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Dominique Roques & Alexis Dormal–Sleep Tight, Anna Banana! (2012) [translated 2014]

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alessio Bax, Alexis Dormal, Children's Books, Dominique Roques, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Lucille Chung, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sleep, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on July 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

sleepanna  SOUNDTRACK: ALESSIO BAX-Tiny Desk Concert #541 (June 17, 2016).

alessio2Alessio Bax is a pianist and a new father.  His daughter Mila is 22 months old and, a first for Tiny Desk, she is visible through the whole show.  And, no matter  Alessio is playing, all eyes are on Mila because she is completely adorable (and very well behaved).

In honor of his new daughter, Bax plays three pieces which are essentially lullabies.

Perhaps in honor of NPR/PBS, Mila is playing with a cookie monster doll for most of the set and she is being quite cuddly with it–even putting it on her head and resting it on the piano.

Introducing the first piece, J.S. Bach’s (arr. Petri): “Sheep May Safely Graze,” Bax says that Bach asks the pianist to do three things at the same time which is similar to a new parents life.

It is a lovely (somewhat familiar) piece with some beautiful melodies.

alessioWhen the song is one Mila smiles very big and claps along with everyone else and says “papa”

He acknowledges her and says, “She’s my fan #1.”

Lucille Chung, Bax’s wife and Mila’s mom duets with him on the second piece, Brahms: Waltz No. 15 in A-flat major, Op. 39.  They share the piano, which is pretty cool.  As she sits down, Mila says, “Mama too,” which wins over everyone.  Chung takes the high notes while Bax plays the lower notes. It’s a brief song, and very sweet.  Once again when the applause starts, she happily claps along.

Bax says, “We should have her play something–it will be her debut.”

He introduces the final song, Rachmaninoff: Prelude No. 4 in D, Op. 23, but before he starts, Mila says “no practicing” which he says they deal with all the time.

The song begins as a kind of lullaby and then gets much more “hot-blooded” with a stormy middle section that eventually returns to a dreamy ending.  Mila has a small keyboard of her own.  She starts “playing” it, although it proves to be a little too loud and her mom takes it away.  The song does indeed get a little intense in the middle, but is overall quite lovely.  And as it finishes she says papa piano and then beams with a big smile as she applauds with everyone else.

[READ: March 1, 2016] Sleep Tight, Anna Banana

I didn’t realize that this book was a translation at first.  I also didn’t read the biographies of the two people involved. It says that the author Dominique decided to write picture book when her adult son Alexis became a picture-book artist.  So his success inspired her to write these books.  They were translated by Mark Siegel.

We seem to read a lot of translated picture books in our house. Sometimes the very premise behind them is so unfamiliar it’s obvious they were not created by Americans.  Other times the books feel just a little …off somehow.  Like in their rhythm or something.

This book never really came to life for me. (more…)

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Amir & Khalil–Zahra’s Paradise (2011)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[READ: March 1, 2016] Genius

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

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

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

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JT Petty & Hilary Florido–Bloody Chester (2012)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[READ: February 19, 2016] Bloody Chester

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

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

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

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

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Asaf Hanuka, Tomer Hanuka, Boaz Lavie–The Divine (2015)

Posted in Asaf Hanuka, Boaz Lavie, Daymé Arocena, Death, Dragons, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Myths, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert, Tomer Hanuka, Violence, Yuck! on June 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

divibne SOUNDTRACK: DAYMÉ AROCENA-Tiny Desk Concert #531 (May 13, 2016).

daymeDaymé Arocena is a Cuban singer with a powerful voice and a great sense of fun.

“Madres” opens the set. This may be the first song I’ve ever heard that uses a rain stick (or box in this case) as a prominent source of percussion.  After a minute and a half of beautiful a capella singing (in Spanish, I believe) the six-string bass comes in with a very unusual syncopated riff.  And then comes the staccato piano–it has a very jazz feel.  After a minute of this, the song settles into a groove and gets really catchy. The music is very jazzy (the piano especially) with some really complex bass lines.

