SOUNDTRACK: TELEKINESIS-“Ghosts and Creatures” (Live at SXSW, March 21, 2013).
Telekinesis is, as far as I can tell, the brainchild of one guy (NPR points out twice in three paragraphs that the singer/songwriter is a drummer). He has some special guests playing with him in this set (although nobody terribly famous–the keyboardist from Wild Flag (the only one in the band who I can never remember).
In a typical Telekinesis show the drums are up at the front of the stage. That’s true here, too. In this case the singer is standing, just playing maracas (and presumably the bass drum) for the first 2/3 of the song. But by the end he sits down and starts pounding along with the song.
This song is a an interesting mix of dark (the keyboard’s minor chords) and bright (the guitar picking). I enjoyed the way the song built over the course of its four minutes (including a cool break where it was just the keyboard). At first I didn’t think there was much to the song, but after three listens I really got into it. The harmonies were really good and there was some cool intricacy going on. I think watching the video helped as well (the bass player is really into it).
You too can watch it here.
[READ: March 26, 2013] “Recuperation”
This is the final uncollected story that I read from Roddy Doyle (okay, that Wikipedia list is clearly old as I see that both this and “Teaching” have since been collected in Bullfighting). Oh well, that’s alright, then.
In this story, an old man goes for a walk.
And that’s it.
Well, not entirely of course. The man was told to go for walks by his doctor. He needs the exercise and as he doesn’t golf or go to golf clubs or join groups, the doctor says he should go for a walk. So the man walks around a nearby neighborhood, knowing that no one will stop and talk to him. And Doyle knows his area of Dublin, so we get a very detailed walkabout as the man traipses around Coolock in Dublin (by the Cadbury’s and the Classic Furniture).
But the story is also about the man’s life. How he has gotten older, how his wife has suddenly started sleeping in the spare room. He doesn’t really know why that happened. It just did. They’re not even really mad at each other. They still talk–sometimes–she even bought him the track suit that he wears on his walks (well, he wears the bottoms, not the whole thing).
There is something of a chorus in the story of “he’s fine” which may be for our benefit although we know he’s telling himself it as well. By the end of the story he starts talking to a young girl who is waiting in a bus stop for her mom. She’s friendly and not at all frightened of him, and he is delighted that that is so (it’s also somewhat amazing to me to imagine someone having their child wait for them in a bus station–that would never happen in 2013 America).
Although there is a kind of feeling of foreboding over the story, everything seems, indeed, fine. Once again, Doyle manages a wonderful tone and a very compelling story even though nothing actually happens in it.
Leave a Reply