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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 5] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Big Books, Demons, Fears, Herman Melville, Huh?, Humiliation, Infinite Zombies, Mastodon, Play (Drama), The Decemberists, Unreliable narrator, Whales on June 21, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-“The Mariner’s Revenge Song” (2005).

This was the hardest week for music tied to Moby-Dick. (I’m saving Mastodon for the grand finale).  I don’t really have anything that relates directly to the book.   I have a number of nautical-themed songs, but very little in the way of albums.  And, it’s true that this song doesn’t have anything to do with Moby-Dick directly.

However, it’s a 9 minute song about a mariner getting swallowed by a whale just for revenge.  So, it’s sort of related.

The Decemberists are one of your more nautical bands (and I’ve reviewed all of the albums here somewhere).  Their first album, Castaways and Cutouts featured an album cover with a ship with ghosts drifting from it.

This song has an accordion fueled shanty feel as we follow the tale of a young lad who seeks revenge on the rake who used and abused his mother and left her a poor consumptive wretch.  After fifteen years, he finally hears tale of the rake–he’s now a captain at sea.

So the lad hires on with a privateer and hunts down the captain’s ship.  As he is about to fire muskets upon him, a giant whale crashes on their ships, swallowing the two men whole (tell me, Ishmael, what kind of whale might do that?).

And it’s from inside the whale the we hear this tale.  The lad’s mother’s dying words echoing among the ribs of the beast:

“Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave
*sigh*”

And it’s catchy as all heck, too!

[READ: Week of June 21, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 87-110 ]

Pirates!  I didn’t expect pirates in the book.  Week 5 opens with Ishmael discussing pirates in the low shaded coves of Sumatra.  Ahab intends to sail right through those piratical waters to get to Java because sperm whales are known to frequent the area.  And indeed they do.  A whole fleet of sperm whales is seen but at about the same time, the pirates come out and give chase.  My notes in the margins are a little diagram of a fleet of whales with an arrow and then a tiny Pequod and another arrow and then a jolly roger.

The Pequod easily outruns the pirates and still manages to keep the whales in sight.  So, they jump into the fray and start harpooning away.  However, as the saying goes, “The more whales the less fish” (389). (more…)

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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 4] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Barenaked Ladies, Big Books, Canadian Music, Death, Demons, Fishing, Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, Moby, Neil Peart, Paul Quarrington, Rheostatics, The Beatles, The Replacements, Violence, Whale Music, Whales, Yuck! on June 14, 2010| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Whale Music (1992).

The Rheostatics are from Etobicoke Canada.  Their second album was called Melville (named after a town in Saskatchewan, but it has a whale on the cover so…).  Their third album (this one) is called Whale Music (inspired by the novel by Paul Quarrington).  When they made a film of Whale Music, the Rheostatics were asked to make the soundtrack for it, which they released as Whale Music.  So, the band have 2 albums called Whale Music and one called Melville.  Perfect soundtrack to Moby-Dick.

The album is chock full of all kinds of music: country tracks, folky tracks, metal tracks, and hooks galore.  And it’s all wrapped up in the oddity that is the Rheostatics.  This album features guest spots by the Barenaked Ladies and Neil Peart as well as horns, strings, spoken word parts, and “power tools”.

“Self Serve Gas Station” is a great opening.  It begins with swirling guitars and a beautiful solo (Rheostatics guitar lines sound so elemental as to seem like they’ve always been around).  But just as the vocals begin, the song becomes a sort of country track: a folkie song about adolescnece.  But it returns to a good rocking (and falsetto fueled) rock track.

“California Dreamline” is a wonderfully weird track, with more gorgeous guitar melodies.  It also has a disjointed section with squealing guitars.   While “Rain, Rain, Rain” opens with a lengthy percussion section (played by Neil Peart of Rush) with a weird time signature.  It’s a fun singalong.  “Queer” meanwhile has some great chugga guitars that turn into a rocking tale of an ostracized brother (and features the great line: “But I wish you were there to see it/When I scored a hat-trick on the team/That called you a fucking queer.”

“King of the Past” is another great track, with a wondrous string sound near the end.  It’s a gorgeous song with (again) different sections conveying shanties and jigs (and you can dance to it).  Like Moby from last week, Rheostatics, also bust out a fast metal track, but this one works well: “RDA (Rock Death America)” has a major hook and name checks everyone from The Beatles to The Replacements.

