Blake Mills

^Thanks for the share. Man, "Unsingable" is gorgeous!

He was part of the “Brandi Carlile and Friends” concert at Hollywood Bowl over the weekend. She brought him out and he played what I believe is a new song —
It has a line something like “things are always clearer when everything’s fucked”. It was just him and his guitar, plus a drummer and Brandi singing backing vocals.

I am really not one to be awed by a “virtuosic” guitarist… but I am in awe of Black Mills. His technique was brilliant and he was so locked in with the drummer. I don’t know how to explain it but his way of playing just exposed how much space there is within a measure of music. He was so effortless and unpredictable, yet the song itself was very muted and relaxed. And can I just say there were 16,000 there—and none of them came to see Blake Mills do one of his own songs—but they were rapt watching him play. The confidence he had to play so quietly in front of such a massive crowd! He was impressive.

Found it, of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvC3jlZ8ftk

While I’m at it, major props to Brandi Carlile who has to be one of the most generous and egoless performers I’ve seen. This was her show and she brought out guest after guest and just allowed each person to showcase themselves. She never once tried to insert herself into anyone’s performance beyond some basic backing vocals. And even when Joni Mitchell came out, she just seemed totally concerned that Joni was taken care of, everything else came second.

Unsingable is a real tune isn’t it? Love that rendition above

Thanks pgwp, that's great. That's "Press My Luck" off Jelly Road btw.

I was listening to his first interview on Pablo Held's podcast, where he goes through the Pino Palladino album, and he took great pains to say how uncomfortable he is in any "jazz" context, how he barely understood the chord structures on that record (his chord parts when they played live were just upper extensions, not the actual chord being split up among different instruments). Obv he's being humble but the whole thing was really interesting, and it was nice to go back to that record.

I went back to Jelly Road this morning and connected with it more deeply than I had earlier this year, though it’s still my least favorite of his. And I realized that, yes, “Press My Luck” was there all along.