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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

David Sedaris–“Road Trips” (New Yorker, November 27, 2006)

Posted in David Sedaris, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Hitchhiking, Iris, Lars Vaular, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Norway, Sex, Verftet Online Music Festival on July 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: IRIS-Verftet Online Music Festival 2020 (April 1, 2020).

In April 2020, Norway’s Verftet Music Festival streamed an online concert:

Get ready for Verftet Online Music Festival, Bergen’s largest virtual concert festival, where we can enjoy great music together. We want to turn despair and frustration into innovation and positivity, and invite everyone to a digital festival experience out of the ordinary – right home in your own living room.

I was completely unfamiliar with Iris, but she was the only other singer whose set was still streaming.  Because Aurora is a Norwegian singer in the same range, I feel like Iris’ voice sounds similar to hers.  But that’s a lazy comparison.

I suspect that she is a bit more poppy than this set lets on.  Like the Silja Sol set, it feels like a more “unplugged” kind of show.

It opens with “crawl for me” with she her singing to a guitar.  It’s quiet and powerful.  The rest of the band comes out for “mercy” which is “how i would like to to not show me any.”  There are washes of guitar s and keys, including a very cool, almost sinister keyboard sound in the end.

A cellist arrives for “kroppsspråk” which is a cover of a Lars Vaular song.  It’s kind of rapped–but in Iris’s more singing way.  It seems like the original is very dancey and she has dialed it back.

After a gentle piano solo version of “giving in” (her voice is lovely in the spare setting), she played “from inside a car,” my favorite song of the set which  has a breathy quality that I really like.

Then she throws in a Beatles cover.  “Here, There and Everywhere” is a beautiful gentle cover with just her voice and an acoustic guitar.

“hidden springs” stays with the acoustic sound, but she moved to a more techie processed vocal for “your mind, the universe.”  She has a few technical glitches for this song but when they are resolved her voice sounds very cool as it starts and then turns into a much bigger song.

As they prepare the next song she jokes that you shouldn’t eat crackers in bed, which proves to be the opening line of “hanging around you/crackers,” a sweet sounding breakup song.

Before the final song she mentions that all of her band is wearing band T-shirts: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Kiss and um, Reservoir Dogs(?).  It’s an amusing look for such a gentle show.

Before starting “romance is dead” she encourages everyone to visit my You Tube channel for recipes.  This set ending song is soft and lovely, just piano and strings and her beautiful voice.

[READ: July 15, 2021] “Road Trips”

When David was a kid, his father rallied the families on their street in Raleigh to plant maple trees.  For years they were tiny, pathetic things.  Now, decades later they are tall and majestic creating a canopy down the street where his father still lives.

He was home visiting his father who brought him to a block party.  At the party a teenager saw David’s father and groaned “Lou Sedaris, who invited her?”

“My son is gay,” the boy’s mother announced as if none of us had figured this out yet.  David was blown away that someone could casually announce this on the street where he grew up.  As a young homosexual David played all the games that the other closeted kids did.  Dated girls and claimed that sex before marriage was what dogs did–a true union of soles could take eight to ten years!

He kept his secret until he was twenty.  But he would have kept it longer had a couple not picked him up when he was hitchhiking.  It was 1 AM and he was picked up by a Cadillac with people his parents’ age in it. (more…)

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Claudio Magris–“Curving Time in Krems” (Harper’s, June 2021)

Posted in Anne Milano Appel, Aurora, Claudio Magris, Huh?, Norway, Philosophy, Romance, Short Story, Silja Sol, Translation, Verftet Online Music Festival on July 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SILJA SOL-Verftet Online Music Festival 2020 (April 5, 2020).

In April 2020, Norway’s Verftet Music Festival streamed an online concert:

Get ready for Verftet Online Music Festival, Bergen’s largest virtual concert festival, where we can enjoy great music together. We want to turn despair and frustration into innovation and positivity, and invite everyone to a digital festival experience out of the ordinary – right home in your own living room.

Sadly, most of the performances are unavailable, but this one from Siljia Sol (who is also Aurora’s backing vocalist) is streaming.

She plays ten songs in about 40 minutes, singing entirely in Norwegian.

