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Archive for the ‘Culture Shock’ Category

Deborah Willis–“Hard Currency” (The Walrus, December 2010)

Posted in Books about music, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Deborah Willis, Drinking, Prostitution, Russia, Sarah Harmer, Short Story, The Walrus, Weeping Tile on February 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEPING TILE-eePee (1995).

Canadian singer Sarah Harmer was originally in the band Weeping Tile.  As far as I knew, they had only released this cleverly titled EP.  Further research at Sarah’s site proves this to be incorrect.  They released two albums and this EP, all of which are available at her site (and elsewhere).  There’s also mention of something called Secret Sessions although there is no evidence of its physical existence on the net.

So this EP is 7 tracks and features two songs that were recorded later on Sarah’s solo discs.

The opener, “Anyone” opens with a nice R.E.M. type guitar sound, but jumps into an uptempo alt rocker.  It’s a very satisfying opening and seems like it should have been a hit.  Interestingly, the next song, “Basement Apt” was a hit…six years later on Sarah’s solo disc.  This version is rawer and feels slower even though it is the same overall length.  The big difference is that Sarah’s solo version has a louder and faster drum track that really makes the song fly.  This version feels more aching though.

“Dogs and Thunder” introduces a more country sound (folk guitar and strings) that Harmer would experiment with off and on for years.    It’s followed by a great cover of Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.”

Another highlight is “Westray” a very stark almost a capella track which highlights Sarah’s raw voice.  It’s very affecting.  And the disc concludes with “King Lion,” a great song that is back to guitar basics.  The chorus is wonderfully catchy.

This is a great EP from a short-lived Canadian band.  Sarah Harmer has always had great songwriting chops and it’s fun to hear her in her more youthful rock version here.

[READ: January 11, 2011] “Hard Currency”

This is one of the longest stories in The Walrus that I can remember.  It’s set in Russia and concerns Alexei, a Russian writer who now lives in America.  He has had great success internationally (and won a Pulitzer) for his novels, all of which were set in Russia.

And yet, for all of his connections to his motherland, he doesn’t really like Russia very much.  He has been back there several times but he is never treated with respect. In fact, he is never even treated as a Russian–despite his birth, people look at him and know that he’s not a Russian anymore.

The plot of the story is about prostitutes.  [I am pretty surprised at the proliferation of prostitutes in stories…do authors frequent prostitutes more than other people?].  When the story opens, we learn that Alexei’s very first sexual experience was with a prostitute.  And now, twenty-eight years later, after much success and a failed marriage, he has returned to Russia and has called upon another prostitute. (more…)

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Deb Olin Unferth–“Radical Will” [excerpt from Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War] (Harper’s, January 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Culture Shock, Deb Olin Unferth, Essays, Harper's, Ludicra, Memoirs, Travel on January 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LUDICRA-“A Larger Silence” (2010).

Ludicra’s The Tenant came in at #9 on Viking’s Top Ten.  Ludicra was the first band they played in the (downloadable) show and I knew that this was going to be a different Top Ten list as soon as it started.  Ludicra plays pounding black metal but they have a real difference: both of their singers are women.  True, they use the same growling screaming vocals (and I first thought it was a guy with a higher pitched voice) until the two-minute mark hits and both women harmonize beautifully.  Suddenly the song jumps several notches ahead of its peers.

It’s quite disconcerting to hear thudding double-bass drums and pounding snares behind two women who are harmonizing (a little creepily) over extended notes.  At the end of the track (about 5 minutes in) the song shifts gears into an acoustic guitar and drum thumping near-folk song.  It doesn’t last long, but the respite prepares you for the wailing end which features a really catchy guitar solo.

This is band I’d like to watch a live video of to see how they do their singing and harmonizing (oh, here ya go–wow, the singer looks inSANE!).  Man, I’d be afraid to see them live.

[READ: January 5, 2011] “Radical Will”

I’ve enjoyed Unferth’s fiction quite a bit.  And fortunately, this memoir uses her distinct writing style to huge advantage.  At age 18 (in 1987), Unferth ran away from college and traveled to Central America with her boyfriend to be in a revolutionary movement.

In this excerpt, Unferth and “George” travel to San Salvador.  Unlike other stories where the young, innocent Americans are stopped at gunpoint and left to endure excruciating torments, for the most part these two seem to be ignored.  By almost everyone. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–The Return (1997/2001) [translated 2010]

Posted in All Songs Considered, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Chris Andrews, Culture Shock, Death, Drinking, Dungen, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), My Bloody Valentine, Neurotics, Poets, Pornography, Pregnancy, Prison, Prostitution, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Short Story, Tame Impala, The Beatles, The Who, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Violence, War on January 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TAME IMPALA-“Lucidity” (2010).

