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Archive for the ‘Pigs’ Category

Greg Cook–Friends is Friends (2016)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Bears, Bidiniband, Bruce Cockburn, Bruce Springsteen, Creaking Tree String Quartet, David Bowie, Drinking, Elephants, First Second :01, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Greg Cook, John Lennon, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Pigs, Queen, Rheostatics, Selina Martin, The Beatles, The Germs, The Violet Archers, Unfunny, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator, Yuck!, tagged on December 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Fall Nationals, Night 1 of 10, The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (December 8, 2005).

This series of ten concerts contains the final Rheostatics live shows that are left to write about–except for their “final shows” and their “reunion shows” (which I really hope to see some day). This was the 1st night of their last 10 night Fall Nationals run at the Horseshoe. Ford Pier was on keyboards.

These shows seem significantly shorter that the 2004 Fall Nationals.  This show is under 2 hours–practically unheard of in a Fall Nationals.  Unlike the 2004 Fall Nationals, however, they are not promoting an album, so there is a lot more diversity of songs.

This recording is from the audience, so there’s a (shocking) amount of chatter from fans.  You also can’t hear everything that’s said into the mics, so you have to listen close if you want to hear audience interaction.

The show opens with them talking to fans from San Diego (Mike: “that means Saint Diego”).  Dave asks how long they’re here. He says well, we have three chances, then.

“Loving Arms” is a sweet opening from Tim.  Then Martin starts announcing in a smarmy voice “I’m a member.  Hi there.”  It’s a launch into “CCYPA” (Miek: “in an election year, imagine that”).  Tim follows with a quick “Song Of The Garden.”

Then Dave starts playing the opening to “Fat” to much applause.  “That’s Ford Pier on the keyboards.  That’s Tim Vesely on the keyboards.  That’s Martin Tielli on the keyboards.”  During the end jam section, there’s some loud, unusual backing vocals which I assume are from Ford Pier.

Martin: “What’s the first note of the next song, Dave?  I’m feeling a little shaky.  But that’s what this song [‘Fish Tailin”]is about so it should lend itself to this current number.  After this comes “Mumbletypeg” Martin: “That is David Augustino Bidini.  Dave wrote this song.  All by himself!”  It romps along nicely.

Next is the first of a couple new songs.  “Sunshine At Night” is actually a song hat Tim would release on his 2008 Violet Archers disc Sunshine at Night (where it is mostly the same but more fleshed out and better-sounding).

Martin is having fun with the “Hi there” smarmy voice as an intro to “The Tarleks.”  It’s followed by “Marginalized” which has a rather lengthy and dramatic piano solo in the middle.

Martin: “That was by Timothy Warren Vesely.”  Ford: “Stop shouting everyone’s middle names, Jesus.”  Dave:  “Martin is obsessed with middle names, whenever he meets someone new he says ‘What’s your middle name?”  Mike: “Yeah right but whats your middle name.”  Ford continues, “A friend of mine was engaged to a woman from Slovenia.  When she came to visit she was astonished to hear that everyone had a middle name–are you all rich?  It was a difficult thing to explain to her.  She associated middle named with wealth?  Middle names were not a concept that came to her block in Ljubljana.  Tim: “Ford tried to convince her it had something to do with wealth.”

Then came a song, “The Land Is Wild.”  This would eventually be released on Bidiniband’s 2009 album The Land is Wild.  It’s pretty much the same although this earlier version has a few lines that are not in the final.  A line about him being in his own head and listening to Metallica, Ozzy or Queen.  There’s another line about tickling the net and being lost in his head.  Both of these lines are left off in the final.  Interestingly, the final verse about fishing with his old man and his death were added later.

Martin says that for “Here Comes the Image,” Augustine is going to play the drums and Dimitrius is going to play the keyboard.”

As they start, “It’s Easy To Be With You,” Dave says, “My friend this is no time to be talking on your phone, there’s some serious rock n roll happening up here.  Take a picture with your mind.”

It’s followed by a beautiful “Stolen Car.”  Martin’s vocals are just so good.  After the song ends, properly, there’s an extra acoustic strumming section that soon becomes “Nowhere Man” sung by Selina Martin.

Dave notes that it has been 25 years since John Lennon was killed.  The world has gotten a lot shittier.

Ford then says, “You know who was really burned on that score? Darby Crash, lead singer of The Germs.  He committed suicide with an intentional heroin overdose the same day.  Five years earlier David Bowie said they only have five years left.  So he told his band mates hat five years from now he was going to off himself.  They ignored him, but he did.  And then three hours later the Walrus gets blown away.”
Dave’s takeaway: “Never take advice from David Bowie.  He told me to buy a wool suit.  Well actually Springsteen told me, but Bowie told him.”
Tim once ate some hot soup with David Bowie.

