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Archive for the ‘#10yearsof01’ Category

Amir & Khalil–Zahra’s Paradise (2011)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Amir Soltani, Canadian Music, Death, Dogs, Fears, First Second :01, Foreign Books, Graphic Novel, Khalil, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Middle East, Propaganda, Racism, Religion, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Weaves on July 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

zahraSOUNDTRACK: WEAVES-Tiny Desk Concert #539 (June 10, 2016).

weaves There’s been quite a few mellow bands on Tiny Desk as of late so this rocking quartet from Toronto are a fun change of pace

And boy do they stand out.  Lead singer Jasmyn Burke is wearing a psychedelic dress and has a pretty wild afro.  She sings in a way that seems like maybe she could be doing something else, but always with a wry smirk.  And her voice is unusual–almost talking, but sometimes hitting slightly off-sounding notes (and at times seeming almost childish) but it all works really well within the songs.  And then there’s the music.  A bass, guitar and drum, and Morgan Waters, the guitarist, playing as if he’s doing several different songs at once.

“Coo Coo” features some picked guitar parts, some distorted chord parts, a part that mirrors her vocals (during the delightful chorus of “You’re so coo coo / I’m so coo coo  / I’m so crazy.”  And then there’s the part during the final chorus which features him playing something different after each time she says “I’m so coo coo” –trash metal guitar, simple guitar lines, then squeaky fractured notes.   It’s hard to know who to watch more.  And the bassist is no slouch either, as he keeps up pretty nicely with the wild playing.

As they start the next song, “Shithole,” the drummer starts the wrong one but they correct him and say that they are gong to play “Shithole” in this nice building.  It opens with a delicate guitar riff and a pulsing bass line.  The song is surprisingly mellow until the middle section when a noisy solo kicks in, but this song is primarily bass and vocals with a really abrupt ending

“One More” is a fast punky song which is again mostly bass and drums until the loud distorted guitars check in to accompany the vocals. I get a kick out of the odd way she sings “One more” (accompanied by a suitably squeaky guitar).

Mostly Jasmyn doesn’t seem to be singing all that hard until portions so this song when all four are going a little crazy.

They are fun band that I need to explore some more–I’ll bet they are a lot of fun live.

[READ: March 1, 2016] Zahra’s Paradise

This book is a fierce indictment of the Iranian Islamic revolution and the questionable election that took place in 2009 which brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

It was written (by Amir) and drawn (by Khalil) pseudonymously so that they could avoid prosecution (or worse) in their home country of Iran.  In fact, while the story was amazing and really powerful, it was the afterword that I found so important.

But the story first.  And the part that will make no one want to read this book–a bag full of puppies is killed.  Yup, getting that out of the way right from the start.  And in fact, there doesn’t really seem to be a lot of justification for it.  It gets referenced a few times in the story, but nothing else is quite as graphic as the prologue (so you can skip that if you don’t want to see an image that you won’t be able to get out of your head). (more…)

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Steven T. Seagle & Teddy Kristiansen–Genius (2013)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Albert Einstein, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Iron and Wine, Jesca Hoop, Parenting, Sam Beam, Scientists, Set at School, Steven T. Seagle, Teddy Kristiansen, Tiny Desk Concert on July 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

genius SOUNDTRACK: SAM BEAM AND JESCA HOOP-Tiny Desk Concert #538 (June 6, 2016).

beamhoopI sampled the Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop CD online and really liked it, so I bought it for Sarah for her birthday.  The whole album is really beautiful and I was delighted to see that they performed a Tiny Desk Concert.

Sam Beam is the man behind Iron and Wine.  He has an incredibly long beard.  Jesca Hoop is a solo performer with a few albums out (although I hadn’t heard of her before).  She looks adorable in this concert in her Oxford shirt and suspenders–they’re an interesting contrast.  And yet their voices work so nicely together.

They sing three songs from the album with Beam on guitar and both of them singing.

