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Archive for June, 2019

Megan Williams & Uri Geller–“Remote Control” (Harper’s, June 2019)

Posted in Brexit, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 1, First Nations, Harper's, Interviews, Jeremy Dutcher, NPR/PRI/PBS, Psychics, Therea May, Tiny Desk Concert, Tobique, Uri Geller, Wolastoq on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JEREMY DUTCHER-Tiny Desk Concert #851 (May 22, 2019).

I have seen this photo from the Tiny Desk of Jeremy Dutcher in his shiny purple clothes for a month or so now and I’ve been very curious about just what was going on.

I had no idea that he was a First Nations performer or that this performance would be so intense.

Jeremy Dutcher came to the Tiny Desk with sparkling, purple streams of glitter draped around his shoulders. Then he set his iPad on our Yamaha upright piano, not to read his score as pianists do these days, but to play a centuries-old wax cylinder recording of a song sung in the incredibly rare language of Wolastoq.

Dutcher is

a 27-year-old, classically trained opera tenor and pianist. He’s not only a member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada, but one of fewer than 100 people who still speak — and in his case also sing — in Wolastoq.

The song that used that wax cylinder recording was “Mehcinut” which begins with lovely gentle piano music by some quiet cello.

Jeremy Dutcher, along with cellist Blanche Israel and percussionist and electronics wizard Greg Harrison, wove that old recording into a remarkably passionate performance that was very 21st-century, with a deep nod to a century past.

Then the song jumps into a faster rhythm and the drums are added.  When Dutcher sings he sounds operatic and I assumed that he was singing in Italian.  It’s fascinating to learn that it is in Wolastoq.  Then I heard the old recording play.  I wasn’t watching, so I didn’t know what was happening.  That part is even more interesting to know what it is and the way he has based the song melody around that.

His album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa from which these song are taken won the 2018 Polaris prize.

“Pomok naka Poktoinskwes” [“The Fisher and the Water Spirit”] opens with more beautiful piano melodies and cello drones.  After a verse or so, he slams on the piano and the song takes off.  The percussion grows loud and heavy with Harrison hitting all kinds of things (acoustic and electronic) with both sides of his mallets and cello sliding up to high notes.

His voice As the song nears the end, he sings into the opening of the piano and you can hear his voice echoing as if from miles and miles away.   It’s outstanding.

His Tiny Desk performance illustrates his deep respect for his heritage, even as he sings through vocal processors and looping devices of the very present.

But more importantly, he stresses awareness of a people nearly extinct, to a culture often too steeped in the present.

Introducing “Koselwintuwakon” he says our earth mother is very sick. She will take care of herself.  But we must build relationships with each other.  These should be built on love and song.  He asks everyone to sing a drone–a symbolic and fun gesture that everyone an partake in.

This is a much quieter piece, with his voice looped.  It is peaceful and feel magical.  Harrison starts bowing something–I can’t tell what it is, but it adds magical sounds and his low thumping drums bring this ethereal song down to earth.

By the end of the piece, all of Dutcher’s voices have been looped and he sits at the piano manipulating the sounds.

It’s an amazingly moving moment and really unites the centuries and the cultures.  One can only hope that he inspires others to learn the language as well.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “Remote Control”

This is an excerpt from an interview on the CBC between Megan Williams and Uri Geller, the Israeli-British psychic who I can’t believe is still alive.

I don’t usually post about things like this but I enjoyed this so much I felt it needed to be posted here.

Geller wrote an open letter and made a “threat of sorts” to Theresa May attempting to get her to stop Brexit. (more…)

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Jill Ciment–“Then Again” (Harper’s, June 2019)

Posted in Ensemble Signal, Excerpt, Harper's, Jill Ciment, Jonny Greenwood, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Memory, NPR/PRI/PBS, Olivier Messiaen, Radiohead, Sex, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Tiny Desk Concert on June 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ENSEMBLE SIGNAL PLAYS JONNY GREENWOOD-Tiny Desk Concert #850 (May 20, 2019).