We’ll do a couple more for you seeing as how it’s Thursday.  Tim: “Can you do a little pretty intro for me that you sometimes do?”  Dave does and “Making Progress ” sounds big and more rocking than usual (the keys help).  Martin plays  a more rocking guitar solo before settling in to the pretty ending.  When it’s over you can hear Dave says “we can call him Timmy, I’m not sure you can call him…  Well, I guess you just did.  Is this your third straight year?  Fourth?  You’ve earned the right to call him Timmy.”

Thanks to the Creaking Tree String Quartet they were beyond awesome.  I can’t wait to see them again tomorrow night.  The set ends with a lovely version of “Self Serve Gas Station” with some great piano additions.  The song ends in a long jam with trippy keys a fun solo from Martin.  As he walks off Martin says, “I smoke Gaulioses Blue cigarettes, since they can’t advertise.  The flavor!  And so did John Lennon and Bruce Cockburn.”

After the encore, Dave sings and acoustic “Last Good Cigarette.”  When Martin comes back out they play a surprising encore song of “Song Of Flight” which segues into a mellow intro for “In This Town.”  By by the end it picks up steam and rocks to the end.

It was a fairly short first show, of the Fall Nationals, but they played a lot of interesting stuff.

[READ: April 20, 2017] Friends is Friends

This book had a lot going against it.  The title is virtually impossible to find in a catalog (3 words long, 2 words repeat, the other word is “is” and the one main word is incredibly common in children’s books, ugh).  On top of that, no libraries near me carried it.  And then its got that creepy-ass cover.

Reviews of the book weren’t very positive either.  So my hopes weren’t very high.

And even with low hopes, I was still pretty disappointed. (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Liō ‘s Astonishing Tales from the Haunted Crypt of Unknown Horrors (2009)

Posted in Aliens, Birds, Bloom County, Boondocks, Cats, Children's Books, Christmas, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Foxtrot, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Garfield, Halloween, Holidays, Humiliation, Inventions, Joe Henry, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, M.C. Escher, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Mark Trail, Mary Worth, Opus, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Sam Phillips, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Enfield Tennis Academy, The Family Circus, Tiny Desk Concert, Vampires, Vic Chesnutt, Woody Guthrie, Yuck!, Zombies on October 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ENFIELD TENNIS ACADEMY-The Dark (2017).

The Enfield Tennis Academy is one of the major locations in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.  So, of course, a band that names itself after it must be listened to.

This is the second release by the band (which states “The Enfield Tennis Academy is TR.”

The Dark is described as

This EP is a collection of remixes and covers of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark”, from the 1984 album “Born in the U.S.A.” It is not ironic. “Dancing in the Dark” is © Bruce Springsteen and Columbia.

And that is literally what this is. Five tracks that rethink “Dancing in the Dark” each one called “Dancing in the Dark.”

Track 1 opens with someone doing a kind of Elvis impersonation (or is it actually Bruce?) of the first line of the song: I get up in the evening…”  It then gets echoed and looped on itself until it is inaudible.  After a minute a guitar comes in strumming music backwards, I believe.  The big takeaway is the rolling “I” repeated over and over.  After 1:30 there’s a rather pretty sax solo. which may be from the song, I don’t know it that well.

Track 2 is an ambient piece with electronic claps and a kind of slow almost pixelated pipe organ version of the main melody of the song.  There’s some of those 80s processed “ahhhhs” added to the end.  It would eerily make you think of the song without knowing exactly why.

Track 3 is a noisy track.  Electronic drums played very rapidly and then some glitchy guitars playing the melody in triple time.  It is the least recognizable of the five pieces.

Track 4 is a fingers-on-chalkboard electronic screech with what I assume is the song played in reverse.  It’s a tough minute before the noise clicks away and we’re left with the backwards vocals.  If you didn’t know it was “Dancer in the Dark” you might not recognize the melody but if you do, you can kind of hear it.

Track 5 plays the original song in the middle ear. But in the left ear is another song (as if the radio was staticky and in the right ear is another even louder song.  But Bruce is squarely in the middle.  It’s pretty disconcerting.  Ultimately, the left ear gives way to people talking and the right ear reveals itself to be “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.”  It fades and for about ten seconds during which you can hear pretty much only the Bruce song, but then it all falls apart into glitchy noise.

The longest track is 2:15; the rest are about 2 minutes.  No one will say this disc is enjoyable, but it is kind of ugly fun.

[READ: January 30, 2017] Liō ‘s Astonishing Tales from the Haunted Crypt of Unknown Horrors

I have observed before about the maddening publication life of Liō books.  It’s going on four years since a new collection has been published.

But at the same time there are a number of books that cover the same territory.  Like this one.

This book collects “Liō” (which I take to mean Happiness is a Warm Cephalopod) and Silent But Deadly.  But what puts this book head and shoulders above the others (and just about any other collection of any series) is that it is almost completely annotated.

I didn’t compare the two books to see if all of the strips were indeed included.  But I’ll assume that claim is true.