“Sailor to Siren” begins with Beam on lead vocals, but Hoop soon joins him to duet on most of the lyrics.  Their harmonies are so pretty, perhaps in particular because Beam’s voice is also in a high delicate register.

Sam Beam is one of the most personable performers to show up on the Tiny Desk–he seems so kind and gentle with a good sense of humor.  And Hoop complements him well.  He comments about having to sing into the microphone without looking and she jokes, “it’s like when you’re driving with someone and you’re feeding them food but you have to look at the road to make sire they don’t hit anything so you put food in their beard.”  It’s a great visual reference with his large beard and it actually gets him laugh and stop playing for a minute.

“Know the Wild That Wants You” features Hoop on first lead vocals and Beam on backing vocals and then they duet on the next verse.  The harmonies in the chorus are again beautiful.

For the final song, the incredibly catchy “Every Songbird Says,” Beam describes a video that was made for the song.  He says it’s the best video he’s ever had made for him; Jesca jumps in and says it was made for her, which makes him laugh.  He describes it as having babies with raccoon and dog heads wrestling and licking each other.

On this song Jesca’s vocals are breathier and quite different–they work wonderfully and are a fine contrast to the high notes she (and he) hit in the chorus.

This is a great representation of the album which is similarly sparse (although it does have some extra flourishes here and there).  Their voices sound just as great as on the record.

[READ: March 1, 2016] Genius

The cover of this book shows a man facing the giant but fuzzy image of Albert Einstein.  And it proves an apt image.

The story is about a man who says he was always pretty smart.  He skipped ahead two grades in school.  Although puberty was a bitch for him, it didn’t do him any real harm.  He married and had two kids.  And he now has a job at Pasadena Technical Institute.  He was brought in as a young ringer with great ideas.  But as he has been there for a while, the ideas have just stopped coming and he sees the new young people starting to overtake him–which might mean the loss of his position.

The story flips back and forth between his worklife–unsatisfying–and his home life–confusing.  His son is old enough (14) to be interested in sex.  But he has a heart to heart with him and says they can talk about anything–it seems to work. (more…)

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Danica Novgorodoff–The Undertaking of Lily Chen (2014)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Barry Douglas, Death, First Second :01, Funny (strange), Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Marriage Trouble, Planxty, Sexism, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Unlikable main character, Violence, YA Books, Yuck! on June 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

lilychen SOUNDTRACK: BARRY DOUGLAS-Tiny Desk Concert #537 (June 3, 2016).

barryBarry Douglas is a “classical” pianist from Ireland.  I’ve put classical in quotes because although what he plays is classical in sound, the music actually comes from Celtic tradition rather than the classical canon.

“The Coolin” (An Chúileann) translates to “The Fair-Haired Girl” and dates to around 1641.  His arrangement has a very baroque feel (he is actually a classical pianist, too), which gives the traditional song a more regal air.

He follows that lovely delicate song with “Planxty Dylan.”  Planxty is an Irish dance.  He says that harpists would travel around Ireland and people would look after them.  The harpist would then thank the homeowner by writing a song named after the home where they stayed.  This romp of a dance (at only about 1 minute long) was dedicated to the house of Dylan.

From playing a planxty to the band Planxty.  Douglas has arranged the Planxty song “Raggle Taggle Gypsy” for solo piano.  It has been around since the 18th century.  Planxty made it more famous as a vocal song (which I know) but Douglas’ piano version has a lot of fun with the melody as well.  The melody is also known as “Black Jack Davy.”

“My Lagan Love” is about the River Lagan in Donegal (there are actually four Lagan Rivers in Ireland).  The melody and poem were written by unknown persons.  Douglas arranged this without words in an attempt to make it more timeless.  I know the original and this is a really lovely in this instrumental version.

I can say that I was pleasantly surprised to hear this was the kind of solo music that Douglas was going to play.

