I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Heavy Rocks (2011).

Heavy Rocks, also known as Heavy Rocks 2011, was released at the same time as Attention Please and New Album.   The album has the same name and cover style and font as their 2002 album Heavy Rocks, although this one is purple and the 2002 release was orange.

Heavy Rocks shares the tracks “Jackson Head” and “Tu, La La” with New Album.
Heavy Rocks shares the tracks “Aileron” with Attention Please, although it is radically different.
New Album shares the songs “Hope,” “Party Boy” and “Spoon” with Attention Please. 

The vinyl edition features extended versions of “Missing Pieces” and “Czechoslovakia.”

Unlike the other two albums, this one is largely heavier, exploring their more metal urges.

“Riot Sugar” (“甘い暴動”, lit. “Sweet Riot”) 3:56  has a raw sound with a soaring solo and a chugging, heavy tone.  It abruptly ends mid guitar solo and segues into “Leak-Truth,yesnoyesnoyes-” (“Leak-本当の反対の反対の反対の反対-“, “Leak (The Opposite of the Opposite of the Opposite of a Real Opposition)”) 4:11  which opens with a quiet unprocessed guitar and then the song starts rocking out–a kind of grungy alt-rock sound.  The vocals are whispered with a kind of throbbing bass line throughout.

“Galaxians” 4:09 opens with pummeling drums and all kinds of (80s) arcade sounds–including a bomb dropping and Atsuo screaming and shouting.  It is heavy and raw and pure punk.

“Jackson Head” (“ジャクソンヘッド”) 3:00 The version of this song is less synthy than that on New Album.  It’s got those punky distorted vocals right up font a shouted chorus of Jackson Head repeated over and over.

“Missing Pieces” (14:27 on vinyl release) 12:22  starts slowly with a pretty guitar melody and muted vocals.  After 6 minutes the song rocks but doesn’t get too noisy.  But after two more minutes it turns into complete and utter noise for another 2 minutes.  Then it all drops away and goes back to the quiet intro guitars.  The last two minutes just rock out.

“Key” (“扉”, lit. “A Door”) 1:46 This is a quiet brief instrumental with twinkly keys and a soaring solo.  It segues into “Window Shopping” 3:57 which opens with a woman speaking Japanese and then some heavy riffage.  There’s a shoegaze echo on the whole thing, especially the doo doo/ doo doo chorus.

“Tu, la la” 4:21 Such a great riff they had to play it twice.  This is a heavier and more guitar based version than on New Album.  It’s my favorite Boris song.

“Aileron” (“エルロン”) 12:45  The version on Attention Please is 2 minutes of acoustic guitar.  This one is nearly 13 minutes, and it begins with a slow echoing guitar notes but it soon gets heavy.  It’s a long, slow, heavy piece with drones and echoed vocal for nearly the whole song, although after 12 minutes there is a delicate piano coda.

“Czechoslovakia” (“チェコスロバキア”, 5:46 on vinyl release) 1:35 Not sure what happens in the vinyl version, but this short rocker has loud guitars and thunderous drums.  Just as it’s about to take off it fades after 90 seconds and ends the album.  Always leave them wanting more.

[READ: February 8, 2016] “Package Tour”

This was the 2015 New Yorker fiction issue.  It featured several stories and several one-page essays from writers I like.  The subject this time was “Time Travel.”

For the final time travel essay Sam Lipsyte balks at a couple’s genuine desire to use a time machine to go back to Brooklyn a few decades to buy a cheaper brownstone.  People in Brooklyn apparently constantly bemoan who cheap places were in their youth, but this one, well:

I pictured the couple hunched in some rattling claptrap wormhole-traverser–because all time machines are built with scrap iron and held fast with duct tape and cut-rate rivets, even those designed for hunting down investment lofts.  Their lips would be peeled back by G-Forces as their ship shredded along the seam of the space-time continuum until they landed in Cobble Hill, 1974.  There they’d hop out, buy a building, and head back.

Would their lives be any different upon return?  Would they have scads more cash?  Would they have bought more buildings?  Would they have retired?  Would Mitt Romney be president? (Sigh)

Time travel should be about more important things than land grab plans.

It should be about seeing ancient wonders or to witness pre-history–did the Red Sea really part for Moses?  Visit Charlton Heston at the filming of Soylent Green and tell him the film won;t do much except launch a nerdy catchphrase.

You could also be a do-gooder.  And while talking to Heston, set him straight on guns.  That’s the do-gooder-package tour.  The warn-Pompeii-Kill-Hitler itinerary.  Or maybe just bring a young Hitler to Pompeii before Vesuvius blew.

Or maybe go to Sodom or Gomorrah or Xanadu.  Of course you need excellent timing not to land in a good place at the wrong moment.

But after the joking, he says maybe he should just go back to yesterday and be nicer to his kids and family: “I could try again.”