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Archive for the ‘Stephen King’ Category

Stephen King–“A Death” (New Yorker, March 9, 2015)

Posted in Death, Jane Siberry, Murder, New Yorker, Rheostatics, Short Story, Stephen King, Violence, tagged on June 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

march9SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Hillside Festival 20th Anniversary, Guelph ON, July 7, 2003 (2003).

hillUntil recently this was the only Rheostatics show listed on the live website for 2003 (a bunch have recently been added).  And there are none for 2002.  I don’t actually know if they didn’t tour much in 2002 or what.

But this is a fun set (and is just barely over an hour) with lot of guests and an interesting selection of songs.

The start with “Self Serve Gas Station,” and then “Song of the Garden” (since Kevin Hearn is with them and later “Monkeybird” too) and “P.I.N.”  Then they play “Marginalized,” the first time I’ve heard them play it live.  Tim says he wrote it the night George W. Bush was elected.

Since Kevin is therer, they play a Group of 7 medley.  I recognize “Wieners and Beans,” “Blue Hysteria” and “Yellow Days Under a Lemon Sun.”  Lewis Melville guests “on the ocean” for “California Dreamline,”  There’s a nice referential moment when the line “all the naked ladies” makes Dave comment “Steve, Ed, Kev, Tyler.”

More guests come out for”Claire” Chris Brown and Kate Fenner offer backing vocals.  And there’s a mellowish version of “Stolen Car” that is pretty cool.

“Horses” is a fun version since every guest gets to take a solo.  And at the end, Dave asks Martin to “ride the wild donkey” so instead of making horse sounds from his guitar he makes donkey sounds. How??

The set ends with a rollicking encore of Jane Siberry’s “One More Colour,” a rare treat.  This is a great show.

[READ: April 10, 2015] “A Death”

I loved this story.  King sets it in the past (the location they are in is soon to become a state: “although we are not one of the United States just yet, we soon will be”), in a place which I assumed was Maine since he writes so much about Maine, but which I see mentions Fort Pierre which is in South Dakota, so which makes more sense.

It is a deceptively simple story.  A girl has been killed.  The sheriff has a suspect.  The townsfolk assume the suspect did it.  So what’s the problem?

As the story opens, Jim Trusdale is working in his yard when the sheriff comes up to his house and  arrests him. Jim says he ain’t never heard of the girl who was killed.  The sheriff asks where his hat is and Jim can’t account for it.  That’s enough for the sheriff.

Turns out it was the girl’s birthday.  She was given a silver dollar.  Later that day she was found dead and Jim’s hat was found on her person. (more…)

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Mark Z. Danielewski–House of Leaves (The Remastered Full-Color Edition) (2000)

Posted in Anne Rice, Architectural Digest, Big Books, Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drinking, Fears, Funny (strange), Horror, J.G. Ballard, Karen Green, Laura Veirs, Mark Z. Danielewski, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Research, Sex, Stephen King, Thomas Pynchon, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on May 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

houseSOUNDTRACK: LAURA VEIRS-Tiny Desk Concert #49 (March 1, 2010).

lauraI have decided to contradict myself.  I simply cannot keep up with the regular release of Tiny Desk Concerts (sometimes 3 a week), so I’m going to focus on these older recordings for a while and occasionally devote a week or two to new ones.  we’ll see how that works out.

I only know Laura Veirs’ name, but not really anything she’s done.  So I wasn’t really sure what her “solo” work would sound like.  Well, she has a delightful voice and she writes really pretty songs.

She also offers one of the most dramatic screw ups I’ve seen in a live performance. She opens her song “Carol Kaye” with this lovely melody–just her and her guitar.  And then after about a minute, her band comes in with a beautiful harmony–in the wrong key!  The introduction of their voices is so dramatic (to go from her gentle voice to this huge chorus) was really amazing.  So much so that I didn’t quite realize they were in the wrong key at first.  Turns out that Laura put her capo on the wrong fret and it wasn’t until the keyboardist played the right note that they all sounded off.  And his mouth drops opens as he stares at Laura.  She laughs and says “you looked like this terrified Muppet.”

They play the song again, this time perfectly–and the harmonies are truly lovely.  As is the violin that swirls throughout the song.

