I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BUILT TO SPILL-There’s Nothing Wrong with Love (1994).

This is the second Built to Spill album.  They moved to a new indie label (Up Records) for this one.  For this album the line up changed to Brett Nelson, on bass and Andy Capps on drums.

For this album there aren’t too many long songs.  In fact many are 3 minutes or less.  And overall, the feel is more lo-fi, less experimental.  And yet it still sounds very much like Built to Spill.

“In the Morning” is pretty and catchy with some interesting guitar work that is downplayed in the mix. I like the rather surprising ending.  “Big Dipper” is insanely catchy with two separate styles of guitar solo at the same time.

“Car” is even catchier–one of their great early songs.  It’s got a great riff and verse.  And the strings add a lot to the song.  “Fling” opens with acoustic guitar and strings.  It’s a pretty song and only 2 and a half minutes.  “Cleo” is another slow song with some bursts of guitar greatness.

“The Source” has loud and quiet elements—big acoustic guitars and some crazy jamming moments towards the end.

“Twin Falls” is a stripped down and honest song.  It’s just him and his acoustic guitar (with some electric guitar soloing over the top) singing an honest, sweet ballad.

“Some” has slow and heavy elements as it tells a story about a guy. It’s the longest song on the dis and one of the few where Martsch just lets loose on guitar and wails (for a long time).  “Distopian Dream Girl” has a kind of sloppy feel to it (with the lead guitar being especially sloppy).  The lyrics about his stepfather looking like David’ Bowie are very funny. I love the way the mildly catchy verse turns into a big catchy chorus.

“Israel’s Song” has a groovy bass line unlike anything else on the disc.  And the disc proper ends with “Stab.”  The song opens slowly with some quiet electric guitar but it builds for 5 and a half minutes (the second longest song on the disc). By 2 minutes, the song has become a heavy guitar song getting faster and faster until it breaks into a slow guitar picked section with strings. As the song returns to that heavy fast section, it adds a long guitar solo–combing all of the elements of Built to Spill in one song.

Although this album isn’t as “experimental” as the first and doesn’t have too many weird sounds on it, they haven’t lost their sense of humor.  There is an unlisted track which is a “preview” of the next Built to Spill record.  It contains several snippets of “songs” that will appear next (a decent variety of styles, too).  Of course, none of these songs appear on the record and the date that they give for when it will come out is also false.  It’s pretty darn funny.  This album tends to get overlooked because their next full length was on a major label, but it’s still really solid.

[READ: September 26, 2015] Woyzeck

Karl Georg Büchner died in 1837 at the age of 24. In his short life he wrote 4 plays and all kinds of nonfiction.  Woyzeck was unfinished and has been adapted many times for the stage and film.  And now it is LaBute’s turn.

Neil LaBute is one of the most misanthropic filmmakers I know of.  His films are super dark, (occasionally funny–but always dark) and he’s not afraid to address controversial issues.  So he seems like the perfect person to adapt (and add to) this play.

In the lengthy introduction, LaBute comments that if you didn’t spend time looking for buried treasure as a kid “your childhood may have been even worse than mine and therefore I want to spend no time imagining it.”  He says that Woyzeck is such a treasure.

He studied it in school and has seen many adaptations.  But with his version, he has done things differently.  He has re-imagined the setting of the story and added a few scenes (whether Büchner likes it or not).  He also shifted he ending away from Woyzeck and onto the wider context of power.

Buchner apparently based this play on a true event of the day.  The story looks at the brainwashing of the military, at the denationalization of scientific experimentation and at infidelity.  And it is described on the back of the book as “one of the bleakest works of world literature.”  And while it is bleak, it is not violent or over the top in any way, it is just bleak.

Woyzeck is a soldier.  He is discouraged from reading by his superiors and he is discouraged from philosophizing by just about everyone.  .  He is also the subject of a medical experiment.  The doctor (who can’t remember his first name) is making sure he eats nothing but peas for three months  (apparently to prove that it is a bad idea to eat nothing but peas).  Every time we see Woyzeck, he is followed by voices chanting his name, growing louder and louder.

Woyzeck’s main task seems to be shaving the captain.  But Woyzeck’s hands are shaky and the captain continually yells at him.  Telling him to slow down and take it easy.

Woyzeck has a girlfriend.  This seemed surprising to me until I saw how she was used.  He and Marie have a child together.  Of course, Marie is introduced as something of a slut (or perhaps an actual whore, it’s unclear).  She seems to take what she can from Woyzeck, but she has eyes on the Captain and the Drum-Major (who is hunky).  And one night when she and Woyzeck go out to a show, she slips off with the Drum Major while Woyzeck isn’t looking.

Woyzeck becomes aware of her infidelity and, given his mental state (from the peas and his training as a solider), he plans to do what any insane man might do in this situation.  And yes, the result is rather bleak, especially the ending that Labute has tacked on.

In addition to this bleak play, LaBute has written a monologue of his own, called Kandahar, as a sort of modern tribute to Woyzeck.

Kandahar is a monologue from the point of view of a solider.

He is sitting at a table with a spotlight on him.  He has been asked questions and he is now answering them about what happened.  Given the original play, and that this is a tribute, you can pretty much guess what the “crime” is.  Although LaBute has structured the monologue in such a way theta the soldiers only reveals details as he goes along, until the full horror is revealed.

It is clearly an indictment of military training and the culture of violence.  And it’s quite a powerful (and bleak, depressing and maddening) story as well.

For ease of searching, I include: Georg Buchner