[READ: April 2, 2016] The Undertaking of Lily Chen

The whole premise behind this story is disturbing and apparently true.

Novgorodoff includes a section of an article from 2007 which says that parts of rural China have seen the rise of “ghost marriages.” In this situation, when an unmarried an dies, his parents procure the body of a woman, hold a wedding and then bury them together.  This has led to a black market in corpse brides.  EW!

This story explores that revolting concept. (more…)

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Cyril Pedrosa–Three Shadows (2007) [translation 2008]

Posted in #10yearsof01, All Songs Considered, Andrew Bird, Culture Shock, Cyril Pedrosa, Death, Edward Gauvin, First Second :01, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Myths, Parenting, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert on June 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »

3shadSOUNDTRACK: ANDREW BIRD-Tiny Desk Concert #536 (May 31, 2016).

andrewbirdI haven’t known too many of the recent Tiny Desk performers, but I do know Andrew Bird.  I heard him on NPR and was quite taken with his whistling (one of his trademarks).  I bought his album, but learned after listening to it that I prefer him more in small doses and single songs rather than a whole album.

And while I didn’t love the album (it’s good but didn’t blow me away), these three songs are pretty great.

That whistling is present a lot during this Tiny Desk Concert.  The first song “Are You Serious” has a lot of whistling and is an incredibly catchy song (possibly because it has a very similar melody to “Oops I Did It Again”?).  Regardless of the reason, this song is really fun.  One of the delightful things about Bird, in addition to his whistling is that he also plays violin in number of different ways.  He strums it like a guitar for the beginning of the song and even plays a plucked solo (while still holding it like a guitar).  There’s also some “proper playing” by the end of the song.

“Roma Fade” also opens with his whistling and violin plucking and then shifts to s much more uptempo violin bowing.  It’s got a very catchy melody and again I love how he switches from plucked violin notes to bowed melody.

“Capsized” is a song I have been hearing on WXPN quite a bit.  I had no idea it was him and I really liked it so it was a surprise treat to hear it here.  I don’t recall if the radio version opens this way but in the Tiny Desk, there’s a great fast violin intro and some bowed upright bass rumbling.  The verses are great but it’s the the catchy chorus “and when you wake up” that rules the song.  There’s a cool plucked violin solo and some more nice bowing.

The band he has (bass, guitar and drums) also sings great harmonies which really make these songs sound big.  It’s a great Tiny Desk and means I’m going have to dig out the album I have and give it another spin.  And actually it is good, just a bit more mellow than I like.

[READ: March 10, 2016] Three Shadows

I really liked just about everything in this graphic novel.  I was struck almost from the start by Pedrosa’s drawing style, which relished in loops.

The first page has a boy and his father walking in the garden.  The tree is comprised of circles, the man’s pipe is producing circle smoke rings, even the apples in the trees are swirling circles.  The whole pages looks to be in motion.  And it has a very interesting folk-art feel.  On the next page the trees are simply big swirling circles.  It’s really visually striking.

However, once a story begins “Back then life was simple and sweet,” you know that the story isn’t going to be a happy one.

But it does start off peaceful.  This small family–mom dad and little boy live in an idyllic little house far from the world.  But one day, their dad sees three shadows on the top of the hill.  He gets really freaked out about them even though they don’t come close.  His wife thinks that he is overreacting, but every time he sees them, he knows they are up to something.  And then one night they come in adn try to take the little boy. (more…)

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Zack Giallongo–Broxo (2012)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Carrie Rodriguez, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Javier Solis, Jeff Smith, Lola Beltrán, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert, YA Books, Zack Giallongo on June 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

broxoSOUNDTRACK: CARRIE RODRIGUEZ-Tiny Desk Concert #535 (May 27, 2016).

carrieCarrie Rodriguez is also from Texas.  She sings in both Spanish and English, plays guitar and violin and has a wonderful stage presence.  Her voice is powerful and confident and her duet partner Chip Taylor is a perfect accompanist for her.

