SOUNDTRACK: THE WEATHER STATION-Tiny Desk Concert #689 (January 8, 2017).
The Weather Station played a show in Philly a while back. I knew that Bob Boilen really liked the album, and I thought about checking them out live. But things came up and I didn’t. And now here they are at a Tiny Desk.
It was the first song here, that Bob especially liked:
It’s called “Thirty” and in less than four minutes and nearly 400 words, singer Tamara Lindeman paints images of joy intertwined with the awaking jolt of turning thirty.
The dollar was down
But my friends opened businesses
There were new children
And again, I didn’t get married
I wasn’t close to my family
And my dad was raising a child in Nairobi
She was three now, he told me
The song is a pretty, shuffling song (spare drums from Ian Kehoe) with a speedy rhythm guitar (from Lindeman), a roaming bassline (Ben Whiteley) and some cool guitar licks (William Kidman) over the top (both of which are really lovely).
The musicians in The Weather Station underpin these words with delicate playing and by sitting quietly but poignantly under Tamara Lindeman’s beautiful voice. Her soft voice shifts pitch with a rapid flow in a Joni Mitchell-sort of way, never coming up in volume more than a quiet, table conversation level.
There’s a great (relatively) wailing solo that really pushes the song forward and which ends perfectly when Tamara starts singing again.
“You and I (On the Other Side of the World)” has a slow slinkiness that I rather like. There’s also some nice, understated backing vocals (deep male voices under Tamara’s higher register). I love the bass work at the end of the song, too.
Tamara’s voice sounds very much like someone else or maybe a number of people: I hear Laura Marling and yes, Joni Mitchell, but maybe Margo Timmins as well. In other words, all good benchmarks.
In fact, the final song, “Free” has a real Cowboy Junkies feel with the big slow echoing rhythm guitar that opens it.
On “Free,” there’s some great lead guitar work once again as well as a wonderful bass line.
a song Lindeman describes as about being both free and not free at the same time, there’s restraint in the voice and a release in the powerful guitar chords. That tension and release is an essential element to The Weather Station’s sound and one of the joys I’ve found listening to their enchanting music.
Initially I wasn’t blown away by this concert, but I found myself hitting replay over and over, enjoying it more each time.
[READ: August 20, 2017] Fierce Kingdom
I read about this story on Skimm, a daily news digest that I have since read is geared to women (and according to some criticism, treats women like they are dumb. I have recently stopped subscribing to it because I do find it rather dumb and subtly right-wing (how could a site for women not be pissed that Hillary lost? #RESIST). But whatever, the book sounded interesting so I put it on hold.
The premise is fairly simple: a woman and her young child (4 perhaps), are in a zoo. Right around closing time two gunmen enter the zoo and start killing people. What will she do?
For some reason, the blurbs didn’t reveal that there were gunmen, just that “something” happened. Well, honestly what else could it have been but gunmen. So, perhaps I spoiled that part but it came out pretty early anyway.
The story begins with a time stamp 4:55 PM. The zoo closes at 5:30 and Joan and her boy Lincoln are sitting in their favorite spot waiting to leave the zoo. As they head toward the exit around 5:30, she notices bodies on the ground. She had heard explosions earlier but didn’t think much of it, But when she sees the bodies, she quickly puts things together and takes off.
Now the blurb for the book on the inside cover says “an electrifying novel about the primal and unyielding bond between a mother and her son, and the lengths she’ll go to protect him.” That’s not wrong exactly but I feel like that puts a weird focus on it being about mother hood instead of survival. Must be some kind of marketing thing. I didn’t get the sense in the book that it has anything to do with motherhood–I mean frankly any parent would do that for his or her child and I’m sure any person would do the same for anyone they loved. The fact that the child is younger and doesn’t have the same cognitive skills make the story more compelling.
Because, frankly, as she hides in an abandoned animal enclosure, there’s no reason she would ever have to leave such an enclosure–she can’t be seen, she is well protected, and it is dark. She even has her cell phone and she talks to her husband (I find it a bit hard to believe that the police wouldn’t listen to him if he has a text from his wife in the zoo, but that’s what happens). The bad guys even come into where she is and don’t see her.
So, end of story right? At least I couldn’t imagine why there would be more story when she is safe and the police are coming.
But, this is where the child comes in. He is getting hungry and she knows that if he gets hungry he gets whiny. He is too little to understand the severity of what is happening. So Joan must get him some food (she has no snacks today!)
This was a great way to build the tension. It is dark, she doesn’t know where the men are and she needs to get from her enclosure to the snack area.
The book is some 250 pages. 50 pages in, Phillips introduces some of other characters and they have their own chapters with their own points of view. Kailynn, a young girl at the zoo whose phone was taken by her mother that morning. Margaret, an older woman who does her walking in the zoo (it’s so much nicer than the mall). She is aware of the shooters and was dragged in somewhere by an unknown arm.
And then we meet the shooters: two disaffected youth. One is special in some way, the other one is a bully. While I appreciated the access into their motives I didn’t really enjoy their sections very much. It’s not that she humanized the monsters exactly but their sections seemed a little convoluted–they had something to prove, there was a third person involved somehow. I guess I didn’t really care about them because I was too fixated on the good guys.
Joan sees another woman walking around, holding a baby who is crying–that whole sequence is very tough to read and very affecting. What to you to do to save yourself and/or your baby when it is crying and drawing attention to you? It’s a hard choice and later when the choice is made it’s hard to imagine having to be in that situation.
By the time they get to the snack machines (I really liked the way that scene was handled) she encounters the other people hiding. Things settle down until an accident causes all hell to break loose.
The final sequence is very exciting. There’s an unexpected connection between some of the characters and then a final chase sequence that is there only because of someone’s lack of trust.
The book ends in a surprisingly dark manner. I had to read the end twice to make sure I knew exactly what happened.
I do want to complain that you don’t find out enough about what happened to any of the other people, I guess they were all okay?
But for the most part this was an exciting, claustrophobic novel–a perfect summer read and the kind of book I don’t normally read.
But I’m glad I did.
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