I heard this song on the NPR’s 5 Artists You Should Have Known in 2010.  The album, Innerspace, is only available in Australia (imported on Amazon for big bucks) but I guess that’s why people download music.

This song is really cool. It feels very My Bloody Valentine to me.  However, inevitable comparisons to The Beatles abound, but that’s mostly in the vocals (which is kind of funny since they are Australian).  But it’s really a very sixties British vocal sound–not unlike early Who).

The big difference comes in the music which is psychedelic and wild in ways that The Beatles never quite managed.  There are great big washes of noise, and the sound quality sounds retro, even though it obviously isn’t.  Comparisons to the great Swedish band Dungen are not misplaced either.

I’ve listened to a few more tracks by them on YouTube, and I think this album could easily be one of the best of 2010 if only more people could hear it!

[READ: January 3, 2010] The Return

With the completion of this collection of short stories, I have now caught up with all of the published works of Roberto Bolaño (in English of course).  [The next book, Between Parentheses, a collection of nonfiction, is slated for June].

So The Return contains the 13 short stories that were not published in Last Evenings on Earth.  That collection inexplicably took shorts stories from his two Spanish collections Llamadas telefónicas (1997) and Putas asesinas (2001) and combined them into one collection in English.  It wasn’t quite as evident in Last Evenings, but it seems more obvious here that the stories in Putas asesinas are grouped together for a stylistic reason.  So, to have them split up is a bit of a bummer.  And yet, having them all translated is really the important thing.  And, again, Chris Andrews does an amazing job in the translation

This collection of stories was very strong.  I had read a few pieces in Harper’s and the New Yorker, but the majority were new to me.  Bolaño is an excellent short story writer.  Even if his stories don’t go anywhere (like his novels that never quite reach their destination), it’s his writing that is compelling and absorbing.

This collection also had some different subject matter for Bolaño (it wasn’t all poets on searches). (more…)

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Wells Tower–“On the Show” (Harper’s, May 2007)

Posted in Adventure, Black Sabbath, Circus, Culture Shock, Dudley Moore, Fears, Harper's, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Cook, Planxty, Short Story, Threats, Violence, Wells Tower on December 27, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DUDLEY MOORE & PETER COOK-“Bedazzled” (1967).

I learned about this song when John Lydon was a DJ on NPR’s All Songs Considered.   His collection of songs included Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” Jimi Hendrix’ “All Along the Watchtower” and Planxty’s “The Well Below the Valley.”  The other song was this Dudley Moore/Peter Cook number from the movie Bedazzled (the Brendan Frasier movie was a remake which Lydon says was a travesty compared to the original).

This song is wonderfully bizarre.  It’s got a groovy 60’s beat with female singers seducing Peter with their come on lines.  And after each line from the women, Peter deadpans a line about how disinterested he is.  As Lydon says, the best couplet is:

THE GIRLS: You drive me wiiiiild
PETER: You fill me with inertia.

Obviously the song is comic, but the music is cool and slinky and fun in a completely retro sort of way.   I’m only disappointed that I’ve never heard it before.  Thanks Mr. Rotten.  Oh, and I see the soundtrack just got a reissue!

Hear the song (and all of Lydon’s) DJing here. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126559893

[READ: December 9, 2010] “On the Show”

I don’t really care about carny stories (and yet I’m surprised by just how many there are).  But this story was interesting because of the twist that sucked me into the carny.

The story opens with the narrator describing his carny boss.  And what I loved about this set up is that the carny boss is a tough-guy, braggart, asshole.  [He knocked out Steve Martin on the set of one of his movies].  And the stories are wonderful precisely because we hear them through the ears of the narrator who thinks this guy is full of shit.  I realize that I dislike tough guy stories in general, but you could tell me a tough guy story and have the guy he’ talking to say he’s a jerk and I’ll think it’s okay.  Call me the anti-Hemingway.

We flashback to how this narrator, who we don’t know all that much about, got here.  Turns out the flashback is about twelve hours ago (which is also pretty funny).  The narrator is a young college kid who was home for the summer.  His stepfather really doesn’t like him and they have a huge fight (which gets physical) so he runs off and, yes, joins the circus. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“Emptying the Skies” (New Yorker, July 26, 2010)

Posted in Birds, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Death, Essays, Futility, Jonathan Franzen, Nature, New Yorker, Tokyo Police Club on December 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TOKYO POLICE CLUB-“Bambi” (2010).

