I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LA FORCE-Live at Massey Hall (June 15, 2018).

I’d never heard of La Force.  Turns out La Force is Ariel Engle, vocalist and newest member of Broken Social Scene.  In her pre-show interview she says something that concludes with “life’s a bitch and then you die,” which didn’t bode well, but her sound is interesting (if maybe too much saxophone).

The show starts with “Upside Down Wolf.”  I love the weird square guitar she plays (and the cool sound that comes from it).  There’s also an acoustic guitar, sax and drums.  The drums from Evan Tighe are really dynamic with some great unexpected rhythms (and electronics).

The blurb describes “You Amaze Me” as infectious.  It’s a more dancey song with lots of drum-triggered sounds.  The sax from David French works pretty well here because it adds to the swells of music that are triggered by the drums.  And when the sax does add a solo, it;s a nice deep sax, which is a nice change of sound.

“Lucky One” opens slowly with a great guitar sound–a slow intro that is accented wonderfully by the acoustic guitar (there seems to be a cool echo on Warren Spicer’s sliding his hand up and down the strings).

“The Tide” swings faster.  Both guitarists add some cool sounds while the drums shuffle quickly.  Before the next song she explains she got the name La Force from a tarot card.  The La Force card had a picture of a woman opening a lion’s mouth and she loved the idea of the power that represented.

“Can’t Take” is a moody, slow piece, with some cool lead guitar from Spicer while Engle plays a very pretty minor key melody.

“TBT” opens with a simple two note guitar riff (that’s quite infectious) and a cool tribal drum beat.  The end of the song is a wonderful jam of the guitar, sax and drums totally rocking out.  It’s my favorite moment of the show and a great end.

[READ: January 20, 2019] Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter

I get the feeling that this book may have been initially intended for an older audience and then they brought it down to be more family friendly.  Or maybe it feels more like a pilot episode than a confident story.  It just didn’t feel natural.

I enjoyed a lot of the book, but it felt forced in places.  Especially because Scarlett says all kinds of exclamations that seem odd–Leaping Lizards! or Gaskets! or Piston Heads!  I mean, she’s not a car person, so why would she scream car epithets?

I also didn’t love the darkness of the story.  I realize times are bleak, but the art doesn’t have to be.

The premise is that Scarlett Hart is a monster hunter (duh).  But by law, she is too young to fight monsters (not sure how old she is or what the age of consent is, but she is younger than it).  This seems like a strange law, but many laws are strange.  She has help, though, from her butler Napoleon White and his wife.  They also helped her parents fight monsters.

But her parents were killed several years ago while on the job.  She can’t get revenge against the monsters that killed them but she can become the best monster hunter she can be.

The only thing standing in her way is Count Stankovic (which is such an obvious name it kind of hurts).  He,too, is a monster hunter and he has it in for Scarlett.  He tries to beat her at every turn.  This is especially bad for Scarlett because she needs the money one gets from capturing monsters.  The fact is, though, that she can’t turn the monsters in without getting caught. Napoleon has to do it.  And Stankovic knows it.

They don’t seem to be able to get to the big monsters so they go after some smaller ones.  The fight scenes are weird with each one starting off with a bold lettered [FIGHT! The Black Dog of Suffolk County!]  (which earns then 20 crowns).

The next one [FIGHT! The Mummies of the Theatre Royal!] is especially weird because they are supposed to be mummies but they are clearly zombies who even say “Bwains.”  And yet they are constantly referred to as mummies.

When Stankovic gets word of her work with the mummies, he calls the police on her and gets her in court for underage hunting.  One more arrest and she loses her house and everything else.

They do some research on Stankovic and discover just why he hates her so much (it has to do with romance of course–not with her, thankfully).  As they investigate further, they discover that even though he is a monster hunter, he seems to be working with someone who has the power to release monsters.  Is he the reason there are so many monster now?

The ending is a conclusion of excess right out of Undercover Brother, except that Stankovic survives to hunt again.

So maybe, with a full plot under way the next book will be a little more complete-feeling.