“Kometen” is a two minute opener.  It has trippy synths and feels like an introductory lullaby.  Silja has an amazing voice, with quite a range.  Here it is soft and childlike.  But “Superkresen” turns into a fully 80s dance song.  It fits perfectly with the totally80s visuals of her set.

“Hatten” continues the bounciness.  This song feels poppier with a quietly soaring chorus.  “Hultertilbult” is more guitar-based and feels more organic.  As does “Ni Liv” which has a more prominent bass line.  This song has nice soaring backing vocals from her guitarist.

I don’t know the originals of these songs at all, but this feels like a restrained rendition.  Not quite unplugged, but perhaps more suitable for watching on your couch.

For “Stemning” she moves to the piano and plays a quiet ballad–her voice is lovely here.

The dancing returns for “Løgneren.”  Throughout these songs, Silja’s voice reminds me of Aurora’s, probably because her voice is essential to all live Aurora songs (and because they are both Norwegian).  With Aurora Silja hits incredibly high soaring notes and she really doesn’t do that in her own songs.  Although she does hit some high notes here.

“Semmenemme” has a more rhythmic approach–with almost a rapping vibe.  “Eventyr” cranks up the guitar more with a nice groove behind it.

“Dyrene” ends the set with the most catchy song of the bunch.  It is more subtle but features some nice soaring high vocals in the chorus.

It’s fascinating listening to ten songs and having no idea (at all) what they are about.  I’m very curious to hear if her recorded output has a more or less 80s vibe going on.

You can stream the set here.

[READ: July 10, 2021] “Curving Time in Krems”

This story was really cerebral and metaphysical. as such it took a really long time to get to the point.  It was also an incredibly long story for what amounts to: boy calls girls he had a crush on and wished he had done so sooner.

The main character is an academic invited to a dinner party in Krems, a city that “resembles Vineta, the city submerged by waters.”  Snow had fallen making the oblivious old town even more deserted.

A woman at the dinner insists that her cousin attended classes with him and spoke about him recently.  He tells her this is impossible as he did not have female classmates.

He figures out that the woman is talking about Nori S.  But Nori was a grade ahead of him and there’s no way she would remember him.

For a seventeen-year-old boy, a beguiling eighteen-year-old girl is more inaccessible than a Hollywood diva is to a professor [that’s a weird simile, there].

(more…)

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E.C. Osondu–“Wealth of Memory” (Harper’s, June 2021)

Posted in Aurora, E.C. Osondu, Harper's, Immigrants, Memory, Short Story, The Future on July 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AURORA-“Cure for Me” (2021).

Aurora seems to be a lot more prolific these days.  Or, at least, she’s more visible–releasing playlists and lots of other online items.  She has also released this new single.  I was delighted to hear it get some airplay on SiriusXM’s Alt Nation.

Starting with a slinky synth sound and a pulsing beat, Aurora sings in a whispery voice.

I run from the liars, the fuel on the fire
I know I created myself

As the bridge comes in she sings an uncharacteristic deep note (accentuating her accent a bit) and then after 45 second the super catchy chorus bursts forth

It’s the most dancey song she’s done so far (even more so than the dancey “Queendom”) and it’s positive and self-affirming:

I don’t need a cure for me
I don’t need it

If you don’t feel like moving to this song, you need to listen again–it’ll get you.

About this song she writes (from NME):

Like always, I got inspired by a really huge, dark and horrible thing that happens in the world. The first seed of inspiration came from thinking about the countries where it’s still legal to do conversion therapy for gay people and lesbians. I just thought that’s so pointless. The first idea was me saying, ‘I don’t need a cure for me – just let me live, man!’”

She continued: “Why is it so difficult for people to just let others be themselves? Then I thought that it could mean many other things. People tend to believe quite quickly that something is wrong with them if they’re not like the people they see in front of them. It’s so sad that it doesn’t take much for us to really doubt ourselves.”

Right on.

[READ: July 20, 2021] “Wealth of Memory”

This story comes from a book called Alien Stories.  This title has multiple meanings, obviously.

I love the way the story is set up:

One of the things he found most fascinating about America was that there were memory Stores on almost every street corner.  A person could simply walk into any of the stores and sell heir memories for money.