“When You Give Your Heart” is another lovely song in which Viers’ voice and the violin play the same lilting melody.

“Sun is King” has some more lovely (that’s the word to describe her, clearly) harmonies–she has picked a tremendous backing band.  And they sound great in this small setting.

It’s hard to believe that the whole set (miscue and all) is only ten minutes long.

[READ: May 1, 2015] House of Leaves

I read this book when it came out in 2000.  I had the “2 Color” edition which the t.p,. verso explains has as features: “either house appears in blue or struck passages and the word minotaur appear in red (I had the blue version).  No Braille.  Color or black & white plates.”

The Full Color edition (which is the same price, amazingly) differs in this way:

  • The word house in blue, minotaur and all struck passages in red
  • The only struck line in Chapter XXI appears in purple
  • XXXXXX and color plates

So basically the full color edition isn’t really that big a deal although the three or four full color plates are much nicer.

Why do I have both?  Well, I bought the two color when it came out and then I won a free book at the library and there was this full color edition, so I brought it home.  I was amused to find that the previous owner had deciphered a clue in the back of the book (the first letters of sentences spell out a secret message).  She (it looks like woman’s handwriting) wrote out the secret message, which I appreciated as I didn’t feel like figuring it out.

ANYWAY.

This book had a huge impact on me when I read it.  Although I forgot a lot of the details, the overwhelming effect of the book has stayed with me an I never forgot the central conceit of a house that opened secret passages and expanded or contracted at will.  For, make no mistake about all of the accolades, this is a horror story.  One accolade, from Bret Easton Ellis: “One can imagine Thomas Pynchon, J.G. Ballard. Stephen King and David Foster Wallace bowing at Danielewski’s feet, choking with astonishment, surprise, laughter awe.” [Ellis will not be bowing apparently, and actually I can’t imagine Pynchon bowing before anyone].  It’s a very cool horror story with all kind of textual experimentation and twists and turns, but it’s still a pretty damned scary story.

The experiments are many and varied and they begin right from the start, as the title page lists Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves by Zampanò with an introduction and notes by Johnny Truant. The forward from the editors notes: “The first edition of House of Leaves was privately distributed and did not contain Chapter 21, Appendix II, Appendix III or the index.

This is all nonsense of course. (more…)

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Stephen King–“Batman and Robin Have an Altercation” (Harper’s, September 2012)

Posted in Batman, Black Sabbath, Earth, Harper's, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, New Yorker, Old Age, Short Story, Stephen King, Violence, Wooden Shjips on November 19, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WOODEN SHJIPS-Live on KEXP, August 7, 2011 (2011).

A while ago I reviewed an Earth concert and while I felt like I should have liked them, I didn’t like them as much as I anticipated.  Well, Wooden Shjips (no idea what’s up with that “j”) sounds like I would have liked Earth to sound–a bit faster and yet still ponderous   They play with really distorted guitars and heavy bass, but their songs aren’t terribly fast or anything.   The thing that sets them apart is the keyboard–loud droney keyboards that take a kind of lead role and add a weird sort of retro feel to the heavy proceedings.  Indeed, even the voice is fuzzed out and echoey, making the keyboard one of the few clean sounds in the show.

As befits droney metal bands, all of these songs are long.  The first two “Lazy Bones” and “Black Smoke Rise” are over four minutes while the final two “Home” and “Flight” are over 5 and nearly 7 minutes respectively.

Lazy Bones is dominated by a spacey keyboard riff and vocals that are echoed almost into oblivion, reminding me of a kind of mid 70s Black Sabbath (if Ozzy’s voice was deeper).  The riffs on “Home” and Flight” sounds like we’re in for some real classic rock, but again that droney keyboard (which also sounds retro but in a different way) mixes with the heavy distorted guitar in a new way.  I’m intrigued to hear more from them.

Rock out here.

[READ: November 15, 2012] “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation”

I’m always surprised to see a Stephen King story in say Harper’s or the New Yorker.  Not because he’s not good, but because he’s such a famous genre writer (and he certainly doesn’t need the exposure).   I don’t even think of him as a short story writer, really.  I wonder how he gets his stories in these magazines?  Does he get vetted?

