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Archive for the ‘Excerpt’ Category

David Lipsky and Alexander Abrams–“The Packaging (and Re-packaging) of a Generation” (Harper’s, July 1994)

Posted in Alexander Abrams, David Lipsky, Essays, Excerpt, Fortune, Generation X, Harper's, Phosphorescent, Publishers Weekly, Slackers, Spin, Time, Tiny Desk Concert on April 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

00011SOUNDTRACK: PHOSPHORESCENT-Tiny Desk Concert #153 (September 1, 2011).

phospI know Phosphorescent from a Newport Folk Festival Concert a number of years ago.  I remember liking the show, although I feel a little disappointed by this Tiny Desk Concert.  This show is just Matthew Houck and his guitar.

The blurb says that Phosphorescent specializes in “free wheeling weariness.”  And that seems to be true.  It also says that Houck’s voice is weary after a lengthy tour and could barely speak which made his voice sound even more weary.  Phosphorescent was wrapping up months of touring and Houck could barely talk, let alone sing solo for 20 minutes on camera. We quickly hooked him up with as much herbal tea as we could find and coaxed that crooked croon back to life.

I found all four songs to be pleasant and, yes a little weary-filled.

I know that Phosphorescent is basically a solo project for Houck.  but when I heard the Newport Folk festival show back in 2013, he had a full band with him.  And I think the fuller sound made his songs sound, well, fuller.

“My Dove, My Lamb” is a pretty song, gently picked with a rather lovely sound and good lyrics.  After “We’ll Be Here Soon” he says that  “The Mermaid Parade” is in the same key with a lot of the same chords, “I’m okay with that if you are.”  The songs do sound rather similar. Before “Los Angeles” he says he has a new guitar with new tuning.  I can’t iamgine what he means by that.  Is he playing all of his sings with the strings tuned differently?

All four songs were pleasant, but they didn’t make me want to get his record.

[READ: January 26, 2016] “The Packaging (and Re-packaging) of a Generation”

Since I found the essay by David Lipsky in the recent Harper’s I decided to see if he had written anything else for Harper’s over the years.  In fact he hadn’t, but they had excerpted a portion of a book that he co-wrote, Late Bloomers: The Declining Prospects of the Twentysomething Generation.  Interestingly, on Amazon, only Alexander Abrams is listed as an author, but only Lipsky’s bio is given )no respect for Gen X).  Of course, the book is only available used since it is 22 years old, but as the slackers say, whatever.

Back in the 90s I read an enjoyed a lot of books about my generation–Gen X–from insightful commentary to parody.  And I’m somewhat surprised that this one missed my radar–although the title is a bit of a downer, let’s be fair.

The Publishers Weekly Review from back then states “In this sweeping and often dull analysis,” but for what it’s worth I found this excerpt to be pretty interesting.  Now if that could be sustained for 224 pages is something else entirely. (more…)

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Mercè Rodoreda–“The Hanged Man” (Harper’s, November 2015)

Posted in Ben Sollee, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Death, Excerpt, Harper's, John Edgar Wideman, Mercè Rodoreda, Sex, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, William Shakespeare, Yuck! on April 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

harpnovSOUNDTRACK: BEN SOLLEE-Tiny Desk Concert #141 (July 11, 2011).

solleeI’d never heard of Ben Sollee before this Tiny Desk and I’m a little surprised by that–he seems like the kind of musician I’d have run into somewhere.  For this set (I have no idea what his sets are usually like), they are a trio.

Sollee plays cello  and sings (!), Phoebe Hunt plays violin and sings backing vocals and Jordan Ellis plays drums (in this case one of cool those snare drum boxes).

But despite the strings-dominated sound, the songs feel very rock-oriented.  Although as the blurb says, they are kind of genre defying.  Each song has a very different feel.

On “Hurting” Sollee opens with some great big plucked bass notes from the cello.  Then Sollee switches between plucking and bowing the cello.  And that transition really impacts the overall sound, making it sound like more than a trio.  The violin plays some accented notes and then some big long notes (like the cello).  But it’s the drums (brushes on the box) that add a lot of character to this song.  Sollee has a good strong voice and it fits the song well.

“Captivity” is about being in prison (he wrote it after watching a documentary about a maximum security prison) both physical and metaphorical.  For this song he strums (in an interesting, folky way) the cello.  He plays some bass notes while strumming the rest of the instrument–it’s a great sound.  And I love how different this sounds from the first song.  Once again the percussive sounds add so much.

“The Globe” about the Globe Theatre and how it was burnt down twice.  So he wrote a story about a frustrated loverboy burning it down.  The song names checks some of Shakespeare’s characters and while not comical is kind of funny too.  Musically the song is great with builds and sudden stops.  It’s also quite funky at times, with all kinds of different rhythms from the cello and violin as well as the percussion (which in this case is hand claps).  He says that they’ve been having fun playing it live and that really comes through.  I really like the sounds that Sollee makes from the cello at the end of the song.

