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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Ben Marcus–“The First Venom” (Harper’s, December 2011)

Posted in Ben Marcus, Disease, Fears, Harper's, Helium, McSweeney's, New Yorker, Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag, World Cafe Live on November 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WILD FLAG-World Cafe, November 10, 2011 (2011).

I’ve been really enjoying Wild Flag’s debut album.  Wild Flag consists of Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney, Rebecca Cole, who I don’t know but who has been in a few different indie bands, and Mary Timony from Helium.

This World Cafe episode is a brief interview (mostly with Carrie, although all four women are present), in which they talk about the origins of the band and what it’s like to play as a foursome. 

There are three songs and the band sounds tight and perfect.  In fact they sound so perfect I almost wondered if they were really playing live (but there’s one keyboard flub that proves that humans are involved).

It’s a great sample of the record, which is all great, and it’s a good chance to get caught up with these rocking women. 

[READ: November 15, 2011] “The First Venom”

This is an excerpt from Marcus’ forthcoming novel, The Flame Alphabet.   I’ve read a number of Marcus’ things in the past and I realized that most of his McSweeney’s pieces I do not like.  Some of the short stories in the New Yorker I have enjoyed, although usually not right away.  So, clearly Marcus and I don’t see eye to eye on fiction.

And that’s the case with this excerpt.  It’s hard for me to say I wouldn’t read a longer piece based just on an excerpt because who knows what else the rest of the book contains (this could be a small fraction of a much different story), but this excerpt absolutely didn’t make me want to read any more.

In the excerpt, a married couple is sickened by their daughter.  Literally.  All of the words that she says and whispers and scribbles wash a sickness over her parents.  They cringe and try to get away but she keeps talking and talking.

At first this seemed like a metaphorical sickness–who hasn’t grown tired of their kid’s incessant chatter, but it soon becomes clear that this is very real. (more…)

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Joyce Carol Oates–“The Good Samaritan” (Harper’s, December 2011)

Posted in Субито, Fears, Harper's, Joyce Carol Oates, Marriage Trouble, Rammstein, Short Story, Threats on November 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: СУБИТО (Subito)-“Du Hast” (2011).

Субито (pronounced Subito) is from the Ukraine.  They’re a bunch of miners and they play music.  In addition to this cover, which is generating some meme buzz on the internet, they have a few other songs (and videos) of note.

This cover is notable in that the only real difference between this song and the original is the prominence of the button accordion.  The vocals are nearly identical (he’s got his German goth down perfectly), and the rest of the band plays quiet heavily (I love the triangle instruments!).  But the accordion changes the entire texture and tone of the song.   It’s still ominous (I mean, those vocals!) but the accordion adds an air of whimsy that undermines the menace and yet also somehow makes the rest of the song seem even more menacing.

Of course the video is quite silly which leads one to assume that they’re not taking their version too seriously and yet their playing is impeccable and their backing vocals are right on.

So, yes, I rather like this song, and I like being able to include the word Субито in my post.

[READ: November 10, 2011] “The Good Samaritan”

Joyce Carol Oates has a wonderful way of turning her stories into something dark.  Even if it starts out in a rather innocent light.

This story is set in 1981 on a train coming from Utica, NY.  The narrator, Sonia, finds a woman’s wallet stuffed into the seat of the car.  The story begins with Sonia thinking about the woman, wondering what she’s like, looking at the photos of herself and her family and sort of daydreaming what it would be like to be older and married.  It’s only after a brief reverie that she, a poor college student, checks the money to see what’s there.  (About $25).  She hopes that the woman is old enough to give her a reward, but assumes she is not.

Sonia is to be heading home to help her mother with her ailing grandmother, something she’s not looking forward to.  So she decides that she will return the wallet to the woman who, after all, lives only a few blocks from the station.

