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Archive for June, 2017

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad! A Civil War Steamship Showdown (2012)

Posted in Abraham Lincoln, Adventure, Antonio Lizana, Babies, Bandits, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Gideon Welles, Gipsy Kings, Graphic Novel, Greed, Gustavus Fox, History, John Ericsson, Law, Merrimack, Monitor, Nathan Hale, Non-fiction, Politicians, Series, Stephen Mallory, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, War, William Cushing on June 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ANTONIO LIZANA-Tiny Desk Concert #615 (April 28, 2017).

I am fascinated by Lizana, but more for his voice than anything else.  Lizana’s singing voice/style sounds a lot like the lead singer of Gipsy Kings (musicians from Arles and Montpellier in the south of France, who perform in the Spanish language with an Andalusian accent).  Lizana is from Spain, but he has that same strained and fascinating delivery.  The blurb here hints that maybe that is just the style of flamenco:

In many ways, the traditions of flamenco and jazz could not be further apart, but in the hands of a few Spanish jazz musicians, these two worlds commingle and find common ground. Antonio Lizana is one such musician, both a saxophonist and vocalist with one foot firmly planted in each tradition. As a vocalist he has mastered the Moorish, note-bending improvisations that make flamenco singing so beguiling, while the fluidity of ideas he expresses as a saxophonist place him in the time-honored tradition of composing while playing.

Indeed, between jazz-like saxophone, Lizana sings flamenco vocals.  For these three songs, Lizana and Jonatan Pacheco (percussion) and Andreas Arnold (guitar) play quite a mix and it works very well.  The band is also quite multicultural as well as Andreas is from Germany and Jonatan is from Spain (and he plays a mean box drum).

“Airegría” is about 6 minutes long.  It begins with hims singing over the percussion.  It after a minute and a half that the guitar comes in and not until almost 2 and a half minutes before the sax comes in.  The guitar is kind of staccato while the sax is pretty fluid.

Introducing the band he says, “We’re very happy to be here playing.  We have today on the stage or on the desk…”

“Déjate Sentir” more conventionally jazzy sax but the main melody comes from his kind of scat singing.  Ad I find tat when the guitar kicks in I prefer him singing to guitar rather than playing the sax–I suppose traditional flamenco over jazz. But I can appreciate the sax too–especially when it seems to push aside the flamenco style for a bit.

“Viento De La Mar” is a smoother song with some pretty guitar and light jazzy sax.  My favorite moments comes in the middle with the chiming percussion and the big ending.

[READ: June 24, 2016] Big Bad Ironclad

How cool is this series?  It is so cool that this is the official author bio:

The spy Nathan Hale was executed in 1776.  The author Nathan Hale was born in 1976.

Nathan Hale is the author/illustrator’s real name and he uses the spy Nathan Hale as the narrator of his stories about history (or in this case the future–for the spy, that is).

The book begins on September 22, 1776 as Nathan Hale is about to be hung for treason.  The British soldier in charge of the execution is cross, but the executioner himself is kind of giddy because Hale is going to tell another tale.

After some amusing introductions, designed to antagonize the solider, Hale settles in to tell the story of the iron ships (iron doesn’t float!).

And thus he begins the story of the Merrimack and the Monitor.  The year is 1861 and Abraham Lincoln has just been elected.

Hale uses some very funny narrative devices to get some of the salient battle points across, like General Scott’s anaconda plan–surround the enemy and squeeze.  But how can they do that with only four, yes four, ships?

The North’s man in charge was Gideon Welles, nicknamed Father Neptune.  Stephen Mallory is in charge of the confederate navy–the executioner dubs him “sharkface.”  And in the most amusing nod to comics, Gustavus Fox (Foxy) is rendered as a fox (he’s a cute li’l fox). (more…)

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Nnamdi Ogbonnaya / Tancred / PWR BTTM (Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, June 17, 2017) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Cancelled, Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, Philadelphia, PA, PWR BTTM, Tancred, Union Transfer on June 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: June 17, 2017] Nnamdi Ogbonnaya/Tancred/PWR BTTM

I had really enjoyed PWR BTTM on their Tiny Desk show.  Their live show appeared to be a spectacle of fun.  I was really looking forward to this live show.

