I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DECLAN McCKENNA-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #79 (September 14, 2020).

I really only know Declan McKenna from his Tiny Desk Concert.  (His song “Brazil” was a hit, although I’d never heard it anywhere else).

At that Tiny Desk he was solo, but here he’s got a band, and they sound great.

Declan McKenna and his band rock their Tiny Desk (home) concert. Their “home,” in this case, is The Foundry, a neighboring studio in North London. Declan is decked out with glitter, channeling a more flamboyant side of rock than I’ve seen from him before. He’s still immersed in complex storytelling with characters on the fringes, alienated for reasons of class and politics.

It’s hard to believe he was a teenager when he released his first album–although he does sound older now for sure.  He’s got a new album out.

Three of the songs are from Zeros, his brand new album recorded in Nashville with producer Jay Joyce. It’s been a wild three-year ride since the release of his teenage smash debut What Do You Think About the Car? He’s now 21.

Opening the set with “Daniel, You’re Still a Child” McKenna sits at the keybaord playing the piano-sounding chords.  There’s a deep bass sound from William Bishop anchoring the song which has a surprisingly 70s sounding synth riff from Nathan Cox.  There’s some excellent guitar riffing and soloing from Isabel Torres (including a scratching wah wah section).  I enjoyed that there’s a pause after the line “outside the shop that sells your favorite drink” and drummer Gabrielle Marie King hits a drum pad that sounds like a beer can opening.  King also plays some really great fills all the way throughout.

A nifty bass line (including an unexpected harmonic note) opens “The Key to Life on Earth.”  Declan plays guitar on this one including a suitably fuzzed out guitar solo.  Although I think Torres is a better guitar player, he does get a cool sound from his instrument.  The song is catchy but especially so as it ends.

For “Beautiful Faces” Torres plays a raw a slide guitar riff that follows the vocal line. Once again, he uses some falsetto in the synthy chorus to throw in a little hook.  Declan plays a ripping fuzzy guitar solo.

For the end, Declan performs his best-known song, “Brazil,” a tune steeped in politics and sports, and the enthusiasm has him atop a tiny desk in the end.

“Brazil” has a catchy guitar riff followed but a catch bass riff. And even though I’ve only heard the song here, I still can’t get it out of my head.  (Even if I can’t exactly figure out what it’s about–grizzly bears, football, Brazil).  McKenna gets another ripping solo–but I’d like to have heard more from Torres.

McKenna is an interesting character and I like his song more each time I hear them.

[READ: September 14, 2020] Our Times in Rhymes

This is a short book in which Sam Leith (who I don’t know anything about) summarizes 2019 in verse.

Leith summarizes the major news each month.  Leith is British so most of the news he talks about is British (especially Brexit), but he does have plenty of stanzas devoted to the person occupying the White House.

It’s interesting reading this near the end of 2020, which has been such an incredible shitshow.  It’s hard to believe we cared about dumb things that happened then.  But it’s also hard to believe that tRUMP is still an asshole, that Boris Johnson is even more of a liar than it seemed, that Brexit hasn’t been finalized yet, and that anybody in either country actually supports either of these bozos.  What the hell is wrong with people?

In January it seemed like both The UK and the US was just hoping everyone in charge would just leave us alone.

A few of us go thinking there might be another way
The States was still ‘shut down’ while Donald sulked about his wall
Btu the world spun on regardless and the sun rose every day
And most of the electorate was fond in its recall
Of how long Belgium did without a government at all.

And imagine when the May/Johnson cadre learned that Brexit would be complicated.

Adieu, EU, took more –who knew?–than one swipe of the paw.
The bluff and commonsensical cried “Boo!” and “Bah! Unfair!”
Who knew that trade was complex?  That our freedoms leant on law?

So much has gone on since 2019–it feel like eons ago.  Do anyone even remember Nigel Farage’s ?March for Leave?

“The greatest march since Jarrow” was the Brexit Party line
But far from seeing workers in their thousands downing tools
It more recalled a tea-shop queue in Last of the Summer Wine
A washout in the drizzle, still the media like fools
Trained all their hungry cameras on five gammons in cagoules.

I didn’t even know that the masterminds behind Brexit called themselves Grand Wizards.

Did none of them beforehand have a google of the name?
Did no one know Grand Wizard is trademark of the Klan
So “Dark Lords of the Sith” would have been just about the same?
It didn’t matter anyway, it all went down the pan.

