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Nikolai Gogol–The Night Before Christmas (1926) [translated 2011]

Posted in Christmas, Christmas Album, Constance Garnett, Demons, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Marriage Trouble, New Directions Pearls, Nikolai Gogol, Poo, Rivers Cuomo, Russia, Short Story, Translation, Witches on December 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »

gogolSOUNDTRACK: ANDY WILLIAMS-Merry Christmas (1965).

awxmasMan, I love some Andy Williams at Christmastime.  I don’t really know much about him at other times of the year and I imagine that I would never listen to him, but he is one of the voices of Christmas. I like his voice so much even if I don’t love all the songs on this record.

His “Sleigh Ride” is the essential version–boppy and fun–you can imagine zipping along on a sleigh with jingle bells bouncing along.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is a bit slow, but “Winter Wonderland” sounds great.  His “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” is fun–he can really belt out those notes and “Silver Bells” is also a highlight.

The choice of “My Favorite Things” (from The Sound of Music) is unexpected, as it has nothing to do with Christmas, but his rendition is wonderful.  “Christmas Holiday” is a song I don’t know but Williams belts it out as well.  “Do You Hear What I Hear” is also great.

“Some Children See Him” is a fascinating song that I haven’t heard too much (although Rivers Cuomo does a cover of it(!)).  It’s all about how children from different countries see Jesus a different way (a rather progressive idea).

“Little Altar Boy” is a slow and somewhat ponderous song that I’m unfamiliar with.  The final two songs “Mary’s Little Boy Child” and “The Bells of St. Mary” are pretty but not fun (as you would assume from the titles).

So I love about half the disc and like most of the rest.  Williams has an earlier Christmas album as well.  I think I’d like to pick and choose between the two discs for a great Williams collection.

[READ: December 23, 2014] The Night Before Christmas

I had intended to read all Dickens stories this week.  And then my latest New Directions Pearl arrived and it was this one: The Night Before Christmas (also translated as Christmas Eve) by Nikolai Gogol.  Well, that put a change in my plans.

I don’t know much about Gogol, although apparently he wrote only short stories (no novels).  My book has a quote from Dostoevsky that says, “We all came out of Gogol’s overcoat.”  So imagine my surprise when this night before Christmas is actually about witches and the devil and affairs with beautiful women!

The story is set in Dikanka, Ukraine.  It is Christmas Eve and, according to legend, that is the night in which the devil is free to perform tricks and torment people.  Before the devil comes, we see a witch flying around the sky collecting stars.  The devil decides that he is going to steal the moon–this will make it very dark so he can create even more mischief.  The moon proves to be very hot, and he winds up juggling it a few times until he gets it into his pocket.

The devil decides to get back at Vakula, the village blacksmith.  In addition to being the blacksmith, he is also an artist and he has painted some really cruel pictures of the devil on the side of the church.  And the devil is pretty miffed about this.  So he sets an elaborate plan in motion. (more…)

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Vera Brosgot–Anya’s Ghost (2011)

Posted in Christmas Album, Death, Сырники, First Second :01, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Russia, Set at School, Short Books, Supernatural, They Might Be Giants, Vera Brosgot, Violence, YA Books on December 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

anyaSOUNDTRACK: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS-Holidayland (2001).

tmbg This was one of the first Christmas albums I bought, and i would have bought it regardless because it is They Might Be Giants.  As far as Christmas records goes, it’s pretty short: 5 songs in 11 minutes.

“Santa Claus” has a funky bass line and a snotty attitude. There’s loud guitars, a honking horn and plenty of NOTHING!  “Santa’s Beard” is an old super fun song, classic TMBG.
“Feast of Lights” is a simple song on toy piano and real piano, a Hanukkah-based kinda sad song with a bit of hope in the end.  “Careless Santa” is an upbeat song about Santa spoiling Christmas for him (cops are involved!). It has some loopy synth sounds and wild drumming at the end.

“O Tannenbaum” The only traditional song, this is a slow version.  It opens with horns in the vocal melody for the first minute and then John F’ sings in German for the final minute.

I’ve always enjoyed this admittedly slight holiday record.

[READ: December 18, 2014] Anya’s Ghost

Sarah was surprised to see that I’d brought this home because she read it for her YA contest this year.  She also liked it quite a lot.

