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John Layman & Rob Guillory–Chew: Volume One: Taster’s Choice (2009)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Death, Food, Graphic Novel, John Layman, Justin Timberlake, Lonely Island, Rob Guillory, Saturday Night Live, Snoop Dog, Violence, Yuck! on November 1, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LONELY ISLAND-Turtleneck & Chain (2011).

I liked “Lazy Sunday” quite a lot, but I didn’t feel compelled to get the album.  Then, when I heard Samberg on NPR, it made quite a compelling case for this second album.  So I decided to check it out.

Most comedy albums are juvenile, so let’s get that out of the way.  This is juvenile.  And, as with most SNL-derived humor, it’s a one note joke that gets stretched out.  The good news is that very few of the songs stretch too long (only one is more than three minutes) and the music itself is quite good–which allows for repeatedly listens.

The opening, “We’re Back!” is really quite funny.  It’s all about how the three guys have really tiny penises.  Ha ha, but it’s delivered with such great gangsta rap style that it is very, very funny.  “Mama” is a wonderful tribute to the singers’ Moms.  The song is interrupted by said mother over and over.  On this one, the joke might go on too much, but overall, it’s very funny.

The longest song is “Jack Sparrow” and it is one of the best ones on the disc.  It features Michael Bolton (!) singing his heart out about his love for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies–which is funny enough, but the guys are rapping behind him about something else entirely.  They keep trying to stop Bolton from hijacking the song.  It’s very well done (and man, say what you will, Bolton can belt out a song).

“Attracted to Us” goes on a bit too long (and at less than 2 minutes that’s a bad sign) and “Rocky” in which one of the dorky guys talks about fighting Rocky (ala The Fresh Prince) is a super long SNL skit (which is not a compliment).

“Turtleneck & Chain” features Snoop Dog and is just fantastic–I love hearing Snoop Dog rap this geek shit.  “Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde” also works very well with Rihanna on vocals.  The song itself is catchy and the joke, when it finally comes, is really good.

“Motherlover” is a sequel to “Dick in a Box” (“this is the second best idea we ever had”) and Justin Timberlake continues to impress me in his new role as a funny guy.  This is a gross song but it’s really crazy catchy (Timberlake must have written the chorus).

One of my favorite songs on the disc is “Threw It on the Ground.”  Musically, I think it’s fantastic and lyrically it is pretty funny.  I wish that they had had some better examples of things to throw on the ground (the cell phone joke is lame and they get kind of lazy by the end), but I get this song stuck in my head a lot.  Another song guaranteed to stay in your head forever is “I Just Had Sex,” a childish and silly song that is outrageously catchy.  And if it’s in your head it won’t leave.  (And yes it’s funny).

“Japan” is a crazy and funny look at Japanese culture while “After Party” is a bit one note.  “No Homo” on the other hand brings in a full circle hardcore joke that is at once offensive and hilarious. 

“The Creep” is pretty unsuccessful even with the help of Nicki Minaj–the video helps a little, but not enough.  As with most rap albums, the skits are the weakest link.  Without a song behind them the skits are good for one or two listens and some not even that (“Falcor vs Atreyu”?  “My Mic”? these wouldn’t even be funny if they were improvised, and yet they seem very deliberately planned–boy I hope there wasn’t more than one take).

Overall, this is a funny rap parody/tribute album.  It’s obvious that the guys love rap and they are quite successful in their stylings.  None of it works as well as “Weird Al”‘s “White and Nerdy” but honestly whatever could?  But “Weird Al” is PG, and Lonely Island fills in as the adult pranksters.

[READ: October 28, 2011] Chew: Volume One

Sarah gave me this book after reading the recommendation on The Hub.  She said it was really good but it was really gross.  And that’s quite an accurate assessment.

One thing that I liked about this book was that it had not one but two really cool ideas that run through the series.  Either one would be a compelling-enough premise, but putting them together makes for an excellent story with lots of possibilities.

The story is about Tony Chu, who is a policeman.  He is also cibopathic, which means that when he eats anything (except beets for some reason), he instantly knows the history of that food: eating fruits and vegetables shows him the tree it grew on and how it was harvested;  eating meat, well, just let your imagination go on that one.  That’s a pretty great premise.  But when he gets a murderer’s blood on his lips and he instantly knows the names and locations of all of his victims, well, that ups the intensity (and the grossness).

