I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: FLASHER-Tiny Desk Concert #770 (July 30, 2018).

I haven’t heard of Flasher, but the description of the band (noisy) makes me think I’d like them.  I’m also intrigued by the various guitar and bass lines.  The vocals are also really nice–wonder just how buried they are on record:

For its visit to the Tiny Desk, this young Washington trio set aside the distortion and worked up a semi-acoustic set of three songs — taken from its debut album, Constant Image.  Voices sometimes in unison, sometimes swapping leads, adding a shifting point of view to songs that, on record, give equal footing to a precise noise.

These three high school friends, Taylor Mulitz (guitar, vocals), Daniel Saperstein (bass, guitar) and Emma Baker (drums) have been bouncing around the D.C. punk scene of house shows and DIY venues for some time.

I rather got a kick out of this little “How Bob knows the band”

I’ve been aware of Taylor’s work for a while…in the potent D.C. band Priests; Daniel I’ve known (a bit) since he was a child, mostly from Hanukkah parties with his family (his mom was the executive producer at All Things Considered when I was the show’s director); Emma can be seen playing around town with another band, Big Hush.

I really enjoyed the stops and starts of “Pressure” I imagine it’s really fun when they rock.  It also has some really clever word play: “saving face / self-effacing / keeping pace / in a stasis.”  Most of the delicate harmony vocals come from the bassist (who is actually playing acoustic guitar), although when all three of them sing it sounds even better.

The interchange of electric and acoustic guitar works great on “XYZ.”  All three sing in tight harmony.

I love the way “Who’s Got Time?” seems to be constantly catching up on itself, like they are running out of time to finish the song–even though it never sounds like they are out of sync with each other.

Their overall sound is wonderful acoustic shoegaze.  At least at the Tiny Desk.

[READ: August 15, 2018] “A Refugee Crisis”

I didn’t love Wink’s last story (about killing cats), but I found this one fascinating because of how many elements were included here.

The narrator is a writer living in a place where one can cross-country ski regularly (Bozeman, MT).  The trail is mostly unused except for a guy who runs tours by dogsled–and there is plenty of dog shit on the trail to show where the sled went.

When he gets home, M is lying on his couch.  She says she let herself in since she knew the key was still under the mat.  She says she just came back from Serbia.  (She had been in Athens, Budapest and Frankfurt among other places).  The refugee camps there were really bad–people are trying to get across Hungary and the military is beating them, shooting at them.

She is twenty-three but looks forty and her personal hygiene is atrocious.  They have sex anyhow.  She says they can’t get pregnant because she already is–from a nineteen year old boy from Raqqa.  She didn’t tell the guy.  She is planning to get an abortion shortly.

The next morning rather than skiing, he goes for a run, a way to get his mind engaged in what he’s working on–a story about a writer–“The sort of navel-gazing drivel that I regarded with contempt while I was blithely finishing my first book.”  Even as he runs, he realizes he can’t think of a way to describe mountains as anything but mountains.

That evening M makes them curry.  He says he likes the taste but hates the way the smell lingers.  But she is not paying attention.  He tries to empathize with her, talking about how he and his family would take road trips to small hotels.  She dismisses him and says that she’s been living in a tent for a year, she would have killed for a Motel 6.

She shows him photos of the camps and asks him if he was still interested in writing about what she was doing, something he casually mentioned a year ago.  “If you wrote something I could give you the images.”  He says maybe, but when she pushes him, he says that maybe she should do the writing since it’s her experience.

Besides, he’s not that kind of writer.  She snorts and says, “Remind me what kind of writer are you?”

He asks her is she thought about marrying the father of the baby–fast track the guy out of his situation.  She says it’s a way to enact real change but it pisses her off  “It’s part of the bullshit of being a woman. I can do any number of things, but none will ever be as valued in the eyes of the world as the stupid magic trick I can pull with my pussy.”  She says he told her if she just ate spicy food it would take care of it, “Could you imagine him here in this sea of whiteness?”

Finally she asks what she can say to make him care about the refugee crisis. “You don’t give a shit because all you care about is your own life.”

After the abortion (strange that he never says the word, just calling it a procedure), she doesn’t leave the house for days.  He does a lot of skiing and meets the dogsled guy.  He asks him what he feeds the dogs as their shit is some of the foulest he’s ever smelled.  The answer is interesting and somewhat amusing.

When he returns to his apartment M is gone.  She had been reading his notebook in which he wrote down some scribbled ideas.  Mostly they were about her and they weren’t very kind:  “White savior complex? … Volunteering in a refugee camp the new gap-year trend? … Write screen play where she has the refugee’s kid and raises it in Montana.”

The ending is very interesting.