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Archive for the ‘Comic Strips’ Category

Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1983-1984: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2012)

Posted in Abigail Washburn, Adventure, Advice, Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Birds, Charles Schulz, Christmas, Comic Strips, Depression, Dogs, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Humiliation, Jealousy, Letters, Ludwig van Beethoven, Math, Peanuts, Pets, Regrets, Religion, Summer, Technology, Teddy Abrams, The Ford Show, The Future, The Natural, Tiny Desk Concert on October 21, 2016| Leave a Comment »

19893 SOUNDTRACK: TEDDY ABRAMS-Tiny Desk Concert #491 (November 30, 2015).

teddyTeddy Abrams is a young piano player (he was 28 in 2015) and he was recently made conductor of the Louisville Orchestra.  Here’s some fun details from the Tiny Desk blurb:

For his first week on the job in Louisville, Abrams played jazz piano in the streets and took his orchestra players into nightclubs and African-American churches. PBS made a web series on his first season.  Earlier this year, he put two first symphonies on the same program — Brahms’ First and a debut symphony by Sebastian Chang, a composer still in his 20s — just to gauge audience reaction. Abrams filled the hall by giving out free tickets to first-time symphonygoers. He was happy to hear that many of them liked the new piece best, saying they appreciated hearing the composer introduce it onstage.

Abrams plays three pieces.  Two originals and one from Beethoven.  The first, “Big Band,” [from the blurb: swirls with jazz history. Hints of Thelonious Monk fly by, along with tips of the hat to the stride style from the early 20th century] is a fun and fast piece with Abrams playing fun and bouncy rhythms and very fast solo runs.  It’s infectious.

Abrams decided to begin the opening movement of Beethoven: Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109, I. Vivace, ma non troppo with a short improvisation, noting that the great composer was known for riffing at the piano for hours on end and was often getting into improvisation battles.  At he end, he says that we shouldn’t have been able to tell where the improv ended and the song properly began (although fans of the song could probably tell).  By the end of his life Beethoven was experimenting and some of his later stuff is pretty out there and modern.  That may be true if you know classical music, but it just sounded pretty to me.

He ends the set with a bluesy number, “The Long Goodbye,” [from the blurb: describing it as a slow ballad halfway between “My Funny Valentine” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”].  It is indeed a wonderful conglomeration of jazzy melodies.  A lovely and fun piece that is familiar but new at the same time.

[READ: July 26, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984

As 1983 opens, Schroeder finally goes on the attack against Lucy “I have resolved not to be so serious..I’m going to try to laugh more” and then he pulls the piano out from under her and laughs like crazy.

For the past few books there have been a lot of jokes with Schroeder’s musical staves like Snoopy crawling through them.  Most have invoked Woodstock interacting with them.  As Schulz tends to do he will go on tears were he makes similar jokes every day for a week and then drops the joke for a while.  There’s also been some strips with Woodstock singing .  In one of my favorite, he is singing and the rain comes and actually washes the notes away from the stave. Even funnier is in Nov 1984 whee the rain comes and makes the notes droop really low.

For Valentine’s Day this year, Linus did not send Sally a card and she is very upset. Charlie says he should punch Linus in the nose.  But he says instead that Linus should just walk into his fist.  Charlie holds out his fist but Lucy walks into it instead.  That’s pretty funny.

More abuse for Lucy comes from Linus.  he gets a small bit of revenge by using Snoopy as a strange catapult and launching a snowball at her.

In the summer of 1983 while Snoopy is on a hike with the troops, the birds Bill and Harriet run off and get married and they stay in Point Lobos. (more…)

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Eddie Campbell–The Black Diamond Detective Agency (2007)

Posted in #10yearsof01, 19th Century, Anarchy, Bombs, C. Gaby Mitchell, Can, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Death, Eddie Campbell, First Second :01, Funny (strange), Gangsters, Graphic Novel, Greed, Guns, Huh?, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Last Ex, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Pink Floyd, Prison, Scott Joplin, Theatricals on October 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

black-daimons SOUNDTRACK: LAST EX-Last Ex [CST107] (2014).

last-exOne of the things I love about Constellation Records is that you often never know what you’re getting.  They used to very specifically release a certain kind of music, but they’re now just releasing interesting and exciting music.  But also, a band name can’t really tell you what to expect from this label.