The second great premise is that the government has outlawed chicken because of the avian flu.  Millions of people died from the flu and now only chicken-substitutes are used.  There is now a black market for real chicken, including speakeasys, and the FDA is hot on the heels of all traffickers.  And yet, there is a small group of rebels who believe that the whole avian flu thing is a sham (including Tony’s brother Chow).  They don’t postulate why the sham was created, but they are out to set the record straight. 

Put these two ideas together and you get a hell of a story. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Babymouse: Puppy Love [#8] (2007)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Dogs, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Nada Surf, Short Books on October 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NADA SURF-“Meow Meow Lullaby” (2004).

On the For the Kids Too! compilation, Nada Surf have a wonderful song called “Meow Meow Lullaby.”  It’s got a beautiful melody and is a really adorable song.  Lyrically it is very simple: “I am just a kitten, hardly fit my mittens, much too small I figure, one day I’ll be bigger.”  And the chorus is predominantly the band singing the word “Meow.”

It’s a wonderful lullaby and we have put it on many of the mix CDs we play for the kids.

Not many bands can successfully transition to kids’ music (a trend that as a dad I am down with, even if it can be annoying).  It’s clear that Nada Surf aren’t doing that–this is a one-off for a good cause.  But this song is a winner.

[READ: October 27, 2011] Babymouse: Puppy Love

This is my sixth Babymouse adventure.  It was quite different from the other ones which I’ve read (which is good).  Rather than focusing on school or Babymouse’s friends, this one focuses exclusively on Babymouse’s pets.

Babymouse is a terrible pet owner.  As the story opens we see that she has lost yet another goldfish.  (We see the previous fish in order of their demise).  Babymouse wants a new pet but she thinks that fish are too boring.  She wants to move on to something bigger! (Despite her clear inability to care for pets).

Then we see the succession of pets that Babymouse acquires, as she builds up to a puppy–hamster, ferret, etc.  My favorite part of this story was that Babymouse loses all of these pets (the hamster instructions say: “Do not leave cage open” which she reads a little too late), but we see where all the lost pets wind up–which was very funny indeed.

And then Babymouse gets her wish–sort of.  A stray dog comes up to her and she adopts it. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles and Speeches 1998-2003 (2011)

Posted in Big Books, Biography, Book Reviews, Books about writers, César Aira, Cigarettes, David Foster Wallace, Do the Right Thing, Don DeLillo, Douglas Coupland, Drugs, Enrique Vila-Matas, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Herman Melville, History, Isabel Allende, Ivan Turgenev, Jaime Bayly, Javier Cercas, Javier Marias, Jonathan Swift, Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mark Twain, Martin Amis, Memoirs, Natasha Wimmer, Pablo Picasso, Playboy, Poetry, Public Enemy, Roberto Bolaño, Rodrigo Lira, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Salvador Dali, Travel, Unreliable narrator, Witold Gombrowicz on October 24, 2011| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PUBLIC ENEMY-Fear of a Black Planet (1990).

NPR recently broadcast a PE show from the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival.  I didn’t know that PE was still touring, so that was a surprise to me.  The show was largely a celebration of Fear of a Black Planet, which meant that I had to go back and listen to the original.

Man, is this a solid album.  The lyrics pack a punch even twenty years later and what is perhaps more amazing is that the sound collages that Terminator X created, which were something of an oppressive sonic assault are now fairly mainstream-sounding (forward thinking or what?).

What I like about this (and most PE) albums, is that  they have little skits between songs, but unlike most rap skits they’re not one-not jokes that you listen to once and then skip every future time.  A wonderful skit (for lack of a better word) is “Incident at 66.6 FM” in which we hear an amazing amount of racist epithets thrown at PE apparently on the radio.  Or the rather disturbing “Meet the G That Killed Me.”  “Anti-Nigger Machine” is a great collage of samples like “Think” and James Brown and a dozen more songs.

“Can’t Do Nuttin for Ya, Man!” is a (sort of) comic song from Flav that is catchy as anything. While “Reggie Jax” is a confusingly titled song that has nothing to do with baseball, but everything to do with funk.

Of course, this disc has some of PE’s best songs as well.  From the awesome “911 is a Joke” to one of the best rap songs ever, “Welcome to the Terrordome” (my favorite story of this song is when I was wearing a  Welcome to the Terrordome shirt and my philosophy professor asked me quite pointedly, “What in the hell is a terrordome.”  That was a fun conversation).  “Terrordome” is still amazing–powerful, musically intense and for all of its lyrical acuity, it still has funny moments….boing.

And of course, “Burn Hollywood Burn” is an amazing critique of the movie industry (and it’s catchy too).  I got Black Caesar back at the crib, right Lar?

