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Archive for the ‘Consumerism’ Category

Millard Kaufman–Bowl of Cherries (2007)

Posted in Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Consumerism, Diamanda Galas, Egyptology, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Geraldine Fibbers, Godspeed You Black Emperor, McSweeney's, Millard Kaufman, Silver Mt. Zion, WMDs on March 15, 2008| 5 Comments »

bowl.jpgSOUNDTRACK: CARLA BOZULICH-Evangelista [CST041] (2007).

carla.jpgThis record comes from the mighty Constellation label. Don and Ian are super nice guys in Montreal who release some fantastic music. I have been a fan for years, and I have all of their releases. I get them sight unheard, because I know they release good, quality music with great packaging. They came to my attention through Godspeed You Black Emperor, a fantastic instrumental band, and their spinoffs (A Silver Mt. Zion, etc.).

Initially, they released pretty much only bands that had connections to each other (to see who plays on each others’ records, you’d need a spreadsheet about ten pages long). They have since branched out to include some really notable musicians like Vic Chesnutt (!) and Carla Bozulich.

Carla Bozulich was the singer for the great band The Geraldine Fibbers. gfib.jpg She has a very strong voice, and sounds not unlike Diamanda Galas, meaning she can hit the high notes, and the powerful notes, and the screechy notes, and tends to be a bit scary from time to time. In the context of the Geraldine Fibbers, it was really an amazing thing to behold.

They were a sort of country-punk band, and they were really tight. Carla’s vocals could scream or soothe depending on her mood. And working together, they were pretty great.

I mention this band because Carla’s solo album is a little too free-form for her own good. She thanks the producers for letting her get out things that have been inside. And I’m sure that was cathartic. However, I find that her voice needs the stabilizing force of a solid backing band. This solo album has very erratic (and very interesting) music, but when combined with her voice, it’s just a little too much chaos. With the Fibbers, the grounding of the backing band and structured songs really made her voice shine. On this one, there’s just so much going on that it’s all a bit of a mess.

The music itself is actually pretty great. It’s very unusual, with strings, and staccato sounds. Her voice also sounds great. After all, it’s been a few years since the Fibbers broke up, so it’s nice that she can still hit the notes. It’s just that the off-kilter music really competes with her off-kilter voice leading to an overall unsatisfying experience.

She has a new one coming out with a full band called Evangelista. I’ve listened through once, and it sounds much more cohesive. I think the solo record was just something to get out of her system.

[READ: March 10, 2008] Bowl of Cherries

McSweeney’s published this book. And the only story behind this book that you may have heard is that the author is old. Really old, not just old for McSweeney’s old, but like nineties old. It’s something of a shame that this was the first (and pretty much only) thing I heard about this book. And yet it is an interesting background in and of itself. (more…)

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Rudolph Delson–Maynard and Jennica (2007)

Posted in Aerosmith, Consumerism, Funny (ha ha), Rudolph Delson, Scranton, PA on February 11, 2008| Leave a Comment »

maynard.jpgSOUNDTRACK: MONSTER MAGNET-4 Way Diablo (2007).

4way.jpgMy friend Matt and I saw Monster Magnet open for Aerosmith in Scranton, Pa many many moons ago. We had never heard of them, but were really impressed by their set. I especially enjoyed the song he introduced as “I Know Life’s a Bummer, Baby, But That’s Got Precious Little to Do with Me.” (Fact is, I was sold by the title alone). This song would of course be “Bummer” from the Powertrip album. That album became the soundtrack of our summer.

Evidently Dave Wyndorf, the singer, had a life threatening drug overdose not too long ago, and, much to my delight, came back from his experience pretty well unchanged, at least as far as his lyrics go. He’s still out in space, with a cock made of vinyl, amongst other fascinating details. Although perhaps the most fascinating thing for me was to find that he’s over 50 years old. Whoo hoo indeed!

This new album rocks just as hard, is just as trippy as the last few records (the first few ones were actually more trippy and less metal) and still really really catchy. There must be something in the water in beautiful Red Bank, NJ, because Wyndorf knows how to crank out a stellar album. It took me until 2008 to get this record, even though it’s a 2007 release, but I would say it was one of the best of 2007. Even the instrumental “Freeze and Pixillate” is fantastic. It comes near the end of the album and seems to revitalize it, as the three tracks that follow are some of the best on the disc.

So, really, how to describe the record? It’s a metal record for its bass heavy sensibilities, but it also grooves really well, and probably just falls into a heavy rock category more than metal. (And they cover a Rolling Stones song “2000 Light Years from Home,” so that shows you some of their influences, anyhow). They’re often referred to as stoner metal, and that’s probably got to do with the weird lyrics he writes: “Like a stone God, I drink from the moon.” Probably the real selling point of the band, though, is Wyndorf’s voice. He doesn’t scream, although he can from time to time, but he’s got a great mellow singing voice; even when the music is fast and furious, his voice remains calm and, okay, I admit, sorta stoned.

