I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KT TUNSTALL-The Eye to the Telescope (2006).

Such a pleasant album. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to get this, aside from the fact that it was on virtually every respectable (in my opinion) critics’s 2006 Top Ten list. I don’t think I’d heard any of the songs before (somehow so many of them sounded familiar, and evidently she was everywhere, and yet, I wasn’t sure what she even sounded like). So, I did research, and decided it was worth the purchase. And I was right.

Every song sounds like you’ve heard it before (but in a good way), every song is catchy, and the whole album feels comfortable. There’s nothing even that remarkable about it overall, it’s kind of a heavy folksy style, and KT’s voice is in the range of Joan Osborne without being quite so bluesy or quite so intense (when Joan does that tone). And, yet her voice has good substance, and the songs are all strong. It’s not nearly as esoteric as what I usually listen to, but I can find nothing at all bad to say about this record, except that maybe it could be two songs shorter. It’s also a wholly inappropriate album to tie in with the book below!

[READ: Summer 2006] King Dork.

My wife checked this book out for herself, but I snatched it away before she had a chance to read it. Frank Portman is Dr. Frank of The Mr. T Experience, a fun, smart and funny punk band ala The Descendants. This is Dr. Frank’s first book, and it has the wit and charm associated with MTX; you can even try and read it at the same breakneck speed if you so choose.

Tom Henderson is 14 and an outsider. Tom seeks refuge in music. So far, not so original. However, a wonderful take on the school system really enlivens the story; especially the focus on Catcher in the Rye. Portman dismantles the holy grail associated with Catcher (a book that I liked, but the way it is abused in this book is delightful)–the premise that he has to read pretty much it and nothing else for 4 years of high school is hilarious.

Eventually Tom discovers his dead father’s battered and abused copy of Catcher, and the notes that he left in the margins. Tom becomes obsessed with unraveling the “mystery” of his father’s death and believes that these notes have something to do with it. This mystery takes up about half of the book, but the other half is filled with hilarious abuse of the vice-principal and, my personal favorite part, Tom and Sam’s constant dedication to naming their band. Each day, they devise a band name, album title and cover art. The names are great, and well thought out. I can remember coming up with band names when I was that age. I even drew up an album cover or two. The only difference is that my friend and I actually played instruments, which Tom and Sam don’t. If you like music, and enjoy skewering authority, particularly high school authority, this book is a great, great read.

I just read that they have acquired the rights to the movie, and can only hope they use MTX music in it. The end of the book contains a hilarious bandography and glossary, all from the same twisted perspective and tone of the narrator.