Well, this story was really enjoyable and if I hadn’t known it was Stephen King, I never would have guessed.

The first 3/5 of the story are about Dougie Sanderson and his Pop.  Pop is in an old age home, suffering from Alzheimer’s. They have a routine, which is easy enough for Dougie  to do, even if to his father it’s new every time.  Dougie visits every week, they go Applebee’s, and they come home.  This depends, of course, on how good Pop is doing that day–as long as he’s fairly lucid and isn’t cursing out everyone in sight.

What I appreciated about this story was that Pop has moments of incredible lucidity that can be immediately followed by moments of utter confusion   Like when Pop calls him Reggie (Dougie’s brother who died forty-five years ago in a car accident .  But the moments of lucidity are nice for Dougie–although they’re not encouraging exactly, because most days he guiltily admits that he wishes things would end sooner rather than later.

The Batman and Robin of the title refer to a Halloween costume that Dougie ad Pop wore when Dougie was little.  Indeed, Pop remembers it very well, “Halloween, you dummy.  You were eight, so it was 1959.  You were born in ’51.”  Pop even adds a detail that Dougie didn’t remember: that Norma Forester looked at Dougie and said “trick or treat” and then looked at Pop and said “trick or drink” and offered him a bottle of Shiner’s.  Dougie is silent–amazed at the memory.  Then Pop says “she was the best lovin’ I ever had.”  Dougie doesn’t know whether to believe this or not thinking, “They hurt you….  They may not mean to, but they do….  There’s no governor on them, no way of separating the stuff that’s okay to talk about from the stuff that isn’t.” (more…)

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McSweeney’s #33: The San Francisco Panorama (2009)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Airlines, Alia Malek, Andrew Sean Greer, Art, Art Spiegelman, Big Star, Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Brent Hoff, Caddyshack, Canadian Music, Cars, Carson Ellis, Children's Books, China Miéville, Chip Kidd, Chris Adrian, Chris Ware, Comic Strips, Constellation Records, Daniel Handler, Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, Dicky Murphy, Dip-in Books, Do Make Say Think, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edna O'Brien, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Flash Fiction, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Geoff Nicholson, George Saunders, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Greed, Harper's, J. Malcolm Garcia, J.G. Ballard, James Franco, Jessica Abel, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kara Walker, KPOO 89.5--San Francisco, CA, LGBTQ, Mary Williams, Matthew Klam, McSweeney's, Meatballs, Michael Chabon, Miranda July, Mogwai, New Yorker, Newspapers, Nicholson Baker, Prospect, Rachel Maddow, Roddy Doyle, Salman Rushdie, Seth, Seth Fried, Short Story, Sports, Stephen King, The Blues Brothers, The New York Times, The Onion, The Walrus, Tom Bissell, Travel, Universities, Violence, Wajahat Ali, War, Wholphin, William T. Vollmann on January 16, 2010| 8 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DO MAKE SAY THINK-Other Truths [CST062] (2009).

I’ve always enjoyed Do Make Say Think’s CDs.  They play instrumentals that are always intriguing and which never get dull.

But this CD far exceeds anything they have done so far (and  they’ve done some great work).   There are only four tracks, and they range from 8 to 12 minutes long.  Each track is named for a word in the band’s name: Do, Make, Say, Think.  And each one is a fully realized mini epic.

“Do” sounds like a gorgeous Mogwai track.  While “Make” has wonderfully diverse elements: a cool percussion midsection and a horn-fueled end section that works perfectly with the maniacal drumming.  “Say” is another Mogwai-like exploration, although it is nicely complemented by horns.  It also ends with a slow jazzy section that works in context but is somewhat unexpected. Finally, “Think” closes the disc with a delightful denouement.  It’s the slowest (and shortest) track, and it shows that even slowing down their instrumentals doesn’t make them dull.

It’s a fantastic record from start to finish.  This is hands down my favorite Constellation release in quite some time.

[READ: December 2009 – January 13, 2010] McSweeney’s #33.

The ever-evolving McSweeney’s has set out to do the unlikely: they printed Issue #33 as a Sunday Newspaper.  It is called The San Francisco Panorama and, indeed, it is just like a huge Sunday newspaper. It has real news in (it is meant to be current as of December 7, 2009).  As well as a Sports section, a magazine section and even comics!