What a wonderfully succinct introduction to this world.

There were other things he liked about America–twist off beer bottles!–but he was most intrigued by the Memory Stores. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Old Faithful: Testing the limits of love” (New Yorker, November 29, 2004)

Posted in Bleachers, Coronavirus, David Sedaris, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Quarantine, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Yuck! on July 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLEACHERS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #235 (July 12, 2021).

People love Jack Antonoff and Bleachers.  I feel like I’m supposed to be blown away by him, but I’m not.  In fact I thought that I had seen him live, but it was actually Porches (not the same thing but sort of similar).

Both as producer extraordinaire and artist in his own right, Jack Antonoff has had an outsized impact on the past decade in pop. And yet, even with such maximalist aims, Antonoff clearly understands the effectiveness of scale: that the most enduring tracks are often intimate portraits.

Surrounded by greenery, the footage is interspersed with close-up angles filtered through an old-school finish (scan the wide shot and you’ll spy a video camera perched on the piano, plus one very tiny desk, too).

They play three songs.

The set opens with “91,” the album’s ambitious opening cut.

The songs opens with the two saxophone players standing really close to each other (where’s the social distancing guys?).  This song is a kind of story song with a lot of words.  The whole presentation reminds me a lot of Tom Waits (no bad thing) or Bruce Springsteen (which I guess makes more sense since Bruce sang on a song of his).

It’s followed by a bombastic revision of “Stop Making This Hurt,” which gets a slick saxophone rewrite courtesy of Zem Audu and Evan Smith.

“Stop Making This Hurt” opens in an interesting way with staccato sax from (l-r) Zem Audu and Evan Smith while Antonoff stabs some piano notes.  I suppose I would like this more if it didn’t sound exactly as it does.  Piano and sax are really just not my thing and that’s pretty much all these songs have.  Mikey Freedom Hart adds keys, but it’s mostly bass notes adding depth to the song.

Springsteen sings on the studio version of “Chinatown.”  Interestingly I felt like this version sounded more like Meatloaf than anything else.  Musically I enjoyed this song and Antonoff seems like a nice guy, but I’ll not be seeing Bleachers anytime soon.

[READ: July 15, 2021] “Old Faithful”

This essays opens with David finding a lump on his tailbone–never a happy discovery.  It was a cyst or a boil–“one of those words you associate with trolls.”

Just sitting hurt him–and forget about laying down.  He threatened that boil–“I’m going to go to a doctor if you don’t go away.”  It didn’t listen.

He says he didn’t go to the doctor because it would have been very expensive in London (really?  Don’t they have NHS?).  But mostly he was afraid of hearing that he had “lower-back cancer” and they’d have to “remove his entire bottom.”

He suffered with the pain believing he was setting a good example for Hugh who tends to moan and complain–a splinter gets into his hand and he claims to know how Jesus Christ felt. (more…)

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Jaclyn Moriarty–The Whispering Wars (2019) [Kingdoms and Empires #2]

Posted in Children's Books, Coronavirus, Dragons, Elves, Fairies, Funny (ha ha), Jaclyn Moriarity, Jambinai, Magic, Parenting, Prison, Quarantine, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Water Sprites on July 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JAMBINAI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #234 (July 09, 2021).

Why oh why oh why do all the best Tiny Desk Concerts have to be so short?

This show is AMAZING and it’s only 12 minutes long.  Meanwhile, some other bands have dragged theirs out for almost twice as long.  Alas.

I was introduced to JAMBINAI (like many others I’m sure) at the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea.  Their set was spectacular and it blew me away.  In reality, the band is much smaller than that spectacle produced, but their sound is still huge and intense.

I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “fierce” to describe a Tiny Desk, but that’s precisely what JAMBINAI has created in this (home) concert. The show begins in front of a massive recreation of my desk and what happens next … well, no spoilers here. Filmed in an immersive media art museum created by an organization known as d’strict on Jeju Island, this Korean band contains multitudes.

JAMBINAI plays traditional Korean instruments, but adds rock guitars and bass.

