izzy's playlists!
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Not today Justin
š©µ avery cochrane š©µ
cherry valley forever
Claire Keane
$LAYYYTER
tannertan36
art blog(derogatory)
ā£ Chile in a Photography ā£
No title available
shark vs the universe
Cosimo Galluzzi
h
Keni
I'd rather be in outer space šø
Sade Olutola
Game of Thrones Daily
almost home
PR's Tumblrdome
seen from Malaysia
seen from India
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Bangladesh
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Bangladesh
seen from United States
seen from Uzbekistan
seen from United States
seen from Nepal
seen from United States
seen from Ecuador
seen from Egypt
seen from United States
seen from TĆ¼rkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from TĆ¼rkiye
seen from Malaysia
@piano-van
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - "Fire Side of Me"
Video for the newly released album āGriffith Park.āĀ Recorded August,Ā 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.comĀ
Buy "Griffith Park" on Bandcamp http://pianovan.bandcamp.com/album/griffith-park
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - āMake It RaināĀ
Video for the newly released album āGriffith Park.āĀ Recorded August,Ā 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Buy "Griffith Park" on Bandcamp http://pianovan.bandcamp.com/album/griffith-park
LOUDER THAN WAR:Ā The Griffith Park Sessions
June 27th, 2014
Raw, passionate and joyous field recordings by a homeless, down on his luck Shakespearean scholar, Chris Stroffolinoās Griffith Park is an album like no other.
Itās a fascinating backstory. A homeless Shakespearean scholar and published poet who played in one of the finest indie-Americana bands of the last 20 years, discovered semi-busking in a parked van in Los Angeles by the producer of the documentary that brought the pop-savant Daniel Johnston to the attention of many.
Jeff Feuerzeig is the producer and the person he hears āsinging his heart out and playing pianoā is Chris Stroffolino. The song heās singing is CSN&Yās 49 Bye Byes and their meeting led, circuitously, to the release of this quite staggering album. In between that first meeting in January 2013 and the recording of these 13 songs, Stroffolino could be witnessed at various LA locations performing for loose change his street karaoke of eclectic covers from Sly & The Family Stone to The Replacements via Burt Bacharach.
Stroffolino played on The Silver Jewsā American Water album with David Berman and Stephen Malkmus (1998), his first experience of recording in a studio on which he contributed trumpet and keyboards. This didnāt lead anywhere and since then his solo work has taken a back seat to poetry and literary criticism.
Falling on tough times, Stroffolinoās home has been the āPiano Vanā that these songs were recorded in, Griffith Park the car park. āI arrived in Los Angeles in September 2012,ā says Stroffolino. āThe plan was to get the piano out of that damn van and into a house, where I could play some music and live a normal life.ā That never happened and the product of that chance encounter is this album, a remarkable song cycle that unfolds like a sequence of open wounds, just a raw voice and a piano bolted to the floor of the van.
There is a beautiful sense of pain that emerges from these songs, an authentic intimacy arising from Ā someone whoās spent an awful lot of time with their own thoughts. The words donāt so much spill out as drop like stones. This is poetry set to music ā proper poetry with rhyme and metre, no greetings card couplets, carefully constructed and which soar with melody. The songs would comfortably handle a bigger production, but they remain powerful in their skeleton sparseness.
This is no self-pitying album. Stroffolino is accepting of his circumstances and whilst he understandably rails at the world to an extent, Griffith Park is an uplifting listen, full of buoyancy and optimism.
These 12 original songs plus a Richard Hell cover (Time) would, if there was any justice, generate some publicity and income for Stroffolino. They represent a snapshot of an emotionally wounded man down on his luck. Heās currently stuck in Oregon after his van broke down, so maybe if everyone reading this bought the albumā¦?