I loved the first couple of Tokyo Police Club albums, but I missed this one when it came out.  My friend Al said it was one of his favorite albums of the year and that this song was one of his favorite songs.

I was disconcerted when I started listening to this because TPC is all about short, heavy, punk blasts of music.  And this song starts with…keyboards.

But it’s clear that this is still TPC, just with new bits and pieces added.  The keyboards are strangely out of pitch–they sound off somehow–and they add these bizarre little accents to this super catchy song.  The aggressive punk guitars are gone, but the attitude remains and this is a fantastic tune. One that I’ll listen to a lot more.

[READ: December 8, 2010] “Emptying the Skies”

I didn’t think it would happen, but I reached my Franzen saturation point with this article.  This is his third article about the disappearance of birds.  Originally, these articles came several years apart, so they wouldn’t seem so overwhelming.  But reading them all within a few days of each other, I’ve about had it with the doom and gloom.

These articles are devoid of Franzen’s usually charm and wit.  Obviously, a story about the disappearance of the earth’s birds should not have charm and wit, so he did his job well.  But man, I’m overwhelmed by the devastation of Europe’s migration paths.

The essay looks at three Mediterranean countries and their (reprehensible) attitudes towards birds: Cyprus, Malta and Italy. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“The Way of the Puffin” (New Yorker, April 21, 2008)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Birds, Consumerism, Culture Shock, Essays, Futility, History, Jonathan Franzen, Nature, New Yorker, Travel on December 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:BELLE AND SEBASTIAN-Live in Glasgow, TODAY! December 21 at 4PM eastern: NPR simulcast (2010).

It’s very rare that I have news before it happens, especially on this blog. But I do. Today at 4PM Eastern time, NPR is simulcasting Belle and Sebastian’s live show from Glasgow.

I don’t know if it will be downloadable (I do know that I am at work…boo!).  But I have to assume it will be pretty great.

Get details here.

[READ: December 6, 2010] “The Way of the Puffin”

After a few years away from lengthy New Yorker articles, Franzen returns with this 13 page (!) article about China.  The last article that we saw from Franzen was about his birding passion.  That passion has not subsided at all, and his co-passion of environmentalism is what sends him across the globe to the Yangtze Delta.

Franzen receives a Puffin-shaped golf club head cover, which he finds quite adorable.  But when he sees that it’s made in China, he wonders about the environmental impact of this adorable item.  He calls the company that makes the puffins (Daphne’s Headcovers), and is told that they use environmentally conscientious Chinese labor.  She also tells a (heartwarming) story about karma and how a good deed will get repaid manifold.  She tells Franzen about the workers in China and invites him to go check them out.  This leads to Franzen’s most “reporter”-like piece, and probably his least personal.

At first I wasn’t that interested in the piece.  I feared it was going to be a long slog through environmental degradation and depression.  And while it was that, Franzen also humanizes the story through the efforts of that rarest of birds: the Chinese environmentalist. (more…)

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Wells Tower–”Bird-Dogging the Bush Vote” (Harper’s, March 2005)

Posted in Culture Shock, Essays, Harper's, Lush, Metric, Outside, Political Humor, Religion, Wells Tower, WRFF 104.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on December 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: METRIC-“Gold Guns Girls” (2009).

I mentioned to Sarah that WRFF plays this song all the time and that I really liked it but I had no idea what the band or even the song title was because they never say it.  And, I couldn’t really figure out any of the words (I’m usually working with loud tools) to investigate online.

Well, we were in the car the other day and, of course, they played it again.  Happily, the Prius has a “message” button on the radio that tells you the names of the band and the song title (if the radio station provides it).  Huzzah, here’s the song (hilariously, they played it on the way home from our Halloween party too, proving my point that they really over-play this song).  But I still think its great.

I’ve been interested in Metric for a while (there are members of Broken Social Scene in the band) but for some reason I never listened to them.

This track opens with a fast guitar riff which is undercut by this cool bass riff.  Over the top staccato vocals (that come in unexpectedly) and a nice harmony type vocal (like later period Lush) make this opening really captivating.

The repeated chorus “Is it ever gonna be enough” (with I think whispered “enough”s in the background) remind me so much of the mid 90s alt rock that I love so much.  I have no idea if the rest of the disc is like this, but I have finally bitten the bullet and decided to order the whole thing.  I hope I’m not disappointed.