“Legal Age Life at Variety Store” is a great folky singalong (and features the piercing harmonies of Martin Tielli).  “What’s Going On Around Here?” is the most traditional song of the bunch, a poppy little ditty which avoids complacency with a rocking coda.

“Shaved Head” is a moody piece, wonderful for its roller coaster sensibilities, which is followed by the beautiful Tim Vesely sung ballad “Palomar.”  This track is followed by the humorous (but serious) shouted-word piece “Guns” which also features Neil Peart.

“Sickening Song” is an accordion based shanty song.  Followed by another pretty, poppy-sounding track, “Soul Glue.”  Drummer Dave Clark sings “Beerbash,” an upbeat song.  And tye final track is the epic, “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds.”  It opens with a beautiful acoustic intro and a wonderfully catchy wheedling guitar solo.  It ends delightfully: “Where the dope fiends laugh And say it’s too soon, They all go home and listen to
The Dark Side of the Moon.”

I had been listening to the band live a lot recently, and they play these songs a lot.  So it was quite a treat to go back and hear the original with all its full instrumentation.

[READ: Week of June 14, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 62-86]

I never thought I’d ever say this, but I really enjoyed Moby-Dick this week.  So far, these twentysome chapters have been my favorite (even the gruesome whale sections), there weren’t any chapters that I thought really dragged.  So, good for me!

This week’s read begins with Ishmael stating that harpooners should not have to paddle and then be expected to harpoon as well.  They should save their strength for that last, all important act.  And that seems logical to me, although one also expects that the harpooners would feel kind of bad while everyone else is paddling. (more…)

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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 2] (1851)

Posted in Adventure, Art, Bible, Big Books, Death, Demons, Fishing, Funny (strange), Grateful Dead, Herman Melville, Huh?, Infinite Zombies, Moby Grape, Racism, Religion, Whales on May 31, 2010| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MOBY GRAPE-Moby Grape (1967).

Moby Grape is one of those bands that I’ve always heard of but had never heard.  I know, their debut is 43 years old and yet I’d never heard it.  Well, thanks to the internet (lala.com, RIP as of today), I was able to listen to what I assumed was their Greatest Hits.  If only I had done a modicum of research.  The disc I chose was Legendary Grape, which it turns out is not a greatest hits at all, but is actually some weird pesudo-Moby Grape record released in 1989 under a different band name due to legal protractions, but then reissued as Moby Grape.  It was rather uninspired and nothing at all what I thought it would sound like.  Nothing dreadful, just nothing worth thinking that this band “legendary.”

So, with a little research, I learned that their first album is what I should have been checking out.  Moby Grape is the eponymous release and it sounds much more like what I assumed this psychedelic era-band would sound like.  This disc is pretty much in keeping with what a band that produced an album cover like this would sound like.

It’s sort of a folksy Grateful Deadish sound.  But they move beyond a simple genre with a host of writers and instrumentalists contributing their own thing, man.  So there’s a few rocking numbers, a few ballads, and a bunch of other fun things. To me the most notable thing is that in a time when trippy psychedelic songs were long events, Moby Grape played mostly short songs (the longest one is the final track at 4 minutes, but most are around 2 minutes long).

I think I may be too far removed from this scene to really appreciate the disc.  I like what I hear, and a second listen made it even more enjoyable, but I can’t imagine investing a lot of  time with the band.

[READ: Week of May 31, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 19-41]

Plug #1:
In case you didn’t see it on Infinite Zombies, Daryl has created what he calls Moby-Diction, which allows you to search the text for any word and see where and how often it occurs.  Geek heaven!

Plug # 2:
A visual treat is found at Matt Kish’s monumental: One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick, which is pretty well explained by its title.  It is an amazing site (sight) to behold.

Now, back to our story.

Week 2 of the Moby-Dick read is amusing because it continues a minor thread that has been going on for some 100 pages (of my edition): When are we going to meet Captain Ahab?  We hear a lot about him, including a portent of doom from Elijah, but he doesn’t appear until Chapter 28.