Brosgol wrote and drew the book and I love her illustration style.  It is simple but very effective.  She draws a normal looking girl quite effectively (and the embarrassing underwear shot is quite funny).  But she also knows how to draw the skinny, “hot” girl and make her look sweet as well.  And lets not forget how well she conveys the ghost in the story, too.

Anya is in a private high school (which her mother can barely afford).  Anya’s family moved to America (from Russia) when she was little.  She learned to speak English and does not have an accent.  But she is nervous about being seen as a FOB (fresh off the boat).  And as such she avoids Dima, a new to America Russian boy who studies hard and is a real dork (and suffers accordingly).

As the book opens, Anya’s mother is making Сырники (Syrniki–fried quark (a dairy product) pancakes, garnished with sour cream, jam, honey, or apple sauce–YUM!).  But Anya is upset that she’s making yet another fattening food.  Now that she’s in America she’s not interested in her mother’s claims that “in Russia being fat meant you were a rich man.”

She takes a bag but throws it out on her way to school (travesty).  Then she meets her (only) friend Siobhan.  Siobhan is kind of bitter and a little nasty (but funny).  She is drawn very angrily though–she’s the one character I don’t like the look of.  When Anya doesn’t let Siobhan bum a cigarette, Siobhan gets mad and stomps off.  Anya goes off in the other direction and…falls into a hole. (more…)

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Vladimir Nabokov–The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun) (1977) [unfinished–published 2009]

Posted in Death, Dmitri Nabokov, Fun., Kanye West, Meta, Queen, Russia, Short Books, Suicide, Unfinished, Violence, Vladimir Nabokov on October 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

lauraSOUNDTRACK: FUN.-Some Nights (2012).

funI didn’t realize that this wasn’t Fun.’s debut album. I hadn’t heard of them until, well, until they got pretty big.  Sarah got this for me for Christmas in 2012 on the recommendation of an NPR list.  Of course, my biggest surprise was playing it Christmas morning and hearing the word fuck twice in the first song.  Merry Christmas, kids!

I read recently that the band really liked Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy so much that they hired the same producer to get that sound.  And that makes a ton of sense on the style and final product here–big grandiose sounds that are layered and layered and dense. The difference of course is that Fun. writes more catchy/poppy songs with a pop rock sheen.  And the Queen comparisons are unavoidable.  But with auto-tune.

“Some Nights (intro)” opens the disc with a quiet piano intro that builds to what you’re really going to get here–dramatic, theatrical, anthemic over the top pop rock.  Because after a minute when the backing vocals come in, it sounds pretty much like an updated modern day Queen.  While lead singer does bellow like Freddy Mercury the Queenisms come more from the backing vocals and the orchestrations.

The first song proper, “Some Nights” has a more polished, more poppy sheen to it.  And like the rest of the album, it has a huge sing along chorus with whoa hos and everything.  It’s nearly inevitable that they would become huge because of this album.

And yet, despite all the pop, I like this record a lot.  The artsy, theatricality is so over the top.  And really each song is like a mini showstopper.  “We Are Young” has the title of an anthem and thus the song is an anthem.  It starts with just drums but after some clever lyrics, it shifts to a slow building chorus that the world can sing along to.  The same is true for “Carry On,” a slow piano ballad that builds in a big anthemic chorus.  “It Gets Better” is a bit more electronic and fast paced from the start.  “Why Am I the One” slows things down again, this time with guitars.  But again each one has a big sing-along chorus.

“All Alone” is a bit more electronic (with harpsichords!) and a little more drum heavy, while “All Alright” stays anthemic throughout.

What’s surprising really is the lyrical content–he sings a lot about loving his parents (there’s a few shout outs to his mom).  I admit I don’t entirely know what’s happening on the album–I haven’t looked at the lyrics too carefully, but it seems far more introspective and personal than big anthemic pop hooks would suggest.