I’ve always been a little confused by “Pollywannacracker.”  Not lyrically, but vocally, as Chuck’s (is it really Chuck?) voice is treated in a surprisingly tinny way.  I liked the song more on this listen than any other, I guess in the past it just kind of snuck by me.

The album is a little front loaded with greatness.   “Power to the People” is another powerful song, but it’s not quite as memorable as the other tracks.  “Fear of a Black Planet” has some really cool sounds on it (where did they get that “black man, black woman, black baby” sample?).   “Revolutionary Generation” is a great track in which Chuck and Flav stand up for black women: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, my sister’s not my enemy.”  Not your average rap subject.

And the last couple of proper songs, “B Side Wins Again” and “War at 33 1/3” are fast paced and furious, but they don’t really have much in the way of a hook.  Nevertheless, lyrically they are really great, and I love to hear Chuck D flow that quickly.

The biggest surprise for me is the censored version of “Fight the Power” (the song that got me into PE in the first place, thanks Spike).  It’s really surprising to me that PE allowed their music to be bleeped–unless it was just for a deliberate radio play (which I can accept).  Although they also list a title as “Leave This Off You Fu*Kin Charts” (did I buy a Columbia House version or something?)

This is an amazing album, one that still sounds fresh and sadly, is still relevant.

[READ: October 15, 2011] Between Parentheses

I never expected to get so addicted to Roberto Bolaño.  And despite his death, there is no shortage of works coming out in English (that is one of the advantages to reading a translated author–even death doesn’t cease the available materials).  Indeed, this year alone, New Directions is publishing Between Parentheses, and Tres and FSG is publishing The Third Reich (a collection of non fiction, a collection of poetry and a novel respectively).

When I really get into an author, I fall for his or her works, not necessarily him or her as a person (heck, some author are downright jerks).  But there are some authors that I want to know about, personally.  Bolaño is a pretty polarizing figure–he seems obnoxious, his works don’t shy away from very specific opinions, and sometimes it’s unclear what kind of views Bolaño himself has in his works (or if he’s even telling the truth about his so-called truths).  One thing in particular is the constant use of the word “faggot.”  It is used often in 2666 (and I know that is a translator’s choice, but still) and used derogatorily.  Now, clearly the context is everything for something like that.  But it seems to speak badly of Bolaño.  And yet, when reading these essays he is not homophobic in the least.  He is obviously well aware of institutionalized homophobia in Latin America, and he is obviously not supportive of it.

But that’s just one interesting thing about this book.  So let me back up. (more…)

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Matt Kish–Moby-Dick in Pictures (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Art, Big Books, Colin Stetson, Constellation Records, Damion Searls, Death, Herman Melville, Laurie Anderson, Matt Kish, My Brightest Diamond, Religion, Tom Waits, Whales on October 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: COLIN STETSON-New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges [CST075] (2011).

When you learn that Stetson played saxophone for Tom Waits, it makes perfect sense.  The middle of the second song, “Judges” sounds like the instrumental break for any of Waits’ newer songs.  Of course, once Stetson starts really wailing you realize that Stetson doesn’t need Waits’ lyrics to tell a story. With just one big-assed bass saxophone, Steston can say quite a lot.  He plays with circular breathing, meaning that he doesn’t have to stop to take a breath, he breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth at the same time (this is of course impossible).  The bass saxophone weighs some 20 pounds and is massive and Stetson makes it sound like everything from an oil tanker to a field of runaway horses.  Oh, and he also has pretty melodies and songs that sound longing.

This disc is part two of a trilogy, but this is the first of his records that I bought (thanks to a release via the folks at Constellation–I wonder if they will redistribute Pt 1).  There is a story that runs through these discs, although honestly, I’m not entirely sure what it is.  But that doesn’t matter to me, what matters is Steston’s amazing skills.

There are evidently a couple of overdubs on this disc, but for the most part it is just him and his saxophone (and 24 microphones).  The microphones were placed all over the room, on the instrument itself (to pick up the clacking of the keys) and even on his throat (when he makes those “voices muffled by a pillow” sound, that’s the throat mike picking up voice–singing while he is playing (which is impossible)).

The album features a couple of spoken word sections by Laurie Anderson, whose clipped, non-inflected voice gives this otherworldy music an even more otherworldy feel.  And there’s two songs sung by Shara Worden.  Other than that, it’s just the man himself.

