Chet Faker

I had what was definitely my best Air BnB experience to date over the weekend in Tallinn. I've been using it a lot lately as I travel around Europe because you can often get a nice place to stay for a lot less than a hotel. In case you're unfamiliar with Air BnB, it's a website where you rent a place to stay directly from another person. Sometimes you get a private room in an apartment, sometimes you can get an entire apartment, it all depends on what you want and what your budget is. If you have not yet experienced the magic that is Air BnB, definitely check it out on your next trip. It's the best.

For the most part I've been just booking rooms in people's apartments, and only a couple times have I booked something that was an entire apartment. I always prefer to have a place to myself, since it's nice to have the privacy and not get stuck with strangers. But when I'm traveling alone, which is what I'm generally doing, it can also be really nice to stay with other human beings and have some sort of social interaction. Also, it's usually much cheaper to just rent a private room in someone's apartment than to rent an entire apartment.

Tallinn Old Town

I've used it in a few places now, and normally when I take a room in someone's place I end up with a nice enough host. The rooms and locations have always been good, too. But I've never really spent too much time with the people that I stay with. I guess the most interaction I've had until now was the first time I used it in Zurich. I stayed with a family who didn't really speak English so well, but the wife was from Peru so we'd normally just chat in Spanish over breakfast. But other than that not too much interaction. And other times I've used it there's been the normal chit-chat, but nothing extensive.

The country is covered in woods

This weekend in Estonia was great, though. I stayed with two guys about my age who are both entrepreneurs, and we really just hit it off. They've only had one other experience with hosting before, which they said was alright. But basically from the time I got there we just got along really well. When I was in Tallinn, they'd take me around and show me the city, at night we'd go out for dinner and drinks, and the apartment itself was great, too. The hosts definitely made my weekend much, much better. And as much as I loved Air BnB before this, it made me love it even more. I've seen pretty much all I wanted to in Tallinn, and while there's other stuff to see around the country, I kind of want to go back to Estonia now just to hang out.
 

Favorite picture at the photography museum

Estonia was nice enough. Tallinn is not a large city, and there isn't very much to do, so I was able to accomplish pretty much everything I wanted with a day and a half. There are still a couple more museums I could have gone to, and would have had time to, if not for the fact that May 1, the day I arrived, is International Labour Day and a public holiday, so everything was closed.

My favorite thing in Tallinn was probably the Photography Museum. Much like the city, it's a tiny place with like 4 rooms built in what used to be the medieval city jail. You'd never know it was a jail if not for the brochures telling you so. They have an amazing collection of 19th and early 20th century photography from around Estonia, and an awesome collection of old cameras. Some of the old photographs were amazing quality, and it was especially cool to see the different techniques they used and the variety in the people from around the country.

There was plenty of rural photography, and while the countryside actually looks quite similar nowadays, the people do not. When there are people, which is more the exception than the rule in Estonia. I spent a couple days driving around one of the western island, Saaremaa, and while it's beautiful and covered in forests, there is very little population. I couldn't even eat lunch on Saturday because every "village" I got to was actually like 3 houses and nowhere for me to eat.

Beaches of Saaremaa

But it was still a great drive, full of beaches and woods and abandoned buildings. Lots of abandoned buildings in this country, too. I'm not sure if they're all old Soviet buildings that were abandoned after independence, or if people just leave the countryside to move to Tallinn. But anyway, they're everywhere. It's actually kind of hard to tell at times which buildings are abandoned and which are actually still inhabited, because Estonian country folk live in some buildings that I'm sure violate more than a few safety codes.

I spent a lot of time in the car, which also gave me a chance to go back and listen to a few albums I've bought in the last few months, but had maybe only listened to once or twice. And it also helped me decide what to blog about this week, which is Chet Faker. You may already know Chet Faker, thanks to his awesome first single that went viral when he released it back in 2011.





How can you not love a guy who makes such an awesome cover of such a classic song? And don't tell me No Diggity is not a modern classic, because you would be wrong. I definitely bought Blackstreet's album back in junior high. I probably still even have it on my iPod now. And the fact that he looks like Sam Beam from Iron & Wine, but sounds nothing like him, makes it that much better.

He just put out his second album, Built on Glass, a couple of weeks ago, which I kind of consider to be his first real album since the last one only had like 7 tracks. And Wikipedia seems to agree. I actually ended up liking his first album/EP a lot more than I expected when he released it, so after a bit of indecision I pre-ordered this album, despite the first single, Talk is Cheap, not being anything special. The weak first single also led me to put off listening to it when I finally got it, something which was exacerbated by the fact that Daughter put out a new EP the same week, where they reworked some of their songs with an orchestra. If you haven't heard Daughter, go buy everything they have ever made and tickets to the closest concert. I'm not kidding. Go now. You'll thank me later.

Anyway so it took me a while to give the album a listen, since I pretty much just had Live @ Air on repeat. And once I did I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been. Not until about two-thirds of the way through the album, when there's a run of really great tracks. Starting from Blush, the album really picks up. Then 1998 is a great, upbeat track that perfectly blends modern elements with 90s R&B. Or maybe the name just makes me think of 90s R&B. Either way it sounds right. But my favorite track on the album is Cigarettes & Loneliness (not to be confused with Cigarettes and Chocolate from his first EP), which also happens to be the longest track on the album. And I do love long tracks.





I love everything about this song. There's a great juxtaposition between the somewhat happy, danceable music and the sadness of the lyrics, which I think definitely comes through if you pay attention the lyrics and give it a few listens. And it has an awesome vocal breakdown at about 2:45 and again at like 6:15. Despite being almost 8 minutes, I could listen to this song on repeat. And have.

When I first listened to the album I started really paying attention when I heard Blush. But while driving it was Gold, that comes a few tracks earlier, that grabbed my attention. I really have no idea how I missed this one the first time around, but I'm glad I've noticed it now. It's much dirtier, with a great bass line and beat. And it has handclaps. I'm a sucker for handclaps.




So lots of good driving, good scenery and good music this weekend. All in all, I'd call it a success. And I've now had my time in Europe extended until early August, which means I need to start making weekend plans for July...

Eliza Shaddad

This is not a real blog post. I'm just putting this here so I don't forget about it. I like it, but there's not enough of it available to purchase and there's only one song on Spotify, so here it is, if you find it.

 

 

 

Her January-March EP can't be embedded. That's rather annoying. But it is on SoundCloud, anyway.

And I'm not sure her connection to this band, but these two songs are on her SoundCloud and I like them as well.
 

 

Ok, now I hopefully won't forget about either of these...