“Inclusions” is an a capella song.  He says they’d been working on it in the van on the way down.  I expected a simple song, but they have wonderful harmonies as well.  For percussion, Phoebe is rattling a can of cacao nibs. (There was recently a very funny cacao nibs joke on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, otherwise I’d never have heard of them–I like that Sollee beat Brooklyn by five years though).

This was a wonderful find and I definitely want to hear more from Sollee–I’m curious to see what he gets up to in the studio.

[READ: January 10, 2016] “The Hanged Man”

November was a dark month for stories in Harper’s.  This story along with the one I posted a while back from John Edgar Wideman both deal with suicide.  This is an excerpt from War, So Much, War, and it opens with a man cutting down a sack which was hanging in a tree.

The sack contains a body–“his face was white, his tongue black, his lips purple.”  When he cuts down the sack, the body’s head hits a rock and the protagonist is worried because the body is actually alive and he’s afraid it is now damaged.

The body doesn’t speak for a long time. But when it does it is angry that the man has cut him down. (more…)

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Otessa Moshfegh–“Measure for Measure” (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Excerpt, Harper's, Otessa Moshfegh, Paul Simon, Prison, Scott Mulvahill, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: SCOTT MULVAHILL-“Begin Againers” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2016).

beginLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  I want to draw attention to a couple of them.

Mulvahill is a double bassist, and his double bass sounds outstanding.  He slides notes, he plays chords, and he keeps up a really fun, jazzy riff.

He also slaps the strings which provides some percussive sounds.  One of the nice features of this song is that he keeps playing a low open note so the song never sounds empty.   And that’s all there is to the song–just his voice and his bass (and a proper verse/chorus structure of course).

The song s(and his voice) reminds me of a kind of stripped down Paul Simon song. It’s not really my thing, though and I wouldn’t choose to listen to it a lot, but I love his bass sound and I think the song itself is really good.

[READ: February 16, 2016] “Measure for Measure”

This is an excerpt from Moshfegh’s novel Eileen.

This excerpt (and presumably the whole book) is about a woman who I assume is anorexic  She doesn’t eat and seems to relish in her boniness.

I took such poor care of myself. I knew I should drink water, eat healthful foods, but I didn’t like to drink water or eat healthful foods. I found fruits and vegetables detestable, like eating a bar of soap or a candle.

She is reflecting back on her younger days when at 24 she was considered a spinster and had indeed had only one kiss from a boy when she was 16.  It was a prom date that had gone rather awry–she wound up biting him on the neck (and can’t recall is she drew blood).

She concludes the memory by saying “He’s probably dead..Most people I know are dead.” (more…)

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Joshua Cohen–“From the Palo Alto Sessions” (Harper’s, May 2015)

Posted in Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gaelynn Lea, Gavin Bryars, Harper's, Huh?, Joshua Cohen, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

may2015SOUNDTRACK: GAELYNN LEA-“Someday We’ll Linger In The Sun” (TINY DESK CONTEST WINNER 2016).

gaelynnYou never know what is going to win the Tiny Desk Contest–there are so many genres represented.  Will it big a big rocking band, a scrappy bluesy band, will it be a sweet lullaby, or, unexpectedly, will it be a haunting song by a woman with a fiddle.

Gaelynn Lea plays a violin which she loops.

As the song opens, the first violin notes are slow and haunting, almost hesitating.  Then she plays harmony notes over those (the spareness here reminds me of Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.”  Then she plays some pizzicato notes over the top of these.  It’s a beautiful, haunting melody.

After a minute her voice comes in.  It is unexpected.  It sounds slightly off, and yet somehow even more hauntingly beautiful for it.  Especially when she gets to the simple “chorus” of “and I love you.”  The melody doesn’t change through the song, that constant repeating riff, those slow pulls on the bow, the intermittent pizzicato notes and Lea’s voice continue as lyrics flow over you.

And what lyrics:

Our love’s a complex vintage wine
All rotted leaves and lemon rind
I’d spit you out but now you’re mine

Don’t tell me we’ve got time
The subtle thief of life
It slips away when we pay no mind

We pulled the weeds out til the dawn
Nearly too tired to carry on
Someday we’ll linger in the sun

Man.

After a few verses, she plays a solo over the top of it all.  It is as aching as the rest of the song.  Try not to cry while listening to it.

You can watch the video here.

[READ: January 8, 2015] “From the Palo Alto Sessions”

This is an excerpt from Cohen’s Book of Numbers.  I vaguely know Cohen (his first book Witz, was 800 pages and BoN is almost 600), but I don’t really know his writing.

