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Archive for the ‘Corporate skewering’ Category

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 & Ian Ferguson–How to Be a Canadian* *(Even if you already are one) (2001)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Concept Albums, Corporate skewering, History, Hockey Night in Canada, Ian Ferguson, Mike Ford, Military, Moxy Fruvous, Political Humor, Religion, Universities, War, Will Ferguson on September 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MIKE FORD-Canada Needs You (Volume 1) (2005).

Volume 2 of this series has just come out, but I haven’t received it yet, so I’ll start with Vol. 1

I discovered this series because I love Moxy Fruvous, and any member of the mighty Moxy is worth checking out solo.  Mike Ford has a wonderful voice, a great knack for songwriting and an ability to do multiple genres in one setting.  Couple that with the history of Canada and it’s win-win!  Volume One covers Canada pre-1905, with Volume Two covering up to the present.

I admit to not knowing very much about the song topics on the disc, which is fine, as I learned something new.  And, much like with the two Ferguson books, Mike Ford clearly loves Canada, and is willing to celebrate it without hiding any flaws that might be found.  Which is as it should be for an album or book of this nature: Don’t hide the warts; celebrate the whole picture.

Musically, the disc is as varied as the subject matter.  “I’m Gonna Roam” is a folk song done in a rap style. “Turn Them Oot” is a sea shantyesque sing-along about the Family Compact (and what a great rabble-rouser it is).  The most rocking song, “Sir John A (You’re OK)” is sort of a mock metal song (it’s as metal as a folkie can get…with a chorus from a Grade 7 class).  Imagine rocking the line “RESIDUAL POWERS!”

There’s even a song that sounds as if it was recorded on an old wax cylinder (“Canada Needs You”).  I like this song especially because it is a satire of early 20th century Canadian government attempts to get people to move to Canada (much like the Go West Young Man of the US).  A little snippet of lyrics:

There’s an abundance of everything in Western Canada
Where it’s never ever (hardly ever) cold
And the streets are paved with gold
And you grow rutabegas bigger than a loaf of bread
tomatoes bigger than a horse’s head
There’s milk and honey and a kitchen sink
There’s never any bugs or drought and the farts don’t stink

Some other topics include: a young Native woman who inspired her people (“Thanadelthur”); the voyageurs–with canoe sounds (“Les Voyageurs”); the fact and fiction of the treasure buried on Oak Island, Nova Scotia (“The Oak Island Mystery”); and the importance of Canadian women (“A Woman Works Twice as Hard”).

Perhaps the most fun song on the disc (for style and content) is “I’ve Been Everywhere” in which Ford lists thousands of Canadian towns at superfast speed.  Great good fun. Moncton, Moncton, Moncton, Moncton.

All the lyrics are available in PDF here.  And facts and background info about the songs are available here.  With all of these resources, you’re bound to learn something new about Canada!

[READ: September 2008] How to Be a Canadian

Now this is what I expecting from Why I Hate Canadians–a funny, tongue in cheek look at Canada and all of its quirks.  I got this book on the same trip as Why I Hate Canadians, and since I just read that one, I figured, why not keep it going.  So this book is co-written by Will and his brother Ian Ferguson (apparently there are Fergusons littered across the US and Canada, as their services are called upon throughout the book).  And, hard to tell if this is true, but based on the previous book, Ian must be the funny one in the family, as this book is very funny indeed. (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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Cory Doctorow–Little Brother (2008)

Posted in Adventure, American Libraries, Be Your Own Pet, Black Flag, Corporate skewering, Cory Doctorow, Dystopia, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Military, NPR/PRI/PBS, Prison, Record Labels, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Technology, The Muffs, Threats, Upton Sinclair, Video Games, War, Wikipedia, WMDs, YA Books on September 19, 2008| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BE YOUR OWN PET-Get Awkward (2008).

Be Your Own Pet are a bunch of young kids from Nashville.  Get Awkward is their second album.  According to the liner notes, two of them were born in 1988 and one of them in 1990.  1990!  They play three-chord punk music which focuses primarily on having fun and partying.  I like to think that Black Flag’s “TV Party” might be an influence, but really they sound more like The Muffs than anyone else.   Jemima Pearl is one of those surprisingly cute punk singers who explode in a gruff gravelly voice (although never TOO rough or gravely) which makes all the proceedings quite fun.