What is wonderful about this story is that this innocent setup masks the real story, which is never fully explored, but is hinted at enough to keep us all guessing.  When Sonia arrives at the house, the woman’s husband is home and he seems….surprised that Sonia has brought this wallet home.  She feels sympathy for him when he begins to explain that his wife ran off and must have dropped this wallet on this train while she was fleeing.  Sonia wants to help the man in some way.  He invites her inside and she thinks of all the things she could do for him–stupid things like make dinner or maybe even look at her things to see is she can help figure out where her wife went.  She suggests this last idea and he accepts. (more…)

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Junot Díaz–“He’ll Take El Alto” (Gourmet, September 2007)

Posted in Crosby Stills Nash and Young, CSN&Y, Culture Shock, David Foster Wallace, Dominican Republic, Essays, Food, Gourmet, Junot Díaz, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, The Eagles, The Stills-Young Band on November 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE STILLS-YOUNG BAND: Long May You Run (1976).

I’ve known the song “Long May You Run” for a long time, but I never really realized it came from a non-Neil Young album.  The album is by The Stills-Young Band and the history of the album may be more interesting than the album itself (in sum: CSN&Y broke up, C&N made and album so S&Y made an album.  C&N were supposed to be on the S&Y album but they fought and S&Y removed their vocals).

So what we get is nine songs.  Five written by Neil Young and four by Stephen Stills.  The songs are played by Stills’ solo backing band and while the credits suggest that they played on each others’ songs, it doesn’t really seem like it.  It seems like you get 5 Neil Young solo songs and four Stephen Stills solo songs.

It’s also odd that the cover of the album shows buffalo running in the plains (nod to Buffalo Springfield, I’m sure) but so many of these songs are about water.  Maybe that disconnect feeds the whole thing.

By the way, “Long May You Run” is a catchy little country number that I never realized was about his car until recently.

Stephen Stills’ first song is the utterly unsubtle, possibly seductive in the 70s but hilariously outre in 2001 “Make Love to You.”  It’s full of 70s synths and has a very serious tone (despite the 70s synth).  And the lyrics, hoo boy:

Girl your body said everything and I know you knew/I wanna make love to you, make you feel all right/I wanna make love  to you, yes, it’ll take all night

Which is about as long as the shower you need to take after hearing that song.

“Midnight on the Bay” is a pleasant enough song from Neil.  It’s a bit too much into the 70’s-lite music genre for my liking, but it’s not too terrible.

The thing about Stephen Stills is I like his voice.  It’s unusual and unique and I like hearing him sing.  But man his lyrics are crazy.  I like the opening riff of “Black Coral” with its staccato piano.  Yet it seems like he’s got but one thing on his mind.  The song is ostensibly about being underwater:

Got to move slow/Take it easy down there/You’ve only so much air/When you get a little deeper/If you slow down/You might keep her/The sea, unforgiving and she’s hard/But she’ll make love to you/Show you glimpses of the stars.

But maybe that’s metaphorical.  Because when you go deeper, “I saw Jesus, and it made sense that he was there.”

“Ocean Girl” is sort of Neil’s answer to that song.  It’s got a very 70s wah wah sound and a very easy to sing chorus.  Consider it a catchy but inessential Neil song.  “Let It Shine” is also Neil’s song (and there’s more stuff about his cars here–so you know he’s really into it).  It’s a more substantial song than most of the rest although it has a very easy feel.

“12/8 Blues” (love the title) feels like an Eagles song (“Life in the Fast Lane” to be specific, although they both came out in the same year.  Hmm).  It’s fairly generic (like the title) but I like it (crazy time signatures are my thing, man).

“Fontainebleau” is an interesting angsty Neil song that I think would have done very well with CSN&Y.  I never really paid attention to the lyrics before, but it’s fairly interesting and the guitar solos are soft but cool.

The final song goes to Stills.  “Guardian Angel” feels like a combination of all of his other songs, and it’s probably his best on the disc.   It’s got the slinky 70s vibe of  the first song, the staccato piano and, interestingly a chorus that would sound great with the 4 part harmony of CSN&Y.  It also rocks harder than anything on the record (which isn’t saying all that much).  The end has a cool extended instrumental section which I rather like as well.

So this is a weird little hybrid record.  There’s some good stuff for Neil Young fans, although it’s far from essential.  I actually don’t know much about Stills’ solo work so I don’t know how this compares, but he does seem a little one-track here.

[READ: November 4, 2011] “He’ll Take El Alto”

I don’t read Gourmet magazine.  I’m not a foodie and it seems like it’s just a food magazine.  But here’s the second article in Gourmet by a writer that I really like.  The first of course would be David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster.”  Is Gourmet more than just recipes?  Does it often have contributions from respected authors?  Am I missing out?

