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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Douglas Coupland–Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent (2014)

Posted in Alain de Botton, Canadian Content, China, Cigarettes, Coronavirus, De La Soul, Douglas Coupland, France, Geoff Dyer, Holmdel, NJ, Liaquat Ahamed, NPR/PRI/PBS, Olivia Arthur, Paris, France, Quarantine, Racism, Sa-Roc, Set in New Jersey!, Sexism, Star Trek, Technology, The Future, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on June 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

alcaterlSOUNDTRACK: SA-ROC-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #30 (June 4, 2020).

sarocI have never heard of Sa-Roc, but I was blown away by her lyrics and delivery.  I really enjoyed that her delivery was intense and serious, even angry, but her delivery was so thoughtful.

If you want protest music for the uprising of the American consciousness, then look no further. Sa-Roc (born Assata Perkins) is an emcee from southeast Washington, D.C.

Sa-Roc bears her heart and soul here, weaving together influential threads from her upbringing; Pan-Africanism, the hardship of her father’s experience as a sharecropper in Virginia and her own childhood in Congress Heights, D.C., an area ravaged by violence and the crack epidemic in the 1980s.

In this Tiny Desk (home) concert, she debuted two exclusives, “Deliverance” is about reassessing where you are in making a commitment to change things. I love the beats and the lyrics.  She references Posdnous and De la Soul and then has this moment where she says this is the world’s tiniest violin and a violin sample plays.

After the song, she lights some sage to clear the energy.  She wants her space to experience joy and to be a stress-free peaceful environments.

“Hand of God” is her latest single about staying true to yourself.  It has a sung chorus and Sa-Roc has a pretty singing voice along with her flow.  In the second verse she raps with a sped up version of herself which is pretty neat.

“r(E)volution,” is from her upcoming album, The Sharecropper’s Daughter, which is produced by her partner in life and DJ, Sol Messiah.  It starts with a pretty guitar and a great bass line

On “r(E)volution” she spits bars: “Embedded in the home of the brave, the darkest of interiors. / Saw street scholars and soldiers defect cuz they post-traumatic stressed from the American experience.”

“Forever” is for little girls who ever felt like they were held to impossible societal standards; and if the world told them they weren’t good enough, weren’t valuable enough, weren’t worthy enough, weren’t dope enough to take up space or use their voice; they didn’t come from the right area or the right class or education; didn’t have the right skin tone or complexion; anything that made them feel less than.  This is about how dope you really are with all of your perfect imperfections.

I love that after a quiet clapping moment the song soars with guitars and bass.

[READ: May 8, 2020] Kitten Clone

In the Douglas Coupland collection Shopping in Jail, there was an essay called “All Governments Seem to Be Winging it Except for China.”  The essay said that it came from this book: Kitten Clone.

I wasn’t sure how interested I really was in reading about the history of Alcatel-Lucent, but I should have known that Coupland would do his thing and find an interesting and unique way to write about something that should be dull.

The only weird thing is that Coupland implies that he is alone on this excursion, but the photographs are not his (which is surprising since he loves art) the pictures are by Olivia Arthur.

This book is part of a series called Writers in Residence created by Alain de Botton, with the slogan: “There are many places in the modern world that we do not understand because we cannot get inside them.”  Coupland’s book is the third in the series.  The other two are Geoff Dyer: Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush and Liaquat Ahamed: Money and Tough Love: On Tour with the IMF.

This book looks into the past, present and future of Alcatel-Lucent and the cover of the book sets the stage: (more…)

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Mountain Goats (John Darnielle solo) (Musikfest Cafe, Steel Stacks, Bethlehem, PA, June 4, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Bethlehem, PA, Coronavirus, John Darnielle, Musikfest Cafe, Postponed, Quarantine, Steelstacks, The Mountain Goats on June 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: June 4, 2020] Mountain Goats (solo) [moved to October 12]

indexI like The Mountain Goats quite a lot.  I think John Darnielle is a great songwriter.

I’ve never seen them (or him) live and I’ve often thought it would be an enjoyable night, but they’re usually just under my radar.

I’d usually prefer to see a band rather than its lead singer solo, but in this case, I don’t know if it would make that much of a difference to me.  Seeing him at the Musikfest Cafe would be pretty fantastic–a great venue with excellent acoustics.

The biggest surprise to me is how quickly his shows sell out.  If this one hadn;t sold it, it was very close, by the time it was postponed.

