SOUNDTRACK: ONE RING ZERO-As Smart as We Are (2004).
I had this CD sitting around my house for about 4 years. I had received it as a promo disc from Soft Skull Press (along with several other books on CD) and I just never put it on. Then one day I was going through all these promos to see if any were books I wanted to listen to. It was then that I actually read the disc label and saw that it was a band with lyrics written by some of my favorite authors.
I liked the disc so much I wound up buying it because the packaging is truly cool. It’s a little booklet and it features an interview with the band and some really cool insights into how the songs came about, how they got the writers to submit lyrics, and the cool fact that One Ring Zero became McSweeney’s house band, accompanying writers during their weekly readings.
One Ring Zero is comprised of two guys (and guests). And for this disc they split the tracks in half and one of them wrote melodies for 8 songs and the other guy wrote melodies for the other 8. I’m not sure that I could tell the song writers apart by their styles, though.
But sure, the lyrics are probably great, but what does the band sound like? Well, in the introduction, they are described as specializing “in the sort of 19th century, gypsy-klezmer, circus-flea-cartoon music you mainly hear in your dreams.” And, yep, that is a good summary of things. The band uses water pipes, claviola, slide whistle and a theremin (among other homemade instruments).
And so, as with other McSweeney’s things, I’m going to list all of the lyricists with their titles. But lyrically it’s an interesting concoction. The authors were asked to write lyrics, but not necessarily songs. So some pieces don’t have choruses. Some pieces are just silly, and some pieces work quite nicely. But most of them are really poems (and I can’t really review poems). They’re fun to read, and it is fun to see what these authors made of this assignment.
PAUL AUSTER-“Natty Man Blues”
A rollicking opening that lopes around with the nonsensical lyrics, “There ain’t no sin in Cincinnati.” This one feels like a twisted Western.
DANIEL HANDLER-“Radio”
A supremely catchy (and rather vulgar) song that gets stuck in my head for days. “Fucking good, fucking good, fucking good…”
DARIN STRAUSS-“We Both Have a Feeling That You Still Want Me”
A Dark and somewhat disturbing song that is also quite fun.
RICK MOODY-“Kiss Me, You Brat”
A delicate twinkly piece sung byguest vocalist Allysa Lamb *the first female vocalist to appear) . Once the chorus breaks in, it has an almost carnivalesque tone to it. This is the only song whose lyrics were written after the music.
LAWRENCE KRAUSER-“Deposition Disposition”
A twisted song that works as a call and response with delightful theremin sounds. It has a very noir feel.
CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN-“Half and Half”
This is a sort of comic torchy ballad. Lyrically, it’ a bout being a hermaphrodite (and it’s dirty too). Vocals by Hanna Cheek.
DAVE EGGERS-“The Ghost of Rita Gonzalo”
This has a sort of Beach Boys-y folky sound (albeit totally underproduced). But that theremin is certainly back.
MARGARET ATWOOD-“Frankenstein Monster Song”
This song begins simply with some keyboard notes but it breaks into a very creepy middle section. It’s fun to think of Margaret Atwood working on this piece.
AARON NAPARSTEK-“Honku”
This song’s only about 20 seconds long. It is one of a series of haikus about cars, hence honku.
DENIS JOHNSON-“Blessing”
The most folk-sounding of all the tracks (acoustic guitar & tambourine). It reminds me of Negativland, somehow. It is also either religious or blasphemous. I can’t quite be sure which.
NEIL GAIMAN-“On the Wall”
A tender piano ballad. The chorus gets more sinister, although it retains that simple ballad feel throughout. It’s probably the least catchy of all the songs. But lyrically it’s quite sharp.
AMY FUSSELMAN-“All About House Plants”
An absurdist accordion-driven march. This is probably the most TMBG-like of the bunch (especially when the background vocals kick in).
MYLA GOLDBERG-“Golem”
This song opens (appropriately) with a very Jewish-sounding vibe (especially the clarinet). But once that intro is over, the song turns into a sinister, spare piece.
A.M. HOMES-“Snow”
This song opens as a sort of indie guitar rock song. It slowly builds, but just as it reached a full sound, it quickly ends. The song’s lyrics totally about twenty words.
BEN GREENMAN-“Nothing Else is Happening”
This song has more of that sinister carnivalesque feel to it (especially when the spooky background vocals and the accordion kick in). The epilogue of a sample from a carnival ride doesn’t hurt either.
JONATHAN AMES-“The Story of the Hairy Call”
This song has a great lo-fi guitar sound (accented with what sounds like who knows what: an electronic thumb piano?). It rages with a crazily catchy chorus, especially given the raging absurdity of the lyrics.
JONATHAN LETHEM-“Water”
This track is especially interesting. The two writers each wrote melodies for these lyrics. So, rather than picking one, they simply merged them. It sounds schizophrenic, but is really quite wonderful. The two melodies sound nothing alike, yet the work together quite well.
[READ: Some time in 2004 & Summer 2009] Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans
This was the first collection of McSweeney’s humorous stories/pieces/lists whatever you call them. Some of the pieces came from McSweeney’s issues, but most of them came from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
The humor spans a great deal of categories, there’s some literary, some absurd, some nonsensical and, most amusingly, lists. The back of the book has an entire selection of lists, but there are also some scattered throughout the book as well (I don’t know what criteria was used to allow some lists to be in the “main” part).
As with the other McSweeney’s collections, I’m only writing a line or two about each piece. For the lists, I’m including a representative sample (not necessarily the best one, though!)
Overall, I enjoyed the book quite a lot (which is why I re-read it this year). There are puns, there are twisted takes on pop culture, there are literary amusements (Ezra Pound features prominently, which seems odd). It spans the spectrum of humor. You may not like every piece, but there’s bound to be many things that make you laugh. (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-Aerial (2005).
This was Kate’s first release in 12 years! There’s a part of me that would expect unparalleled genius to emerge from a 12 year hiatus, but realistically, what we get is a more mature and confident singer, and songs that sound very much like Kate Bush songs. There’s not a lot of experimentation, although there is a song cycle (two in fact) to hold the disc together.
I found out about 
SOUNDTRACK: TOPLESS WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES soundtrack (2006).
I learned about this soundtrack from a very cool article in The Believer (the beginning of which is online 
I Just Read About That... 