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Archive for October, 2019

Caroline Preston–The War Bride’s Scrapbook: A Novel in Pictures (2017)

Posted in Architecture, Ayn Rand, Caroline Preston, Come From Away, Sex, Sexism, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel, War, World War II on October 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK. COME FROM AWAY: Tiny Desk Concert #890 (September 11, 2019).

When I first heard about story of Come From Away, I was intrigued.  Could you make a musical–a musical–about the events of September 11, 2001?

At the end of this performance, the narrator says that this is really a story about September 12, 2001.  And that is true.  And the story is powerful and fascinating and really really interesting.  And yes, the music is fantastic.

So is this story about the attacks?  No.  The story is set

In the aftermath of the Sep. 11 attacks, 38 planes carrying thousands of passengers were grounded in remote Gander, Newfoundland in Canada for five days. The creators of Come From Away traveled to Gander 10 years later and collected the tales that make up the musical.

In Gander there’s an expression that, if you’re visiting, you’ve “come from away.” The people of Gander took in the come-from-aways, and their stories have resonated with audiences worldwide. The Broadway cast recently celebrated 1,000 performances and there are simultaneous productions running in London, Toronto, Melbourne and a national tour.

I listened to the soundtrack when it was streaming on NPR.  I was able to get through about half of it–the songs were great and the kindness shown was incredible.  I have yet to hear the end and I sort of imagine I might try to see the performance someday.  So for now, I’ll just enjoy these excerpts.

Sixteen performers from the Broadway production of Come From Away recently climbed out of a chartered bus in front of NPR and crammed behind Bob Boilen’s desk. They condensed their nearly two-hour show about the days following 9/11 into a relatively tiny 17 minutes. By the end of the diminutive set, there were more than a few tears shed.

In the show, the songs have full orchestration.  But here, the songs are played with great Irish instrumentation: keys, accordion (Chris Ranney); fiddle, fiddle in Gb; (Caitlin Warbelow); high whistles, low whistles, flute (Ben Power); bodhran, cajon (Romano DiNillo) and acoustic guitar (Alec Berlin:)

I don’t know who the lead vocalists are.  But two women take the majority of the songs.  And one of the men narrates the truncated version of the story.  The vocalists here include:

Petrina Bromley; Holly Ann Butler; Geno Carr; De’Lon Grant; Joel Hatch; Chad Kimball; Kevin McAllister; Happy McPartlin; Julie Reiber; Astrid Van Wieren and Jim Walton.

They sing five tracks:

“28 Hours/Wherever We Are” sets the stage–people were on the planes for 28 hours–just imagine that.

“I Am Here” is wonderful. The way the singer has to interrupt herself as if she were on a phone call–it’s a great performance.

“Me and the Sky” is based on an interview with Beverly Bass the first female pilot for American Airlines.  She was flying from Dallas to Paris when she was grounded.  It’s an amazingly personal story–I’ll bet she loves it.

“Something’s Missing” is a song I hadn’t heard before. It’s amazingly powerful–the reactions of people who returned to New York and New Jersey to see what they didn’t know anything about–and to see what’s left.  The most incredible line:

I go down to Ground Zero which… its like the end of the world.  It’s literally still burning.  My dad asks were you okay when you were stranded?  How do I tell him I wasn’t just okay. I was so much better.

They end with the uplifting “Finale.”

As one of the actors explains, “The story we tell is not a 9/11 story, it’s a 9/12 story. It’s a story about the power of kindness in response to a terrible event, and how we can each live, leading with kindness.”

This is a great tribute to not only Gander, but also to the victims of the attacks.

[READ: June 20, 2019] The War Bride’s Scrapbook 

Seven years ago, Caroline Preston created The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt.

I summarized it:

it’s a biography of a lady named Frankie Pratt from the ten or so years after she gets out of high school.  She went to high school in Cornish, New Hampshire in the early 1920s; that’s when this scrapbook starts.  Over the decade, Frankie goes to college, gets a job in New York City, travels to Paris and then returns home.  That is the basic plot, but that simple summary does a grave, grave injustice to this book.