Tatulli doesn’t comment on every strip but he does on a lot of them.  Like the very first one (in which he criticizes his–admittedly horrible-looking–spider.

He has at least three comments about what a genius Charles Schulz was.  Including the first time he tried to draw Lucy and Charlie: “I wanted to use the retro 1950s Peanuts look, but it was a bitch to reproduce…Schulz just make it look so simple.”

He’s also very critical of his drawing style of Mary Worth: “I won’t even tell you how embarrassingly long it took to make this lousy copy.” (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Reheated Liō: A Delicious Liō Collection Ready to Devour (2011)

Posted in Aliens, Ben Folds, Birds, Blondie, Bloom County, C., Calvin and Hobbes, Cats, Children's Books, David Foster Wallace, Death, Death Cab For Cutie, Demons, Dennis the Menace, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, For Better of For Worse, Foxtrot, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Hagar the Horrible, Halloween, Holidays, Hospital Ships, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Ministry, Nancy, Non Sequitur, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Shearwater, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Enfield Tennis Academy, The Far Side, The Lockhorns, The Mountain Goats, The Weakerthans, Tiny Desk Concert, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies on October 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ENFIELD TENNIS ACADEMY-“My Missing Eye” (2017).

The Enfield Tennis Academy is one of the major locations in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.  So, of course, a band that names itself after it must be listened to.

This is the first release by the band (which states “The Enfield Tennis Academy is TR.”

The bandcamp site describes this song as

“Garbage thrown together on a free trial of Reason. Song’s about missing a fucking eye. Real music soon.”

This is two minutes of noisy instrumental metal math rock.  There’s a lot of different sounds in this two minute song.

It opens with some staccato pummeling sounds–the guitars are interesting in that they sound like they are chords yet ringing out at the same time.  The middle is a really fast pummeling section that reminds me of Ministry.  Those opens stringed chords come back late in the song, and they sound really cool.

I’m curious to see what TETA’s “real music” is going to sound like.

[READ: July 20, 2017] Reheated Liō

I have really enjoyed the Liō books (going forward, I’m leaving off that line over the o, because it’s a real pain).

The strip has been going on for some 12 years now, which is pretty amazing.  And yet, there don’t seem to be any new or recent collections out.

So Lio is strip about a boy named Lio.  Lio is a dark, dark kid.  He has a pet squid, he loves monsters and he’s delighted by chaos.  Over the years his character hasn’t changed much but Tatulli has given him some surprising tenderness, which is a nice trait. (more…)

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Joy Williams–“Pet Seminary” (Harper’s, August 2016)

Posted in Canadian Music, Diane Williams, Dogs, Excerpt, Flash Fiction, Harper's, Huh?, Pigs, Religion, Rheostatics, Sly & The Family Stone, Sly and the Family Stone, The Kingsmen, The Kinks, The Who, tagged on July 9, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Mowat Collegiate, Scarborough, ON (1982).

This is (as of June 2017), the oldest Rheostatics show on Rheostatics Live.

And indeed, “Considering it is 34 years old it sounds remarkably good for a show probably taped off of a tape recorder”

This is in their very early days when they were a lot more funk and new wave.

There’s also a big distinction in that the guitar (or maybe keyboard, although I don’t hear any) is played by David Crosby (not that one) rather than Martin Tielli.  This was before Tielli joined the band.

There’s a note that this cassette may have been two sets on one night but it seems more likely that it was two different nights.  Same set list both sets.

The show opens with a recording of “O Canada” that seems to gets stuck as they launch into “National Pride.”  I can’t get over how many bootlegs there are of them playing this song and yet it never made it onto a release.  I feel like the ending using a twisted “Star Spangled Banner” is new (or I guess actually old).

This is one of the first occasion I’ve heard them play The Kinks song “Well-Respected Man.”  Their version is incredibly different and I wouldn’t have even recognized it except for the lyrics:

And he’s oh, so good,
And he’s oh, so fine,
And he’s oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind

It’s all funk and slaps and a wholly different melody.  The guitar solo is very rudimentary as well–angular and noisy.  They also play Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You” with their own flavor to it–again nothing like the original.  It’s so far from the original that the subtitle is “(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”  It feels like every song is pretty much all slap bass –I can’t actually tell who is singing these songs Dave or Tim.

There’s an original “Satellite Dancing” and a cover of “Louie Louie” done in a new wave style with some really high angular guitar chords and a bass solo.

Clark describes “1984 For Those Who Believe” as a political song about “Poland and Russia and the Middle East an all of those fun things that happen in the world today.”

There’s a story that I can’t make out but the end is “We’re the Rheostatics and we’d like you to dance, okay” which segues into a seven minute “Shake Yer Body Thang,” which also has a lengthy funk bass section.