Elijah, meanwhile, appears on the Nantucket streets.  He reveals himself to Ishmael and Queequeg as a sort of homeless man who asks them if they’re sailing with Ahab.  When they say yes, of course, he warns them about some bad things that happened to Ahab and his leg and future portents of doom.  Ishmael is a bit freaked by the guy, especially when Elijah seems to be following them, but he tries to out the madman out of his mind. (more…)

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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 1] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Big Books, Chowder, Damion Searls, Dazed and Confused, Funny (ha ha), Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, Led Zeppelin, Mastodon, Religion, Whales on May 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: LED ZEPPELIN-The Song Remains the Same (1978).

I don’t normally try to have my soundtracks correspond to the book. But since Andrew suggested that Mastodon’s Leviathan was a good match, I decided I’d try to have all six Soundtracks relate to the book some how.

The obvious starting point was Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” and where better to look than at the over-the-top live version contained here.

As a classic rock guy, I grew up worshiping Led Zeppelin.  And I have no way of objectively talking about their music, really.  However, when I was in college, some guys in my dorm played this particular release all the time and claimed it to be the best CD in the history of music.

And thus, I have a delightfully convoluted relationship to this live album.  I used to really dislike it: extended jams of silliness rather than rocking live tracks.  However, as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve begun enjoying jam bands more, I see the enjoyment of this kind of show.  And yet I read a review of this very disc the other day that described it as being a few shows past Led Zep’s prime, and I think that’s pretty valid.

I haven’t heard any of the other recently released live discs (which are supposed to be amazing).  But this one feels overblown and pretentious.  And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s the kind of band you are, but Led Zep was not that (until later);  they were meaty and heavy.

This version of “Moby Dick” is 12-minutes long.  Over 10 minutes of it is a drum solo.  This always reminds me of the line from Dazed & Confused: “Man, I ain’t belivin’ that shit about Bonham’s 1-hour drum solo…I mean, 1 hour on drums…you couldn’t handle that shit on strong acid, man.”  The rest of the disc is the same way: long solos that don’t really showcase virtuosity, they just sort of go on and on.  I do like the kevboard solo in one of the songs, but the “ah ah” part in “Dazed and Confused” is pretty silly.

In some ways, the song “Moby-Dick” (and the album itself) is like the book: a product of its time.  In 2010 , if you played a ten-minute drum solo (even Rush have added electronic horns and a swing number  to Neil’s drum solo) you’d be mocked.  But back in the 70s, it was a badge or honor.  Similarly, Moby-Dick seems quaint and weird to most contemporary readers.  And yet, put in context, it’s funny and surprisingly forward thinking.  And I suppose the music does make a good background for reading it, too.

[READ: Week of May 24, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 1-18]

So, the instigators at Infinite Zombies are hosting a read along for Moby-Dick (and yes, the hyphen is supposed to be there).  I’m going to be a contributing writer to this shindig, so I’m going to curtail what I say here somewhat [see my post about religion, here]. Also, unlike Infinite Jest and 2666 which had difficult, multi-charactered, multi-layered, confusing plots, Moby-Dick is fairly straightforward.  And so, there’s not a great need for in-depth story summary (not to mention each of the 100+ chapters is titled, so you know what’s going to happen in each one!).

But with that out of the way, let’s see what I can say about this book.  Oh, one more thing, I’ve been trying to include page numbers in my citations, but there are just too many versions of this book (and I am using one for my reading and another for my copy-and-paste-quotes–the whole book is available at that link), so I’m just going with Chapters.

I was joking with some friends recently that their sister thinks Moby-Dick is very funny.  And I have to say I was surprised about how funny it was, too.  Not gut-busting funny, mind you, but funny enough. (more…)

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Damion Searls– ; or The Whale (2009)

Posted in 19th Century, Big Books, Damion Searls, Death, Fishing, Funny (strange), Gods, Henry Rollins, Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, Jimmy Fallon, Meta, Morality, Peaches, Pink Floyd, Racism, Religion, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, The Flaming Lips, Whales on May 13, 2010| 12 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS & STARDEATH AND WHITE DWARFS featuring HENRY ROLLINS and PEACHES doing The Dark Side of the Moon (2010).

You’ve got to have balls to cover the most popular album of all time.  Everyone knows Dark Side of the Moon, according to Billboard charts everyone probably owns a copy of Dark Side of the Moon.  So, you’re taking on a pretty big task here.  But the Flaming Lips aren’t called The Fearless Freaks for nothing.