The blurb for this piece is actually by Jonny Greenwood (instead of an NPR staffer), so I’ll keep the whole thing.

I’ve watched a lot of Tiny Desk concerts over the years. It’s good to see musicians in the raw, away from stage lighting and backing tracks — as if they’ve just stopped by an office to play over a lunch break, with desk-bound employees watching on. The performances should expose flaws, but instead they tend to expose musicians being casually brilliant, like the members of Ensemble Signal, who certainly play these pieces beautifully.

Unfortunately, I was nowhere near Washington, D.C. for this recording. And I still find it bizarre that you can put a musical idea on paper and have it reproduced at such a distance — and with such added life. We’re used to sounds and images being shared as exact clones of one another, but the pleasure in using ink and paper is that the music is interpreted rather than just reproduced. All those years of practice, in all those players, distilled into 15 minutes of music. It’s a big privilege — and a continuing motivation to write the best I can.

The first piece, Three Miniatures from Water, was originally a sketch for an Australian Chamber Orchestra commission in 2014. I thought it’d be easier to approach writing for full orchestra by starting with a piano miniature and scaling it up. In fact, only some of the material made it to the final commission, and I always felt the original three miniatures hung together well enough as its own piece of music.

I’m a big admirer of composer Olivier Messiaen, and one of the musical scales he favored was the octatonic mode. It’s a lot like an Indian rag in that it’s a rigid set of notes, yet isn’t necessarily in a major or minor key. There are hundreds of rags in Indian music, but I was surprised to find that Messiaen’s octatonic scale isn’t one of them. Despite this, it sits nicely over a drone — and that was the starting point for this music. That and the glorious sound of the tanpura, the drone instrument that underpins everything in classical Indian music.

The piece is called Water, after the Philip Larkin poem with the same title, and was especially inspired by the final stanza:

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

The second piece, called 88 (No. 1), is also in one of Messiaen’s modes in the first half, before becoming a celebration of the mechanical nature of the piano. The performer has to put fingerless gloves on halfway through, partly in tribute to the immortal Glenn Gould, and partly because the technique requires some painful hammering. But don’t let that fool you into thinking the music is dark or angry: It is — or is meant to be — joyful.

“Three Miniatures from Water” features lots of drones from the strings ( Lauren Radnofsky on cello and Greg Chudzik on bowed upright bass).  There’s also the excellent tanpura drones from Paul Coleman and Elena Moon Park. The violin from Olivia De Prato plays a slow melody that seems to appear and disappear while the piano plays a somewhat spooky pizzicato melody.

“88 (No. 1)” is a solo piano piece by Lisa Moore (who played piano on the other piece as well).  It does seem to use all 88 keys in various fashion.  Indeed, she does put on fingerless gloves a little more than half way through the piece where she does play quite possibly every note (I can’t imagine what that looks like on paper).  For the last 45 seconds, she seems to be banging relentlessly (but tunefully–are there chords?) all over the keys.

Neither one of these pieces seem particularly joyful to me–they both seem kind of scary, but I am fascinated at the kind of compositions the guy from Radiohead makes.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “Then Again”

This is an excerpt from The Other Half, a manuscript that Ciment is writing to rebut her own 1996 memoir, Half a Life.

In that original memoir, she wrote about meeting her husband.  At the time she was seventeen and he was forty-seven (and her art teacher).

She asks what should she call him now.  “My husband”?  Yes, if it is the story is about the man she married and lived with for forty-five years.  But what if it is about an older man preying on a teenager.  Should she call him “The artist” or “the art teacher.”

She says he didn’t know what to expect when he kissed her for the first time–she could have screamed or slapped him.  But she had fantasized about him for the last six months, so that was not going to happen. (more…)

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Mary Grimm–“Back Then” (New Yorker, June 24, 2019)

Posted in Hair Salon, Lakes, Mary Grimm, Meteor showers, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Rheostatics, Short Story, Wolves on June 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-“Here Come the Wolves” (2019).

