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Archive for the ‘Consumerism’ Category

Aaron McGruder–Public Enemy #2: An All New Boondocks Collection (2005)

Posted in Aaron McGruder, Barack Obama, Boondocks, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Doonesbury, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Michael Nyman, Poetry, Political Humor, Prison, Q, Racism, Smarty Pants, The Divine Comedy, War, WMDs on December 11, 2008| Leave a Comment »

pe2SOUNDTRACK: THE DIVINE COMEDY-Promenade (1994).

promednade1I heard about The Divine Comedy in the beloved British magazine Q.  I used to get every issue up until about two years ago.  I enjoyed their reviews, and especially enjoyed learning about bands that were under the radar here.  I think the Divine Comedy album that was being talked about was Casanova, but I wound up getting Promenade first.  And once I did, I was hooked.

Promenade is their second album, and it is still my favorite.  It features a musical soundtrack that is similar to Michael Nyman in its electronic/repetitive structure.  Nyman’s The Piano soundtrack came out in 1993, and although Nyman had been writing scores for years, The Piano seems like a pretty close reference point to Hannon’s work.

And yet, despite the “modern” sounding style of the music, the lyrics are old school Britain at its best.  And, Neil Hannon’s voice is truly an old-school croon (it’s almost cheesy, but not quite).  But it’s the words, oh the words, that really sell the disc.

In fact, the song that sold me from the beginning was “The Booklovers,” which is just a list of authors.  Really.  But the list is punctuated with smarty pants allusions to the writers’ works and it’s all wrapped up in a catchy chorus. But that’s not all, each song references literature in some way.

“Bath” opens with an orchestral flourish as a woman, well, bathes. “Going Downhill Fast” is about racing your bike downhill, with my favorite line: “Vacuous vice!/Just once or twice/Thrice/Four times in five we forget we’re alive.” A Seafood Song” and “Geronimo” lead you to the realization that this album is about two young lovers.  First they are having lunch, and then they get caught in a torrential downpour.  “Don’t Look Down” has one of my favorite orchestral pieces as towards the end of the song, the young man on a Ferris Wheel has a discussion with a God “who really ought not to exist” as the music grows more and more tense.

“When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe” is another stellar song that contains a wonderfully building chorus.  “The Summerhouse” is a really nice ballad.  “Neptune’s Daughter” has the story taking a dark turn until the ribald delights of “A Drinking Song.”  This song in particular has been one of my favorites because it is raucous and silly and oh so clever.  It also ends with one of the great couplets in all of drinking songdom: “From the day I was born ’till the night I will die/All my lovers will be pink and elephantine.” It is soon followed by “Tonight We Fly” a propulsive song of the two lovers “flying” over their life together and flying away from everyone.

It’s truly sublime.  I can understand those who don’t like Michael Nyman’s style not really enjoying this disc.  But if you like lyrical wonderment, you must check this out.  Divine Comedy’s next disc “Casanova” removes the Nyman influence but retains the cleverness. By most accounts it is a better album but I still love Promenade.

[READ: January 2008] Public Enemy #2

Sarah bought this collection for me for Christmas last year.  I don’t read a lot of comic strips, but occasionally one pops up on my radar.  I had seen a few Boondocks comics and really liked them.  This is the 2nd to last collection of the strip (I think…some are called treasuries, so I’m not sure what the distinction is). (more…)

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Barack Obama–The Audacity of Hope (2006)

Posted in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Constellation Records, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Digression, Feu Therese, History, Kraftwerk, Le Fly Pan Am, Memoirs, Political Humor, Politicians, Shalibi Effect, Smarty Pants, The Walrus on October 22, 2008| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: FEU THÉRÈSE-Ca Va Cogner [CST049] (2007).

I struggled ever so much over what disc to attach to this book review, thinking that any disc would be seen to have some correlation to Obama.  So, why not just go all out: a Canadian indie band that sings in French!

This is Feu Thérèse’s second disc.  It comes from Constellation records, home of noisy, lengthy, downbeat records.  In fact, Feu Thérèse is chock full of some of the big names in the Montreal underground: Alexandre St-Onge plays with noisy bands like Shalibi Effect and Jonathan Parant comes from noisy bands like Le Fly Pan Am.  So, how did all of these factors possibly unite to make this disc?

