SOUNDTRACK: FRAZEY FORD-Tiny Desk Concert #73 (August 15, 2010).
Frazey Ford used to be in the Be Good Tanyas. Here she is touring her debut solo album Obadiah. She is quite a character, wearing a leopard print outfit.
But her music is really complex and interesting. On the opener, “Firecracker” she plays the guitar with unusual chord progressions but it’s her voice that is so arresting. She use atypical phrasings and pronunciations that belie her origins (I could never guess where she was from). Strangely, I get a kind of Cat Stevens vibe from the way she says words, but also another inexplicable emphasis: the way she pronounces exploding as explohdun.
She talks briefly about her new record while apologizing for having to tune her guitar. “Lost Together” slower, pretty song.
“If You Gonna Go” is a breakup song which she messes up and then apologizes for, saying she’s nervous and very tired. And she mocks herself for wearing a ridiculous cheetah outfit. She says she bought it in London where everyone was dressed like this. Stephen Thompson chimes in that if it was cooler they’d all be dressed like that.
She asks if they want one more and she ends with “The Gospel Song.”
It’s a really good introduction to an unusual voice.
[READ: September 10, 2015] The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952
After reading the Sunday Peanuts books, I had to go back and start the series from the beginning. Holy cow, Peanuts started in October 1950 and ran into the 21st century! That’ amazing. It’s also amazing to see how different everyone looked back then. It’s very disconcerting. The only thing more disconcerting is to immerse yourself in the old comics, start to really appreciate them, and then see a contemporary version and wonder why he changed them so much.
When the strip first started there were just three of them: Good Ol’ Charlie Brown, Shermy and Patty (not Peppermint Patty) and they are all four years old. Those first comics are really really different–the kids are practically stick figures. (Although Charlie always had that little wisp of hair). The kids all have huge heads and tiny bodies and are very minimal in their expressions. Snoopy is there too and he looks very much like a real dog. As it turns out I like this version of snoopy better than the current one. He looks much more like a dog and he acts alike a dog–Schulz gets some great jokes out of doggie behavior. Things like Snoopy hearing and smelling food and running over to beg started almost from the beginning. As did they ways that Snoopy interacts and often drives the other characters crazy.
What’s mostly different about the early ones is that the kids are all mean to each other and CB sometimes wins in the verbal sparring. He’s as much of a buster as the others. It’s really fun and funny. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 