And it’s amazing to watch Daymé smile big as she sings (and shakes her maracas).  It’s even more amazing to read that she is only 24!

She ends the song by singing a thank you to everyone for being here today, and then thanks President Obama for going to Cuba (this was around March 25, 2016).  Then she is so cute introducing the second song, “Crystal,” written for a boy “the kind of boys you get in your life who give you nothing.”  It opens with jazzy pianos and her powerful voice (singing in English this time). There’s some wild bass soloing in the middle of the song.  The end of the song features her scatting and improvising and making some fascinating vocals sounds.  It’s really fun.

She says that in the 1970s it was obligatory for Cubans to study Russian.  She is only 24 so she never did, but she wrote this groovy song “El Ruso” about that time.  This story is very jazzy with a catchy riff and more cool scatting.  The blurb talks about how since the U.S. has opened up communication with Cuba, that we may be getting more Cuban music here. And that’s no bad thing.

[READ: March 10, 2016] The Divine

This is an ugly story.

It was inspired by the AP photo of 12-year-old Thai warriors smoking cigarettes (see bottom of the post). These twins, Johnny and Luther Htoo, held 800 people hostage in 2000.  They led a group called “God’s Army” and fought the Burmese army.  It was said that the twins  had magical powers.

And that is the basis for this story.

It opens with a very ugly American, Jason.  He is a soldier who describes the joy he received in shooting animals from his helicopter: zebras, parrots, etc. Until he wound up shooting a dragon.  A dragon, man!

We see this soldier trying to convince his coworker Mark (in some kind of science lab) to return to Quanlom–it’s a ton of money for only two weeks’ work.  The ostensible job was to explode volcanoes to try to get the minerals out of the mountains. (more…)

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Jim Ottaviani, Leland Myrick–Feynman (2011)

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

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

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

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

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

The song is 6 minutes of musical acrobatics.

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

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

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

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

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

[READ: March 15, 2016] Feynman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow.

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

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

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

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

[READ: April 1, 2016] Mike’s Place

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

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

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

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Boaz Yakin & Joe Infurnari–Marathon (2012)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Boaz Yakin, Bryce Dessner, David Lang, Death, Eighth Blackbird, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, History, Humiliation, Joe Infurnari, Marathon, Revenge, Robert Honstein, The National, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, War on June 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

marathon SOUNDTRACK: EIGHTH BLACKBIRD-Tiny Desk Concert #528 (May 2, 2016).

8thEighth Blackbird is described as a “new music ensemble” from Chicago.  That means they play classical music that is new and “different.”  The sextet says that looking at each other–being able to communicate–is essential for playing these complex pieces, which calls for an interesting arrangement behind the Tiny Desk.

The first piece is actually two pieces called “Wave the Sea” and “Brushy Fork” from a suite called Murder Ballads by Bryce Dessner (better known as being in The National) .  The piece opens with a flute solo by newest member Nathalie Joachim, and then some complex series of notes and timings from the rest of the band–this is cerebral music that you must really pay attention to.

“Pulse,” from Robert Honstein’s three-movement Conduit is a much more gentle piece, far less frenetic and more mellow. It opens with Matthew Duvall’s vibraphone, Yvonne Lam’s violin, Lisa Kaplan’s piano and Michael J. Maccaferri’s clarinet which all seem to get added in one at a time until it is all just one consistent piece.  Nicholas Photinos’ cello offers some low end while the flute seems to float above the whole piece.  The song seems like it could just keep going forever as a very slow, beautiful round.

The final piece is by David Lang (an artist they have played for many years).  “learn to fly” returns to that frenetic tempo of the first piece .  Opening with wild syncopated piano notes (it looks impossible to play) and added to by the flute, clarinet and cello.  And just when you think the whole piece will remain in this style of complex syncopation, a violin solo bursts forth and soars for a few bars before returning to the melody.

I don’t listen to a lot of classical music, but I really enjoyed this Concert a lot.