So who knows what a band like Last Ex will sound like.  And how cool that their first few songs on this are so good.

The disc’s sides are split into Side X and Side XX.

“Hotel Blues” opens with some scattered drums and chords.  It has  vaguely early-Pink Floyd feel to it.  But around a minute in, the synths pick up a repetitive melody and the bass and drums kick in to give it a very Can or Kraftwerk vibe.  The song is fairly straightforward, but there are sprinklings of notes—sometimes slightly off and vibrated that add some very cool textures to this pulsing track. It’s really groovy and fun.  But it’s “Girl Seizure” that I find so strangely compelling.  Again, over simple repetitive drum and bass, the guitar (or keyboards) play warbling notes that are unsettling and yet enticing.  The song quiets to almost nothing and then resumes in much the same way—and you welcome that weird warble and its of Moog feeling.  At just under 3 minutes its just the right length.

“Flûte magique” slows things down with some simple arpeggios.  There’s not a lot to the song, but it is wonderfully soothing as the bass notes tick away and then the guitar notes rise higher and higher.  The song picks up speed as it goes along and leads to a middle section that’s almost stiffly funky, if that’s possible.  The ending gets a little louder as it thuds to a conclusion.

“It’s Not Chris” opens with some static and strange noises and some soaring keyboards.  About a minute and a half in a strange staccato organ melody comes in with a violin sound doing a kind of solo over the top.  It’s all a little strange but it drops out in the middle to a kind of sinister pulsing, and when the melody resumes, it seems strangely comfortable again.  The end of the song has some high-pitched violin notes that sound almost like a theremin.

“Resurrection Drive” is mostly drums and echoed surf guitar chords. After a minute or so some strings are added to the mix.  It’s only 2 minutes long but it introduces some interesting tension.

Side XX has a quieter feel overall.  “Nell’s Theme” opens with acoustic guitars playing a simple, pretty four-note melody.  The song slowly grows more complex as a violin is added to the song. With about 30 seconds remaining, everything drops away save for a mournful violin.

Thudding bass and picked notes echo through “Trop tard.”  It has a slow, spacey feel (like mid-period Pink Floyd).  A guitar is added and it speeds up some but still sounds of the era and then settles back down to a languid pace.  “Cape Fear” is less than 2 minutes of swirling outer space sounding synths—a creepy, lonely feeling.

“Cité d’or” has more slow pulsing rhythms and more echoing surf guitars and the whole thing feels rather tension filled.  Some squealing  feedback intersperses the surf guitar.   “Hotel Blues Returns” for 1:43.  It’s primarily the drumming pattern of “Hotel Blues” with some swirling synth noises (it’s good for headphones).  “Hotel Kiss” ends the disc with sirens and then a slow thudding drum and more noir guitars.  This could be used in a Twin Peaks scene.

So this album is an interesting mix of rocking songs with unsettling noises and mellower songs with cool synth effects.  It’s a great find.

[READ: September 24, 2016] The Black Diamond Detective Agency

I read this book a while ago, but I never posted about it.  And that gave me the opportunity to re-read it and, frankly, to enjoy it more.

This is the third book by Eddie Campbell that I have read.  I have found his stories to be complicated and hard to follow on first read.  They really demand a second and even a third read.  Part of it is that he writes complicated and somewhat intentionally convoluted narratives.  And part is because of his drawing style.

I love the cover of this book, how it is set up to look like an Old West placard: ORPHANS! MAYHEM! TERROR!  “In This the most recent offering from The First Second Quality line of Books.  An epic take of a newly industrialized America as revealed in words and pictures by the inimitable Mr Eddie Campbell.  Based upon  the manuscript of a Kinematographic play by Mr C. Gaby Mitchell.”

And its this last part that I missed when I first read it–that it was based on a screenplay.  And this book does resemble a screenplay.  However, I noted that in my other posts about Campbell that I’ve said of this book: I liked and didn’t like this book.  Well, which is it?