Prepare to be amazed by this man’s talent.  But also prepare to be a little frightened by what you hear.  This is not timid music by any stretch.  There’s some scary stuff on this record, especially if you listen in the dark.  More especially if you listen loud (which you absolutely must do to hear all the nuances).  On first listen, this may sound like a noisy jazz record, but the more you get into it, the more amazing it becomes.

[READ: October 11, 2011] Moby Dick-in Pictures

Matt Kish has accomplished an amazing thing.  He has drawn a picture a day (more or less) to accompany every page of the 552 page paperback version of Moby-Dick.  He takes a small passage from each page and renders an image for it.  One thing this book is not is an illustrated version of Moby-Dick.  It doesn’t purport to be.  You won’t get the whole story from this book.  It’s not a cheat sheet for high school students.  If you haven’t readMoby-Dick, this will give you a taste for the story–almost like a preview for a movie.  And hopefully it will compel people to read the original.  If you have read Moby-Dick, this is a wonderful companion.  Not only will the pictures give you fascinating insights into the story (and into Kish, of course), but seeing sentences excised from the book to stand alone makes you aware of the book in ways you just aren’t when you’re reading it as a novel.

Kish admits he is not an artist, which while not false modesty, is certainly selling himself short.  He has an awesome style of illustration.  I am especially excited by his vast pictures with small details (lots of pages where there are small circles with lines in them or, for instance, the details on Queequeg’s face) and when he uses bold lines to create vast, weighty iconic pictures.  Here’s one example of his awesome use of multiple straight lines.  I mean, it’s gorgeous.

But I also love the whole conceit that an artistic shortcoming for him has turned out to be an absolute boon.  Kish says he cannot render the human form and so he made the conscious decision to make the seamen more like avatars than people.  It’s daring and a little odd, but it works wonders.  I admit that I was a little less than excited by the very first page of the book–I was disconcerted by Ishmael and his utter lack of features. (I actually like the way he is rendered later in the book better–call it an artistic growth).  But by the time her gets to Queequeg, or the  gorgeous Tashtego  it’s obvious that his decision was genius.  Just take a look at the marvel that is is Ahab (left).  First off, the colors are amazing.  As are the details of the whale in the corners.  But look at him–he’s a metal machine–shiny and tough–part ship, part whale.  Look at the awesome shading and detailing of the blue “coat” that he’s wearing.  He’s even got the badge of Moby-Dick on his belt!  And then there’s the pegleg–the most beautifully drawn pegleg ever.  It’s really stunning.

Now you’re also noticing that there’s all kinds of diagrams behind Ahab.  Kish used to work at a bookstore and he hated seeing old pages of books thrown away (he has since become a librarian, which makes sense–although as I librarian I learned that librarians are actually quite cavalier about throwing away old books once they are beyond use).  So he brought these pages home.  And, given the density of the layers of meaning in Moby-Dick, he decided to draw his pictures on these old pages.  So on virtually every page you can see something in the background.  Most of the time they are these circuital diagrams, which are wonderful. But there are several drawings where the found pages are pages of text from books.  And I have to say if these were serendipitous findings then he has amazing fortune.  Some of the pages tie in so perfectly it is wonderful.

Like the page that is headed “Cetology” and is from what, a textbook on whales?  Or several other pages that I wish I had taken notes on, because they were really wonderfully chosen.  He even has a drawing on a title page of Moby-Dick. I have to ask, did he really find that or did he buy it for the project? (more…)

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Shepard Fairey–E Pluribus Venom: The Art of Shepard Fairey (2008)

Posted in Anarchy, Barack Obama, Big Books, Communists, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Environmentalism, Free Speech, Funky Web Sites, Greed, MC Paul Barman, Political Humor, Religion, Set at School, Sex, Shepard Fairey, Skateboarding, The Big Lebowski, WPA on October 15, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MC PAUL BARMAN-It’s Very Stimulating (EP) (2001).

So is this guy a joke? Well, he’s very funny.  Very funny, in fact.  But to my ear, not in a novelty sort of way.  He’s got the kind of rhymes that make you laugh but still work upon multiple hearings.  And, yes, Paul Barman is a squeaky, Jewish boy from Ridgewood, New Jersey (again!) and he really can’t rap on the beat and he really doesn’t have much in the way of rhythm, but got awesome skills in the lyrics department and he has production from Prince Paul (that’s the kind of credentials that anyone would like).