This issue is the Latino issue, so it deals with food from Cuba, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.  And Junot Díaz is our resident Dominican, so he’s given the task of talking up the cuisine.

Unlike Wallace’s essay, which was about a trip to the Maine Lobster Festival, Díaz’s essay is about how upper Manhattan (known as El Alto) has become a hotbed for Dominican food.

Díaz explains how when Dominicans first arrived in New York, there were no restaurants.  Dominicans had to eat Cuban food to approximate their home food.  But now that there are vast enclaves of Dominicans living in El Alto, there are excellent restaurants everywhere (the sure sign that a culture has made it is when you have people from other cultures as your waitstaff).

Díaz revel as his own and his friends’ and acquaintances’ preferences for favorite Dominican restaurants.  As this article is four years old and most of the places seem to be holes in the wall (which everyone knows serves the best food, even if they don’t last very long), I’m not going to bother saying which places they are or checking to see if they are still extant).  Okay, well, Malecon is still around, anyhow. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #9 (Late Summer Early Fall 2002) [We Feel This One is More Urgent]

Posted in A.M. Homes, Adventure, Culture Shock, Death, Denis Johnson, Doug Dorst, Ellen Moore, Essays, Eugene O'Neill, Fears, Funny (strange), Gabe Hudson, Gods, Harper's, History, Humiliation, Isaac Babel, Jeff Greenwald, K. Kvashay-Boyle, Liudmilla Petrushevskaya, Masturbation, McSweeney's, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Military, Nathaniel Minton, Nikolai Leskov, Play (Drama), Political Humor, Racism, Religion, Roy Kesey, Scott Greene, Sex, Short Story, Skaz, Sufjan Stevens, Threats, Translation, Travel, Val Vinokurov, Violence, War, William T. Vollmann, Yuck! on November 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SUFJAN STEVENS-The Age of Adz (2010).

Sufjan Stevens has released a bunch of albums of beautiful orchestral rock.  It is multi-layered and complex with classical elements and all kinds of cool instruments.

And this album starts out with a beautiful acoustic guitar melody and Sufjan’s delicate vocals.  Although it is a far more stripped down song than usual, “Futile Devices” seems like it is heading in the standard direction.  But anyone who heard Sufjan’s Christmas album number VIII knows that he has been having some fun with electronics.  And they show up with a vengeance on track two, “Too Much.”

All of the multilayered noise that was once orchestral and (some might say) precious has been replaced by a cacophony of gorgeous electronic noises.  The beginning of the song reminds me of the sounds in Skinny Puppy’s “Stairs and Flowers” (how many Sufjan Stevens reviews mention Skinny Puppy?).  The song is nothing like Skinny Puppy once the vocals kick in–it’s catchy and delicate–but those electronics underpin the whole thing, bringing his pastoralia into the twenty-first century.  When I first reviewed this song I didn’t like it but once you get absorbed by Sufjan’s world, it’s an enticing place to be,

“Age of Adz” takes this electronic nonsense even further with an 8 minute brew of strange sounds and choral voices.  But he always manages to throw in some catchy parts, no matter how strange the song gets.

For me one of the highlights of the disc is “I Walked” it features one of my favorite Sufjan things–falsetto vocals in a beautiful but unexpected melody.  And this song has them in spades.  “Now That I’m Older” has a very disconcerting sound–his voice is slowly warbled and mournful.  It’s a beautiful melody that is alienating at the same time.

“Get Real Get Right” returns to his earlier style somewhat (there’s more layers of music, although the electronica is still in place).   “Vesuvius” is a beautiful song and “All for Myself” is another of those great falsetto tracks that I like so much.

“I Want to Be Well” eventually turns into a manic electronic workout in which he repeats the chorus “I’m not fucking around.”

But nothing compares  to “Impossible Soul” a twenty-five minute (!) multi-part suite of electronic chaos.  It’s a fantastic song complete with autotune (used to very cool effect), repeated swelling choruses (it’s like a Polyphonic Spree tribute), electronic freakouts, and acoustic comedowns.  All in a positive, happy message.  I can’t stop listening to it.  “It’s not so impossible!”

