I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DEERHOOF-Live on KEXP, February 1, 2007 (2007).

Deerhoof is noisy and chaotic, indeed much more noisy and chaotic here than on their 2008 set.  The introduction has the band posing a very funny question in which they asks the DJ about how the show will be streaming in various formats.  He imagines easy listening–a good joke for this uneasy listening band.

There are five songs in this set, although “The Eyebright Bugler,” “+81” and “Wrong Time Capsule” are played as a medley.  This is an interesting set because they play songs from various albums, not just their newest release.  The set opens with “Milkman” (from Milkman) with a quick jump to “Twin Killers” (From The Runners Four).  Then there’s an interview which is, as always, very funny, they’re a very enjoyable band.    It also reveals that a middle school has taken Milkman (I assume the whole album) and made a ballet out of it.

“Eyebright Bugler” (from Reveille) merges easily in “+81” (from Friend Opportunity).  “+81” is one of the most catchy oddball songs I know–a simple riff that seems to project excitement and yet not a full rocking sound.   The DJ even says that people have called up and asked not to play that song because it is such an earworm they can’t get it out of their head (the band takes this as a compliment .  Finally “Wrong Time Capsule” also comes from The Runners Four.    It merges all of the sounds-noisy guitars , conventional bass and the always enchanting vocals.

 Check out the strangeness here

[READ: December 6, 2012] “Manhattan”

The final “Gut Course” in this issue isn’t about food at all but about a drink.

Chang-Rae Lee remembers the summer when he lived with his girlfriend Nina in her parents Fifth Avenue apartment.  He lived in a maid’s quarters while Nina and her friend Carol shared Nina’s room.

This was just before his senior year of college, when the opportunity of living with your girlfriend must have been mindblowing.  But what he remembers most is her father’s request for a nightly Manhattan.

He explains that his family (indeed I have to assume most families in 1986) did not have a cocktail hour.  Chang says that his own father had an occasional Genesee Cream Ale, and hardly finished it.  But Nina’s father (who was a New York sophisticate) taught him how to prepare the perfect Manhattan.

I know nothing about Manhattans and may have never had one, so his discussion of the recipes and details are lost on me.  Although I did like the idea that anyone who would add a maraschino cherry to the drink had a “suspect character.”  Chang recalls fondly how the evening’s first Manhattan would loosen up Nina’s father (as it is supposed to) and it allowed him to have an amicable relationship with an adult (his own parents would never laugh and curse with him like that).

This essay gets me imagining what it must be like in the high life of sophisticated Manhattan.  Although I’m fairly certain I’m glad I’m not a part of it.