I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PALEHOUND-Dry Food (2015).

I have seen Palehound twice, once as a headliner and once as an opening band (in that order).  I love Ellie Kempner’s guitar style and her slackerish vocals.  Her lyrics are usually incisive and the way she pulls all of that together is really terrific.

Her recorded output is pretty stellar.  She has a few EPs and/or singles and then this, her first album, which comes it at less than 30 minutes.  It features some of Kempner’s great guitar, prescient lyrics and really catchy songwriting–a potent combination.

“Molly” opens with a great rumbling bass line, a cool guitar riff and a wonderful overdubbed distorted guitars.  It’s immediately catchy.  The whole verse is crazy catchy and then after two lines, she adds a new riff before returning to the first one.  There’s so much going on and its all terrific.  Next up is a cool bridge followed by a third part with yet another great guitar soloing type of riff and loud chorus of “ooooohs.”  There is so much going on in this song, I was shocked to see that it’s under 3 minutes long

“Healthier Folk” starts out as a kind of bedroom-sounding acoustic guitar song, but after a verse there’s a trippy chorus with soaring guitars

Mouth ajar, watching cuties hit the half pipe
I only feel half-right
Around healthier folk
But oh, why don’t hold me?
They just
Cradle me like a homesick child

Mid way through, the guitars get louder with a heavy riff before returning to that trippy middle section.

Even though Kempner rocks out, she also has some slower songs.  “Easy” is a slow song with this great line: “I’m pushing back your tongue / With my clenched teeth home security system.”  I love how the chorus (and more) is just a blast of noise without speeding up the tempo of the song.  Two thirds of the way through, the song picks up briefly (“All I need’s a little sleep”).  And the last thirty seconds are a wild, chaotic-sounding series of riffs (with a noisy feedbacking guitar solo).

“Cinnamon” has yet another terrific riff.  Live, this song absolutely scorches–vocally and guitar wise.  This version is a little tamer, but you can really hear what a great guitarist she is.

“Dry Food” starts slowly, with a pretty guitar line and a cool vocal delivery.  I love the way the verses are slow and the chorus builds into a strangely catchy melody without really picking the tempo up.

“Dixie” is a quiet confessional with some great lyrics and a catchy chorus.

And people that I’ll never meet
Have been showing up naked in my dreams
And I try to close my eyes but I really want to see
Their breasts like eyes are staring back at me
…
The hair that’s in my shower drain
Has been clogging up my home
And I try to scoop it up but I retch until I’m stuck
To stare and gag into a Dixie cup (with a cough on the repeat of this line)

“Cushioned Caging” is a more aggressive rocker, but her vocals don’t really match the guitar loudness, making you lean in to hear her.  The disc ends with “Seekonk,” the longest song on the disc (nearly 5 minutes).  It’s slow with a couple of different parts to flesh it out.

Kempner really showcases the various aspects of her songwriting.  It’s a really solid album and could easily be much longer.

[READ: January 15, 2018] “The Little Boy”

This short story was interesting in that it seemed far more about an old woman than a little boy.

Mrs. Bea Davis is walking through an airport after visiting her daughter Megan in upstate New York.

We learn a lot about her and her daughters Megan and Susan as well as her ex-husband.  We learn some about her because she is talking to her self.  A woman with a small boy passed and the boy turned to look at her.

The trip had been okay, as best as could be expected. Bea felt that Megan and her husband enjoyed making fun of ugly people (“That guy is like an anteater in leisurewear. That girl, she can’t wear that dress, look at her stomach.”)  the way Bea’s own sisters Tomasina and Livia would go to Woolworth’s and comment on the ugly poor people.   

Megan was offended at the comparison.

“They would go on purpose to places where ugly poor people would be and comment on them. We didn’t come here to do that, it’s not the same thing.”
Not far off, thought Bea.

Susan was now a healer–studying past lives and reading tarot cards–Megan had no patience for it.  Regardless, Susan had a life–a partner named Julie who managed a bookstore.  Susan had worked on Bea’s aura, but Bea didn’t feel it helped.

When Bea sat down in the airport, she saw the boy again, this time he was jumping on chairs.  She smiled thinking of her own children when they were littler and less judgmental.  But the boy’s mother was unhappy–stop it, you little idiot, she shouted.

Finally Bea needed to talk to the woman.  She asked if there was any chance they knew each other.  The woman seemed worried about a confrontation until the boy said he knew her from the “magic cave.”  The mother freaked a bit but Bea explained it was that airport walkway with the people mover and the lighted walls which played ocean sounds.  Then the boy, Michael said that Bea talked to herself.  The mother said don’t be rude and smacked him in the head.

They talked for a bit and the mother asked if Bea would keep an eye on him while she went to the check in desk about her flight.  While they were together, Bea asked Michael about his father and Micheal said he was an Iraq war vet and he was awesome.

But when Michael’s mother returned she smacked him and said she didn’t have a husband.

Bea boarded the plane and imagined her own children at that age and how they spend their holidays between her and her ex husband (sometimes sneaking in an extra day with her).

It’s a moving story about childhood and old age and how there’s only so much we can do about each the them.