Sufjan continues to impress me.

[READ: November 10, 2011] McSweeney’s #9

After the excesses of McSweeney’s #8, I was excited to get to the brevity (and urgency) of McSweeney’s #9.  This one is a paperback and looks like the first couple of issues.  The cover is mostly text with a hodgepodge of phrases and pleas.  You get things like: Thankful, Emboldened, The (Hot-Blooded/Life-Saving) Presumption of (Perpetual/Irrational (or More Likely, Irreducibly Rational) Good Will, Efflorescence, Our motto this time: We Give You Sweaty Hugs,” Alternative motto: ” We Are Out Looking,” GEGENSCHEIN (no more), and the promise: “We will Do Four This Year.”

This is the kind of issue that makes me love McSweeney’s.  There are some wonderful short stories, there are some nice essays and there are some dark moments all centered vaguely and tangentially around a theme.  There are some great authors here, too.

The back cover image is called Garden Variety by Scott Greene and it’s a fantastic painting.  You can see it here (navigate through the 2000-2004 paintings, but I have to say I really like the style of all of his work.

There are no letters and no nonsense in this issue.  So let’s get to it. (more…)

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Eugene O’Neill–“Exorcism” [from 1920] (New Yorker, October 17, 2011)

Posted in Drinking, Eugene O'Neill, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Play (Drama), Semisonic, Suicide on November 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SEMISONIC-Feeling Strangely Fine (1998).

In my mind, Feeling Strangely Fine is the pinnacle of Semisonic’s pop greatness.  I mean, it’s got “Closing Time” on it.  And while I am now pretty tired of the song (can it really be 13 years old?), when it came out it was pretty awesome.  And so I tend to think of The Great Divide as being in the shadow of this record.  But in retrospect, I think I have to favor Divide over Fine.  This album has a bit too much polish, a bit too much smoothness for my liking.  And while there are some great songs on it, I’m not entirely sure it matches up to The Great Divide.

“Singing in My Sleep” is a supremely catchy song–a simple riff, mellow verses and an urgent chorus.  It should have been huge too.   And “Never You Mind” has that Semisonic quality in spades–simple accents that make a song catchy (a little guitar riff) and really catchy choruses.  Plus lyrically, it’s rather clever.  “Secret Smile” is one of their few ballads that I really like.  I guess they have just mastered pop hooks for this record.

But to me the rest of the record pales a bit compared  to The Great Divide.  “DND” is a similar slow song although it’s a bit slinkier.  And there’s some very mild funk on “Completely Pleased” which is a welcome return to the rockier songs but which doesn’t quite reach the heights that they have hit before.

“California” is a fun track.  It could use a bit of oomph but it shows off some fun noises at the end.  And the last two tracks just kind of fade the disc out.

Nothing on the album is really bad.  And indeed, in the right frame of mind these songs are all really enjoyable, but i think after comparing them to some of the earlier tracks and even the earlier tracks on this record overall this one comes up a bit short.

[READ: November 6, 2011] “Exorcism”

This is a Eugene O’Neill play that was believed to be lost forever.  He staged the play in 1920 but after a brief run, he destroyed every copy, possibly to assuage his dying father.  But this copy was recently found amongst a friend’s papers.

So that’s pretty exciting that a new Eugene O’Neill one-act play is now available.  I believe the whole thing is printed here–it’s so hard to tell with the New Yorker.  But they also say that Yale University Press will be publishing the play in the spring.  If the whole thing fits onto 7 New Yorker pages, how are  they going to publish it as a book?  Well, that’s Yale’s problem.

I don’t know that I have read many, if any, O’Neill plays.  I’ve never really taken any drama classes, although I know about O’Neill’s mastery of drama.

So this is probably as good a place to start as any.

This is the classic “nothing happens” kind of story which proves to be a powerfully emotional story (especially as it resonates so closely to his own life). (more…)

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Steven Millhauser–“Miracle Polish” (New Yorker, November 14, 2011)

Posted in Fantasy, Funny (strange), Magic, New Yorker, Semisonic, Short Story, Steven Millhauser, Supernatural on November 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SEMISONIC-Pleasure EP (1995).

