Staff Picks: Grimy Goods Best Albums of 2014

Staff Picks: Grimy Goods Best Albums of 2014
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
December 19, 2014


1. Sharon Van Etten – Are We There (Jagjaguwar) 
This is clearly Van Etten’s best and most expansive work to date. On previous efforts, she stuck with a less is more approach but incorporated a much fuller sound on this release. The common use of a piano brings an added element, and Van Etten takes a more hopeful approach to dealing with heartbreak and moving on in many songs. There’s not a single weak link among the 11 tracks, which you can stream here.

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No better way to experience Mark Kozelek than in SF

No better way to experience Mark Kozelek than in SF

Mark E. Ortega

March 3, 2014

Saturday night, I ventured out to Great American Music Hall in San Francisco to see Mark Kozelek play a show ten blocks from where the former Red House Painters singer lives, according to some of his between song banter that evening.

I had interviewed Kozelek back in 2011 for Queensberry-Rules.com, not so much about music, but about boxing. Kozelek’s spin off from Red House Painters is named Sun Kil Moon, named for the South Korean boxer. On Sun Kil Moon’s first album Ghosts of a Great Highway exists a song “Salvador Sanchez”, named for the legendary Mexican fighter who died tragically at 23 years of age. 

Famous Fight Fan: Mark Kozelek

Famous Fight Fan: Mark Kozelek
Mark E. Ortega
Queensberry-Rules.com
February 11, 2012

It's not often that boxing appears a central theme in music, but recording artist Mark Kozelek has given the combat sport a starring role in his work since disbanding alternative rock band, Red House Painters, on the eve of the millennium.

 The frontman for a nearly twelve-year stint (which saw their biggest selling U.S. album “Songs for a Blue Guitar” in 1996, as well as contributions on film soundtracks such as that of Cameron Crowe’s “Vanilla Sky”), Kozelek laid the Red House Painters to rest in 2001 in order to focus on his solo career. Two years later, he and the other founding members of RHP resurrected the band under the moniker Sun Kil Moon, inspired by former South Korean two-division world champion and namesake, Sung-Kil Moon. According to Kozelek, he considered Sun Kil Moon a continuation of the Red House Painters but changed its name to pique the interest of critics who got bored with, or stopped paying attention to, SKM’s previous incarnation.

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