They introduce their “single released three months ago,” “My Generation.”  “It’s a dancing song, too.”  This song did get official release and it also sounds nothing like the original  “Girl in My Magazine” about Nancy Reagan–he keeps it under his bed at night.  It’s got a massive ska feel.  “Man of Action” funky bass and scratchy guitars (and maybe a keyboard?).  It gets cut off before the end.

The second set doesn’t have “O Canada,” but something else as an intro.  But they still open with National Pride and in this version you can really hear him sing,”Can’t live in the USA / too many enemies / can’t live in the USA / that place is not for me.”

“We’re the Rheostatics from Toronto, Ontario, this is a song dedicated to Russ Jones.” It’s called “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”

“Satellite Dancing” from our single: dance and have fun which i hop you all will.  This set seems more fun than the previous one: chants of “dancing!” and a rowdier crowd.

“It’s called ‘Louie Louie’ and its a dance song.”

“1984 For Those Who Believe” is “dedicated to the National Guard, Mr Reagan and all his friends in blue.”  I wish I could hear the words better, I, curious what they’re singing about.

“This is called ‘Shake Your Body Thang’ it’s new and everybody dances, alright?”  There’s cowbell and other percussion during the funk breakdown.  They want to turn the whole building into one big rhythm section–“bang any two things together.”  “We’re going to keep doing this until you get it right…you shouldn’t smoke anyways, eh?”  It’s hard to tell from this recording if the crowd is into it.

A much shorter “My Generation” it feels like a bratty punk version of the song.  “Girl in My Magazine” it’s about Nancy Reagan–he keeps the dirty books in his closet so no one will find them.  And once again, “Man of Action” gets cut off.

It’s hard to believe that this band evolved into Rheostatics.  I wonder what they’d be doing now if they hadn’t morphed so much.

[READ: September 12, 2016] “Pet Seminary”

This piece is actually four excerpted sections from William’s Ninety-Nine Stories of God.

I have had a real problem with Williams’ stories–they just don’t do anything for me.  So having four even shorter ones is not the most exciting prospect.

#29 is a first person account of the narrators childhood in which his class was supposed to visit a slaughterhouse.  Cooler heads prevailed and they did not actually see into the abattoir, by the smell was unforgettable.  Later they learned of a pig who saved a man from drowning.  The owner said that pigs are more intelligent than dogs but are not omniscient. (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Liō: There’s a Monster in My Socks (2012)

Posted in Aliens, Birds, Boondocks, Bryce Dessner, Cats, Children's Books, Death, Demons, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Garfield, Geeshie Wiley, Holidays, Humiliation, Inventions, Kronos Quartet, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, M.C. Escher, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Mark Trail, Mary Worth, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Family Circus, The National, Tiny Desk Concert, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies on March 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 socks kronosSOUNDTRACK: KRONOS QUARTET-Tiny Desk Concert #322 (November 25, 2013).

2013 was the 40th anniversary of Kronos Quartet.  I first heard of them about eight years after they started with their cool arrangement of “Purple Haze.”  And then I learned that they were like a sponge, soaking up and playing music from all over the world: In just one year they released albums with tango, songs by South African composers, Polish composers, jazz musicians and so much more.

I have many of their releases, although I realized I more or less stopped listening to new stuff from them around the turn of the century (since when they have released some 16 albums!).

Well, amazingly, the Quartet is still the same original players (except for the cellist–the cello is like Kronos’ drummer as they seem to replace her every couple of years).

They play three pieces here and the three range the gamut from dark and broody to rather sweet to quirky.  In other words, typical Kronos.

For more info:

The musicians —  David Harrington (violin) and longtime members John Sherba (violin) and Hank Dutt (viola) and new (as of 2013) cellist Sunny Yang — could reminisce over more than 800 new works and arrangements they’ve commissioned in 40 years. But instead, the new-music train pushes ever onward to new territories. They remain a living, breathing world-heritage site for music.

Now in the midst of its 40th-anniversary tour, Kronos brings to this Tiny Desk Concert a new arrangement, a work from a new album and, for Kronos, something of a chestnut, a piece the group recorded a whopping five years ago.

“”Aheym” (Yiddish for “homeward”) was written for Kronos by Bryce Dessner; a member of the Brooklyn rock band The National, he studied composition at Yale. The music thrives on nervous energy, pulsating with strumming and spiccato (bouncing the bow on strings) while building to a tremendous fever.”

I love this piece. It is intense and dramatic with its 4-3-3 bowing from all four members.  There’s an interesting cello melody with pizzicato strings from the rest.  The overall melody seems somewhat circular with different instruments taking on different leads.  But this song also plays with some interesting bowing techniques.  In addition to the spiccato (about 4 minutes in), the players drag the bow for momentary scraping and scratching sounds.

Another wonderfully dramatic moment comes at 7 minutes where each musician takes a turn bowing his or her note while the violin plays a super fast series of notes.  The song builds and build in dramatic until it gets to about nine and  half minutes and it reaches its powerful ending.