There’s really not a bad song on the record, and even though none could match the majesty of “Bummer” I’ve been listening to it over and over again.

[READ: January 10, 2008] Maynard and Jennica.

I saw an ad for this book in The Believer. This was the first time The Believer had accepted ads, and they promised the ads would be for books we would find interesting. At this point, the ads have been only for books, and I have in fact read several of them already. But at the time of the ad for Maynard and Jennica, I wasn’t sure what I thought about them doing ads. Well, I am now all for it. Maynard and Jennica was a great, great read. (more…)

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Roger Thorpe–Glove Pond (2007)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cancer as plot device, Consumerism, Douglas Coupland, Edward Albee, Marriage Trouble, Roger Thorpe, Short Books on December 14, 2007| 3 Comments »

glove.jpgthorpe.jpgSOUNDTRACK: BARENAKED LADIES-Gordon (1992) & Maybe You Should Drive (1994).

I first learned about Barenaked Ladies from a friend of a friend in college, whose name I don’t remember. Oh, and the original friend (whose name I do remember) I’ve lost touch with. So BNL outlasted all of them.

This fellow described them as being very funny and no doubt alluded to “If I Had $1,000,000” and “Be My Yoko Ono.” Now, I enjoy funny songs, so I figured I had to check them out. I was initially disappointed with Gordon because it’s not really funny. It’s definitely a light-hearted album with some funny lines in songs, but it’s not comedy rock. Of course, any band of 5 guys who call themselves “Barenaked Ladies” is not going to be serious, right?I have since grown to appreciate the vast difference between comedy rock and witty, funny songs. (Usually, you have more tolerance for the witty, funny songs. Or at least I do.)

As of this writing, I’ve seen BNL live about five times. Their stage shows are really great. I was able to see them just before they got huge (with the release of “One Week”) and, of course, right afterwards, when their audience became surprisingly filled with frat boys.

After “One Week” BNL was pretty much written off as a one-hit wonder novelty band, a tag they have been labeled with for pretty much their whole career, which would probably be weird, if they didn’t seem to embrace it so well.

BNL recently switched to releasing their own records (before Radiohead did their grand experiment–even if it wasn’t quite as grand as Radiohead’s downloadable disc), so I thought I’d review their oeuvre and see if they’ve changed much. I felt that their recent records were a bit too mellow for these guys, but I was surprised at what I found upon re-listening.

gordon.jpgGordon.
It’s funny to hear how almost two-dimensional the sound of this record is. As the band progressed, their sound got a lot fuller, and Jim Greeggan’s bass really began to stand out. But on Gordon, it’s a rather tinny affair. Many of the songs are witty, if not funny, and they are not afraid to skewer (comparatively easy) targets (New Kids on the Block, Yoko Ono).

There are of course the funny songs (“Grade 9” with a great Rush shout-out , “$1,000,000” of course). But what is surprising is the depth of some of the tracks; beautiful ballads of lost love, which is quite a theme of the band.

And, lest we forget, the melodies and harmonies are top-notch, something which elevates them above the “novelty” tag. There’s a couple of clunkers in the set, which tend to be a few mellow tracks where the melody just sort of drifts into the ether (perhaps a stab at adulthood) but overall Gordon is a keeper. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–The Gum Thief (2007)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Digression, Douglas Coupland, Edward Albee, Epistolary Novel, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Marriage Trouble, Meta, Tom Petty, Unreliable narrator on December 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »

gum.jpgSOUNDTRACK: TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS-Anthology: Through the Years (2000).

petty.jpgTo me, Tom Petty suffers more than anyone else from egregious overexposure. I’m not sure if it’s just me who feels that way, but in my experience, “Free Fallin'” was utterly inescapable for what seemed like an eternity. And, geez, his mug was all over MTV when that album came out. It got so bad that I simply decided I was done with him.

Well, as it turns out, Sarah is a fan, so I decided to get her a greatest hits for her birthday. We’ve listened to it a few times, and it made me remember that, hey! I used to like this guy. In fact, disc one of this set is pretty darn great. There are about three songs that I didn’t recognize immediately, but otherwise I was singing along to all of his old classics.

There’s a great memory from Fast Times at Ridgemont High with “American Girl,” And there’s some songs that I forgot about like “Breakdown” and “Refugee.” However, I feel that the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks duet “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” was the original overexposure video on MTV. I can’t decide how many times I saw that video when I was a young’un watching MTV in its nascent years. It was so ubiquitous that even Weird Al made a parody of it on his first album called “Stop Dragging My Car Around” (which was not terribly inspired, really).