Her first song is called “I Dreamed I Was Lola Beltrán.”  Beltrán is one of Mexico’s most highly regarded ranchera singers.  In the lyric she sings, “and you were Javier Solis” (he was another highly regarded ranchero singer).  The end of the lyric is “and we were baile baile baile while you sang to me.”  It’s quite romantic.  Rodriguez plays the four string guitar while Taylor plays slide guitar.  Given the instrumentation, this song could feel very country, but it doesn’t primarily because of the way she sings–more sultry than country with a dapple of ranchero on top..

She introduces the second song, “Llano Estacado” by saying that her grandmother is from there.  It’s up near the panhandle with ghost towns and strange people up there.  She says people there pronounce the town Lano es Tacado.  Taylor switches to electric guitar and she stays on the four string acoustic. There’s some wonderful Spanish pronunciations there.  This feels more like a cowboy song (except for the buzzy electric guitar).

Somebody brings her a beer (or maybe champagne) which she says is perfect as the final song is a drinking song “Noche de Ronda” (a night out on the town).  She says that in this song, “She is singing to the moon because her lover isn’t with her because he is out with his friends having a good time.”  Taylor laughs and says, “it’s a fictitious song.”

He plays guitar.  She sings a beautiful Spanish and hits some lovely notes.  After a lengthy introduction, the song turns into more of a Spanish lullaby (with some very fast lyrics).  It’s a really beautiful ballad. Then, about four minutes in, Carrie picks up a violin and begins playing a solo.  After about a minute of beauteous soloing, she shifts gears and starts playing a wild solo fiddle with scratchy bowing and some really fast playing. It’s fun and intense and  the whole solo lasts about 4 minutes.

Rodriguez really showcases all of her talents in this Tiny Desk.  She’s a force to be reckoned with.

[READ: February 15, 2016] Broxo

The drawing style of this book reminded me a lot of Bone.  Between the setting and the way the human characters looked, it had a very Jeff Smith feel.  On closer inspection, there are enough dissimilarities to make Broxo its own.  And it’s compelling in a very different (and darker) way.

What is particularly interesting about this story is how elliptical it feels.  The story begins with a woman, Princess Zora of the Granitewings, reaching the top of Peryton Peak in search of the Peryton Clan.  But we don’t learn all that much about her or all that much about the world she’s in (we get enough to make the story work, but that’s about all).

Peryton Peak looks abandoned, there’s no sign of human life.  While exploring, she is set on by little ferret-looking creatures, but she quickly gets rid of them.
 (more…)

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JT Petty & Hilary Florido–Bloody Chester (2012)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Death, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Greed, Hilary Florido, JT Petty, Murder, Racism, Religion, Robert Ellis, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on June 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

chester SOUNDTRACK: ROBERT ELLIS-Tiny Desk Concert #534 (May 23, 2016).

robellisRobert Ellis is a singer-songwriter who I was unfamiliar with (a familiar refrain in recent Tiny Desk Concerts).

Ellis is from Texas and his voice rings of country singers.  But his guitar playing and song styles sound more Americana or singer-songwritery than country.  he walks a fine line, which probably means he is loved by neither faction.

He plays three songs.  The first sees both men (him and Kelly Doyle) on electric guitar, with a catchy riff and fun chord progressions.  (Their suits are pretty spectacular too).

After the first song, Ellis says, “I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce my favorite guitar player on the planet, Kelly the Telly Doyle.”  After a pause he smiles and says, “There’s only two of us up here so there’s only two things I could have said” to much laughter.

“Driving” was written about being in Nashville TN and going nowhere. But it is a masterful piece of guitar work with him (on acoustic) and Doyle (on electric) playing these wonderful fast lines that overlap and intertwine and sound amazing together.  The vocal melody line is fast and familiar, but it’s those recurring fast guitar lines that are really wonderful.  And indeed, Doyle does some wonderful pyrotechnics on his electric guitar, including a nice harmonic at the end.