“One Foot” is the first song that diverges a bit from the formula–it’s still a big stomping song, but the way the main riff is played on orchestral hits rather than more conventional instruments points to the more Top 40 elements of the band.  And the final song, “Stars” really tips the balance. This is the one song that I don’t really care for.  It’s 7 minutes long and the melody is more pop than artsy.  The song builds in a less dramatic and more poppy way.  This song has the most mom intensive lyrics: “Most nights I stay straight and think about my mom–oh god I miss her so much.”  By 2 minutes it devolves into an auto-tuned ballad where the Kanye influence really rears its head.  For the last 3 minutes or so it is a string filled ballad with crazy auto-tuned vocals (especially when they harmonize!).  It’s a bit much even for me, although I think it works pretty great as an album ender.

The strange thing about that is that there is one song after it. It turns out that it’s a bonus track, which i didn’t realize until recently.  I couldn’t imagine why you’d put a song after that autotuned nonsense.  So it makes sense as a bonus track, although after “Stars,” I’m done with the album.  The song, “Out on the Town” brings back the guitars but the “oh oh oh oh” in the beginning is really boy band like.  And I fear the whole set up is more commercial than theater. So, no real bonus for me.

Basically, the album sounds quite the same throughout (in that it is big and theatrical, although there are some differences that distinguish the songs enough).  And if you don’t like one of the songs there’s not going to be much here for you.  But if you like your theatricality over the top, you could do worse than Fun.  Just get ready to sing along.

[READ: October 1, 2014] The Original of Laura

naboI have had Nabokov on my list of authors to read for a long time.  I have read and enjoyed a few of his books and planned to read his oeuvre at some point, just not quite yet.  And then, as serendipity would have it, I stumbled on a book of his novellas (the Penguin classic edition) and decided to read them.  Because they aren’t really meant to be taken as one item, I’m going to mention them individually.

The Original of Laura is a controversial release because of its history.  And it seems that more words have been written about the history of the book than the actual content of it.  So I will summarize the history by saying that Vladimir said that if he didn’t finish the book that it should be destroyed.  Vladimir’s wife did not destroy the book and some thirty years later his son Dmitri decided to publish it [cue cat fights and gnashing of teeth].

The interesting way the book was published was as a series of index cards.  Nabokov wrote all of his stories on index cards.  The book version is on heavy card stock in which all of the index cards were reproduced and the words were typed below (errors and cross outs and all).  And all the pages are perforated for, in theory, the reader’s ability to mix and match the pages as apparently Nabokov did.

This seems like a cool idea except that most of the index cards are numbered, so it’s not like there is any doubt as to what order they should go in.  The final cards are not numbered, but again, they are pretty much sequential–there’s not a lot of play at play here. (more…)

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Vladimir Nabokov–The Enchanter (1930) [Волшебник–translated 1986]

Posted in Dmitri Nabokov, Frank Zappa, Marriage Trouble, Novella, Os Mutantes, Russia, Santana, Sex, Vladimir Nabokov, Yuck! on October 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

enchanteSOUNDTRACK: OS MUTANTES-Fool Metal Jack (2013).

jackI first heard this album streaming on NPR.  I really enjoyed it and was surprised by how diverse and yet still kinda 1970s hippie-feeling it was.

I didn’t know anything about the music of Os Mutantes before hearing this disc.  In a nutshell (and the details seem pretty complicated), they released 6 albums from 1968-1974 and then broke up.  They reunited in 2009 and this is their second album after reuniting.

I don’t know what any of them did during the intervening years, but it is clear that the psychedelic vibe they explored the first time around never fully left them.  Because even though there are rocking numbers, there are plenty of groovy organs and songs about love on the disc.  And yet the first songs I heard from the album were really quite rocking, so I was surprised by the mellow vibe as the album progresses.

There’s precious little information about the record on the record jacket, but I do know that Sérgio Dias wrote all the music and is the lead singer.  The disc opens with a kind of introductory song, “The Dream is Gone.”  It has a slow opening with cool bass lines and Dias’ voice which is soft and kind of worn sounding.  There are some cool electronic effects sprinkled around and big harmonies.  This leads to the second song, the stomping anti-war track, “Fool Metal Jack” (which I talked about here).  It’s got a big fat bass and menacing riff (as befits a war song). The song is graphic and ugly (with a loud cough in the midst of a verse).  It’s followed by the big old sloppy sounding rocker “Picadilly Willie” with big 70s sounding vocals (I’ve mentioned before that it sounds like Frank Zappa song to me, and it still does). These two songs are so loud and noisy they really belie the psychedelic vibe that the rest of the disc presents.

