SOUNDTRACK: RHYE-Live at Massey Hall (March 5, 2018).
Rhye opens with the sweetest story about Massey Hall thus far–“My parents’ first date was at Massey Hall.” He also says the first show he saw there was Sigur Rós, which must have been amazing. (They played there 6 times, so I’m not sure which one).
He knew that he had to play there…somehow. Setting a big goal makes you subconsciously have to do it.
Rhye is a Canadian R&B act created by Mike Milosh. As such (the R&B, not the Canadian part), I don’t enjoy this show all that much. Although Milosh has a wonderful high-pitched voice and a second listen got me to come around to a lot of what he was doing.
Prior to Rhye, Milosh had a band called Milosh and they released two albums. But these songs are form the two Rhye albums.
His band is made up of organic and electronic instruments. He’s got horns and strings as well as synths.
The first song is “3 Days” and despite all of the live instruments the entire middle of the songs is overtaken by a weirdly cheesy keyboard solo (performed by Theresa Womack ). The key board sound they chose is so unpleasant. But I do like the way the solo ends in utter chaos. During the solo Milosh plays a small drum kit (there is already a drummer, Zacahary Morillo) which he plays harder during the crescendo. I really enjoy the crescendos of his songs.
“Waste” is a gentle song with cello from Claire Courchene and Milosh gently singing. It’s quite a pretty melody and ends with a cool trombone solo (also from Claire Courchene!).
“Please” continues in the same mellow vein. As with the other songs, the bass (from Itai Shapira) sounds great throughout. The middle gets loud with a clap-along “give me all of that sugar cane, one more time.”
For “Count to Five” Milosh removes his jacket and gets back on the tiny snare and high hat. This song is much funkier than the others. By the middle of the song, the guitars (Patrick Bailey and Paul Pfisterer) kick in full–the keys soaring and the bowed upright bass roars along. It’s a shame it doesn’t last longer, but it does act for a nice dramatic middle section.
“Song for You” opens with a quiet keyboard melody and gently strummed guitars. The trombone comes back adding some nice washes of sound. The gentle trilling of strings works really nicely along with Milosh’s quieter and quieter singing. For the end of the song he steps away from the mic and up to the front row as he sings along. This whole denouement goes on for about four minutes of intimacy.
“Taste” gets things moving again with a clap-along into and a funky bass line. And indeed this turns out to be a dance song “I’m dancing with my eyes closed” and even throws in a disco bass line during the rather wailing guitar solo. It’s my favorite song of the set. The song is quite long and the dance part segues into a pretty piano based denouement for the show.
Rhye’s not my thing, but I did enjoy this show.
[READ: April 10, 2019] “Monster”
This story won The 1999 Esquire Fiction Competition. I have no idea what the criteria were for that competition–previously unpublished? No idea, although she doesn’t seem to have written anything else that I can easily discern.
This story opens by telling us that a motorcycle is definitely in the town’s pond. It has been there as long as anyone can remember. But no one can remember whose it was. And no one owns the pond. So it just sits there.
Seventeen year old Dale Roberts would go almost daily to the pond with his little brother Davey, Their father said there was no bike down there–it was more likely a monster. This excited Dave more than the motorcycle.
Dale imagined that motorcycle under him. He imagined riding fast, riding the hell away from here. Dale’s father has a motorcycle and Dale is forbidden from touching it. He said the only place Dale was going “was juvey hall if he didn’t straighten up and fly right.”
There’s some interesting back story about the time Dale saw his best friend leave unexpectedly–right as Dale was walking past their house. The door burst open and his friend’s mom rushed his friend into the car while his friend’s father sat with his head in his hands. They drove off and never came back.
So Dale thought more and more about that pond cycle.
Dale had a girlfriend, Hart, and he liked her enough. But kissing her did not satisfy his desire for that bike.
Finally he could take it no more. He waded into that murky, green, very questionable pond. And then he dove down. His leg hit something sharp and he knew it was the bike.
Davey hoped it was the monster. But it was not. It was the bike, Dale was sure of it. He was so excited. It was going to be his! But how on earth would he get it out of there?
Dale asked his brother’s friend’s dad if he could borrow his truck for this project. The man was bemused by the whole thing. He told Dale he could borrow the truck but if he got into any trouble it was Dale’s responsibility.
And soon, Dale drove to the pond with far more people than he’d hoped–Davey and the truck owner’s son as well as Hart and her friend who made a picnic of it.
Dale didn’t know how to do this but he’d worry about that once he got a handle on the bike.
So he dove down and everyone waited. He dove again and again and again and soon everybody went home.
As they walked home, Dale was despondent. Davey was bummed too, but it didn’t stop him from talking.
My favorite part of the story came near the end, as they are walking home. Davey is talking about how easy it is to measure distance if you have a map and a ruler–you can learn actual distance! Dale had many other things on his mind and he
envied the way Davey assumed that things were as he perceived them. The houses on the street, for example, all looked similar, but things inside were completely different. If Davey noticed these differences, he didn’t know that they meant something, and he was lucky, because having that kind of information didn’t get you anywhere. You didn’t gain by knowing one house was warm and smelled of wood soap and the other stunk like cat piss and beer. It didn’t make you any better or smarter. It was just something you had to carry around.
The end of the story is a little disappointing though and reminds me of the kind of ending I used to put on stories because I though they needed a dark moment to be real.
Dale and Hart go to a party and Dale winds up leaving with another girl–a far more forward girl–who invites him to her house. But he wants a pit stop at the pond to show her something.
I worried that hew as going to kill her or something, but no, he just acts like a jerk.
Kind of like life I guess.
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