For the final song, “California,” Ellis switches to piano with some more nice guitar harmonics from Kelly.  His voice sounds very familiar on this song–it’s a slower more expansive piece that allows him to sing bigger.  I like the way the chorus seems to work as a continuous melody after it seems like it ought to have stopped.  There’ a real 70s vibe to this song.

I’m always curious to see if I’ll hear more from someone like Ellis after seeing him on the Tiny Desk Concert.

[READ: February 19, 2016] Bloody Chester

This is a story of the Old West.  I don’t especially care that much about the Old West.  It seems so totally unreal that I never know what actually happened.

This story starts out especially dark with a boy named Lady Kate getting beaten up in a bar.  We back up on the story a little and realize that this boy is Bloody Chester.  He was a feared tough guy based on reputation. True, his last name was Kate, but Bloody Chester suited him well.  Until he had an unfortunate experience with a lady of the evening and his reputation changed from Bloody Chester to Lady Kate.  And that’s when the abuse came.

Trying to get by in town is now pretty tough.  He drinks a lot and all he has left is his horse.

The one major problem I had with this story is that Chester looks like he’s about 12 years old–like the other young people.  While I’m not doubting that young kids did horrible things in the Old West, they seem too young for everything that happened (especially the lady of the evening). (more…)

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Danica Novgorodoff–Slow Storm (2008)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Andy Shauf, Canadian Music, Death, Fire, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Horses, Racism, Sexism, Soak, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Unlikable main character, Violence on June 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

slowstormSOUNDTRACK: ANDY SHAUF-Tiny Desk Concert #533 (May 20, 2016).

shaufI was unfamiliar with Andy Shauf although once he started playing, I thought his songs sounded familiar.  One of the more interesting thing about him is his singing enunciation (which reminds me a bit of SOAK for a recent comparison–although she is from Northern Ireland and he is from Saskatchewan).

It’s interesting to me that Shauf plays only rhythm guitar–all of the melody lines and solos come from his keyboardist.  It’s also interesting how motionless Shauf is.  He stands quite still and doesn’t even really move as he sings (his voice is mellow but not exactly quiet).

“The Magician” has as some great riffs from the keyboard and some interesting chord changes as the song draws to and end.  And of course, Shauf’s calming, delightful voice (complete with do do do dos) make the song quite lovely.

“To You” sounds similar to the first–same basic tempo and tone, with nice little fills that elevate the song from a simple chord structure.

His final song, “You’re Out Wasting” is “an older song” from his last album.  There’s another great melody running through this song and it’s a bit more uptempo.

I’m not sure if it’s his hair or his posture but he looks uncomfortably hunched-over while playing.  But that doesn’t stop his voice from sounding great and his songwriting from being really enjoyable.

[READ: February 2, 2016] Slow Storm

I really like the way Novgorodoff works with watercolors to create cool backgrounds. However, I don’t really like the way she uses her pen–I don’t care for the look of her characters.  And I don’t love the hand lettering all that much either.

This story is one that I wouldn’t read if it weren’t a First Second book.  And while I’m glad I read it and I found the convergence s of characters to be really interesting, it was a rough road getting thee.

The story begins with no words, just a series of images that juxtapose a tornado/storm and the Kentucky Derby.  The storm is hitting a barn where horses are kept, so these horses are also running, but hey are frightened of course (I especially didn’t like the style of the frightened horses).

Then we see a man get hurled by the tornado into a barn. (more…)

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Pénélope Bagieu–Exquisite Corpse (2010) [translated 2015]

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alexis Siegel, Books about writers, Boredom, Death, Exquisite Corpse, First Second :01, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Humiliation, Models, Pénélope Bagieu, Sex, Steve Kimock, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on June 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

corpseSOUNDTRACK: STEVE KIMOCK-Tiny Desk Concert #532 (May 16, 2016).

kimockI’d never heard of Steve Kimock before.  He is a guitar player, evidently known for his improvisational playing.

