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Archive for the ‘Adventure’ Category

Tom McCarthy–C (2010)

Posted in 19th Century, Acting, Adventure, Culture Shock, Deafness, Death, Historical Fiction, Jimi Hendrix, Phish, Sex, The Beatles, War on November 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

mccarthySOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Undermind (2004).

undermindAs I understand it, Phish fans didn’t like Undermind that much and yet I really liked it and still do.  Indeed, “Undermind” is one of my favorite new Phish songs, it’s clever and boppy and just really catchy.  The album has very Beatles vibe to it—a kind of echoey feel on all the songs.  And I have recently read that people interpret the cover design to be a nod to Let It Be (there are other connections made but I’m not going to go too deeply into that).

“Scents and Subtle Sounds” opens the album.  This is a brief intro–the full songs, which sounds different appears later on the disc (it’s 97 second here)).  It leads into “Undermind” which has a loose, slightly funky sound—one of their more fun songs on recent albums.  The album version has some big fat organ sounds on it which make it even cooler.

“The Connection” is another great poppy song—gorgeous harmonies and wonderful melody, and indeed it was their first real hit.  “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing” is another great song, great backing vocals, an excellent melody and great alternating verse vocals from Mike.  It also has a great middle guitar section—it’s long and wild and reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’ solos.  “Army of One” is sung by Page.  It is a big soaring song and it’s got a very upbeat sound.  “Crowd Control” is a very Beatleseque song.

“Maggie’s Revenge” is a noisy instrumental, with Trey’s guitars making all kind of squealing noise.  It’s weird and quite refreshing from Phish’s more recent fair.  “Nothing” picks up with the open and poppy sounds of earlier records and has more great harmonies.  It seems to fade out in the middle though—a song that could have been longer!  “Two Versions of Me” is another mid tempo song with great harmonies and  great chorus.  “Access Me” is a brief poppy song that feels a bit like filler, although it has a cool and interesting coda.  “Scents and Subtle Sounds” resumes

“Tomorrow’s Song” has a very African feel to it.  It is a simple repetitive rhythm that lasts for about 3 minutes before it fades out just like it faded in.  “Secret Smile” is a very pretty piano ballad.  It’s a little heavy handed with the strings, and at nearly 7 minutes it’s too long (especially the long coda), but the melody is certainly nice.  The album ends with “Grind,” a barbershop quartet track which shows just what kind of great harmonies they cool do.

Although it’s a mature sound, there’s enough weird stuff to let them show their funky side too.  The CD comes with a DVD called “Specimens of Beauty.”

[READ: October 8, 2013] C

I received a prepub version of this book back in 2010.  The cover and title were weird and I thought I’d like to read it.  And it sat on my shelf for two years.

And then Borders closed (bummer, their chai tea was the best!) and I saw a hardcover copy of the book for $1 so I bought it (I’m enough of a geek to want to see how prepubs and final copies are different.  In this case, the books appear identical except that in the last two dozen or so pages, there’s a section with ellipses.  In the prepub, they are single spaced but in the final book they are double spaced which throws off the line spacing.  So by the end of the book, the lines are about three lines different.  Fascinating huh?).

Anyhow, what on earth is a book called C about?

Well, it is a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story.  By definition these stories focus on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood.  Our protagonist is Serge Carrefax, even though he is not the first person we meet.  That would be a doctor delivering materials to Serge’s father, Mr. Simeon Carrefax.  Mr Carrefax runs a school for the deaf in which he tells children to stop using sign language and to start speaking properly.  And he has had considerable success with the children, each of whom acting in a play every year.  (The book, by the way, is set in the late 1800s).  His mother is a silkworm farmer, and much of their money comes from this job.

But the main person in Serge’s life is his sister Sophie.  Sophie is a deviously clever girl who is alternately mean to Serge (as only older sisters can be) and then encouraging him to play with her.  She is mad for science and is constantly experimenting with her chemistry set (leading to more than one explosion in the house).  The early sections of the book show Sophie and Serge’s education.  And when Sophie goes off to school, Serge is lost, especially when she returns from school but keeps telling him to leave her alone.  And then one day, Serge discovers her dead in her “lab” and experiment in progress. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–Underworlds series [Books 1-4] (2012)

Posted in Adventure, C., Children's Books, Death, End of the World, Fables, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Gods, Kids Corner, Myths, Ozokidz, Ozomatli, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Tony Abbott, Violence, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on November 3, 2013| 1 Comment »

underwSOUNDTRACK: OZOKIDZ-“Germs” (2013).

ozokidsThis song is also on the WXPN Kids Corner CD.  Ozokidz is related to the band Ozomatli, who I don’t know all that much about.