“Lullaby,” opens with plucked cello notes and strummed viola.  “It is a traditional song with Afro-Persian roots (from the group’s Eastern-flavored 2009 album Floodplain), [and] is woven from different cloth altogether. Colorful tones that lay between our Western pitches are threaded through the music, anchored by a gorgeous solo from violist Dutt; his contribution takes on the warm and weathered sound of a grandmother singing to a child.”  It is slow and moody and beautiful.

Harrington introduces the final piece by saying it’s by a performer that no one had heard of–including, until recently, even himself.

“Kronos caps off the concert with another hairpin turn, this time to a fresh arrangement of “Last Kind Words,” a little-known blues song from around 1930, recorded by singer and guitarist Geeshie Wiley. In Jacob Garchik’s exuberant arrangement (which Kronos premiered this fall), interlocking strums and plucks provide a kind of rhythm section, while Harrington’s violin stands in for the now-forgotten blues singer.”

There’s lots of plucked notes from everyone–including plucked bent note on the viola which gives it a real “early” guitar sound.  While I don’t know what Geeshie sounded like, so I can’t compare the violin to her vocal, the whole thing sounds great together.  In fact the whole thing is unlike any string quartet I’ve heard–so different and wonderful.

I’m going to have to bust out so Kronos CDs.

[READ: September 10, 2016] There’s a Monster in My Socks

I’ve been quite puzzled about the publication history of the Liō books.  And this just adds another layer of confusion.  This book covers the exact same time period as Happiness is a Squishy Cephalopod which was published in 2007.  The difference is that Cephalopod placed all of the strips in order, while this one seems to move things around quite a bit (the thinner format also means that it can’t quite handle the single panel strips very well.   But more egregious is that this volume (remember, the one printed after the previous one) prints the Sunday color strips in black and white.

The book also leaves some of the strips out.  It covers the date range from May 15, 2006 – Feb 16, 2007 (Cephaolopod went to May 23), but while it has the Feb 14 strip, it does not have the Feb 15 strip.  Weird.

So, basically this is an inferior version of the same book, but the publishers presumably wanted the books in this more friendly size (or some other nefarious reason).

I’ll include the review of Cephalopod below.

And, here’s the current list of existing Liō books. It’s a shame that there are years and years of strips thus far uncollected. (more…)

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Stephan T. Pastis–The Croc Ate My Homework : A Pearls Before Swine collection (2014)

Posted in Children's Books, Crocodiles, Ducks, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Jealousy, Pearls Before Swine, Pigs, Rats, Red Baraat, Stephan T. Pastis, Surreal, Technology, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert on February 5, 2017| Leave a Comment »

crocs SOUNDTRACK: RED BARAAT-Tiny Desk Concert #194 (February 14, 2012).

redbaraatBob Boilen opens his blurb about this band with high praise indeed:

Red Baraat is the best party band I’ve seen in years. The group plays rollicking funk music steeped in Northern India’s wedding celebrations, with a dash of D.C. go-go beats and hip-hop. It’s all driven by Sunny Jain’s dhol, a double-sided barrel drum that hangs down low around his body.

But the music is not all about drumming

If the drum is the messenger, the brass is the message. Uplifting melodies emanate from baritone and soprano saxophones, bass trumpet, trombone and sousaphone. This is a band that jazz lovers can appreciate and rock fans can dance to.

They play three songs.  And the musicians are quite diverse.  Its fun to see a trumpeter (who totally wails) wearing a Sikh turban.

“Chaal Baby”  is really dancey with a simple, bouncy horn melody and all that percussion. In addition to the snare and the dhol, there’ s a percussionist making some great sounds, too.  And all through the song–which really swings–people are shouting “hey ho.” It’s a lot of fun.

“Shruggy Ji” opens slowly but after a few second the whole band kicks in with a kind of minor key feel (and a very Indian sound on the saxophone.  There’s some chanting–although I can’t tell what they’re saying.  The two note melody is great for shaking your hips to.  In the middle of the song there’s a call and response of “oh my may” and then he raps—he’s a little hard to hear (because he’s unmic’d and the rest of the band is so loud) but the gist is there and it’s fun (I believe he name checks Biz Markee).  As this song ends you hear Stephen Thomson shout “can you guys hear in the back?”

On “Dhol ‘n’ Brass” the guy with the dhol opens this song with a fast chanted opening that sounds a lot like the rhythm of the drums.  When the rest of the band jumps in, the song is really fast and a lot of fun

This is indeed a great party band and there’s plenty of diversity in the music to keep it really interesting and unexpected.

[READ: February 1, 2016] The Croc Ate My Homework

I knew of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine but had never read it before.

This book was published by the same folks who introduced me to Liō and I thought it might be funny.