The story is incredibly complicated–with double and triple crosses.  And the visuals call for mistaken identity and hidden identity as well as new characters who all look vaguely the same–like pale photographs of turn of the century urban gangsters. But the story is really interesting. So I liked it, although I think I’d like to see it more as a film. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1981-1982: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Angst, Anorexia, Baseball, Basketball, Birds, Boredom, Butterflies, Cats, Charles Schulz, Citizen Kane, Comic Strips, Dogs, Doug Hennig, Etiquette, Fantagraphics, Fantasy, Football, For Better of For Worse, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Hockey, Humiliation, Ice Skating, Jealousy, Letters, Math, Peanuts, Regrets, Religion, Romance, Sexism, Soccer, Son Little, Summer Camp, Technology, Tennis, The Bible, The Future, The Muppet Show, Tiny Desk Concert, World War I, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on October 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1981 SOUNDTRACK: SON LITTLE-Tiny Desk Concert #496 (December 18, 2015).

sonlittleI know of Son Little, although only vaguely.  WXPN has played his song “The River” quite a lot, although I don’t think I’ve heard anything else.

For this Tiny Desk Concert, he’s really stripped down–just his acoustic guitar, a percussionist (Jabari Exum playing a djembe with accoutrements) and a backing vocalist, his sister Megan Livingston.  His playing is even pretty stripped down–his chords are minimal, almost more like accents for most of the songs (although he does play louder from time to time).

As such, this really celebrates his voice which is strong and almost gospel-like.

He plays three songs. “Lay Down,” is a quiet soulful song with perfectly spare accompaniment.  When it ends, everyone seems adorably shy with Little saying, “just mildly awkward enough.”

“Your Love Will Blow Me Away When My Heart Aches” is a bit bigger–Little sings a bit louder and plays louder chords, but it is still quite minimal.

He ends with “The River” which is certainly stripped down from the radio version.  It opens with some claps and he encourages everyone to clap along although “If you’re like clap challenged then maybe… don’t–you know who you are.”  The song has that bluesy rock feel even in this understated form.  And while I like the original better, this is a great version–that quiet clapping and percussion is really nice.

[READ: July 26, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1981-1982

So far the 1980s see Schulz settling into a few consistent themes in his strips–regular motifs that he mines over and over again.  Although it’s interesting to see how they have morphed over the decades.

Patty is constantly falling asleep in school (and getting D minuses), Snoopy continues to write funny/bad jokes and gets rejection letters about his books (this is usually pretty funny but it’s also surprising as Snoopy is usually the “successful” one); Snoopy also plays a lawyer a lot in these strips.

1981 begins where 1980 left off with Patty loving the story of Hans Brinker.  1981 also has a lengthy section about Valentines Day (a subject that gets more emphasis in some years than others), although this year Sally is the major protagonist (and her Sweet Babboo her object).  1982 also has a Valentine’s Day with Sally–she gets her hand stuck in the Valentine’s Day cards box.

Schulz used to do bible instruction which is why he quotes it so much.  And he occasionally peppers his strips with religious commentary.  There’s a joke about school prayer–Patty has to go up to the board and when her teacher falls ill she shouts “school prayer works, Marcie.”  There’s an amusing joke that Snoopy used to teach Sunday School at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.

Although the running jokes are funny, I love when he gets a new idea.  Like the a fun twist on the dog ate my homework joke when Snoopy as the WWI pilot steals Sally’s homework claiming it is the enemy’s secret papers and he eats them.

Sometimes Schulz gives a one-off joke that’s just silly and funny like when Woodstock “poofs” a dandelion and it “poofs” him back. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1979-1980: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Bible, Billie Jean King, Birds, Bo Derek, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Dogs, Easter, Fantagraphics, Feminism, Football, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Happyness, Hockey, John McEnroe, Letters, Mary Mapes Dodge, New York Daily News, Peanuts, Prefab Sprout, Summer Camp, Technology, Tennis, The Future, The Long Island Press, Tiny Desk Concert, Tracy Austin, Wilco, World War I on October 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1979SOUNDTRACK: HAPPYNESS-Tiny Desk Concert #468 (September 4, 2015).

happynessHappyness are a trio from London: Benji Compston (guitar), Jonny Allan (bass) and Ash Cooper Drums).  They play mellow Britpop with rather clever lyrics.

The first song “Montreal Rock Band Somewhere” opens with a steady bass line and smatterings of guitar chords.  And when the guys  sing, Benji sings into a normal mic in a kind of deep whisper and the Jonny sings into a processed mic to make his voice sound kind of tinny (in harmony).  And the lyrics are great.  I like when the second chorus comes in and the processed vocals go up an octave for a really cool harmony effect.  And I mentioned the lyrics.  Here’s an interesting verse:

I’m wearing Win Butler’s hair / There’s a scalpless singer of a Montreal rock band somewhere / And he’s all right

Before the second song starts, they have a bit of fun while Benji tunes his guitar.  Everyone is standing around awkwardly and Benji tells Jonny to tell his whale joke.  Jonny says no and that it’s not his whale joke he took it off the internet and would like to put it back.