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Joyce Carol Oates–“Still Life” (Harper’s, June 2020)

Posted in Coronavirus, Death, Eurydice, Excerpt, Hades, Hadestown, Harper's, Hospitals, Joyce Carol Oates, Orpheus, Persephone, Quarantine on June 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

june2020SOUNDTRACK: HADESTOWN-Tiny Desk Concert #977 (June 1, 2020).

hades

It’s unusual for a Tiny Desk blurb to tell us when the Tiny Desk happened.  Sometimes there are clues, but this blurb tells us straight out it happened on March 2, in “the Before-Times.”

Which you can tell because there are “16 performers bunch[ed] up behind the desk, singing formidably in close proximity as a large crowd gathers just off camera.”

I’ve never heard of Hadestown, but it sounds pretty interesting.  Evidently it is a Tony-nominated hit musical.

They’d wanted to get this Tiny Desk done, but kept running into delays until they finally managed to coordinate when “playwright Anaïs Mitchell–who wrote both the musical and the 2010 folk opera on which it’s based–was eight months pregnant.”  She also plays guitar and sings.

This is a “five-song distillation of a robust and impeccably staged Broadway production.”

A raucous full-cast tone-setter, “Way Down Hadestown” lets Hermes the messenger (André De Shields, in a role that won him a Tony–he also plays the train whistle) and Persephone (Kimberly Marable, filling in for Amber Gray) set the scene.  I love that Marable is acting (with her face) while listening to Hermes sing.  The song is a kind of piano-based rag song (played by Liam Robinson who later plays accordion) until midway when the whole band kicks in with a muted trombone solo from Brian Drye (who also plays glockenspiel!).

The musical is really about two loves stories: Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone.

A medley of “Come Home With Me” and “Wedding Song” finds Orpheus (Reeve Carney) and Eurydice (Eva Noblezada) meeting and falling in love.

Gentle guitar from Ilusha Tsinadze opens as Orpheus sings his (comical) lyrics.

A singer , huh?
I also play the lyre.
Oh a liar and a player too.

As the song builds, strings are added from Megan Gould (violin) and Malcolm Parson (cello) and a pulsing upright bass from Chris Tordini.

“When the Chips Are Down” showcases the three Fates — spirits who often drive the characters’ motivations — as played by Jewelle Blackman (who also plays accordion), Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer (who also plays violin) and Kay Trinidad (who also plays percussion).

It opens with some interesting picked and harmonic’d guitar and a bouncy piano and a funky off kilter beat (and percussion) from Ben Perowsky.  Liam Robinson also get s a fun piano solo.

In “Flowers,” Eurydice looks back with regret and resignation on her decision to leave Orpheus for the promise of Hadestown.

Mitchell herself plays guitar and sings the opening and then lets Eva take over vocals.

Finally, the set concludes with “Why We Build the Wall,” which quickly became Hadestown‘s most talked-about number. (Mitchell wrote it a full decade before the 2016 election, but you’d never know it.) Though the song includes the full cast, it’s also a show-stopping showcase for the sonorous thunder of Patrick Page, who performs with a gravity befitting the king of the underworld.

It opens with two acoustic guitars playing a slightly discordant melody. Page’s deep voice is incredible.  It’s a call and response song that is remarkably prescient:

The enemy is poverty and the wall keeps out the enemny and we build the wall to keep us free.

I don’t know what will happen to Broadway after the virus is gone, but it would be a shame to lose a show like this.

[READ: June 4, 2020] “Still Life”

This is an excerpt from Oates’ new novel Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.  The blurb tells what the story is about but this excerpt seems like the beginning of the story and context rather impacts the way you think about what you’re reading.

The story is about John Earle “Whitey” McClaren.  He is sixty-seven and is in the hospital trying to piece together what happened.  I feel like not knowing the reason he is in the hospital would make this story more compelling.  But having just the except without context would make the excerpt far less interesting.  So I won’t spoil.

He tries to explain what’s happening, but he can’t talk.  He realizes he’s not even breathing on his own. (more…)

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Adam Levin–Bubblegum [Week 4: pp. 283-377] (2020)

Posted in 10cc, Adam Levin, Bubblegum, Bugs Bunny, Cancer as plot device, Community, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Full Metal Jacket, Guns n' Roses, Infinite Zombies, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Language, LGBTQ, Nazis, Ohio Express, Parenting, Prison, Prostitution, Ronald Reagan, Suicide, The Cramps, The Fun and Games, The Monkees, Transgender, Violence, War on June 1, 2020| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FUN AND GAMES-“Elephant Candy” (1968).

indexI’d never heard of The Fun and Games before looking up this bubblegum pop song.