And then within a week or so after the release of their second album, the whole thing fell apart.

On May 11, Ben was accused of various predatory behaviors.
The next day, two band members quit.
The opening acts dropped out of the tour.  For my show, they were to be Nnamdi Ogbonnaya and Tancred.
Their management dropped them and they were kicked out of a couple of festivals.
The record label dropped them and stopped selling the album (less than 24 hours after it had been released).
On May 16, I was sent a refund for my concert.

Obviously, I hope all parties can get the help they need.  But in my selfish state, I can’t help but wish it all went down a month later.

I also wish that the accusations against trump stuck as hard and caused such an immediate downfall. (more…)

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Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy: The Life, Times and Last Words of Nathan Hale, Amnerica’s most Famous Spy (2012)

Posted in Adventure, Babies, Bandits, Benedict Arnold, Children's Books, Crispus Attucks, Danilo Brito, Ethan Allen, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Greed, Heitor Villa Lobos, Henry Knox, History, Law, Nathan Hale, Non-fiction, Politicians, Series, Thomas Knowleton, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, War on June 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DANILO BRITO-Tiny Desk Concert #619 (May 12, 2017).

This is a pretty great  introduction to the music of Danilo Brito:

After four chords, the notes start to fly — Danilo Brito and his four collaborators, three Brazilians and one American, are off like jackrabbits in front of a hound, having hustled their instruments to the Tiny Desk at the end of a North American tour.

Brito plays the mandolin, and boy how his finger fly.

Brito a 32-year-old mandolin player, made his first record when he was a teenager, plays a type of music called choro (pronounced “shore-oo”).  It’s said that choro started in the streets and back yards and made its way to the concert hall. Brazilian musicians of all genres have drawn on choro, from popular composer Antonio Carlos Jobim to Heitor Villa Lobos, one of the giants of Latin American classical music. Its literal translation from the Portuguese is “to cry,” but in Brito’s dextrous hands a better translation may be “crying out to be heard.”

They play five songs.  “Sussuarana” is just full of amazing finger work.  The pace is breakneck and exhausting.  How does he do it?.  There are two guitars (Carlos Moura (7-string guitar) and Guilherme Girardi (guitar)) playing chords and the mandolin zipping all over the place.  In the background, Lucas Arantes plays a small guitar called the cavaquinho and Brian Rice (the American) keeps the beat on the pandeiro.

Between songs he has a translator explain that they are playing “a little bit of Brazilian instrumental music.”  He says this style of music started around 1860, mixing jazz and classical and African music.”

“Lamentos” is a much sadder song (as you might imagine), but it is gorgeous.  For “Tica” Arantes and Rice step aside.  “Tica” is his own composition.  It is a waltz in two tempos.  There’s some wonderful lead lines that run up and down the instrument.  It’s fascinating that while his lines are still fast the rest of the musicians are at a slower pace.  There’s a lovely middle section of delicate guitar, but once it ends they take off again.

The next song is “Melodia Sentimental” it sounds like the soundtrack of a weepy romance film–heart string tugging.

Brito and his colleagues play their arrangement of Villa Lobos’ “Melodia Sentimental,” originally written for voice and orchestra.  What you’re actually hearing is a kind of formal Rodas de Choro, the circles of players who developed this music more than a century ago and have carried it on to the present.

Only — in the backyards, they don’t wear suits and ties.

The final song “Pega Ratão” is also an original piece.  It is short and never stops.  It is great watching his fingers fly.

[READ: June 12, 2016] One Dead Spy

How cool is this series?  It is so cool that this is the official author bio:

The spy Nathan Hale was executed in 1776.  The author Nathan Hale was born in 1976.

Nathan Hale is the author/illustrator’s real name and he uses the spy Nathan Hale as the narrator of his stories about history (or in this case the future–for the spy, that is).