[DIGRESSION] I stopped reading newspapers quite some time ago.  I worked for one in college and have long been aware that the news is just something to fill the space between ads.  I do like newspapers in theory, and certainly hope they don’t all go away but print issues are a dying breed.  When I think about the waste that accompanies a newspaper, I’m horrified.  Sarah and I even did a Sunday New York Times subscription for a while, but there were half a dozen sections that we would simply discard unopened.  And, realistically that’s understandable.  Given how long it took me  to read all of the Panorama, if you actually tried to read the whole Sunday paper, you’d be finished the following Sunday (or even two Sundays later).

Their lofty goal here was to show what print journalism can still do. And with that I concur heartily.  Even if I don’t read the newspaper, the newspapers as entities are worth saving.  Because it is pretty much only print journalism that finds real, honest to God, worthy news stories.  TV news is a joke.  There is virtually nothing of value on network TV.  Fox News is beyond a joke.  CNBC is sad (although Rachel Maddow is awesome!) and even CNN, the originator of all of this 24 hour news nonsense still can’t fill their airtime with non-sensationalized news.

Obviously, there are some decent internet sites, but for the most part they don’t have the budget to support real news investigation.  You either get sensationalized crap like Drudge or rebroadcasts of real news.

So, print is the last bastion of news.  And you can see that in journalistic pieces in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Walrus, Prospect and, yes, in newspapers.

But enough.  What about THIS newspaper?  Oh and unlike other McSweeney’s reviews I’ve done, there is NO WAY that I am writing a thorough comment on everything in here.  There’s just way too much.  Plus, there are many sections that are just news blurbs.  Larger articles and familiar authors will be addressed, however.  [UPDATE: January 18]: If, however, like Alia Malek below, you bring it to my attention that I’ve left you out (or gotten something wrong!) drop me a line, and I’ll correct things.

There is in fact a Panorama Information Pamphlet which answers a lot of basic questions, like why, how and how often (just this once, they promise!). There’s also a Numbers section which details the size, scope and cost of making this (it shows that with an initial start up, anyone could make a newspaper if they talked enough about what the readers were interested in). (more…)

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Periodical: McSweeney’s

Posted in A.M. Homes, Art, Books about music, Books about writers, BritLit, Consumerism, Contests, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Essays, Fables, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), George Saunders, Graustarkian Romance, Hollow Earth, Irish Writer, Joyce Carol Oates, Language, Legendary Saga, McSweeney's, Meta, Michael Chabon, Music, Postmoderism, Roddy Doyle, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Socratic Dialogue, Stephen King, Suicide, The Believer, The Collins Library, They Might Be Giants, Wholphin, Whore Dialogue, Word usage on November 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

17Many many years ago, I discovered Might magazine.  It was a funny, silly magazine that spoofed everything (but had a serious backbone, too).  (You can order back issues here).  And so, I subscribed around issue 13.  When the magazine folded (with issue 16–and you can read a little bit about that in the intro to Shiny Adidas Track Suits) it somehow morphed into McSweeney‘s, and much of the creative team behind Might went with them.

The early volumes (1-5 are reviewed in these pages, and the rest will come one of these days) are a more literary enterprise than Might was.  There’s still a lot of the same humor (and a lot of silliness), but there are also lengthy non-fiction pieces.  The big difference is that McSweeney’s was bound as a softcover book rather than as a magazine. And, I guess technically it is called Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern as opposed to Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. (more…)

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Stephen King–“Premium Harmony” (New Yorker, November 9, 2009)

Posted in Consumerism, Death, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Stephen King, Summer on November 16, 2009| 2 Comments »

ny119SOUNDTRACK: SONIC-YOUTH-the eternal (2009).

eternalIt was the release of this disc that inspired me to see what they’ve been up to since the 80s.  And, sometimes it’s really fun to root through a band’s back catalog to see what kind of progression they’ve made over the years.

There are three things that set this disc apart from  many other SY discs.

The first is the dual/harmonized vocals. I don’t recall ever hearing Thurston and Kim split vocals duties in a song before, least of which in a half-line by half-line way.  There’s also some points where they sing (sort of) harmonies.  It’s a really interesting addition to their sounds.