At its heart, JAMBINAI’s music mixes elements of metal, noise and Korean tradition. There’s full-on distorted guitar, bass and drums, but also a haegeum (a fiddle-like instrument), a piri (a type of flute), a taepyeongso (a reed instrument) and a most appropriately named instrument, a geomungo (a giant Korean zither). We also hear some delicate vocals in the mix.

The two pieces performed here include 2015’s “Time of Extinction” and the more recent and epic “ONDA.”

“Time Of Extinction” is the song they played at the Olympic and while it’s only three minutes long it feels epic and really encompasses their sound.  It opens with a plucked geomungo creating the simple riff.  After 20 second Ilwoo Lee plays a feedbacking guitar note and then Jaehyuk Choi comes crashing in on the drums.  At the same time, the visuals blow your mind.

The basis of the song is Eunyong Sim’ geomungo rhythm and Bomi Kim’s keening haegeum solo.  The guitars add a terrific tension to the basic melody.  In the middle of the song when it’s just drum and Byeongkoo Yu’s bass playing, the thumping is broken by the fully distorted guitar You don’t expect Ilwoo Lee to bust out a taepyeongso and play a traditional and rather discordant horn solo on top.  Just when it seems the song is about to launch to a new direction it’s over.  Just like that.

There is something so unearthly about the geomungo–it’s percussive and stringed and you can feel it rumble and thump ta the same time

“ONDA” is 8 minutes long and opens with Ilwoo Lee playing a saenghwang an amazing looking wind instrument that I cant quite fathom.  He plays a terrific sounding melody with it –almost patronal. Except for the low electronic chords underneath it

Then comes the rumble–the thundering drums and bass and a fast repetition from the geomungo.

Then Bomi Kim sings a gentle, calming echoing vocal line that sound magical under the rumble. After a verse of so Ilwoo Lee joins in on harmony vocals and they sound terrific together.

The song builds in intensity, as lwoo Lee adds the guitar, then it pulls back as Lee plays a piri solo that becomes a call and response with the haegeum.

There’s a wild jamming solo section that grows super intense.  The way it builds to a climax and is followed by huge crashing chords (and great visuals) is monumental.  Everyone joins in singing for the last minute as the melody soars and soars.

Maybe 12 minutes is all we can handle.

[READ: July 1, 2021] The Whispering Wars

This book is related to The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone in that it is set in the same land (The Land of Kingdoms and Empires).  But it is set some thirty years before the adventures of that book.  Through some magic (this is a magical land), we do see Bronte briefly. but if she ever starts to give way anything about the future, she is instantly sent back to where she came from.

In the first book we are aware of the Whispering Wars as being a big event in the past.  This book explains how they started.

This book is told by two (sometimes three) alternating narrators.  There is Finlay, who lives at the orphanage and Honey Bee who lives at the fancy Brathelthwaite school.

How they wind up alternating chapters isn’t explained until much later, which I rather enjoyed (both the delay and the explanation).

As the book opens, Finlay explains that it is time for the annual Spindrift (the town where they live) tournament.  The kids at the orphanage looks forward to this event because they can show up the rich kids.  Finlay is a super fast runner, as is his friend Glim.  The twins Eli and Taya aren’t super fast but they are very strong and good with their hands (and can multitask like nobody’s business).  There’s also Jaskafar, a tiny boy who sleeps on top of the wardrobe–his storyline is very funny until he is the first Orphan to be taken. (more…)

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Edward O. Wilson–Naturalist: A Graphic Adaptation [adapted by Jim Ottaviani & C.M. Butler] (2020)

Posted in Ants, Autobiographies, C.M. Butler, Death, Edward O. Wilson, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, Harvard University, Jim Ottaviani, mafmadmaf, New Guinea, Non-fiction, Stephen Jay Gould, SXSW, Universities, Volcanoes on July 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: mafmadmaf–“Rapture” (SXSW Online 2021).

I never intend to go to SXSW–I find the whole thing a bit much.  But I also appreciate it for the way it gives unknown bands a place to showcase themselves. NPR featured a half dozen artists online this year with this note:

This year, the South by Southwest music festival that takes over Austin, Texas every spring happened online. Couch By Couchwest, as I like to call it, was an on-screen festival, with 289 acts performing roughly 15-minute pre-recorded sets across five days in March.