Amazingly there were six members of the band (and none of them were cartoons).

The band members and name were constantly in flux and they released only one album, Elephant Candy in 1968.

“Elephant Candy” is a two and a half minute pop delight.

The main music of this song sounds almost like the music of a merry-go-round–a kind of sugar-coated pipe organ.

The song opens with the preposterously catchy “elephant elephant candy did you know that elephants can be fun eating candy on the run.”  The second go-round features backing vocals of a steady “Ahhahahh” that sounds simultaneously unsettling and catchy: kind of like a fun house mirror.

The verse seems like its just an opportunity to pause in between the next appearance of the chorus.

If that weren’t catchy enough, the song moves up a step so it’s even more treacly. Somehow, the song even has time for two keyboard solos.

[READ: June 1, 2020] Bubblegum Week 4

Over at the Infinite Zombies site, there was talk of doing a Quarantine book read.  After debating a few books, we decided to write about a new book, not a book that everyone (or some people) had read already.  This new book would be Bubblegum by Adam Levin.  Many of us had read Levin’s massive The Instructions which was not especially challenging, although it was a complex meta-fictional story of books within books.  It was kind of disturbing, but also rather funny and very entertaining.

So I’ll be posting weekly ideas on this schedule

Date Through Page
May 11 81
May 18 176
May 25 282
June 1 377
June 8 476
June 15 583
June 22 660
June 29 767

Sometimes One Looks Like The Other, Bad Taste and Stupidity

This weeks reading was really intense.  It also showed things that I never imagined would come up.

  • A lengthy and carefully edited suicide note.
  • A lengthy treatise on transgendered persons/prostitution/homosexuality
  • Academic papers that are simultaneously well-written and yet obviously the work of a child.

Part Two, Section 5 of the book is called “Letters and Facts.”

This was an interesting place to stop/resume reading because, although they reference the same incident, the beginning of this section differs from the end of the previous section.  (more…)

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David Means–“Two Nurses, Smoking” (New Yorker, June 1, 2020)

Posted in Cigarettes, Coronavirus, David Means, Florence Proce, Hospitals, Lara Downes, Margaret Bonds, Nurses, Quarantine, Romance, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sex, Short Story, Shoshone, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on May 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

indexSOUNDTRACK: LARA DOWNES-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #29 (May 30, 2020).

laraI don’t know Lara Downes, although from the picture you can see that she is a pianist, obviously.  But she also works in communities with young people–something she has been unable to do since the coronavirus took over.

This Tiny Home Desk is visually more interesting than most of the others, because she has a mobile cameraman, her son Simon, who walks around and zooms in on her fingers and elsewhere.

She plays three songs

all from her recent album Some of These Days… They are strong statements that resonate in new ways. From Margaret Bonds, one of the first celebrated African-American women composers, there’s “Troubled Water,” a poignant riff on the spiritual “Wade in the Water” that Downes says takes a “journey from classical virtuosity to gospel, jazz, blues and back again.”

It has a very fluid feel but is also quite dark.

The next piece surprised me not because of the song but because of the arranger.  Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, yes the author, created this arrangement of “Deep River.”  I’m surprised that there is nothing else said about him.  I had no idea he was musical as well.

She says there are many interpretations of the river in this song.  For some, it is crossing over into the afterlife.  In the time of slavery, it meant crossing to freedom.  For Downes it represents “crossing over” the coronavirus crisis, to something better.

She is looking to raise money for FeedingAmerica.  If you go to her site and donate you can get a signed copy of her new album.

The final song is Florence Price’s “Some of These Days,” which she sees as a vision of better times ahead.  It is a beautiful slow piece.

The set ends with a jump edit to her snuggling her beloved pooch, Kona.

[READ: May 31, 2020] “Two Nurses, Smoking”

This story is broken up into titled paragraphs.  The title often works as the first part of the first sentence.  At first I didn’t understand this technique, but by the end it made a lot of sense.

The story is indeed about two nurses smoking.

