I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: REIGNWOLF-“In the Dark” (Field Recordings, June 29, 2012).

This is another Field Recording set at Sasquatch! Music Festival [Reignwolf: A One-Man Rock Show].

I’d never heard of Reignwolf and I’m still not sure if Reignwold is typically a solo project–like here or a band.  “In the Dark” is a simple blues rock song–like Led Zep via the White Stripes.

Jordan Cook plays a noisy, distorted guitar with a metal slide so that there’s pretty much always something coming out of the amp.  After some pretty simple verses he plays a wild, sloppy (broken stringed) solo.

The way he was tearing it up during an impromptu set at the Sasquatch Music Festival, you’d barely notice that Jordan Cook, a.k.a. Reignwolf, broke a string midway through his fiery rendition of “In the Dark” — that is, until you saw the mangled remnants of his guitar, smoldering on the ground after he’d wrenched every wailing chord from its guts.

The song works best when he plays the kick drum.  It adds just enough oomph to make it not seem like a guy playing a guitar.

The Saskatoon native and recent Seattle transplant never misses a beat — literally. When he’s not with a band, he accompanies himself on kick drum and makes enough noise to match a dozen metalheads. In this video, recorded at the artist campground between sets at the festival, Reignwolf causes a ruckus beside his RV and rousts a crowd of sleepy campers into dancing and cheering.

The soloing goes on for a while and the people around him seem to like it.  Although the soloing behind his head is a bit much, but hey, if you can do it, then go ahead!

[READ: February 1, 2017] “The Sightseers”

I really liked a main aspect of this story, and so many of the details.

The story begins with an overprivileged New York family.  They have a maid/cook/gofer named Kiki from Tibet and the husband marvels at Kiki and “their calm, those people.”

The father, Robert, is happy that they no longer go to North East Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving–the round nephews and the piles and piles of food.  For their Thanksgiving they would be having salmon as Robert was training five times a week with a Navy Seal.

When the salmon turns out to be halibut, the son says that wasn’t on the menu (the menus were designed ahead of time to limit daily stress by preparing the children for their dinners ahead of time–there would be no surprises.  The son asks if the next time they have halibut it will be salmon.  The father thinks that’s an excellent suggestion.

That’s when the son expresses concern about the Herons.  Not the birds, but a family.  The son says that their cameras are all pointed at the ceiling and he wonders if they are dead.   The daughter asks why the family came to New York anyway.  The dad says it’s a great city, but the kids agree that Walt Disney World would have been a better choice–that’s where the Shacklers went.  And Robert is concerned. The Herons had an active day planned.

a crack-of-dawn breakfast, a double-decker bus downtown, visits to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and the 9/11 Memorial, another bus back to Times Square for a late lunch at the Brooklyn Diner. All of this was in keeping with their detailed itinerary, curated by Robert and Co.

Turns out the husband and wife are going out that night to a party.  So Kiki must put the kids to bed while they go out to the driver .  We learn very little about the driver except that he looks like Burt Reynolds in Cannonball Run.  And this delightfully off exchange:

“We’ll probably be about three hours.”
“I shall prepare a noble death song for the day I go over the great divide.”

Then the wife asks if he has been watching the Herons. She says they have missed the central park carriage ride and they look like they’ll miss Wicked.

Robert says that they can get tickets themselves for Wicked.

So it is revealed that they are often getting people to do the sightseeing for them with cameras strapped to their heads.  The Shacklers were grateful  But the Herons… maybe she should complain: “It’s just we’re paying all this money so they can have a nice trip to New York, and they’re not keeping up their end of the deal, which is against the terms and conditions, I assume.”

At least they aren’t getting an unexpected surprise like the Burkes did:

The Burkes had come across a bout of unexpected lovemaking, which was typical of the Burkes, to have that kind of luck. Their particular mom and dad were in France and had woken up in the middle of the night and slipped on their cams and had quiet yet vigorous husband-and-wife sex while their children snoozed in the adjoining room.

They get to the party and make fun of the absurd size of the doorknob and we meet all of their rich friends–friends who own a Rothko.  There is superficial talk and fake plans of schmoozing with the insufferable Flip.  And then a family talks about their virtual family currently touring the Taj Mahal.

For the whole party, Robert is mad at his wife–sniping at her in his mind, thinking about the therapy they’ve done.  He also seems to hate everyone else there.

When they get home, she sends him a picture of her skirt hiked up.  Robert realized it was because the conversation at the party was about sexting and he hated all of his friends, so she tried to send a polite reply.

This is all seeming to go somewhere but the end of the story has Robert walking his dog.  It seemed as if maybe they never experience the city on their own like this.

I loved the ideas that they were sightseers in their own life.  I also loved mocking the pretentious family.

But all of this was kind of lost to the rest of the story which fell a little flat.