I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GRINDERMAN-Grinderman 2 (2010).

The first Grinderman album was a sleazy delight.  And this Grinderman is much of the same sleazy heavy rock, although it’s slightly different.  It opens with “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” which lets you know that Grinderman are still dirty and sleazy.  The song just rocks.  Screaming blistering rock.

Now, fans of old Nick Cave and The Birthday Party know that Nick is no stranger to noise and dissonance.  Some of these songs harken back to those days–the music (on”Worm Tamer” is crazy–feedback squalls and trippy organ) and yet they never veer into chaos.  They are tightly controlled but with wonderfully loose edges.   It also features the wonderful lyrics: “My baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster–two big humps and then I’m gone”).  “Heathen Child” is a loud, raucous, blasphemous treat, one of the best on the disc.

“When My Baby Comes” slows things down a bit and actually veers terribly close to Bad Seeds territory (which isn’t a bad thing by any means, but Grinderman is supposed to be an escape from that, right?).  The song loudens up, though and a really cool slippery bass propels it for the rest of its 7 minute length.  “What I Know” is like a slow prose poem, but it is followed up by the blast that is “Evil!” a wonderfully brash 3-minute blast of noise rock.  The chanting backing vocals are wonderfully evil.  “Kitchenette” ups the sleaze factor nicely.

“Palaces of Montezuma” is another mellow song–also very Bad Seeds like.  It seems like it would be long (like it would keep building), but it’s only 3:30.   “Bellringer Blues” ends the disc with some cool backwards guitar and more chanted vocals (definitely the signature sound of Grinderman).  It ends this awesome disc on a very high note.

[READ: November 18, 2011] “The Climber Room”

I really enjoyed Lipsyte’s The Ask, so I ‘m delighted to see him with a new short story.   This one concerns a young (but no longer that young) woman named Tovah.  She has taken a job at a daycare center called Sweet Apple.  As the story opens, Tovah meets the other main character of the story, a man whose name she (hilariously) mishears as Randy Goat.  It turns out that Randy Gauthier is a rich man whose children have all gone to Sweet Apple and his new girl Dezzy is now enrolling.

Tovah isn’t trained for this job–she’s just there part time–and either despite or because of this, Dezzy takes to her immediately.  On a day that Tovah is not there and Dezzy fell off the Climbing Room (a jungle gym) she cried and cried for Tovah.   Mr Gauthier spies Tovah the next day and informs her that he has switched her schedule so that she will only be there when Dezzy is there.  Tovah is (understandably) freaked and a little pissed.  But when he tells her to Google him, she learns why he can have such sway over things. 

In addition to this work plot, Tovah is at loose ends with her life in general.  She wants to be a writer (a poet specifically–the inspiration for her latest poem is quite humorous) and she also wants to be a parent–or at least in a relationship.  She agrees to a date with a man she met 16 years previously (which is a hilariously bad date at a restaurant that specializes in scrapple).  And this date makes her think of the possible future she might have with Mr Gauthier.

She even gets to see what life in the Gauthier house is like when he invites her to babysit Dezzy for an evening while he is out.  The pay is amazing and she gets to hang out in his beautiful house for the night.  The end of the story surprised the hell out of me the first time I read it.  On the second read-through it was still shocking but had a bit more of a “could see it coming” feel.

For a story that is really quite dark and sad it had some very funny moments.  I wonder if he’s planning to expand this into a novel.