The music in this song is very upbeat reggae with the main melody done on kazoos (I suspect this is all one person, but i don’t know for sure).  There’s also some kids’ instruments playing along.  The beat is fast enough that I might consider this ska.

This song is a lesson about germs.  It begins by telling us how to prevent germs from causing us trouble (washing your hands, mostly).  The second half talks about how some germs—some bacteria—are good for us (bacteria is rhymed with healing ya).  But certainly the most memorable part of the song is when he rhymes food with poo (and the song stops so a tiny voice can say “ew, he said poo”).

The message is a good one, and the delivery method is more fun than anything else.  Although it seems a little half-baked of an idea to me.

[READ: August and September 2013] The Underworlds series

I was delighted when I saw that Tony Abbott had a new series and I couldn’t wait to start reading it to the kids.  T. has been asking me to read the Droon series to her like I did for C.  But it is such a long series that I was happy to find something shorter to start with.  It turns out that this Underworlds series is aimed a little older than Droon.  It gets pretty dark, and I was a little worried about some of the concepts in it (the Underworlds are the realm of death after all–and hmm, she has been talking a lot about death lately…).  But in pure Tony Abbott fashion, this was an exciting series where nothing less than the fate of the world is at stake.  And there’s humor as well (although somewhat less than in his other series).  But what really sold me on this series was the way he uses classical mythology (accurately) to generate the basis and conflict of this story.

And even better than using these mythologies, Abbot merges them so that the different cultural underworlds run into each other and even join forces.  It is a great way to learn some mythology if you don’t know it (there are handy maps of the Underworlds) or to gain a more in-depth understanding of the mythologies.  By the end of the series, the kids will have encountered the Greek, Norse, Egyptian and Babylonian gods of the Underworld as well as some of the major scary guys that come out of the Underworld. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–Goofballs #2 The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue (2012)

Posted in Adventure, C., Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Kids Corner, Mystery, Short Books, T., The Plants, Tony Abbott, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on November 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

goof 2SOUNDTRACK: THE PLANTS-“Monster Under My Bed” (2013).

plantsI found this song on the WXPN Kids Corner 25th Anniversary CD (WXPN plays it a lot, and it’s a good Halloween song).

The song opens up with a lot of horns—a kind of horn solo section.  When the actual song melody starts it has a vaguely spy theme feel, although the main verse is a little sillier.

Lyrically, the song is all about the real concern that there is a Monster under the singer’s bed.  The song is fast and bouncy—especially the verses, so you know it’s not meant to be too scary.  But then the song slows down and we get the big surprise of what the monster actually is.

The song is pretty funny.  And the final verse—”monsters are nothing but make believe” is a very satisfying one.

[READ: October 12, 2013] Goofballs #2: The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue

I didn’t love the first Goofballs book, but I really enjoyed this one a lot.  It’s possible I was a sleepy dad while reading the first one or maybe it suffered from first book in a series stiffness.  But this new book hits its stride and doesn’t stop until the end.  What I especially liked about this book was that it knows its audience.  So it is a detective mystery, but the mystery isn’t too complicated, nor are there tons of impossible to figure out clues.  While I don’ think any kids would figure out who did it (I didn’t), the trial and error of figuring out the culprit is what’s fun.

It is Badger Point School’s 100th anniversary and there is going to be a huge party which includes the unveiling of a statue of the first principal.  Everyone is very excited.

Until the principal went to look at the statue and discovered that under the tarp that was covering the statue was not a statue at all—it was a stack of chairs.

