SOUNDTRACK: OTHER LIVES Tiny Desk Concert #150 (August 18, 2011).
I didn’t know Other Lives before this Tiny Desk, but I really liked this one a lot. It’s a little hard to get past the lead singers incredible facial hair, but his voice is great and the backing vcoals are excellent too. I loved the combination of instruments and, yeah, pretty much every thing else about this set.
I enjoyed that at the beginning of the first song, “For 12,” the drummer is playing his lap. The female backing vocalist (whose voice is great) is playing the cello. The chorus–when everyone sings high notes—is wonderful. And I love that the drums, once they kick in, are predominately floor tom and rims.
After the song and the polite applause the singer comments, “It’s so somber in here, we need a dance party after this. And a bunch of caffeine.”
For “Old Statues” the cellist switches to autoharp, which makes a wonderful harp-like sound. Again the backing vocals are lovely. I love that she does a series off perfect oooohs as a backing note for his singing on the first verse. There’s also a harmonium on this track (I can’t believe how many bands use the harmonium). I love the intensity of the middle section too.
It’s amusing to see them use an iPhone tuner before the final song
“Dust Bowl III” has a cool picked guitar riff (reminds me a little of Neil Young). There’s more harmonium on this track. The cellist plays the autoharp upright instead of flat for this song—I wonder why. The rumbling floor toms are great for this song as well. And when the full band does the haunting ooohs at the end, it’s really great.
I definitely need to check out more by them.
[READ: January 26, 2016] The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie
This Glorkian Warrior story is similar to the previous one in that it is pretty crazy. As it opens, the Glorkian Warrior and his backpack are riding a giant worm. They are trying to destroy the worm, but while they are riding it, the tail pieces start popping–they are being shot by Buster Glark (who looks like the Glorkian Warrior but has only one eye). He also a has a talking backpack (who says “they’re stupid, right boss”) to which the Glorkian Warrior’s backpack says “Don’t say stupid, it’s a swear”.
The head of the worm flies off to destroy another pie factory.
When the Glorkian Warrior gets home, baby alien (from the previous book) lands on his head and starts sucking his brains. Backpack is concerned about this, but Glorkian Warrior says that all of his intelligence comes from his elbow anyhow. And there is much fighting by the elbow.
Little alien Gonk is upset that he doesn’t have a backpack like The Glorkian Warrior does. Backpack says that it is against code for a non Warrior to have a backpack. But the Glorkian Warrior says that the telephone can be Gonk’s backpack–and he straps it on to the little guy.
When they go on Glork patrol, that’s when the pie becomes a very important part of the story. Every question that the Glorkian Warrior or backpack asks, Gonk answers with “pie.”
Meanwhile, the Glorkian Warrior starts to pass out from the alien sucking his brains. Gonk tries to wake him up with a “poot.” There’s a lot of fart jokes too (or shall we call them poot jokes).
About midway through the story Buster Glark returns and he’s even more angry–he blasts baby alien into an ice cube and steals the energy crackers which were supposed to wake up the Glorkian warrior.
Through a ridiculous series of events (no, really), the alien baby grows huge, things are somewhat restored and then the final page says “Let’s eat pie.”
This book includes “Attract Mode: a Glorkian Warrior Bonus Comic” in which the warrior must pay to fight his enemy. It’s only 4 pages but it raises a smile. #10yearsof01
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