I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD-Willoughby’s Beach (2011).

After releasing five new albums in 2017, KGATLW spent 2018 re-releasing their first five releases.  These were out of print and hard to find.  And now they’re back.

Back in 2011, KGATLW was more of a goofy side project (hence the name).  But they coalesced as a seven-piece band and proceeded to make an EP–Willoughby’s Beach.  At nine songs in about 25 minutes, this garage rock/dirty blues project pretty well flies past.  Lyrics are an afterthought (most songs repeat one line) and most of the songs are under 2 and a half minutes.  It is great zipping fun with fuzzy guitars, fuzzy harmonicas, fuzzy vocals and an all around DIY feel.

“Danger $$$” is a fast, crazy blues with a wild harmonica solo and the repeated shouted lyrics of “danger money” between lots of whoops and screams.  “Black Tooth” opens with a similarly fast riff but it immediately slows down into a slower but still rocking riff.  “Lunch Meat” is a crazy fast and catchy song with the full lyric: “They made me get up in the morning morning morning morning.”

“Let it Bleed” is the longest song on the disc at 3:14.  It’s slower and the repeated lyrics are far more comprehensible (I want to see my lover again).  The wonderfully titled “Crookedile” has a kind of a spy theme for its music dark with echoing squealing guitars and chanted vocals.  What “just say god is on your side, he’s on your side” has to do with the title I have no idea.  “Dead Beat” is also (relatively) long, but it is much faster with lots of whoops and a simple but addictive guitar line.

“Dusbtin Fletcher” is a fun punk song with lots of big backing vocals–like The Monkees doing punk.  Oohs and oh ho ohs make this an incredibly poppy song.  “Stoned Mullet” has two sets of lyrics: “jack it” and “green out.”  Your guess is as good as mine.  It’s fast and catchy with a wonderful chorus.

“Willoughby’s Beach” is quick and catchy, a wonderful end to the disc.  The song is the definition of three-chord rock and features the lyric: “Just because I like you, it doesn’t mean I like you.”  Superb stuff.

[READ: January 31, 2019] Secret Coders: Monsters & Modules

This book ends the Secret Coders storyline.

It begins with the boys feeling very calm as they work out a code that will get them to travel to Flatland.  But Hopper doesn’t understand why they aren’t freaking out since as soon as they work out the code they will be travelling to a world with one fewer dimension!

Using a simple repeating code, the turtle makes the opening and they fall into the second dimension.  Eni turns into a square, Josh turns into a triangle and Hopper turns into a line!  And we learned in the previous books that lines (and women in general) were considered nothing.

They are immediately bothered by circles–the most superior shape in Flatland.  After some altercations, Josh and Eni are thrown in jail.  Hopper is able to hide because she is just a line and is therefore very hard to see.

With some cleverness and some elegant coding they are able to get what they need in Flatland and head back home.  I would have liked to see more of Flatland, but it seemed like a pretty miserable place.  But just like at home, they’d better remember to lock the door when they get back

But things are tough when they get back there.  Dr One-Zero has made a new way to distribute his green stuff–with balloons!  And he has created a hard light monster to stop any interlopers.

At Eni’s home, his mother tells him he is about to be transferred to a school for sports stars–a lucky break since they rarely takes athletes mid-season.  But he likes basketball and he loves coding!

Hopper’s mom has already made plans for them to flee town first thing in the morning (this seems alarmist and weird and I hope she can get her job back if they stay).

How can they save the world if they don’t even live in the same town?   And what about Eni’s crush on Hopper?  And Jake and Paz?  And what’s up with Dr. Bee.  And the open portal to Flatland?

This whole story was a lot of fun.  It suffered a little bit from all the coding but I sometimes the coding was more fun than the story itself–especially if readers really tried to learn the codes.  The story went pretty far off the rails by the end what with two dimensions and all–but it did have a lot of excitement.

The end of the book shows the Making of Secret Coders.  Gene talks about his designs choices and ideas and then Mike explains how much Gene helped with his initial layouts of the story, because Gene provided thumbnail sketches where as most writers only provide a script.

This was a really cool series and, I think, and fun an interesting way to learn to code.