Gracie grew up living in a motel that people paid for week by week.  A high school counselor encouraged her to go to nursing school.  Marlon grew up on the Shoshone reservation then his mother moved East and married a man who drank as much as she did.  He had been in the war and has a scar from an IED. (more…)

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Fiona McFarlane–“Demolition” (New Yorker, May 25, 2020)

Posted in Coronavirus, D Smoke, Fiona McFarlane, Murder, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Quarantine, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on May 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: D SMOKE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #28 (May 29, 2020).

The lineup of musicians for the Tiny Desk Home Concerts has been a fascinating mix of known and unknown folks.

I have never heard of D Smoke.  Apparently it’s not surprising that I don’t know who D Smoke is because

last year, the rapper and pianist, born Daniel Farris, rose to national acclaim when he won Netflix’s MC battle show Rhythm + Flow.

Winning allowed him to quit teaching and produce music full-time.  He plays four songs.

D Smoke’s songs here — taken from his latest album Black Habits, out earlier this year — acknowledge the disparities impacting the black experience that are simultaneously personal and universal. The opening selection, “No Commas,” is a heart-wrenching lament on injustice and inequality. The gentle touch of D’s fingers moving across the keys complement the song’s poignant lyrics, which he raps in English and Spanish.

I am really quite amazed at what rap sounds like without a beat, with no percussion of any kind.  These songs are performed with just the piano.  Stark and powerful.

I enjoyed the lyrics to “No Commas”

I told ’em I’m the one for the job, no commas
And I’m serious, period, no commas
Wanna enjoy my family and my friends with no drama

The song segues into “Closer to God” which has a more jazzy/lounge vibe.  He sings the chorus and has a lovely voice.

This is his first time playing and rapping “Seasons Pass.”  Although he is rapping, his is very musical about it, kind of singing more than straight ahead rapping.  But when he gets rapping, his flow is fast and impressive.

He also performed “Black Habits II,” the affecting finale to Black Habits, for the first time in a live setting.

The album is about his upbringing growing up, for the first nine years, with a single mother and then his pops coming home [from being incarcerated] and being a good role model.

He cautions us that it’s his first time playing it live so, “If I stumble a bit we gonna pick it back up.”  He does stumble a bit but it sounds great.

[READ: May 25, 2020] “Demolition”

It’s always interesting to read a story set in a different country.  I guess one always imagines a story is set somewhere familiar unless you are told otherwise.  It wasn’t until about half way through the story before I realized it was not set in the States.  And I think it was very close to the end that I realized it was set in Australia.

But the setting doesn’t matter so much because the story is about the house across the street which is being torn down today.

Eva lives across the street and is sad that the Biga house is being torn down.  Her husband, Gerald, is happy to see the eyesore go.  As they looked through the blinds, they watched people come and take souvenirs from the place.

Then came the media. (more…)

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Simon Rich–“Everyday Parenting Tips” (New Yorker, May 25, 2020)

Posted in Coronavirus, Francesco Turrisi, Funny (ha ha), Monsters, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Quarantine, Rhiannon Giddens, Simon Rich, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on May 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHIANNON GIDDENS AND FRANCESCO TURRISI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #27 (May 28, 2020).

Rhiannon Giddens has a really amazing voice.  It is powerful and full and easily commands your attention.  She’s a practitioner of traditional music and loves to share the history and the culture.  She also writes her own songs.  However, introducing the second song Rhiannon Giddens explains “We’re not doing my original songs, ’cause with these kinds of emotions, the old songs say it best.”

They start with “Black as Crow” a lovely traditional song starting with Giddens’ mournful violin and then Turris’ plaintive banjo.  It’s amazing how rich and deep her violin sounds  Which makes me think it is a viola.

Rhiannon talks a bunch about how the pandemic has effected them.

They canceled their tour of Japan and returned home to Ireland; Rhiannon lives in Limerick while Francesco lives a few hours away in Dublin where they recorded this Tiny Desk (home) concert.

She says it’s hard for them as musicians because to do anything they have to be videographers and engineers and everything.  There’s a reason why people do that as the thing that they do and we appreciate them even more.

For the “Spiritual” mentioned above, Rhiannon plays the banjo and Francesco plays a bodhrán.  It starts with Rhiannon singing a capella, then she starts playing with great banjo picking (even some groovy slide work).

Food and art are the basis of what we are as human beings. And those are hit hard.  She started a website ArtLivesOn.com.