Ca Va Cogner sounds like a analog synth party from 1980!  The whole ensemble would be completely and utterly cheesy if the secret ingredient (which I cannot identify) did not make the whole thing work so well.  The whole disc seems to be washed over with these groovy synths. I want to make comparisons to Kraftwerk, but that seems a little too cold.  All of these songs are warm and soft, there’s even a children’s chorus on one of them.  Other songs are instrumental, or have minimal singing.  And “Le Bruit Du Pollen La Nuit” has a wonderfully smutty sounding spoken word track that recalls, of course, Serge Gainsbourg at his naughtiest (although I have no idea what this song is actually about).

I think what saves the disc from just being an 80’s French Europop band is the guitar and bass interplay.  Those two guys take a lot of the sounds that they’ve mastered in their respective bands, and play them beneath all of the synths.  It undercuts the intentional cheesiness of the keyboards with some awesome textures, and really brings everything to a remarkable whole.  This probably won’t be anybody’s favorite disc, but it is very enjoyable, and worth tracking down, especially if you’re a Francophile.

[READ: October 15, 2008] The Audacity of Hope

Since I’ve been for Obama since the beginning, I figured I ought to read his book.  It seemed especially apt now, since the McCain campaign is saying that we don’t “know anything about” Obama. Well, if you read this book, or, I suspect his OTHER autobiography, you could learn quite a bit about him.  Unlike some other people who don’t grant interviews, hmmm.  Okay, I had thought I would be able to review this book without referencing the current campiagn or the upcoming election, but it is simply impossible.  Please deal with my Partisan Review. (more…)

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Ben Schott–Schott’s Miscellany 2008: An Almanac (2007)

Posted in Airlines, Ben Schott, Books about music, Canadian Content, Collecting, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dip-in Books, Ian Hollingshead, King's X, Military, Radio, Religion, Sex, Sports, Technology, Threats, Universities, Violence, War, Wikipedia on October 20, 2008| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KING’S X-Manic Moonlight (2001).

This disc is not terribly popular among the King’s X fans.  A big complaint is that they dared to use drum loops.  It’s kind of a funny complaint because aside from adding a bit of texture (and for some reason, having each song start out with the drum machine), it’s not like they’ve suddenly gone all techno.  In fact, overall the album has a feeling of insular claustrophobia.  It feels like the songs are just densely packed with little room to breathe.

To me, the loops aren’t that odd for a band that’s big into experimentation (although you’ll note they were not used again).  What’s unusual is the addition of funk elements in “Believe,” and some really funky elements in “Vegetable”  There’s also some noisy/crunchy guitar workouts in “Yeah.” This song is also kind of odd as the verses are practically inaudible, but the choruses (which consist of the word “Yeah”) are just so great! Perhaps the most unusual track on the disc is “Skeptical Wind” which comes across as a rhymed/spoken-word piece that references Mia Farrow among other things.

But the title track sounds most like the King’s X we know and love.  In addition, “False Alarm” and “Jenna” are pretty close to the earlier Ty ballads (even though Ty doesn’t sing them).  They contain the harmonies we’re used to, but really they are sort of smothered in all of the surrounding noise.

The album is still full of great songs…the guys never lost their songwriting chops.  It’s just the way the songs are presented that makes them sound so different. It’s an interesting experiment, for which I give them credit, but it really doesn’t showcase the best aspects of the band.

[READ: Throughout 2008] Schott’s Miscellany 2008

In the best case of “but I thought you liked him” ever, Sarah bought me this book for Christmas, certain that I had read and enjoyed other books by him.  Interestingly, I had never heard of him or his books.  But I was very intrigued by the concept of it.

As you might imagine, I enjoy trivia and I like facts.  And for a person like me, this collection is fantastic.  As the subtitle says, it is an almanac; however, unlike the standard almanacs (Information Please, etc.) which are just lists of information.  Ben Schott (could he be the only one who works on this book?) gathers all of the interesting things that happened from September 2006 through August 2007 into interesting, subjective groups, with interesting, subjective names, and then writes about them. (more…)

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Max Barry–“Springtide”, Cory Doctorow–“Other People’s Money”, Warren Ellis–“The Position”, Lowell Yaeger–“Factory”, Michael Bagnulo–“Abstract” (Forbes, October 15, 2007)

Posted in Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Cory Doctorow, Dystopia, End of the World, Forbes, Funny (ha ha), King's X, Lowell Yaeger, Max Barry, Michael Bagnulo, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Short Story, Technology, Thin Lizzy, Warren Ellis on September 25, 2008| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: KING’S X-Ear Candy (1996).

