I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“fROMOHIO” (1989).

After the punk of The Minutemen, you wouldn’t expect the sound of fROMOHIO to come from Mike Watt and friends.  The opening song, “Riddle of the Eighties” is quite poppy, but with a countryish flair.  In fact, much of the beginning of the disc sounds not unlike the Meat Puppets–southwestern punk.  Track two, “In My Mind,” has a wonderful latin/Mexican feel to it (singer Ed Crawford has that whole southwestern vibe down quite well, even if they are from Pedro).

The disc also has what I’ve learned is that peculiar SST Records sound–almost nonexistent bass, despite what Watt is accomplishing.  Actually the bass is there, and it’s mixed fine but it’s much lower than you might expect for what they’re playing.

Even track three “Whisperin’ While Hollerin'” which is all about the bass (with cool blasts of guitar over the top) doesn’t have a lot of low end in it.  The bass sounds crisp and clear (which is good), just not very deep.  “Mas Cojones” is a weird one.  Funk bass with disco guitars over the top and some odd spoken word from Watt.

The highlight is “What Gets Heard,” a great funky fast bassline with angular guitars and vocals by Watt.  Near the end of the disc, “Some Things” is another solid song, really typical of this period: great bass, great guitar work and yet still a lot of punk.  And “Liberty for Our Friend” is a great folk singalong, and I dare you not to singalong by the end.

There’s also some fun, unexpected bits.  There’s a pretty acoustic guitar solo called, “Vastopol” and two (!) drum solos “Let the Drummer Have Some,” and the wonderfully titled, “‘Nuf That Shit, George.”

And its all packaged as really short songs (most around 2 minutes, with late songs running longer).  It’s a fun disc and a worthy addition to the SST catalog.

[READ: October 25, 2010] “Caught”

After the seriousness of “My Father’s Brain,” this true story about Franzen’s wicked days in high school was tremendously enjoyable, possibly one of my favorite pieces that I’ve read by him.

The piece opens with the incredibly tempting story about students successfully pranked their high school by managing to get a tire over the top of a 34-foot flagpole.  This sets in motion Franzen and friends’ attempts to do the same to their school’s 40 foot flagpole (there’s even a diagram or three!).  The story is exciting and filled with secretive plotting as they try so many different ways to get that tire over the top of the flagpole.

There’s a great bit of self-deprecation from Franzen.  He admits that although one of his friends was far more architecturally-minded, he himself was far more persuasive.  Ultimately, their gang put his “Devices” to work, which are universally decried as pieces of shit.

Although I assumed that the tale would focus only on their attempts at flag pole ringing, in fact the group undertook many pranks.  At first they called themselves U.N.C.L.E., but then they changed their name to the far more amusing (with an incredibly involved explanation) DIOTI.  DIOTI undertake several delicious pranks including removing the clappers from all of the bells in the school (and leaving a series of poems as  clues for where they are) and piling all of the classroom desks into one room.  (The “centrally located” comment and its resultant embrace by the school is simply wonderful).

But, as with many of Franzen’s longer pieces, he looks at a few different things other than what the article is ostensible “about.”  The story looks at other times Franzen was caught doing embarrassing things: from rocking out to the Moody Blues (caught by his mother who yells that she doesn’t like rock–(and having encountered his mother previously in My Father’s Brain, this picture is quite vivid)), to staying out far too long with the neighbor’s daughter–even if they were innocently playing at the playground.

We didn’t really encounter’s Franzen’s father in “My Father’s Brain” but he is in fine display here.  Franzen’s descriptions of him cracked me up, especially:

My father was plagued by the suspicion that adolescents were getting away with something: that their pleasures were insufficiently trammelled by conscience and responsibility….  He had a phrase that he couldn’t stop repeating whenever he came home from work and found me reading a novel or playing with my friends: “One continuous round of pleasure!”

It seems so sitcom-y to imagine his father saying that and yet I can’t stop laughing when I think of it.

The final anecdote in the story concerns a woman named Siebert whom Franzen was quite smitten with.  Her story turns tragic when she falls off of a building.  [This whole sequence reminded me of That 70’s Show, when Kelso falls off of the water tower (repeatedly), which always made me wonder if people could actually survive such a fall.]  Well, Siebert survives but she breaks her spine in several places.  Amazingly, the friend who went on the roof with her jumped off (!) to try and help her and he was uninjured (even though it was a thirty-foot drop).   Siebert was fine in the long run and ends her appearance in a happy but awkward light.

Even though this is a piece of non-fiction, it was paced so well, with so many interesting angles, that it felt like a fantastic short story.  It was very enjoyable.