This is the first book in the series so it begins with the historical Nathan being brought up to the gallows.  The people are all there to watch a hanging, but they are disappointed that the guy to be hung is a spy, not the arsonist.  And then Hale is brought up to the British soldier and the executioner (who looks at Hale and say “This is awkward”).

Hale mutters his famous last words: I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.  And as that happens a The Big Huge Book of American History comes down and swallows Hale and then lets him back out because he just “made history.” (more…)

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Sigur Rós (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, June 16, 2017)

Posted in Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Radio City Music Hall, Sigur Rós on June 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 16, 2017] Sigur Rós

Sarah and I saw Sigur Rós last fall. We both agreed that it was an incredible show.  So when I saw that they were coming back around and playing at the Mann Center, it was hard to pass up the chance to see them again.

It was ostensibly  the same tour, except that it was not exactly the same tour, and not exactly the same show.

It was still just the trio of jón þór birgisson (jonsi), georg holm, and orri páll dýrason and like last time, Jonsi was on vocals and (violin bowed) guitar, Georg was on bass (and more) and Orri was on drums and keyboards.  But they shifted around, with each of them playing other things during the show.

About the previous show I said

The show was perfectly orchestrated with a spectacular light show.  It was arranged into two acts with a 15 minute intermission.  I have often complained about bands who don’t change their set list from night to night but there is no way they could change this–the precision of everything, the complexity of the lights and music–this was more of a stage show than a concert.

Well, they did change things up a bit for this series of shows.  It was actually a little shorter with two fewer songs.

But the big distinction is that there were two new new songs.  In addition to the new songs they played last time, they added two more new ones.

About the previous show I also said:

As soon as the band started playing and Jonsi started singing, I was rapt–Totally caught up in the music which sounded amazing in Radio City Music Hall. It feels like they have speakers all over the room, their sound and which simply envelops the audience.  I usually like to take some pictures of exciting moments of shows but I didn’t even touch my phone during the show–I was absorbed from the first notes.

(more…)

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Anne Enright–“Solstice” (New Yorker, March 13, 2017)

Posted in Anne Enright, Avery*Sunshine, Cars, Christmas, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Solstice, Tiny Desk Concert on June 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AVERY*SUNSHINE-Tiny Desk Concert #616 (May 1, 2017).

I had never heard of Avery*Sunshine and had no idea that she was a “soul maven.”  But boy did I enjoy this set.  She is a lot of fun, vibrant and playful and she really gets the crowd singing along.  Her lyrics are fun and improvisations are really fun.

Here’s what the blurb says:

When the soul maven visited NPR headquarters to perform her first Tiny Desk Concert, she gifted us with the story of her own redemptive love. And a whole lot of laughs in between.

Avery*Sunshine knows what love will make one do: Give up your favorite ice cream. Break up to make up. Even swear off of holy matrimony for good, only to fall head over heels again.

Newly married to her musical partner, guitarist Dana “Big Dane” Johnson, Avery*Sunshine broke down the meaning behind the title to her latest album, Twenty Sixty Four. But it was her playful charisma and those heavenly vocals that won us over, the same way she’s turned such legends as Aretha Franklin and Smokey Robinson into fans. Press play and prepare to fall in love, too.

And her band The Trustees is tight and hot: Dana “Big Dane” Johnson (guitar); Demonterious “Detoxxx” Lawrence (bass); Quinton “Q” Robinson (drums)

“Come Do Nothing” has a cool funk start and Sunshine’s sweet soulful voice.  It’s an interesting song of get away/come back, with the get away part being funky and cool and the come back being a bit treacly and sweet.  I loved this lyric: “I heard you found a girl.  I saw her pic online.  Yes I looked her up on Face Book (thump thump on Face Book).  She gets everyone to sing along “Come on Over here with me ; come do nothing here we me” before playing a joyful keyboard solo.

When the song ends, somebody jokes that “Big Dane” is not the one guilty of cheating.  There is much laughter as she explains that she and Dane got married a year ago.

Then she describes the song as a can’t live with you can’t live without you song:

“Go on, get out.  I put all your stuff out and you can come pick it up.   But when you come… ring the doorbell coz… I’ll be making gumbo.”

