SOUNDTRACK: ALLEN STONE-Tiny Desk Concert #964 (March 30, 2020).
What’s worse? Liking someone’s personality and disliking their music or liking their music and thinking they are a bad person?
In this Tiny Desk Concert, I learned that Allen Stone is a super nice guy, sweet and funny. But boy do I dislike his music–and his singing voice.
Clearly I do not share the popular opinion about that.
His three graceful background singers L-r: Moorea Masa, Jessica Childress, Raquel Rodriguez) and piano player ( Michael Elson) provided the perfect compliment, but this set proved undoubtedly that his voice belongs right up front.
And yet, lyrically, “American Privilege,” which addresses his internal guilt about everything from materialism to being born white, is really powerful.
Between songs he is a delightful sweetheart. He says that playing Tiny Desk is a, “breath of fresh air that this is how people want to hear music. It’s not pyrotechnics, its stripped down songs in their purity.”
After this song he played
a trilogy of Building Balance songs dedicated to his wife (who he said he’s “face first in love” with)
He says he got married a year and a half ago. And he is still married, which is great.
“Give You Blue” (I don’t quite understand the metaphor) is played on an acoustic guitar with gentle piano and the backing singers providing a lot of the backing sounds.
He says say that being so in love has meant that he got a lot of great tunes out of it. Although “Brown Eyed Lover” seems a questionable title given the Van Morrison classic. Plus, it seems odd to dedicate a song to your wife that goes, “I’ve got a brown-eyed lover on the other side of town.”
I acknowledge that Stone has a strong, powerful voice–his vibrato is impressive. I just don’t care for it.
But again, he is so nice between songs. He says playing a big room is fun and so much energy but with ear monitors in your head you feel isolated. However, the best part of music is the people and this is so much fun for musicians.
He wrote “Consider Me” before he asked his wife to marry him. It’s a sweet song, but I’m surprised that a sweet, romantic song has this verse
If you’re looking for somebody who
Will put up with your shit
[READ: April 1, 2020] Hilo: Book 5
Book 5, the army is more intent than ever on finding Hilo. But because he is a child (and not from here) they can’t find any matches in any database.
It will also be hard to find Hilo because he has returned to his home planet Jannus (along with DJ who put on Hilo’s suit and ran through the portal at the least second).
Their absence means that Izzy needs to create replicas of the two of them. Which she does easily, although the first attempts are way too smart (hilariously so).
Meanwhile Gina has been practicing her magic and accidentally opens a a portal to let two giant dogs in the room. And they are not friendly dogs.
But the one thing dogs hate is cats, so we finally get to see Polly of the Furback Clan again! I missed her. But she can’t very well walk around as a talking cat so she turns herself into a little redheaded girl and her reaction: “I’m gorgeous!” Later, when asked, whee is she from, she answers, “Snotland! uh Scotland.”
The disguises are not going well, but Izzy points out that sometimes when the weirdest or most obvious things are right in front people, they don’t see how weird or obvious they are. People like to think everything is going to be okay.
Of course Lisa figures it out (and is very excited) Polly: “I still like her. She’s spunky.”
Back on Jannus, Hilo and DJ fly to the main city of Catadon but things are wrong. There should be robots everywhere but there are none. There isn’t even any power. When the citizens see Hilo, though, they think they are saved! He can help them. But before he can say anything, a giant parrot swoops down and garbs DJ. So Hilo must get him back.
The parrot returns Hilo to the lab of Dr Constance Bloodmoon who immediately gives Hilo a hug.
Constance created Razorwark and DJ says that she made him be evil. But that part is incorrect. She wanted to make her robots feel and she was finally able to get help from a traveler from another world–a big talking cat named Tamir.
Back on earth Polly explains the story of Tamir the elder who was cruel and vicious to all until one day he stopped; no one ever found out why he became good.
Tamir was born enslaved, beaten, starved, abused and forced to work until the day he was strong enough to fight back: “I never felt loved or loved anything.” Until he experienced a powerful energy source called Empatis. And that energy source brought Razorwark to life.
She never wanted Razorwark to fight. The government made him fight. And then he wanted to stop fighting.
Speaking of fighting, back on earth, Robot DJ and Robot Hilo are fighting a lot–they are trying to defend the weak. But they get in enough trouble that the fight goes on their permanent record and bing! Hilo is now in a database. The government is on DJs’ lawn within minutes.
Back on Jannus, DJ yells at Dr Blood moon for letting them turn Razorwork into a monster. She says she tried to stop them, but he says she should have tried harder. That’s when Hilo gives the lesson that so many people could use today
What we do when terrible things happen to us…that shows who we are.
But the shock comes when Hilo mentions Izzy. Dr Bloodmoon says, What do you now about Izzy?
In just a few pages we learn that Razorwark reprogrammed Hilo’s memory. Everything he knows is wrong and Izzy may not be the sweet little girl she says she is.
Holy cow what a cliffhanger!
I don’t have book six lying around either!
I can’t wait to see what happens next. Judd Winick is a fanatic storyteller–combining humor and tension perfectly.
I Just Read About That... 
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