“Gangjaman” has a reggae feel (with a big round bass) and fun backing vocals.  While “Lookout” has a kind of Santana live at Woodstock vibe–a slinky rocking guitar and big chords.  There’s also some traditional (I assume) Brazilian native singers.  “Eu Descobri” is sung by a female vocalist (in Portuguese I assume) it is a pretty, slinky song with flutes and a cello and echoed vocals.  It hearkens back to the late 60s but still sounds contemporary.

“Time and Space” has more big bass (the bass really sounds great on this disc), but this one is a slow acoustic umber with excellent harmonies.  I love the layered vocals that reminds me of good prog.  “To Make It Beautiful” is an absolute hippie track with lyrics like: “I need to create love with you my love.” It has his great falsetto and buzzy guitars.  It is so far away from the early rockers and yet to me the album doesn’t feel disjointed.  “Once Upon a Flight” is a synthy/guitar rocker, but in a very 70s style. It’s also got a big cello solo at the end.  “Into Limbo” is a jangly slow guitar song with Dias’ voice sounding great.

“Bangladesh” has a long acoustic guitar intro with a very middle eastern feel.  By the middle it turns into a kind of prayer with a repeated chorus of: “Hare Jesus Hare Buddha Hare Judas Hare Rama Hare Krishna Hare Lucifer.”  The final song “Valse LSD” is a complex acoustic song with male and female vocals.  It’s quite pretty.  It doesn’t really feel like the end of the disc (I would have ended with “Bangladesh”), but it’s a good summary of the album as a whole.

 Since I am unfamiliar with Os Mutantes’ earlier work, I can’t really say how this fits into their discography, but I think this is just a great album and I’m looking forward to hearing more of their earlier works.

[READ: October 2, 2014] The Enchanter

naboI have had Nabokov on my list of authors to read for a long time.  I have read and enjoyed a few of his books and planned to read his oeuvre at some point, just not quite yet.  And then, as serendipity would have it, I stumbled on a book of his novellas (the Penguin classic edition) and decided to read them.  Because they aren’t really meant to be taken as one item, I’m going to mention them individually.

The Enchanter was Nabokov’s final work written in Russian.  It was never published during his lifetime.  The Notes to the story in the book suggests that Nabokov had a vague recollection of the story (with many details incorrect), but that he believed he discarded the original version when he moved to America.  He evidently found it after publishing Lolita, but did not feel compelled to publish it.  It was his son who translated and published it after his death.

The Enchanter is something of a precursor to Lolita in that it involves a man who is obsessed with adolescent girls.  What separates this from Lolita (although there are many similar plot contrivances) is the mental state of the protagonist.  He is disgusted by himself.  He knows what he does is wrong, he even imagines himself in animalistic ways.  And yet he cannot help himself.  (This is not to say that that is not present in Lolita, just that it is more or less the focus here). (more…)

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Vladimir Nabokov–The Eye (1930) [Соглядатай–translated 1965]

Posted in Death, Dinosaur Jr., Dmitri Nabokov, J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, Russia, Sebadoh, Suicide, Vladimir Nabokov on October 7, 2014| 1 Comment »

nobokov eyeSOUNDTRACK: DINOSAUR JR.- I Bet on Sky (2012).

ibetI have been so pleased with the reunited Dinosaur Jr.  I’ve enjoyed each of their albums, and feel like they really have hit a great stride of songwriting.  The only difference to me is that these songs are all pretty long, something I don’t really think of as a Dino Jr thing.  They do often have a few longer songs, but on this disc, 5 songs are over 5 minutes and two are nearly 5 minutes long.

As with the last album, I’m not sure why Lou Barlow agreed to reuniting.  Barlow is a great songwriter and has successful other projects.  He gets two (short) songs that he write and sings and that’s kind of it.  I mean, they sound great and really flesh out the album, but it seems like a weird thing for him to do unless he just likes playing the old Dino stuff again.

And then of course there’s Mascis.  It’s amazing how much of a slacker J Mascis sings like and yet what a careful and meticulous guitar player and songwriter he is.  And yes, it’s great to have Murph on drums, too.

“Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know”  opens just like a great Dino Jr song—that guitar is unmistakable. It’s a fast rocker. With a big old Dino chorus. There’s a lengthy outro solo that really stretches out the song into a jam.  “Watch the Corners” is the other kind of Dino song, a chugger with big slow open chords and a nice riff. (and again a wonderful chorus).  “Almost Fare” is the other, other kind of Dino song, poppy with a kind of cute riff and a slow drawl in the vocals.  And “Stick a Toe In” is a slower ballad–the fourth kind of song that Masics writes so well. It has a nice chorus (with piano (!)) and some dramatic steps in the chorus.  Suffice it to say that although they all sounds like Dino Jr., it’s impressive how many styles of song Mascis writes so well.

Barlow’s first song is “Rude,” a short fast punk rocker.  At just under 3 minutes (with no solo) the song pounds along with a very funny chorus: “I wish I didn’t care cause caring is rude.”  Even though it changes the flow of the album, it just adds to the diversity that is Dino Jr.  In “I Know It Oh So Well” Mascis’ ringing guitar comes back  It’s a simple song with just a few chords and a simple interstitial riff, but he makes it sound very full.

“Pierce the Morning Rain” is the only short Mascis song on the disc (and perversely it gives the album its title).  It has a very heavy metal guitar riff and a super fast paced (and sung) tempo.  “What Was That” is a slow burner with many elements of classic Dino—a great solo in the background of the song and a cool riff along with Mascis’s patented delivery.  “Recognition” is Barlow’s other song. It almost makes 4 minutes.  It sounds more like part of the record (and, strangely, also like the popular Sebadoh tracks). You can really hear Barlow’s vocal style shine through and it’s a great counterpoint to all the Mascis on the disc.  It’s also great song—kind of slow and angular but with a cool fast riff in the bridge.  It also features a pretty wild (and un-Masics-like) guitar solo

“See It on Your Side”  is the last song and at nearly 7 minutes, it feels a little long.  Although that may be because the song seems to end and then starts again.  And yet, that end solo is pretty great.  It’s a very notable Mascis type riff that starts the song.  Even with all of the long songs, the disc still clocks in at around 45 minutes, which is really a perfect amount of Dinosaur Jr. consumption.  Looking forward to the next release.

[READ: October 1, 2014] The Eye

naboI have had Nabokov on my list of authors to read for a long time.  I have read and enjoyed a few of his books and planned to read his oeuvre at some point, just not quite yet.  And then, as serendipity would have it, I stumbled on a book of his novellas (the Penguin classic edition) and decided to read them.  Because they aren’t really meant to be taken as one item, I’m going to mention them individually.

The book includes a Foreword by Vladimir (his son Dmitri translated this with help from Vladimir) that talks a bit about when he wrote it and how he didn’t bother to include details about the location because it wasn’t important to the story (it’s a surprisingly casual foreword).

“The Eye” is a strange story (technically a novella or a very short novel) in which a man, despondent at the beating he receives, tries to kill himself and then believes that he does.

The narrator has been having an affair with a married woman named Matilda.  He’s been a little bored with her lately, and is pretty much over her.  But one night when the narrator is working as the house tutor for two boys (the boys are completely disrespectful to him and every scene with them is very funny), the cuckolded husband comes over and really beats him up.  Just really lays into him (the narrator’s protestations about this not even being his house are rather amusing).  I especially liked that the husband calls first and doesn’t tell him who he is “So much the better–it’ll be a surprise.” (more…)

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Jason Shiga–Fleep (2002)

Posted in Bombs, Graphic Novel, Jason Shiga, Let's Go Sailing, Petra Haden, Rachel Haden, Russia, Short Books, Tanya Haden, That Dog., The Rentals, The Who, Tiny Desk Concert on June 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

fleepSOUNDTRACK: THE HADEN TRIPLETS-Tiny Desk Concert #345 (March 31, 2014).

hadenThe Haden Triplets are the daughters of Charlie Haden.  Individually, they are Petra (from That Dog and a cool solo reproduction of The Who Sell Out), Rachel (from The Rentals and other projects) and Tanya Haden (from Let’s Go Sailing).

Here they eschew all of their alt leaning and focus on straightforward old-school country.  Their harmonies are gorgeous, and when accompanied by the upright bass and simple drums and Rachel’s (I think) violin, they create an impressively full sound.