Then she talks about their marriage:  they were both married before and they swore that they would never get married again.  And then he proposed some time later.  And she prayed: Just give me until 2064 with this man.  I’ll be 89 and he’ll be 91. I won’t cuss anymore. I’ll eat all my vegetables.  I will be good.  That’s why the album is called 2064.

After they got engaged, she wrote “Ice Cream Song” as their wedding song.  It’s  sweet soulful ballad: “I’d give up ice cream just for you / I’d open my bag and sell my shoes.”

As she introduces the final song, Dane says, “You need to change the piano.”  “Will you do it, you’re so good to me.  He changes my keyboard sound for me, he’s so sweet.” And while he’s fiddling, she says, “The people are waiting, honey.”

She says that “Used Car” is a metaphor for divorced people.  Her mama said, “There;s nothing wrong with a used car.”  She says I’m not encouraging anyone to get divorced–but if you are, there’s no reason to not try again.  Just make sure its a certified pre-owned.

The song is bright and bouncy and  ton of fun with funny enjoyable lyrics.  There’s a cool break down with  funky bass line and she gets to talk about her cars, with the Trustees shouting : “a car payment is overrated.”  And man when she gets into it at the end she really shows off her pipes–boy she can sing.

They start chant at the end “used car” and she throws in lines like “I’m taking a selfie in my…”

The whole set is fun It’s a pretty great way to spend 17 minutes.

[READ: March 10 2017] “Solstice”

The story opens with a man in Dublin looking for his car.  It has gotten dark in mid-afternoon–it is the twentieth of December–and he can’t remember what floor he was parked on.  It felt like the longest night of the year, because it was.

And he marveled that at 10:44 AM the next morning the solstice “the event” would happen:  “Somewhere in that moment whether he believed it or not, the sun would pause in the sky above him, or seem to pause.  It would stop its descent and start its slow journey back to summer and the middle of the sky.”

I love that the next line undermines the wonder: “or this year, he thought, it might not bother.”

He drives home out of the city into the country where the night was very big. (more…)

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Zadie Smith–“Crazy They Call Me” (New Yorker, March 6, 2017)

Posted in Alt-J, Billie Holiday, Boredom, Drinking, Drugs, New Yorker, Regrets, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Zadie Smith on June 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: alt-J-Tiny Desk Concert #614 (April 24, 2017).

Alt-J have been reduced to a trio.  And their sound has gotten even more delicate and almost pastoral.

Bob Boilen loves Alt-J, and that’s why they’ve been invited back for a second time.  He explains:

As the primary booker of the Tiny Desk Concerts, I have this self-imposed rule: No artist can come back for a second visit unless there’s something wholly different about what they’re doing. The first time alt-J played the Tiny Desk, in 2012, they came as a four-piece; electric guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. They were a pretty new band, their album had been out a few months and they were playing in clubs for a couple hundred people, not much more.

In the five years since the band visited it has found quite a few new fans. When I heard cuts from the newest album Relaxer a few months ago I flipped and tried to think of a way to bring them back. So I wrote them, saying I’d love to have them again but that it would have to be wholly, out-of-the-box different. I told them I’d hire a brass band, an African kora player if need be, a string section… They took up the challenge. They told me to find a cellist and two violinists.

I wrote to my friend Carol Anne Bosco, a cellist, who turned out to be a huge fan of the band and helped find two violinists for the performance. About four days before the performance the band sent the string parts, written by their friend Will Gardner.

On Monday morning, the English band met the American string players and they all gathered behind my desk. As they worked their way through a first pass at “Three Worn Words,” I noticed them and relieved — alt-J had actually never heard the string arrangements, this was the first time. They sounded beautiful. By noon, NPR employees and friends gathered around my desk to witness this astonishing concert from alt-J, including two new songs and two old favorites. Magic.