The theme of this EP is Paul’s utter failure to get with women (even in his fantasies).  He’s crass and vulgar and yet he’s also quite smart and rather witty (“I think about all the pube I got while reading the Rubaiyat“) .  The music is more or less inconsequential.  As Prince Paul noted, the craziness comes from the lyrics, so you don’t want to overkill the song.  But there’s some great samples and some solid beat work as well.  Nevertheless, we’re here for the words.  So, sample a few of these rhymes:

“The Joy of Your World”

It was time to copulate but we didn’t want to populate
So my bold groin reached for my gold coin proooophylactic
I unwrapped it, you can’t know how I felt
It wasn’t a gold coin condom, it was chocolate Chanukah gelt
The white part crumbled on her tummy and the rest began to melt
Foiled again…..

“School Anthem” or “Senioritis” (this song was renamed for the reissue of the disc it seems)

Homework is tell major lies or plagiarise encyclopedias, so boring
Fresh-faced teachers want to tickle ’em
but a test-based curriculum excludes exploring

I’ll let a mystery gas out of my blistery ass
Just to disrupt the misery of history class

“Salvation Barmy”

She said, “Go get a haircut”
So I showed her my bare butt
Pulled down my Carhartts put my moon in her star-charts

“I’m Frickin’ Awesome” ( I love this especially for the Lila Acheson bit)

It’s nice to be hypnotized by a man you don’t despise yet
He had a type of flow and I can’t quite label it
All I know it made me want to take off my cableknit
Sweater, Oh he better be hetero
I hope they don’t catch us in the Lila Acheson
Wallace Wing when Paulus brings the mattress in–rudely
He backlashed my booty
like I was Susan Faludi over the Grace Rainey Rogers Room rostrum

“MTV Get Off The Air, Pt 2”  (the first two lines are fantastic, but the whole thing is genius).

Smirkin’ jocks with hackysacks
in Birkenstocks and khaki slacks
I’m the hypest lyricist
while they’re like, “What type of beer is this?”

Just wait until the full length for the utter genius that is “Cock Mobster” (how can be s o smart and so stupid at the same time?)

[READ: October 10, 2011] E Pluribus Venom

Like most people, I learned the name Shepard Fairey because of his iconic prints for Barack Obama.   In addition to supporting Obama, I really liked the design of the prints–simple, bold, an easy iconic style (which has since been lifted, morphed and used everywhere).  I know that many of Fairey’s prints actually come from other people’s original photos.  He has a print of Muhammed Ali in this book, and he clearly didn’t take the original photo (I don’t know where it came from).  But since all art is theft, I’m okay with Fairey taking someone else’s work and making something new from it.  I’ve always felt that attribution should be enough if you modify the original enough to call it different (which I feel this print does).  [The fact that he didn’t acknowledge the source does bug me, of course].  But that’s neither here nor there because this book predates all of that.

This book documents events that occurred in 2007.  The E Pluribus Venom show was based largely around two images that Fairey designed to reflect the two sides of capitalism.  The image to the right really doesn’t do any justice to the work itself, but you can kind of see that he created two-sided faux dollar bills.  The front showed all the good things that capitalism can do.  The back showed all of the evils that capitalism causes.  The images resemble dollars, but the text is straightforward in its message.  As with a lot of what Fairey does, it’s blunt and obvious but pretty cool.

As far as I’m concerned, though, this is the least interesting image in the book.  Although I love that they made dollar bill sized prints of these faux dollars and left them scattered around in cities to promote the show.  They way they were folded made them look at a glance like actual currency.  Very cool. (more…)

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Matthea Harvey–Of Lamb (2011)

Posted in Amy Jean Porter, Canadian Music, Funny (strange), Matthea Harvey, McSweeney's, Rush on August 31, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-“You Can’t Fight It” (1973).

This is the B-Side of the first single Rush ever released (The A Side: a cover of “Not Fade Away”).  It was released briefly but has been long out of print.  Thankfully, people on the internets have access to all kinds of things. It’s pretty clearly Rush–Geddy sounds right, and it sounds like an Alex solo, so I think it’s fair to say that this is genuine.

It’s a pretty decent hard rock song from the 70s.  It sounds like it could be from any of the second tier bands back then.  It’s got some boogie and some swagger and it seems like it’s not about anything important (rock n roll, apparently).

While I’m obviously glad that Rush went on to bigger and better things, it’s fun hearing how confidently they fit into the context of music by their heroes.  This song has a cool riff, it’s quite heavy and it shows promise.

For a band that never releases B-sides or rarities or anything like that, I’ve been pretty surprised to see what is in their internet closet.

Enjoy!

(By the way, I’m not advocating the visuals of the video–I haven’t actually “watched” it–just the audio).