I don’t have too much more to say about it.  It’s just very solid old school female harmonized country songs.  I didn’t know any of the songs, but they do four: “Single Girl, Married Girl,” “Voice From On High,” “Slowly,” and “Tiny Broken Heart.”  And they seem genuinely delighted to be playing there.  I imagine that Sarah would like this very much.

I only wish they had told us who was who.  And that this wasn’t edited so much.  I don’t know how long these performances are in total, but sometimes it feels like they edit too much out of these shows (do they have bandwidth problems?).

[READ: June 25, 2014] Fleep

A pile of interesting graphic novels came to my desk this week.  And the first one I felt compelled to read was Fleep.

As you can see by the cover, it promised to be a pretty stark book.  And indeed it was.

The story opens with a young man entering a phone book.  The drawing style very simple–some subtle shadings that belie the simplicity of the over all look (the main guy has a round head and round eyes, but doesn’t look “childish” and almost all of the book takes place in the same location from the same angle).

The next page is all dark but for his eyeballs as the guy (unnamed for much of the story), tries to figure out what happened to him. He soon realizes that he is in the phone booth and the phone booth is surrounded by concrete on all sides.  He picks up the phone and there is a dial tone, but he can’t seem to call anyone.  The phone book is in gibberish and the phone booth now says FLEEP where it once said PHONE.  He rifles through his pockets and finds some strange coins, a Russian phrasebook, a pen and a piece of paper with Russian writing (that he can’t read) on one side and numbers on the other.  (more…)

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Nadezhda Teffi–“Family and Others” (Harper’s, April 2014)

Posted in Anna Summers, Beck, Bob Dylan, Harper's, Nadezhda Teffi, Record Club, Russia, Short Story, The Velvet Underground, Translation on March 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Harpers-1404-302x410SOUNDTRACK: BECK/RECORD CLUB-VELVET UNDERGROUND: Velvet Underground & Nico (2010).

velvetAccording to the Beck/Record Club website:

Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. As you will hear, some of the songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens. And those who aren’t familiar with the albums in question will hopefully look for the songs in their definitive versions.

Introducing this first recording, Beck explains:

For this first edition, after lengthy deliberation and coming close to covering Digital Underground’s Sex Packets, all present voted in favor of the ‘other’ Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico. Participants included this time around are Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, Brian Lebarton, Bram Inscore, Yo, Giovanni Ribisi, Chris Holmes, and from Iceland, special guest Thorunn Magnusdottir, and myself. Thanks to everyone who helped put this together, and to all of you for indulging in this experiment. More soon.

That’s a lot of introduction for this record, which, as you have surmised is a full cover of the Velvet Underground’s debut album.  And, as the blurb promises, it is chaotic, but often charming.  I am not a huge Velvet Underground fan, although I have this and some of their other albums.  I appreciate them more for what they spawned than what they played.  But having said that I know this record pretty well.  I did make a point of not listening to the original before listening to this.

The track listing:

Sunday Morning (3:15).  This version is pretty faithful.  Beck sings and sounds a bit like Lou Reed.
I’m Waiting For The Man (4:04).  This song is very silly indeed–instruments detuned and loopy sounding.  It’s a little funny but a little annoying too.
Femme Fatale (2:42).  This is a straight version with Beck taking the Nico part and doing a nice job of it.
Venus In Furs (5:22).  This song is a little noisy & feedbacky but it’s a great version. Probably my favorite song of the bunch.
Run Run Run (4:25).  They’ve turned this into a little synth pop song.
All Tomorrow’s Parties (5:16).  This has vocals by Thorunn Magnusdottir.  She doesn’t quite have whatever Nico had and consequently although the songs tarts out pretty, the length and tempo turns it a little dull by the end.
Heroin (6:40).  This version is insane, with Brian Lebarton getting more and more frantic.  If the instruments didn’t sounds so cheap, the intensity would be pretty awesome.  But it’s a little wonky sounding (and a too long).
There She Goes Again (3:02).  This song is like “Waiting for the Man” detuned and silly.
I’ll Be Your Mirror (2:33).  This is a pretty version which would, once again sound a little better if the instruments didn’t sound cheap.
Black Angel’s Death Song (3:43). Beck sounds more like Dylan on this song, which i don’t know that well at all.
European Son (3:26).  This song is a little dull, I don’t recognize it.
Heroin (Bonus Alternate Version) (5:05).  This version of Heroin is a bit more reasonable than the other version, although I wish it had a little of the first version’s chaos.  Maybe a meeting of the two would be ideal.