Well, the Goofballs are on the case (without even the principal asking them).  They start finding clues—a broken pencil, a scrap of paper that say HEES GRATE (we had fun guessing what that could mean) and even a splash in the school’s pool. (more…)

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The Walrus: Tenth Anniversary Issue (October 2013)

Posted in Adventure, Andrew Coyne, Biography, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, Dan Rubinstein, Death, Edward Burtynsky, Essays, Fears, Harper's, History, Katrina Onstad, LGBTQ, Matthew McKinnon, Melissa Fung, Michael Harris, Nostalgia, Parenting, Poetry, Political Humor, Religion, Ron Graham, Russell Peters, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Technology, The Future, The Walrus, Violence, Voivod on September 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

2013-10SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-The Best of Voivod (1992).

bestvoivodMost Best of records promise you a selection of popular songs from a band.  Voivod never really had any popular songs, so this is an interesting choice to start with.  This may also be the only Best of compilation of a band where people who like some of the songs almost assuredly will not like other songs.

As my posts about the band have indicated, Voivod changed drastically over their first six records (which is the  period this collection covers).  And so in twelve tracks and 50 some minutes you get the very diverse history of this very unusual band.  I’m not going to talk about each track (already done that), but I will list the songs

  • Voivod [War and Pain] classic screaming metal.

  • Ripping Headaches [Rrröööaaarrr] brutal, but I must say sounds a ton better than the original CD.  I wonder if this was remastered for the compilation).

  • Korgull the Exterminator [Rrröööaaarrr] hard to believe they used two songs from this album.

  • Tornado [Killing Technology] heavy but quite catchy.

  • Ravenous Medicine [Killing Technology] signs of complexity enter the heaviness.

  • Cockroaches [EP] a strange inclusion, almost a rarity.

  • Tribal Convictions [Dimension Hätross] very complex with some heaviness.

  • Psychic Vacuum  [Dimension Hätross] I’m surprised they didn’t pick other songs though from this album.

  • Astronomy Domine [Nothingface] their hit.

  • The Unknown Knows [Nothingface] very hard to choose just two songs from this masterpiece.

  • Panorama [Angel Rat] Their newest single and quite a departure from everything that has come before.

  • The Prow [Angel Rat] their prettiest number ever.  If you buy this CD for this song you’ll hate the early stuff.

Although Voivod fans (like Dave Grohl)

are diehard, anyone who would buy only a Best of record from the band is sure to be disappointed. There are so many phases of the band and they are so radically different from “Voivod” to “The Prow” that it’s almost not even the same band.  I’m very curious as to what sales for this album were like.  (Even the cover isn’t that inspired)

[READ: September 2013] The Walrus: Tenth Anniversary Issue

It’s hard for me to believe that The Walrus has been around for ten years (even they seem a bit surprised).  I still remember hearing about the magazine on Book TV from some Canadian channel that I just happened upon.

When I heard about it The Walrus seemed interesting–kind of like Harper’s and elements of the New Yorker but all about Canada.  I’ve been a Canuckophile for decades now, so it seemed like an interesting prospect.  And over the ten years of the magazine, while I haven’t written about every issue, I have read every article.  I have written about all of the short stories that they’ve published.

This issue eschews some of my favorite elements (the short articles in the front and the arts section in the back), but they make up for it with an oversized issue (twice as long as usual and the articles are all packed with content) and some fascinating articles.

And while there are none of the short articles from the front, there are “Time Capsules,” one page articles about things that have happened in the last ten years: The iPhone, Sports Concussions, Armed Drones, The Residential School Apology, Justin Bieber, Foodies, Hand Sanitizer and Cyberbullying.  It’s interesting to read about these phenomena from a slightly different perspective.  We know that Canada and the U.S. share many similarities but there are, at heart some core differences.  And it’s these differences that make you rethink a subject.  (more…)

