SOUNDTRACK: half•alive-Tiny Desk Concert #879 (August 12, 2019).
This is one of the more fun Tiny Desk Concerts I’ve seen. I didn’t think I knew half•alive but I recognized one of the songs from the radio. They had just released their debut album, so I guess they are a New Artist.
Formed in Long Beach, Calif. in 2016, half•alive is a band with a clear vision and gift for design, not just in the earworms they write, but in their entire presentation, with often-matching outfits and carefully selected color schemes.
The band, fronted by singer and guitarist Josh Taylor, didn’t try to squeeze in any costume changes, but they do play three songs from their debut album.
It wasn’t at all surprising to see and hear the care they took to make their Tiny Desk debut a memorable one.
On “RUNAWAY” Taylor sings in a kind of slacker deadpan chattering style (but catchy). It’s quite a surprise when he sings a rather impressive falsetto in the chorus. J Tyler Johnson plays a groovy Wurlitzer. This is the only song with strings (Emiko Bankson: violin; Callie Galvez: cello)
I was really surprised to find that I’d heard “still feel.” before as I didn’t know this band’s name (and never knew what the song was called). Joshua Taylor plays guitar on this song a wicked wah wah riff. Johnson switches to bass and plays a cool funky riff throughout. In fact this song has a massive disco feel and the falsetto vocals in the chorus really sell it
For this song, the strings have been replaced by Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry credited with choreography. For this song one of them reads a book while the other is playing with a Rubik’s cube.
Well before arriving for this performance, the three guys in half•alive asked for the exact dimensions of the space behind Bob Boilen’s desk. Known for their live shows, with elaborate, synchronized dancing and costume changes, the group naturally wondered how they’d pull everything off in such a cozy space.
Their solution? Have the dancers sit for the performance. The choreography, now restricted to the width of two chairs, was incredible. You’ll see how it all works on the final song
The final song is “ice cold.” a new track from the band’s just-released debut full-length, Now, Not Yet. For this song, drummer Brett Kramer switches Septavox while Johnson is back on Wurlitzer. Taylor switches to acoustic guitar, but honestly who can even tell what’s happening musically because Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry have created an elaborate choreography. Whenever they are on camera its impossible not to look at them.
I’m not sure if the song is any good, but I’ll be they’re a lot of fun to see live.
[READ: August 31, 2019] Crowded
I’m not sure what attracted me to this book. The cover was certainly interesting and the visual style was cool.
But I’m so glad I read it because it is a funny (and violent) story that is all an elaborate take on crowd sourcing and social media.
The first chapter opens with a dialogue on the Dfender app. Charlie Ellison has hired Vita to Dfend her. It turns out that someone has posted a bounty on her head on the Reapr app.
Charlie explains that she started the morning by cleaning her house for a couple who were Padhopping it for the weekend. Then she drives for both Muver and Drift. Then she loaned out her car for the day on Wheelsy and rented out a dress on Kloset. Then she took a job on Dogstroll and on Citysitter *(the children seem unlooked after). She ended her day by taking a job from Palrent to sit with an old man who feeds pigeons.
She hooked up with a guy at the bar before bed and snuck out in the morning. That’s when the first person tried to kill her.
It was an old lady with a gun. Charlie threw her coffee in the woman’s face, took the woman’s little dog and ran away because that’s when the second person tried to kill her.
Vita shows her the Reapr app and that the reward for killing her is over a million dollars.
Charlie doesn’t understand it. People usually use Reapr to kill prominent people (like asshole politics), not normal people. Vita says she must have really pissed off a lot of people as there are over 2,000 backers already.
Vita puts Charlie in her car (a very old large heavy car) and drives her to her house (a very old large heavy house).
Vita has been on Dfend for two years. She has never lost anyone, but her rating is only 1.4 stars. Vita is awesome and badass.
Charlie is a fascinating character Even though people are out to kill her, she doesn’t want to lay low. She wants to go out. Vita tells her the best ways to stay safe, but Charlie ignores them. Even after she looks totally drunk, she seems to sober up suspiciously quickly.
Vita agrees to protect her but she is very suspicious.
Soon enough people have tracked them to Vita’s house (the story behind how she has this old house among sleek high rises is cool). They flee and Charlie says she needs to go to Club Obnoxxious. At the club Charlie meets Zadie, an “old friend” whom Charlie has seen donated to the Reapr campaign. Vita meets some other Defendr friends that she knows (they are guarding Zadie and Zadie’s manager).
Most of the people who have tried to kill Charlie so far have been amateurs. They have been easily dissuaded from doing anything. Vita doesn’t like to kill the Reapr reward seekers. She is allowed to under terms of her contract but there’s too much paperwork if she kills someone.
As Chapter two ends we see two professional-looking people are coming out of the woodwork to claim the million dollar prize. A sleek woman and a online star/flashy dude who is clearly making money off his notoriety as an assassin. His name is Trotter.
The woman, whose name we don’t know yet, is a slick professional. She has done her research and she quickly sneaks into Vita’s house. While she is snooping around learning what she can, other people break in guns blazing. The woman kills them all just as they set the house on fire.
But Charlie and Vita are no longer there. They are currently staying in the public library. “Libraries installed signal jammers to keep people off their phones, to make it a more immersive experience. which ironically killed off most of their traffic except for the diehards.” Now they rent out areas of the building as a residency. And since there’s no signals, no one should be able to find them.
But every time they step outside, someone else is after them–like the assassination tour bus. People on a double-decker bus following Vita’s car (complementary firearms under their seats) right into a mall.
Chapter four shows us Trotter’s back story. He was a loser who took on his first killing out of desperation. The flashback to the first kill shows he made $3,000. His friend caught it on camera and he is more than a little freaked out about what he did. He believes he can turn his internet fame into something real. But his partner, Cam, (she takes 51%) asks what he thinks he can “pivot” into? TV, movies, Broadway? “You kill people for a living Dave, that’s not a launchpad.” He is even offering VIP tickets for people to meet him. The one woman we see asks a lot of personal questions about his past and he flounders under pressure.
Meanwhile the woman is much less flashy and much more dangerous.
But as the book comes to a close Trotter puts his plan into action (without the assistant of Cam who realized what a putz he is). He lets all of his followers know that it going to happen and they all get in on it “escorting” Vita’s car to the giant mousetrap the Trotter has set up. It’s an elaborate “Whoopi Goldberg” machine (ha).
And of course it doesn’t play out how he expected. I wonder if he offers refunds.
As the book ends we see Charlie, Vita (and the dog) leaving Los Angeles.
I cant wait for book 2!
For ease of searching I include: half alive
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