SOUNDTRACK: DAN AUERBACH-Tiny Desk Concert #726 (April 4, 2018).
Everybody loves Dan Auerbach, but I’m just lukewarm on him. I could never get into The Black Keys and the Arcs were okay. I will say that I absolutely love the final song they play here today and didn’t realize it was him. But I think I dislike the style of music he makes not the quality of the songs.
Dan brings his Easy Eye Sound Revue to the Tiny Desk. It’s an abundance of gifted musicians who have all played with a long, long list of legends, including Elvis, Don Williams and John Prine. … The small band for this stripped-down version of the “Revue” is fleshed with Dante Schwebel on guitar and Russ Pahl’s resonator guitar sounds.
Midway through the four-song set (that includes tunes from his 2017 album Waiting on a Song), Dan introduces a powerhouse: the seasoned but relatively unknown blues-and-soul singer Robert Finley. The husky voiced gentleman, with a giant smile and magical charisma, is heart-winning and heart-warming. It’s remarkable that this legally blind singer is only now getting the attention he deserves…. Robert Finley and Dan Auerbach released [an album] at the end of 2017 called Goin’ Platinum.
In the recent Tiny Desk Concert from fellow Nashville musician John Prine, [he told a tale] of writing songs with Pat McLaughlin in the morning, going to town for some meatloaf and then recording the song by day’s end. Well that’s Pat on the mandolin here in this Tiny Desk set. His playing is both astonishing and low-key.
The Review plays four songs
“Waiting On a Song” is a folk song with a country feel and a slide guitar solo on that resonator guitar.
“Never In My Wildest Dreams” feels like an old cowboy song complete with what is almost cowboy yodelling from Schwebel.
“Get It While You Can” features Robert Finley on vocals. It is the traditional song and Finley does a great job, singing with gusto and making clear some lyrics that I never heard before. His voice is pretty great too.
“Shine On Me” This song is irresistible even if it sounds exactly like a Travelling Wilbury song.
It’s just a matter of time before he hits on a genre that I really like, I’m sure.
[READ: January 5, 2018] Haynes Explains Americans
This book came across my desk and it looked pretty funny.
There was no author name on the cover, but inside it mentions that it is written by Boris Starling. I’d never heard of him, but I looked him up and found that he has written seven crime novels and that his first, Messiah, was notable for its fast pace and high levels of gore. He has written a bunch of other stuff too, including several (at least 12) of the popular ‘Haynes Explains’ series of tongue-in-cheek mini-manuals.
So this is written as a manual (based on a stripdown and rebuild).
It is written very much like a car manual: “the aim of this manual is to help you get the best value from the American.” It includes lots of pictures of car parts with labels for other things. It’s a good mockery of the manuals .
Normally I enjoy a good mockery of Americanisms. We are ripe for parody. But this book feels just too easy.Under consumption, it’s not only confusingly constructed, it’s not even that funny:
burgers and fries: 14 times a week,
torque: radio shock jocks, late night chat shows, filibustering politicians
redline: at any attempt by the Federal Gumment to come and take our guns away, yes sir.
It’s when there’s a bit more time to explore an idea that he succeeds.
Like this introduction:
It’s now almost 250 years since America fought for an won independence from the British, yet in many ways, the Americans still see themselves as those freedom fighters of yesteryear. They may have every conceivable gadget, pill and modern convenience to make life as comfortable as possible, but in their heads they are frontiersmen and pioneers.
The section of how Americans see the British and how the British see Americans is pretty funny: “Americans see narrow streets and small cars, overcooked vegetables, reserve: After a year of working with a Brit he might volunteer than he felt a little down on one occasion”.
How Americans see the French: Americans are puritanical, concerned with efficiency and fiercely individualistic the French are hedonistic, concerned with manners and value the collective.
How American sees the Germans: A German on holiday in the US is likely to be quizzed about a) beer and b) what it feels like to drive 180 mph on the Autobahn.
It’s interesting to see a book try to pick up on certain aspects of a country as the ones that need mocking. For America it’s plastic surgery (which I gather must seem like a huge part of American life to non-Americans) lawyers, and conspiracy theories. The last one has more impact on our daily lives than the other two for sure, but moreso since Mr Idiot has become president. #ITMFA Seriously.
There’s a two page spread that mocks “Days” that America “celebrates.” This is eminently mockable and we all mock them, but I don’t even know where you’d find things like
- National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day.
- National Two Different Colored Shoes Day.
And it’s not like Americans believe or actually celebrate these days.
The funniest part of the book is probably a quite from Fran Lebowitz: “Americans don’t think time is money. They think everything is money.” The flow chart American Attitudes to Retail doesn’t make sense (which is guess is the point, but it doesn’t even make funny sense) and , as I say isn’t funny.
The one line about each state is pretty amusing but again is more lazy than funny. Like Vermont: maple syrup which doesn’t so much poke fun as say what they export a lot of; Oregon Hippies and Nike is pretty funny although I didn’t know about Nike. While West Virginia: Strictly one tooth per resident is just really mean.
He has fun mocking what American has done to the British language. He mocks these words and phrases:
“Can I get a…?” try “Please may I have”
“Gotten” (a slight on the perfectly serviceable got) I’d like an example of when he dislikes this in use.
Deplane” (whats wrong with disembark) George Carlin mocked this decades ago ,though
Some that I like
‘Oftentimes “How could you possibly improve on or object to “often.”
“Where you at?”
turning nouns into verbs
and my favorite:
My bad: “is only acceptable when used in the literal sense , ie. here is my copy of Michael Jackson’s eleventh studio album.
Americans confess to doing all kinds of things while driving. Do Brits not? 3/5 admit to reading the news or social media; 1/2 have eaten a meal; 1/5 applied make up. It’s the rest that surprises me too:
8% vomited; 7% urinated; 3% shaved their legs
He offers some calming advice for the mockery than Americans are so fat.
Americans aren’t the fattest nation on earth (ranking tenth) and not even fattest in North America (that’s Mexico).
Then he mocks biscuits and gravy and grits. My guess is that he just hates the South.
Then he’s on to sports
Baseball: a grown up version of rounders.
Basketball: its impossible to take a sport seriously when a typical scoreline is 121-118. But no matter how much you guss it up, it’s always only a half-step away form being a municipal sports hall with a $3 entry price.
American football. A funnyish explanation of the sport to an outsider
A-Z of Hollywood clichés is pretty funny but again, pretty easy jokes
The conclusion is pretty balanced though–its easy to take the rise out of Americans because some of the their national characteristics lend themselves to teasing. American in general are an eclectic bunch travel around America and you’ll fin that 99 times out of 100 they’re generous warm and friendly. He had dissed the flyover states but he insists Utah is as staggeringly beautiful as anywhere eon earth. The Deep South is full of “heat and soul” (that might be a typo in the book for heart, dontcha think?).
This is the kind of book that people give each other for a Christmas present, laugh over a bit, and then forget.
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