I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BAND OF HORSES-Live at Newport Folk Festival (July 25, 2014).

 I was checking out some of the Newport Folk Festival archives at NPR and found this show from 2014.  This was Band of Horses’ first time at Newport and they sound great and have fun with the set up, by slowly building to a full band.

They start “quietly” with Ben Bridwell singing “St. Augustine” solo on acoustic guitar.

For “Part One,” the bring out Ryan Monroe and Tyler Ramsey to sing along.  You can hear a heckler shout “you need more beard.”

Then they bring out Bill Reynolds to play upright bass on “Weed Party.”  This song sound so very different from the album version–it’s a much more country, don home version, rather than the soaring record.  There’s even a middle break with room for a bass “solo.”

Finally, out comes Creighton Barrett behind the drums for “Everything’s Gonna Be Undone,” their then newest song and the only one from their 2012 album that they play.

The rest of the set is primarily from the first two albums, and the songs sound great.  Ben’s voice is in good form and the band is tight.  “Great Alt Lake” rocks and “Is There a Ghost” even gives Ben the opportunity to shout 1,2,3,4 mid song as they bust out the rocking section.  Ben even screams in the intro to “Laredo.”

Things slow down for “No One’s Gonna Love You.”  When he plays that opening chord everyone cheers, but he says, “that’s the wrong thing, though. that’s not right.” and then he gets himself sorted (with a pitch pipe?) and they play a gorgeous version of it.  The rest of the set sounds equally good, including a rousing “The Funeral.”

They end the set with a cover of a classic blues song “Am I a Good Man?”  Each band member gets a little solo and they even act out some soul with a “Newport are you ready? “One time!” [pow] “two times!” [pow pow] “half a time [tss].

It’s a great show and a precursor of future great shows that I’ve seen from them.

• “St. Augustine” *
• “Part One” *
• “Weed Party” *
• “Everything’s Gonna Be Undone” ****
• “The Great Salt Lake” *
• “Is There A Ghost” **
• “Laredo” ***
• “No One’s Gonna Love You” **
• “Islands On The Coast” **
• “The General Specific” **
• “Ode To LRC” **
• “The Funeral” *
• “Am I A Good Man?” [cover]

[READ: August 17, 2017] “The Itch”

The story begins that after his divorce, the narrator felt an odd physical and mental numbness although over time he began to talk more to people.

But the most persistent thing is the itch.  Sometimes the left wrist.  Although at home in the evening, it was the upper arms.  Thighs and shins at night.  He began to think of it as “sense data from the exterior.”  Although he didn’t really believe that,.

The only person he has told about the itch is his friend and co-worker, Joel.  Joel told him that he should contextualize the itch–look for a famous statesman with the same problem or perhaps something biblical.  He capitalized The Itch.

He had been seeing a woman whose name was Ana.  He liked that it was spelled that way but when he asked if there was a reason for it–family tradition, a European novel?  She disappointed him and said no.  Just a name spelled a certain way.   He hadn’t told her about The Itch.  

Of course he had gone to a dermatologist.  “I take off my shirt, the itching starts.”  She determined that his itch was  “a long-term committment”

Joel had a strange issue as well.  There were times when he hears what sounds like words as his urine hits the water in the bowl.  Every two weeks or so he heard a voice saying a word.  The Itcher suggests that Joel is a poet.  Joel replies “Zaum.”  Trans-rational poetry,

He went to new doctor known as the Itch Meister.  The doctor seemed amazed by the symmetry of itches.

I loved the brief scene outside the office with two women who were smoking.  He told them he smoked twice in his life at seventeen and then twenty-three.  First time maybe a week and a half, the second time two weeks.

One asks him and now you expect to live forever?

-Not when I’m in the office.

-What do you expect then?

-I expect to jump out the window next to my desk.

-Take us with you, the second woman said.

A new doctor (from Middle Europe, maybe?) gave him confidence.

-You will spend less time in the shower.

-I have been told this.

-You have been told this.  But not by me.

She has more to say

-When I talk to non-itching people about the itch, they start itching.

This is true?  This is true.

She ultimately tells him

-You are nobody without the itch.

The man must decide if he will tell Ana.  And what of Joel’s’ urine-words?  “It conveys, it communicates.”

As with many DeLillo stories in the New Yorker, I assume this one is part of a larger piece.  It doesn’t really work as a standalone unit.