The second is the staccato playing.  In the past I’ve always felt like SY ‘s sounds flowed over everything (even if it was noise, it was a continuous wash of noise).  On The Eternal, there’s three or four songs where the band plays a chug chug chug chug rhythm (with everyone playing along).  It’s most notable in “Anti-Orgasm,” where the chug chug part is accompanied by Thurston and Kim chanting uh uh uh on every beat.

The third is the bass.  The band has added Pavement bassist Mark Ibold to their lineup.  And as far as I can tell he does things on bass that Kim never did.  He seems to complement Steve Shelly as a rhythm section.  I always felt that Kim played something of a lead bass: she didn’t seem to go in for a notable steady bass rhythm (note on “Kool Thing” where her bass plays the main riff).  And since Thurston and Lee were often playing noise, it was essential for Kim’s bass to be more than just a rhythm instrument.  On this disc you have bass sections playing the song’s rhythm. Its a simple thing, something that all bands do, but it sounds so different for them.

They even mix up the song lengths quite a bit.  The opener is a two minute bit (with great lyrics from Kim: “What’s it like to be a girl in a band?  I just don’t understand.  That’s so quaint to hear.  I feel so faint my dear.”)   While “Anti-Orgasm” is over six minutes (three of the chug chug section and then three of an extended jam).  Lee’s awesome song, “What We Know” runs about 4 minutes.  And the final song, the very cool “Massage the History” runs over 9 minutes.

These elements give the band a revitalized sound.  And they sound like they’re really having a lot of fun. And boy are they rocking.  The band sounds heavy, they sound intense, and they sound great.  There’s not a bad track on the disc.

[READ: November 6, 2009] “Premium Harmony”

This story takes a look at a dysfunctional husband and wife on the way to Wal-Mart.  She wants to stop at the Quik-Pik on the way, to buy something that he thinks will be cheaper at Wal-Mart anyway.  This detour turns out to be significant, and nothing will be the same for them again.

I have to be this vague because saying anything more will give away too much of this rather simple story. (more…)

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Periodical: Entertainment Weekly

Posted in Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Britney Spears, Children's Books, Entertainment Weekly, Film & TV, Graphic Novel, Music, Stephen King on August 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ew2I’ve been reading Entertainment Weekly for years and years.  I think I subscribed back in like 1993 or so.  And I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with it.  I’ve canceled my subscription on a number of occasions, mostly because I believed that it didn’t cover enough of the indie stuff I enjoyed (which is still largely true).  But then I’d see an issue and realize that it is a fun magazine to flip through, so I’d re-subscribe.

Over the years, EW has morphed more and more.  And each change to the magazine makes me like it less.  And now in its current iteration, which happened about a year ago, I feel that they have removed all pretense to being a “smart” publication.  Although, at least they stopped including the bold line of text which presumably highlighted the best line of a review.  Evidently they thought we couldn’t ewread the entire half-a-column-length of an article.  But they removed that, and it’s back to simple reviews.

I’ve always been sort of iffy about their rating system (A through F).  It’s a simple guide, so it’s easy to see quickly whether they liked it or not, but as in school, it seems hard to pinpoint exactly what the difference is between say an A- and a B+.  But hey, that’s their thing, so it’s okay.

And as a sort of all-purpose guide to entertainment, it’s pretty useful.

The new design has largely changed the order of things in the magazine.  And so The Must List which used to be a small thing in the middle now opens the magazine as a full page extravaganza (highlighting in a nutshell what is wrong with this latest incarnation of the magazine–something that used to fill up a page at most is now a two page spread with bigger pictures!) (more…)

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Stephen King–“Morality” (Esquire, July 2009)

Posted in Bible, Canadian Music, Esquire, Morality, Moxy Fruvous, Short Story, Stephen King, Talking Heads, Tom Waits, Violence on July 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »

esquireSOUNDTRACK: MOXY FRÜVOUS-Live Noise (1998).

livenoiseLive albums usually work as a “best of” and so, with Live Noise you get the crème de la crème of the Früvous catalog.  But, more than that, Früvous were amazing live.  I had the opportunity to see them once, and it was a fantastic show.