Through much of the post-Dylan years people were described as the “next Dylan.” What really struck me, re-listening to Tom Petty is that, he seems to have misunderstood that they were speaking about his lyrics, not his voice. It’s bizarre how Dylanesque he sounds, especially on “Breakdown,” If not Dylanesque necessarily, he is at least very idiosyncratic in a way that Dylan made commercial.

Even the second disc (the overexposed era) holds up pretty well, and now, seventeen (!) years later, I can sing along to “Free Fallin'” without cringing. See that, Tom, all I needed was a decade away and now we can hang out again.

[READ: December 10, 2007] The Gum Thief.

An unusual title, The Gum Thief.

I’ve enjoyed Coupland’s work for many years now (see the JPod review), and I’m always excited to see a new book come out. I opted for the autographed box set from amazon.ca which actually turned out be pretty cheap at the time I ordered it. The box set contains Roger Thorpe’s book Glove Pond, (which will make sense in a few paragraphs) which I will be reviewing shortly.

[DIGRESSION]: Incidentally, amazon.ca is THE source for imported items from England. Most of the time, the imports on amazon.com are really expensive. But the retail price on amazon.ca for British imports is usually quite good. (This was even more true before the looney reached parity with our dollar…the exchange rate for awhile was practically half off list price!)

Back to The Gum Thief.

This is what’s called an epistolary novel, meaning it is written as a series of letters. This book varies the premise somewhat by having the letters written to each other in a diary. But it is not a series of diary entries; rather, Bethany discovers Roger’s diary and begins writing responses to his entries in it. It’s a very interesting conceit, and it plays very nicely with these characters, both of whom are completely antisocial. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Roger is an alcoholic, divorced father whose life has been generally going downhill; he more or less bottomed out with a job at a Vancouver Staples. Bethany is a post-high school goth whose life is stalling while she works at the same Vancouver Staples. Roger begins the book with some diary exercises in which he tries to get into the mind of Bethany. Bethany discovers the entries and is appalled and flattered at the same time. She writes back to Roger, telling him what he got right, but also emphatically insisting that they never acknowledge each other outside of the diary.

What Roger’s diary also contains is the beginning of his novel: Glove Pond. The box set I bought contains Glove Pond as a separate item as well, and I’ll review that next. But for now, I can say that Glove Pond is basically Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in tone, mannerism and setup. [I rather hope this will get people to read the great Albee play]. It is about an older, long-married couple (he is a writer) who inadvertently invite a young, newly-married couple (he is a writer) over for dinner. The angry resentment between youth and age, success and failure and so many other things brews up into a heady mixture of Scotch and insults.

What makes the story even more meta- is that Kyle, the young writer in Glove Pond is writing his new novel, about an old, drunken man who works in an office superstore.

Surrounding the chapters of Glove Pond are the actual letters of the story. Primarily they are between Roger and Bethany, but they also include some correspondence with Bethany’s mom (whom Roger knew in high school), and, in a break from the “in Roger’s diary” aspect, some letters between other co-workers (who also discover Glove Pond, and do not share Bethany’s (genuine) enthusiasm for it).

Aside from all of the intricacies of the make-up of the story, what about the narrative? Well, the story is basically about a young girl–whose life had been full of close people dying–connecting to a frankly pathetic father-figure (but her own father is also out of the picture, so it’s understandable). It is at times very sad, especially as you watch these characters shut themselves down internally and externally.

Ultimately, Bethany tries to make a bold move outside of Staples, a risk that she didn’t think she was capable of. And Roger sets his sights on accomplishing at least one thing in his life, namely, finishing a book. You watch these characters slowly come alive until the last chapter, in which the meta- world comes crashing in on Roger and makes you rethink a lot of what you have just read.

As with most Coupland, the pop culture references, and corporate skewering, are fast and furious. And, as with most Coupland, just when you think the novel is going to be light and funny, weighty themes are opened and genuine sadness falls over these seemingly frozen people. What I think is particularly cool about this book is the way he is able to take a somewhat detached literary style like the epistolary novel and imbue some real passion into these shells of human beings. Obviously, diary entries tend to reveal impassioned thoughts by the writer, but in a series of letters written to two people who are not wooing each other, one wouldn’t expect high emotion. And yet it comes out, and it comes across very naturally.

And, as it turns out, stealing gum does play a pretty big role in both the novel and the novel within the novel, so the title does make sense.

Oh, and there’s also some cool videos available from Random House Canada. They are promotional shorts for The Gum Thief, and they’re available at Coupland’s My Space page as well as on You Tube, which is funny given the You Tube references in the book.

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Lawrence Weschler–Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences (2006)

Posted in Consumerism, Dystopia, Funny (strange), Lawrence Weschler, McSweeney's, New Yorker, Paul Quarrington, Rheostatics, Technology on December 8, 2007| 5 Comments »

everything.jpgSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Whale Music [Soundtrack] (1994) & Music Inspired by the Group of 7 (1995).

