I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD-Eyes Like the Sky (2013).

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard clearly didn’t set out to top the charts. After the frenetic fun of 12 Bar Bruise, their follow up is this–a spoken word “Western” musical.  Stu Mackenzie says that after recording “Sam Cherry’s Last Shot” with Broderick Smith, he wanted to try a “multi-song, read-along, narrative based western musical” and Brod was keen to write a story and narrate it.

The music is impressively “Western.”   Right out of the gates, you feel the reverbed guitars and sound effects of gun shots.  Repeating motifs abound and there is an amazing amount of restraint.  Plus, the songs (which don’t really follow the story chapters) are quite different from each other (all within the same Western motif). “Year of Our Lord” builds some real suspense.  While “The Raid” adds some surf guitars.

You can also hear his parents’ dogs barking in “The Killing Ground” and his dad banging on a rusted saw blade, which you can hear in “The Raid.”

“Drum Run” is, indeed, very drum heavy with distant echoing harmonica.

And then there is the story.  A story of a man who is feared as a legend.

The bad white men call him the devil the Yavapai call him Eyes Like the Sky.

Miguel O’Brien was kidnapped from his white family when he was five years old.  He became a fearless Yavapai Apache warrior.

The American Civil had not encroached on Apache territory.  But ten years later, the Americans brought their war to Apache land.  They were

Led by a man holding a leather book with a cross stamped in the leather.  An evil man who did terrible  things to people in the name of a god that looked upon the man himself with revulsion

The music for this track is called “Evil Man” and between the Western riff and the backing “ahahas,” it’s got gunslinger all over it.

The Americans killed the Apache, but he was spared because of his blue eyes.  But once more family he loved had been killed–this time by Americans.

The god man thought he might be from the O’Brien family or maybe the Jebsen family.  So they named him Jebsen O’Brien but they called him “blue” because of his eyes and his expression.  A trapper taught him white man’s ways so that he could read and write and also learned to use a gun.

The god man was a truly evil man–“satisfying his goat lust with a Yavapei girl.”  Seeing this defilement, Blue swiftly killed him. Then he took guns, money and the defiled girl and fled from the Fort.  The two of them happened upon a scene of death–white men killing white men but disguised as Apache.

I’ll not spoil the ending but the final two songs are “Dust in the Wind” (not that one) and “Guns & Horses.”   “Dust in the Wind” is a stomping song that presages death–of many.  “Guns & Horses” ends the story–all too early in my opinion.  While Eyes Like the Sky’s story comes to a satisfying conclusion, I want to hear more.

With a cool soundtrack.

Incidentally, the soundtrack is far more grown up than the graphic novel.

[READ: February 5, 2019] Knife’s Edge

I didn’t realize that these two books made up the Four Points series (I didn’t know there was a series title until I looked this book up].  But it is nice to see that this book ends the story.  And it ends it very well.

This book opens with the explanation of what happened to Alex and Cleo’s father when he left them on their own.  He went off to do a (supposedly) simple job down at the docks.  But while he is aboard a ship he is attacked by Lucky Worley.  Turns out Worley knew that Mr Dodge had the pocket watch and pocket knife–the clues that will lead him to the treasure he wants so badly.  It also turns out that he doesn’t know about Alex and Cleo.  So he hijacks Mr Dodge and takes him aboard his ship.   We also learn that Dodge isn’t their father–which we knew from how young the babies were when he received them, but the kids didn’t.  He doesn’t know who their real father was.

Worley had caught word of them through their involvement in the Black Hook gang and he deduced that they had the map pieces.  So their lives were now in danger.  And that’s pretty much where book one began.

Once everyone is back up to speed the kids have to decide hoe to find the treasure.  Tarboro, the former mate and now captain of the ship says that he will take them as long as he gets a cut.  And so they head off.  But things are not good between  Alex and Cleo.  Alex imagines being a captain someday and Tarboro is more than happy to teach him the ways of being a captain (which starts with swabbing the deck).  Cleo, meanwhile wants adventure too, but being a girl, she is less welcome on the ship and she is forced to help Cookie do the cooking.  Her only consolation is that Tarboro says he’ll teach her sword play.

Their ship heads into a port where they are able to get supplies. But while they are loading up, they run into Luther.  Rather than attacking Cleo, he rescues her from a bar fight.  In fairness, Cleo started the bar fight.  The woman at the bar cursed her for being a red-head as it was red-headed woman who stole her man. The long and short of it is that the red head who stole her man was Hester–the twin’s mother.   And their father is a pirate named Brandel.  They fight and rescue is pretty great.

It turns out the Luther feels badly about working for Worley and for scaring Cleo and he wants out–even if the price for dissertation is death.  Cleo forgives him and invites him to come aboard ship.

But Worley has eyes on everything and he knows that Luther is with the twins and he plans to follow them to the treasure.

There’s an attempt at boarding the ship, but Tarboro is able to get away–leaving his ship a shell of itself.   They eventually put ashore at Monono island–at the home of an old friend of Tarboro.  The folks at Monono welcome them and feed them. They all prepare to go to the island where they believe the treasure was hidden.

But Worley is not far behind   And then comes the emotional part.  Worley is dying form an infection.  His first mate Louisa comes asking for the folks on Monono to save his life in exchange for sparing Luther’s life.  And fine, forsaking the treasure.  We also learn about Worley’s childhood and why he turned into a cruel pirate (it’s pretty nasty, but not too much for a kid’s book).  Turns out he was an orphan as well, and he uses his story to get close to Cleo.  He explains why he wants the treasure-not for the full treasure but for a particular ring that the pirate Brandel stole from him.  He wants it back and Cleo agrees to show him where it is.  He gives her his word, but how trustworthy is a pirate’s word?

When Alex and the rest realize that Cleo is gone, they think she must have been kidnapped and they rush to the treasure island to save her.

Everything culminates on that island and its very exciting.  There is so much action and twists in the last few pages that it was almost exhausting.

I also love that Larson turns storytelling into such a powerful medium that it can literally bring happiness from thousands of miles away.  What a terrific ending.

I just can’t believe we never heard anything about the other set of twins from book 1.

I usually find out about books when they first come out and then I have to wait a year for book two.  So it was very cool to be able to read all of the parts close together so that everything can really resonate.