PENNY BLACK MUSE: The Griffith Park Sessions
June 21st, 2014
Thereās so much about this debut from Chris Stroffolino to take in even before you actually get to the music. Stroffolino has already published eight books of poetry; he was a member of indie rock band Silver Jews and is a Ph.D. holding Shakespearean scholar. How and why Stroffolino ended up in Los Angeles in 2012 is documented in the fascinating liner notes supplied with this album by John Petkovic (Cobra Verde/Death Of Samantha/Sweet Apple,) but it was when film director Jeff Feuerzeig ('The Devil and Daniel Johnston') rode his bike past the van in which Stroffolino had bolted a piano to the chassis and was performing for small change that the seeds for what was to become āGriffith Parkā were planted. Initially it was the choice and delivery of the cover songs Stroffolino was performing from the back of his old Ford Econoline that caught the attention of Feuerzeig; this led to the pair eventually taking the āPiano Vanā up to the parking lot behind the old carousel in Griffith Park, Los Angeles where the film director recorded, over five evenings, the twelve Stroffolino originals and a cover of Richard Hellās āTimeā that now make up Stroffolinoās debut. āGriffith Parkā is an extraordinary album, not only for the circumstances surrounding its birth but because Stroffolino is an extraordinary talent. For all that the album was recorded in the back of a van in a parking lot and which is in the main just a singer and his piano, for all its starkness and the pain and suffering that flows so naturally out of Stroffolinoās voice thereās still this aura surrounding the songs that nothing has been rushed to capture a live, spur of the moment feel; the whole album sounds so complete and far from a lo-fi affair, Feuerzeig captures all the intimacy perfectly. Apart from one song itās one man, his voice and piano and itās all that is needed. Stroffolino isnāt the first to try to capture the hardships of life for those who donāt quite fit in with society, but he has a different take on it to most. Those liner notes are a must read and if I may Iād like to take a small quote which says more about Stroffolino than any review ever will. ā When youāre living this life and you hear Tom Waits romanticizing these down and out characters, it just seems a joke. Iāve been traumatised by this life. More than anything, I just want to live some sort of normal lifeā. Stroffolino is no fake, his life is in these songs and it shows in every word, he is the real deal. While producer Feuerzeig has done an excellent job with these songs you come away from listening to āGriffith Parkā with the feeling that here is a collection of songs that would work just as well if they were given a lavish production job in an expensive studio too. Thatās because for all the rawness displayed on āGriffith Parkā, for all the stripped backed presentation and clever lyrics at the core of these songs are melodies that are as infectious as the common cold. Thereās a surprising warmth from the very first song, āItās Not A Matter of Just Meā which prevails throughout most of the album. The thought of a homeless man singing songs from the back of a battered old van, in a parking lot accompanied just by his piano playing gives the impression that youāre in for an uncomfortable soul-baring session. While Stroffolinoās lyrics are nothing short of compelling and his stories are always worth listening to the actual overall sound is a welcoming one. No wonder Feuerzeig was drawn to the sound drifting out of the piano van that day. While the songs he heard then were covers, Stroffolinoās vocals are impossible to ignore and when coupled to his own, brilliant poetry the results are nothing short of stunning. Stroffolino is so much more than just another poet who has set his words to music. Thereās even a song here, āFire Side Of Meā that displays a pop sensibility youād never think Stroffolino would be capable of even given his talent for those infectious melodies that adorn every cut on āGriffith Parkā. I amĀ not sure when the liner notes were written but Stroffolino states that heād love to tour in a new van (the original Piano Van was left stranded in Oregon); if thereās any justice left in this world heād get his wish, these songs and this intelligent, passionate man deserve to be heard by more music lovers than the few who happen to be passing by wherever Stroffolino is pouring his heart out in song right now.Ā
AMERICANA UK: The Griffith Park Sessions
May 21st, 2014
Serendipity played a huge part in this record getting made; Jeff Feuerzig (director of the film āthe Devil and Daniel Johnsonā) was cycling past Stroffolinoās van as he was playing covers for change. Feuerzig was intrigued, he stopped, and friendship followed. He found out that Stroffolino was effectively homeless and living out of the van which has a piano bolted to the chassis. Stroffolino was physically and emotionally damaged, a published poet, a Shakespearian scholar, and a former member of the Silver Jews, manna from heaven youād think for an indie documentary filmmaker but instead of film, Feuerzig recorded these songs in the van.
The results are intimate personal slices of life - they capture Stroffolino pretty much in the raw, mostly using just his voice and the faithful piano. The songs are like conversations with friends, full of sincerity and with meandering melodies. They remind me most of early Wolf Colonel/Jason Anderson songs, itās the rawness and the possibilities; they are songs that could be dressed up, buffed and shined and presented as small masterpieces. But they are decidedly not - the point is to make these feel like field recordings, charcoal sketches rather than painstaking photo-realism.
Thereās a cover version of Richard Hellās āTimeā which removes him from his rambling style to something more structured. Ā This splicing proves successful, the song sounding like nothing else on the record despite being constructed from exactly the same materials (piano and voice). He sounds like someone contemplating things gone wrong over a plate of eggs on āItās Not A Matter of Just Meā or āIām Not Going Astrayā or over a beer on āDonāt Be Afraidā or āWherever Itās Greyā. Not only does Stroffolino have a terrific backstory, he also writes and performs like it is something he needs to do. Ā The result is something worth listening to.