As I understand it, The Rheostatics read a great book by Paul Quarrington called Whale Music whalebook.jpg and then decided to name their new album Whale Music. (The follow up to Melville…they definitely have a nautical theme in their early records). Their awesome song “Claire,” is co-written by Quarrinton (I think some of the lyrics for the song were in the book). So, a few years go by, and a movie is made of Whale Music (which is basically a fictionalized story of a Brian Wilson-esque musical genius-recluse).

Obviously, “Claire” is going to be in the movie (there’s a character named Clarie, you see), so why not just have the Rheos do the entire soundtrack? Thus, the Rheos now have TWO records called Whale Music. Fascinating, no?

whale.jpgWhale Music [Soundtrack] (1994)
The soundtrack is very soundtracky–largely instrumental mood pieces, and two slightly different takes on ‘Claire’. Overall while it’s really dynamite to listen to, especially while reading, it’s really for Rheos diehards. (more…)

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Brock Clarke–An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (2007)

Posted in Books about writers, Boston, MA, Brock Clarke, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Marillion, Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Meta, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator on September 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »

arson.jpgSOUNDTRACK: MARILLION-Fugazi (1984).

fugazi.jpgAh, the delights of Marillion. My best friend in high school, Al, got me into Marillion. And he started me off with this record. As such, I can’t imagine how I could realistically critique it. I must have listened to this thing hundreds of times at this point. I also got into the other Marillion albums (until the theatrical madman and lead singer, Fish, departed). I did get one post-Fish album, Season’s End, but didn’t think too much of it. Although I still regard them highly, and anyone who names an album Anoraknaphobia is still alright in my book, I haven’t heard a note of anything post-Season’s End.

Fugazi, on the other hand is still fantastic after all these years. Fish’s lyrics are often bitter, but always eloquent. (more…)

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Jasper Fforde–First Among Sequels [Book 5] (2007)

Posted in Adventure, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Digression, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Jasper Fforde, Meta, Sci-fi, Supernatural, Technology, Time Travel, Tori Amos on September 14, 2007| Leave a Comment »

firstamong.jpgSOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-American Girl Posse (2007).

americandoll.jpgI had been pretty down on Tori records since Scarlett’s Walk, which I felt was kind of blah. The Beekeeper followed and it didn’t do that much for me either. So, I was basically not that excited when this latest record came out. I probably would have gotten it eventually, but then my wife bought it for me for my birthday. Thank you!

Because, this is easily her best album since From the Choirgirl Hotel. It has everything that I felt her last two albums were missing: real tempo changes, really powerful singing, and great, great hooks.

(more…)

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George Saunders–In Persuasion Nation (2006)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dystopia, Esquire, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), George Saunders, Harper's, Luther Wright & The Wrongs, McSweeney's, New Yorker, Pink Floyd, Robson Arms, Sarah Harmer on August 31, 2007| 1 Comment »

persuasion.jpgSOUNDTRACK: LUTHER WRIGHT AND THE WRONGS-Rebuild the Wall (2001).

wright.jpgI first heard Luther Wright on an episode of Robson Arms, a weird, funny show on CTV in Canada. They were playing “Broken Fucking Heart” a fabulous country-punk song. So, I had to find out more about this guy, and it turns out he did a country-punk, but mostly country, version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. It was with much trepidation that I dared into this most unusual of covers, because I don’t really care for country, particularly, shudder, new country. But, wow am I glad I did.

It’s hard to know even where to start, but it is amazing how well the songs translate into a country motif. I’ve loved Pink Floyd’s The Wall ever since it came out. I have very fond memories of reading the lyrics on the record sleeve when I bought it back in 1979, sitting in the back of my mom’s car as she drove myself and my aunt back from the mall. And, I have a fond memory of the resurgence that it had for me in college when evidently every angsty boy in my dorm felt the need to play it ritually.

I was prepared for the worst, but I never had any regrets of this cover version. I’ve even played it to friends who’ve thought it was really good as well. It all sounds like a joke, but the musicianship is top-notch (Sarah Harmer is back with great backing vocals), and the appreciation of the original is evident from the start. I encourage you to track down this album if you like the original. Give Luther some of your cash!

[READ: August 20, 2007] In Persuasion Nation.

This completes my recent spate of books that I read about somewhere, and can’t remember where. I maintain that it was in The Week by a former Simpsons’ writer, but I have to wait about a month before that issue gets online so I can confirm it (boo!). At any rate, I was led to believe that this was going to be a book of funny essays. And, well, it’s not. It skewers contemporary society, and it has moments that are definitely funny in a hmmmm, sort of way, but laugh-out-loud funny this is not. (more…)

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