“3WW” is the first single and it sounds very different.  The song opens with a lengthy instrumental, and then the keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton sings lead.  It sounds quite a lot like an old English balladeer song.  Then standard lead singer Joe Newman takes over.  His unusual voice is especially recognizable but the song still stays quite mellow until the moment where the strings burst forth …but just for a bit until they sing the practically whispered, “I just want t love you in my own language.”

“In Cold Blood” sounds a bit more like their old style with a very interesting drums pattern from Thom Green: lots of fast snares and toms.  The synths feel almost Ren-Faire like.  There’s also a fun section of “la la las.”  I only wish I knew what they were singing about.

“Warm Foothills” is primarily piano and strings.  There’s a very delicate falsetto vocals (and even a whistle).  All three of these songs are new.  It’s interesting to realize that these songs won’t sound like this anywhere else or on record because they have the strings only for this show.

They then say they’re going to play something from their first album, to mutters of pleasure and when he says “taro” there’s a whoop or two and Joe jokingly goes “Yes!!”  This is a quiet guitar-base song and the strings really bring out elements of it.

alt-J are certainly a weird band but they have slowly won me over.

I happened to check Wikipedia about the band and found this interesting tidbit (veracity in question of course): “The band’s unusual sound stems from the fact that due to living in student halls, where noise had to be kept to a minimum, they were unable to use bass guitars or bass drums. Thom Sonny Green suffers from Alport syndrome, a rare genetic disease which causes hearing and kidney failure. As a result, he is about 80 percent deaf.”

[READ: March 8, 2017] “Crazy They Call Me”

I usually love everything that Zadie Smith does.  But this story didn’t do very much for me.

It is a kind of inner monologue of Billie Holiday.  I’ve always liked Holiday’s voice but I don’t know much about her life.  Like I didn’t know that Billie Holiday wasn’t her real name–which was Eleanora Fagan.  But I don’t think that that’s what made me not love the story much.

I assume this story takes place near the end of her life “you certainly don’t go out anyplace less than dressed, not these days.”  She is saying goodbye both to Elenora Fagan and even to Billie: “There is only Lady Day.”

Lady Day is mostly thinking to herself about her life. How she doesn’t really like other women, is mostly a man’s lady. (more…)

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Lore Segal–“Ladies’ Lunch” (New Yorker, February 27, 2017)

Posted in Lore Segal, New Yorker, Old Age, Peter Silberman, Short Story, The Antlers, Tiny Desk Concert on June 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PETER SILBERMAN-Tiny Desk Concert #617 (May 5, 2017).

I didn’t realize that Peter Silberman was the singer for The Antlers.  I also had no idea about what happened to him:

Something happened to Peter Silberman — singer and guitarist for The Antlers, a band known for its loud, soaring crescendoes — that hushed his life. In a conversation we had, he described a medical condition related to tinnitus. He’d experienced the ringing before, but this was even more intense. “I don’t even know if ringing is really the right way to describe it, because it really sounded more like rushing water. This was at a level I’d never experienced before and it was really all-consuming, it took over. Playing music at all was out of the question. The sound of my own voice reverberating in my head was very painful — I had to just be more or less silent while this was happening.”

After a time, he tried to make music again. “I started trying to play again and trying to sing again, testing where the boundary was of the sensitivity and of the pain. What I found was that if I sang very quietly and if I played guitar very quietly, that this would be a path for me.” The result is his first solo album under his own name, a record called Impermanence. These are songs in slow motion; the builds are less about crescendo and more about subtle change. Peter is joined by Timothy Mislock, a former guitarist for The Antlers. It’s a set of songs meant to slow the pace of life. Have patience.

The blurb says that this may be the quietest Tiny Desk Concert, but it’s actually not all that quiet–perhaps it is just mic’d well.  What it is though is slow and delicate.

The Concert is 23 minutes long and they play 3 songs.  “Karuna” sets the tone: It’s ten minutes long.  There’s delicate chords and notes and Silberman’s voice.  It takes nearly 6 minutes before the second guitar comes in.  It doesn’t really have anything catchy in it and it’s so slow that I lost track of the words as well.

“Ahimsa” is 7 minutes long and is a little more catchy in the chorus: “no violence, no violence today.”