[READ: August 25, 2011] Of Lamb

This book is sort of subtitled: Poems by Matthea Harvey, Painting by Amy Jean Porter.

It’s the “poems” part that I have a hard time with, actually.  But let me get to that in a moment.

This book takes a nifty idea (an idea very similar to one that Jonathan Safran Foer is using in Tree of Codes, which, see tomorrow’s post) and fully realizes it.  But what’s funny is that she doesn’t tell you what this idea is until the afterword of the book.  So while I was reading it I wasn’t really sure what I was seeing.  The afterword made me say Oh, I get it now.  But I don’t feel that I can review it without explaining what she has done.  So, if you don’t want to know anything about the “secret” behind the book, skip the next paragraph.

[Spoiler?  Maybe.]

Okay, so essentially what Matthea has done is, she has taken a book at random (literally one she bought for $3 at a used book store), in this case, A Portrait of Charles Lamb, and she has created her poems out of that book.  In other words, on every page, she would find the words that she wanted to keep and she whited-out everything else (you can see an example in the book).  But rather than presenting the work like that, she had Amy Jean Porter make weird and cool paintings to go with every page’s worth of text (I assume Porter did the lettering as well?).  Since the book is about Charles Lamb, it was very convenient that his sister’s name was Mary.  So there was a Mary and a Lamb on almost every page.  Hence this sort of update of the Mary Had a Little Lamb story.

[end possible spoiler warning] (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Babymouse: Skater Girl [#7] (2007)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Figure Skating, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Ice Skating, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Rush, Short Books on August 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-“Not Fade Away” (1973).

I never understood this song.  Grammatically it drives me nuts.  “Love is real, not fade away.”  Why would someone write that?  Anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of English would know that that is just a horrible way to speak.  Okay, I got that off my chest.

So this is the first single that Rush ever released.  You can find out information about it on the web (of course, I didn’t know it existed until a couple of days ago).

What we get here is a pretty rocking version of this rock n roll standard.  The band has some nice group vocals on the chorus.  I like the echoed chanting of the chorus before the solo kicks in.  And I love the rough sound that Alex’s guitar has as the song opens.

As I noted the other day with the concert from circa 1974, the band was really all about Alex’s guitar work back then.  Geddy doesn’t do anything impressive on the bass (a couple of fills, but nothing special).  But Alex’s guitar solo is amazing (and you can hear snippets of future guitar solos buried in this solo).

It’s funny to me that when they recorded their covers EP Flashback, that they didn’t include this song, too.

Check it out:

The B-side comes tomorrow!

[READ: March 12, 2011] Babymouse: Skater Girl

Well, fair enough, I said that I liked Babymouse: Dragonslayer because it had a plot.  This story has a plot, too.  Interestingly, it ties in kind of nicely to the Dragonslayer story, too.  (It’s all about winning something).

As the story opens, Babymouse feels bad because she never wins anything.  She’s looking at all of the trophies which she has not won; then there’s an amusing fantasy of all the things she has won (honorable mention for spelling the word “the” correctly; honorable mention at the swim competition for “getting wet”; and amusingly, archenemy Felicia Furrypaws’ trophy for worst whiskers).

But despite her complaints about not being good at anything, we quickly see that she is actually very good at ice skating.  She rules the pond in town–until the big hockey players crash into her, that is).  She even daydreams of winning a skating trophy. (more…)

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Five Dials 19: The Parenting Issue (28 April 2011)

Posted in Advice, Alain de Botton, Alexandra Styron, Arthur Bradford, Books about writers, Cars, Christoph Niemann, Consumerism, Craig Taylor, Culture Shock, Darin Strauss, Diedre Dolan, Essays, Excerpt, Fears, Five Dials, Fretful Mother, Funny (ha ha), Heidi Julavits, Hugh Gallagher, Humiliation, Jim Windolf, John Kenney, Katha Pollitt, Kevin Baker, Kraftwerk, Manuals, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Neil Young, Peter Melhman, Piers Paul Read, Religion, Rush, Sarah Miller, Short Story, The Simpsons, Tucker Nichols, William Berlind, William Styron on August 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NEIL YOUNG-Trans (1982).

By most standards this Neil Young album is a disaster.  It’s so bad that despite updating his entire catalog and releasing all kinds of bootleg concerts, he has never issued this disc on CD in the States.  So, just what’s so awful about this disc?