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Lucky Peach, No. 8: The Gender Issue (Summer 2013)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Alice Waters, Amelia Gray, Angie Wang, Anthony Bourdain, Art, Ben Shewry, Calvin Godfrey, Chateaubriand, Chicken Divan, Chris Ying, Cook Book, Coq au vin, Crème brûlée, Crêpe Suzette, Cream Puffs, Culture Shock, Derek Ballard, Edie Fake, Fuchsia Dunlop, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gender, John Birdsall, John Ritter, Johnny Negron, Jonathan Franzen, Joshua Neuman, Kevin Pang, Lucky Peach, Mark Ibold, McSweeney's, Mei Chin, Michael Deforge, Mickey Zacchilli, Mimi Lok, Naomi Duguid, Nhân VĂn, Parenting, Peter Meehan, Pizzle Soup, Quiche Lorraine, Scampi alla Calabrese, Sex, Sexism, Soccer, Three's Company, Typhoon, Vinny Dotolo, Youngmi Mayer, Yuck! on September 17, 2013| 2 Comments »

lp8.1SOUNDTRACK: TYPHOON-“Dreams of Cannibalism” (2013).

typhoonNPR was steaming this album for a while.  Now they’re giving away this song.

Typhoon is yet another band that has a crazy amount of people in it (between 12 and fourteen) and they have a vast array of instruments in play at any one time (Horns, violins, xylophones, electric guitars and mandolins for example).

At the same time, Singer Kyle Morton’s vocals are distinctive enough and are used like an instrument as well as to deliver lyrics.  This gives them quite a unique sound.

The song opens with an array of horns slowly building to a simple guitar melody.  The verses are somewhat quiet with occasional punctuations of band (and great backing vocals).  But as the song progresses, more instruments kick in (horns adding a melody line).  I really like the way the end of the song shifts direction totally, bringing in a complex instrumental section with interesting time shifts and even better backing vocals..

I enjoyed the whole album while it was streaming.  And while I can’t say that this song stands out more than the other songs, (I think “Artificial Light” is probably the best,) it represents the sound of the band pretty well.

[READ: September 2013] Lucky Peach Issue 8

I haven’t been reviewing Lucky Peach issues in their entirety because they are mostly about food and cooking and recipes and I don’t really have anything to say about that (I enjoy the articles a lot, but I don’t need to comment on them).

But I wanted to bring special attention to this issue because of the way it is presented.  This is the Gender Issue.  It has two covers (see the “female” cover tomorrow) and the magazine must be flipped over to read the different genders.

It’s not often that I think of food and gender as being connected, but there are some really interesting articles in here that talk about not only food itself, but about the people who prepare it.  Like the fact that most big name chefs are men even though cooking has traditionally been “women’s work.”

The women’s side of the magazine has these interesting articles: (more…)

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Tom Angelberger–Fake Mustache or How Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U. S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind (2012) [audiobook 2012–Todd Ross and Jessica Almasy]

Posted in Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), John Hodgman, Sam Riddleberger, The Jodie O’Rodeo Showdeo, Tom Angleberger on September 6, 2013| 3 Comments »

[LISTENED TO: end of August 2013] Fake Mustache

fake mustacheI had seen the cover of this book in the library almost every time I went in.  I loved it but I wasn’t sure if the book was too old for the kids (it’s rated 8 and up, but it turns out there’s nothing too intense that my 5 year old didn’t love it too (she didn’t get it all, but she liked it).  Angleberger is best known for the Origami Yoda series–I haven’t read it and frankly without knowing anything about it, the entire concept of the series baffles me.  But I enjoyed this book so much that I may have to dive into the folded paper series too.

This audio book was read by Jonathan Todd Ross and Jessica Almasy.  And while I liked Almasy, I really enjoyed Ross’s two sections–there was something about is style that really appealed to me.

This is the simple (albeit complicated) story of a boy whose friend buys a fake mustache.  In the town of Hairsprinkle, young Caspar lives with his parents who believe in wholesomeness—in other words, they don’t have a TV.  Nor do they believe in an allowance—material goods are not so good.  But every year Caspar’s aunt gives him a couple hundred dollars to by something frivolous.  And this year, Caspar has his sites set on a man-about-town suit.  Not just any cheap suit, but a very nice tailored, man-about-town suit (this phrase, repeated throughout the beginning of the book cracked me up.  I’m sure my kids didn’t know what it meant but it made me laugh every time it was used).  After buying the suit, he went to the Heidelberg Novelty Store to buy the Heidelberg Handlebar #7—a glorious fake mustache which is made from real human mustache hair (ew).  With suit and mustache, Caspar looked like a short man-about-town.  And the citizens of Hairsprinkle were impressed

The main character and narrator of the story is Lenny Flemm, Jr.  Lenny is something of a loser and his only real friend is Caspar.  Turns out that he himself is responsible for giving Caspar the extra ten dollars that he needed to get that mustache (they had raised the price).  When Lenny goes shopping with Caspar, he is excited not to buy a suit or a mustache but to buy a sticky grabber hand (for $1).  The lady at the desk, Sven, is hilarious (and Ross’ voice for her is dynamite).