I think of Ear Candy as King’s X most upbeat record musically. Even the cover is upbeat!  It’s their first cover in ages which isn’t dark and forbidding.  It actually has a white border!  And of course, it’s hard to miss the psychedelic, brightly colored scarab beetle.

And the music matches the cover really well.  The opener, “The Train” is a catchy bit of near psychedelic rock which brings Ty’s vocal to the front.  It seems to set the tone for the rest of the album.  Even “Picture” contains a simple guitar riff reminiscent of the joy of Out of the Silent Planet.

I’m jumping down to “Mississippi Moon,” one of their supremely pretty songs ala “Goldilox.”  It’s more of a bluesy ballad, but the chorus is just amazing.

“A Box” continues the loveliness from the beginning of the album.  Its message, that there’s no room inside a box, seems to apply to the band’s more claustrophobic sounds as of late.  But lest you think they’ve gone soft, “Looking for Love” is a fabulous rocker, which makes me think of Thin Lizzy. 

Ear Candy also features “American Cheese (Jerry’s Pianto)” a rare track with Jerry Gatskill on lead vocals.  It contains the most Beatlesque sounds of a band that is full of Beatlesque sounds.  This one maintains a great deal more psychedelia than previous songs.  It’s not prog rock by any means, it’s just straight up psychedelia.

Lyrically, Doug opens up about his loss of faith; “Run” addresses it directly: “Yeah she told me, that if I wasn’t good He would get me, make me pay for everything I did, and she said that everybody bad would burn in Hell. I did what she told me and I became someone else.”

Despite the negative feelings in the above song, musically the album is very positive: a lot of the distorted riffs are toned down, and the album feels less angry.  I think this disappoints some of the band’s fans, but it retains such authentic King’s X sounds that it’s hard to argue with it.

[READ: September 5, 2008] “Springtide,” “Other People’s Money,” “The Position” “Factory” & “Abstract”.

In 2007, Forbes magazine asked five authors to write about this scenario: “It’s the year 2027, and the world is undergoing a global financial crisis. The scene is an American workplace.” I discovered these stories when I was looking up some information about Max Barry (I had just read Company). I was surprised to see that the stories were in Forbes, but whatever.  When I saw that there were five authors given the assignment I decided to try all five. (more…)

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Jeffrey Eugenides–“Great Experiment” (New Yorker, March 31, 2008)

Posted in Alexis de Tocqueville, Books about writers, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Garbage, Jeffrey Eugenides, Mary Margaret O'Hara, New Yorker, Political Humor, Record Labels, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion, Smarty Pants, Vic Chesnutt on September 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: VIC CHESNUTT-North Star Deserter [CST046] (2007).

The only thing I knew about Vic Chesnutt before this CD was that he was the songwriter for a benefit CD called Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation (1996).  I bought it mostly for Garbage’s “Kick My Ass” and Mary Margaret O’Hara’s “Florida”, not for Chesnutt, who I’d not heard of before then.  Usually if you get a CD of covers of an artist that you like, it’s hard to remove the cover from the original.  An album of covers by someone you don’t know is much easier to parse.

I got North Star Deserter because I’m a fan of the Constellation record label based in Montreal. They’ve released some great stuff over the years.  Recently, they’ve diversified their lineup to include some unexpected artists.  Like Vic Chesnutt.

The basic sound of this CD comes in two ways: acoustic guitar with world-weary singer,  and acoustic guitar with world-weary singer and the baking cacophony of what is essentially Thee Silver Mt Zion Orchestra and Tra La La Band.  It works surprisingly well.

The first song starts out with basically just Vic and his guitar.  He sings in a raspy weathered voice.  It’s a short acoustic song full of passion.  What threw me off here is that you expect that the whole album will be like this: short, passionate, acoustic songs.  The really unexpected part comes with song three, “Everything I Say,” when the backing band kicks in loud and hard.  Silver Mt Zion, for those unfamiliar are an offshoot of sorts from Godspeed You Black Emperor.  They have a great variety of instruments in the group, and much like Godspeed… they play grand, sweeping orchestral works. Unlike Godspeed, they have vocals.  And while backing Vic, they pull out all of the stops: cellos, contrebass, choruses, Casio keyboards, the works.