This is the first new officially released Rheostatics song in 15 years.  And it’s a doozy. A six and a half minute epic with a few different parts and styles within.

I’ve heard this song on a few of the the recent RheostatcisLive recordings, but this studio version explores depth and detail in a way that the live version could not.  And it’s really fantastic.

The video is also cool because it shows guitarist/singer Martin Tielli in a timelapse video finishing the cover art.

Starting with a menacing riff including Hugh Marsh on violin (and some interesting whoos! in the distance), the chorus opens the song.  Then comes a stomping series of catchy verses.

After 2 and a half minutes, the song slows down and Martin picks up a quietly sung middle section.  He sings over some eerie violins and keys before the guitars slowly build.  Quietly picked acoustic guitar flesh out the song as Martin continues.

After two minutes of this quieter section, it picks up again with a piano-based version of the melody.  This takes on a more uplifting feel as Martin sings in his whispered vocals.

The song has a nice climax and then a short denouement.

It’s nowhere near as weird as some of my favorite songs by them, although it is far from a guaranteed radio hit.  Nevertheless it is pure Rheostatics, and I love it.

I’m delighted to have them back making new music and holy cow, if I have to go to Toronto to see them play live, so be it.

[READ: June 24, 2019] “Back Then”

This is a story of a woman looking back on her burgeoning adulthood.

In the summers she and her family would go to a lake (in Ohio).  The story begins with them watching the Perseids.  She and her sister wanted to go down to the lake to see them fall into the water, but her mom always said no.

The story is full of sweet details–her sister peeing behind the furnace in her grandmother’s room, walking in flip-flops to buy the paper for their dad, the goat in the neighbor’s yard, even the trailer park.  They had enforced lunch and “quiet time.”  Quiet time was supposedly to prevent them from getting cramps, but it was really just for their mom to have some peace.  And how the last day always brought a double feeling of wanting to stay forever and wanting to go home. (more…)

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Steve Martin–“Shouters” (New Yorker, September 11, 2000)

Posted in Aristotle, Friedrich Nieztche, Huh?, Steve Martin, Unfunny, UraShimaSakataSen, USSS, 浦島坂田船 on June 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: UraShimaSakataSen (浦島坂田船)-Shoutër (2016).

When I looked up “Shouter” I found this song (I love the umlaut).

I’ve never heard of UraShimaSakataSen (浦島坂田船), or USSS for short.  But I love that this is their description:

USSS is a 4-unit indie pop boy group consisting of Uratanuki (Green), Shima (Purple), Sakata (Red) and Senra (Yellow).

I didn’t spend a lot of time researching this band, but every image of them seems to be manga.  And the video for this song is entirely manga (hilariously only four still images recycled).  Each singer is a color and each singer has a background of that color.  And each time that singer sings the screen turns that color.

I particularly like that Green has a cuddle creature on his shoulder implying some kind of fascinating back story, I’m sure.

Most of the lyrics are in Japanese, but there is an occasional English section like the one that mentions the title:

浦)Unlimited,
島)Success,
坂田)Shining,
船)Shoutër,

For a pop band, this song doesn’t quite sound as poppy as I’d have thought.

It starts with a flute and loud electronic drums as the soft vocals come in.  The flute returns and it segues to heavy guitars and kind of rapped section as the song bounces along.

The chorus has heavy guitars and a grungey stomp before all four sing whatever it is the chorus is.

The melding of heavy metal guitars, traditional sounding flute, dance drums and pop melody and fast singing is (at least for 2016) so uniquely Japanese.

Babymetal has released their first album two year earlier.  While this is in no way a heavy metal song (and sounds nothing like Babymetal), the use of the really heavy guitars in this song has to be attributed to Babymetal’s success.

Then I had to check out the lyrics.  Someone has spelled out the English lyrics online.  Holy cow this is a really dark song.  And, how many pop songs name check Joan of Arc, Aristotle and Nietzche?  Is UraShimaSakataSen some kind of existential anime boy band?  The plot thickens.