This list was curated by Bob Boilen.  He also notes:

 I didn’t enjoy hearing loud, brash music while sitting on a couch the way I would in a club filled with people and volume, so I found myself engaging in more reflective music instead.

I’m going in reverse order, so mafmadmaf is next.

mafmadmaf is a Chinese modular synthesizer artist. I’m not sure I ever saw his face onscreen, but it didn’t matter: This seductive and spellbinding set was perfect in my living room. Seeing his modular synthesizer and its many patch cables set up in a beautiful garden was more entertaining than simply watching some knob-turning on its own. Artfully done.

Anyone who knows Bob knows he loves modular synths.  I really have no sense of how they work, so this is all a mystery to me.  But I agree that the setting is wonderful.  And the music is very cool.

This piece is 13 minutes long and while it is mostly washes of synth sounds, there’s some melodies (synthesized sounds of water drops and chimes).

The song morphs in interesting ways, especially after 4 and a half minutes when the musicians enters the screen and you start to see him do something to his setup.  This adds new sounds and even a pulsing almost-beat.

At around ten minutes things slow way down.

[READ: July 15, 2021] Naturalist

I saw this book in the library and grabbed it because I love Jim Ottaviani’s work.  He has written and illustrated a number of non-fiction graphic novels and they have all been terrific.  I love his drawing style–very clean lines and excellent detail.  I also love his ability to compact big ideas into small digestible chunks.

But I had never heard of Edward O. Wilson, which, after reading this, surprises me. He is not only a Pulitzer prize winning author, an innovator in the field of biology and a writer of a massive book about ants, he is also controversial (as we see later on) and a devoted environmentalist.

The book opens with a young Wilson growing up in Alabama.  From when he was little he was obsessed with ants.  There were lots of fire ants where he grew up and there are few things more fascinating than fire ants (the book is chock full of all of the scientific names for all of these ants).

When he was still young, playing around in nature, he went fishing and when he pulled a fish out of the water its spines poked him in the eye giving him a traumatic cataract–he wound up with full sight in one eye only.   But this seemed to get him to focus more minutely on smaller things–ants.

Staring in fourth grade  his father was shuffled around the country a lot so Edward made his home in many places around the south, eventually settling in Florida.

There he met a friend who was obsessed with butterflies–they were two budding entomologists. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Journey Into Night: Business-class emotions” (New Yorker, December 17, 2007)

Posted in Airplanes, Airports, All Songs Considered, Coronavirus, David Sedaris, Essays, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Quarantine, SXSW, TENGGER on July 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TENGGER-“Achime” (SXSW online, 2021).

I never intend to go to SXSW–I find the whole thing a bit much.  But I also appreciate it for the way it gives unknown bands a place to showcase themselves. NPR featured a half dozen artists online this year with this note:

This year, the South by Southwest music festival that takes over Austin, Texas every spring happened online. Couch By Couchwest, as I like to call it, was an on-screen festival, with 289 acts performing roughly 15-minute pre-recorded sets across five days in March.

This list was curated by Bob Boilen.  He also notes:

 I didn’t enjoy hearing loud, brash music while sitting on a couch the way I would in a club filled with people and volume, so I found myself engaging in more reflective music instead.

I’m going in reverse order, which means I start with TENGGER

TENGGER is a traveling musical family based in Seoul. TENGGER makes its hybrid sounds with a mix of harmonium and modular synths. The couple’s child joins this performance of “Achim,” playing a bird caller and doing movements that add an otherworldly dimension to the music.

This song is very simple, and very soothing.  It opens with a somewhat harsh but soft note, followed by a simple looping electronic melody.  The female vocalist sings some soft soaring notes that float atop the melody.

The bird calls are really quite delightful and add a nice level of whimsy.  After this, a bass note is added which gives the song a bit more gravitas.  After about 3 and a halt minutes, a drumbeat comes in and the song feels complete. It loops around for another minute and a half and then fades out.

It’s quite lovely.

[READ: July 10, 2021] “Journey Into Night”

David Sedaris writes about travel a lot. He is, after all, a touring author/speaking.  But he has also lived in many many places around the world.  So he has a lot of experience with air travel.  Of course, since he is famous (and apparently well off).  He tends to fill in what was (at least in 2007 called Business Elite).