What delights me about this album is that it is utterly unfaithful to the original.  There’s nothing worse than a cover song that just apes the original version.  With that in mind, the Lips have put their bizarro stamp on the classic album, oftentimes rendering the songs almost unrecognizable–but more on that in a moment.

The two guest stars on the disc are Henry Rollins and Peaches.  Rollins recites all the spoken word bits from the original.  He actually makes a lot of those weird ramblings clear for me for the firs time.  The originals were spoken by a (presumably) high Englishman.  Rollins’ delivery is much more abrasive (but then so is the music).  It works pretty well, especially since Rollins’ laugh is maniacal, although if he sounded a bit more drunken I think it would work even better.  Peaches sings a few of the female vocal bits.  I’ve never been much of a fan of hers but, man, she does an awesome job in covering “The Great Gig in the Sky,” the track from the disc that features a wondrous diva singing and screaming her heart out.  Peaches really lets loose and showcases the power of her voice.

The Lips play on 7 songs and StarDeath play on 6.  They work together on 2 tracks.

StarDeath is fronted by Wayne Coyne’s nephew, Dennis.  I’d only heard one track from them before, and I liked it.  Dennis’ voice is a higher register, like Wayne, but he’s also a bit more subtle. Musically they are less noisy as well, and it’s a good counterpoint to the static of the Lips’ tracks.

So the opener, “Breathe” (Lips) is distinct right away, because the main focus of this version is a loud throbbing bassline. “On the Run” (Stardeath) is completely indistinguishable from the original.  You would never suspect it was a cover.  It’s a bass-propelled, very cool song, but there’s almost no similarity.

“Money” (Lips) stays fairly faithful to the original, except that the vocals are totally auto-tuned.  It makes the song sound really alien, as if coming, yes, from the other side of the moon.

“Time” (Stardeath) on the other hand, is a very delicate, acoustic track, (sounding somewhat like Mercury Rev, actually).  It is something of a counter to the rocking version on the original.

“Us and Them” (Lips) is probably the closest sounding to the original.  It has simple washes of sound and Wayne’s delicate voice.  But, once again, the louder sections of this song are left out.  “Any Colour You Like” (Stardeath) is a much closer instrumental to the original than “On the Run” was.  And “Brain Damage” (Stardeath) is really quite spot on (and may be even creepier than the original).

The ender, “Eclipse” is like a distorted indie rock version of the original.  It works pretty well.

There’s surprisingly little in the way of sound effects (which are all over the original).  I’d have thought they’d populate the disc with all kinds of fun things, but no, they actually play it pretty straight.

My one real complaint about the disc (and actually about Embryonic as well).  The Lips have always pushed the envelope of music.  But lately, they seem to be redlining  a lot of their sounds, making them distort and crackle.  Now, I love distortion when it’s used well, but this “too loud” distortion actually hurts my ears, even if the volume is low.  I find the sound to be unpleasant, and not in a good way.  And I think it’s a shame because the Lips write such great music, that I hate to have it obscured by clouds of noise.

So, yeah, this will never replace the original for anyone.  But it’s a fun experiment and actually sounds a bit like a rough demo for the final release.  In fact, in many ways it sounds like it’s coming from outer space and may be conceptually more accurate for the title.

I saw The Lips and Star Death on Jimmy Fallon.  They played “Breathe” and all eight (or more) guys were on stage.  It was a big wonderful mess.  And they sounded really good together.

[READ: May 11, 2010] ; or The Whale

In 2007, a book was published called Moby Dick in Half the Time.  And, as the title implies, it took Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; or The Whale and truncated it.  The editors basically kept in all of the “plot” and excised most of the “wandering” parts of the story.

So, in 2009, Damion Searls decided to print all of the excised material as a book itself.  This exercise was published in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 2009 | Vol. XXIX.  So, this “book” is Moby Dick without the “plot” or as the introduction puts it, “all Moby, no Dick.”

This book includes “every chapter, sentence, word, and punctuation mark that Anonymous removed to produce [Moby Dick in Half the Time]” (10).

And so what we get is a very surreal story indeed.  It comes across as a fascinating look into the mind of the (in this version) not named until Chapter 11 or so narrator (since we’ve obviously lost “Call me Ishmael”).  It also comes across in many sections as bizarre poetry.

; or the Whale’s opening line is:

“methodically.” (31). (more…)

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