This excerpt (I don’t know where it comes from the book) is a bit hard to get into: “Toward the end D-Unit had been working on the touchscreen.  Do not interrupt, we do not digress.”  Turns out that D-Unit is a person and the narrator is plural (or the royal we).  The story follows as “we” investigate D-Unit’s house and computer supplies.

There’ s a ton of tech speak, as well as what appears to be slang (I never figured out what “cur” meant in this book).

The language just piles up with sentences that build and stop and resume in another way.  I enjoyed this: “This career vegan who after his wife left him for a woman stuffed his freezer with enough cuts of venison to make 1.33 deer.” (more…)

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Don DeLillo–“sine cosine tangent” (New Yorker, February 22, 2016)

Posted in Don DeLillo, Excerpt, Julien Baker, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Parenting, Tiny Desk Concert, Torres on March 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

CoverStory-2-22-16-879x1200-1455509711 SOUNDTRACK: JULIEN BAKER-Tiny Desk Concert #513 (March 7, 2016).

julienI had never heard of Julien Baker before this Tiny Desk Concert.  Indeed, she looks young enough that perhaps this is her first concert (it isn’t).

Baker plays a lovely, slightly echoey, but otherwise very clear electric guitar.  Her tone is so clear and quiet.  And her voice is also incredibly delicate.  Watching her play and sing it’s amazing you can hear anything at all, and yet she does not wilt in any way–her music is delicate but not whispered.

As with many players these days, she uses a looping pedal to great effect.  For the first song, “Sprained Ankle” she loops the lovely harmonics at the beginning of the song and then allows for the multiple layers to play.  Her vocals are as gentle as the harmonics, and yet, again, not whispery.  At barely 2 minutes, the song leaves you wanting more.

She talks about doing a new song for them called “Sad Song #11” since “I already have ten sad songs.”  She thanks everyone for their “courteous laughter.”  And then plays another beautiful song now officially titled, “Funeral Pyre.”  She has a very nice way with words: “Ash for a decorative urn you keep on your mantelpiece like a trophy for everything.”  There’s a beautiful layered guitar solo at the end too.

The introductory guitar lines from “Something” are really lovely–her sound is just so clear–and once again, the song is beautiful and haunting with her repeated lyrics sounding more powerful with each go around.

The blurb about the show references Torres, and I totally see the deference.  They don’t sound anything alike in that Torres is brash and loud, but they have that same up-close and intimate vibe.  For Baker, it makes you want to lean is as she sings.

[READ: February 17, 2016] “sine cosine tangent”

I have always meant to read more from DeLillo, I just never do.

And while I have enjoyed all of the things I have read by him, I didn’t love this story so much.  Okay, I’ve since found out that this is an excerpt, which changes things.  I’ll keep my review the same but with bracketed realizations pertaining to the novel.

This is the story of a young man (his age in the story is unclear to me, and I’m not sure how much distance separates the present from the past [presumably this is covered in the novel]) and his relationship with his father.  His father is a successful businessman but the son says that he “shaved a strip of hair along the middle of my head, front to back, I was his personal Antichrist.”

His father left when he was 13, although he never found out why.  Years later, he sees his father, Mr Ross Lockhart on the TV, discussing the ecology of unemployment in Geneva. (more…)

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Wolfgang Hilbig–“Lip Service” (Harper’s, June 2015)

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, Isabel Fargo Cole, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Wolfgang Hilbig on January 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

june2015 SOUNDTRACK: WOLF ALICE-Tiny Desk Concert #503 (January 22, 2016).

wolfaliceI have been really enjoying Wolf Alice’s album My Love is Cool. It has many familiar elements of shoegaze and grunge but it’s played in different and unexpected combinations.  The album is moody and at times abrasive. But there are some lovely melodies underneath these songs.  (They were originally a folkie band before going electric).

So this Tiny Desk Concert plays to their origins (all of five years ago).  And they really change their songs for this set.

“Fluffy” on the original has noisy guitars and some great stop starts and big screams.  They really, really slow it down for the set.  They remove the abrasiveness, sing delicately (with the drummer providing backing vocals), and for the chorus of “sixteen, so sweet” they actually whisper it.

On record, “Turn to Dust” is pretty and soaring and very moody.  This version is quite folky.  I prefer the original but I really like this version especially the way you can really hear the interesting lyrics. Also, Ellie’s voice is quite lovely with no effects on it.  They even hit Bob’s gong at the end.

The recorded version of “Bros” is upbeat and somewhat poppy.  This acoustic version takes on a similarly upbeat feel but in a very different style.  It feels like a real folk song and works surprisingly well in this context.  I love the ending that they take onto it which make it even prettier.

I enjoyed this set a lot, even if it took me two listens to recognize two of the songs.  But I didn’t really enjoy the band members all that much.  I’m going to assume they were nervous rather than disaffected.

