SOUNDTRACK: BROTHERS OSBORNE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #215 (May 26, 2021).
If Brothers Osborne were an instrumental band I’d really like them. Lead guitarist John Osborne is an amazing player whose riffs are amazing and even though they sound pretty country, he’s amazing to watch.
But when T.J. Osborne starts singing, you understand why they wear cowboy hats.
For their Tiny Desk (home) concert… Brothers Osborne–a country duo that’s long challenged the conventions of country and still managed to top the charts–scale to fit the setting – John’s wood-panelled Nashville living room furnished with plenty of guitars and a tiny desk featuring a Maryland flag mug – but refuse to dial down the intensity.
They open with “Muskrat Greene,” the instrumental that is so impressive. T.J.’s guitar licks are flying, Adam Box’s drums keep a tight martial pace (and the drum sound is fantastic) and the song never lets up. I love the backwards guitar part in the middle along with some cool keyboard soloing from Gabe Dixon.
Opening with the explosive instrumental track “Muskrat Greene,” Brothers Osborne and their collaborators use their set to showcase the very best of Skeletons. As on the record, they transition immediately into “Dead Man’s Curve,” a track that’s the ideal interplay between John’s fiery guitar and T.J.’s singular vocal stylings.
After two and a half minutes they segue into “Dead Man’s Curve” which sounds like a pretty great rockin’ roots song. The main riff after the chorus is spectacular and T.J.’s solo smokes. I’d like to hear it with different vocals.
“I’m Not for Everyone” is where the set falters for me. It is such a standard country song–anthemic and familiar–I’m sure it sounds exactly like some other country song. I might enjoy it more as a cover because the lyrics are pretty funny (country music self-deprecation). The addition of “local legend” Matt Heasley on accordion is a nice touch.
“Skeletons” opens with some muted acoustic guitar from T.J. and some nice slide guitar work from Jason Graumlich. Once again, if this song didn’t feel so “country” I would really like it. Musically it’s solid (John gets another great solo) and lyrically it’s quite clever. I just don’t like the vocal style. When I imagine Richard Thompson singing it, I like it a lot better.
“Hatin’ Somebody” (never got nobody nowhere) ends the set with more clever lyrics. This time John uses the slide for some more great guitar work. The song has a fun riff and Pete Sternberg’s bass keeps the low end solid. But the song is just too country for me.
I do appreciate how much fun they are having though.
[READ: June 1, 2021] Spy School
I read Gibbs’ Charlie Thorne books recently and really enjoyed them, so I thought it would be fun to check out his earlier series Spy School (which C. had read a few years ago and really liked).
This story had the same kind of clever wit as the Charlie Thorne books, which I greatly appreciated. It was also a pretty exciting story.
It starts in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually in the middle of Ben Ripley’s house. Where, out of nowhere, a Federal agent has just told him that he has been accepted into spy school. They’ve had their eyes on him for a while. He did wonderfully on the STIQ exams. What are they? He doesn’t remember taking them.
Standardized Test Inserted Questions. The CIA places them in every standardized test to asses potential espionage aptitude. You’ve gotten every one right since third grade.
So that’s pretty wild. Of course everything about Spy school is secret so he can’t even tell his parents or his best friend. They al think he’s going to a super brainy nerdy math school (Ben is a super brainy math nerd after all).
The agent, Alexander Hale, is so cool, Ben can’t wait to hang out with him. But when Alexander drops him off at school things are not good. The whole school is under red alert–there seems to have been a security breach. And Ben is now a target. Why? because even the enemy has heard about him.
Ben is freaking out–he doesn’t know anything about spying and is even getting shot at! Then he is rescued by a girl who immediately showcases that she is an amazing spy. She gets him through that ordeal, but he soon encounters another one.
A boy, Chip, having heard that he was a genius, asks him to hack into the school’s mainframe to fix his grades. If he doesn’t, well, this boy is going to have to use some nasty spy tricks on him. Ben obviously doesn’t want to get in trouble on his first day (or ever), but Chip (and his thuggish friends) are pretty scary. Until Chip is neutralized by another student–Murray–who manages to knock out Chip using spy technology.
Murray is a big time nerd. He hates spy school–he does not want to get involved with any danger. His plan is to coast through, never excelling but never failing. That way he will get a cushy desk job and never be put in harms way in the field. It’s genius.
Ben is starting to hate spy school as well. It’s nothing like he imagined. Especially when at 4AM on his first night an assassin has put a gun up his nose demanding to know what he knows about project Pinwheel (he knows nothing about it, obviously).
The principal has been unimpressed by Ben so far–his behavior during that first night was not very professional. Claiming that an assassin was trying kill him in his own room seems a bit much. But they do take it seriously and he is put into a cell for safe keeping.
Obviously Ben is making a name for himself, so when Ben finally does get to class, he starts talking to other kids. There’s Zoe a girl who is convinced that Ben is the real deal and is only pretending to know nothing (she calls him Smokescreen). There’s Warren, a boy who has a crush on Zoe and who consequently thinks that Ben is faking. There’s also the girl who saved him on that first night, Erica Hale. She is a loner and likes it that way. Other kids are intimated by her and with good reason. She obviously has proven herself and she’s the daughter of Alexander Hale, the legend himself. The other kids are amazed that Ben is able to talk to her at all and that she talks to him.
But he was doing a lot of talking during class and his professor is not too happy and bout this. Since the class is Introduction to Self-Preservation, well, the teacher has just the punishment–ninjas, attacking only Ben.
During a later games of capture the flag (in the snow), Ben discovers what looks like a bomb and he is pretty sure that Chip has planted it.
Clearly bad things are happening at the school–in fact, the school fears that there is a mole who knows all about the school and the program. Maybe it’s time to close the whole program down.
This story was quite exciting and it had a lot of twists and turns like a good spy thriller. Ben’s best friend even gets involved in an unexpected way. I enjoyed the way hardly anybody is what they seem. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.
Leave a Reply