The songs are short (only 2 songs are over 3 minutes), fast, and generally fun.  Song titles like “Food Fight,” “Zombie Graveyard Party!” “Bitches Leave” and “Bummer Time” should give you some sense of what the songs are about.  I’m led to believe their first album was a bit more aggressive (enough to get Thurston Moore to sign them to his Ecstatic Peace record label).  But this one keeps pretty well to the three chords (and occasional guitar riff) and fun shouting and singing.

It seems like every few years there’s a new young punk band who takes up the mantle of punk rock and BYOP were the most recent (although their web site says the just broke up).  And it’s cool for young kids to have a new young band to look up to.  Much like the theme of the book below, if you’re over 25 you ‘ll probably just think that this band is ripping off [insert your favorite brash young punk band here] but really who wants to listen to 40 year olds singing about parties and whatnot.  So, if you’re looking for a new young band, then, check them out.  There’s not too much new about them, but then, that’s not the point, is it.

And according to Wikipedia, three tracks were removed because they were deemed too violent (!).  Maybe the album is well suited to this book after all.

[READ: September 16, 2008] Little Brother

I have to get this out of the way:  READ THIS BOOK!  It is fantastic and it will motivate you like nothing I’ve read.  READ IT READ IT READ IT.

Okay, I feel a little better.

I read an interview with Cory Doctorow in American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association.  It was a short interview about this book, and he said such great things in a few paragraphs, that I immediately went to work and checked out the book.   And, wow, what a fantastic book.

This may be the kiss of death for any young reader, but Little Brother is an important book.  And everyone should read it.  And yes, I know it is fiction, but fiction can be a very powerful tool for waking people up to injustice.  Upton SInclair’s The Jungle was instrumental in the creation of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration.  Not bad for a work of fiction, eh? (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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J.M. Kearns–“The Eagle Has Landed” (The Walrus, July/August 2008)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Hockey Night in Canada, J.M. Kearns, Moxy Fruvous, Political Humor, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Time Travel, Violent Femmes, War, WMDs on August 31, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MIKE FORD: Satellite Hotstove (2007).

I was going to say I didn’t know what the name of this album meant, but then, while looking for a photo of it, I discovered it’s a part of Hockey Night in Canada. Shame on me for not knowing that.

Anyhow, Mike Ford is a member of the fabulous Moxy Fruvous.  He has released a few solo albums, and this one I just picked up from MapleMusic.

This is a very solid folk album.  Mike wrote some of these on the Trans-Canada train, so as you might expect there’s a lot of Canada packed into the 8 songs. Although Ford and Fruvous liked to throw humor into their songs, there’s no much of that here.  “Huge on the Luge” being the exception, which is very funny and quite silly (and was actually written in 2001).

The rest of the album deals a lot with Canadian water images: The Eastern Gap in Toronto, The Credit River in Ontario, The Seaway in the St Lawrence, and The Fraser River in BC.  And, there’s the rather obviously titled Saskatchewan (not a cover of the Rheostatics song).

I’m very fond of the song “Late of October,” a sweet celebration of Autumn, which is probably my favorite season, too.  There’s not a lot more to say about this record.  Mike has a great voice, perfect for folk songs, and his lyrics are thoughtful.  If you’re looking for good folk music by someone you may not have heard of before, definitely check this one out!

[READ: July 5, 2008] “The Eagle Has Landed”

The Walrus is a magazine I’ve subscribed to since Issue 2. It’s a great general magazine from Canada. They cover everything from politics to the environment, to arts and culture, and they don’t only cover Canadian issues.  It’s one of my favorite magazine.   They write about things that I don’t think I care about and then I find my self totally engrossed by it. (more…)

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Steven Millhauser–“The Next Thing” (Harper’s, May 2008)

Posted in Black Sabbath, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Harper's, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Short Story, Steven Millhauser, The Sword on July 25, 2008| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SWORD-Gods of the Earth (2008).