Just about every song I have mentioned in other reviews is here: “Michigan Militia,” “Horseshoes,” “Fly,” “King of Spain,” “Johnny Saucep’n” and “The Drinking Song” among many others.

They also do some interesting covers: Tom Wait’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.”

And best of all, there’s a lot of between-song banter.  Interestingly, the banter is quite vulgar.  While Früvous is not a G rated band by any means, it’s a little surprising how many F bombs they drop (which is why it got a parental warning sticker).  But mostly they are funny bits, like the “Intra Pennsylvania Rivalry,” and the hilarious and factual crowd participation bit: “Lowest Highest Point.”

You can’t go wrong with this disc, it’s fantastic (although, I suppose I could do without the  second version of “King of Spain,” as it does go on a bit long), but aside from that?  Fantastic!

[READ: June 25, 2009] “Morality”

I’ve said a lot about Stephen King in the past, so I’ll just get right to the story.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this story or not.  I mean, it’s long, and I don’t jump at the chance to read Stephen King anymore.  But I read the first paragraph and I remembered why Stephen King is so popular, and why I liked him so much.  Whether or not he is a great writer or an artiste, he has a wondrous way with words.  With the first few paragraphs I was hooked into this story.  His prose is effortless, and before you know it you are engaged with the characters. (more…)

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30,000

Posted in Against Me!, Alex Stone, Art Spiegelman, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Chynna Clugston-Major, David Goldberg, Deb Olin Unferth, Dropkick Murphys, Evan Goldberg, Flight of the Conchords, Gordon Korman, Gordon Lightfoot, Harper's, Jeff Kinney, Jens Lekman, Magic, Magicians, Marisha Pessl, McSweeney's, Paul F. Tompkins, Pseudonymous Bosch, Richard Thompson, Roddy Doyle, Seth Rogen, Stephen King, Supernatural, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Weakerthans, Wells Tower, YA Books on March 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

3000030,000 views may not be a milestone for many blogs. But, for a blog like this which was intended mostly as a record of what I’ve read, the fact that I’ve had 30,000 views is pretty exciting. And it seems appropriate to let you, the readers know what you the other readers have been reading here. So, here is the top ten most read posts on I Just Read About That… with a director’s commentary tacked on.

1. 819 views
Gordon Korman–Son of the Mob (2002)
SOUNDTRACK: GORDON LIGHTFOOT-The Complete Greatest Hits
I’m pretty much 100% certain that Gordon Lightfoot is NOT the attraction that made this post my highest one. Son of the Mob is usually a summer reading book. However, I get hits on this throughout the year.  I’m guessing it’s just a popular book.

(more…)

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McSweeney’s #27 (2008)

Posted in Art, Art Spiegelman, Cancer as plot device, Ernest Goes to Camp, Gangsters, Graphic Novel, McSweeney's, Midnight Oil, Mikel Jollett, New Yorker, Stephen King, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Alarm, The Church, Torture Porn, Unlikable main character, Yuck! on June 1, 2008| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT-4 songs from My Space (2008).

Since the author of one of the stories below is the singer in this band, I thought I’d listen to them and see what they were all about. With a name like that I was expecting some kind of hardcore band. And that is NOT this band! They don’t have a record out yet, but they have some songs on MySpace here. The first song “Sometime Around Midnight” made me think of a couple of bands from the 90s: The Church and Midnight Oil, and possibly The Alarm. The vocals are mixed loudly in the mix, and there is an earnestness about the vocals which made me think of those bands. The second one, “Papillion” has a keyboard solo (!) over some fairly raucous simple melodies. The third song “This is Nowhere” is a fun indie rocker with a good staccato riff and a cool/spooky chorus harmony. And the fourth song “Innocence” was rocking and bouncy. I can’t get over the use of keyboards on songs where you wouldn’t expect them. I enjoyed these songs quite a bit, and will certainly check out the CD when it’s released.

[READ: May 30, 2008]: McSweeneys #27

This volume contains three books in a slipcase. Even though each is a small paperback, the overall package is quite nice. The slipcase has many tiny holes in it to look like skyscraper windows (or Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti). (more…)

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