I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: CHRIS WALLA AND J. ROBBINS-Create ‘Mercury’ (Project Song: October 12, 2009).

Project Song was a nifty little show that NPR Music created.  The premise was that NPR would give a musician some prompts and a recording studio.  They then had two days to write and record a song.  I don’t know how much of the process was to be filmed, but presumably most of it. Then it would be edited down to a fifteen minute show.  The results are pretty cool and it’s a shame they only made five of them.

The fourth one they did was over a year and a half after the previous one.  This Project was offered to Chris Walla (of Death Cab for Cutie) and a performer he’d admired, J. Robbins (of Jawbox and Burning Airlines).

What made this project especially difficult was that the two had never even met before they stepped into NPR’s performance studio.

I supplied some inspiration for their song: photo collages created by artist Tom Chambers [The picture are really, really cool]. They chose a photograph of a house in a canyon filled with water, tilted and flooded. Not far from the house is a dog on a boat, floating either toward or away from the house. I also supplied a series of words. They selected the word “cerebral” and promised when they wrote the song not to be too cerebral about it.

Unlike the pairing from Georgie James, this pair is instantly excited at the possibilities–changes and ideas.

Robbins says he will not write any lyrics, it takes him a month and a half to hone them,

But it didn’t take long for Robbins to pick up his bass guitar, for Walla to pick up a guitar, and for the two to begin their musical friendship.

They were inspired by JG Ballard and his drowned world series. In these books there are people who know the world is dying but they embrace it as a forward movement into the unknown

J. get a great bass line right away (its sounds very Death Cab, interestingly).  Bob asks about the music and J. says the music sounds like a dog on a boat heading towards a half-submerged house.  And Walla is singing the word “mercury.”

Walla and Robbins were joined by Robbins’ friend, drummer Darren Zentek.

He adds a wonderful beat and the song sounds great.  They get excited filling out the possibilities–end on the bridge!

Walla goes off by himself to write lyrics.  And Robbins works on a piano part.  And then things really come together when Walla picks up the 12 string.

The song they created, “Mercury,” takes its subject matter from that photograph, which is a bit of a cataclysmic scenario turned into a song about the climate crisis.

The result has a definite Death Cab feel, but with Robbins and Walla alternating lead vocals it is a different, wonderful thing.

[READ: July 23, 2018] “I Walk Between the Raindrops”

This story centers around Valentine’s Day.  But it’s a T.C. Boyle story so there’s always something else to look forward to.

I love the way this story opens with Brandon the narrator telling us.

This past Valentine’s Day, I was in Kingman, Arizona, with my wife, Nola, staying in the Motel 6 there, just off the I-40. You might not think of Kingman as a prime location for a romantic getaway (who would?), but Nola and I have been married for fifteen years now, and romance is just part of the continuum….  Were we slumming?  Yes, sure.  We could have stayed anywhere we liked…and if it’s not ideal, at least it’s different.

They were there because Nola’s father lives nearby and they decided to pay a visit and to let Nola search for antiques.  They went to Denny’s (the only place her father will eat), and after eating, Nola went antiquing and Brandon went to a bar to wait for her.

It’s not unfriendly (despite some graffiti like “fuck you, liberal pussies” (which he chooses to take as ironic), but he doesn’t order a Pinot Noir or anything. 

He had his drink and a woman sitting at the far end of the bar came over to him and said her name is Serena.  She tells Brandon she has E.S.P.  He says great and hopes to get her to split.  But she asks, You want to play a game?”  He says No, and then realizing she;s talking more to herself than to him.

He moved (twice) but she followed him and asked him the same thing both time–want to play a game.  Finally he complained to the bartender who said she’d take care of it.  The woman just showed up two weeks ago and nobody knew anything about her.

When he turned around Nola was there with her bags of goodies.  They kissed and all was well.

There’s a part two called “When the Mountains Come Down to the Sea.”

This part explains that they went to Kingman at this time of year because of the mudslides.  They live in Southern California and wildfires bring mudslides.  They’d survived the wildfire (as did most people), but when the next storm came (a particularly big one), it devastated much of their area.  Again, they were spared, but many people were not.  As he was soon to find out.

Part three is called The Suicide-Prevention Hotline.  Nola had volunteered at the hotline.  She was as helpful as she could be, but she would come home with some real horror stories.  The most horrible one was about her co-worker Blake who started dating a caller–strictly forbidden, of course.

The story comes back to the bar on Valentine’s Day and what happens after they finish their drinks.  And just what happens with Serena.

The story ended a little strangely for my tastes, and there was a section that seems superfluous (unless this is an excerpt from a novel), but as with most Boyle pieces, the reading is the enjoyable part, whether it all comes together or not.