[READ: 2005 & October 25, 2010] “Bird-Dogging the Bush Vote”

A while ago I read a whole bunch of pieces by Wells Tower.  I intended to read all of the pieces I could find by him and I discovered he had written a few pieces for Harper’s as well as the articles for Outside.  I’m fairly certain I read this story back in 2005 when it came out, as it sounds kind of familiar, but maybe I, like Tower himself, was too bummed with the results to actually read about it in detail.

In this piece, Tower decides to go “undercover” and volunteers at some Bush/Cheney offices in Florida (a pivotal state that year and one in which malfeasance was predicted on a large scale).  Tower is unabashed about his distaste for Bush (to us, not to the Floridians).  He admits that he did feel a bit of hope in the President right after the events of September 11, 2001, but by September 12, he was already disgusted with him again.

And so he spends a few weeks in Florida actually asking people to vote for Bush in hopes of finding something out of the ordinary.  Which, aside from some real mean spiritedness (which I’m sure was the same in the Kerry camp), there was nothing scandalous to report.   Although I will say that the example he gives (telling a Democrat that voting was on the day after the actual election, which I’d seen in a number of other places too, really pisses me off despite its fairly innocuousness and no doubt ineffectiveness–as a librarian I hate telling lies to people). (more…)

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Matthew Klam–”Issues I Dealt with in Therapy” (New Yorker July 12, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, All Songs Considered, Culture Shock, Funny (ha ha), Matthew Klam, New Yorker, Romance, Short Story, Tricky on November 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TRICKY-“Kingston Logic” (2010).

I really liked Tricky’s debut album Maxinquaye.  Although I felt he had somewhat diminishing returns after that.  Then he got into acting so I assumed his musical career was over.

Now he’s back with this album (although I see on allmusic that he has actually been releasing for quite some time, and had a “comeback” album in 2008).  This song, which you can hear on NPR, while still kind of angry, is less claustrophobic than his early stuff (which I liked, but it’s nice to see him coming out from under that).

The female vocalist that he employs on the song is fine–she raps more than sings, which is kind of a shame since Tricky usually picks women with great and interesting voices.  But since this “rap” seems more like another instrument than actual singing/lyrics, it works quite well as a sound collage.

The selling point of the song is the infectiously simple guitar line that repeats throughout.  There’s a lot of other things going on that keep the song very busy, including a spoken section by Tricky himself.  The whole song is not even 3 minutes long;  it comes in, does what it intends and then takes off.

The more I listen to the song that more I really like it and I’m going to have to check out the whole disc to see what else he does.  I miss the gorgeous vocals, but I’ll happily take more of this, too.

[READ: October, 20, 2010] “Issues I Dealt with in Therapy”

Matthew Klam is another of the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 40 authors.  I enjoyed the excerpt of this story in the main issue, but I have to say I was rather surprised at how differently the  story turned out than I expected.

The protagonist of this story and his girlfriend are invited to a wedding on a fancy exclusive island (think Nantucket, although it is never stated).  He is a pretty average guy, but the guest list includes the Al Gore family as well as Madeline Albright and many other VIPs.  The island has been pretty much taken over for this wedding and it is clearly going to be a big deal.

The bulk of the story is a flashback which answers the question, “What was I doing here?”

The narrator and Bob (the soon-to-be husband) were in college together.  They were even roommates for a year.  Their friendship was kind of silly and superficial, but they formed a bond that lasted over the years.  Even though the narrator isn’t a VIP, he was still asked to be an usher (and to give a speech) at the wedding. (more…)

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Jeffrey Eugenides–”The Oracular Vulva” (New Yorker, June 21 & 28, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Jeffrey Eugenides, LGBTQ, Nature, New Yorker, Research, Rush, Scholarship, Sex, Short Story on November 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-“BU2B” (2010).

I’m a little freaked out that Rush has a song that is just initials (it’s so text message-y).  And, listening to the lyrics tells me that the 2 is for “to.”  That is no way for 50-some year-old men to behave!

Of course, neither is the pounding heavy song that is “Bu2B.”  Like “Caravan,” the song opens with a dark and dirty riff.  The song is not as complex as “Caravan” although it also features a quieter section.  After the verse, the quiet bridge comes as a more natural progression (and it, too has some strong bass stuff going on).

What’s fascinating about the song is that despite its heaviness, it is layered with some really delicate keyboards that plink along the top of the sections.  It showcases both sides of Rush in one track.  And lyrically it’s quite dark as well.