Perhaps my favorite song of the bunch is “You Are Never Alone.”  The premise is simple: Vic sings some very stark verses (“It’s OK, you can take a condom; It’s OK, you can get an abortion; It’s OK, you can get a quadruple bypass and then keep on, keeping on.”), and then the chorus slowly builds with first the men, then the women harmonizing and then finally everyone singing beautifully “You Are Never Alone.”  It’s 5 minutes of mesmerizing beauty.

And the rest of the album continues in a similar vein: stark, humanizing lyrics and alternating spare guitar or great swells of music.

Overall, I feel like the album runs a little long (or maybe it’s just exhausting to listen to).  But I can’t think of anything to get rid of; the two longest songs are actually two songs that I really like.  “Splendid” is a slow building song, where you don’t realize that 5 minutes have already gone past.  And then there’s “Debriefing.”  The first two minutes are noisy and brash, they settle down into a short sparse verse and then crash away for two more minutes.  Off and on like that for 8 minutes.  Cathartic to say the least.

The strangest thing for me is that I find Vic’s voice to be similar in tone and style to Matthew Sweet. There’s a few songs where you might even think that it’s Matthew Sweet singing.  But this Matthew Sweet sounds not like the pop singer of “Girlfriend” but like a man who has been beaten down by life for a little while.  It’s a voice that you instantly listen to to see if you can learn anything.

I’m not sure if this will make me get any more Chesnutt discs, but I’m glad I got this one.

[READ: September 15, 2008] “Great Experiment”

Jeffrey Eugenides wrote The Virgin Suicides, a great book notable for its use of first person plural narrator (!).  He also wrote Middlesex, which is on my bedside right now (and which I learned today was an Oprah pick).  But in the interim I just read this short story.  It’s my only exposure to Eugenides aside from Virgin Suicides, so it’s a nice change.

This story centers around Kendall, an over-educated, hyper-literate poet who is making a living working for a non-profit company.  This particular non-profit was founded by Jimmy Dimon, a former porn king who apparently grew a heart and decided to publish great books at a loss.  Kendall’s current assignment is to edit down Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America‘s most cogent ideas into a small pocket version called Pocket Democracy. (more…)

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Will Ferguson–Why I Hate Canadians (1997)

Posted in 19th Century, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corner Gas, Corporate skewering, Craig Northey, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), History, Memoirs, Mike Bullard, Northey Valenzuela, Odds, Political Humor, The New Odds, War, Wikipedia, Will Ferguson on September 24, 2008| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THE NEW ODDS-Cheerleader (2008).

Craig Northey, singer of the Odds has written some great songs by himself and with a slew of other projects.  But most notably, he did the theme songs (opening and closing) for Corner Gas.  At last, “My Happy Place” the Closing Credits song has now been released on this disc by The New Odds.  (The Opening Credits song “Not a Lot Goin On” is available on the disc that Northey made with Jesse Valenzuela, cleverly titled Northey Valenzuela.  I mention Corner Gas aside from the fact that it’s a great show, because I mention it in the book write up below as well.  But back to the Odds.

The Odds had a minor hit in 1993 with “Heterosexual Man” (which we all thought was hilarious).  I didn’t really think much about them until my friend Amber from Vancouver sent me a tape of Bedbugs.  I was surprised how much I liked it and how, although the band was funny, they weren’t a novelty act at all.

I’ve enjoyed the Odds very much since then, they’ve appeared on a number of soundtracks, and released four solid albums, especially 1996’s Nest.

The New Odds are, as you might guess, the Odds, only new.  3 of the 4 original members are back, and aside from updating their sound to the twenty-first century, the band isn’t radically different. They play what used to be called college music, but which really is more or less alternative or even just rock music.

As with previous Northey output, the lyrics are witty and clever, with some wordplay in evidence.  There’s a pretty diverse collection of sounds on the record, yet they all stay within the range of alternative guitar pop.  One or two songs rock harder than the others, “Leaders of the Undersea World” sounds like a dose of heavy metal in comparison to the rest of the record.  “Write it in Lightning” is also a pretty good song, and “I Can’t Get You Off” has a wonderfully catchy hook to it.

Northey’s voice is easily described as inoffensive, and the music is catchy but not stick-in-your-head catchy.  It’s not a ringing endorsement, but it’s also not a put-down.  Like meat and potatoes, it’s a good staple to any alternative fans’ collection.