Based on that, I was doubly surprised that the first song not only had vocals, but that they were by someone else in the band (the unnamed female pianist).  “Careless Love” sounds incredibly familiar.  Even on the first listen, it sounded like I’d heard it before–the vocal melody and her voice, the bass riff, everything seemed familiar, although I’m still not sure if I actually know it.

Kimock’s guitar is metal (or aluminum).  It’s quite unusual looking–all shiny and silver.  It’s a hollow body but it sounds unlike an acoustic guitar.  He’s joined by Bobby Vega on bass–and his bass is so smooth (even on this acoustic).

For the second song, he switches to a hollow bodied electric guitar.  He says that “Tongue N’ Groove” is an oldie for himself and Vega (for whom it is also very early in the morning).  The singer switches to piano for this instrumental that has a light jazzy feel.  It’s quite a lovely song.

For the final song, “Surely This Day,” he switches to an acoustic guitar which he plays across his lap (and uses a slide).  This is beautiful solo song with some wonderful moments.

[READ: February 15, 2016] Exquisite Corpse

I really enjoyed this First Second comic.  It was translated by Alexis Siegel and it doesn’t feel translated at all.

This is the first book by Bagieu that I have read and I immediately loved her style which has simple lines but also subtle shading.  It feels at time realistic and at times cartoony.

The story focuses on Zoe.  She is working as a kind of model–a pretty girl who stands near things like cars or boats or whatever.  She doesn’t love the job (who would) and on the second day we see a guy honks her ass.   The other models are doing the work part-time to put their way through school, but Zoe is the only one with no other options.  They tell her she should change jobs or stop complaining. (more…)

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Jim Ottaviani, Leland Myrick–Feynman (2011)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Big Books, Biography, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Inventions, Jim Ottaviani, Lara St. John, Leland Myrick, Marriage (Happy), Martin Kennedy, Matt Herskowitz, NASA, Research, Richard Feynman, Science, Serouj Kradjian, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, War, World War II on June 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

feynman SOUNDTRACK: LARA ST. JOHN-Tiny Desk Concert #530 (May 9, 2016).

laraWhen Lara St. John released her first CD it made ripples because of the way she appeared on it (presumably topless).  But if that was a stunt to get people to listen, it was a good one because the music on it was phenomenal (and the disc sold very well).  St. John is masterful on the violin and has released a dozen or so CDs of herself playing.

I have never seen her play before and it is a marvel watching her fingers  fly (and slide) all over the neck of the violin (including some absurdly high and fast notes).

The first piece is “Czardashian Rhapsody.”  It is an amazing mashup of two songs by Martin Kennedy: Czardas, the most familiar Hungarian melody for violin and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, the most familiar Hungarian melody for piano.  He merged them into a real barnstormer.  It’s 6 minutes of switching back and forth between the familiar melodies and very gypsy-esque sections (and some very long held notes).

The song is 6 minutes of musical acrobatics.

Although this is billed as St. John’s show, much recognition must go to her pianist Matt Herskowitz who is also magnificent.

St. John clearly has a sense of humor since she named her new album Shiksa.  She says the album actually has ten different titles because every culture has a word for “big Canadian chicks” like herself.

The second piece is “Sari Siroun Yar” by Serouj Kradjian.  She says it was the first song she heard when she went to Armenia in the lat 1980s.  It is a bittersweet Armenian troubadour song.  While this song is much more mellow than the first, it still showcases some amazing playing on both musicians’ parts.  The opening notes she plays high on the fret board which gives the violin a very different sound–almost breathy.  And the main melody is quite lovely.