For the final song, “Maya,” it’s just him for 8 minutes.

These songs stretch out, are practically ambient and for me at least, kind of drift in an d out without leaving an y real impression.

[READ: February 21, 2017] “Ladies’ Lunch”

This is the story of Lotte.  Lotte lives in New York in an apartment that was “commodious” with a gorgeous view.   But Lotte hates the fact that she has a caregiver.  The caregiver was there to watch her and to make sure she didn’t eat too much bread.  Lotte was very deliberate in her dislike for this caregiver.

It is up to Lotte’s son, Sam, to make sure that Lotte is taken care of–and to deal with the problems when Lotte gets abusive to the caregivers.

The only thing that Lotte enjoys is her Ladies Lunch.  The lunch is five women who live in Manhattan and have grown old together.  They’ve met every month or so for the last thirty years.  They save all of their most exciting stories for the lunch.  The ladies ask Lotte whats wrong with this caregiver.  And Lotte explains: that’s she’s in my living room and my kitchen and my bathroom. (more…)

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Curtis Sittenfeld–“The Prairie Wife” (New Yorker, February 13 & 20, 2017)

Posted in #RESIST, Chicano Batman, Curtis Sittenfeld, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), New Yorker, Religion, Revenge, Sex, Short Story, Summer Camp, Tiny Desk Concert on June 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  CHICANO BATMAN-Tiny Desk Concert #613(April 17, 2017).

In the blurb for this show, Felix says that he was sol by their name.  And I am too.  It’s a great name.  And yet it is not entirely useful in terms of musical style.  But he summarizes pretty nicely:

a sound that perfectly captures dark lounges, quinceañera dances, car shows and backyard parties.

That lounge sound is completely evident with the keyboard tone–old fashioned and bachelor pad-like.  But this is no bachelor pad music, because behind the keys are some groovy and at time funky bass (from Eduardo Arenas) and some cool guitar wah wahs (from Carlos Arevalo) and more.

Holding it all together is Gabriel Villa on drums and then on keys and guitar and vocals is Bardo Martinez.  Martinez sings in such a cool, laid-back manner.  It’s often a gentle falsetto but it always feel like he is just chillin’ and singing these groovy songs.

And they also wears suits with bow ties.

“Freedom is Free” is a delicate and groovy song with lots of wah wah guitar and a cool echoing guitar solo.  It’s also got a great bass line.  The song is sweet and catchy with a great wah wah build up at the sudden ending.

“Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm)” has been quite popular on the radio here and man is it catchy.  The loungey organ and vocals are a great start, but the way the chorus just burst forth after the first verse–the backing singers (Nya Parker Brown and Piya Malik) hit the marks perfectly and then the staccato guitar riffs after that.  Its irresistible. (Parker Brown and Malik are from the band 79.5 and have been touring with them).

The ladies leave for the final song, “Jealousy.”  There’s a great funky bass line and fun drums before the song turns rather mellow.  I love the between chorus riffs.  Although I find the main song a little too slow, it probably works well between faster songs.

And they are all so polite and charming, I’m sure I’d enjoy seeing them live.

[READ: February 20, 2017] “The Prairie Wife”

I recently read another story by Sittenfeld in the New Yorker and really enjoyed it.  And this one was not only great and wonderfully written, it was full of surprises.

It’s hard to write about without giving away some of the surprises because they were so good.

But here’s a spoiler free attempt.

Kirsten is married with two kids.  The family has a routine and it involves Kirsten waking up and getting the boys up in time for school.  But lately she has been using her morning time to look at Lucy Headrick’s Twitter feed. (more…)

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Jarrett J. Krosoczka–Lunch Lady and the Schoolwide Scuffle (Book 10) (2014)

Posted in Children's Books, Completed Series, Fantasy, Food, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Ljova and the Kontraband, Lunch, Math, Museums, Set at School, Short Books, Sidekicks, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert on June 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND-Tiny Desk Concert #612 (April 14, 2017).

Ljova and the Kontraband play a rollicking blend of gypsy music with a twist.