[READ: August 28, 2008] Why I Hate Canadians

I bought this book several years ago, probably in 2000, when I was visiting Montreal.  I remember being very excited to visit Chapters and to see what kind of books they had that weren’t available down south.  I was especially interested in the humor section as I had just started watching Mike Bullard, and I knew he wasn’t available in the States.  I found Bullard’s book as well as two books about Canada by the Fergusons. Why it took me 8 years to read them, I don’t know.

This book is listed as a humour book; the copyright page has it listed as 1. Canada-Humor 2. Canadian wit and humor (English).  But the thing is that the book isn’t very funny.   Even with an outrageous title like that, it’s not very funny.  It is however, a fantastic introduction to the history of Canada written in a style that is (yes) funnier than your average textbook.

DIGRESSION: I will state that I realize that Will Ferguson has a perspective, and quite often he’s very vocal about his perspective.  Most good history is written with an acknowledged bias–trying to hide your bias makes for dull (or hypocritical) history.  So, Ferguson’s history of Canada may not be Accurate, (especially if you are a Quebecois) and of course, I’d be interested to hear from those who disagree with him; however, to an American who is not well versed in the history of Canada, it was pretty enlightening. (more…)

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Gary Shteyngart–Absurdistan (2006)

Posted in Anya Ulinich, Black Sabbath, C.S. Lewis, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dystopia, Funny (ha ha), Gary Shteyngart, King's X, Meta, Military, Religion, Russia, Sex, The Beatles, Violence, War on September 5, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KING’S X: Out of the Silent Planet (1988).

I just got the newest King’s X CD XV a little while ago, and I really liked it.  I figured I’d go back to the beginning and see how much they’ve changed over the last twenty (!) years.

When I first heard Out of the Silent Planet, I was blown away.  I had never heard anything quite like it.  It had heavy heavy bass (I always said it was like Black Sabbath, but that’s not really accurate), but they also had beautiful harmonies like late-period Beatles.  Add to that Doug Pinnick’s amazing gospel/soulful voice.  And top it off with some great acoustic guitar playing and unusual instruments.  Amazing. The heaviness is more of a dissonant sound that has become more popular in the last few years: complex chords that are played very heavily.   I wouldn’t say that King’s X had anything to do with that popularity, but I heard it from them before I heard others do it.

The one thing that really struck me about the album was just how dissonant some of those chords are. I always think back on the album, which I’ve listened to hundreds of times, as being sweetly harmonic, and yet really the chords are quite aggressive.  And the riffs are in a dark, minor key.  Which is why those beautiful harmonies make such an impression.

The other thing that really struck me was how religious the record is.  Now, when it first came out I didn’t really think of the religious aspects of the disc.  There really weren’t any Christian metal bands back then, (except for Stryper) at least not on the cultural radar, and they didn’t proclaim their religiosity overtly, so I just didn’t see it.

But starting from the title: Out of the Silent Planet is a book by C.S. Lewis (of Narnia fame).  And much as Narnia is a thinly veiled Christian allegory, so is Out of the Silent Planet.  You can read Narnia and not see the Christianity in it, but once you know its there, it’s unavoidable.  Same with this album.  The lyrics are not overtly Christian, but there’s enough symbolism to tell that when he sings about You, it’s not romance, but God he’s singing about.  A verse like “Sometimes my cup is empty; I wish that it stay full; cause I am always thirsty; I can’t get enough of you” can be secular or religious depending on your point of view, and I think that makes the album great.

Plus, it’s got the fantastic “Goldilox” a beautiful song, no qualifications needed.  It’s a gorgeous ballad.  but lest you think that it’s all sweetness, the album closer “Visions” ends with an unqualified thrash out…which comes after the song should end properly.  Ty Tabor’s guitar work is pretty amazing.

Wow, it’s a great album.

[READ: maybe December 2006/January 2007] Absurdistan.

I read this book a couple years ago, certainly before I started keeping this blog, but while I was working at the library.  My memory of it was fuzzy.  But when I referenced it in the Petropolis write up I was sorry that I hadn’t written about it.  As I’m reading the details of the book in a book review, much of it is flooding back, so I feel comfortable saying a few words about it.  Plus, I just did a fascinating thing: I skimmed the book for details.  It was fun to “read” this entire book in about two hours.  I got lots of great details, remembered parts of it, and enjoyed re-reading some of the funnier parts. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Player Piano (1952)

Posted in Consumerism, Dystopia, Funny (ha ha), Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage Trouble, Technology, Universities, Yo La Tengo on August 30, 2008| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: YO LA TENGO-I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (2006).