That night a bank is robbed—by a short man in a man-about-town suit.  And the next day Caspar gives Lenny his money back, with a lot of interest.  Then another bank is robbed.  And then another.  The next time Lenny visits Caspar’s room, there are stacks of gold bars against the wall. Lenny decides to call the police, but they don’t believe him—Caspar is a boy, they are looking for a man.  But now that Caspar knows that Lenny is onto him, he tries to make trouble for Lenny.

But before Lenny can prepare for this, there is a new player in town—Fako Mustacho—a man who plans to save the town, the country, the world, from itself.  Fako Musatcho is a short man with a glorious mustache and a suit—not a man-about-town suit, mind you, but a different kind of suit.  And it seems that whenever Fako speaks, people automatically listen–including the mayor who agrees to step down because she can’t catch the bank robber.  Except for Lenny who seems to be the only one who can see that Fako is really Caspar.  So, what is a kid with no friends supposed to do?

Call for help from Jodie O’Rodeo, of course.  Jodie is the star of the now cancelled kids show The Jodie O’Rodeo Showdeo. On the show she sang and did trick riding stunts.  Turns out that she can really do them (the stunts, not the singing) and she also knows that Fako Mustacho is a kid wearing a mustache.  By the middle of the book, when Part 2 opens, we hear Jodie’s side of things (in the audio book this is where Jessica Almasy takes over).  Interestingly Jodie and Lenny meet because Lenny is dressed like Jodie O’Rodeo (long story).  Lenny always thought she was cute (and was embarrassed to say so) but the show has been off the air for a few years and Jodie is really cute now.  And she still has her horse, Soymilk.  And she wants to help Lenny save the world! (And she thinks Lenny is cute, even though it’s weird because he is dressed like her).

Once the two begin working together, hijinx ensue and the story gets very exciting indeed.  Whereas Lenny is a man of words, Jodie is all about action, and there is a ton of it (most of it very funny indeed).  By the time they free themselves from Fako Mustacho’s henchmen, Fako has the whole world hypnotized and, since it is an election year, he has them all hypnotized to vote for him as the President of the Unites States.  It’s going to take nerves of steel, great horsemanship and perhaps a sticky grabber hand to stop the plans that are afoot (including the other plan to assassinate Fako should he become president—don’t forget, he is only Caspar in a fake mustache).

This story was so funny.  It is riddled with absurdities and hilarious asides.  The situations are preposterously simple and yet also dangerous.  All throughout there were wonderful jokes, hilariously silly set ups (they fall into a vat of oozing slime) and preposterously funny foolishness—who doesn’t love when no one can see the bad guy but one kid?

I enjoyed this book so much I insisted that the kids only listen to it when I was in the car.  And it did not disappoint.

As I said earlier I loved Ross’ reading.  He was very very funny (and reminded me at times of John Hodgman’s deadpan delivery–absurdity always works best in deadpan).  And his pronunciation of Fako Mustacho made me laugh every single time.   Jessica Almasy’s reading was also really good (I don’t want to give the wrong impression).  It’s just very different—Jodie’s story is more exciting than Lenny’s while it is still funny, it’s not as absurdly funny as Lenny’s (although Almasy does a great job with the different character voices as well).

Here’s trailer for the book (ha).  I feel compelled to point out that the “its” in the trailer should have an apostrophe, but at least they didn’t put one in where it didn’t belong, which is so much more common.  I also didn’t realize the book had illustrations (that’s the trouble with audio books).

.

I am sold on Angleberger and am not only preparing to read the Origami Yoda books, but I can’t wait to get the audio for Horton Halfpott: Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M’Lady Luggertuck’s Corset.  The fact that it also has a crazy subtitle means I like it already.

Incidentally, Angleberger has also written under the pseudonym Sam Riddleberger and I hear that his The Qwikpick Adventure Society is quite enjoyable too.