For Preston has created a wondrous scrapbook.  Each page has several images of vintage cutouts which not only accentuate the scene, they often move the action along.  It feels like a genuine scrapbook of a young romantic girl in the 1920s.

For this book, take that premise and move it forward twenty years.

This is the scrapbook of a woman, Lila Jerome, who was a bit of a wallflower, who then married a soldier just before he went off to World War II.  The book is structured in four parts: (more…)

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The Head and the Heart (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 8, 2019)

Posted in Illiterate Light, Of Monsters and Men, Philadelphia, PA, The Head and the Heart, The Met Philadelphia on October 8, 2019| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 8, 2019] The Head and the Heart

After being really impressed by Of Monsters and Men last month, I had pretty high hopes for being impressed by The Head and The Heart as well (because I get the two bands mixed up even though I like them both).

It was the same venue, although this time we had seats instead of the GA section.

It was nice to not worry about your location between acts.  But holy crap, the people around me sucked so bad that they ruined the whole night.  I am writing this ten days after the show and I hate to say that I am still annoyed by them all.

The people next to me came and went and came and went and came and went all while we were seated.

The guy in front of me was an old man (older than me even).  During Illiterate Light we thought it was cute that he and his wife (I assume) were videoing things and being adorable together.  Then during The Head and The Heart he stood up.  And was a freaking giant.  Worse yet, the people next to them didn’t come to the show, so they had a lot of room, which meant he spread out and stood right in front of me (and here I was excited about having empty seats in front of me).  He also filmed nearly every song, but rather than being discrete or considerate of the people behind him, he held yup his camera to his face which meant elbows out thereby blocking even more of my view.  His wife also filmed a lot but she apparently didn’t realize that phone cameras come with a flash, because it was on every time she took videos.  How it took the people in front of them six songs to actually say something (and they were very polite about it) I can’t imagine.

But the worst were the people behind us.  A loud row of eight loud talking, loud boasting, loud everything.  The craziest thing about them is that they were all huge fans of the band, they knew every word, knew when they played a “rare” song and sang along to just about every lyric. (more…)

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Illiterate Light (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 8, 2019) [THE HEAD AND THE HEART]

Posted in Geddy Lee, Illiterate Light, My Morning Jacket, Neil Young, Newport Folk Festival, Philadelphia, PA, Promise of the Real, Rock duo, The Head and the Heart, The Met Philadelphia on October 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 8, 2019] Illiterate Light

I had heard of Illiterate Light from NPR, but didn’t really know them.  They played at Newport Folk Festival but were early on Saturday and we arrived after them.

Traffic getting to this show was terrible and I was annoyed that we’d miss Illiterate Light (or part of their set anyhow).  S. said she didn’t mind missing the opening act as long as we made it for The Head and the Heart.

We walked in just as Illiterate Light took the stage and we got seated around the middle of the first song.  And I couldn’t get over how loud they were (particularly opening for a not-especially-loud band like The Head and the Heart).  They had big rocking guitar and crashing drums.

Then I looked up and realized that there were only two of them on stage. (more…)

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Zadie Smith–“Stuart” (New Yorker, December 27, 1999 & January 3, 2000)

Posted in Beer, David Foster Wallace, Francesco Turrisi, Funny (ha ha), Newport Folk Festival, Our Native Daughters, Rhiannon Giddens, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Zadie Smith on October 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHIANNON GIDDENS-Tiny Desk Concert #891 (September 16, 2019).

I have been aware of Rhiannon Giddens for some time.  I knew she played the banjo, but I didn’t know much else about her.  I saw her (as part of an ensemble) at the Newport Folk Festival.

For some reason I was sure that she had performed a Tiny Desk Concert before, but evidently not.  Maybe I watched this when it came out?  That doesn’t seem right either.