The Pleasure EP is an even more alterna version of what we’d get on The Great Divide.  Divide duplicates some songs from this earlier EP, and you can see them all polished up on the full length.

“The Prize” which has a great squeaky solo on Divide is even more raw and noisy here.  And “Brand New Baby” which was dumped near the end of Divide shines here in its more raw version (again, not really raw, just a little raw).

“In the Veins” has some fuzzy guitars (which show the band’s origins) and a bit of a punk feel.  And “Wishing Well” is more or less a typical ballad except instead of piano or acoustic guitar the music is a distorted electric guitar.  It mixes things up a bit, and while it doesn’t really have the hooks that Semisonic would later develop, it’s got a wicked guitar solo.

“Star” is a nice ballad, but “Sculpture Garden” is a good rocker to (sort of) end the album.

I say sort of because the band included seven 20-second ditties at the end of the disc, which they call “Shuffle Stuff.”  So when you put the disc on shuffle, you’ll get all kinds of funny little bits.  It’s nothing special, but it’s fun.  Kind of like this EP.

[READ: November 9, 2011] “Miracle Polish”

I’ve enjoyed Millhauser’s stories in the past, and I enjoyed this one very much as well.  It was a little obvious (I mean with this set up only one thing can happen) right from the get go but I thought he did a good job in changing my expectations and pointing the story in a slightly different direction.  And even though it was a little predictable, it was still enjoyable.

There was something wonderfully old-fashioned about the story.  It opens with a man walking door-to-door selling bottles out of his satchel.  The narrator feels sorry for him and, although he immediately regrets inviting him in, he decides to buy whatever he is selling and be done with it.  The salesman, painfully slow and meticulous, talks about his “miracle polish” which you just wipe on a mirror and…  The narrator says he’ll take one. 

The salesman is a bit shocked by the brusqueness and tries to get him to buy more than one, but the narrator basically tells him not to push his luck. 

He takes the medicine bottle of Miracle Polish and puts it away, more or less forgetting about it.  A few days later, however, while checking himself in the mirror, he notices a smudge in the corner of the glass.  He grabs the polish and rubs it on the mirror.  The smudged area now looks super clear, so he rubs it on the whole mirror.  And he is blown away. (more…)

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Caitlin Horrocks–“Sun City” (New Yorker, October 24, 2011)

Posted in Baseball, Caitlin Horrocks, Death, Fears, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Semisonic, Short Story, Travel on November 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SEMISONIC-The Great Divide (1996).

Before Semisonic took over the world (and irritated everyone) with “Closing Time,” they were a band that formed out of the ashes of Trip Shakespeare.  Dan Wilson created Semisonic evidently because he wanted to be more poppy (which he perfected in “Closing Time,” obviously).

This album came out two years before “Closing Time” and it is a wonderful collection of alternapop.  There’s nothing terribly aggressive or weird in this collection, but neither is there anything so commercial that you want to scream.

The highlight for me is “Down in Flames.”  It goes in a few unexpected directions (especially with that screechy solo).  It’s a little dark, but it’s really catchy without ever pandering to Top 40 sensibilities.  It’s a really great song.

Some other highlights are the first three songs on the disc: “F.N.T.” is a poppy delight, “If I Run” has some great hooks and “Delicious” is a slinky sexy song with some unexpected moments.

Even a song like “Across the Great Divide” which isn’t the best on the disc has some nice surprises-when the vocals suddenly go falsetto.

There’s a couple of clunkers in the middle.  “Temptation” is a little too pop ballady for my liking and “No One Else” is a little bland.  I think their more uptempo songs are their strongest.

But “The Prize” is a satisfying pop rocker.  And “Brand New Baby” has some surprising pop vocals and a wonderful third part that is worth getting to the end of the album for.  While “Falling” is a surprisingly dark but catchy number (a Semisonic trait it seems).

The end of the album is rather unremarkable, but it’s still a solid collection of songs with nothing overplayable.  Sometimes one hit wonders are unfairly labelled as such.

[READ: November 8, 2011] “Sun City”

This was a fascinating story because it went in directions that I never anticipated.

