I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GOGOL BORDELLO-East Infection (EP Extra) (2005).

I learned about Gogol Bordello from some live shows available on NPR.  I enjoyed their sets so much I decided to check out their albums as well.  And I love them.  The albums are full of frenetic energy (they give Sarah agita, she says).  But everything that I love about fun, spirited, gypsy music is present here.

The band is essentially a band of gypsies, headed by wonderfully-mustachioed Eugene Hutz.  And their live show (as demonstrated by the included video) is a wild circus of fun (curtains and dancers and fire buckets and bowling pins and musicians jumping out of boxes), it’s like a wild party.  The video is for “Never Young Again” which would appear in full on their next album. It’s a fun song that reverses the age-old lament of wanting to be young again.  But mostly you watch this for the live footage.

This EP is probably not the best place to start as an introduction to Gogol Bordello (but it was really cheap so I bought it first).  Although it does offer many of the different aspects of Gogol’s music.  The EP features 6 songs and the video.  The songs are intense, hyper, crazy and wonderful.  “East Infection” opens with some nonsense lyrics (“Lee lee lee lee lee, la la la la la”) and morphs into what may be more nonsense, although there’s actual lyrics here.  “Ave B.” (which is also on their following album Gypsy Punks) is a more acoustic-based song, but it still has loud parts to it.

“Mala Vida” is a cover of a song by Manu Chao.  This version is a super fast punky track sung in Spanish (despite Eugene Hutz’ origins in the Ukraine, he has lived in Brazil for years and sings many songs in Spanish).  The original is very similar in temperament, although GB version is a bit more frenetic.

“Copycat” is the odd track on the disc, it’s a kind of dub track with big fat bass and a very slinky sound.  It and “Mala” were produced by Steve Albini.

“Strange Uncles from Abroad” is to me a very typical GB song: lots of violin, lots of dah dah dahs and a great melody.  It has a total gypsy feel, and goes through some loud and quiet moments.   The final track, “Madagascar-Roumania (Tu jésty fáta)” is the longest track by far (6 minutes).  It sounds like a demo and lacks the punch of the rest of the disc, but it showcases the softer side of the band (and yes there is one).

So, maybe this EP is a good place to start after all.  It’s certainly not throwaway material.  And the EP cover alone is pretty outstanding.

[READ: June 14, 2011] Five Dials Number 10

This is the issue of Five Dials that introduced me to the publication.  It is a special issue devoted to the memory of David Foster Wallace.  The entire issue is comprised of the eulogies given at the DFW memorial.  [The details are a little sketchy here…I’m not sure if these are all of the eulogies or just the eulogies from well known people.  I’m not even sure who would have been in the audience for this memorial.  The notes say “These tributes were given on 23 October, 2008 at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York University” and yet the Jonathan Franzen entry says “here at Pomona.”  So… details are sketchy].  Nevertheless, the tributes are heartfelt, informative and very moving.

Of course, I’m not going to ‘critique’ them, I’ll just try to summarize them.  But really, they’re all worth reading if you’re a fan.

AMY WALLACE-HAVENS
DFW’s sister gives a very moving tribute along with personal experiences that only she could know.  For a person who has never written anything professionally (as far as I know), this is a very well-written and touching piece.

BONNIE NADELL
Nadell was DFW’s agent.  And he was her first client.  They more or less grew up in publishing together.  She gives a few amusing anecdotes that show just how human DFW was.  She also reveals the very enticing information that DFW was scheduled to follow Obama for GQ, much like he did with McCain.  One can only imagine what he would have done following around the Obama campaign.

GERRY HOWARD
Howard published DFW’s first two books and gives an amusing anecdote of talking him down after he spent a day with the hyper-kinetic popular young authors of the early 90s.

COLIN HARRISON
Harrison was DFW’s editor at Harper’s for his longer pieces.  He imagines how happy DFW must have been to write the beautiful sentences he wrote for A Supposedly Fun Thing….

MICHAEL PIETSCH
Pietsch was DFW’s editor for Infinite Jest and everything that followed it.  He was practically a coauthor of DFW’s books, he was o influential (this is certainly true of The Pale King).  He cites some examples of the kind of correspondence he and DFW had (and DFW’s fight to keep some material free from the editors knife); he also says how much he enjoyed the process of working with him.  It amused me that his was almost the longest piece here, as if DFW had influenced him towards verbosity.

DON DELILLO
Delillo, famed for his mammoth book Underworld, has the shortest piece here.

ZADIE SMITH
Zadie looks back to Brief Interviews again and she talks about DFW as a lover of “prayer.”  But not so much of “God”, but of an “ultimate value.”  And we all know that real ultimate value is love.

GEORGE SAUNDERS
Saunders reflects back on his first meeting with DFW, and how DFW tried to put everyone at ease by talking about anything but himself.  Saunders says that DFW’s principal message that we should promise to keep is to stay awake.

JONATHAN FRANZEN
Franzen is one of DFW’s oldest and closest friends.   He speaks of personal memories (DFW sneaking out of a party that Franzen dragged him to).  He also knew DFW back when he had his first major bout with depression.  So Franzen has some perspective on this second round as well.  He also has some insight into why DFW took the risk of going off his medication. Perhaps the most touching moment comes when he says he was talking to DFW on the phone as he neared the end.  DFW asked him to tell him a story.  And Franzen told him:

I said he was a stubborn control freak and know-it-all – ‘So are you!’ he shot back at me – and I said that people like us are so afraid to relinquish control that sometimes the only way we can force ourselves to open up and change is to bring ourselves to an access of misery and the brink of self-destruction. I said he’d undertaken his change in medication because he wanted to grow up and have a better life. I said I thought his best writing was ahead of him. And he said: ‘I like that story. Could you do me a favour and call me up every four or five days and tell me another story like it?’

Sadly for all, Franzen was only able to contact him once more after that.

ARTWORK by MICHAEL SCHMELLING
The artwork is minimal, often consisting of quotes from DFW’s works in a kind of manic scrawl.

See the release information here.