Maybe we cry while we’re born
And smile when we die because we’re happy
All our words pile up
Our voices continue to reach its limits as we search for the meaning of shouting
Input, Verify, Accept, Start.
Being raised in a made-up and empty pitch black world
I play alone
A little light shines from the window like a lamp
One or two texts stand out
I wonder what I should play tonight.
Should I talk, dance, or draw…
Walk out to spaces and change
Going back and forth from reality and delusions
All ya flags throw away; struggle through it.
After spending extra time eating dinner and taking a bath
I say the magic words.
Listen to my voice
What should we shout in an empty world?
The people who “encourage” us, like a gallant figure Jeanne d’Arc
What should we shout in an empty world?
We chase after people who cause “conflict”, and want to be like Einstein…
Shout! Yeah Yeah Yeah
Until our voices continues to reach its limits
Stopped, Reload, Reenter, Restart.
I see. It’s because I wasn’t taught to be a good loser?
I only keep on losing my way
So I wonder what I should do with my future?
Right hand, left hand, you, and a survey
Let’s talk more; it’s prolonging the battle
Really, thank you for everything.
Shocking sound and tonight; you’re the guest of honor
Here, so to say, is the electronic secret base
Enjoy tour and travel; I’m the guide
It’s the era for minority groups and puffing out your chest.
These are words to destroy weapons
Listen to my voice
What should we shout in an empty world?
We “petition” to understand people, like the unfortunate Alan Turing.
Comforting people in lamentation about Friedrich Nietzsche…
Shout! Yeah Yeah Yeah
Until our voices continue to reach its limits
If the us that cry while we’re born
Smile when we die,
Then, y’know
I’ll make noise with you all every night
Until our voices reach its limits.
That’s the answer I got from shouting daily.
The empty world disappears and returns to normal.
Each person lives together and waits for reality in a faraway place
In an empty world, I wonder what’s left?
I want to play here one more time.
Please listen to my voice
What should we shout in an empty world?
“Confessions” tie people to the truthful Aristotle.
What should we shout in an empty world?
“Promises” tempt people like Shakespeare…
Shout! Yeah Yeah Yeah
Until your voice reaches its limit

[READ: June 20, 2019] “Shouters”

I think it’s fascinating the way that Shouts & Murmurs tends to make funny people… less funny.  Is it the nature of the New Yorker, that the comedy is such that it’s at a different wavelength?  (Not higher or lower, just different).

Or maybe these pieces aren’t really supposed to be all that funny.

Steve Martin is one of the funniest people ever and yet this idea is so blandly unfunny, that I don’t understand why he wrote it.

I enjoyed the opening… (more…)

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Zev Borow–“Superstring Theory for Dummies” (New Yorker, August 14, 2000)

Posted in Dave Eggers, Funny (ha ha), Graham Coxon, McSweeney's, Might, New Yorker, Science, The End of the F***cking World, Unfunny, Zev Borow on June 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GRAHAM COXON-The End Of The F***ing World (Original Songs and Score) (2018).

When I saw Graham Coxon live, he played a bunch of songs from this soundtrack.

I assumed that the soundtrack would be one song and a bunch of moody instrumentals, so I never really looked into it. But recently I read that it was really good.

And it is.

There’s 16 songs on the record.  Most are full songs and the few instrumental pieces are just as interesting.

“Walking All Day” is the catchy song that he played live that did interest me in the soundtrack.  It’s a bouncy folk song with a buzzy acoustic guitar solo.  He sings in a quiet whispery voice which sounds different from his usual singing voice.  The lyrics are sweet, if not odd:

Walking all day with my mouth on fire
trying to get talking to you.

“Angry Me” has a punky strum on acoustic guitar.  It sounds like a bratty Blur song from the album that “Song 2” came from.  [He played this].

“Flashback” is 16 seconds of heavy metal noise with saxophones and pummeling drums.  It’s very disconcerting between these two songs, and I feel like it should come later for better sequencing.  But it is only 16 seconds.