I’ve liked Yo La Tengo for a really long time.  And not only because they’re from Hoboken and play Maxwell’s pretty much every week.  I wouldn’t call them a favorite band, but most of their singles from the 1990s are some of my favorite songs.  I find that they don’t really release great albums, and they don’t really release bad songs: they release great songs and good songs, and their albums are made up of some combination of these.

The great title of this album, is something of a misnomer, as you might expect a riled up and raucous record.  And the first song, the nearly 11 minute squealing guitar rave-up “Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind” goes along with that premise.  But some of the middle songs like the piano ballad “I Feel Like Going Home” and the 8 minute instrumental ballad “Daphnia” are mellow, and rather pretty.  In fact, the album is kind of all over the place.  Some songs really stand out: “Mr Tough” and the long opener and closer are really great.  The middle is a bunch of solid, well-crafted songs.  For some reason, not too much left an impression on me, even though I enjoyed the disc while I was listening to it.

[READ: July 18, 2008] Player Piano

When Kurt Vonnegut died, I made a note to myself to read more, if not all, of his books. I had read Slaughterhouse Five and Time Quake maybe one or two others, but I figured I’d make the effort and start from the beginning.

Player Piano was his first book. And what a way to start. The time is the future, after the next war; the second industrial revolution. Machines now do most of the work that people used to do. In fact, machines now determine what job you are allowed to do. If your IQ is tested high enough, you can become an engineer (or manager) of the machines. If not, you get assigned to the Reeks and Wrecks: Reconstruction & Reclamation Corps, or basically, manual labor: fixing the roads and other maintenance projects. It imagines a future in which machines can do everything. And, it’s pretty horrible. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #28 (2008)

Posted in Art, Austin City Limits, Children's Books, Consumerism, Fables, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), McSweeney's, My Morning Jacket, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sarah Manguso on August 27, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET-Evil Urges (2008).

Looking back, I see that My Morning Jacket is the first band that I talked about.  And I also see that I didn’t say anything about the CD.  Which was not a criticism, it was just something I hadn’t realized I’d be doing yet.  Well, now let’s make up for it with the review of their latest album, Evil Urges.

Their live album Okonokos was my first introduction to MMJ (after seeing them live on the PBS show Austin City Limits, which blew me away).  This is my first listen to a studio record from them and I can’t say enough about it.  I’ve been listening to it in the house all the time.  What’s so impressive about Evil Urges is the utter diversity it contains, yet it also sounds unmistakably MMJ.  I’m sure this is mostly due to Jim James’ voice, but I think it goes beyond that.

Quite a large majority of the album feels like, as Sarah said, songs her parents used to listen to back in the 1970s.  And I can’t help but agree. The middle songs “Thank You, Too!” “Sec Walkin'” and “Two Halves” sound very much like treacly 70s AM radio, and yet, none of these songs sounds treacly, and…they all maintain enough of a contemporary feel that they don’t seem retro at all.  How do you make a retro song without it sounding retro?

But really, the whole album is fantastic.  “Evil Urges” is a funky opening, which segues into the almost unbelievably smooth sounding “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt 1.”  This is followed by the most controversial song of the collection: “Highly Suspicious.”   I’ve read a lot of reviews in which they deplore this song.  It’s unlike anything else on the record: a heavy, fuzzed out, staccato guitar riff with the chant of “Highly Suspicious” and Jim James singing some lines in an insanely high falsetto.  It seems to devolve into just shrieks of laughter by the end.  When I first heard it, I found it somewhat unsettling, and it really doesn’t fit the album at all; however, it is the song I find myself singing the most from the album. It’s a truly unforgettable song.  And, of course, I like it.

“Librarian” is a lovely, if somewhat outdated and cliched look at librarians (hey, I have to say it, I’m a librarian) but it’s ultimately a sweet, beautiful song about libraries and their employees.  And “Look at You” finishes up the “soft” portion of the record.  There’s about 6 of these soft/mellow songs and if “Look at You” wasn’t such a great singalong of a song, it would be one song too many, because of the anticipation of the rocking follow up: “Aluminum Park.”  I have no idea what its about, but the guitar riff is spectacular, and it brings a great change of pace to the record.  We finish up with two more heavier songs, and the penultimate song “Touch Me, I’m Going to Scream, Pt 2.”  This doesn’t reprise the opening song, but rather adds a new dimension to it.  It winds up being about 8 minutes long because the end just… keeps… getting…… slower……… and……… slow………. er……… AHHHHHHH!