For the second song, “It’s On You” the guys switch places (it  was suave, kind of Bob Fosse-ish).  Benji sings into the processed microphone. The song also has some busy basslines but the guitar is more pronounced.  Hearing him sing in that processed tinny voice is really interesting.  More interesting lyrics: “You said I’m an anarchist, communist, feminist phlebotomist.”

Before the final song, they switch places again.  Benji says he’s “not the most flexible boy in this collection of people.”  “Who is?”  “Definitely [the bassist].”  Bob asks, “Who tells the best jokes?”  “Unintentionally [the drummer]  Jonny says to the drummer: “You could do the whale joke… don’t do the whale joke.”

The final song, “Weird Little Birthday Girl” is nearly 8 minutes long.  It opens with a cool bass riff and some lovely overlapping guitars.  There’s a nearly three-minute instrumental opening and when Jonny starts singing it has a distinctly Wilco quality (partly because oft he processing on his voice but also his delicate singing).  There’s a nice shout out to Prefab Sprout in the lyrics:

Its so easy to replace it / some things hurt more much more than cars and girls / an evening in an iron maiden / a morning in your funny little world.

I really enjoyed this set a lot and I’m intrigued that their album (on bandcamp) has some really short songs too.   I wonder if their sound is different on the record.  Guess I’ll have to give it a listen.

[READ: July 12, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1979-1980

I foolishly thought that this book would play up the idea of moving into a new decade. But as I should have learned from years past, Schulz doesn’t really care about when it is.  His strip is mostly timeless.  There are of course references to time passing, but they are very minor.  So, on New Years when it  turns 1980, the strip heading says 1980, but there’s no other mention of it.

It’s also interesting how some things that he’s talked about in the past cycle again–many many years later.  In January 1979 Peppermint Patty is on a quest for a library card (we saw Sally get one like 5 years ago).  She says that once she gets one she wont leave home without it.  Marcie says Karl Malden will be happy to hear it. This is a reference to a an American Express card commercial that I remember hearing all the time when I was a kid (although I had o idea it was Malden doing it).  She also get a very funny line about junk food: “Life is more than carrot sticks, Marcie…what is a stomach that’s expecting a chocolate bar going to say when it gets a carrot stick?”

The World War I Flying Ace never really went away, but it seems to be making a resurgence in this year, with Snoopy wandering around speaking French and then later German to all the young ladies. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1977-1978: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2010)

Posted in Adventure, Alec Baldwin, Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Birds, Boredom, Cats, Charles Schulz, Christo, Cocteau Twins, Comic Strips, Dogs, Easter, Etiquette, Explorers, Fantasy, Football, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Hillary Clinton, Hockey, Ice Skating, Land Lines, Letters, Mark Twain, Math, Peanuts, Regrets, Religion, Romance, Soccer, Summer Camp, Technology, Tennis, The Bible, The Future, The Muppet Show, Tiny Desk Concert, World War I on September 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1978SOUNDTRACK: LAND LINES-Tiny Desk Concert #494 (December 11, 2015).

landLand Lines are a trio from Denver.  They have a drummer, a synth player and a cellist/lead singer.  Although their music is pretty spare and simple, I find them really compelling.

On “Wreckage,” Martina Grbac plays the cello with her fingers, strumming chords on the neck of the instruments in a way I’ve not seen anyone play before.   Grbac sings quietly and her voice–echoing and effects-laden–reminds me of someone from the 1990s, although I can’t exactly pinpoint it (maybe a Cocteau Twins vibe?  but not quite). James Han plays really interesting chords and textures on the keyboard.  Sometimes he adds melody lines, and other times, like at the end of this song, growing washes of sounds.  Ross Harada’s percussion is also fun for the complex and different sounds he adds to the songs.

“Anniversary” has a similar vibe withe that cello chord playing.  The opening keys play simple echoing notes which add a nice atmosphere to the acoustic chords and percussion.