So I used to be really into heavy metal. I’m not so much anymore, although I do enjoy the occasional bout of heaviness. However, I had been listening to some Black Sabbath recently, and I guess I was in the mood, because when I read some descriptions of The Sword, I was intrigued. Black Sabbath kept coming up as an obvious precurosr. So with that and the reviews saying they use silly middle earth swords and sorcery lyrics and they have screaming guitar solos, I had to get it. It sounded great.

And the first track, a fantastic instrumental, lived up to the hype. It’s fast, it’s furious, the guitars are totally something that I would have HAD to learn how to play back in high school. It was amazing. And then the second song kicked in, and it was great too. Finally I got to hear the singer, and when he started singing, the lead guitar played the vocal line in tandem and it was awesome. And then the lead guitar stopped and the voice was….where? It was mixed way way way in the background, sounding like he was in the next room. What was the point of all the weird fantasy lyrics is you couldn’t hear them?

And so it is with the bulk of the album. The music is first rate: excellent riffs, great harmonized guitar solos, Middle Eastern (by way of Led Zeppelin) atmospheres. The acoustic guitar even pops up in a couple of places too, showing a nice range of diversity. All kinds of things that make metal so wonderful. And yet, it’s so hard to get into the voice. It sounds kind of reedy and thin. If you crank it up really loud, it kind of works. His voice does creak through on occasion. And yet, with bombast like this, you expect the voice to be out there in front, leading the way like Bruce Dickinson or Rob Halford. I guess if you grew up listening to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, you have a certain, if not standard, then expectation. Maybe if you grew up listening to some of the great stoner bands of the 90s, the muted voice is just par for the course, which is fine, but the guitar riffs don’t jibe with that. And, frankly, I just don’t hear Black Sabbath at all.

The album ends with two strong instrumentals. The 5 minute, powerful, chugging along, rifftastic “The White Sea” and then an untitled acoustic-jam-type ballad that is totally incongruous with the rest of the disc and yet seems to put a mellow calm over the whole proceedings.

Reviews of their first album suggest that the overall mix isn’t like this one. It has more Black Sabbathy. I can’t decide if it would be worth getting. I may have to just pull out We Sold Our Souls for Rock n Roll instead.

[READ: June 30, 2008] “The Next Thing”

This was a wonderfully subversive story. It is actually quite simple in scope: on the edge of a small community, a new shopping center called “The Next Thing” is being built and causing rumors to fly. (more…)

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Marisha Pessl–Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2007)

Posted in Against Me!, Books about writers, Corporate skewering, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Gilmore Girls, Marisha Pessl, Mystery, NPR/PRI/PBS, Rush, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Social Distortion, Tegan and Sara, Unreliable narrator on July 21, 2008| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AGAINST ME!-New Wave (2007).

I’m not sure why I never listened to these guys before. I’m not crazy about the band’s name: it makes sense, but it’s awkward to work with. And I think I lumped them in with the whole emo scene, which I was pretty well done with. Anyhow, I read a review of New Wave recently and decided they might be worth checking out.

New Wave is an astonishingly refreshing and heartfelt album. It’s fairly short, as the songs are fairly short, and they pack a lot of punch. In fact, I’ve been singing this great, catchy chorus all morning: “Protest Songs in a response to Military Aggression. Protest songs to try and stop the soldier’s gun.”

The songs are great: really diverse for what is essentially a punk album. And the topics are protestations that I haven’t heard in a while (at least not in such a catchy style): Lack of originality in the mainstream. (“New Wave” & “Up the Cuts”), Drug Addiction (“Thrash Unreal,” the latest single that I’ve heard). “Stop” is a change of pace mid-album, with a catchy chorus and an almost dance feel. “Piss and Vinegar” is a plea for honesty. And possibly the strangest item on the disc: the song “The Ocean.” One doesn’t expect a punk band’s verse to start like this: ” If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman. My mother once told me she would have named me Laura” and it continues on in that vein. What a shockingly honest (presumably) lyric in a song.

The only thing I don’t like about the album is…the singer’s voice. I just can’t get past it, and I’m not sure what it is I don’t like about it. He sings on key, his voice is strong and impassioned. There’s just something about it I don’t like. Of course, I also don’t like the singer from Social Distortion either. I guess I’m more of a high, whiny voice than a gruff aggro voice. Despite this, whenever the band does harmonies, they sound great! All of the choruses have nice harmonies somewhere in them, and they really make the songs. Plus, there’s a song called “Borne on the FM, Waves of the Heart” which is a duet with Tegan from Tegan and Sara, and it’s really fantastic. They are a perfect match for each other. Normally, not liking the singer would make you not like a band. (How many people can’t get into Rush because of Geddy Lee’s voice?). And yet, I still think the album is great. I’m certainly going to check out some past records as well. I’m especially intrigued by this album title: Reinventing Axl Rose.