Overall, a great album.  I always assumed I’d get Z someday, but since almost the whole record was recorded live for Okonokos, I never did.  I’m glad that Evil Urges has rekindled my MMJ fix. And Z will be coming soon.

[READ: August 23, 2008] McSweeney’s #28

McSweeney’s #28 is a beautiful creation to behold.  It is designed as 8 separate small volumes.  Two sets of four volumes are placed in a cardboard box (with no top).  They are held in with an elastic ribbon.  When all four are placed in correctly (with their backs face out) they create a beautiful painting.  The next four are held in with the same ribbon to create two paintings on top of each other…suitable for mounting! (well, not really, but it would look very nice face out on the shelf.)

Danica Novgorodoff painted the two beautiful puzzle pieces that make up the back covers of the books.  One (comprised of the books marked with *) is a predominantly yellow painting of a girl huddled in the woods.  The second is of coal miners working in the dark.  Both are evocative in very different ways.

There’s an introductory essay in the bottom of the “box.”  The essay was written by Jess Benjamin, a one-time intern at McSweeney’s, whose idea it was to create this volume.  Her idea was to showcase fables because:

Once upon a time, there was a simple, straightforward way of telling a story.  It was known as a fable.  All you needed were some talking animals, a human or two, a moral take-away, and a pithy delivery.  Space out the text, include some colorful illustrations, and you were in business….

The power of the fable lies in its ability to say what it means and mean what it says.  Its messages are compelling because they are not hidden, elegant because they are uncluttered, timeless because they are honest.  A fable does not discriminate; a fable loves everyone equally….

And, so, what we have is 8 volumes of fables.  Each volume is written by a different author.  And, each volume has illustrations (by different artists) on just about every other page.   As with all fables, each one is short and teaches a moral.  These are by contemporary authors and have a more contemporary, yet still globally applicable message.

Overall, this issue is light on words, but it more than makes up for it in illustrations and morals. (more…)

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Anya Ulinich–Petropolis (2008)

Posted in Anya Ulinich, Art, Coheed & Cambria, Consumerism, Dystopia, Foreign Books, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Marriage Trouble, NPR/PRI/PBS, Russia on August 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: COHEED & CAMBRIA-In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003).

I had recently reviewed Co&Ca’s Good Apollo… CD which is the part that comes right after this one. I have yet to hear the one that comes before this one (I’m being vague about the numbering since the first album is called …2, the second one is this one (3), the third one is IV, Vol. 1 and the fourth is IV, Vol. 2.  I understand that Part 1 will come out later as the fifth album, so…try to keep it all straight, okay!

Anyhow, as I said, my only exposure to Co&Ca was Vol. IV, Part 1, an album I enjoyed very much, with its combination of metal, prog rock, guitar wailing, and catchy emo-like lyrics.  This record was slightly less enjoyable for me.  I almost feel like they really perfected their sound with IV, and on this one they were still playing around with a suitable style.

There’s something a little tentative about this album overall, and perhaps its not fair to have listened to IV before 3, but that’s what I did.  There are a couple of slower ballads on this one which suit Claudio Sanchez’ voice really well.  But overall, this one seems to be a bit heavier, but also less catchy and less prog rockish….and yet there are elements of both here.  It just feels like they weren’t quite ready to blow our minds yet.

I still have yet to figure out what the story is about. This is mostly my fault as I haven’t had a chance to really peruse the lyrics (and his voice is high enough that it’s not always apparent what he’s saying).  But I gather that it is still a pretty violent story (there’s even a disclaimer at the end of one song to not take it literally, as it’s only a story).

Despite my less than stellar rating, I’m still intrigued enough to get the whole series.  I can’t decide whether to go back to 2 or forward to IV Part 2 next….

[READ: August 5, 2008] Petropolis

I picked up this book based solely upon the cover and title.  I saw the graphic way that Petropolis was written, and I assumed that it has something to do with gas, (petrol-opolis).  Which sounded funny.  Well, my instincts were utterly wrong.  It had nothing to do with that, and while it was a little funny, it was not anything like what I was expecting (some sort of dystopia ala Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan.)

This is the story of Sasha Goldberg, a young girl growing up in the unbelievably named town of Asbestos 2 in Siberia, Russia.  (more…)

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