For the final song, “Fall or Fall,” Grbac plays a rapidly bowed cello (which has such a different sound than the other songs).  The bass is provided by the synth (a good sounding bass).   I love the way her voice contrasts the keyboard chords.  The chord progressions throughout the song are interesting and I really like the unexpected sounds that close out the song.

I’d never heard of Land Lines, but I liked this show enough to listen to it a bunch of times.  I’ll have to check out their other songs as well.

[READ: July 9, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978

I feel like this era is when I would have read Peanuts the most, although I have no recollection of any of these strips.

The covers of the books don’t necessarily depict who will be prominent in the collection, but Peppermint Patty on the front does equal a lot of Patty inside.  While Peppermint Patty continues to do very poorly in school, she does get some witty remarks like “What was the author’s purpose in writing this story?  Maybe he needed the money.”

We see a return of Truffles in January which also introduces Sally calling Linus her Sweet Babboo for the first time.  “I’m not your Sweet Babboo!”  Truffles is very excited to see Linus and vice versa but it kind of ends with unanswered questions because, in one of the first times this surreal gag was introduced, Snoopy flies in as a helicopter–a joke used many more times in the future–to sort of interrupt the whole saga.

Snoopy also pretends to be the Cheshire Cat a few times.

It has been a while since Linus has built anything outstanding (something he used to do a lot as a precocious child).  Well, in Feb 1977 he builds a snowman of Washington crossing the Delaware (to show up Lucy’s George Washington snowman with a little sword). (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1975-1976: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2010)

Posted in Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Bellows, Billie Jean King, Birds, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Easter, Elton John, Eskimeaux, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Hockey, Jaws, Joe Garagiola, Joe Shlabotnik, Letters, Peanuts, Robert Smigel, Seinfeld, Small Wonder, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Tiny Desk Concert, Told Slant, World Hockey Association on September 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1975SOUNDTRACK: ESKIMEAUX-Tiny Desk Concert #466 (August 28, 2015).

esquimeauxEskimeaux is Gabrielle Smith, who is the keyboardist in Bellows, a band that played a Tiny Desk Concert just a few months before this one.  As far as her stage name,

as an adopted child, Smith discovered that her biological father is Tlingit Eskimo; she describes the -eaux suffix as “just a playful jumble of letters that represents the way I record — a confusing layering of sounds that somehow coalesce into something simple.”.

Smith sings three songs in less than ten minutes.  She has a pretty, unaffected voice–just clean and clear vocals.  For the first two songs it’s just her and her guitar

“Folly” is a simple song as you might expect from just a strummed electric guitar.  But there’s something about the way she sings her lines in a series of rising notes that is really inviting.  She also has a nice way with words.  Like:

In my dreams you’re a bathtub running / You are warm and tender / And bubbling

“A Hug Too Long” is a faster song with a simple but interesting guitar riff that’s followed by a simple but interesting vocal melody.  Again, her clear voice fits perfectly with the music.  It features the intriguing chorus: “You went to work, I went to New Brunswick.”

Her final song is “I Admit I’m Scared.”  She has her bandmates from Bellows come out to sing with her.   There’s no extra instrumentation, but Smith sings in a slightly deeper register and Bellows fleshes out sections of the song (they even do a kind of deadpan synchronized move after each chorus).   Another great line of hers is: “And everything I said spewed like sparklers from my mouth.  They looked pretty as they flew but now they’re useless and burnt out.”  As the song ends, everyone sings louder “If I had a dime for every time I’m freaking out” which leads to a  dramatic climax before the final resolution: “We could fly around the world / Or just get out of your parents’ house.”

Bob jokes at the end that they can come back any time with a new band.  She says they have five other bands (including Told Slant and Small Wonder).  He says “you could come in every Tuesday.”

Bellows isn’t that different from Eskimeaux in style–pretty, quiet songs that are articulate and almost deadpan.  But having Smith sing (and presumably write) changes the way the style is created.  Which is pretty cool.

[READ: June 8, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976

I really enjoyed this book a lot.  In the introduction, Robert Smigel talks about how it seems like in this era, Schulz turned a corner a bit to become more absurd.  The jokes are sillier, with new characters and some crazy ideas–like talking buildings, pitching mounds and body parts.  He wonders if it was Schulz’ happy marriage or just a desire to take some chances rather than repeating himself.  But whatever the case, the book is really fun.  I especially love the Peppermint Patty/Marcie strips in which Schulz just seems to be having a great time.  I also love all of the jokes with Sally in which she makes herself laugh with some awful puns–I just imagine Schulz cracking himself up and not being able to wait to draw the strips.