Well, mostly it’s awful as a Neil Young disc.  Meaning, if you like Neil Young (either flavor: country/folk or hard rock/grunge) this disc is a big fat HUH??  Neil Young has gone all synthy?  And not just synth but computerized synthy–sometimes his voice is utterly like a computer.  It’s a travesty, it’s a shame, it’s an incredible surprise.  Unless you listen to it without thinking of it as a Neil Young record.

But after all that introduction, the biggest surprise is the first song.  You’ve been prepped for this weird album full of computer nonsense and you get the fairly standard (if a little dull) rockabilly type music of “A Little Thing Called Love.”  It’s a pretty standard Neil Young song for the time.  Hmm, maybe the album isn’t that weird.

Well, then comes “Computer Age” and the keyboards kick in.  Interestingly, to me anyhow, this is the year that Rush released Signals.  Signals was the album where Rush fans said Woah, what’s with the keyboards guys.  Similarly, “Computer Age” makes you say, geez, was there a sale on keyboards in Canada?  The keyboards are kind of thin and wheedly, but the real surprise comes in the processed vocals (Rush never went that far).  The vocals are basically the 1980s equivalent of auto-tune (no idea how they did this back then).  Because the song is all about the computer age it kind of makes sense that he would use this weird robotic voice.  Sometimes it’s the only voice, although he also uses the computer voice as a high-pitched harmony over his normal singing voice.

“We R in Control” sounds like it might be a heavy rocker (anemic production notwithstanding) until we get more computer vocals.  Again, conceptually it works (its all about the dominance of CCTV), but it is pretty weird as a Neil Young song.

And then comes yet another shock, “Transformer Man.”  Yes, THAT “Transformer Man,” except not.  This original version of the song is sung entirely in a processed super high pitched computer voice that is almost hard to understand).  The only “normal’ part of the song is the occasional chorus and the “do do do dos.”  It sounds like a weird cover.  Sarah, who loves Neil Young, practically ran out of the room when she heard this version.

“Computer Cowboy (aka Syscrusher)” continues in that same vein.  Musically it’s a bit more experimental (and the computer vocals are in a much lower register).  Although I think it’s probably the least interesting of these songs.

Just to confuse the listener further, “Hold On to Your Love” is a conventional poppy song–no computer anything (aside from occasional keyboard notes).  Then comes the 8 minute “Sample and Hold” the most computerized song of the bunch and one of the weirder, cooler songs on the disc.  It really feels like a complete song–all vocodered out with multiple layers of vocals, not thin and lacking substance like some of the tracks.  It opens with personal stats (hair: blonde, eyes: blue) and proceeds through a litany of repeated “new design, new design” motifs.

This is followed by a remake of “Mr Soul” previously only on Decade.  This is a new vocodered-harmonies version of the song.

The biggest failure of the disc to me is “Like an Inca” it’s nine minutes of virtually the same guitar riff.  The chorus is pretty wonderful, but it’s a very minor part of the song itself.  It is fairly traditional Neil song, I just wish it were much shorter.

So, this travesty of a disc is actually pretty interesting and, for me, pretty enjoyable.  Most of these synthy songs sound kind of weak but I think that has more to do with the production of the time. I’d love to hear newly recorded versions of these songs (with or without the vocoder) to see what he could do with a great production team behind him.

Trans is not a Neil Young disc in any conventional sense, but as an experiment, as a document of early 80s synth music, it not only holds up, it actually pushes a lot of envelopes.   I’m not saying he was trying to out Kraftwerk Kraftwerk or anything like that, but for a folk/rock singer to take chances like this was pretty admirable.  Shame everybody hated it.

[READ: July 5, 2011] Five Dials 19

Five Dials 19 is the Parenting Issue.  But rather than offering parenting advice, the writers simply talk about what it’s like to be a parent, or to have a parent.  It was one of the most enjoyable Five Dials issues I have read so far.

CRAIG TAYLOR & DIEDRE DOLAN-On Foreign Bureuas and Parenting Issues
I enjoyed Taylor’s introduction, in which he explains that he is not very useful for a parenting issue   That most of the duties will be taken on by Diedre Dolan in NYC.  They are currently in her house working while her daughter plays in the next room.  His ending comment was hilarious:

Also, as is traditional at most newsweeklies, someone just put a plastic tiara on my head and then ran away laughing at me.

I resist Parenting magazines, from Parents to Parenting to Fretful Mother, they all offer some sound advice but only after they offer heaps and heaps of guilt and impossible standards.  So I was delighted to see that Five Dials would take an approach to parenting that I fully approve of.  Dolan writes:

Nobody knows what works. Most people just make some choices and defend them for the next 18 to 50 years – claiming nurture (good manners) or nature (crippling shyness) when it suits them best.