These two early release songs have me really excited for the new album, Clockwork Angels, due out in 2011.

[READ: October 11, 2010] “The Oracular Vulva”

Jeffrey Eugenides was the next writer in the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 4o issue.

I really enjoyed Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, and I regard him highly as a writer (even though I haven’t read very much else by him).  About midway through reading this story I realized it must be an excerpt from Middlesex (which I haven’t read, but hope to one of these days).   The bad thing about realizing this is that it impacted my reading of the end, making it kind of hard to assess the story as a story (which, I realize it isn’t, so maybe it’s moot anyhow).

This excerpt focuses on Dr. Peter Luce (the famous sexologist).  The title of the story certainly implies a degree of sexology, right?  I was surprised however, that the story opens with the doctor in a jungle, studying the Dawat tribe.  Luce, a very comfortable middle class sexologist is miserable out in the jungle, with crazy animal sounds, oppressive heat and, worst of all, little children trying to pull down his pants.

The doctor is studying this tribe because they have very specific gender roles–so specific, that the men and women are not permitted to interact with each other at all, except for once a month for three minutes, for procreation.  So, for sexual outlet, the men engage in oral sex with each other (semen being a very important thing for the young men to consume).  Yet no matter how progressive Dr Luce is, he simply can’t deal with the thought of this young boy, who is trying to do his culture’s most honorable thing.  (more…)

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Peter Carlson–K Blows Top (2009)

Posted in Alexisonfire, Attack Attack!, Communists, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, Drinking, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Fears, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), History, Military, Nikita Khrushchev, Peter Carlson, Religion, Translators on September 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ATTACK ATTACK!-“Stick Stickly” (2010).

I discovered this video (again, considerably later than the controversy for it) because my friend Rich said he didn’t know there was a genre called “crabcore.”  A search for crabcore suggests that it is a goof “genre” named specifically for this band and the goofy way they dance around.

This song starts with very heavy riffing and some growls and screaming and then jumps quickly into an auto-tuned very catchy chorus (they sound like a more polished and poppy version of Alexisonfire).

Then comes the verses which are screamed very loudly and heavily followed by a bridge (?) that is even more cookie monster-vocals like (with a strange cartoon effect thrown at the end of each line of the chorus).  It’s almost like commercial death metal, and I kind of liked it.  They’re pushing boundaries

Then there’s more chugga chugga heavy riffing and the song is reaching the end and then WHAT? the songs shifts gears into a keyboard fueled discoey dance song.  First it’s hi energy and then it slows into a mellow auto-tuned bit that proceeds to the end.

What the hell?  I’m all for a band pushing the boundaries of genres, but holy cow.  And just to add one more gimmick, they’re a Christian band as well (although you’d never know from the lyrics, whatever the hell he’s singing about).  This is no “Jesus is My Friend,” let me tell you.

So yea, I don’t really know what to make of it. The video makes me laugh with their all black outfits and synchronized everything–and that may be why they have replaced it with a new video which is much more boring.  I assume they’re just anther trendy band that will disappear soon enough (there’s a lot of snarky fun at their expense at this definition of “crabcore“).

I don’t have a clue what the title is supposed to mean, nor half of their other titles on the album: “Fumbles O’Brian” “Renob, Nevada.”  I listened to some samples of the other songs and they seem far more dancey/discoey than death metal, so I’m not really sure what’s up with the rest of the record.

But whatever.  In the meantime, enjoy the silly video

[READ: July–September 10, 2010] K Blows Top

I heard about this book through a great interview on NPR in June of 2009.  It sounded like a really funny book and I was seriously considering reading it.  Of course, then I forgot about it.

About 8 months later, the library received a huge donation of books, and this was right on top, just begging me to read it.  So, I saved it for myself and decided it was about time to crack it open.  Several months after that I finally opened it and was totally hooked.

I didn’t know much about Khrushchev before reading this.  I knew vaguely about “the shoe” incident, but that was it.  In fact, the whole beginning of the cold war era was a bit of a mystery to me.  Since I lived through Reagan, I never felt compelled to find out what had caused the 80s.

But I’m super glad that I read this.  The book follows Khrushchev’s visits to the United States when he was premiere of  the Soviet Union. Carlson combed through tons of newspaper reports about his visit here (ostensibly to visit with Eisenhower, but more just to enjoy himself in the American heartland), and pulls together a fascinating story from a number of sources.

But more than just an interesting look at history, this book is very funny. (more…)

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