They end the set with two songs, “Carolina Gals” segues into “Last Chance.”  Rhiannon plays a violin (fiddle) while Francesco gets an amazing variety of sounds from the tiny hand drum he plays.  It’s like a tambourine with a skin on and there’s wonderful diversity of sounds.  The lyrics of “Carolina Gals” are familiar but different: “Carolina girl’s won’t you come out tonight.”  But my favorite part of the set comes at the end when Rhiannon just takes off on the fiddle playing the super fast instrumental “Last Chance.”

[READ: May 25, 2020] “Everyday Parenting Tips”

I love Simon Rich, he makes me laugh out loud pretty regularly.  Although this piece fell flat to me.  The premise is okay but there’s not enough to do with it, so it kind of runs out of steam pretty quickly.

This comic essay is all about how to help your children who are afraid of monsters.

It starts off easily enough with the calming assurance that it is normal for children to be afraid of monster.  It shows a sign of a healthy imagination.  By five they should be convinced that monsters aren’t real.

The problem however is that some monsters are real.  Ever since the Great Monster Uprising, when the monsters arrived from the Dark Place, monsters are an unavoidable part of out lives. (more…)

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Amanda Petrusich–“California Ghosts: Phoebe Bridgers’s humor and dread”(New Yorker, May 25, 2020)

Posted in Amanda Petrusich, Better Oblivion Community Center, Biography, Boygenius, Conor Oberst, Coronavirus, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Haley Dahl, Harry Potter, Marriage Trouble, Parenting, Phoebe Bridgers, Quarantine, Ryan Adams, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Slayer, Sloppy Jane, The National on May 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHOEBE BRIDGERS WORLD TOUR (May 26-June 4, 2010).

Phoebe Bridgers is a fascinating person.  She sings the most delicate songs.  Her voice is soft and almost inaudible. Her music is simple but pretty.  And her lyrics are (often) devastatingly powerful.

And yet she is really quite funny.  Both in interviews and in her visual representation of herself.

Her logo when I saw her was a fascinating faux death metal style of her name.  And now with this world tour, you can see in the poster all of the metal bands referenced in the logos. (There’s Slayer in the kitchen for instance).

And then there’s the basic joke of this world tour.  No one can go anywhere, so she is travelling her world: kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom (second concert by popular demand??)

The first show last night raised money for Downtown Women’s Center.

After some introductory talking and even a magic show (!) from Ethan, her producer, she played five songs.  Midway through she agrees that the set was a bit of a downer, especially opening with these two sad songs.

“Scott Street”
“Funeral”

Then it was time for two new songs (and an electric guitar).

“Moon Song”
“I See You”

Before coming to the end, she delayed, because she was having so much fun (and raising so much money).  So she showed us around her kitchen and pitched the kind of guitar she was playing, the kind of capo (quite expensive!), and her Target-purchased kitchen ware.  

She ended the set with a boygenius song, “Me and My Dog ” dedicated to her dog Max who died at the age of 17 last year.

The first night of her tour was a success. Tonight is night two, from the bathroom.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.  You can watch it here.

[READ: May 27, 2020] “California Ghosts”

I don’t usually read profiles of artists I like.  But every once in a while, one strikes me as interesting.

Phoebe Bridgers is a pretty fascinating character (see the above part for some details).  So I though this might be an interesting profile.  And it was.

Bridgers was brought up in Laurel Canyon and came of age listening to emo.  I love that the writer has to define emo for the New Yorker crowd, “a sub-genre of punk focused on disclosure and catharsis.”  That’s probably the most concise definition of emo I have read.

She writes that Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes) is one of emo’s most beloved practitioners.  Phoebe grew up listening to him and then met him in 2016.  He says when he first heard her he felt like he was reuniting with an old friend.  In 2018 they made Better Oblivion Community Center together.

At Carnegie Hall (where she wore a tea-length black dress and high to Doc Martens), she sang a song with Matt Berninger of The National. (more…)

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Terry Moore–Five Years #10 (2020)

Posted in Abstract Studio, Bombs, Coronavirus, Death, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, Military, Neil Gaiman, NPR/PRI/PBS, Russia, Skiing, Strangers in Paradise, Terry Moore, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Wire on May 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WIRE-Tiny Desk Concert #976 (May 27, 2020).

I feel that it is something of a failure on my part that I never really got into Wire.

