I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: FOO FIGHTERS-The Colour and the Shape (1997).

After the success of the debut album, Dave Grohl gathered a band and recorded the second album, The Colour and the Shape (British/Canadian spelling consistent wherever it was released).  The drums were recorded by a drummer (not the current drummer) but were eventually re-recorded over by Grohl.

“Doll” opens as a quiet 90 second intro.  It segues into the fantastic Hüsker Dü sounding “Monkey Wrench,” with one of the great super-long extended guitar riffs and a super long chanted single-syllable section ending on Grohl’s classic vocal cord shredding (whatever he’s saying) in the middle of the song.  “Hey Johnny Park” has a heavy opening and then some mellow verses.  The chorus is catchy with some cool harmony vocals over the top.

“My Poor Brain” opens with cacophonous noise and the segues into a rather delicate verse section.  Especially compared to the raucous punky guitars of the chorus.  “Wind Up” flips the dynamic with angry loud verses and a catchy chorus.

“Up in Arms” is a short song with a mellow acoustic first section and a fast second half.  Both are quite catchy and fun.  “My Hero” is yet another song in which Grohl finds multiple good parts and puts them in one song.  So while you’re enjoying the verses, don’t forget the catchy chorus coming up net.  Oh and the great bridge too.

“See You” is a jazzy folky number (quite short) which he says no one liked but him.  “Enough Space” opens with a lurching bass line and some really loud guitars.  The chorus is one of Grohl’s screamier moments on the record.  The verses are almost all bass guitar and remind me a lot of the Pixies.

“February Stars” starts with one of the quieter moments on a Foo Fighters record.   It builds over the first 3 minutes to a loud slow chorus.  “Everlong” is one of the bands best songs.  It opens with a cool little riff and big guitars.  The chord progression is wonderful and the gentle vocals at the beginning are fantastic.  Then comes that incredible hook of a riff.  No matter how many times I gear this song, I never get tired of it.

“Walking After You” is Grohl on everything–the whole band recorded it later for the X Files soundtrack.  It’s a lovely, gentle breakup song with a sweet riff and really nice vocals.  After “walking After You,” it’s surprising that there’s another song, (“Walking” seems like such a good album ender.  But “New Way Home” (which clocks in a nearly 6 minutes) starts out a little less than stellar and then turns out to end in a great fashion, with a loud fast repeat chorus of the “I’m Not Scared” section.

Amazingly, five singles were released from this album and it still holds up really well.

[READ: January 7, 2015] Life Sucks

In the beginning of the year I read a bunch of graphic novels from First Second, but never got around to posting them.  So here they are.

I wasn’t that excited to read this book because of the title–which seemed simply lame.  Interestingly, in the acknowledgments, she says it was originally called Night Shift (an equally poor title) and then someone else suggested Life Sucks.

Of course, once I realized the story was about vampires, the title was a little better and kind of funny.  Of course, I wasn’t all that excited to read a vampire story either (I loved Buffy, but vampires are kind of played out), but I enjoyed the way Abel focuses on some different aspects of the vampire life.  And of course, having a group of goths living nearby was a pretty great idea.

So the protagonist, Dave, is a vampire.   He was turned by the owner of The Last Stop convenience store, Lord Radu Arisztidescu.  But rather than being a brooding charismatic hottie, he’s a dorky kid (forever) who works at the convenience store.  He still gets grief from his boss who demands perfection in his “son” and who also has supernatural power over him to force him to do what he wants.  So, his undead life does indeed suck.

He has a roommate who is not a vampire (I enjoyed that twist) and friends who are vampires (many of whom were turned by Lord Radu Arisztidescu and are sorta Dave’s brothers and sisters).  Radu is disappointed in Dave because although he’s a good worker and all, he isn’t a blood sucker.  Indeed, Dave is a vegetarian, so he never kills anyone.  He drinks blood from the blood bank and they drink a series of concoctions from a can that are a kind of an alcohol/blood mixture (that’s a fun twist too.).

The goth component is quite fun too.  There’s a goth juice bar up the road and when it closes, the goths all come into the Last Stop for snacks.  And Dave has his eyes on one particular hottie goth.  But she is with a guy who wears a cape and has bought fangs.  She clearly digs the whole vampire scene.  She seems nice enough (especially when her boyfriend treats Dave like garbage), but Dave just can’t talk to her.

His friends all say that if he would just feed on humans, he would be charismatic and powerful, but he refuses.   One night his fiend Jerome (also a vampire) uses his powers to hypnotize the hot girl’s friend to find out some info for Dave–where she works ans stuff like that.

And so, Dave starts talking to her (her name is Rosa).  The fact that she is Hispanic and that Dave and his roommate watch a telenovela was also a nice twist (you don’t see to many Hispanic goths I don’t think).  Rosa likes him, because he is so nice.  She even invites him to her fashion show (she wants to design dresses).

The first problem comes when alpha vampire Wes (also sired by Radu) decides that he wants Rosa for himself.  Wes is a blonde tanned surfer with two wives.  He is charismatic and charming and a big fat liar and Rosa falls for him immediately (power or not).  So Dave has a bet with him to see who can win her over fairly.

Amazingly Rosa decides to date Dave.  She reveals that she wishes she could be a vampire.  But Dave tries to talk her out of the hypothetical wish (which she finds odd).  Later when Wes gets her suspicions about why he never goes out at night they have a fight until Dave’s truth is revealed.  How will Rosa react to this news?  And who will be there to pick up the pieces.

The story proved to be far more engrossing and compelling than I thought it would.  I really enjoyed the way Abel and Soria twisted the usual story tropes and added wonderful details to the story.  (How many times did I say there was a fun twist in the story?).

I didn’t love the art by Pleece though.  I felt like their faces didn’t quite come out right–like their eyes were too big or too far up on their foreheads–I was very distracted by that.  I was also confused because I thought that Dave looked either Asian or Hispanic but he was actually white and apparently very pale.  Although by the end of the book I couldn’t imagine them looking any other way.

So I guess that’s good.

This is definitely one of the better vampire stories out there.