But for all of the newness of the strips, Peanuts is always seasonal.  So 1975 beings with ice skating and snowmen.  Linus has made a snowman reclining and reading a book. Charlie asks if it’s Robert Frost and Linus snarks “You said it, I didn’t.”

Patty has been falling asleep a lot in school–her dad is away–and Snoopy makes as terrible watchdog for her.  More funny Patty moments are when she is being so decisive about true false questions.  “Irrefutably true, understandably false, intrinsically false, inherently false, charmingly true.”  To which Franklin asks “Charmingly?”  Patty also becomes the first disciple of the Great Pumpkin–but she blows it by asking for a gift, as if the Great Pumpkin is some kind of Santa Claus. (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Liō: Making Friends (2013)

Posted in 13 Engines, Aliens, Birds, Canadian Music, Cats, Children's Books, Death, Demons, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Holidays, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Menudo, Parenting, Pigs, Rats, Rheostatics, Squids, Stompin' Tom Connors, Supernatural, Surreal, Talking Heads, The Beatles, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies, tagged on September 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

liofriends SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Railway Club, Vancouver, BC (November 1987).

RailwayClub87-PROD91It’s pretty impressive that this show (ostensibly from the same month as the previous show) has such a different setlist.  Between the two shows they play 22 songs and only four are repeated.  And this time five of the songs come from their debut album, Greatest Hits.

This tape begins with a recording of “Indian Arrow” by the 13 Engines.  It sounds very different from the other songs on the tape–the audience is very loud and you can hear a woman say “I wanna sing this one” (!).  I know this song from a Martin Tielli solo tour (and indeed, he sounds pretty much solo here–although there is a piano, too).

The rest of the tape all has the same audio quality but sounds different from the first song.  “Crescent Moon” begins mid-song (as if it was recorded over by “Indian Arrow”).   “Sad Sad World” is more upbeat than the title suggests with a “vocal solo” introduced with Dave and Tim chanting M-R-T-I-N in time with the music.  An upbeat “Ditch Pigs” leads to some silly banter during the guitar solo.  “Churches and Schools” sounds a lot like Talking Heads.  “Bridge Came Tumbling Down” is a Stompin’ Tom Connors song–they really had been playing him since forever.  Then they play a good version of “Higher and Higher” (from Greatest Hits).

It’s their last night in Vancouver, apparently which leads to a lengthy talk about he next song–a funky version of “Good on the Uptake” with lots of screaming at the end (from Tim).

The band plays the full version of “The Ballad of Wendell Clark” (with a some jokes about “Joel” whoever that is).  It’s rollicking and stomping and Martin starts playing “O Canada” as part of the solo.  Bidini stops the song and asks him to play it again, so Martin plays it on a good echoed effect (and Dave Clark shouts “alright Joel!”)  There’s some inappropriate jokes before Martin launches into a delicate version of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe-“-not the best version I’ve heard but still nice.

The final song is a romping stompin “PROD”–the only song The Rheostatics play in G#.  It has a fun shambolic end and it ends the set with them saying they’ll be back to play some Menudo tunes after a short break (which we never do hear).

[READ: January 15, 2016] Making Friends

It’s unsettling to me that the Liō books come in different shapes.  This one is even hardcover!  The contents of these stories are not unsettling to me though, even if they are to some readers (looking online, you can find gripes).

Liō continues to be a strange kid who loves zombies and squids and spiders and playing pranks.  This is his latest book (and I just confirmed to see that he is still publishing daily, so a new book must be coming soon, right?).

Tatulli still has some great gags.  And this format book has some of the strips in color. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1973-1974: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2009)

Posted in Angst, Babe Ruth, Baseball, Basketball, Billie Jean King, Birds, Charles Schulz, Citizen Kane, Comic Strips, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Easter, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Hank Aaron, Hockey, Joe Shlabotnik, Letters, Lucinda Williams, Mad Magazine, Math, Peanuts, Pranks, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Waits, West Memphis 3 on September 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1973SOUNDTRACK: LUCINDA WILLIAMS-Tiny Desk Concert #412 (December 20, 2014).

lucindaI set tiny, manageable goals for this blog.  They often change over the course of the year, but I like to see if I can complete them.  One such goal was to write about all of the Tiny Desk Concerts from 2014.  And here’s the final one.  (Another such goal is to write about the remainder of the 2016 shows, which is doable).  I also want to write about all of the rest of the First Second Graphic Novels (there’s about 20 of them left).  Insignificant goals that I find satisfying to complete.

