I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ROBERT ELLIS-Tiny Desk Concert #534 (May 23, 2016).

Robert Ellis is a singer-songwriter who I was unfamiliar with (a familiar refrain in recent Tiny Desk Concerts).

Ellis is from Texas and his voice rings of country singers.  But his guitar playing and song styles sound more Americana or singer-songwritery than country.  he walks a fine line, which probably means he is loved by neither faction.

He plays three songs.  The first sees both men (him and Kelly Doyle) on electric guitar, with a catchy riff and fun chord progressions.  (Their suits are pretty spectacular too).

After the first song, Ellis says, “I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce my favorite guitar player on the planet, Kelly the Telly Doyle.”  After a pause he smiles and says, “There’s only two of us up here so there’s only two things I could have said” to much laughter.

“Driving” was written about being in Nashville TN and going nowhere. But it is a masterful piece of guitar work with him (on acoustic) and Doyle (on electric) playing these wonderful fast lines that overlap and intertwine and sound amazing together.  The vocal melody line is fast and familiar, but it’s those recurring fast guitar lines that are really wonderful.  And indeed, Doyle does some wonderful pyrotechnics on his electric guitar, including a nice harmonic at the end.

For the final song, “California,” Ellis switches to piano with some more nice guitar harmonics from Kelly.  His voice sounds very familiar on this song–it’s a slower more expansive piece that allows him to sing bigger.  I like the way the chorus seems to work as a continuous melody after it seems like it ought to have stopped.  There’ a real 70s vibe to this song.

I’m always curious to see if I’ll hear more from someone like Ellis after seeing him on the Tiny Desk Concert.

[READ: February 19, 2016] Bloody Chester

This is a story of the Old West.  I don’t especially care that much about the Old West.  It seems so totally unreal that I never know what actually happened.

This story starts out especially dark with a boy named Lady Kate getting beaten up in a bar.  We back up on the story a little and realize that this boy is Bloody Chester.  He was a feared tough guy based on reputation. True, his last name was Kate, but Bloody Chester suited him well.  Until he had an unfortunate experience with a lady of the evening and his reputation changed from Bloody Chester to Lady Kate.  And that’s when the abuse came.

Trying to get by in town is now pretty tough.  He drinks a lot and all he has left is his horse.

The one major problem I had with this story is that Chester looks like he’s about 12 years old–like the other young people.  While I’m not doubting that young kids did horrible things in the Old West, they seem too young for everything that happened (especially the lady of the evening).

Eventually, Mr Croghan, the head of the local railroad, states that he is looking to expand the line into the next town.  But that town–the town if Whale– has a plague.  Everyone knows that.  There have been regular deaths–people dying unexpectedly and violently.  It is called “Coyote Plague” and it has everyone terrified.

Mr Croghan offers Bloody Chester an exciting opportunity–go to Whale and burn it all to ashes.    Let the town start anew so the railroad can continue in that direction.  Chester, with nothing else going his way,  agrees.

But when he gets there, he finds its not a ghost town as everyone thought.  There are a few people living there.  And yes, there’s still some people dying there.

One of the families consists of Father Goodnight and his son Potter.  The son is busy burying people in a cave to prevent the spread of the plague. Father Goodnight is trying to avoid the plague by hiding out in the church.

There’s also Caroline Barber.  She is completely well and is feeding Potter and his father.  Her own father (Whitley) is deemed crazy and is living in the mines. She brings him food, but he does not accept other visitors. In fact, he shoots at Chester as her draws near.

Eventually, Potter shows Chester a way to get to Whitley.  And Chester easily overpowers Whitley.  He intends to bring all four survivors back to the other town so he can burn down Whale and get paid.  But Whitley tells him that he has  huge treasure that he can give to Chester if he will stay in Whale with them.

But soon enough some truth comes out about the plague and it takes the story in a whole different direction.  I really enjoyed the way this new path an awful lot as I didn’t really care too much about what happened before it.

Strangely, for a story that was so explicit I feel like the surprise and the ending were a bit elliptical.  It makes me think that an entire town was wiped out because of one man’s foolishness.  And when Chester determines that he should do something about it, eh risks everything.

But in the end, I’m not entirely sure I even know what happens to everyone.  And that’s disappointing.

#10yearsof01