I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BLEACHED-“Electric Chair” (Field Recordings, July 25, 2012).

This Field Recording [Bleached: Picnic Table Punk] is related to SXSW (it was filmed on the eve of the 2012 Festival at a food-truck parking lot [The awesomely named Hoover’s Soular Food] off the highway — about a mile northeast of Austin’s swarming 6th Street.

Jennifer and Jessica Clavin make up the core of Bleached, a rough-and-tumble garage-rock band.  Bleached is one of many young punk-infused acts playing three-minute, three-chord bashers with sneering, unraveled immediacy. When played on stage, the band’s music takes on a messy-but-fun live-wire buoyancy.  “Electric Chair,” is a distortion-fueled strumfest built around [literally] two lines: “Just got out the electric chair / and I don’t see you anywhere.”

It almost sounds like they aren’t plugged in (“we’re playing too loud,” one of them says)–you can hear the pick hitting the strings almost as much as the chords themselves.  Adn someone sounds a wee bit out of tune, but that all seems appropriate for this band.  This song is a simple (very simple) rough and tumble garage rock song.

Assisted by Sara Jean Stevens on bass and drummer Jonathan Safley — here playing a light-up tambourine bought at the last second from a tchotchke shop — Bleached showcases its fun, off-the-cuff spirit. It may lack meticulous precision, but the band’s infectious energy and simple, winning hooks more than compensate.

I don’t really care for garage rock all that much and this song doesn’t do all that much for me.  It is too spare and, honestly, I need at least one extra lyric.

[READ: January 5, 2017] “Flower Hunters”

This story is set on Halloween.  But the protagonist, a mom, has forgotten about the day entirely.  The last two days she was absorbed in a book by naturalist William Bartram, who traveled through Florida in 1774 (he’s a real person).  And so, although her boys wanted to be ninjas, she had made one a costume that was a long-sleeved shirt tied in the back and a slotted mask.  The boy is calling himself Cannibal Lecture.  The other boy is getting an old fashioned sheet-as-ghost (she is made uncomfortable about a white boy in a sheet but hopes the rosebuds on the hem mitigate the effects somewhat.

Her husband comes in from work, sees the costumes, raises an eyebrow, remains merciful.

What I really liked about the story was the narrator’s tone.

“She says to her dog, who is beside her at the window…One day you’ll wake up and realize your favorite person has turned into a person-shaped cloud.
The dog ignores her, because the dog is wise.

In addition to failing Halloween , the woman is also failing at friendship.  Her best friend, Meg, told her she doesn’t want to be her best friend anymore: “I’m sorry, I just need to take a break.”

Earlier in an unerring comment, Meg has said to her “you love humanity almost too much, but people always disappoint you.”

Meg is the best person she knows, far better than herself or her husband, maybe even better than William Bartram….she has respected Meg’s wish to take a break and so she has not called Meg or stopped by her house for coffee or sent her children down the street to play with Meg’s children

The obsession with William Bartram came about suddenly. She had taken a drive to Micanopy.  She hated the place until she saw that Bartram had passed through in 1774 when it was a Seminole trading post called Cuscowilla.  When the chief heard that William Bartram was traipsing around Florida collecting floral specimens, he nicked-named him Puc-Puggy which translates to Flower Hunter.  She realizes it was probably not a compliment.

She sits on the porch observing all the trick-or-treaters.  She bought crummy lollipops to hand out this year (last year she had nothing and was punished accordingly).

Usually, she’s the one who trick-or-treats with the boys, with Meg and her three children, but this year Meg is out with Amara, a banker who is nice enough but who competes sneakily, through her children.

I enjoyed this line too:

“The wine is finished; she sucks a lollipop that tastes only red.”

The crux of this story though is something Meg said to her.  She is constantly worried about things and Meg, who has real problems, said, “relax, you can’t do anything about it, go drink the rest of the bottle of wine, take a bath, we can talk in the morning if you’re still sad.”

As the night proceeds a rainstorm begins.  Her husband texts to say they are ok.  But she is more concerned about the sinkhole at the corner of her house. No rain is collecting in the crater, which means that it must be going somewhere.

Maybe she can call her husband and they can look at it together.