I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SINKANE-Tiny Desk Concert #611 (April 10, 2017).

I’ve heard of Sinkane but I didn’t really know much about them.  Not knowing what to expect, it was really fun to watch this show and see such diversity in the band.

Their music kind of defies categorization, which the blurb addresses:

Sinkane is the music of Ahmed Gallab — and such hopeful music it is. He grew up in London and has lived in Sudan and in Ohio and, these days, New York City. His band reflects his own love for music from around the world; you can hear a great New York jazz band in the rhythms of Sinkane, but you can also hear the influence of Bob Marley and the hypnotic repetition of Sudanese desert sounds.

“U’Huh”is the first song.  Ahmed says “You can help us out with this song you just have to say ‘u’huh.'”  The song is fun right from the bat.  The verses are catchy, with each line ending with “u’huh” (although singing partner Amanda Khiri  looks a little intent as she sings that affirmative line).  Ahmed sings with a surprising falsetto–which plays off against the repeated “u’huh.”

The song contains the Arabic phrase “kulu shi tamaam,” which translates to “everything’s great — it’s all going to be all right.”  And when it gets to the chorus, it grabs hold and won’t let go.

I love that there’s kind of reggae guitars (by Johnny Lam) and a surprising amount of acoustic piano (which you don’t hear all that much in reggae) from Elanna Canlas.  I also love that all of s sudden yo become very aware of all of the percussion, like a small triangle and cowbell and other things.  Those are all played by guest percussionist Reggie Pace from No BS! Brass Band.

“Favorite Song” opens with snaps /claps and a slinky guitar riff, a pulsing bass (Ish Montgomery) and a fun piano melody.  No falsetto for most of the main vocal lines and the great chorus “wont you play my favorite song….”

“Deadweight” has a cool dark riff on bass and guitar and the guitar uses a glass slide as well.  The bass and drums (Jason Trammell) are a great rhythm section.  Ahmed and Amanda sing a duet and they sound great together.  Then the whole band sings together.  I love that the piano plays little melodies that seem to be different from the rest of the song and yet work perfectly.  The guitar solo at the end comes as a surprise but it sounds terrific.

This is a fun, uplifting set from a really interesting band.

[READ: February 1, 2017] “Underground”

I really enjoyed this story quite a bit.  Although, as I think about it more, it almost seems like three unrelated episodes and makes me wonder if this is an excerpt from something bigger.

This is the story of Michael Salter.  Michael is forty-seven.  He’s recently divorced and even more recently come out as gay.  He has three distinct portions to his day.

The first is him at home with his most recent “boyfriend” Jeremy, a twenty-something guy he picked up on Grindr.  Michael is old-fashioned and formal.  He dresses beautifully (and has done so ever since he was little–learning to tie his own bow tie in school).  [There’s an odd line here “Mr. Collins, his Latin teacher, had taught him, and after an hour of practice Michael had the knot mastered along with a boner-size bruise on his backside.”  I have several possible ideas about what this means, but the “boner-sized bruise” just doesn’t make literal sense to me.]

Anyhow, Michael is a fancy older guy and Jeremy is a young stud.  Jeremy posts selfies all day and has thousands of followers.  Somehow this is part of his job.  At seven dates, Jeremy had become Michael’s most serious boyfriend.  And yet Michael is constantly checking Grindr, more in sheer amazement at the technology and the ease of cruising than for actually wanting to do anything.

Jeremy invites Michael to meet his parents, but Michael has to pick up his daughters after school–it’s his weekend with the twins.  Jeremy seems genuinely disappointed and says he just wants Michael to have some fun.  But he then shrugs it off.  And that’s the last we see of Jeremy.

Then we are at lunch. Michael’s mother is a fussy older lady.  She is wealthy.  She has a Chagall (which both she and Michael dislike) that was a gift from her now dead husband.  It was appraised at $1.4 million.  Michael meanwhile is pretty broke (he apparently sells posters that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, although without much success lately).

Also at lunch is Michael’s brother Kevin.  Kevin is as ordinary as Michael is fancy–dressing in khakis and a blazer compared to Michael’s suit.  He and Kevin don’t see eye to eye on much and there is some tension between them.  Otherwise lunch is fairly uneventful.  The only excitement comes when someone brings up an old friend of Michael’s who recently died.  They also revisit a story about that friend when he and Michael were young.  Michael’s mother tells this story all the time although Michael only remembers the incident because of her telling.

Michael heads over to the school to pick up his daughters.  He doesn’t exactly feel out of place around the mothers and nannies (he is one of 4 dads) but he doesn’t feel exactly part of the crowd either.  He considers browsing Grindr while he’s waiting, but doesn’t feel right doing it here.

His ex-wife comes by to drop off the girls’ weekend bag and to tell him what they shouldn’t eat.  They are civil but not warm. I loved this line:

their goodbyes had the texture of a failed first date fifteen years in the making.

The girls are happy to see him, although he feels exhausted by them almost immediately.

And they head underground to the subway.  Earlier in the story Michael was thinking about the subway and how many times he had ridden it.  He had often imagined being a “hero” on the subway–maybe preventing a terrorist or something–as unlikely as it was it’s no doubt a common fantasy for many.

And this is where the third and most interesting part of the story happens. When a belligerent homeless man starts heading towards them cursing loudly.

The end of the story certainly feels like the ending (I was glad it didn’t end two sentences earlier, for instance).  The ending was really interesting and tied back nicely to other parts of the story.  And yet, the parts about Jeremy and about his mother had so much going on but they are just dripped.  I would definitely read a lot more about Michael and how he navigates his life.