[READ: March 1, 2016] Marathon

While overall I have really enjoyed the First Second books that I’ve read, this one I found really confusing and not exactly enjoyable.

The story begins in 490 BC.  Unbelievably it says the temperature is 106 degrees Fahrenheit (but sure, why not).  A man is running from Athens to Sparta (distance 153 miles).  Then there’s the confusing title: Athens: Twelve Years ago. Which I assume means 12 years before 490 BC–where we see some young boys racing.  Eucles won the race.  It is shocking to everyone that he is the son of a slave.  The slave defeated the Kings “own bastard son Phillipus.”   And so the King cuts off Phillipus’ head.

When he fails a test shortly thereafter, Eucles’ parents are executed.

Yup it’s that kind of story.

The king is Hippias.  He is exiled soon after the events of 12 years ago. (more…)

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Eddie Campbell–The Fate of the Artist: An Autobiographical Novel with Typographical Anomalies, in which the Author does not appear as Himself (2006)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alan Moore, Angry Cook, Artists, Constellation Records, Eddie Campbell, First Second :01, Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Honeybee, Huh?, Joy Division, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Meta, O. Henry, Silver Mt. Zion, Theatricals, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on May 31, 2016| Leave a Comment »

fateart SOUNDTRACK: THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA-Kollaps Tradixionales [CST063] (2010).

kollaspThis album was released as a CD and as double 10″ vinyl.  Each “side” is about 15 minutes long.  And, interestingly, each side has a kind of theme, I guess.  It also includes the shortest song the band has recorded.

“There Is a Light” is one of my favorite songs they’ve done.  The guitar and strings play off each other perfectly and the song ebbs and flows very nicely.  Efrim sounds pretty drunk in his vocals, which gives the whole thing a shambolic quality that contrasts nicely with the elegance of the music.  Of all of their songs, I think this one really captures the intensity that these band can generate with the swelling strings and pounding drums.  At 6 minutes, the whole thing slows to a halt but is then resumed with a new, even more interesting section.  Over reverbed guitars, a series of horns and backing vocals singing “la las” flesh out the lead vocals.  I really enjoy the way the strings swirl around the vocals only pausing to let the words “One Step Two step” come out in staccato vocals.  But the main strings riff that follows these verses is so pretty, I could listen too just that.  This all ends around 9 minutes, when the final part begins with slow guitar and horns.  The vocals come in singing the title “there is a light.”  It starts quiet but soon enough the full choir of voices joins in as the music swells.  After a few round of verses, the song ends with the female choir singing, “Tell me there is a light.”

The second “side” is the “metal bird” side.  It stars with “I Built Myself a Metal Bird” which opens with rocking guitar chords and fast drums–the most overtly rock song they’ve done so far.  The vocals are screamed and staccato.  Things never really let up for the whole six minutes–there’s a concurrent violin solo while the lyrics are sung.  The second half of the song changes things a bit–with more dramatic strings playing.  In the last thirty seconds the tone changes a bit and things do mellow out for the conclusion.  That leads into the second bird song

“I Fed My Metal Bird the Wings of Other Metal Birds” is quite different from the first.  It opens with slow electric guitars and quiet strings.  There’s noisy guitars and other strange atmospheric sounds for the first three and a half minutes when it finally settles into an uptempo string song with more great violin riffs.  At fiver minutes (of 6) the bowed bass takes over the main line and the accompanying strings help to move things along.  There’s only about 30 seconds left when the vocals come in and they are nearly drowned out by the music.

The third side is the “Kollpas” side with three songs.

For “Kollapz Tradixional (Thee Olde Dirty Flag)” the piano comes back with quiet chords and gentle strings accompanying quiet vocals. .  The song stays quiet as different instruments come to the fore.  At around 5 minutes (of 6 in total) a guitar solo winds its way to the end of the song.

After this there is a 1 and half-minute song “Collapse Traditional (For Darling).”  It’s a gentle ballad played on strings with layered vocals.

