SOUNDTRACK: CAUTIOUS CLAY-Tiny Desk Concert #798 (October 24, 2018).
Cautious Clay has a wonderful name. And that’s really all I knew about him.
He came to the Tiny Desk with friends, a lot of friends. In fact, Josh Karpeh, best known in the music world as Cautious Clay, put together a backing vocal ensemble of friends he’s known since his days as a music student at The George Washington University here in D.C. And so, with five singers – Sanna Taskinen, , Sam East, Claire Miller and Michael Ferrier – along with a drummer, keyboardist and a bassist – Cautious Clay brought a warm, thoughtful and chill vibe to the Tiny Desk.
Clay sings three songs and he shows off a lot of musical skill as well as a delightfully chill voice.
Here at the Tiny Desk, Cautious Clay opens with “Cold War,” a song that I interpret to be about commitments within relationships. The line, “In it for the monetary growth and power / But we divided at the bottom of this whiskey sour” shows the humor and insight that I love in his lyrics.
Eric Lane (Keyboard/keybass), plays a cool riff on the keybass (an instrument I’d never heard of before), but I’m more interested in the cool sounds he’s getting out of the other keyboard. Clay gets some nice falsetto notes as the backing singers join him. The big surprise for me was when Clay pulled out a saxophone and played a tidy little solo. I’m not sure it works with the music, but it sounds fine.
For the second song “Call Me,” Clay grabs a (tiny seeming) guitar and plays left-handed. It’s mostly delicate chords high up on the neck. Midway through this song, Clay picked up a flute and played an all too brief solo. It was a real highlight for me since I’ve been really enjoying the flute lately. Chris Kyle switched from guitar to bass for this song, but he’s back on guitar for the final song.
The only person who doesn’t get to really shine is drummer Francesco Alessi. The drums are pretty quiet and pretty uneventful for most of the show, but I guess they get the job done.
For the final song, “Stolen Moments,” the singers depart, leaving only the four piece. There’s some pretty. simple guitar and another sax solo.
All three songs are a little too soft rock for me, but it’s clear that Cautious Clay has a lot of talent.
[READ: November 21, 2018] “The Dog”
The sign on the gate says “Chien méchant,” and the dog is certainly méchant.
Every day she walks past the dog and it hurls itself at her, snarling and ferocious. She knows it is not personal–it hates everyone.
But she wonders how deep is that hatred. She doesn’t know but she feels the dog gets satisfaction from the encounter–from being feared.
She knows that St. Augustine says that we are base animals because we can’t control our fears and our bodies:
Specifically, a man is unable to control the motions of his virile member. That member behaves as though possessed of a will of its own; perhaps it even behaves as though possessed by an alien will.
She cringes with fear every time the dog lunges at her. She hates being out of control.
One day she gets off her bike and knocks on the owner’s door. The dog is still hurling himself at her as she talks to the owner. She explains the situation to the old impassive couple, that she has been going past for months and it is the same every day. She is humiliated and terrorized every day twice a day.
She wonders if they can maybe introduce her to the dog so this can stop.
But they are not interested in her or her complaints. What else can she do?
For ease of searching, I include: Chien mechant.
I Just Read About That... 
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