From what I gather, this collection is actually a collection of the most kid-friendly strips from this series.  This I find very strange indeed, but I see that the actual strip is fairly adult and has been controversial on my occasions (although it is published in newspapers, so it’s never too dark).

I got a kick out of this collection, although I didn’t think it was all that great.  Of course, knowing that these strips are the somewhat watered down strips does make me want to read the real thing to see if these strips ware funnier in context.

The strip centers around a bunch of animals Rat (who is mean–unnecessarily mean, I felt, in this book, but again, without context), Pig who is a good-natured but naive. The Crocs (who are incredibly dumb–and very funny) and the Zebra who outsmarts the crocs–although that’s not very hard. (more…)

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Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down [#11] (2016)

Posted in Béla Bartók, Children's Books, Diary, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Humiliation, I.M. Spooky, Jake Schepps' Expedition Quartet, Jealousy, Jeff Kinney, Lies, Nostalgia, Parenting, Pigs, Set at School, Short Books, Technology, Toilets, Yuck! on January 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 doubledownSOUNDTRACK: JAKE SCHEPPS’ EXPEDITION QUARTET-Tiny Desk Concert #187 (January 19, 2012).

jakeJake Schepps’ Expedition Quartet is a somewhat unusual string quartet in that the instruments are violin and upright bass (normal) but also guitar and banjo.  And so the songs have a classical feel–melodies repeated in a fugue style, but with the prominence of the banjo, it feels more like a folk song.  The violin takes on a kind of fiddle sound.  And that’s interesting enough, but it’s the story of the music that they are playing which makes it even more fascinating:

About 100 years ago, Béla Bartók was traipsing through his native Hungary (Romania and Slovakia, too) with a bulky Edison phonograph, documenting folk songs and dances. There’s a priceless photo of the young composer, his contraption perched on an outside windowsill with a woman singing into the horn while anxious villagers stare at the camera. By 1918, Bartók had amassed almost 9,000 folk tunes. He made transcriptions of some; others he arranged for piano, while elements of still others found their way into his orchestra pieces and chamber music.

This was the country music of Eastern Europe, and its off-kilter rhythms and pungent melodies continue to captivate music lovers and musicians like Colorado-based banjo player Jake Schepps, who has recorded an entire album of Bartok’s folk-inspired music.

For this concert, with fellow members of Expedition Quartet — violinist Enion Pelta-Tiller, guitarist Grant Gordy and bass player Ian Hutchison, they played a Bartók hoe-down of sorts.

They play three pieces:

“Romanian Folk Dances: ‘Stick Game'”  Bartók (arr. Flinner).  This is a quieter piece with moments of bounce.  Indeed, Schepps doesn’t feel like the leader of this group because everyone shares the spotlight.  The guitar takes a lengthy solo–its got a very jazzy feel (which is a little weird on an acoustic guitar).  The violin takes a pizzicato solo, which is neat.  When Schepps finally does do a solo it’s not a showoffy banjo solo, it just fits in well with what everyone else is playing.

“For Children (Hungarian Folk Tunes): ‘Stars, Stars Brightly Shine'” Bartók (arr. Schepps).  This is a slower tune and it is much shorter as well—it doesn’t really lend itself to soloing.  Although the violin takes on the lead melody and it sounds mournful and beautiful.

“Mikrokosmos No. 78 / ‘Cousin Sally Brown'” Bartók / traditional (arr. Schepps).  Before this track, when someone tells Schepps that No 78 is his favorite of the Mikrokosmos, he says that he prefers 79.  The bassist says that 79 has gotten too commercial.  The end of the song has a tag of “Cousin Sally” a rollicking traditional dance number.  The four seems to play somewhat at odds with each other briefly and when they all rejoin for the end—it’s pretty great.

[READ: December 27, 2016] Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down

I keep expecting the quality of the jokes in the Wimpy Kid books to decline.  But rather, this book was not only hilarious, but it worked really well as a book, too.

What I mean is that, I know that the Wimpy Kid series is online and that Kinney does a new story every day (or at least he did , I don’t know if he still does).  These books had always been taken from the online site (and I assume they still are).  But somehow, this book has jokes that circle back to jokes earlier in the book.  There’s at least a half a dozen callbacks which makes this book more than just a collection of diary entries…it’s a perfectly contained unit with a satisfying ending.

(more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Liō: Making Friends (2013)

Posted in 13 Engines, Aliens, Birds, Canadian Music, Cats, Children's Books, Death, Demons, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Holidays, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Menudo, Parenting, Pigs, Rats, Rheostatics, Squids, Stompin' Tom Connors, Supernatural, Surreal, Talking Heads, The Beatles, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies, tagged on September 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

liofriends SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Railway Club, Vancouver, BC (November 1987).

RailwayClub87-PROD91It’s pretty impressive that this show (ostensibly from the same month as the previous show) has such a different setlist.  Between the two shows they play 22 songs and only four are repeated.  And this time five of the songs come from their debut album, Greatest Hits.

