SOUNDTRACK: JONAS BROTHERS-Tiny Desk Concert #897 (September 30, 2019).
I actually don’t know anything about the Jonas Brothers. I think for a while I thought that the Jonas Brothers were some kind of offshoot of another pop band–someone named Jonas, maybe? So I don’t know them and I had no idea they were still popular.
But the blurb says
The Jonas Brothers announced their reunion in February after a six-year hiatus and soon dropped a new single, “Sucker,” which debuted at number one of the Billboard Hot 100. During their time apart, Kevin [vocals, guitar] focused on family, Nick [vocals, keys, guitar] went solo and Joe [vocals, in the pink hoodie] formed the band DNCE.
and also that
The line of NPR staffers waiting to see the Jonas Brothers’ Tiny Desk concert began forming four hours before the scheduled performance.
But I still didn’t know any of their songs or even what they sounded like.
However, they seem like really nice fellas and that goes a long way with me.
So the first song they played, “Sucker” seemed really poppy. In fact, their vocal style screams pop music (which is code for “I don’t like it”). And yet their instrumentation was primarily acoustic here. Is that a part of being at the Tiny Desk or is this what the song sounds like? I thought that the song had a pretty jazzy feel and the blurb concurs calling the version a “jazzy rework” so i guess they don’t normally sound like this.
The second song “I Believe” is really poppy and I didn’t really like it.
But between songs they were pretty funny. Nick says he likes the “Nick pin” he sees and the audience member says she’s had it since 7th grade…she’s 23 now.
Earlier they had mentioned that this tour they were surrounded by toys (because of Kevin’s kids).
As the trio approached the desk, they were immediately drawn to the knickknacks and toy instruments scattered throughout the area. They ended up working them into their performance, adding a little childlike flair to “Only Human” from their latest album, Happiness Begins.
Nick says they made a video for the song in which they “took it back to the ’80s, which is long before I was born.”
I admit that this song is incredibly catchy and I love the way they use the toys to good (and humorous) effect through the song. Although I hate the “eye eye eye eye” part, I’ll bet it’s a lot of fun live.
Joe asks where his Leos are at and they announce that it is his birthday today. They say that last year on his birthday he said that next year, he wanted to play the Tiny Desk and now, amazingly, wink wink, this year it happened on his birthday.
so our video producer (and proud Joe-Bro fan), Morgan Noelle Smith brought a cake, and the large crowd serenaded him with “Happy Birthday.”
Jonas Brothers are not alone for this show. They are accompanied by Jack Lawless on drums, Tarron Crayton on bass, Tom Crouch on guitar and Michael Wooten on keys. Wootens’ piano parts are excellent and the full band accentuates these songs quite nicely.
[READ: August 8, 2019] Labor Days
I have clearly had this graphic novel in my house for over ten years. I has assumed I’d read some of the early issues of it but it was all new to me. And boy did I enjoy it.
The book is set in London where a goofy, somewhat likable guy named Bags is talking to his girlfriend. She is inexplicably hot.
Fate interferes with Bags though in the form of a video tape. Bags had put up a flyer “Bagswell household chores for hire” and this person is taking advantage of the services. He offers 20 quid to look after the tape. But this tape will prove to be the start of something huge and terrifying for Bags. One that will take him across Europe with tons of guns pointed at him.
Bags heads to his local where Warren the bartender tells him it’s one of those days. He swears he used to push the handles to make the beer come put but today he has to pull them. Bags has gotten a letter from his girlfriend. The bartender gives him six shots and says to read it aloud. “Bagswell—I hate you . Have done so for a long time. –Kelly.”
While he’s in the bar, a man bursts in with guns blazing. Bags blacks out. When he comes to, Warren and the tape are missing. Bags finds the tape but Warren comes after him for it—with a large knife.
The chapter ends with an American Rick Stryker and Victoria, a bad-ass, very freckled woman talking about Bags.
Stryker meets up with Bags and says he’s with the CIA. Stryker is an overstuffed, hilariously over the top useless American tough guy. I love him.
Victoria is also hilarious. She works for her father. Her father is, well, crazy. She tells Bags that her father needs that tape and he is going to give Bags an “all expense paid vacation…in a giant maze…full of psychotics…for the rest of your life.”
After a fantastic escape from the sanitarium (and some seeing-the-light on Victoria’s part, Bags escapes (Stryker is there… after the escape… to help, of course. But they are quickly kidnapped by two scientist-looking guys. They flee and wind up at a castle in which it seems every woman that Rick Strykler has ever offended in his life is in the room forming an army.
It all leads Bags to a huge mansion, where he comes face to face with History. Or at least with the Face of History (it says that on his business card). The man explains his job—if time is like a glacier, it’s his job to see that the glacier doesn’t melt. He thanks Bags for destroying the tape (which he says he made). He didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.
Phew. Case closed. The Face of History lets Bags go.
But Bags is suspicious and he renters the mansion to find that it’s actually an auction for the tape.
Book one ends with yet another explosion and Victoria and Bags off in search of the Face of History.
The tone of this book is hilarious and the artwork by Rick Lacy is fantastic. It’s comically over the top without being preposterous. And I love that each character is easily distinguished from the others. But really it’s the dialogue that is so outstanding–face-paced, sarcastic and very funny. I’m looking forward to Book 2.
I Just Read About That... 
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