SOUNDTRACK: LAKE STREET DIVE-Tiny Desk Concert #511 (February 29, 2016).
Lake Street Dive are a trendy band all of a sudden (they’ve been around for ten years, evidently). And what’s not to like about them? Lead singer Rachael Price has a powerful soulful voice and she’s really pretty. Their harmonies are really excellent. And their songs are fairly simple and easy to follow.
And I can’t stand them.
They push all of my button. I don’t like Price’s soulful voice (even though it is really powerful and sounds great–I just don’t like it). I don’t like the way their backing vocals are vaguely do-wop, a sound I don’t like in general. And I don’t like the way they veer towards country.
I should like them–this set is fun and the crowd is really into it. Price sounds rather like Carole King, I love that the drummer uses brushes and that he wrote the first song. I love that the bassist plays an upright bass and that she wrote the second song and sings lovely harmonies. And I like that the guitarist plays a trumpet solo on the final song.
I even like the lyrics to the final song, “thank the good lord for those godawful things that brought you right back to me.” Except that they sing that line about 50 times in the song.
I’m already tired of them and I expect that I’ll be even more sick of them before the year is out.
[READ: January 27, 2016] “The Philosophers”
I don’t know Adam Ehrlich Sachs at all, and I have to say I was pretty surprised by this story.
It seemed like it would be pretty serious, what with that title and all. It also seemed to have three “sections.” So I was expecting something pretty intense.
But instead, it was three humorous short stories called “Our System,” “Two Hats” and “The Madman’s Time Machine.”
“Our System” plays off the story that a person who loses the ability to use his muscles is still able to communicate through a blink or a tap or something. And it follows the life story a of a philosopher who is so afflicted. The man tries to communicate his life’s philosophy to his son. But since the disease is hereditary, his son gets it too. Then he has to learn a way to communicate with his own son.
It seems rather ponderous at first but then it quickly grows absurd as we see multiple generations trying to transcribe those initial thoughts.
“Two Hats” explores the idea of a person who wears two hats and how maybe the hats themselves are essential for him to be able to keep his jobs separated. Again, it starts out somewhat reasonable but grows more and more absurd, with bigger and bigger hats.
The final story is “The Madman’s Time Machine” which was my favorite. It is indeed about a time machine and whether the man who made it is crazy or not. I really enjoyed the way it was written and the way it did so much in such a little space. The conclusion was really well done.
I can see enjoying short pieces from him from time to time.
I Just Read About That... 