I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BROWNOUT-Tiny Desk Concert #931 (January 10, 2020).

I’d heard of Brownout when they released Brown Sabbath, a funk covers album of Black Sabbath songs.  They have also released an album of Public Enemy covers.

I didn’t realize that they were a long-established band (fifteen years).  They originally started as a Latin funk band (and backed up Prince).  Their singer, Alex Marrero, has only been with them for four years or so–it was originally a side project that turned into much more.

One of the things you need to know about this band is that they can change traditions or genres almost on a dime. The core members dip into soul, Latin funk, a form of Peruvian cumbia called chicha, and funk covers of both Black Sabbath and Public Enemy.

The first song they play “Somewhere To Go,”

is punctuated by an old-school R&B horn section (Mark “Speedy” Gonzales on trombone and Gilbert Elorreaga on trumpet) that’s deceptively simple and emblematic of the power of their concept and spirit.

The song has a slow groove and starts with a cool bassline from Greg Gonzalez.  There’s rocking, distorted guitars and lots of horns.  He sings a few lines and then starts singing into a megaphone “paddle your way out of this.”

The next song “Nain” is also new, “with lyrics in Spanish about being different and not fitting in and seeing that as a positive.”

The intricate interplay of the baritone sax (Joshua Levy), guitar (Beto Martinez), bongos (Matthew “Sweet Lou” Holmes) and electronic and acoustic drums (John Speice) launch the second cut, “Nain,” into another down-tempo burner,

I love the way the horns play a simple melody after the first section that sounds a bit like a commercial break in a TV show–waiting for whats to come next.  Again the guitar is interesting, playing a few complex patterns while the echoing keyboard solo from Peter Stopschinski adds a trippy aspect to it.

The final song is “You Don’t Have To Fall,” which includes

old-school Tower of Power horns that made quite a few heads dip and hips shake in our corner of the NPR building,

The song has a ripping guitar solo from Beto Martinez’s during  which Alex plays a shaker gourd.  It’s really catchy.

They seem to be able to do it all.

[READ: January 10, 2020] “The Whale Mother”

Leila’s marriage has fallen apart.  She still lives with her husband and kids, but they have both hired lawyers.  Her lawyer had told her things were over and she should “Go forth and date.”

So she decided to book a retreat

While on the SeaTac-Whidbey Island Shuttle, the older man in front of her started talking to her. He says he’s lived on the island for more than ten years.  When the ferry arrived, he led her upstairs–not waiting for her but assuming she’d be following him.  He was married–he wasn’t trying to pick her up–he just seem to enjoy talking to her.  Their time on the ferry was a little disappointing to her because she wanted to stay inside in he “sophisticated interior” but he went right through to the deck.  Nevertheless, she enjoyed the company and developed a bit of a crush on him.

He asked what her heritage was.  This “was the question she would have asked him if such a question weren’t now a minefield.  Leila welcomed the question when it came from another brown person but would not have assumed other brown people felt the same way.”

He told her he had a white father and Native american mother –or so his mother claimed.  It turned out his mother was actually African-Ameican Creole (according to Ancestry.com).

When it was time for her stop he quickly got his name, Lance, but didn’t expect to ever see him again.

The retreat was only for women.  She had applied as her marriage fell apart and was accepted for two weeks–eighteen months in the future.  She assumed it wouldn’t do any good that far in advance.  But eighteen months later, nothing had been resolved for her, so it looked like a good getaway.

She arrived at the colony to a host of rules all framed in the fragile prefix “We ask that.”

• We ask that you leave shoes outside on the mat.
• We ask that you use the provided towel to wipe dry the walls
• We ask that you place nothing on the windowsills. The lovely wood they’re made of is easily damaged.

There was no internet, no cell service and,of course, no men.  She marveled at the number of tissue boxes in the small room (four).  Then. as soon as she sat down she cried and used half a box.

After a couple of days, a visiting woman said she looked very serene.  The woman said she liked it there and was happy that the place wasn’t crawling with wooden-boat tourists.

The wooden-boat Festival was what brought Lance back to the island.  When he told her about it, she didn’t really think it was real.  He had shown her a picture of the boat it sounded ridiculous.  But before she new what she was doing she was on a ferry to see the boats.

As she was docking she looked and saw Lance–unmistakably–near his boat.  The festival was full of nostalgia for a real or imagined past.  As she walked the docks, Lance saw her and shouted “So you decided to check it out.  Great timing.  Julia’s all rigged and ready to go.”

On the shuttle ride he had told her about a dream his wife had had about a mother whale and two calves.  In the dream, the whale spoke and said “the whales need you!”  His wife was headed to Haiti to help out there, but she wondered if she should cancel for the whales.

His wife decided to go to Haiti and he went to the dock and found Julia a huge mes. He was planning to sail her to Big Sur but the mess kept him local until he fixed it up.  While he was doing so, a whale-spotting boat had been rammed by some right-wing assholes and they couldn’t continue their annual count.  Since his Big Sur trip seemed unlikely he offered Julia to them.

After telling the story he asked if she wanted to come.  When she asked why he asked her, he said, “aren’t you looking for something like that?  People find their way to us, my wife and me, all the time.  People who are looking for something or who just need to be somewhere.  I though that might be your situation.”

Then he confides that he thought she might be the dream’s whale mother since she also has two children–sometimes the dreams are symbolic.  Maybe she needed help.

He says he’s leaving tomorrow and all she has to do is show up.

The end of the story is Leila’s attempts to process the opportunity and to make a decision.