So I’ll stop thinking about it and write about this Tiny Desk Concert instead.

There is an intensity to Rhiannon Giddens I could feel from the moment she arrived at the Tiny Desk, and her songs reflect that spirit.

Giddens is a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (and Our Native Daughters, who played at Newport), an old-timey string band.  But for this Tiny Desk Concert, she is accompanied by upright bass (Jason Sypher) and a whole bunch of other instruments played by Francesco Turrisi.

Giddens and Turrisi had recently collaborated on an album which World Cafe Live describes:

While Rhiannon’s work has focused on the influence of African traditions on what we think of as American music, Francesco is an expert in the often unacknowledged influence of Arabic and Middle Eastern music on what we think of as European sound. They found common ground in their quest to dispel false cultural narratives and turned it into gorgeous music on a new collaborative album called there is no Other.

For the first song, Turrisi plays banjo (although this one looks different from a typical banjo) while Giddens sings and Sypher adds deep slow resonating bass notes.

“Ten Thousand Voices,” the first song in the set, was inspired by Rhiannon reading about the sub-Saharan slave trade.

The combination of Giddens’ lyrics with Turrisi’s middle-eastern sounding banjo is wonderfully compelling.

She explains that the second song, “At the Purchaser’s Option”

was inspired by the American slave trade and a New England newspaper ad in the late 1700s of a young woman “for sale” and her 9-month old baby who was “at the purchaser’s option.” Rhiannon Giddens’ thoughts of this young woman and how her life and her child were not under her control.

That is a pretty intense introduction and inspiration for a song.

Despite its weightiness, Rhiannon Giddens’ music is entertaining, and her voice, the melodies, and her accompaniment are engaging. But it is music infused with lessons and deep purpose — something all too rare in popular music in my opinion.

Turrisi switches to piano which really changes the texture of the music. Sypher plucks the strings on this songs which gives it a bit more of a “song” feel than a “composition” feel.  The chorus is also memorable both for the melody and the powerful lyrics.

My favorite track is the third one, “I’m On My Way.”

Rhiannon picks up a replica of an 1858 banjo for “I’m On My Way,” which she says helps her access her ancestors. “So much beauty and so much horribleness wrapped up together seems to be our story,” she says.

While Turrisi is certainly an excellent banjo player, it’s great to hear Giddens play as well.  Especially this fascinating fretless banjo.  Turrisi plays the frame drum–different from an Irish bodhran in that it seems to have snares in it.  The plucked bass along with the addition of percussion and the great banjo melody are just fantastic. When Sypher switches to bowing, for a solo, it adds a whole new dimension–especially when he slides all the way up the neck to get the highest note possible.

T final song is the gospel tune, “He Will See You Through.”  Giddens puts down the banjo again (awww).

For her closing number, she focuses on the beauty. “You can call it whatever you want, ‘gravity,’ ‘God,’ whatever. There’s a force that I believe in, and that’s what I focus on.”

[READ: July 3, 2019] “Stuart”

I love the way that this story unfolded.  It begins in one location and moves only a few blocks by the end.  But the kicker is that it starts with one character and ends with someone else.  It read kind of like an early David Foster Wallace story.

The story opens by telling us about two Greek immigrants working at a hot dog truck.  They are described in vivid (rather unflattering) detail.  While they get their food ready, three teenage boys walk up.  They are pretty much identical except for the color of their shirts  She describes them vividly as well.

They have man-sized hands sprouting from elongated, spindly limbs like the extremities of flamingos, and their feet are so huge they might be prehensile.  There’s nothing in the backside of their immense, baggy jeans.

They boys order hot dogs and ask for them quickly “before they fucking catch up with us, eh?” (more…)

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The Distillers (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 7, 2019)

Posted in Brody Dalle, Death Valley Girls, Edith Piaf, Full show video, Philadelphia, PA, Queens of the Stone Age, Spinnerette, Starcrawler, The Distillers, Union Transfer on October 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 7, 2019] The Distillers [rescheduled from June 1 & August 14]

The Distillers and Starcrawler were supposed to play a show at Union Transfer on June 1.

