dedication to the folk repertoire; Hansard sang a Tim Buckley song with a Jeff Buckley bridge and made both work. Strumming a battered acoustic guitar with a hole in its top, he sang, with ex Marketa Irglova singing harmony and sometimes accompanying on piano. (The one song she sang more or less solo was beautiful.) You've seen the movie, you know what they do, and you know his bashful charm and ability to summon a mix of early Marvin Gaye and early Van Morrison.

Good music is often a mystery, but I am still amazed: How many times did I hear Van's "Into the Mystic" in college, out the windows of dorm rooms, in candle-lit co-ed's rooms, and played at parties by hippie bands -- and yet The Swell Season and its horn section made me feel I was hearing it for the first time.

Photo: She & Him

The Return Of Pavement

Pavement, arguably the finest indie-rock band of the '90s, has reunited for a spring and summer tour: I saw a very focussed and often wonderful show in Pomona, Calif, last night -- those guitars still sound so alien and familiar at the same time -- they will be at Coachella on Sunday, and a Sept. 30 Hollywood Bowl appearance has just been announced.

This was, of course, the unsentimental kind of Gen-X band that was not supposed to go in for a Boomer style reunion. My story in Saturday's LA Times is HERE.

Reunions typically take place for financial reasons, of course, but also because of warm, gauzy feelings between fans and the bands themselves. They’re the feelings that provoke Bic-lighter choruses, power ballads, and “farewell” tours with band members hugging. But punk – and the indie bands that took their cue from its idol-smashing style – was dryer-eyed.

“If you take the music of the Pixies and Pavement, you have some of the most unsentimental music imaginable,” Jeff Gordinier, a Details writer and author of the Generation X manifesto “X Saves the World,” told me. “A lot of Gen X music aims to eradicate sentimentality, which they associate with a Boomer sense of self-inflation and a utopian view of everything from saving the world to romance.”

Pavement was different. Their songs seemed to mean nothing, or everything: Unlike classic-rock bands that intoned lyrics about love and loss with poignant emphasis, Malkmus sang earnestly only when he got to the most nonsensical part of the song: “Praise the grammar police, set me up with your niece.” On the words that seemed to matter, he was as flatly detached as the band’s Sonic Youth-inspired guitar tunings.

In another break from ‘50s and ‘60s tradition, they didn’t come from a music scene with its layered traditions – Liverpool, Memphis, Minneapolis – but rather, seemingly simultaneously, from Stockton and Brooklyn, and the University of Virginia, where some members bonded over the arcane collection at the college radio station.

Some of what’s going on is just the inevitable return of a band people liked the first time and miss a decade later – just like any other rock reunion. After all, pining for the brighter moments of one’s past is not unique to any generation or musical ideology: We all feel it. Throw in wars and a recession and we may feel it more than usual.

But longing for a band like Pavement can signify a yearning for something broader: a craving for the days when the indie ethos seemed to be taking over the world, when Nirvana and Teenage Fanclub were giving Boomer icons a run for their money. It stirs indie-centric Xers like nothing else.

        

“Today, for a lot of us, the music we hear in the mainstream, at the Grammys, is just schlock,” says Gordinier, who is 43. “For a time, bands that mattered were on the radio. I don’t think it ended when Cobain died. I think it ended with Hansen – then we saw N’sync and Britney Spears, the revenge of the boy bands and bubblegum. The indie ethos just evaporated; it was rendered moot."

Gen X nostalgia, then, is essentially different from the earlier brand, in that it’s private, sub-cultural, instead of the mass-marketed public group hug that marks the Boomer version. This is different from, say, another Crosby, Stills and Nash reunion, Gordinier says. “Even though Pavement is doing a reunion tour, 99 and 3/4 percent of the country have no idea it’s happening. It’s for the people who were into it. It’s not gonna be referenced on ‘American Idol.’ ”

And because the songs haven’t been played to death, they’re retained some of their mystery. “Wanting to experience that mystery,” Gordinier says, “is a very different impulse, I think, than wanting to wallow in nostalgic bathos.”

Last night's show, by the way, included most of the obvious college-radio hits, as well as nearly all of Slanted and Enchanted. Can't wait to see em at the Bowl in September, where they will play with Sonic Youth.

Philip Glass Vs. Film Music

GLASS, who makes his Hollywood Bowl debut this week, discussed his film work with me recently.

“Here’s an interesting experiment,” he said. “Play a film, any film, and then change the music. The film looks different. Then take the music, and change the film – the music doesn’t change. It’s astonishing. What does it tell us? When you put the two together, the core may be the music. Bernard Herrmann is going to sound like Bernard Herrmann no matter what you do."

HERE is my recent LATimes interview with the man who has taken film scoring -- for better or worse -- beyond the classic style of emotional underlining represented by korngold, herrmann, and others into a tonally neutral minimalism.

(at this point i've interviewed a number of the key figures in musical minimalism -- steve reich, terry riley, john adams -- so was nice to close the circle here. interesting to see how musical history treats this chapter of american music.)

Photo credit: philipglass.com

Pianist Paul Lewis

I'D expected the brooder i saw on the cover of the wonderful harmonia mundi LPS. but paul lewis, the young liverpool-reared pianist i met at the standard hotel a few months ago, looked like a juggler on his way to a renaissance festival.

lewis, who plays the hollywood bowl twice this week, takes beethoven, schubert, and the heart of the austro-german repertoire very seriously. HERE is my LATimes profile of him.

we also had a great conversation about the lineage of british humor leading to steve coogan, ricky gervais, and the US and UK versions of "the office." cool guy, someone with a real dedication to his work and no noticeable self-absorption. i look forward to more music from paul lewis.

Photo credit: Harmonia Mundi