This tape begins with a recording of “Indian Arrow” by the 13 Engines.  It sounds very different from the other songs on the tape–the audience is very loud and you can hear a woman say “I wanna sing this one” (!).  I know this song from a Martin Tielli solo tour (and indeed, he sounds pretty much solo here–although there is a piano, too).

The rest of the tape all has the same audio quality but sounds different from the first song.  “Crescent Moon” begins mid-song (as if it was recorded over by “Indian Arrow”).   “Sad Sad World” is more upbeat than the title suggests with a “vocal solo” introduced with Dave and Tim chanting M-R-T-I-N in time with the music.  An upbeat “Ditch Pigs” leads to some silly banter during the guitar solo.  “Churches and Schools” sounds a lot like Talking Heads.  “Bridge Came Tumbling Down” is a Stompin’ Tom Connors song–they really had been playing him since forever.  Then they play a good version of “Higher and Higher” (from Greatest Hits).

It’s their last night in Vancouver, apparently which leads to a lengthy talk about he next song–a funky version of “Good on the Uptake” with lots of screaming at the end (from Tim).

The band plays the full version of “The Ballad of Wendell Clark” (with a some jokes about “Joel” whoever that is).  It’s rollicking and stomping and Martin starts playing “O Canada” as part of the solo.  Bidini stops the song and asks him to play it again, so Martin plays it on a good echoed effect (and Dave Clark shouts “alright Joel!”)  There’s some inappropriate jokes before Martin launches into a delicate version of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe-“-not the best version I’ve heard but still nice.

The final song is a romping stompin “PROD”–the only song The Rheostatics play in G#.  It has a fun shambolic end and it ends the set with them saying they’ll be back to play some Menudo tunes after a short break (which we never do hear).

[READ: January 15, 2016] Making Friends

It’s unsettling to me that the Liō books come in different shapes.  This one is even hardcover!  The contents of these stories are not unsettling to me though, even if they are to some readers (looking online, you can find gripes).

Liō continues to be a strange kid who loves zombies and squids and spiders and playing pranks.  This is his latest book (and I just confirmed to see that he is still publishing daily, so a new book must be coming soon, right?).

Tatulli still has some great gags.  And this format book has some of the strips in color. (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Zombies Need Love Too: And Still Another Liō Collection in Strip-o-Vision: They Came for Brains…and Found Friendship! (2012)

Posted in Aliens, Birds, Boondocks, Canadian Music, Cats, Children's Books, Death, Demons, Dogs, Dr. Seuss, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Fred Basset, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Garfield, Holidays, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Mark Trail, Mary Worth, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Reverend Ken and the Lost Followers, Rheostatics, Rush, Spinal Tap, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Family Circus, The Far Side, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies, tagged on September 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

lioSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-El Mocambo, Toronto ON (November 1987).

ElMo-Nov1987After re-listening to some of the Rheostatics most recent shows, I checked the Rheostatics Live site and found out that he has added some really old shows.  This show is the oldest show on the site, dating back to 1987.  A brief Rheos history shows that in the earlier incarnation, it was Dave Bidini, Tim Vesely and Dave Clark.  They were joined by the Trans Canada Soul Patrol and played mostly R&B and funk.  Around 1985 the Soul Patrol left and Martin Tielli joined.  Around the time of this show, they had released Greatest Hits.  And then they broke up (circa 1988).  Then they reformed in 1991 with an entirely different sound.

So this is from what I guess you’d call he Mach II era: no Soul Patrol but before the breakup.  Interestingly, only two songs from this how appeared on their debut album, although many appeared on earlier demos.

They play 11 songs, including what I assume is an improvised rap from Dave Clark (the really silly one of the band).  And the songs are dominated by a smooth guitar sound and often times a funky bass.  Perhaps the most amazing thing about this set is the prominence of Tim.  He sings many of the songs and Dave includes him in many jokes.  Martin is almost non-existent.

“National Pride” dates back to 1983 and starts as a kind of goofy rap song but then turns into the funky version from the demo.  Martin Tielli also released a solo song called “National Pride” which is nothing like this.  They follow this with the “Greensprouts Theme Song” (which they played at the AGO almost 30 years after this show).  Dave Clark calls it the “silliest song ever written,” although in the years hence they have made a few challenges to that claim.

“Good on the Uptake” is a song I’ve heard in a few places before.  Tim sings lead and there’s a kind of funky bass line with lots of guitar harmonics.  I think Martin is singing backup (and probably playing the harmonics).

Tim breaks a string and Dave Clark shouts, “This song is called Rheostatics learn how to string their guitar.”  With a broken string they play an impromptu version of “Red Dog Ray” taught to them by Reverend Ken and the Lost Followers “about the beer strike in 1983.  We were all pissed off because we had to drink Old Milwaukee and Rolling Rock and all that shit.”  This song has come up in their sets in the early 2000s.