“Kollaps Tradicional (Bury 3 Dynamos)” opens with pizzicato strings and a fuzzy meandering guitar.  About 2 minutes in, the loud chords strike and the drums kick in with a fairly complex rhythm.  About half way in, one guitars start playing in each speaker and the vocals begin.  Two voices begin singing against each other keeping an interesting rhythm with their staccato phrasing and the thumping drums,.  The last two minutes feature a guitar solo and vocals following a similar pattern as the guitar.

The final side has one 14 minute song “‘Piphany Rambler.”  The song begins with distant guitars and plucked strings.  The vocals are quiet, nearly whispered.  A refrain of “don’t sleep” surfaces from the quiet.  At around 5 minutes the guitars and strings grow louder and the song properly starts.  But even this section is fairly slow, as if preparing to build up to something else.   It’s the strings and their insistent three note melody that really unites the song.  About midway through things slow down even further (with some cool retro organs sounds amidst the strings).  And the song turns into a very catchy string filled section with the vocals working very nicely with the melody.  This section grows louder and more raucous as it heads to the conclusion.

SMtZ has made many diverse styles of albums over the years, and this combination of rocking songs and delicate strings is probably my favorite.  For this one, the lineup has shrunk to a five piece of

Thierry Amar: Upright bass, electric bass, plucked piano, vocals
Efrim Menuck: Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mellotron, vocals
Jessica Moss: Violin, plucked piano, vocals
Sophie Trudeau: Violin, plucked piano, vocals
and David Payant has taken over for Eric Craven on drums, organ, piano and vocals

[READ: March 15, 2016] The Fate of the Artist

I didn’t love Eddie Campbell’s Black Diamond Detective Agency, and that was manly been because of the art.  That didn’t really bode well for this story.

But Campbell does an incredible thing with this book.  He mixes text and many different kinds of pictures–including comic strips and photographs, to create a fascinating story of his own disappearance.

The story begins “One day the artist wakes up with the disquieting feeling that it has all gone wrong….  It is difficult to obtain sympathy for this condition.”

And then the Artist disappears and all that is left is a picture.  “Most people would leave a note.” “Yes, well he left a picture.” (more…)

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Mark Long, Jim Demonakos, Nate Powell–The Silence of Our Friends: The Civil Rights Struggle was Never Black and White (2012)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Canadian Music, College, Constellation Records, Crazy Horse, Fears, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, History, Jim Demonakos, Johnny Rotten, Mark Long, Nate Powell, Punks, Racism, Silver Mt. Zion, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, Threats on May 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

silence THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA & TRA-LA-LA BAND-13 Blues for Thirteen Moons [CST051] (2008).

330px-13_Blues_for_Thirteen_MoonsThis album opens with 12 tracks of a kind of feedbacking noise.  The total time for this is about a minute before track 13 begins.  And this album feels very different from the more acoustic Horses.  Whereas Horses felt acoustic and organic, this album is noisy and raucous and very electric.  After the 12 brief tracks there are four lengthy ones that comprise the album.

“1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound” starts with scratched notes and pizzicato strings.  The choir quietly begins singing the title “one million died to make this sound.”  Their voices grow louder and then at about 3 minutes in there’s a great bowed riff that introduces the more rocking section–a guitar “solo” and drums as that bass riff continues.  About mid way through the song it takes on a real rocking feel–the guitars rock out and the steady beat keeps up.  The song feels sloppy and intense–like they couldn’t wait to get this out.  I would describe the song as fun (except that it’s pretty bleak).  Efrim’s voice sounds a bit like Johnny Rotten or some other British punk) on this song and the punk style suits it well.  I really love the way the violin-swells make the riffs even bigger until about 9 minutes when the song shifts dramatically again and it feels like a Crazy Horse jam–big, sloppy, noisy guitars.  The song reaches a sort of natural stopping point as the music all fades away and the voices resume–I love the choir of voices at the end of the song (although perhaps Efrim’s voice could be a tad quieter?  Efrim’s voice seems to be a polarizing thing for fans of this band.  I’m even polarized about it on different songs–sometimes I think it’s too much, but other times I think it works well.