He first mentions the flight from JFK to Paris that leaves at 7PM and arrives at 845 AM.  He says there’s a brief parody of evening. Dinner is served, Trays are cleared and then, four hours later it’s time for breakfast–an attempt to trick the body that it has slept the night. Some passengers even prepare for bed–line up at the bathroom with toothbrushes, wearing slippers.

Business Elite is separated from everyone else.  The first time he flew it, he didn’t care for the whole boarding first par, but the pampering was pretty nice.

Although on this one flight he was asked to do the airline a favor.  A passenger was crying–his mother had died and he was returning home.  He was disturbing the neighbors near him and the flight attendant asked if he could sit in the empty set by David.

David, who is usually easily judgmental was horrified by these people.  The man’s mother had died.  He mentions a first class passenger who threatened to sue an airline because a blind person was travelling with  seeing eye dog.  The man said hadn’t paid thousands of dollars to sit next to a dog.

David wasn’t sure how to react to the crying man, so he planned to basically ignore him.  The man waved off his food, but David was pleased to get his dessert.  He even learned that (In Business Elite) he could ask for extra

spend eight thousand dollars on a ticket and, if you want an extra thirteen cents worth of ice cream, all you have to do is ask.

But really the hardest prat was to try to remain somber for this man.  I  mean, there was a Chris Rock movie on the screen. And once you realize you cant laugh, it’s impossible not to.  Like about their Greek grandmother

For children, nothing beats a flatulent old lady.  And she wasn’t embarrassed by it.

Their father would ask if something was funny.  They’d say no while giggling.  He would wallop them on the head with a metal spoon which only made things funnier.

But then as he started to think back to those times–so young and simple–he started to cry too.  Just joining the man in solidarity.

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David Sedaris–“Easy, Tiger” (New Yorker, July 11 & 18, 2011)

Posted in Black Motion, China, Coronavirus, David Sedaris, Drinking, Drugs, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Germany, Homophobia, Japan, Language, New Yorker, Quarantine, South Africa, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Tokyo, Japan, Translation, Yuck! on July 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK MOTION-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #233 (July 8, 2021).

 Black Motion specializes in Afro-House and this set is infectious.

Afro-House has spread joy and healing across the country of South Africa, transcending local boundaries to become a thriving global dance phenomenon. In my experience, Its indigenous sounds and percussive rhythms drench the soul and heart with healing powers and cultivate communion with the infinite.

This Afro-House set is brought to life thanks to several featured vocalists and guest musicians.  Black Motion’s Tiny Desk (home) concert, recorded at the former residence of Nelson Mandela, feels like a spiritual sound bath. The South African production duo turntablist Bongani Mohosana of the Zulu tribe and percussionist Thabo Mabogwane of Sotho tribe — open their set with “Mayibuye iAfrica,” a cry for Africa to return to its culture and history.

“Mayibuye iAfrica” opens with a fun introduction.  There’s whooping, growling, cawing, (from DJ and producer Bongani Mohosana and keyboardist Almotie “Alie-keyz” Mtomben).  There’s some great percussion (producer and drummer Thabo Roy Mabogwane’s set has over ten different drums and a few cymbals).  Then, after a minute or so Siyabonga Hosana Magagula’s grooving bass and Lifa “Sir_Lifa” Mavuso’s slow but perfect-sounding guitar enter the picture.

Then the singers come in singing a beautiful chorus.  The three of them are: Lusindiso “Jojo” Zondani (tenor), Gugu Shezi (soprano) and Noxolo Radebe (alto), and there voices gel wonderfully.

Up next is “Rainbow” which shuffles along with the DJs sampling and a simple keyboard melody (that sounds a bit like The Way It Is).

South African singer Msaki makes her third appearance in our (home) concert series, after earlier credits with Black Coffee and our Coming 2 America special. She lends her vocals to “Marry Me,” a soulful jam from Black Motion’s 2020 album, The Healers: The Last Chapter.

Next up is “Marry Me.” Msaki sings lead vocals on this song which has a grooving echoing lead guitar. “Alie-keyz” plays a cool retro organ solo before “Sir_Lifa” jams out a guitar solo.

