SOUNDTRACK: TY DOLLA $IGN: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #104 (October 28, 2020).
I didn’t know much about Ty until his previous Tiny Desk Concert, which I kind of liked.
When I saw this one, I still thought he was a rapper. But he is a full on crooner in this concert.
I was fascinated to see that he was manipulating all of his effects himself–autotune and whatnot-on the box in front of him, which he kept walking around with. But perhaps the most fascinating thing about this was that Skrillex was there playing with him (they are mates, I gather) and that Skrillex was playing the guitar for the first track.
This is one of those “six songs in 15 minutes” sets. Each song is more or less a verse and a chorus. And in between there’s a kind of fun jam.
“Temptations” features Skrillex on guitar. It’s pretty short and soon enough Skrillex puts down the guitar and they are playing that interim music and starting “Something New.” This song features a groovy bass line from Joe Cleveland. I don’t quite know what the lyrics are but they are remarkably vulgar.
“Or Nah” opens with a cool spiky guitar riff from Brandon Chapman who Ty calls “my twin, Baby Dolla $ign). Up next is “Paranoid” which is without question the worst song I have ever heard.
The lyrics are bad enough
I seen two of my bitches in the club / I know they know about each other / I think these bitches trying to set me up.
What the hell? And worse than the lyrics is that he does that awful love song crooning, but it’s about he’s crooning about his bitches setting him up. Oh god, its dreadful. Although I was amused at the amusign way he introduces his keyboardist. I gather he changes the lyric to “your bitch smells like Camper” [point to keyboardist].
After the excerpt the band jams out and it’s really good. The band is tight and really rocks. There’s some great drumming from Mike Moore and some more wild soloing from Chapman. This was my favorite part of the set.
Although the sinister bass riff that opens “Ego Death” is pretty cool. Again the jamming in the middle of the song is great (and the samples that Ty triggers are really fun).
The set ends with “Your Turn.” Ty picks up the guitar but mostly plays occasional chords. The song is all guitar and vocals to start with. Then backing singer Ant Clemons sings a call and response. By the end of the song he is singing “yee yee yee yee” for some reason. I was really happy when this set was over.
[READ: November 25, 2020] “A House on the Plains”
I tend to think of E.L. Doctorow as writing kind of formal books. That’s not based on anything except that he’s been writing for a long time and that some of his books have been turned into movies (and musicals).
So I was surprised at the tone of this story. And then even more surprised as the plot started to reveal itself. The story was wonderfully written. There’s the story that’s not being revealed as well as the part that is. And both are really engaging.
The story begins in Chicago. The narrator says that his mama tells him that he has to start calling her Aunt Dora. Why? Because when they move, she can’t have other people believing she has a child his age.
The boy, Earle, (who is at least a teenager because he is having sex with a local girl, Winifred) is not happy about leaving Chicago. Both because of the girl and because Chicago is a cool city and they are planning to move to the middle of nowhere. (more…)