“In My Room” is a quiet acoustic song.  It starts with just the guitar.  Then the bass and drums come in as Coxon slowly sings about those outside of his room:

Outside the window they’re singing
Inside the doorway there’s me
Endlessly thinking and working

“Bus Stop” is five minutes long.  There’s a two-minute super catchy instrumental section which is followed by a bouncy verse with rather shoegaze feel.

Then there’s a few really short songs all around two minutes.  “The Beach” starts with a rumbling slide guitar solo and adds picked guitar notes.  It’s got a very Western feeling.  “Saturday Night” is a quiet mournful ballad of acoustic guitar and piano.  He played this live (without the piano).

“On the Prowl” is a garage rock song with a very fifties feel.

“It’s All Blue” is another delicate folk song that Graham played live.  It features his more innocent vocal lines.

“The Snare” is a heavily reverbed noir kind of song with that familiar detective bass line and echoing guitar (very David Lynch).  The last minute or so totally rocks out with a distortion filled solo.

“Lucifer’s Behind Me” is a fast song with bongos and more vibrato guitar lines.  It’s kind of upbeat despite the feeling of pursuit in the lyrics.

“Field” is a lovely instrumental.  A 90 second acoustic guitar piece that is rather relaxing.  A nice contrast to “She Left the Light On– a stark and sinister acoustic song with a lead whistle!  The middle is catchy.  He played this one live.

“Roaming Star” is a 2 minute gentle acoustic piece with soft vocals  About half way through there’s some very old-fashioned sounding horns.  He played this one.

“Sleuth” is a two minute instrumental.  It has a chugging electric guitar with some looping guitar solo work over the top.

“There’s Something in the Way that You Cry” is a slow mournful ballad that he played live.  It’s a pretty sad ending to a soundtrack album that holds together really well and isn’t only instrumental pieces.

I now wish I had heard them before the show so I could have really appreciated them live.

[UPDATE: I watched the show in May 2020 and the soundtrack works really well.  The show is very very dark, as you might guess from the title].

[READ: June 20, 2019] “Superstring Theory for Dummies”

Zev Borow is associated with Dave Eggers.  He worked on their magazine Might and also on McSweeney’s ( I don’t think they work together anymore, but they might).  Since then, has written for just about every publication out there.  He also wrote episodes of and became a prominent story editor in the show Chuck.

This is the first piece of his I’ve read in the New Yorker and, as with so many Shouts & Murmurs, it’s mildly funny.

The bit starts with a quote from the Times in which the author tried to describe superstring theory which looks beyond the three dimensions of space.  Imagine that you are in the book Flatland.  You can move forward and back, left and right but not up or down.

So Borow expands on that.

(more…)

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Dido (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 21, 2019)

Posted in Dido, Jody Linscot, Philadelphia, PA, Roswell, Union Transfer on June 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 21, 2019] Dido

I bought these tickets back in November thinking “Dido is playing Union Transfer?” and then, “What happened to Dido?”  I didn’t realize that she had released some albums in the intervening years. I was vaguely aware of her 2008 release but missed the 2013 release entirely.   I also see that she hasn’t toured the states in FIFTEEN years.  In 2004 she played the Tower Theatre but in 2001 she headlined the Tweeter Center.  Remember Tweeter?

So that explains the small venue.  It also explains why it sold out.

Almost all of my familiarity with Dido comes from S.  When we first started dating she played No Angel a lot and I found I rather enjoyed it–a relaxing soundtrack on a summer day.  When I received the tickets for this show, it came wit a copy of her new CD.  We listened to it and I found it pleasant but somewhat unremarkable.  I assumed the show would be the same–an enjoyable, chill evening.

Boy howdy was I wrong.  It’s as if everything on the CD was made for chilling out, but the show was made for dancing.  She had a five piece band behind her and they were fantastic.  With much appreciation to the percussionist Jody Linscott who was freaking amazing and Adam Falkner on drums who played really loud and hard and kept the songs really moving.