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Roddy Doyle–Wilderness (2007)

Posted in Adventure, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Culture Shock, Dogs, Dublin, Ireland, Irish Writer, Jealousy, Live from Mountain Stage, Luke Doucet, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Melissa McClelland, Nature, Parenting, Roddy Doyle, Short Books, Travel on September 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

wilderSOUNDTRACK: WHITEHORSE-Live from Mountain Stage (May 16, 2012).

whitehorseWhitehorse is opening for Barenaked Ladies on the current leg of their tour (we’re going to see them in October).  I hadn’t heard of them.  Turns out Whitehorse is the duo of Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland.  They are from Canada, which may be why they are touring with BNL–because they’re not very funny or very upbeat.

They play four songs in this Mountain Stage show.  I really like “Killing Time” which has a very alt-country feel—McClelland’s harmony vocals are great on the chorus, which has a very low down dirty feel.  I particularly like the lines:

Pimms in the cooler and daughter in the yard Playing California strip croquet

And

Tongue is a sharpened razor Little miss know it some But get her alone she cries I wanna go home Oh, this little piggy plays dumb.

They have some good stories too, like the one about “Emerald Isle” which is about Luke running a marathon in Ireland.  His Irish mother, who had never been to Ireland, flew out to meet him at the finish line and his wife, Melissa, flew in from Australia as well.  There are more great harmonies in this song which, while mournful has a wonderfully uplifting feel.  “Night Owls” is a very slow ballad which, while lyrically interesting, is a little too slow for my tastes.

For the final song, Melissa explains that the two of them had been playing solo and then they got married and still played solo.  And then they decided to join forces. “Broken One” was a song that Luke wrote for his ex-girlfriend (and it is mean); Melissa says that she fixed it for Whitehorse.  It’s a pretty standard country song with a honky tonk feel.  It has a great blow off line: “You gotta have a heart to have a broken one.”

There’s something about Canadian Country music that I like so much more than American country music.  I wonder what that is.

[READ: August 24, 2013] Wilderness

I recently stumbled upon this book at the library.  I was only vaguely aware that Doyle had written a children’s novel, but there it was on the shelf.  This is not a young child’s book, which is kind of a shame.  I know my son would love half of the book, but I didn’t think he was ready for the other half.

The two parts of the story are about different members of the same family.  The father, Frank, is the same.  He married a woman quite young and they had a daughter.  When the daughter was about 4 years old, the father and mother realized they could no longer live together.  After some fights, the mother left for America.  Where she stayed.  Gráinne, the daughter, is now 18 and she is a sullen, angry teenager.  Her dad is still okay, but most of the time she wants to treat him like he’s not.  But he seems okay with that and gives her space.  The crux of her story is that her mother has decided to come back after all these years.  And Gráinne now has to deal with that.

Her story is a little mature, (especially for my 8 year old son), and she has some pretty harsh things to say about her parents, (which I hope he doesn’t have yet).

The other half of the story concerns her half brothers, and I know my son would love this part.  Conveniently, the two stories are easy to demarcate–the ones with the boys are named Chapter 1 etc, the one with Gráinne are named things like The Bedroom, The Bus etc.  So I did consider telling him to read just those parts.  But maybe I’ll just wait.  Anyway, her half brothers, Johnny and Tom, belong to her dad and her stepmom, Sandra.  Sandra loves her boys and her husband and even Gráinne–most of the time.  But lately Gráinne has been a little much.  And Frank has encouraged Sandra to take the boys and go on a trip, just with them.  That will let her focus on the boys and give him some time with Gráinne. (more…)

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Lara’s Book: Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider Phenomenon–with thoughts and story by Douglas Coupland and Strategies from Kip Ward (1998)

Posted in Adventure, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Douglas Coupland, Fantasy, Funny (strange), Kip Ward, Kris Renkewitz, Sex, Technology, The Future, Tomb Raider, Unfinished, Voivod on August 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

laraSOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-War and Pain (1984).

warandIt was easy to know that Voivod were going to be an unusual band.  Their name is crazy.  All the members had nicknames like Piggy, Blacky, Snake, and, confusingly, Away.  And they were French Canadian, which meant that their singer’s first language wasn’t English–I love the way he stresses things in his vocals especially on later albums, and he had the guttural French that sounds like a cookie monster vocalist even when he is just speaking.