I found the opening a little confusing as there were several women mentioned and no real relationship is given among them.  But it turns out that Vera and Bev are “roommates” and Rose is Vera’s granddaughter.  Vera just died (unexpectedly at 87) and Rose has travelled out to Arizona to go through her things.  Rose’s mom (Vera’s daughter) had a falling out with Vera years ago and won’t be going to the house.

Vera loved Rose but was somewhat disappointed in her–she was single and a bartender.  But Vera was not disappointed that Rose is a lesbian.  And Vera’s acceptance of that led Rose to believe that Vera and Bev were more than “roommates” as well. (more…)

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Tessa Hadley–“The Stain” (New Yorker, November 7, 2011)

Posted in Arcade Fire, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, New Yorker, Saturday Night Live, Short Story, Tessa Hadley on November 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ARCADE FIRE-“We Used to Wait” (Saturday Night Live, November 13, 2010) (2010).

I know they played two songs that night but I just watched the rerun and they only showed one song.

I’ve always thought that Arcade Fire were pretty cool live.  And this set from SNL proves me right.  “We Used to Wait” comes from The Suburbs and it’s a pretty mild song on the record.  But live, the band plays with really weird sounds and explores different types of cacophony.

This is especially true from guitarist Richard Reed Perry (who plays all kinds of other instruments too).   He plays some of the more riff-based notes in the song, but he also plays some really loud, unusual chords as well.  Some of them are quite dissonant and they really bring a dramatic noise to the song.

The string section (three violins on this show) in addition to playing the strings also added some really cool dissonance.  In fact, the first time the strings came in, the sound was quite surprising.

I also love the percussive nature of the band.  By the end of the song it seems like half the band are banging on drums (while playing other things as well, no doubt). 

Win Butler is an intimidating frontman–I find his face to be open, almost blank.  He’s kind of hard to read.  He’s also very tall.  When he walks out into the audience in the middle of the song, it’s a little unnerving. 

One thing that I have liked about Arcade Fire from the beginning was their intensity, and this song certainly displays it.

[READ: November 7, 2011] “The Stain”

This is another Tessa Hadley story about a woman who cleans up.  It’s nothing at all like “Friendly Fire,” but I still think it’s interesting that she has another character who opts to do cleaning work.

In this one, Marina is a mother of a young boy, Liam.  To makes extra money she takes on a job as a house cleaner and “companion” to an elderly man.  He’s 89 and from South Africa.  He has recently come to Britain after his daughter (who has lived here for a long time) moved him here.  And the house where he lives is a house not far from where Marina lives.  Indeed, it’s one that she grew up looking at and wondering what it looked like inside (it’s a very big house).

The old man is notorious for making cleaning women go away–he is cantankerous and crotchety.  But Marina soothes him right away and they form a kind of bond.  Marina even brings Liam over a few times and he gets along quite well with the old man. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #8 (2002)

Posted in Aleksandar Hemon, Amanda Vail, Amie Barrodale, Ben Marcus, Biography, Books about writers, Brian Evenson, Chris Walla, Circus, Cold War Kids, Colleen Werthmann, Darin Strauss, David Bazan's Black Cloud, Death, Doveman, Essays, Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble, Foreign Books, Francoise Sagan, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gabe Hudson, History, Hoax, Huh?, J. Robert Lennon, Jacques Gauthier, Jeff Edmunds, Joey Skaggs, John Hodgman, John Vanderslice, Jon Stewart, Jonathan Ames, Joshua Bearman, Kevin Guilfoile, Lawrence Weschler, Marcel Dzama, Marissa Nadler, McSweeney's, Michael Martone, Mobius Band, Monty Python's Flying Circus, My Brightest Diamond, Negativland, Northern State, Paul La Farge, Paul Maliszewski, Postmoderism, Pranks, Rachel Cohen, Radiohead, Religion, Robert Nedelkoff, Samantha Hunt, Samson Delonga, Sandow Birk, Scholarship, Sean Wilsey, Short Story, Slaraffenland, Smarty Pants, Stephen Colbert, Stereogum, The Believer, The Decemberists, The Future, The Police, The Twilight Sad, Translation, Vampire Weekend, Vladimir Nabokov, Warren Miller on November 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: OKX: A Tribute to Ok Computer (2010).