I’ve never been a fan of Lucinda Williams.  Although, while I’d certainly heard of her, I obviously didn’t know any of her music. The blurb talks about her distinctive voice.  And it is certainly that.  About 20 years ago a sort of friend of mine saw her open for somebody else and she dismissed Williams as trying to sound like a different singer (wish I could remember who it was).  The irony that Williams has been around since the late 1970s was not lost on me.

But Williams has changed her style over the years.  She originally sang country and has morphed into more of a folk and now a blues style.  This Tiny Desk Concert focuses on her bluesy songs.  I know she’s something of a legend, but I found her demeanor through the whole show off-putting until the end, when she loosened up a bit.

She sings four songs.  “Something Wicked This Way Comes” is rocking blues song.  And I have to say I was pretty shocked by her voice–rough and raspy and sounding not a little hungover.  Her lead guitarist was really the start for me, effortlessly playing some great groovy licks.

For “Cold Day in Hell” (she laughs at saying the title) she straps on an acoustic guitar and then sings like Tom Waits.  That seems like a joke, but the structure of the verses is pure Tom Waits–I would have even suggested he wrote the song.

The third song is the more bluesy “Protection.”  There seems something so inauthentic about this song.  I just don’t believe her rendition of it–I don’t believe that she actually needs protection.  It’s really disconcerting.

She finally smiles after this song and says “Now I’m kinda getting used to this … I’m not a wake yet, that’s what the thing is.  She straps on her guitar and says this is based on the story of the West Memphis Three.  It’ my favorite song of the four–she seems to really get into it.

But all the same, I really don’t like her voice all that much–she’s got a weird drawl and sounds like there are some marbles in her mouth. It’s very strange.  I listened to a bit of a song from a live show from 1989 and her voice was quite pretty–deep, yes, but very pretty.  By 2007, her voice has changed–it’s deeper, with a pronounced drawl.  At a show in 2013, she sounded kind of pretty again.  So, I don’t know what to make of it.  I’ll have to just go back to not listening to her.

[READ: June 8, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974

I really enjoyed this volume a lot.  There were a lot of really funny jokes and the characters are really nicely distributed by now.  I don’t want to say that Schulz hit his stride around this time, because he’s been pretty solid right from the start, but this book was easily my favorite so far.  Possibly because it contained so much of Marcie and Patty who have easily become my favorites.

The year starts off somewhat inauspiciously with the anticlimactic return of Poochie.  She shows up, realizes that Snoopy isn’t a cute puppy anymore and leaves.  Never to be seen again.

More interesting is that Linus decides that since Charlie has been their manager for so long and worked so hard that they ought to throw him a commemorative dinner. They plan it for a couple of weeks and when he finally hears about it, his smile is awesome.  They even get Joe Schlobotnick to agree to come. Of course, then Marcie starts saying that they’d all be hypocrites if they actually showed up and said nice things about him since he’s a terrible manager.  And so they cancel it at the last-minute–while Charlie is there. (more…)

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Lat–Town Boy (1980) [translated 2007]

Posted in #10yearsof01, Art, Beavis and Butthead, College, Comic Strips, Dublin Guitar Quartet, First Second :01, Lat, Parenting, Philip Glass, Religion, Set at School, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, YA Books on September 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

town-boy SOUNDTRACK: DUBLIN GUITAR QUARTET-Tiny Desk Concert #409 (May 15, 2015).

dgqWhen I first listened to this brief concert for some reason I didn’t realize that the quartet were playing Philip Glass.  Of course, once he stated that that’s who they were playing, it became quite obvious–but having Glass played on acoustic guitars instead of synths or violins, is quite an unusual experience.

The music is still rigidly repetitive, but there is a great deal of warmth added with the guitars (and the human element as well).

The Dublin Guitar Quarter has been around since 2002 and they play pretty much only contemporary and new pieces (despite being dressed in suits and playing on “classical” guitars).

They play two pieces, with two and three movements of each piece respectively.  They were originally recorded for strings, so these guitar transcriptions change things quite a lot (especially in Mishima).