The final song is once again a wild one.  “Oltenian Hora” is one that St. John arranged herself.  It plays off a catalog of violin tricks, St. John explains, practiced by traditional Romanian gypsy fiddlers: rapid-fire whistles, bird calls and slithery harmonics, all in a variety of off-kilter rhythms.  I’ve never seen some of the things she does on the violin (those bird calls are amazing).  And by the end she is bowing so hard the bow seems about to break.  It is way intense and really awesome.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a violinist get out of breath from playing so hard before, but she deserves all of the applause.

[READ: March 15, 2016] Feynman

This is a graphic novel biography of Richard Feynman.  Ottaviani worked as a nuclear engineer, programmer and reference librarian, so you can trust him.

I have respected Richard Feynman for years.  I have a few of his books, although I can’t say I have read them intensely.  I knew that he was considered an amazing professor–making really intense subjects easier for the layman to understand.  And many of his lectures are available as audiobooks.

But there was so much about him that I didn’t know.  And this biography (which runs nearly 300 pages and is jam packed with information) covers nearly all of it.  Including excerpts from his own publications and attaching a massive bibliography for more works by and about Feynman. (more…)

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John Baxter, Joshua Faudem, Koren Shadmi–Mike’s Place: A True Story of Love, Blues and Terror in Tel Aviv (2015)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Blues by the Beach, Bombs, Death, Drinking, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, History, John Baxter, Joshua Faudem, Koren Shadmi, Marwan Barghouti, Monika, Non-fiction, Racism, Religion, Sex, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel, Violence, War, Yuck! on June 21, 2016| Leave a Comment »

mikesplace SOUNDTRACK: MONIKA-Tiny Desk Concert #529 (May 6, 2016).

monikaMonika is a superstar in her native Greece (her full name is Monika Christodoulou).  She is a charming woman with a big voice and a bigger stage presence.  She incorporates theatrical notions in her performance too (the fact that she has a shirt that looks like a mime’s kind of encourages that idea): “throwing” stars, flying, sleeping.

It is hard to believe that the blurb says used to sing sad songs, as she is so fun and bouncy.  But there’s this biographical note:

her recent transition from singer of sad songs to purveyor of upbeat jubilance came after she nearly lost her life in a boat fire; she had to swim eight hours in the dark to safety without food or drinkable water. These days, it’s all about a great band grooving, her joyful voice, and that infectious smile.

Wow.

She sings four songs.  The first, “Yes I Do,” opens with what I assume is a lyric about the then current moment: “24th of March has arrived and I think it’s Thursday?  Washington is beautiful out there but we don’t really care.”  It has a kind of circus opera feel.  And Monika’s voice is a marvel–powerful and beautiful with a good range.

monika2For the second song, “Shake Your Hands” she asks if everyone is ready to dance a little.  She climbs up on the desk and as she sings the slow opening, when she gets to the “I love you” moment, she sings without the mike and is as loud as when she uses it.  Once the song kicks in, it has a big disco beat: wah wah’d guitars and a funky bass line.  She encourages everyone to sing along: “Even if you don’t understand, just repeat, okay.”  The song ends with a very fun extended ending of staccato chords.

“Hand in Hand” has a kind of gospel quality (a big group sing along of the opening lines), although it is a brief, transitional song before “Secret in the Dark” begins.  She straps on a guitar for this final song which has a discoey riff and a fuzzy keyboard sound.  It’s really fun.

I’d never heard of Monika, but she seems like the kind of pop/dance star that would be really fun to see live.

[READ: April 1, 2016] Mike’s Place

Somehow I missed that word in the subtitle: True.  I didn’t realize that this was a true story until the very end.  The story was really good before I knew that and it makes it even more amazing after I found the truth.

In Tel Aviv, Israel, John Baxter (Jack), a filmmaker has come to cover a story.  He goes into a local bar called Mike’s Place for a meal.  He is greeted warmly and is told that there is live music every night of the week.  They proudly state that Mike’s is a place where people of all stripes comes to congregate and do anything but talk about politics.

It turns out that there are already people making a documentary about the subject who John came to cover (Marwan Barghouti) so Jack  decides to give up. (more…)

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