Interestingly, Msaki’s voice was relatively deep, but on the next song, “Joy Joy,” Brenden Praise’s voice is pretty high (in the choruses).  For the verses, he sings a bit deeper.  I like the way the backing vocalists sound like gospel singers here.

“Imali,” featuring Nokwazi, soothes the lingering remnants of pandemic fears,

The snare drum introduces the colorfully dress Nokwazi who sings “Imali.”  Her call and response singing is really great, as is her intense, growling style.

Tabia closes with the lilting “Prayer for Rain.”

Tabia comes out for “Prayer For Rain” and says “let’s pray” as she sings some wordless notes to warm up the song.  When she starts singing, I don’t know what language she’s singing, but the passion is palpable.  And the thunderclap that DJ Bongani Mohosana adds at the end is a welcome touch.

This is a powerful and moving (emotionally and physically) set of songs.

[READ: May 10, 2021]  “Easy, Tiger”

After reading David’s story about shopping in Tokyo, it was funny to go backwards and read about one of his first few trips abroad and how he started learning the local language(s).

He says that he had been using Pimsleur Japanese and felt fairly comfortable when in Japan.  But on this trip he was also going to Beijing and he had forgotten to study.

But this is not so much about China as it is about learning languages in general.

Since he doesn’t drive, phrases like “as for gas, is it expensive” don’t really help him out.  But he uses “fill her up please” when asking for a tea refill.  He also gets to say that he is a man with children since they do not have a phrase for “I am am middle aged homosexual…  with a niece I never see and a small godson.”

He recommends Pimsleur for pronunciations and memorization.  But he also likes Lonely Planet. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“The Perfect Fit: Shopping in Tokyo” (New Yorker, March 28, 2016)

Posted in David Sedaris, Dry Cleaning, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Huh?, Humiliation, Kawaii, New Yorker, Regrets, Shopping, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tokyo, Japan on July 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  DRY CLEANING-“Her Hippo,”  and “Leafy” (album versions) (2020).

After listening to the Dry Cleaning Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, I wanted to hear the recorded versions since the blurb talked about how different they sounded.

Indeed, these versions sound very different from the Tiny Desk Concert.  Well, actually it’s the guitars sound very different because guitarist Tom Dowse is playing electric rather than acoustic.  But it changes the whole tone of the songs.

On the record, “Her Hippo” opens with quiet but sharp electric guitars that echo as the riff circles around. Lewis Maynard’s bass sounds the same, but Nick Buxton’s drums push this song into more of a rock territory (he played keys and electronic percussion in the Tint Desk)..

Florence Shaw’s vocal delivery is similar but perhaps a but more empathic while being heard over the more rocking band.  The middle part features just the rumbling bass and Dowse’s sharp (but simple) guitar solo.

“Unsmart Lady” opens with roaring, echoing wild guitars and thumping drums.  When he starts playing the main (weird) guitar chords they make more “sense” on the electric guitar, but they are still noisy and abrasive.  Dowse wrenches all kinds of screeching feedback and squeals out of his guitar.  The Tiny Desk version sounded really good, but this version is fantastic.

At the Tiny Desk “Leafy” was all delicate synth, but on the record, Dowse plays a kind of lead solo throughout the song–melodic and pretty while keeping the bass company.

I’m glad I listened to the recorded versions of these.  But I’m also glad I listened to the Tiny Desk (Home) Concert first, because hearing the structure of the songs was a great way to be unprepared for the distortion of the recorded versions.  I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the record–and seeing them live.

[READ: May 10, 2021]  “The Perfect Fit”

This is a hilarious essay about shopping in Tokyo.  It’s especially funny to imagine David and his sisters running around the city buying all manner of strange clothes.  Because if there’s one thing we know about the Sedaris family, it’s that they love odd items.

They stayed in Ebisu so they could shop at their favorite place Kapitol.  He talks about all of the delightfully odd clothes they sell there.  The store is still open, here’s a fun piece.

