I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LIGHTSPEED CHAMPION (“Field Recording” March 2, 2009).

Years before NPR created a category called “Field Recordings,” they were creating Field Recordings–“backstage” (or elsewhere) recordings of bands.  Most of these seem to happen at Music Festivals where musicians just seem to be hanging around anyway.

I have no idea how many of these there are.  In fact, the only reason I discovered this one is because there was a link to it from the Blood Orange Tiny Desk Concert.

Because it turns out that Devonté Hyness, the guy behind Blood Orange was once Dev Hynes, the guy behind Lightspeed Champion.

And so, eleven years ago, Lightspeed Champion played SXSW.

It was a spectacularly beautiful day in Austin, TX when Lightspeed Champion’s Dev Hynes and violinist Mike Siddell met with All Songs Considered’s Bob Boilen for this exclusive outdoor performance. Hynes and Siddell offered up an intimate little set as they ran through four songs, opening with “Tell Me What It’s Worth,” followed by “Everyone I Know is Listening to Crunk,” “Galaxy of the Lost” and an inspired cover of Olivia Newton John’s “Xanadu.”

For all four songs, it’s Dev on acoustic guitar and Mike on violin.  Like on “Tell Me What It’s Worth” Dev sings mostly quietly with his accent audible.  The violin adds sweet touches and occasional solos.

He introduces “Everyone I Know is Listening to Crunk” by saying that crunk is a musical genre that originated about two hours east of here.  Li’l John more or less started it and the queen of crunk is Sierra.  It features this amusing chorus (?)

my drawings are starting to suck
My best friends are all listening to crunk
i feel like the world’s gone crazy
…sometimes in the cold night my phone rings but it’s not you

“Galaxy of the Lost” is a slow pretty ballad with a lovely rising scale in the middle.

Finally comes his cover of “Xanadu” (a song I love).  The opening guitar sounds like “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” and I love the way he resolves it into “Xanadu.”  The sprinkles of violin are a nice touch.

It’s pretty amazing how different this sounds from Blood Orange.  It’s an impressive development for an artist.

[READ: January 23, 2019] Secret Coders: Potions & Parameters

Secret Coders 4 ended with a puzzle.  But I read it months ago, so I haven’t even thought about it since then.  In fact, I have conceded that I will not learn basic programming from this series, so I’m not even trying.  I could see, though, that if you were reading these in quick succession that it would be fun to learn how to do what they are doing and to try the tests.

When we last left our heroes they were being attacked by biting ducks (!).  They use their program skills and the hard-light-generating Light-Light to escape.  And they wind up in a room with all the people who have drunk the green soda.  Including Hopper’s dad.  What?

As they try to snap him out of the “green!” stupor he is in, Dr. One-Zero arrives with Paz.  Turns out Paz was double crossing the kids all along and now Dr. One-Zero has the hard light generator and has the kids trapped.  He’s that much closer to winning–and his final plan is pretty terrible.

Josh is devastated that Paz was tricking him.  He really liked her.  He withdraws somewhat which just leaves Hopper and Eni alone.  Eni confesses something that Hopper doesn’t want to to hear.  But before the dust settles on THAT, Josh discovers that Paz slipped him a note.

The note is very cleverly stained to indicate a binary code–see, learning binary is cool.  This helps them escape the room.

Hopper runs into her mom who is thrilled that Hopper found her dad, but when she sees the state of him, she thinks it’s time to give up (this is surprising coming from her tough as nails mom).

When the kids finally tell Dr Bee what happened, he is furious that they stole the Turtle of Light (Light-Light). Then he realizes that anger solves nothing and that they were trying their best and he shows them another secret room.  It’s full of hover turtles!  Dr Bee then shows them how to make circles with the turtles.  They are able to use the circles to disrupt Dr One-Zero’s plans temporarily.

Then Dr Bee reveals his origin story.  And it has to do with Edwin Abbott’s Flatland, which takes place in a land of two dimensions.  Dr Bee says he was born a square!  I enjoyed the surreal nature of this revelation and the social commentary that this book has about that book.

And that the kids are about to go to Flatland themselves!

This book offered a cute unrelated short story at the end.  Joel lost his dog in the park.  With the help of the Giant Flying Laser Turtle, they program some repeats into their machine and cover the park pretty easily.

I assumed, once again, that the next book will be the last.  But if the kids are just going to Flatland, how can it end so soon?

This series gets weirder and weirder and more exciting with each book.