So this is a fun project where talented friends get to make some music together.  It gets an even higher “grade” overall because he’s not releasing it officially, not asking money for it.  Not every song is a winner, but those that win are quite good.

[READ: March 17, 2014] “Family and Others”

Nadezhda Teffi was alive from 1872-1952 and wrote this in 1912.  It was translated from the Russian by Anna Summers.

This is a very simple story that doesn’t feel like a story so much as a friendly lecture about family.  The story begins with the statement that we tend to divide people in to family and others.  Which is true.  he continues that Family knows everything about us while Others know very little about us.  Sometimes when people get closer, they move from other to family.  However, it is the family that tends to give us the most grief.

When you are sick, others send you flowers but family interrogate you about when you caught the cold and what you were doing when you got it.  They don’t try to make you feel better, they want to know more about the problem.  He offers several similar situations in which family is less than cuddly with us.

(more…)

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Dave Bidini–A Wild Stab for It: This is Game Eight from Russia (2012)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Dave Bidini, Dave Bidini music, Douglas Coupland, History, Hockey, Rheostatics, Russia, Travel on February 26, 2014| 1 Comment »

wildstabSOUNDTRACK:RHEOSTATICS-The Nightlines Sessions (1998).

nightlinesI have mentioned this disc before, but having listened to some live shows from around this time, it made me want to check out this disc again.  I’ve always thought it was kind of a silly goof of a record without a lot to fully enjoy.  And while the goofy tracks stand out, there’s also a lot of really good music on it.

“The Pooby Song” opens the song and while it is a slight and silly song, it is a fun folky introduction.  What its title means is a mystery to me.  The second song is the first version of “The Junction Foil Ball,” a great track that would later get re-recorded for The Night of the Shooting Stars.  “Frank” is another interesting song with some cool scratchy guitars and a good riff. It doesn’t get played much live, but it could easily fit into their set.

“Majorca” is a pretty song from Tim, although it is very strange (to me) that these Canadians are singing about Majorca (a song they would play live in a few bootlegs).  Another vaguely silly song is the sitar (?) based “Ugly Manhattan,” which makes fun of Wall Street.  Perhaps the most unexpected song is “Trans Jam” a rap which features Farm Fresh and The Subliminal Kid.  It’s quite good, too.

And yes, there is a lot of really silly stuff.   “Henry’s Musical Beard” is a weird 27 second toss off. “Alien Boy” is a goof commercial about mysteries of the unknown.  “Baby, I love You” is introduced as being by MC Vanilli  and the Sedaka Prince.  It’s an absurdly goofy “pop” song which reflects some pop song stylings rather well.  “This is Nightlines” is a profane rambling by Dave about the radio show that’s going off the air.

And yet just as you think the end of the disc is going to be nothing but silly, they play a fantastic version of “Stolen Car” (click track notwithstanding).

It really makes me want to hear the some Nightlines shows.  And, ta da, I recently found Network Effects, a site where a kind soul has been digitizing his taped copied of Nightlines sessions.  That’s pretty cool–more radio stations should take chances like this.

[READ: February 24, 2014] A Wild Stab for It

I found a bunch of Dave Bidini’s smaller books online.  And after reading his book about Keon, it seemed complementary to read this book about Game Eight.

Now, if you’re not Canadian or Russian, Game Eight might be meaningless to you.  You might even somehow think that a game of Canada vs the USSR is an Olympic event.  But it wasn’t.  It was the Summit Series.  Bidini assumes you know what the Summit Series is–this book is pretty explicitly for Canadian hockey fans (meaning pretty much every Canadian) who were alive in the 1970s.  They would all know what Game Eight was and why it was so important.  So, here’s some context from Wikipedia, because again, they summarize it better than I could:

The series was played at the height of the Cold War, and intense feelings of nationalism were aroused in both Canada and the Soviet Union, as well as on the ice.  Known at the time simply as the Canada–USSR Series, it was an eight-game series of ice hockey between the Soviet Union and Canada, held in September 1972.  It was the first competition between the Soviet national team and a Canadian team represented by professional players of the National Hockey League (NHL), known as Team Canada. It was the first international ice hockey competition for Canada after Canada had withdrawn from international ice hockey competitions in a dispute with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The series was organized with the intention to create a true best-on-best competition in the sport of ice hockey. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 29: Weight to Lift (9 November 2013)

Posted in Anna Kelly, Bob & Doug McKenzie, Bob and Doug McKenzie, César Aira, Christmas Album, Craig Taylor, Daniel Sherbrooke, Dave Eggers, David Bezmozgis, Death, Deborah Eisenberg, Douglas Coupland, Eggs, Eric Reinhardt, Essays, Fears, Five Dials, Geddy Lee, Gruff Rhys, Hasani, Jack Underwood, Javier Marias, Joan Lingard, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Jonny Reid, Leo Tolstoy, Lydia Davis, Mark Beldan, Poetry, Rachel Willson-Broyles, Racism, Richard Ford, Richard Godwin, Russia, Short Story, Super Furry Animals, Surreal, Technology, Violence, Vladimir Nabokov, Weight Lifting on December 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

fivedials_no29SOUNDTRACK: BOB & DOUG McKENZIE-“The 12 Days of Christmas” (1981).

bob & dougThis is my preferred old school version of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”  It was one of the first parodies of the song that I had heard (and I was big in parodies back in 1981).

I loved how stupid they were (on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…a beer).  I loved trying to figure out what a two-four was, and it cracked me up that they skipped a whole bunch of days.

I also enjoyed how they continued to snipe at each other throughout the song.  Not comedy gold perhaps (that would be “Take Off” recorded with Geddy Lee, but a nice way to start, or end, the season on these “mystery days.”

Evidently, decades after SCTV went off the air, Bob & Doug got an animated TV show (without Rick Moranis).  And they made a video of the song. Hosers.

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2oPio60mK4]

[READ: December 3, 2013] Five Dials #29

Five Dials Number 29 was the first issue I had read in a while.  (I read this before going back to 26-28).  And it really reminded me of how great Five Dials is.  I don’t know why this isn’t Part 2 after Number 28’s Part 1 (there was no 28b either), but that’s irrelevant.  This is an independent collection of great writing.  I was instantly surprised and delighted to see that César Aria was included in this issue (I didn’t even know he had made inroads in England).

CRAIG TAYLOR-Letter from the Editor: In Swedes and Open Letters
Taylor’s usually chipper introduction is saddened by the contents of this one.  The discussion centers on Sweden and the city of Malmo, where integration is proving to be tougher than they’d hoped.  Black skinned people are profiled pretty explicitly.  Taylor talks about meeting the writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri (who they subsequently published in issue 21) who deals with issues of race.  In March of 2013, Khemiri wrote an open letter to Swedish Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask after she brushed off concerns about racial profiling. The letter went viral including getting translated into 15 languages.  So I guess there is some positivity after all. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #11 bonus DVD (2003)

Posted in Books about writers, Daphne Beal, Dave Eggers, David Means, Denis Johnson, Doug Dorst, Dow Mossman, Environmentalism, Essays, Excerpt, Fears, Jonathan Ames, Joyce Carol Oates, Marcel Dzama, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Military, Political Humor, Russia, Samantha Hunt, Sean Warren, Short Story, Stephen Elliott, T.C. Boyle, Threats, Tom Bissell, Violence, Yuck! on December 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: December 16, 2012] McSweeney’s #11

11

THE DVD that came with Issue #11 was listed as a “Deleted Scenes” bonus feature for this issue.  The colophon of the book explains in great detail what they wanted to do and how they went about doing it all.  And that’s all quite amusing in itself.

Now, of course, there are no “deleted scenes” up front.  The DVD is, at first glance, authors reading from the works in the book.  But as you scroll down the menu, there are some deleted scenes, as well as behind the scenes features and audio commentary.  All in all there’s about two hours worth of stuff crammed in here and some of it is quite interesting.

DELETED SCENES

This is where the authors read from their works.  They each read between 3 and 6 minutes, with some of them reading different sections (Samantha Hunt), but most of them reading a chunk.   (more…)

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