There’s a viola, an accordion, an upright bass and a hand drum.  And they play rollicking fast trad music as well as delicate sow ballads.

Ljova and the Kontraband embraces Western classical, jazz and an array of international styles including tango and Eastern European and Balkan folk music. These top-flight musicians, who hail from Russia, Lithuania, the U.S. and Switzerland, pile all of these sounds atop of each other with great glee, and emerge with creations that alight on totally new and exciting terrain.

The band is led by the composer, arranger and viola player Ljova (Lev Zhurbin), who comes by this musical eclecticism naturally: the Moscow native, who comes from a family heavily involved in the arts, has worked with an astonishingly wide and starry group of collaborators, including Jay Z, the Bollywood queen Asha Bhosle and cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. In this Kontraband setting, he and his bandmates (including Ljova’s wife, the preternaturally sweet-voiced, Lithuanian-born singer Inna Barmash) create performances of deep earthiness, fragile tenderness, ebullient humor and quicksilver shifts in texture.

“Love Potion, Expired” is one of those fast songs with twists and turns and all kinds of solos.  The middle section is practically a percussion solo by Mathias Künzli (from Switzerland).  While the strings and accordion are sort of fiddling away on a couple of notes, Künzli (on his box drum) plays a sophisticated solo on the box which also includes all manner of percussion–cymbals, clackers, shakers, finger cymbals and other things that clatter (he even includes his thigh at one point).

It’s followed by an appropriately wild accordion solo (and that instrument is gorgeous) by Patrick Farrell (from Michigan).  The song is played at breakneck speed and is really fun.

The second song introduces us to Inna Barmash (Ljova’s wife). She explains that “Ven Ikh Zol Hobn Fligelekh (If I Had Wings)” is a Yiddish folk song from Western Ukraine.  She says the beginning of the poem is translated as “If I had wings I would fly to you if i had chains I would pull you to me.”  It id played as pizzicato and strummed viola while Inna sings.

But the heart of their Tiny Desk Concert was the song “By the Campfire,” whose words have a long, strange history that goes back to the Middle Ages. The words originally come from 12th-century Germany; Ljova’s grandfather, a noted translator, translated this poem from German to Russian, which Ljova uses in his musical setting.

Barmash gave us her own English translation of this unsettling, stunning, and perhaps even prophetic text: “Lies and spite command the world / Suffocate its consciousness, / Truth is poisoned, dead is law / Honor killed — obscene extolled! / … And the wisdom of our days / Teaches theft, deceit and hate.”

There are a couple of parts to this song.  As it begins, the accordion sounds like flutes.  Barmash sings beautifully for a few verses.  And then in the middle she sings a long sustained note that seems to signal the band to start on a chaotic section with everyone playing things crazily for a few seconds.  Then she does another long note and the song turns into traditional Russian type of dance.  There are many parts and this song goes through all of them.

Before the final song Ljova apologizes for disturbing their lunch.  “Walking on Willoughby” was written by Patrick, it’s a fun, wild polka that’s seven minutes long.   There are many parts to this song as well.  At times the viola and accordion play off of each other.  There’s several opportunities from each of them to solo held together by that thumping bass by Jordan Morton (from Syracuse).

The middle slows down to a one two count as the accordion plays a disjointed sounding solo.  There’s even more after that as this song just spirals in all directions.

[READ: July 10, 2016] Lunch Lady and the Schoolwide Scuffle

This appears to be the final book of the Lunch Lady series.  The book ends on something of a cliffhanger but to the best of my knowledge, no book has come out after this one.

But don’t be sad because this is a very satisfying conclusion.

As we left book 9, Lunch Lady had been fired.  She is so despondent that when the opening pages feature bad guys doing bad things, she’s not even there to stop them. It’s the fifth bank to be robbed in two weeks and Lunch Lady is just lounging about eating ice cream.  Egads!