Although I don’t know why, I will never forget that their 1988 album is called A Bell is a Cup … Until It is Struck (I was working at a radio station when it came out and “Kidney Bingos” was a minor hit).  But I never really followed through with them.

Bob Boilen, on the other hand, is a huge fan.

For me, it was beyond surreal to watch Wire performing at my desk, in broad daylight, in 2020. I spent many an evening over the past 40 years, listening to their original, artful bursts of noise and imagery, seeing them in dark clubs in the ’80s and beyond. From the time I first heard them in 1977, few bands have encapsulated my musical aesthetics like Wire.

There have been some hiatuses for Wire since their debut in 1977 (from 1981-1985 and 1993-1999) but each time they reunited, it was the original four person lineup.

It was only ten years ago that guitarist Bruce Gilbert officially left the band.  But at the Tiny Desk,

there they were, with three original bandmates: Colin Newman, singing his enigmatic poetry, and those driving rhythms of Graham Lewis on bass and Robert Grey (aka Robert Gotobed) on drums. Matthew Simms was the “new” bandmate, having now played with the band for the past 10 years.

Thankfully, Wire plays four songs (they still only play for 15 minutes and they are Bob’s favorite band).

What’s most remarkable is how the sound of songs such as “Cactused” from their 17th album, Mind Hive, sit so well next to “French Film Blurred” from their 1978 album — and one of my favorite records ever made — Chairs Missing.

“Cactused” has a cool chugging rhythm and bass.  Newman sings in his deadpan, almost spoken delivery.  Newman plays the little guitar leads while.  It stops on a dime.  This band is tight.

“Be Like Them” is also new.  I love this song.  It’s got a slinky guitar riff which is  accompanied by three loud thumps (drums and bass) to accent the verses.  Simms plays a really cool noise-filled “solo” (really just some noisy chords) in the middle of the song.  Newman is once again kind of deadpan reciting his lyrics.

“French Film Blurred” is from 1978. It’s got an unusual riff and Newman sings a bit more than speaks, although he is still restrained.  They make great use of the two guitars with Simms adding all kinds of sounds while Newman plays the main melody.

Everyone tunes and then Newman says they’re going to play “an obscurity from the 80s that we revived into the current set.”  “The Offer” is from 1989’s ITABA.  It’s slower and rather quiet.  There’s even some gently picked guitar parts from Simms. But as it nears the end the song gets louder and louder with Sims adding a distorted and a flanging guitar.   The songs seems like it’s over, but while everything is ringing out, Newman pays a few ending chords.

Try and imagine your favorite artist today, playing a concert in someone’s office in 2062 and still having an emotional impact with extraordinary new songs. As I said, it’s beyond surreal and genuinely thrilling.

Wire played their Washington DC show on March 9, so that’s probably when this concert occurred (and therefore MUST have been the final Tiny Desk Concert before the quarantine].  Wire were playing Philly on March 10.  I had considered going but I had a lot of other shows to see in March so I didn’t want to overload.

This set was so good, I wish I had gone to see them. Maybe they’ll be back in 2021.

[READ: May 20, 2020] Five Years #10

This is the final issue of Five Years (I think).

It was supposed to be released during the Coronavirus epidemic.  But Abstract Studios offered a special cover (so I don’t know what the proper cover looks like yet).

NEWS: We’re going to release a tiny print run of Five Years #10 for subscribers, & anyone who wants one really. This is for those reading the single issues who don’t want to wait months to read the final chapter. If not a subscriber, you can pre-order a copy in our store now. Just CLICK HERE.

The rumor is Diamond Comics will reopen this summer and we will be able to stagger release issue 9 and 10 to the general public then. 9 is sitting in their warehouse, waiting like a rodeo bull. For the small number hooked on the single issues, we feel you deserve 10 now, because without your monthly support the series couldn’t have happened at all.

So I bought the limited edition cover because I wanted to finish the series.  I didn’t think he could possibly end the series with this issue as it seemed like there was too much up in the air. (more…)

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Adam Levin–Bubblegum [Week 3: pp. 179-282] (2020)

Posted in 10cc, Adam Levin, Bubblegum, Bugs Bunny, Community, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Full Metal Jacket, Guns n' Roses, Infinite Zombies, Kurt Vonnegut, Language, Nazis, Ohio Express, Parenting, Prison, The Cramps, The Monkees, Violence on May 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: OHIO EXPRESS-“Chewy, Chewy” (1967).

