I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE WILD REEDS-Tiny Desk Concert #489 (November 20, 2015).

The Wild Reeds are a five piece band who prominently feature a trio of women with beautiful voices. They had submitted a video for the 2014 Tiny Desk Contest, and they are pretty excited to be at the Tint Desk just a short time later.

The trio change instruments so it’s not easy to say who does what.  And since all three of them have gorgeous voices, you can’t even single one out!  When they sing together it’s even more impressive.

“Where I’m Going” is the great lead-off track (from their 2014 album).  Kinsey Lee sings lead and plays acoustic guitar (and harmonica).  Sharon Silva plays electric guitar and Mackenzie How plays harmonium (and harmonica).  Kinsey has a powerful kind of rocking voice while the other two offer great harmonies.  There’s some moments where all three are singing super loud and it’s really impressive.

The next two songs are new.

Sharon sings lead on “Everything Looks Better In Hindsight” and continues to play a really rocking electric guitar (she really crushes those chords). Kinsey switches to banjo, but also plays harmonium.  Mackenzie also plays electric guitar and this song rocks pretty hard.  Sharon’s voice is a bit smoother until the chorus where she wails.  And the harmonies are again outstanding.  I think it is Mackenzie’s harmonies that really elevate the song.

There are a bassist and drummer (unnamed) who add low end to the first two song (but not the final one).  The trio is the focus, but the rhythm section’s contributions are really good.

Mackenzie sings lead on  “The World We Built”  This is the most mellow of the three songs. She plays electric guitar (the only music in the song) and the other two sing harmonies.

Although their music can veer in the country direction, their voices are so good you can easily look past it.

[READ: July 5, 2016] Adventures in Cartooning

The full title of this release is The Center for Cartoon Studies Presents Adventures in Cartooning: How To Turn You Doodles into Comics.  This is an instructional cartooning book which also tells a fun story.

And I loved it.  I have recently discovered James Sturms’ books, and I love his simple but powerful style.

As it opens “Once upon a time, a princess tried to make a comic.”  The girl says she can’t draw well enough to make a comic But the Magic Cartooning Elf comes to help her.  He says that if she can draw simple stuff, then there is nothing stopping her.And so they begin a story.  And the story seems simple enough. The princess has been captured and so the brave and eager knight (and his less than brave horse, Edward) will rescue her from the dragon (with help from the magical elf)

The elf tells the knight about ways to make a comic work–how panels can do things like break up action and show times passage or even show a change in perspective.  And each one is done in a funny way.

They find the dragon even when it is out of from frame (because it drops a bubble gum wrapper).  They get stopped by a giant wall (there’s a lot so fun with the wall).

There’s a magical chest, a giant beanstalk, talking vegetables, and even a whale.  The talking vegetables help to illustrate speech balloons, which is great.

There’s even a twist (or three) at the end.

When the story “ends,” there are some instructions on how to draw everyone and what the various cartooning lines and shapes mean

And it all ends with a note about how the artists met and what The Center for Cartoon Studies is all about.

This is an outstanding book for learning how to make cartoons.  It’s fun and funny and quite instructional.  It’s also the first of four books in this series from First Second.  #10yearsofo1