OK Computer is one of the best records of the 90s.  Every time I listen to it I hear something new and interesting.  So, why on earth would anyone want to cover the whole thing?  And how could you possibly do justice to this multi-layered masterpiece?

I can’t answer the first question, but the second question is more or less answered by this tribute which was orchestrated by Stereogum.

The answer is by stripping down the music to its bare essentials.  When I first listened to the songs I was really puzzled by how you could take a such a complex album and make Doveman’s version of “Airbag,” which is sort of drums and pianos.  Or gosh, where would you even begin to tackle “Paranoid Android?”  Well Slaraffenland create a bizarre symphonic version that excises many things–in fact half of the lyrics are missing–and yet keeps elements that touch on the original.  But it’s an interesting version of the song and shows  a bizarre sense of creativity.  And that is more or less what this tribute does–it makes new versions of these songs.

Mobius Band make a kind of Police-sounding version of “Subterranean Homesick Alien.”  Again, it radically changes the song, making it a fast and driving song (although I don’t care for the repeated “Uptights” and “Outsides” during the verses).

Vampire Weekend, one of the few bands that I actually knew in this collection (and whom I really like) do a very interesting, stripped down version of “Exit Music, for a Film.  The “film” they make is a haunted one, with eerie keyboards.  Again, it is clearly that song, but it sounds very different (and quite different from what Vampire Weekend usually sound like).

“Let Down” (by David Bazan’s Black Cloud) and “Karma Police” (by John Vanderslice) work on a similar principle: more vocals and less music.  The music is very stripped down, but the vocals harmonize interestingly.  Perhaps the only track that is more interesting than the original is “Fitter Happier” by Samson Delonga.  The original is a processed computer voice, but this version is a real person, intoning the directives in a fun, impassioned way.  There’s also good sound effects.

Cold War Kids take the riotous “Electioneering” and simplify it, with drums and vocals only to start.  It’s hard to listen to this song without the utter noise of the original.  “Climbing Up the Walls” is one of the more manic songs on this collection, with some interesting vocals from The Twilight Sad.

There are two versions of “No Surprises” in this collection.  Interestingly, they are both by women-fronted bands, and both treat the song as a very delicate ballad.  Both versions are rather successful.  Marissa Nadler’s version (the one included in sequence) is a little slower and more yearning, while Northern State’s version (which is listed as a B-Side) is a little fuller and I think better for it.  My Brightest Diamond cover “Lucky.”  They do an interesting orchestral version–very spooky.

Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble (a side project of Chris Funk from The Decemberists) do a very weird electronic version of the song (with almost no lyrics).  It’s very processed and rather creepy (and the accompanying notes make it even more intriguing when you know what’s he doing).

The final B-side is “Polyethylene (Part 1 & 2),”  It’s a track from the Airbag single and it’s done by Chris Walla.  I don’t know this song very well (since it’s not on OK Computer), but it’s a weird one, that’s for sure.  This version is probably the most traditional sounding song of this collection: full guitars, normal sounding drums and only a slightly clipped singing voice (I don’t know what Walla normally sounds like).

So, In many ways this is a successful tribute album.  Nobody tries to duplicate the original and really no one tries to out-do it either.  These are all new versions taking aspects of the songs and running with them.  Obviously, I like the original better, but these are interesting covers.

[READ: November 5, 2011]  McSweeney’s #8

I had been reading all of the McSweeney’s issue starting from the beginning, but I had to take a breather.  I just resumed (and I have about ten left to go before I’ve read all of them).  This issue feels, retroactively like the final issue before McSweeney’s changed–one is tempted to say it has something to do with September 11th, but again, this is all retroactive speculation.  Of course, the introduction states that most of the work on this Issue was done between April and June of 2001, so  even though the publication date is 2002, it does stand as a pre 9/11 document.

But this issue is a wild creation–full of hoaxes and fakery and discussions of hoaxes and fakery but also with some seriousness thrown in–which makes for a fairly confusing issue and one that is rife with a kind of insider humor.

But there’s also a lot of non-fiction and interviews.  (The Believer’s first issue came out in March 2003, so it seems like maybe this was the last time they wanted to really inundate their books with anything other than fiction (Issue #9 has some non-fiction, but it’s by fiction writers).