I bought tickets because I wanted to see Starcrawler–a band whose live show is becoming legendary.  I thought I didn’t even know The Distillers.  This turned out not to be true.  About a year earlier I had watched an NPR Field Recording with Brody Dalle.

Dalle (who is Australisn, which is hard to imagine given her speaking/singing voice which has no accent) has been in a bunch of bands.

First was The Distillers who broke up in 2006.
Then she formed Spinnerette who put out a couple of records until roughly 2011.
Then she did a solo album in 2014.
She has done all kinds of guest appearances, especially with Queens of the Stone Age.

Then she reconvened The Distillers in 2018.

I listened to a couple of their songs and was pretty excited to go to a old good punk show with a legendary singer. (more…)

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The Tallest Man on Earth (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 7, 2019) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Cancelled, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia, The Tallest Man on Earth on October 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: October 7, 2019] The Tallest Man on Earth

I was pretty excited to see The Tallest Man on Earth since last year I had to skip the show for my own personal reasons.  So I was bummed that on June 20, I was refunded my money because this tour was going to be cancelled.

Kristian himself sent out this apology:

Hello Sweet People,

The universe has gotten in the way of my plans and I have to cancel 8 shows on my fall tour: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

I’ve never done this before and it was an incredibly hard decision, but ultimately it is less of a choice than a necessity. I’m very sorry and I will find a time to make up these shows as soon as I can. Tickets will be refunded in full. If you have already purchased tickets you will be receiving information on getting a complete refund. You can also go here [thetallestmanonearth.com/refunds] for all the information you need.

Also, to avoid raising any concern, please know that I’m fine. I’m healthy and I feel good. No other shows will be affected this year. I hope I haven’t ruined your plans too much and I can’t wait to make this up to you. I am going to think of a really fun way to do that.

Ok, be well, talk soon.
Kristian

 

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Death Valley Girls (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 7, 2019) [THE DISTILLERS]

Posted in Death Valley Girls, Hole, Philadelphia, PA, Sharkmuffin, The Distillers, The Saint, Union Transfer on October 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 7, 2019] Death Valley Girls [rescheduled from June 1 & August 14, replaced Starcrawler]

I had the opportunity to see Death Valley Girls twice in August.  The first time was with The Distillers who had to cancel their second show at Union Transfer due to a different injury.  The second (and it probably happened because of that cancellation) was with Sharkmuffin, a band I really wanted to see but wasn’t free that night.

So I was pleased that they were opening for The Distillers again a few months down the line.

I actually didn’t know much about them before seeing the show.  I had an idea of what they sounded like but, for instance, I had no idea that they were founded by Patty Schemel, the original drummer for Hole.  I also had no idea that there was a man in the band (Larry Schemel–Patty’s brother).  Patty Schemel has since left, replaced by Laura Kelsey.

So what exactly do the Death Valley Girls sound like?

Well, they’re sort of a fuzzy rock band with goth leanings.  The goth leaning come primarily from their look and their lyrics–not their sound. (more…)

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Rion Amilcar Scott–“Shape-Ups at Delilah’s” (New Yorker, October 7, 2019)

Posted in Astrud Gilberto , Barbershop, Hair Salon, Newport Folk Festival, Nilüfer Yanya, Rion Amilcar Scott, Sexism, Sharon Van Etten, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on October 7, 2019| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NILÜFER YANYA-Tiny Desk Concert #892 (September 18, 2019).

I saw Nilüfer Yanya open for Sharon Van Etten.  I was pretty excited to see her because of all the buzz that I was hearing about her.  Her set was good, although I feel like she seemed a bit nervous (maybe not, who knows).

This past summer, I was happy to see she was playing at Newport Folk Festival, but we arrived too late to see her (bummer).

