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Archive for the ‘Mark Slouka’ Category

Mark Slouka–“August” (Harper’s, August 2006)

Posted in Death, Dogs, Harper's, Led Zeppelin, Mark Slouka, Marriage Trouble, palačinky , Phish, Vacation on August 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait Vol. 13 [Baker’s Dozen Edition] (2017).

Live Bait 13 was a special release to tie in with the Baker’s Dozen shows at Madison Square Garden.  It’s a little strange that 11 of the 13 songs are from MSG and not all of them, but whatever.  The MSG recordings date from 1994-2016, and the additional two songs are a relativity recent song from Chicago and a 1993 track from Pittsburgh.

The set starts with a 14 minute “The Wedge” (7/20/14 FirstMerit Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago, IL).  It seems to be a little stiff and almost “formal” to start with although by around 9 minutes it loosens up and gets funky with some cool drum breaks.  By 11 minutes it turns into a loos jam of chords that sounds familiar like an other song, but I can’t place it.

The “Run Like An Antelope” is from 1993 (7/18/93 I.C. Light Amphitheater, Pittsburgh, PA) and it opens fun with woodblocks and a dramatically dissonant chord.  Trey launches into Led Zep’s “Heartbreaker” riff while the band keeps going.  The middle slows down and gets noisy before ending.

The rest of the tracks are from Madison Square Garden.

“Tube” (12/29/97) starts off quite angular and harsh but grows funky with a cool keyboard sound and solo from Page.   Moving back to (12/30/95) they play a spirited “It’s Ice” which segues into a rather mellow “Kung.”  Most of the nonsense from “Kung” is spoken, including the runaway gold cart marathon. But then they start screaming “Stand up!  STAND UP!”

I love that “It’s Ice” has the kind of vocals that are done in something of a round or a fugue.  It’s followed by “Piper” (12/30/11) that also has that kind of vocals in the round.  Its a nice pairing.  This version is pretty grooving and eventually gets really rocking.  Although the last five minutes are trippy and chill.

There’s a surprise (to me) “Icculus” from 2013. (12/31/13).  Trey has a lot of fun with the story of the helping friendly book.  He talks about how when they first started playing they had a message to impart.

Some of you are not getting the message and it’s pissing us off.  We’re here tonight in the middle of Madison Square Garden to give to the fucking message!  I’m looking around and I’m thinking a lot of you haven’t read the fucking book.  Up next is the fun segue of “Mike’s Song > Swept Away > Steep > Weekapaug Groove” from 1996 (10/22/96) is a large 20 minute block. There’s a good jam that lasts almost ten minutes before “Swept Away” comes in quietly for a minute. It stays quiet through “Sleep” until they launch onto the “Groove.”

The next song is from 2016 (12/30/16) , I think the most recent Live Bait.  “Light” sounds “mature” until the jam plays on for a while and its drifts all over the place until Fish pulls it back around 16 minutes to a wholly unexpected “Party Time.”

I love this version of “Carini” (12/28/98).  It is dark and angular with a really dark and moody jam.  At 8 minutes its gets kind of trippy but by 12 Page takes it into a dark place with synth sounds> Wolfman’s Brother (12/28/98 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY) 37:23

Ghost (12/31/10( is groovy with a half time solo while “Tweezer” (12/30/94) is fast and peppy for nearly the whole 20 minutes. The “Ebenezer” part comes at around 4 minutes with a lot of prolonged nonsense after the word.  “You Enjoy Myself (12/4/09) is a full 20 minutes as well and they seem to stretch it out with the second part coming at 3 minutes and the lyrics starting around 6 minutes in  there’s some great solos by Page and Trey as well.  There’s a funky watery bass solo around 17 minutes before the final vocal jam which is mostly a series of rising and falling yells until they grow quiet by the end.

“No Men In No Man’s Land” is a newer song and they play it nice–stretching it out with a grooving sound and jam.  By 10 minutes it chills down, but it picks up again by 11:30.  At 15 minutes it gets angular and dark and around 20 minutes they start the countdown to Auld Lang Syne.  They come out of ALS with a wonderful “Blaze On,” a fun welcome to the new year.

Nothing could prepare anyone for Phish playing a no repeat 13 night series, but this was certainly a fun reminder of the great shows they’ve played at MSG.

[READ: February 7, 2018] “August”

This story is a slice of life at a lake in August.

The family went to the lake for five seasons over he years.

The narrator says he primary memory is of his father reading intently.  He could read for hours without moving.  Sometimes he would pick up a drink and there was the possibility that he would not drink it before getting to the bottom of the page and then simply put it down, forgotten.

His mother would not read until she picked up a book and then would read intently for a couple of days and then seem to just give up.

It was the second season that his father shot the dog.  Yup, its one of those stories, but not as bad as all that. (more…)

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Mark Slouka–“The Hare’s Mask” (Harper’s, January 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Black Prairie, Death, Harper's, Mark Slouka, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portlandia, The Decemberists on January 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-“The King is Dead Live from Portland” on OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) (2011).

NPR loves The Decemberists, and so do I.  Not only did NPR stream their new album before it came out, they are also showing the audio and the video of this hour-long concert of the band playing The King is Dead start to finish.

I haven’t really had time to digest the whole album yet, but I am quite fond of it.  I’ve listened a few times and it’s very different from their previous releases, it has a much more folk/country feel (with harmonicas!).  And from what I can tell this live set is quite faithful to the recording.

Interestingly, when they played the entirety of The Hazards of Love live (also available from NPR), they played that entire epic album straight through with no chatter in between.  This live set is much more cordial and relaxed (like the disc itself), with some amusing delays and chatter between tracks.  (There’s an amusing reference to the lyrics of the new IFC show Portlandia).  There are tuning and tech malfunctions, and everyone plays along very nicely.  It really shows the difference between the two albums and how adaptable the band is.

Much has been made of the fact that Peter Buck plays on the album, and I have to say that the live mixing of “Down By the Water” makes it sound even more like R.E.M.’s “The One I Love” (that guitar, wow).  But it’s the country and bluegrass really comes out in this setting.  Sara Watkins’ violin really stands out.  They also mention the band’s side project, which I’d not heard of before now.  The band is Black Prairie and features Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee and Nate Query (I guess Colin Meloy is  real taskmaster that they needed to escape?).

The middle of the set is an interview with the OPB DJ (unnamed as far as I can tell) and Colin Meloy.  They talk about Hazards and the new one.  And at the end of the set there’s a Q&A from the audience (hear of Jenny’s wardrobe malfunction!).

But stay until the end because they also play “We Both Go Down Together.”  It’s a great, fun, loose set.

[READ: January 23, 2010] “The Hare’s Mask”

One of the fun things about vacations for me is that I bring all the magazines that have been idling around my house and I read them during down time.  So, I grabbed all of the magazines that were unread or half-read and put them in my suitcase.  After long days at Disney, when the family crashed, I took the time to finish those final pages.

I often find myself falling very far behind on my magazine reading, but I was delighted that after this vacation I was totally caught up (except for the 4 that awaited me when I got home).  This Harper’s story (and the next post) were the only stragglers from the trip.

And I find that I have much more to say about my trip and my magazines than about this story.  I feel like it was meant to be profound, and it certainly had the ingredients for profundity, but it failed to move me.

Perhaps it was the metaphor of tying fishing lures, which I don’t care about. Perhaps it was the rabbit killing, which was heart-string tugging, but was more distasteful than anything else. (more…)

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