“13 Blues for Thirteen Moons” is 16 minutes long.  It begins with thumping drums and bass before Efrim’s voice comes chanting in.  The song is noisy and chaotic–lots of drums and cymbals and then the backing vocals start a call and response with the lead vocals.  The song continues in the same vein–with a refrain of “I Just Want Some Action” but then around 5 minutes a big distorted guitar plays a kind of concluding riff before a quieter guitar begins a new section with some quiet picking.  And its in this section that the album title is sung.  This quiet guitar section goes on for quite a while with Efrim shouting various parts–and then second voice joins him.  It’s unusual that the band will play the same riff through so much of a song, but it’s a good riff.  The whole band picks up the riff as it grows louder and more rocking.  The final two minutes are filled with feedback and quiet guitars with Efrim shouting syllable after syllable until it feedbacks to an end.  It’s a pretty intense song.

“Black Waters Blowed/Engine Broke Blues” opens in a much quieter way with slow revered guitars.  The vocals are also slow and accompanied by a lone cello.  But after a minute and a half chaos erupts in the song–feedback squalls and wild guitars accompanied by chaotic drumming make the song sound like it is tripping over itself , but it soon resolves to a quiet part like the intro–this time with two singers.  The song builds again, with the chaotic drums fighting for dominance over the string section.  But they both cede again to the quieter vocals once more.  The band then acts in concert building the song and allowing the vocals to continue.  And after a musical interlude, the vocals begin again over a quiet organ.  And this next section builds as strings accompany the louder vocals and the drum gets a pounding martial beat.  The final section, which appears to be the “Engine Broke Blues” is a repeated refrain of “Building Trainwrecks in the Setting Sun.”

The final song “BlindBlindBlind” also opens quietly, with a simple guitar motif.  As the vocals continue, a ringing guitar and a feedbacking guitar join the song (each in a different ear).  And then a violin adds to the melody.  About 4 minutes in, the melody shifts to an organ heavy section with the lead vocal followed by backing vocals.  A pizzicato section begins next.  What’s interesting is that the vocal melody hasn’t really changed this whole time (in this song Efrim again sounds a bit like a British punk rocker).  At around 7 minutes, the song turns towards the end, with strings and drums.  This end bit is my favorite part on the record, not only for the melody, but for the excellent backing chanting.  The backing vocal melody is very cool in itself–I love when they add the high notes–repeating the refrain “Some hearts are true” over and over.  A guitar solo interrupts the proceedings for a bit and then they resume singing all the way to the end.  It’s a very cathartic conclusion.

For this album, the lineup stayed the same although Eric Craven replaced Scott Levine Gilmore on drums.

Back in 2009, I wrote a post about this album.  It’s pretty brief and mostly talks about the singing.

[READ: March 1, 2016] The Silence of Our Friends

This was the final First Second book that I had in a huge stack that I took out from the library.  I had been putting this book off because I was nervous about reading it.  Nothing pretty is going to happen in a Civil Rights book and I had to prepare myself for it.  Obviously, the era is staggeringly important–even more so today with the kind of political rhetoric being shouted around.  That’s not why i didn’t want to read it.  I was afraid about how ugly this book might get.

But in fact, this book doesn’t go in that direction at all.  It is a factual story and while it looks at racism, it also shines a light of hope on race relations. It’s another excellent graphic novel from First Second [#10yearsof01].

What I did not know is that this story is based on actual events–the author’s father was a journalist in Texas during a serious Civil Rights confrontation.  And his father was able to help offset a travesty of justice.  He risked his career and even his own safety to do the right thing.

Set in Houston in 1968, we see some kids playing army in the yard.  This is also during Vietnam, so that’s probably not a very uncommon sight.  When the kids go inside, their mom is watching the Saigon execution on TV.  She is horrified and begins crying. The talk that night is of the atrocities of war. (more…)

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