It segues right into “Ditch Pigs” from Greatest Hits and sung by Martin.  The middle section devolves into a chant of “I want an egg salad sandwich and a glass of Coke.”

For “Four Upright Walls” Bidini introduces David Clark as the Poet Laureate of Etobicoke.  This is a rap of sorts in which the band does response to Dave’s rap (with all kinds of crazy sound effects and even some beatboxing (!)).

“Crystal Soup” is very much a Tim song–it sounds a lot like a song he would write now–there’s a surprise guitar riff in the middle of the verses that sounds a bit like Rush.  At the end of the song Dave introduces “Mr. Nigel Tufnel,” although I’m not sure to whom he is referring.  “Sue’s Mining Song” (also sung by Tim) has a kind Rush feel although the lyrics are very un-Rush (“woman,” “girl” and a line about “buzzards on your Steely Dan”).  It also features Tim screaming a high note!  It’s a pretty heavy song (especially at the end).

It’s funny that they follow-up with “a nice song,” Martin’s sung “Crescent Moon” a very, very new wavey song that Bidini wrote, and which leads of Greatest Hits.  They follow with a fun and fast rocking “People’s Republic of Dave” in which Dave encourages Tim to make silly faces.  And Tim growls that he wishes his name was Dave.  This seems like a great show ender, but they’ve got one more song.

“Chemical World,” has a kind of discoey guitar opening and lots of slap bass.

[READ: January 5, 2016] Zombies Need Love Too

I prefer to read series like this in order, but sometimes you can only get the books that you can get (and you don’t get upset).  For reasons I don’t understand, my library only had the first two books (which were also collected in Liō’s Astonishing Tales which they also have) and the two most recent books.  There’s maybe two books in between, as far as I can tell.

The good thing is that there’s not a lot of forward narrative in these stories–except perhaps for the new pets that Liō acquires.

So after four years what is Tatulli writing about?  Well, largely the same stuff, which is fine with me. (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Silent But Deadly: Another Liō Collection (2008)

Posted in Aliens, Ben Folds, Birds, Blondie, Bloom County, C., Calvin and Hobbes, Cats, Children's Books, Death, Death Cab For Cutie, Demons, Dennis the Menace, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, For Better of For Worse, Foxtrot, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Hagar the Horrible, Holidays, Hospital Ships, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Nancy, Non Sequitur, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Shearwater, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Far Side, The Lockhorns, The Mountain Goats, The Weakerthans, Tiny Desk Concert, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies on May 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

silentSOUNDTRACK: HOSPITAL SHIPS-Tiny Desk Concert #177 (November 23, 2011).

hospital shipsHospital Ships is a band created by Jordan Geiger, who was in the band Shearwater, among others. In 2011 he released his second album as Hospital Ships.  The blurb describes the album as “packed with poppy folk songs and brash rockers enhanced with instrumental flourishes and bursts of guitar feedback,” but for this recording, they strip everything down to the basics: a guitar, banjo, ukulele and a drum with a towel over it to muffle the sound.

Geiger has a rather high-pitched, delicate, almost talking-singing voice and his songs are rather pretty.  The band plays 3 songs in just over ten minutes.  The first one, “Phantom Limb,” (once my lover, now my friend, you are my phantom limb) has a recurring motif of them saying/singing “ha ha” which is rather catchy.

“Carry On,” features a four-letter word (technically a seven letter word), which might be one of the first times on a Tiny Desk Concert that such a word is uttered.  It’s especially funny given how sweet the band sounds.  The sentiment of the song is nice though: “To all the women I’ve loved, When I was with you I would say I was better off….  And when I’m gone, carry on, carry on.”  There were harmonies in the first song, but they are more prominent in this one (three part) and are quite nice.  The banjo player also does a whistling solo.

“Let Me In” made me laugh because he uses the word baby a lot (which Ben Folds said in his Tiny Desk that he has never said in real life, so why would he put in it a song?).  But this song is very gentle and sweet–just Geiger on his guitar singing “baby, let me in.”

Geiger’s voice reminds me of a few different people–Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie especially on the final track; perhaps the Mountain Goats or the Weakerthans.  And his songwriting is very good.

[READ: December 26, 2015] Silent But Deadly

I really enjoyed the first Liō collection, and was pretty excited that I could find the second collection so quickly (my library doesn’t have any more collections for some reason, so I’ll have to track the rest down elsewhere).  This book collects the strips from February 25, 2007 – December 2, 2007.

Not much has changed from that book to this one, but I think Tatulli’s comic chops have gotten even better.

The strip won me over immediately with the first one in the book. Lio draws a monster and it comes to life.  He looks at the marker and it says “magic marker” and he gets a big grin and goes back to work.  So simple yet so funny.

It is that big grin–wide open-mouthed just unfettered mischievous delight that occurs in nearly every strip. (more…)

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