This Tiny Desk Concert doesn’t really make her music quieter–it’s pretty quiet to begin with.  Maybe not quiet, exactly, but restrained.

There’s a hush to the music of Nilüfer Yanya that made the Tiny Desk the perfect stage for her sound. On a hot summer day, the British singer and her band — made up of Jazzi Bobbi primarily on sax, Lucy Lu on bass, Ellis Dupuy on drums and Nilüfer on guitar and vocals — performed their three-song set with restraint and subtlety. At moments, the music felt like an eruption waiting to happen, though the suave, refined sound left an indelible vibe in the room.

Yanya plays three songs (all from her album Miss Universe.)  Only one of those song had I heard live.  And surprisingly to me, she didn’t play what I think of as her biggest hit (and the one I like most), “In My Head.”

The set starts with “Baby Luv,” her first single.  I like the staccato feel of everything in this song–from the guitars to her vocal style.  I also really like the gentle synth notes from Jazzi Bobbi.  Bob Boilen seems to really like the lyrics, although I don’t really get it:

“Do you like pain?
Again, again, again, again
Again, oh, again
Do you like pain?”

I thin what’s most interesting (and polariziang I guess) is her vocal delivery: “thickly accented, laid-back vocals”

I don’t know anyone who sings like Nilüfer, but I’m reminded of Astrud Gilberto singing bossa nova. There’s a sophisticated sensibility rough enough around the edges that I find captivating.

 

I really like the chord progression of “The Unordained.”  There’s a lot more jaggedness in the middle section with some cymbal crashes and loud chords.  Jazzi Bobbi plays a quiet sax solo over the end.

For “Angels” Lucy Lu moves to synth while Jazzi Bobbi intros with a jazzi solo.  This song builds the most and is the least spare of her songs.  The end of the song includes some nice backing vocals and more of Jazzi’s quiet sax.

[READ: October 6, 2019] “Shape-Ups at Delilah’s”

This is a story about a barber.  A lady barber!

It starts with the barber, Tiny, giving her boyfriend Jerome a haircut.  Jerome’s brother was beaten up and hospitalized and Jerome bawled his eyes out.  Tiny made him sit on a stool and while he cried, she sheared his knotty beads for two hours.  His hair looked great.  And they were both spent.

He looked in the mirror and his eyes said Where in the hell did a woman, a W-O-M-A-N, learn to cut like that? (more…)

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Haruki Murakami–“Abandoning a Cat: Memories of My Father” (New Yorker, October 7, 2019)

Posted in Cats, Death, Essays, Haruki Murakami, Japan, Memoirs, Parenting, Philip Gabriel, Sino-Japanese War, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, World War I, Y La Bamba on October 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Y LA BAMBA-Tiny Desk Concert #893 (September 20, 2019).

It used to be that no one was invited back to play a Tiny Desk Concert.  The rules have been relaxed somewhat as of late (I would have thought that maybe they’d wait until 1000 shows).

The blurb explains why they (she) was invited back though.

Luz Elena Mendoza has such a far-reaching creative spirit that it’s almost impossible to confine her to a single musical identity. Which is why she’s one of just a handful of artists who’ve been invited back to the Tiny Desk to offer a revised musical vision.

Y La Bamba was on back in 2011 and they played a more acoustic style of music–accordion, percussion, guitar and lot of singers.  For this show, lead Bamba, Luz Elena Mendoza looks quite different.  In 2011, her hair was black and long, here it is silver and short–the neck tattoo is the same, though.

When she was here last with the band Y La Bamba, it was a vocal-heavy, folk outfit. The band’s sound has always been about vocals and her music has become even more so over the years.

Back in May, Y La Bamba played Non-Comm and Mendoza was pretty confrontational.  She is less so here, allowing the music to speak for her.

And the music is quite different.  It’s almost all in Spanish this time.  There’s a second guitarist (Ryan Oxford), a bass (Zachary Teran), and a drummer (Miguel Jimenez-Cruz).  She also has two backing singers, Julia Mendiolea who also plays keyboard and Isabeau Waia’u Walker.

