I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GIVERS-Tiny Desk Concert #144 (June 22, 2011).

Givers play a light on poppy tropical kind of music.  Their music feels summery and light.  Between the sorta reggae guitar and the tons of percussion, the songs are fun and danceable.

As “Meantime” opened the show, I was really struck by the bass.  The bass plays a lot of high notes and some seamless riffs.  It’s really the lead instrument.  And there’s also percussion all over the place.  The sound the great is really full for so few instruments.  Of course, it really comes as no surprise to hear there’s a flute solo, even though it wasn’t apparent that anyone had a flute–it’s as if a wandering flute minstrel happened by just at the right time.

The band has two singers, Taylor Guarisco and Tiffany Lamson.  On “Up Up Up” the two duet in the beginning and then switch off vocal lines.  Taylor’s voice is higher, while Tiffany’s is deeper, raspy and interesting (although I’m not quite sure it works with their sweet music, or perhaps she’s just not loud enough).  There’s more fun bass lines in this song (I’m intrigued that he switches from a pick to pickless playing).  This song features some xylophone which also sounds perfect with their music.  Perhaps it’s the way he sings the “up up up” part but it definitely gives the song a reggae feel (especially with that afropop bass).  I really like this song, especially the surprise ending of one, two, three, four-xylophone slide-five.

For the final song, “Atlantic” there’s much switching around.  Tyler and the bassist switch instruments and Tiffany picks up a large ukulele.  She sings lead and you can really hear her raspy voice (again, not loud enough).  This song is mellow and as such the bass isn’t quite as fun (although Tyler does have a similar bass sensibility).  I’m curious to hear what they sound like when they are not unplugged.

Although frankly, I can do without Tyler’s crazy faces.

[READ: March 27, 2016] Dragons Beware

After the successes of Claudette in Giants Beware, everyone is back (with a new problem created by Claudette) in Dragons Beware.

As the book opens, Claudette is telling the story of a great sword made by the great blacksmith Augustine (her father).  The sword was called Breaker and no magic could defeat it.  One day Augustine went to fight the fearsome dragon Azra the Atrocious.  Sadly for him, the dragon is the one who did the damage that we saw in the first book (missing an arm and a leg..and the dragon swallowed the sword too).

When she finishes the story, she says that she can go fight Azra herself, with her own little wooden sword.

In the next scene we see that the evil Grombach is amassing an army–he has been magically converting ravens into giant walking gargoyles.  So although Claudette has invented a problem to solve, the village has a real problem coming their way.

We also catch up with some of the other characters.  We see that Princess Marie is bored after her exciting adventure in the previous book, but her mother wants her far away from Claudette.  And Claudette’s brother Gaston has hung up his apron until he masters the art of swordmaking (it’s not going ell, and the village meals have suffered too).  Apparently the adventure has raised the desirability of the princess as well, because there are now several suitors hanging around.  They are all wonderfully drawn losers.  One of them even sees her and says “Look what I found…in my nose.”

Claudette tells the Marie that she is going to slay the dragon, and return the sword.  But the princess says no.  Marie insists that she must use diplomatic means to talk to the dragon.

Before they can leave, gargoyles attack the city.  However, as soon as they get near the walls they explode and revert back to ravens.  There is a magical wall around the city and the gargoyles cannot penetrate it.

And that’s when Augustine vows to go and get his sword back from Azra (hey that was my idea, says Claudette).  That night after Augustine takes off, Claudette follows him on her own. She runs into a gargoyle but amazingly she is able to defeat it with her own sword.  Before she realizes it, she is joined by Gaston and Marie, who really wanted more adventure.

The further they get on their quest the more trouble they encounter.  Most of the trouble is coming from the gargoyles . Even the giants are fleeing them.

Although they are in search of the dragon, they first meet the bad guy himself–Grombach.  Grombach has encased nearly all of the village’s men in amber.  Claudette’s sword help[s a little but there’s just too many enemies.  Luckily for them, a magical hag comes to the rescue.  She has bone to pick with Grombach and the magical battle begins.

Those suitors also come into play in this mission.  Marie’s mother has sent them after the kids to save Marie, and to prove themselves.  This is not an easy task.  And they are there primarily to provide comic relief–they’re all cowards.

And finally they get to the Grim Grotto to confront Azra.  There is much fire breathing and magic spell casting and Marie even gets to try to do some negotiation.

There is some great backstory at the end of the book before the realization that the dragons may not be the real enemy after all.

I really enjoyed the joke that Breaker is a really bossy sword and that maybe Claudette doesn’t want it anyway.

This book made me laugh out loud a number of times, and the story was exiting too.

This is the another book in this week’s recap of First Second books, with the hashtag #10yearsof01