I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PINEGROVE-Tiny Desk Concert #583 (December 2, 2016).

I recently saw Pinegrove live and it was a great experience.  Although it was only a few months after this Tiny Desk Concert, it’s pretty amazing how different the band sounded during these two shows.

Pinegrove are sometimes referred to as having a country flair.  And they certainly do here (they really didn’t when I saw them–they rocked pretty loud and hard).  For this set, the guitar is often slide, the banjo is prominent and the songs are quieter.

But rather than countryside (which would not have attracted me at all), I like the term that the blurb uses:

The New Jersey group’s sound feels fresh and scrappy at the same time.

Evan Stephens Hall and drummer Zack Levine, who’ve been friends since they were 7, form the core of Pinegrove: Evan Stephens Hall (vocals, guitar); Nandi Rose Plunkett (keyboard, vocals); Zack Levine (drums, vocals); Adan Feliciano (bass); Sam Skinner (banjo, guitar); Josh Marre (guitar, vocals).  I was delighted to hear that (Hall and Levine’s dads play music together, too (in a band called Julie’s Party)).

It’s interesting that they play two older songs and only two from Cardinal, the album that was garnering most of their attention.  The first two are earlier tracks

“Need” is a slow folkie song that begins quietly but after a minute bursts into a wonderful full band sound (they sounded really full when I saw them too).  Many of the Pinegrove song are short–this one is only 2 minutes.  “Angelina” is a pretty rocking song (live it was a really rocking).  It appears to have been a new song recorded for their release of their collected works.  Here its a solid catchy song but is again only a minute and half long–barely getting started when it ends.

There’s a strange edit cut after this song before “Old Friends” starts–not sure what it means (what did they cut?)  But they launch right into “Old Friends” and its notable opening.  This snog is just outstanding the way it feel like there’s no real melody in the beginning, but it’s all there and quite subtle.  And then there’s the powerful chorus where it all comes together.  This version is really quite different–prominent banjo, a slide on the acoustic guitar and outstanding backing vocals.  They even do a cool thing with the ‘as if I needed a reminder’ section in which it goes an octave up–which I like quite a lot.  “Waveform” is a slower song on Cardinal (and seems even slower here–I love how they play off their surroundings).  The harmonies are really great on this one.

The whole set is a great introduction to the band, although seeing them live is a very different experience again.

[READ: June 20, 2016] Awkward

Sarah brought this book home as well and it looked fun.  And so it proved to be.

The title is a little overused at this point but it proves to be rather accurate for the story.  It follows Penelope (Peppi for short) as she starts her first day at a new school.  While in the hallway, she trips over her own feet in front of just about everyone.  There is much laughter until a boy comes over to help her.  But as soon as he does there is even more laughter as the mean boys chant that “Nerder found a new girlfriend.”

She was utterly humiliated and acted out in the worst way possible–she got mad at the boy who helped her.  She pushed him away and shouted Leave Me Alone!  And as she looked back she says “I will never forget the look on his face.”

The story quickly jumps to weeks later.  She has some friends n the art club, where she feels very comfortable, but she is still really sorry about what she did to this boy.  She wants to say she’s sorry to him, but she can’t bring herself to do it.

However, she has no time to mourn her bad attitude, because their teacher, Mr R. tells them some terrible news.  They will no longer have a table at the Annual School Club Fair.  Rather, their table will go to the Science Club.  (And they haaaaaate the science club).

Turns out that the science club has been harassing them all along.  They have put suds in their sinks, they mess with their supplies and they are all-out jerks.  This is not to say that the art club doesn’t retaliate. In fact both clubs are at each other’s throats.  It’s certainly not very school-spitirty.  But the truth is that the science club actually does things for the school whereas the art club doesn’t really do anything–they’re kind of lazy.

The club is outraged until they realize it’s true they don’t contribute to the school community.  And that’s when they get the idea to draw school-themed comics for the school paper.

But the science club won’t be bested that easily.  In fact, Peppi has first-hand knowledge of the science club because she has Miss T. the science teacher and club moderator.  And she has seen Miss T. ride a motorcycle (with a leather jacket that says SCIENCE on the back–she is intimidating).

Unfortunately, Peppi is not doing so well in science class.  On her last assignment she accidentally handed in a drawing of a mermaid and Miss T. said that if she gave all of the scientific names from the parts of the mermaid she would get extra credit.  Oh and Miss T. has also asked a smart kid in class to tutor her.

Obviously the smart kid is the kid from the beginning of the book. His Name is Jaime.  And as Chapter 2 opens we get a definition: Awkward adj. 1 …THIS.  (the two of them studying together).   And even though she is humiliated, he seems to not care about what happened between them.  In fact, he seems really nice (which somehow makes things worse).  And he helps her diagram the mermaid.

The art club slacks off quite a bit while supposedly working on their page in the newspaper.  (I love the two editors of the newspaper and how they seems calm and polite but will take no guff).  But the Science club does not rest.  In fact, the Science class goes on a class trip to the museum.  After the awesome presentation about science, they class is given a challenge.  They are to find a geocache on the property.

(I love that there is geocaching in this book and that Jaime’s family does geocaching as well).

Peppi and Jaime are put on the same team (with others) and they wind up winning by working together.  And yet, out of the five chapters of the book, it takes until the fourth chapter for Peppi to officially apologize to Jaime.  And his reaction is very interesting.

And what about the art club vs science club battle?  Well, both clubs pull out all of the stops to try to win over the voters, but a new wrinkle gets added (one that is wholly justified).  What on earth will they do?  The solution is outstanding.

I really enjoyed this book a lot.  The drawing style is very manga-looking (in addition to the characters, there’s also a lot of moments where there are distinctly manga style accents–straight horizontal lines behind the characters, lines coming down from their eyes, very specific manga-style mouths.  But I also found it interesting that there are a lot of presumably Hispanic characters from an artist named Svetlana Chmakkova.

But it wasn’t just Hispanic characters.  There was a great deal of inclusiveness in the book.  And that’s cool.  But it was even more cool that there was no attention brought to it (except by me, now).  There’s a character in a wheelchair.  A character in a hijab and much more diversity.  But its all just a part of school.

This was a great story about finding your niche but not being a afraid to help those who aren’t in it with you.

The last few pages show Chmakova’s technique for creating the book.  She writes a script, pencils out storyboards on regular 8 x 11 paper and then does her proper pencil work also on inkjet paper.  She then scans this onto Photoshop (this allows her to keep a copy of the pencil and the ink.  Much like Kibusihi she works with those blue lines that she can erase.  Then she inks the pages and re scans them and colors them on the computer.

I love how techie graphic novels are now.