But even worse, the school is a shambles–the superintendent has put a portrait of herself in every room (even the bathrooms).  Te teachers have been replaced by convicts, the principal has been replaced by Mr Edison who was put away in book 3 and even more shocking, Milmoe is being nice to them–he realizes he’s in over his head as student council president. (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“Mo Willems’s Funny Failures” (New Yorker, February 6, 2017)

Posted in Books about writers, Child Development, Children's Books, Essays, Fantasy, Fears, Food, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, New Zealand, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Sheep inthe Big City, Tash Sultana, The Man Who Yelled, The Off-Beats, Tiny Desk Concert on June 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TASH SULTANA-Tiny Desk Concert #610 (April 7, 2017).

Tash Sultana is a force of nature.  I’d heard her song “Jungle” a bunch of times on the radio before seeing this.  I thought it was interesting and kind of catchy with some cool guitar work.  But it never occurred to me that Sultana was doing the whole thing BY HERSELF!

For this Tiny Desk, she recreates that song (and two others) entirely by herself with loops and loops and effects and all kinds of good stuff.

As “Jungle” opens, Tash plays the guitar chords and loops them.  And then she plays the opening riff.  And loops it.  And then more riffs on top and loops them.  She creates a huge sound for about a minute and a half.  Then when all that sounds good, she starts playing the drum machine.

It’s so much fum watching her dance around her little area (barefoot, mind you) tapping pedals and setting effects on and off.  And when she starts soloing, she’s got a perpetually big smile on her face just really enjoying all of the work she;s doing and the sounds she’s making.

She finally starts singing and she’s got two microphones–the chorus gets the second microphone which has a processor and echo to totally change her sounds.

And then towards the end of the song she starts messing around with a solo and has all kinds of effects at hand for whichever part of the solo she’s doing, including a wild, ass-kicking, classic-rock style solo that all mellows out into  sweetly echoed section and a gentle guitar ending.  The song itself isn’t that complicated, but holy cow she packs so much into its 7 minutes.

So who the hell is Tash Sultana?

This 21-year-old Maltese-Australian got a guitar from her grandfather when she was three, she says, and has played it every day since. It’s astonishing to watch Sultana’s fluidity on her instrument, like a natural extension of her body. (She also plays bass, saxophone, trumpet, flute and more, but kept it “simple” at the Tiny Desk.) I thought I had a lot of energy — watching her bounce from guitar to drum machine to two separate microphones — and then hopping barefoot from looping pedal to effect pedal as she builds her songs was exhilarating and exhausting.

She says she wrote “Notion” when she was having a difficult time with myself… and someone else.

It opens with that her singing “oohs” into that processed mic and it sounds otherworldly.  And then again she jumps around from guitar to drum machine looping more and more.  Although it’s interesting that most of the song stays kind of mellow.  Her melody is very pretty and her voice is great.  The only trouble is it’s kind of hard to understand what she;s singing.  But its fun that she’s singing some of the song without playing anything else (it’s all being looped) and how intensely she sings it.

After playing the song for some 9 minutes, she hits some pedals and the just takes off on a wailing guitar solo.

“Blackbird” is very different–it’s all played on acoustic guitar.  There’s no looping.  She says she wrote this while in New Zealand.  She was wandering and got lost in a cave.

But acoustic doesn’t mean simple folk song.  She plays some great riffs with her right hand while hammering-on with her left hand. The part around 19:15 is just fascinating to watch.  She must have an alternate tuning as well because when she plays opens strings it sounds great (and it’s 12 string as well, so it sounds even more full).

After singing a few verses she plays an incredibly fast section.

There’s just so much going on, and I have no idea if all of that is part of the songs or if she’s just going off into her own world.

I was so impressed by this set that I just got tickets to her when she comes to the area in a few weeks.

[READ: January 31, 2017] “Mo Willems’s Funny Failures”

I have never really written about Mo Willems, even though my family loves his books (I’ve even got an autographed copy of one of them).

The Piggy and Gerald books are wonderful first readers (and are fun for adults too) and Pigeon is the best bad-tempered character around.

Since I like Rivka Galchen and post about just about everything she writes, I wanted to include this here.  It is a biographical essay based on a few interviews she had with Willems. (more…)

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