The other amazing thing was Dido’s herself.  She has a lovely voice–always has.  On record it’s quite subdued.  But live, she belted out notes, sang passionately and was totally engaging as a performer.  She walked around the stage.  She sat down right in front of us for a song (shame we were behind the two tallest people there), she smiled all the time–a genuine smile that showed how much she appreciated us coming out to see her.  And she was quite funny, too. (more…)

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Jack Savoretti (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 21, 2019) [DIDO]

Posted in Dido, Jack Savoretti, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on June 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED:  June 21, 2019] Jack Savoretti

I bought these tickets for Dido back in November!  There was no mention of an opening act until recently.

I had not heard of Jack Savoretti.  I looked him up and saw that he was English solo acoustic singer of Italian descent.  His song “Candlelight” peaked at #70 in the UK Charts in 2019.

I assumed he’d be a solo folk singer.  But he had a full band with him.

Jack has a gruff voice–but not too gruff, S. informed me.  I rather liked him.  His songs were catchy and thoughtful.  Although honestly it was all kind of forgettable.

But my first thought was that he must certainly appeal to the hypothetical “woman of a certain age.”  He is in his 30s, handsome, rugged-sounding.  And he’s a family man.  I just imagined women throwing their knickers at him in Vegas someday.  Actually I suppose women don’t do that anymore, so whatever the 21st century equivalent is.  There were actually two drunk British women of a certain age behind us and when he came out they started yelling, “hey there, Jackie boy!”  They apparently also almost got into  fight with some one. (more…)

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Nick Hornby–“It’s a Mann’s World” (New Yorker, June 12, 2000)

Posted in 'til Tuesday, Aimee Mann, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Elvis Costello, Essays, Fiona Apple, Greil Marcus, Hanson, Magnolia, Marvin Gaye, Mojo, New Yorker, Nick Hornby, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sergei Prokofiev, Sheryl Crow, The Beatles, Tori Amos, Wu-Tang Clan on June 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AIMEE MANN-Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo (2000).

Aimee Mann writes really pretty (often sad) songs.  From seeing her play live (in person and on video), she is very upright when she plays.  And I feel like this uprightness comes forth in her music.  She is very serious–not that she isn’t funny, because she can be–but that she is serious about songcraft.  Her songs, even when they are catchy, are very proper songs.  I don’t know if that makes sense exactly.

It also means to me that most of her music sounds similar.  She has a style of songwriting and she is very good at it.  For me, it means that a full album can start to sound the same, but a few songs are fantastic.

“How Am I Different” opens up with a super catchy melody and a guitar hook that repeats throughout.  “Nothing is Good Enough” is a bit slower and less bouncy.  But “Red Vines” brings that bounce back with a super catchy chorus (and backing vocalists to punch it up).  The piano coda is a nice touch.

“The Fall of the World’s Own Optimist” starts slow but adds a cool guitar riff as the bridge leads to a catchy, full chorus.  “Satellite” slows things down as if to cleanse the palette for “Deathly.”

Now that I’ve met you
Would you object to
Never seeing each other again

The chorus is low key but the verses have a great melody.  It stretches out to nearly six minutes, growing bigger as it goes with a soaring guitar solo and better and better rhymes.

“Ghost World” has some wonderful soaring choruses while “Calling It Quits” changes the tone of the album a bit with a slightly more jazzy feel.  It also adds a bunch of sounds that are unexpected from Mann–horns, snapping drums and in the middle of the song, the sound of a record slowing down before the song resumes again.  It’s probably the most fun song on the record–unexpected for a song with this title.

“Driving Sideways” seems like it will be a slower downer of a song but once again, she pulls out a super catchy intro to the chorus (with harmonies) as the rest of the chorus trails on in Mann’s solo voice as we hang on every word.  It ends with a tidy, pretty guitar solo.

“Just Like Anyone” is a quiet guitar song, just over a minute long.  It’s a surprisingly complete song and shows that not only can she pack a lot into less than 90 seconds, she should do it more often.

