SOUNDTRACK: THOU-“Something in the Way” (2011).
Sometimes you hear a cover version and you really don’t know what to think. Maybe you hate it from the very beginning. And then maybe it does something and you kind of hate it a little more. And then suddenly it turns the corner and who knows what they’re doing.
This song opens almost ponderously slowly. I guess it’s not that much different from the original , but it feels so really slow. And then, when they get to the “something in the way” part, the band kicks in with really heavy squalling feedback and cookie monster vocals shouting “Something in the Way.” And I kind of didn’t like anything. But then came the surprise. the “oooh” part was sung very straight and melodically. The song reverts back to the original slow vocals section and you realize that the singer sounds an awful lot like Cobain himself. And the second time when the chorus comes in, you expect it and while you may not like the cookie monster vocals, the juxtaposition to the sweet “oohs” is strangely cathartic.
Not for everyone by a long shot, but very interesting nonetheless, especially the way the feedback squalls and wheedles.
Thou has done a number of Nirvana covers evidently. There’s a cover of “Anuerysm” in this live show (in which they acknowledge that the fans aren’t there to see them). The music is spot on, but man, those vocals are hard to handle.
[READ: June 29, 2012] “The Golden Vanity”
As yesterday’s story was about “the husband,” today’s story is about “the author” (have short story writers run out of names?). The author has just written a very successful book in which the main character tries very hard not to be nervous in social situations. The author himself gets nervous in social situations. When people know he wrote the book they scrutinize him to see if he gets awkward in social situations…which makes him more awkward…etc. It’s a pretty funny concept.
The opening section has the author meeting the librarian. He’s put in an awkward situation because his hands are full when she waves. So he gets emabrassed and scowls. Then he thinks she assumes he is scowling at her. He gets through the encounter with advice from his shrink.
The next scene jumps quickly (I wonder what happened to the librarian) to his medical condition. The author has to have his wisdome teeth out. He spends a lot of the story wondering is he should have a local or a twilight anesthetic (which costs $3,000 more and calls for an I.V.). He wonders aloud a lot to his friend Liza, who tolerates his neuroses and enjoys talking about them, even though she says things like “We’re not talking about this again.”
The evening before the surgery (he of course chose the I.V.) he went on a date. Well, not really a date (he liked to say that), but friends going out together with a single woman there to meet him. Naturally this made him nervous too. But he and Hannah hit it off (lots of drinks helped).
There’s a whole section devoted to waiting room art which I appreciated quite a bit. Who decies what to buy? It’s not like the doctors would come out and look on it and admire it, right? This sort of melds with a discussion about the preserved letters of famous writers. Do libraries buy emails? Do they buy the letters of young writers as a security upon further greateness? These ideas are pretty theoretical yet the way it is written keeps it inetersting. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 