This issue was also guest edited by Paul Maliszewski.  He offers a brief(ish) note to open the book, talking about his editing process and selection and about his black polydactyl cat.  Then he mentions finding a coupon in the phonebook for a painting class  which advertised “Learn to Paint Like the Old Masters” and he wonders which Old Masters people ask to be able to paint like–and there’s a fun little internal monologue about that.

The introduction then goes on to list the 100 stores that are the best places to find McSweeney’s.  There are many stores that I have heard of (I wonder what percentage still exist).  Sadly none were in New Jersey.

This issue also features lots of little cartoons from Marcel Dzama, of Canada. (more…)

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Junot Díaz–“One Year: Storyteller-in-Chief” (New Yorker blog, January 20, 2010)

Posted in Adele, Barack Obama, Butthole Surfers, Essays, Foo Fighters, Junot Díaz, New Yorker, Paul Debraski, The Future on November 8, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ADELE-“Someone Like You” (2011).

I’ve been hearing this song in unlikely places–like on a radio station that plays The Foo Fighters and the Butthole Surfers.  So I thought I’d actually listen to it and see what the fuss was about.  It has been selected as one of 2011’s Best Songs (So Far) on NPR  (where you can hear it in full). 

It’s a sparse piano song, a pretty, desolate melody .  But the real selling point is Adele’s voice.  I had heard her described as a kind of Amy Winehouse (who I don’t like) or a sort of R&B siren,(which I wouldn’t like).  But she has a kind of husky voice that belies its power.  In some ways she reminds me of a more mature Fiona Apple.

On this song at least, it’s just her and her piano–no pretensions to genre or style, just an honest emotionally naked song.

The melody isn’t obvious–it’s not an immediate grab you by the lapels hit.  But it is haunting and her voice supplies the bulk of the tune.  She can carry the whole thing with ease.

I’m not sure if it fits on that radio station, but it is certainly a wonderful song.  I wonder what the rest of the album sounds like.

[READ: October 31, 2011] “One Year: Storyteller-in-Chief”

I am posting this review today because it is Election Day (in New Jersey, anyhow).  One can only hope we get some of the awful incumbents out of town, but we’ll see.  I’m also posting this now because I feel the need to vent about our current Presidential Candidates.  Not the men and woman themselves (who are all barely qualified to be in charge of their own car keys, much less the country).  What I’m venting about is the fact that we know these men and women are candidates at all.  Or the fact that so many prospective candidates have already dropped out.

The election is a year away.  A YEAR.  It’s bad enough that the media talks about everything the President does in terms of how it will affect his chances for re-election (again, A YEAR away) but that we have all of these bozos running around talking about what a bad job the President is doing as well is just dreadful.  And basically, instead of actually doing something about being President, he must do triage on the damage these loose cannons are causing.  True, Obama appears to be somewhat less than concerned with what they say about him, but the fact that everything that happens in Washington is foreshadowing the next election, it sure makes it hard for anything to get done.

Anyhow, in other countries, the citizens have a few months at most to decide who their candidates will be.  And a few months in our country would translate to much less expensive candidacies, much more opportunities for fringe candidates to be heard (for better or worse) and less candidate exhaustion (both them and us).  Why in the hell does it take eighteen months to run for President?  In what way are we served by having all of these people running for office for over a year?  And things are only going to get worse now that so many states have moved their primaries up so far (January 3, Iowa?  Really?  You want to narrow down the presidential choices ten months before the election?).

I know that my opinion won’t even cast a ripple in Washington, but come on.  I propose that people aren’t even allowed to declare their candidacy until the May before the election.  That gives them six months, which should be ample time to run an election campaign.  Have the primaries in August and September and then the general election in November.  That gives two months early in the season for primary debates and it gives a month and change after the primaries for general election debates.  This way the President isn’t distracted with running a reelection campaign and the populace (and the media) isn’t distracted for 18 months with candidates running or not running.  And seriously, if you can’t be organized enough to win an election in 6 months, you don’t deserve to be President.  How can I get this policy enacted?

This article from Diaz is a very good one.  It criticizes President Obama for not being a good storyteller.  He was an excellent storyteller before he became President (both as a campaigner and an author-Diaz cites Dreams from My Father in particular).  But since he has taken office his storytelling has lapsed. (more…)

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