And indeed, the magazine made me feel a lot better about my skills (or lack) as a parent. (more…)

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Five Dials 18b: A Spring Postcard (19 April 2011)

Posted in Austin City Limits, Craig Taylor, Decadence, Eric Hanson, Essays, Five Dials, Funny (ha ha), Laurence Scott, Michael Robbins, Nazis, Religion, Steve Martin, The Beatles, U2 on August 21, 2011| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEVE MARTIN & THE STEEP CANYON RANGERS-“Athiests Don’t Have No Songs” (2010).

We watched this Steve Martin performance on Austin City Limits last night.  Who knew that Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) won a Grammy in the bluegrass category!  I’m not a huge fan of bluegrass–basically I like it enough for a few songs, but a half an hour is a bit much.

Nevertheless, Steve Martin is an amazing banjo player.  Anyone who has his comedy albums from the 70s knows that.  He used to play banjo between jokes (“Oh…death and grief and sorry and murder).  Now he tells jokes between banjo songs (the joke about the Grammy is very funny).

This song does not feature his amazing banjo playing but it is very funny indeed.

I just love the crazy notes that Martin hits near the end, which sounds so out of tune and yet fit very well together.

[READ: July 27, 2011] Five Dials 18b

The bulk of this short special issue is the five poems by Michael Robbins, a poet with whom I am unfamiliar.  The only other items included here are Craig Taylor’s Letter and Laurence Scott’s Currentish Events about Galliano and Gaddafi.  Since Five Dials issues are of varying sizes to begin with, it was unclear why this issue was a “b” and not the next issue, but Taylor sets us all straight.

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Spring and Robbins
They got into the publishing gig to be able to comment on things as they occur.  So this special issue is designed to usher in Spring and to introduce the world to the new poet whose title “Aliens v Predator” so impressed them that they asked him for five more. (more…)

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*Five Dials 18: Sybille Bedford: On the Centenary of Her Birth (16 March 2011)

Posted in Aliette Martin, Books about writers, Death Cab For Cutie, Drinking, Five Dials, Food, Jonathan Safran Foer, Richard Todd, Stars, Sybille Bedford on August 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STARS-Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington DC, October 20, 2007 (2007).

Thanks NPR for this unexpected concert.  Unexpected because Stars is a wonderful band but I think they’re largely unknown (I could be wrong about that, but it’s not like you hear them on the radio or anything). 

This show was during a tour for In Our Bedrooms After the War, which was one of the best albums of the year as far as I’m concerned.  

It’s an intimate album, with all kinds of styles in it: whispered confessions, dancey pop songs, synthy tracks and also some solid alternative rock.  The unifying theme for Stars is beautiful, often super catchy songs that are filled with melancholy and sadness (and occasionally, hope: “at least…the war is over”).  But the key to their beauty is the wonderful harmonies that the singers give us.

Musically the things that surprised me most during this show were the singers’ speaking voices.  Torquil Campbell’s speaking voice is quite a high register and yet his singing voice is low and soothing.  The opposite is true for the other singer, Amy Millan who has a kind of gruff peaking voice but whose singing voice soars to the heavens.  It’s fascinating.  Torquil is also a gushing frontman, thanking the audience so much for coming and even asking “Don’t your friends have bands that are playing whose shows you should be at right now?”  He also thanks Ben and the rest of Death Cab for Cutie for being so very nice to them.  A very nice chap it seems.

The bands sounds quite good live, but my only problem with the show is that as i mentioned, Stars’ music is very intimate, sometime whisper-quiet, and it doesn’t always translate very well in a live setting (even a relatively small club like the 9:30 Club).  Sometimes it feels like they’re singing too loudly to match the music.  Now, it’s entirely possibly that this doesn’t come across when you see them live, that this soundboard recording picks up every flaw. 

Despite that, there’s undeniable energy here and some really great moments where the bands switches direction at the drop of a hat.  And, overall, this is an excellent introduction to the wonder that is Stars’ music (or a big treat for established fans).

[READ: July 25, 2011] Five Dials 18

Five Dials 18 is unique in the history of the journal.  This entire issue is given over to the memory of SYBILLE BEDFORD.  It is written by ALIETTE MARTIN (there’s not even a Letter for the Editor).

Martin writes about Bedford’s love of wine and fine food.  It was pretty funny to read about her detailed love of meat after reading all of the vegetarianism promoted in the Five Dials news pages (Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals was just published by Hamish Hamilton). (more…)

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