The name Ohio Express sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. Turns out that they did “Yummy Yummy Yummy” (which I could have put here, but “Chewy Chewy” seems more bubblegum-apt).

What I was fascinated to discover though, was that (according to Wikipwdia)

“Ohio Express” served as a brand name used by Jerry Kasenetz’s and Jeffry Katz’s Super K Productions to release the music of a number of different musicians and acts. The best known songs of Ohio Express (including their best scoring single, “Yummy Yummy Yummy”) were actually the work of an assemblage of studio musicians working out of New York, including singer/songwriter Joey Levine.

Several other “Ohio Express” hits were the work of other, unrelated musical groups, including the Rare Breed, and an early incarnation of 10cc. In addition, a completely separate touring version of Ohio Express appeared at all live dates, and recorded some of the band’s album tracks.

So basicaslly, Ohio Express were like The Monkees, but without a cute public face.

In fact, if Wikipedia is to be believed, (and sure, why wouldn’t it), Ohio Express has a fascinatingly complex and questionable history.  Almost worth a novel in itself.

This song opens with a high -pitched “doo doodoodoo do” as the main verse breezes along in quite a familiar bubblegum style.  You can absolutely hear “Yummy Yummy Yummy” in the pedigree of this song.

It’s bouncy and catchy with the appropriate keyboard bops.  The biggest surprise comes at a minute and forty five seconds when the song throws in, inexplicably, the guitar riff from “Then He Kissed Me” for two measures as a kind of instrumental break then returns to the main melody.  This is no where near as catchy as “Yummy Yummy Yummy,” but it has its moments.

The album that this song comes from Chewy Chewy is remarkably annoying.  It’s under 30 minutes but it is just full of “comic” bits.  “Nothing Sweeter Than My Baby” opens with over 30 seconds (of a song that lasts 2:52) with one guy saying “Oh Bonnie” (or bunny) and the other guy in falsetto saying “Oh Clyde” over and over and over.  I don’t even assume it was funny back then.  “So Good So Fine” opens with a 30 second “skit” about Superman being stuck in a phone booth.  The full song is 2:10 and has nothing to do with Superman, phone booths or anything of the sort.

“Yes Sir” opens with a person saying “Hi, I’m chicken little.” The angry reply is, “I don’t care who you are get your beak out of my popcorn.”  What?  The song is practically a children’s call and response song.  “Little Girl” opens with a “dialogue” that includes a fairly lengthy backwards spoken section which is apparently the person talking?  The hilarious punchline is that the person is from Poughkeepsie, New York.  You know it’s funny because there is a silly fake cackle.  The ensuing song is pretty catchy though.  There’s even a pop version of “Simon Says.”

I guess writing pop hits isn’t as easy as it seems.

[READ: May 25, 2020] Bubblegum Week 3

Over at the Infinite Zombies site, there was talk of doing a Quarantine book read.  After debating a few books, we decided to write about a new book, not a book that everyone (or some people) had read already.  This new book would be Bubblegum by Adam Levin.  Many of us had read Levin’s massive The Instructions which was not especially challenging, although it was a complex meta-fictional story of books within books.  It was kind of disturbing, but also rather funny and very entertaining.

So I’ll be posting weekly ideas on this schedule

Date Through Page
May 11 81
May 18 176
May 25 282
June 1 377
June 8 476
June 15 583
June 22 660
June 29 767

Lacing up my rhinestoned shirt in Vegas or: Finking wrecks fun

Part Two of the book is called The Hope of Rusting Swingsets

So if you thought the swing set murders were not going to be revisited, you’d have been wrong.

Part 2 Section 1 is called “Look at Your Mother.”  It concerns Stevie Strumm.

Belt has had a crush on Stevie for a while.  She’s the only girl that he can comfortably talk to.  Stevie had once given him a mixtape because he liked her Cramps shirt.  Stevie, the second youngest Strumm, invited Belt over to destroy their rusted swingset (number ten in his murderous spree).  She was babysitting her younger sister while the rest of her family was at a G N’ R show.

The end of the second paragraph promises two events that we haven’t seen and may or may not.  He has a vertiginous feeling that he will feel “while dressing at the foot of Grete the grad student’s bed and after reading No Please Don’t‘s first review.” (more…)

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