The store’s motto seems to be “why not?”  They make clothes that refuse to flatter you.   A shirt whose arm holes are not made like a capital T but like a lower case t. A jacket that poofs out at the small of your back where for no reason there’s a pocket.  He bought three hats that he wore stacked. (more…)

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William Trevor–“Bravado” (New Yorker, January 8, 2007)

Posted in Coronavirus, Death, Dry Cleaning, Irish Writer, New Yorker, Quarantine, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, William Trevor on July 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DRY CLEANING-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #232 (July 6, 2021).

I thought I was familiar with Dry Cleaning, but I’m thinking I heard them discussed on an All Song Considered episode and maybe even heard the song they played.  But that was almost nine months ago, and things were quite different then.  So it’s interesting to hear that their music doesn’t typically sound like the way this Tiny Desk (Home) Concert sounds.  [I really like the sound of this].

Up until now, Dry Cleaning’s post-Brexit post-punk relied on a robust dynamism of jagged, thudding lushness and a speak-song voice. It’s music that coos and quizzes at once. How energizing to hear Dry Cleaning recontextualize its established sound for a relatively subdued Tiny Desk performance from World of Echo, a record store in East London beloved to the British band.

Tom Dowse trades his effects pedals and electric guitar for an acoustic; its weird bends and weirder chords surprisingly complement the atmospheric keyboards and minimal beats of Nick Buxton, who’s normally on drums. Lewis Maynard’s bass doesn’t throttle at this volume, but still grooves.

It’s actually Maynard’s bass that you notice right away once “Her Hippo” opens.  After a grooving riff, Florence Shaw starts speaking (not even really speak-singing, just reciting).

The house is just twelve years old
Soft landscaping in the garden
An electrician stuck his finger in the plug hole
And shouted “Yabba”

The acoustic guitars sound great in contrast here–soft and ringing–while Shaw sneers

The last thing I looked at in this hand mirror
Was a human asshole

Between songs they joke around a bit (which belies their more serious sounding music).  Buxton plays some dancey music between songs as they get set up for the next track.

Brash and unusual (for an acoustic guitar anyway) chords open “Unsmart Lady” before the rumbling bass keeps the rhythm.  This time Florence speaks even more quietly

Fat podgy
Non make-up
Unsmart lady

The middle portion is a terrific juxtaposition of unusual chords and rumbling bass.

Florence Shaw’s voice [is] an instrument of resolute deadpan…. Some might call her delivery wry, even disaffected — her lyrics non-sequitur — but here a sly inquisitiveness inclines a smile (“I’d like to run away with you on a plane, but don’t bring those loafers”) and burns a harsh memory (“Never talk about your ex / Never, never, never, never, never slag them off / Because then they know”).

For “Leafy” Dowse puts away his guitar and heads behind the keyboard for washes of synths.  After a verse or so, the slow bass comes in adding rhythm to Shaw’s lyrics:

What are the things that you have to clear out?
Baking powder, big jar of mayonnaise
What about all the uneaten sausages?
Clean the fat out of the grill pan
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, now
Trying not to think about all the memories
Remember when you had to take these pills

Dowse returns to his guitar for “Viking Hair” (from an earlier EP).  This song has something of a main riff and Shaw actually seems to be humming before the lyrics begin.

Stick up for me, do what you’re told
But sometimes tell me what to do as well
I just want to sexually experiment in a nice, safe pair of hands
Don’t judge me, just hold still

A lot of times, especially with pop bands, I like the way a band sounds in their Tiny Desk and don’t like their recorded output.  But the blub makes me think I’d enjoy their original recordings even more.  So I’ll have to check that out.

[READ: July 10, 2021] “Bravado”

(This story is about reprobates in Ireland.

It begins on Sunderland Avenue, where an Indian shop keeper is concerned about the group of five teens who approached the store.  He is closing up and they give him a hard time. The three boys are nasty but the girls are silent (this is unusual–usually the girls are drunk and terrible).  The shopkeeper pretends to be talking to the cops on the phone.

There were another two boys who had just left a club, they’d seen the band Big City.  And even though the had a mile walk home, they didn’t mind because the show was so good.

The fivesome included Manning and his girlfriend Aisling.  The other two boys, Kilroy and Donovan, were Manning’s mates. Ailsing found them harder and less enjoyable than Manning, but he hung out with them and she was stuck doing so as well. (more…)

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