Later on, their prog and psychedelic leanings would come out more, but on their debut, they were just a noisy, screamy pounding metal band.  And this debut has typically bad mid 80s metal production to top it off.

In 2004 the album was remastered with bonus tracks, a full live concert and a CD ROM with all kinds of goodies.  I originally thought the remaster didn’t sound that good, but there is definitely some clarity that the remaster brings.  It allows you to hear a lot of the subtleties (and there are some) that were lost in the original.

There are hints at the kind of weird sounding noises the band would make on future albums, but this is mostly just fast, pounding music.  I’d have liked them to re-record this stuff before Piggy died, just to see what a proper recording studio could do with these earlier songs.

Of course, now that I have listenedto it again with better equipment, I’m changing my assessment somewhat.  Despite the very heavy nature of the songs there are some very cool sequences in here.  They are nothing compared to the complexities that the band would undertake in just a few short years, but there are some really interesting things underway and the remaster definitely highlights them a little better. It still sounds pretty bad 9especially compared to their later records), but hey, they only spent $2,000 and recorded it in a studio where the engineer had never heard a metal band before.

[READ: August 23, 2013] Lara’s Book

I have known of this book since it came out in 1998.  I was a huge fan of Douglas Coupland and yet I had zero interest in Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. So I simply ignored this book.  But because I’m being all completist with this blog, it was time to bite the bullet and see what this piece of nonsense was all about.

And it is just as weird and creepy as I feared.

There are several sections to the book, most of which are written by Coupland.  I will admit right up front that I did not read the strategies and secrets from Kip Ward–sorry Kip, it seemed like fun but between the crazy fonts and layout and the fact that I will never play the game it just seemed like too much. (more…)

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Michelle Tea–Mermaid in Chelsea Creek (2013)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Ben Gibbard, Birds, Death, Death Cab For Cutie, Fantasy, Funny (strange), Hey Marseilles, Magic, McSweeney's, Michelle Tea, Pigeons, Supernatural, Trilogy, Violence, YA Books on August 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

mermaSOUNDTRACK: HEY MARSEILLES-Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2013). 

heymar For reasons I’m unclear about, the first two songs (at least the first two listed on the NPR web page, (“To Travels & Trunks” and”Gasworks”) ) are not included in the download.  But we do get the band’s introduction of themselves.  So maybe the NPR list is wrong?  Weirder things have happened.

The band drove all the way from Seattle and are pleased to announce that they are the first band to play the Festival (a nice, if insignificant piece of trivia).

Regardless, we get a solid 35 minute set.  The band opens with “Heart Beats,” a folky song.  Indeed, Hey Marseilles continues the tradition of large bands (6 members at last counting) who play folk music with lots of unexpected(ish) instruments.  But the singer sounds quite a bit like Ben Gibbard.  Indeed that first song sounds like a less commercial Death Cab for Cutie—you keep expecting a big commercial chorus to come but it doesn’t, and there’s something very satisfying about them not giving it to us.

Although the band does sounds quite a bit like DCFC (both in the voice and the arrangements), their instrumentation brings an unfamiliarity to the songs that makes them so intriguing—like when the accordion pops up put of nowhere in “From a terrace.”  Or other songs where strings fill out a song–not in a “look we’re unplugged” sort of way but as  natural part of the song.  I really enjoyed their songs and may track down their CDs (and their cool scarf).

[READ: July 3, 2013] Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

This was the second YA book that McSweeney’s has released.  It is (say it with me) the first book in a trilogy.   And I have to say that I really didn’t like the first 100 pages.

There were a number of small things that kept me interested, but for the most part I found the story pretty dreadful.  On a personal note I really didn’t like that the Chelsea Creek was not revealed to be in the Boston area until very far into the story.  I hated that it was so specific (Chelsea) and yet so generic (which of the dozens of Chelseas was it?).  But more importantly I hated that Sophie (the protagonist) and her friend Ella, play the ‘pass-out” game.  In the game, one of the girls chokes herself until she passes out.  The other girl watches and wakes the first up after about 30 seconds.  This is what they do for fun  This is their cheap high.  And it constitutes a large part of the beginning of the story.  So much so that when her mother finds out about it, she tells her doctor.  And what made it all the crazier was that her doctor reveals that not only did she play the pass out game as  a girl but she is sure her mother did too.  And her mother says yes.  What the fuck?  Oh and her mother is mean and overworked and exhausted and generally always ready to fight with Sophie.