[READ: June 25, 2008] Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

I heard about this book when I was scanning the NPR stations and there was a story about authors/publishers making great websites to accompany books. Two of the ones they mentioned sounded pretty interesting, so I jotted them down and checked them out. This was the first one, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The site was pretty neat, but I didn’t spend much time there, as I was at work. I checked that we had the book and took it out that day. (more…)

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Lewis Black–Nothing’s Sacred (2006)

Posted in Books about writers, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Lewis Black, Memoirs, Political Humor, Rush, Short Books, Smarty Pants, Sparks, The Daily Show, War, WMDs on June 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Sparks-Sparks (1972).

I first got into Sparks when I was working at Tower Records in Paramus, NJ. My coworker Tommy used to play Sparks’ then current album Plagiarism (an album of covers of their own songs!) and it was so weird and intriguing, that I bought it for myself. Since then I have been collecting their back catalog, which isn’t easy as many haven’t been released here.

So what do they sound like? Well, the singer Russel Mael has an astonishing falsetto. Making Rush’s Geddy Lee seem quite butch. Mael leads the band to crazy vocal extremes, making even a normal sounding song seem quite bizarre (This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, for instance). Russel’s brother Ron (known for his Chaplin/Hitler mustache is quite an accomplished pianist, and his sense of songwriting is, while unusual, certainly great. They were quite popular in the UK and Europe, so most people assume they are a Euro band but they hail from UCLA and thereabouts.

So, this album is their debut (when they were called Halfnelson). It was produced by Todd Rundgren (!) and is a bit more rock than their later new wave/disco hits. (And judging from the album cover photos, you can see that at the very least they’re trying to look like rock and rollers (all long hair and open shirts–even if Ron looks like Zappa). And so, this album pretty well lays the ground work for the Sparks of the future: weird, operatic and unexpected.

There are two songs that still make it onto “Greatest Hits” compilations: “(No More) Mr. Mice Guys” (in no way related to the Alice Cooper song, and “Wonder Girl.” Each one displays the signature style of future Sparks classics, but it still has a weird 1970s rock feel to it. It’s a pretty wacky beginning, but really it only hints at the fun to come.

[READ: Winter 2006] Nothing’s Sacred.

Like with Kate Clinton’s book, I found Lewis Black’s book while I was weeding the essay section of our library. I had no idea that Black had written a book, and since I love his rants on The Daily Show, I figured I’d give it a read.

My first surprise was that this was a memoir, not a collection of jokes. (more…)

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Kate Clinton–What the L (2005)

Posted in Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Kate Clinton, Olu Dara, The Progressive on June 7, 2008| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: OLU DARA-In the World: From Natchez to New York (1998)

A friend of mine (Hi Jon!) made me a copy of this CD several years ago, and I just found it again and popped it in. I was delighted with how much I enjoyed it. I’d never heard of Olu Dara before, and I was quite pleased with the results. It’s a fun carribbean-esque/New Orleans jazz feeling CD. “Okra” and “Your Lips” are particularly fun. The only downside is “Jungle Jay” a rather uninspired rap. I just found that the rap is done by Nas, who is Dara’s son. I don’t know of Nas’s raps, but I assume they must be better than this one.

Overall, this record gives a nice upbeat feel of the heat in the summer time. Even though it has some raw sounding moments (his voice sounds quite vulnerable at times) it still maintains a good, solid sound. Knowing my tastes, I wouldn’t get more by Dara, and I wouldn’t listen to this all that often, but when the mood strikes, this will really hit the spot.

[READ: Winter 2006] What the L

I got tangled up in life, so I forgot that there were a number of books from a while back that I wanted to add to this blog listing. I’m going to intersperse them throughout here, but as you’ll see, some were read nearly two years ago, so I may not have all of my thoughts straight about them. (more…)

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