He mentions Greta Thunberg (without a memorable line I’m afraid).

And then there’s Jeremy Corbyn’s flirtation with Antisemitism

If we can be quite clear ad still stay nothing we’ll be fine
We leave, the Tories get the blame, team Jeremy can’t lose
And if we do chirped Jeremy, we’ll blame it on the–
“FAKE NEWS!”

Amazingly I have forgotten all about the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral.  That’s how bad things are now.

Somewhat lighter news saw the birth of new Prince.

Whose name they said would incarnate the transatlantic roots
Of the offspring of Prince Harry and the fit one out of Suits
So Ryder Cup Mountbattern-Windsor could have been his name
Instead they called him Archie, which struck critics as a shame.

One thing I have always loved about Britain is their form of protest.  Americans kill people but Brits are more effective if not more subtle:

The campaign trail for right-wing thugs, was fraught with new-found danger
And Tommy so-called Robinson can testify to that:
Haranguing a town centre, he was bum-rushed by a stranger
With a novel type of protest, and the neo-Nazi prat
Just moments later wore a strawberry milkshake as a hat.
McDonalds closed their doors lest milkshake violence be done
But Burger King–free enterprise!–then offered two-for one.

Is that true? God, who wouldn’t love to see tRUMP get pelted with a strawberry milkshake.

Speaking of

Across the pond, the angry tweeting tangerine reacted
to Robert Mueller saying that Russians helped him win
For even though the document was heavily redacted
And tRUMP’s Attorney General had done his best to spin
The line that it exonerated Donald Trump of sin

Then in June tRUMP visited England.

Her Majesty of course, was forced to rise above and greet him
And he found absolutely the most graceless way to thank her
By presenting half his ghastly spawn when she came to meet him
The Cletus-looking twins and Princess Plastic-Face Ivanka
Of course he brought the kids along, the nepotistic wanker

Leith gets bonus points for rhyming Ivanka with wanker.

The Queen had to have a stiff upper life.  But regular folks don’t have to pretend

Less subtle were the way that normal folk set out to spoil it:
Contempt turned out a carnival , and filled Trafalgar Square
A giant farting robot tRUMP was tweeting on the toilet,
And nappy-wearing tRUMP balloons were hoisted in the air.

When asked about the protest, tRUMP came over hard of hearing
And said he’d noticed thousands on the pavement were cheering.

Then on Independence Day

And meanwhile on July the Fourth, America gave thanks
A #trumparade to celebrate the #MAGA golden age
And to this end, Donald filled up Washington with tanks
had military flypasts and in order to assuage
His ego he demanded to be given centre stage
He rambled about space Force in a smirr of rain and yup:
Most great was Donald’s rage when almost nobody showed up.

tRUMP has done so many stupid scandalous things I had forgotten about this

This penny ante Pennywise who leads the USA
Thinks legal gun control’s a thing that only pussies do;
Still think so after August brought two shootings in one day
Now nine lay dead at Dayton. At El Paso twenty-two
So down to the disaster with Melania he flew
And rather than make laws that might help make the killing stop
They grinned to camera with an orphaned baby as a prop.

And then there was Jeffrey Epstein who heart The Royal Family as much as any American official.

The Princes’ Uncle Andy had some problems of his own
his old chum Jeffrey Epstein was about to come to trial
And folk were pretty curious as to what the Duke had known
He’d stuck by Epstein last time–after all, is none so vile
As can’t extend forgiveness to a wealthy pedophile.

Back in Britain, Boris Johnson was trying to prorogue the Government and we all had to look up what that meant.  Despite the fact that Cabinet members all said it was unthinkably terrible:

Did Cabinet resist as they had promised to before?
A great deal of this sort of windy meretricious guff
was spouted by frontbenchers when they didn’t think he’ try it
Cause come the crunch in Cabinet they all went very quiet

Then came October

Get Brexit done’ was now the line that Downing Street repeated.
Get Brexit Done? Yes, very well–whatever that means.  Then?

This book was designed to come out at Christmastime, so he had to make up what happens in December.  With such a tumultuous year he hedged his bets by talking more about how the book was meant to come out at Christmas time and how he admits his rhymes aren’t genius or anything, just good fun.

This might be an entertaining document to help you look back on a long forgotten year, although there so much that you need to know about the events for these summarizes (and nicknames) to really make a lot of sense.

It’s still pretty fun, though.