I imagine that if I had another book with me on vacation I would have put this down and read that one instead.  But I pressed on, mostly because when Sophie passed out she saw a mermaid in Chelsea Creek, a filthy sewage filled river.  (The fact that Ella is a germophobe is quite funny, especially when Sophie falls into the creek when she passes out).  That kept me interested as did Dr Chen (the above doctor).  Because the Doctor keeps pigeons on her roof and she has tied flutes to some of their tails so that they make beautiful music when they fly.  This scene was so good–so briefly magical–that I forgave the rest of the book and gave it a blank slate.  I was bummed when the pigeons went away, but was delighted when they came back a little later, once the magic began for real.

And there is magic aplenty.  Especially as Sophie learns more and more about her family and neighborhood. (more…)

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Max Barry–Lexicon (2013)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Billy Bragg, Death, End of the World, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, Magic, Max Barry, Poets, Supernatural, T.S. Eliot, Violence, Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, Yuck! on August 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

SlexOUNDTRACK: FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2013).

frakWhenever NPR streams and saves festivals shows, I like to check out the bands I love (of course), but I also check out some of the bands I’d never heard of before.  And sometimes it leads to a fantastic discovery.  Like Frank Turner.  I had no idea who he was, but he was described as folk-punk which is quite accurate.  He reminds me of Billy Bragg in his younger, harder days.  Turner is British, he has a very thick accent when he sings and while he is nowhere near as political as Bragg, he treads in that same line of folkiness.

His lead off track, “Four Simple Words” (the words are “I Want to Dance”) begins as a folkie song, but it quickly morphs into a rollicking stomper (louder than most bands at Newport, he theorizes).  But a song like “Try This at Home” seems to speak to his overall ethos—music for the people by the people:

Because there’s no such thing as rock stars There’s just people who play music
And some of them are just like us And some of them are dicks
So quick, turn off your stereo Pick up that pen and paper
Yeah, you could do much better Than some skinny half-arsed English country singer

There are a few more specifically pointed messages like “Glory Hallelujah,” whose chorus goes “There is no-o-o God, so clap your hands together.”  As well as a funny (but not really) song which he introduces as being written because he read Gene Simmons’ autobiography.  Simmons says he slept with 4,600 some women which he knows because he has taken a Polaroid of each one.  Turner is appalled “what an ass” and wrote “Wherefore Art Thou, Gene Simmons” as a response.

But the majority of songs are about love and life, going home again and playing music.  And, in this live setting Turner is fantastic—getting the crowd to sing along, having great banter and being a wonderful showman.

The final song is a great sing-along with the simple but effective chorus of: “I won’t sit down and I won’t shut up.  And most of all I will not grow up.”  I’m totally enjoying Turner’s music and now I’m going to have to check out his actual releases (he has four or five).  See more about him at his website.

[READ: July 20, 2013] Lexicon.

Virginia Woolf has gotten a hold of a word which has caused untold destruction in a small town in Australia.  W.B. Yeats has sent T.S. Eliot and a non-poet named Wil to get the word back and, if possible to kill Virginia Woolf.

Intrigued?  Yeah me too.

I saw this book in Barnes & Noble and was really excited that Barry had a new book out.  And when I pointed it out to Sarah she said , “I already have a hold on it.”  So, when it came in I took it from her pile and now it has to go back before she gets a chance to read it.

Imprinted in the crazy cover image are a series of odd characters and amid them it says 4 why did you do it.  I was trying to figure out if there was more to this secret message, but there isn’t.  However, it is a clue to what lies inside.

I guess in the grand scheme of things, the story is pretty simple (if not a little confusing).  What I laid out above is the skeletal outline; however, Barry interweaves the story with past and future (and a whole lot of mind control) and he begins the book right in the middle of utter chaos. (more…)

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