The first piece is called “Company.”  They play Movements 2 and 3. What’s most impressive about the first piece is that you can hear all of the musical lines.  Glass often interweaves line up line of music ad you can see each guitarist playing these lines on high guitar notes and low notes while the other play accompaniment–transcribing these must have been a real challenge.

The loud chords are practically heavy metal chords on the guitar as opposed to what the strings might sound like.  And for all of the repetition, these two movements of clock in at less than four-minutes total.

It’s interesting to listen to the original after this and hear how it’s clearly the same piece but it sounds so very different.  From tone to drama, everything is changed.

The final pieces are three movements from Mishima.  In Mvt 3 there is some fast picking while the other three play chords.  It’s also fun to watch them all doing similar but distinct things through the middle of the movement.  This doesn’t have the fast lines that Glass is known for but it has a lot of loud repetitive notes.

What’s so interesting is that original is full of drums–and parts of only drums.  Obviously these aren’t present here, but the music resonates in a similar (but again, distinct) way.

Mt 2 is a slow meditative piece, and is far shorter than the original (which is also full of drums).

The final piece opens with some chords and then grows very beautiful as the Glass riff takes on an almost prog rock feel because of the guitar and the way the bass notes contrast so wonderfully with it.  It is short in this and the original and is great excerpt to listen to.

  • Glass: String Quartet No. 2, “Company,” Mvts. II & III
  • Glass: String Quartet No. 3, “Mishima,” Mvt. III, “1934: Grandmother & Kimitake”
  • Glass: String Quartet No. 3, “Mishima,” Mvt. II, “November 25: Ichigaya”
  • Glass: String Quartet No. 3, “Mishima,” Mvt. XI, “1962: Body Building”

[READ: March 24, 2015] Town Boy

This book was written (and drawn) in 1980.  First Second books had it translated and published in 2007.

I found Lat’s first book, Kampung Boy to be quite charming.  It was about a boy growing up in a small village in Malaysia in the 1950s.  This is the sequel and it is about moving from the village into the town and being a teenager.

This book is a little less episodic than the first.  Most of the story is laid out as text on one page and a drawing on the next.  But the drawings also have speech bubbles, so there’s a lot of different things going on. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1971-1972: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2009)

Posted in Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Birds, Bobby Orr, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Davíd Garza, Easter, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Gaby Moreno, Halloween, Kristin Chenoweth, Letters, Math, Peanuts, Peggy Fleming, Set at School, Singles, Skateboarding, Technology, The Future, Tiny Desk Concert, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown on September 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1971 SOUNDTRACK: DAVÍD GARZA-Tiny Desk Concert #405 (November 15, 2014).

garzaI first heard of Garza back in 1998 with his minor hit “Discoball World.”  I really liked it.  And then I assumed he just went away.  But apparently he didn’t.

The first song, “Texas is My Hometown” is a slow jazzy song about how much he loves Texas.  He sounds like an old-timey crooner, except that he references all kinds of contemporary musicians.

And then he plays “Discoball World.”  It sounds quite different because it’s all acoustic guitar (although his strumming is pretty intense).  I prefer the original, but he’s really intense while singing this version.

He says he was walking around DC and he ran into his favorite singer in the whole world.  Then he invites Gaby Moreno to sing the final song, an old Spanish song their grandparents used to sing.  And indeed, with wonderful flair, he plays a beautiful Spanish guitar.  Gaby sings lead (in Spanish) on the whole song and her voice is really amazing.  She can hold a note for a really long time and then really powers through a loud note.  He does backing ooohss when needed, but Gaby is the star of this song.  Until, that is, he plays some great guitar at the end, very percussive, very powerful.

It’s a good set.

[READ: June 1, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972

I took some time off from my Peanuts reading–I needed a break after fifteen years.  And it was fun to come back to the strip really looking forward to the 1970s.

There seem to be three big consistent ideas in these two years.  Woodstock becomes very prominent, Sally gets to complain about school a lot and Peppermint Patty comes into her own, with strips about her and Chuck, her and Franklin and her and Marcie (who is finally named!).

1971 starts off auspiciously with Charlie saying that this is going to be his year of decision–he’s going to start making changes.  But Lucy interrupts saying that she is going to spend the whole year regretting the past-“Forget the future!” (more…)

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