SOUNDS XP: The Griffith Park Sessions
May 7th, 2014
Chris Stroffolino is a former Silver Jew who moved to Los Angeles and found himself without a permanent home, living out of a 1983 Ford Econoline van in which heād fitted an upright piano (the now famous āPiano Vanā). Heās led a strange life; heās a bright guy ā a musician, a scholar with a Ph.D in Shakespearian studies and a published poet - but he was playing the piano for tips in order to survive, which is how Jeff Feuerzeig (the filmmaker responsible for The Devil And Daniel Johnston) discovered him.Ā These 13 tracks were all recorded in the van in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. Itās rawness and depth of personalisation make it a form of outsider art, with clear echoes of Daniel Johnston and also the emotionally bare moments of Alex Chilton. Each song bar one is vocal and piano, which gives the album an intimate, heartfelt, philosophical, melancholic feel. āVida Guerraā, which adds simple drums to the thumping piano, is a pleasant surprise and feels like a band by comparison. Otherwise, lyrics rotate between the romantic, the lost and the literate, with clever words ā āI guess weāre too nostalgic, nostalgic for a time before we were even bornā (āEyes of the Deadā) ā and a scarred voice. Stroffolino produces a great version of Richard Hellās āTimeā (apparently he runs to a 1000 song repertoire of covers), and his own āEqual Loveā has delicate piano playing while āMake It Rainā is Johnston-like outsider-ism.Ā The Piano Van is currently laid up in Oregon where Stroffolino next went for a job that didnāt pan out but whatās attractive for the listener is that this is more than a man playing piano; his backstory - like Daniel Johnstonās - audibly feeds into his music, to intrigue and entice a listener who wants authenticity. Jeff Feuerzeig was the first to succumb, but wonāt be the last.
Chris Stroffolino - Griffith Park (Broken Horse) CD/DL
CD album with 12 page booklet.
Produced by Jeff Feuerzeig (Sundance Award winning director of The Devil and Daniel Johnston).
Liner notes by John Petkovic (Cobra Verde/Death of Samantha/Guided by Voices/Sweet Apple)
12 original songs plus a cover of Richard Hellās āTimeā
Griffith Park will be an introduction for most people to a great new songwriting talent and a serious contender for 2014ās end of year polls. Itās a stripped down effort, featuring only Stroffolinoās voice and piano (with one exception), recorded with stunning clarity and intimacy by Feuerzeig.
These remarkable recordings callĀ attention to the way Stroffolino weds simple, infectious melodies, with highly emotional, yet carefully placed, lyrics that become more powerful with repeated listening. From the unrequited love of āWherever itās Grayā and āItās Not A Matter Just Of Me,ā to the giddy exuberance of the albumās most tightly constructed pop song, āFire Side Of Me,ā Griffith Park features some of the most compelling and poetic lyrics in recent years.
DirectĀ mail-order in the US: $11Ā + Shipping and Handling
Direct mail-order in the UK and Europe: http://www.brokenhorse.co.uk/brokenhorse2.html
Chris Stroffolino - I'm Not Going Astray (Munster Records) 3 song 7" single
Chris makes his Munster debut with these three tracks from his recent "Griffith Park" sessions, recorded inside the van where he lives. A former collaborator of Steve Malkmus and David Berman on the Silver Jews album "American Water", he recorded these tracks with Sundance award-winning director Jeff Feuerzeig (The Devil and Daniel Johnston) handling the production. Ā Includes the non-album tracks "Mess My Mind Up" and a cover of Alice Cooper's "I Never Cry" featuring former Luna members Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips.
Direct mail-order in the UK and Europe: http://www.vampisoul.com/en/label/munster/product/i-m-not-going-astray
DirectĀ mail-order in the US:Ā $5 + Shipping and Handling
Direct mail-order in the US for both the CD and single:Ā $16Ā + Shipping and Handling
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - āIām Not Going Astrayā
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park.āĀ Recorded August, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel. Written by Chris Stroffolino. Stoic Forlorn Fishsongs (BMI) Ā
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Purchase "I'm Not Going Astray" from Bandcamp: Ā http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - āBreak Up / Make Upā
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park.āĀ Recorded August, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel. Written by Chris Stroffolino. Stoic Forlorn Fishsongs (BMI) Ā
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Purchase āBreak Up / Make Upā from Bandcamp:Ā http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - āTimeā (Richard Hell)
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park.āĀ Recorded August,Ā 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino w/ Sonic Boom - "Vida Guerra"Ā
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park.āĀ Recorded August, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
With Special Guest Sonic Boom
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino w/ Dean and Britta - "Lost In Space" (Luna)Ā
Video to promote the upcoming album āGriffith Park.ā Recorded August 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel
With Special Guests Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips http://www.deanandbritta.com
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - "Can't Explain" (Love)Ā
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park."Ā Recorded August, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino w/ John Petkovic - "Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul" (Gil Scott Heron)
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park."Ā Recorded August, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
With Special Guest John Petkovic
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino w/ Kramer - "Number One" (Rutles)
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park."Ā Recorded August, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
With Special Guest Kramer
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino w/ Barrett Avner - "I Wanna Be With You" (Raspberries)
Video to promote the upcoming album "Griffith Park." Recorded August 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Park's old carousel.
With Special Guest Barrett Avner (ex-Sic Alps)
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com
Piano Van / Chris Stroffolino - "Queen Bitch" (David Bowie)
Video for the upcoming album āGriffith Park."Ā Recorded February, 2013 in Los Angeles behind Griffith Parkās old carousel.
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig http://feuerzeig.com
Music by Chris Stroffolino http://pianovan.bandcamp.com