“Susan” is a surprisingly boppy little number that bounces along nicely on the two-syllable rhythm of the title character.  “It Takes All Kinds” slows things down with piano and gentle guitars and “You Do” ends the album with Mann showing off a bit of her falsetto.

This is in no way a party album, it’s more of a quiet autumn day album.  And it’s quite lovely.  Thanks, Nick, for reminding me of it.

[READ: May 20, 2019] “It’s a Mann’s World”

Nick Hornby wrote High Fidelity and became something of a musical expert because of it.  As such, he wrote a half a dozen or so musical review sections for the New Yorker.

This was his first and, as one might guess from the title, it is about Aimee Mann.

He begins by talking about the British magazine Mojo and how every month they ask a musician what he or she is listening to.  He says that many musicians of a Certain Age seem to have abandoned rock and roll and are listening more to jazz or classical.  They are doing this “for reasons I can only guess as: Prokofiev! Ellington! Take that Hanson and Wu-Tang Clans fans! ”

These performers seem to suggest that pop music is dead.  Much in the way that people say fiction is dead.  Meanwhile good, talented musicians continue to make albums that people continue to listen to and good talented authors continue to write novels that people continue to read. (more…)

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Lucinda Rosenfeld–“The Male Gaze” (New Yorker, July 3, 2000)

Posted in Anti-war, Artists, Big Black, Feminism, Lucinda Rosenfeld, New Yorker, Nick Hornby, Racism, Selfish Cunt, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Throbbing Gristle, War, Yuck! on June 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SELFISH CUNT-“Britain Is Shit” / “Fuck the Poor” (2003).

I had not heard of this band until reading about them in yesterday’s Nick Hornby essay.  He didn’t name them, but he mentioned a review in which the band were described as combining ‘the hammering drum machine and guitar of controversial 80’s trio Big Black and the murky noise of early Throbbing Gristle.”

The band was formed in early 2003 by Martin Tomlinson and Patrick Constable, and was noted for provocative lyrics, aggressive stage shows, and electronic-influenced rock.  In 2004, The Guardian placed Selfish Cunt at #40 on its list of “top 40 bands in Britain today.”  They broke up in 2008.

This was their first single.  It surprises me that both of these songs are over three minutes long as they seems like they would be about 45 seconds.

“Britain is Shit” opens with a fast electronic drum beat with jagged guitar stabs and shouted vocals.  Big Black is an excellent touchstone.  After a few verses, all the music drops out except for the drum machine–it’s quite a bold musical statement (not to mention the lyrics).  A ringing guitar chord keeps the semblance of melody going.  The lyrics resume:

Are you having fun / when war is on
put your kettle on / cause the war is on.
Britain is shit / it’s full of lies
white men start their shit / in their shirts and ties.

“Fuck the Poor” is quite similar.  A simple drum machine beat with loud distorted guitars as the only musical element.  The lryics:

Fuck the poor / make war

sung in a heavy British accent,  After the first verse a second guitar chimes in with a guitar riff on top. and more distorted guitar.  The melody doesn’t change.  The song ends in a cacophony of noise.

These songs aren’t original (although combining the sharp electric drum with punk guitars is pretty novel) but they are provocative.  Evidently their live show was quite something.

A 2004 thread on Drowned in Sound describes the live show

I saw them last night, not sure if they could live up to the hype. I went with an open mind but thinking they might not pull it off.

But fuck me. They pulled it off. They fucking rocked. The singer was incredible, hypnotic, acrobatic, snarling, wearing a ripped up catsuit and eye makeup, prowling round the crowd and singing in people’s faces, coming on to all the straight boys, singing in the girls’ ears… like some kind of crossover between iggy, rotten and … grace jones or something. he threw himself around, doing these balletic poses, completely confident and… fucking ace.