I knew that Y La Bamba was the project of Mendoza, but i didn’t realize she did everything herself:

Y La Bamba’s albums are meticulously crafted sonic treats with her vocals layered like a choir made with a single voice. But in our offices, she called on vocalist Isabeau Waia’u Walker to replicate their distinct sound.

There’s a great variety of styles in this Tiny Desk.

“Paloma Negra” (“Black Pigeon”) [also played at Non-Comm] benefits from the voices of the entire band in a high-energy mediation on rhythm and voice.

It’s got a groovy, funky bassline and some cool echoing guitars.  There’s a tension in the verses that is totally relieved in the super catchy chorus.

This song segues into “Rios Sueltos” which is a kind of rap–but sung.  It’s bouncy and catchy but I sense is probably not a happy song, despite the catchy “hey ey ey heys” in the middle.

The song ends with a rumbling from Mendoza’s guitar as she starts up “Bruja de Brujas” [also played at Non-Comm].

There is a bruja energy and spirit to their performance, and not in the negative connotation that is the Spanish word for “witch.” In Luz Elena Mendoza’s hands a brujeria spirit is all about conjuring the kind of magic that took place on this video.

The song opens with a cool bass line and a somewhat menacing feel.  It starts quietly, but when all three vocalists sing together it’s really lovely.

At the end of the song she sinks to the ground to play with her effects as the song fades out with trippy sounds.   She jokes, “And aliens came down.:

Then she realizes, “we forgot to do one more.  Sorry the aliens did come down… and took my brain.”

The final song is the fantastic “Cuatro Crazy” [also played at Non-Comm].  It is sweet and pretty and has echoing guitars and a vocal style not unlike a Cocteau Twins song.  It even ends with a lot of “dah dah dah dahs.”

I really enjoy their music quite a lot and should really look into their stuff more.

[READ: October 6, 2019] “Abandoning a Cat”

This essay is, indeed, about abandoning a cat.  The cat story has a happy ending (although another one might not).  But mostly the essay is about how mundane events trigger memories of our parents.

He says that when he was little, his family had an older cat and they needed to get rid of it.  “Getting rid of cats back then was a common occurrence, not something that anyone would criticize you for.  The idea of neutering cats never crossed anyone’s mind.”

His father took the bike and he sat on the back with the cat in a box.  They rode to the beach about 2 km from their house, put the box down, and headed back.

When they returned home, they opened the door and there was the cat “greeting us with a friendly meow, its tail standing tall.”  His father’s expression of blank amazement “changed to one of admiration and, finally, to an expression of relief.  And the cat went back to being out pet.” (more…)

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Peter Nelson (Author), Rohitash Rao (Illustrator)–Herbert’s Wormhole (Book 1) [audiobook 2009–Jonathan Davis]

Posted in Aliens, Alternate Reality, Audiobooks, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Jonathan Davis, Peter Nelson, Technology, The Future, Time Travel, Video Games on October 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: July 2019] Herbert’s Wormhole

We listened to this book instead of reading it.  Looking at the online book right now I see that the illustrations are pretty big part of the book (and they are weird and wonderful).  But this audiobook was narrated delightfully by Jonathan Davis.

The story starts with Alex Filby playing a video game.  He is just about to defeat that final alien in AlienSlayer 2.  His parents are watching him and they almost seem more excited than he is.  Why ever would this be?  Well, because he promised them that when he defeated every alien in AlienSlayer 2 that he’d put the video games away, play outside and not ask for another game all summer.  And they were pretty excited for that.

But when they bring him a present he hopes that maybe it’s AlienSlayer 3-D the greatest video game in history with motion sensor suits and a holographic projector.  Could they really be so awesome?  Well, no, instead, they gave him a home made T-shirt that says Alien Slayer.  Isn’t that wonderful?  They also gave him…a child-sized jungle gym. (more…)

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