Songs? yeah, there were some, they were loud and good. Britain Is Shit is the best anti war song I’ve heard. Fuck The Poor is an anthem. And, one more time, for the record, when he says those vile things like “bang bang another nigger dead” it’s not his own opinion, it’s the voice of someone else – soldier, politician, whoever. It’s a PROTEST not an advocation. come on, haters, get with the fuckin programme.

I think racist types are not really going to latch onto Selfish Cunt because Tompkinson is one of the most obviously gay frontmen i’ve ever seen, and i doubt many racist bigots are particularly accepting of gay people… and i honestly think that the disdain with which he spits out the lyrics make it pretty obvious that there’s something more going on than just the straight lyric.

Of course, you’ll never get a song on the radio with a name like that.

[READ: June 3, 2019] “The Male Gaze”

I enjoyed the tone of this story although the main character was a bit of a puzzle.  She is sophisticated and aware of the male gaze, but seems willing to succumb to it anyway.

Phoebe is a young, sexually active New Yorker: “sometimes she felt like hot shit, sometimes just like shit.”

The first section of the story is called The Most Important Artist of the Post-Second World War Period.

At a party, Phoebe meets Pablo Miles who approached her and says “you’re very fuckable.”

Of all the affronts!  But Phoebe knew the game and made big eyes at him and said “Do you really mean it?” (more…)

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Nick Hornby–“Rock of Ages” (New York Times, May 21, 2004)

Posted in Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Craig Finn, Marah, Nick Hornby, Selfish Cunt, The New York Times, U2, Wilco on June 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MARAH-Kids in Philly (2000).

After reading about Marah in Hornby’s post I decided to listen to their Kids in Philly CD.

I totally get why Hornby likes them and I can absolutely imagine what their live show would be like.

They’ve absolutely got the whole Springsteen vibe–good time rock and roll with close harmony backing vocals.

There’s a harmonica instead of a saxophone (I prefer the harmonica) on “Faraway You: and there’s even xylophones like on Springsteen’s Christmas song on “Point Breeze.”  The horns (and the chanted “come ons”) do appear, this time on “Christian Street.”

“It’s Only Money Tyrone” slows things down with slinky groove and a sound that’s less bar-band.  “My Heart is the Bums on the Street” feels like a quieter Springsteen song–classic rock with gentle vibes and a clap-along feel.  Although I suppose like he sounds more like Craig Finn than Bruce Springsteen.

“The Catfisherman” is a stomping honky-tonking song with an Aerosmith vibe.  “Round Eye Blues” slows things down with a simple melody (in the vein of U2s “With or Without You”).  It also recycles all kinds of early rock n roll lyrics into its own melody, which is fun.

“From the Skyline” has a great guitar riff/solo running through it with a bit more distortion thrown on top.  “Barstool Boys” sounds a bit like The Replacements’ “Here Comes A Regular” only with banjo.  “The History of Where Someone Has Been Killed” adds some acoustic guitar while “This Town” keeps the mood with a quiet album ender.

I am genuinely surprised that this band wasn’t more popular.  They would seem to push a lot of classic classic-rock buttons.

I only wish I had some idea why they chose that name.

[READ: June 15, 2019] “Rock of Ages”

After reading Hornby’s 2000 review of Marah I found this 2004 review of Marah.  Since I had seen that they later did a tour together, I was curious what this lengthy review would be about.  It’s about seeing Marah live and lamenting that a band this good should have to resort to “passing the hat” for tips.

He says

Philadelphia rock ‘n’ roll band Marah is halfway through a typically ferocious, chaotic and inspirational set.  My friends and I have the best seats in the house, a couple of feet away from Marah’s frontmen, Serge and Dave Bielanko.  The show ends triumphantly, as Marah shows tend to do, with Serge lying on the floor amid the feet of his public, wailing away on his harmonica.

What I love about them is that I can hear everything I ever loved about rock music in their recordings and in their live shows … because they are unafraid of showing where their music comes from, and unafraid of the comparisons that will ensue

This show was at a small pub in England.  Which seems a shame since a few months earlier (more…)

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