After the first song the bassist casually asks, “How’s everyone doin?  Good?” and when everyone chuckles, he says, “That’s the end of that banter,” which is pretty funny (and makes Bob laugh out loud), but it proves to be true.  And it takes Bob to break the silence (while the guitarist tunes).  Bob tried to barter with the drummer for his shirt, which gets them to admire the strange things around the office.  Also singer Ellie Roswell seems really strangely uncomfortable looking at he ceiling quite often, which seems very unlike the cocky persona she puts on in her videos.  But the music is great, so that’s okay.

[READ: January 10, 2016] “Lip Service”

“Lip Service” is an excerpt from Hilbig’s book I which was translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole.

This was a strange story which is all about perception.

It starts “Most of W’s perceptions were acquired by looking from outside into the interior of lighted dwellings.”

He would watch people talking but he could barely hear them.  And so he learned how to perceive what was going on and how unimportant the actual words that people said could be.

And he really enjoyed the non-gratification this afforded–the idea of being a voyeur who never completes his quest. (more…)

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Seth Price—“Nice Insane” (Harper’s, July 2015)

Posted in Art, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Excerpt, Food, Harper's, Sean Lennon, Seth Price, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Tiny Desk Concert on January 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »

july2015 SOUNDTRACK: THE GHOST OF A SABER TOOTH TIGER-Tiny Desk Concert #92 (November 17, 2010).

goastt  The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger is a band created by Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl.  I really liked their most recent album so I was pretty interested to hear this much earlier Tiny Desk Concert.

I love this acoustic pairing.  Lennon plays the acoustic guitar (and sings and sounds a bit like his father’s more delicate side.  Meanwhile, Charlotte plays a ton of instruments and sings as well.

The show starts with them talking about tambourines and how they are unavoidably loud (so Sean’s is on the floor).

“Jardin du Luxembourg” has some great chord changes and Charlotte’s lovely accordion (with a kind of French flair).  As with all of these songs, there’s interesting lyrics like, “people say your brain is like cream cheese it takes the shape of anything you please.”  At the end of the song, Charlotte comments that she tried to play the accordion quietly but if she does it sounds like it has emphysema.  Sean says that she just learned to play it ten days earlier.

For “Schroedinger’s Cat” she switches from accordion to melodica and xylophone.  Charlotte sings harmony along with Sean.  There are more interesting lyrics here too (trippy ones, of course).  It references Socrates, Aristotle, Dorian Gray and many more cultural touchstones.

On “Dark Matter, White Noise,” Charlotte plays bass (and sings lead on alternating verses).  The chorus is gorgeous again, with a sort of minor key tone.

“The World Was Made For Men”  is the first song they ever wrote together.  Again, they sing together and sound fantastic.

At the end of the show, he threatens to do a 2 hour tambourine solo.

GOASTT is really something.  I am bummed that they opened for a band I wanted to see this summer but was unable to attend.  I hope the two bands tour again together this year.

[READ: January 6, 2015] “Nice Insane”

This was the second short piece in this issue of Harper’s.  I don’t know Seth Price.  This is an excerpt from his novel Fuck Seth Price.

Generally, I dislike reading excerpts, although sometimes they make you want to read the full novel.  That did not happen in this case, though.

This excerpt focuses on the “moment of inspiration that had rejuvenated his [presumably Seth’s] painting career, making him rich but ultimately leading him to reject contemporary art.” (more…)

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Marlon James–“French Town Rock” (Harper’s, September 2014)

Posted in Excerpt, Gambling, Harper's, Marlon James, Roger Dean, Yes on July 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harpers-sept-2014-LA-coverSOUNDTRACK: YES-Going for the One (1977).

Yes_Going_for_the_OneThere’s many interesting things about this Yes album.  It was the first album since they hit it big to not have a Roger Dean cover (it did use the logo of course).  This cover is a photo done by Hipgnosis.  It also features the return of Rick Wakeman (the first player to come back).  Further, there aren’t really any epic songs.  Sure, there’s a 6 and 7 and even a 15 minute song, but none of them feel epic.  There’s even a song less than four minutes long!

It’s also interesting for having a naked man on the cover about a year before Rush would release Hemispheres with a naked man on the cover.  Must have been a thing.

This album opens with a big rock n roll bluesy guitar and steel guitar solo and sounds nothing like any Yes song ever did.  Then Anderson’s voice comes in and it sounds a lot more Yes.  But again, something feels different about this album.  The song is only 5 minutes, but it has many different parts all anchored by the wild careening steel guitar.  The chorus “going for the one” is pretty catchy and is probably the most memorable moment in the song, although I understand it did pretty well as a single.  The wavery solo at the end just shows how much the guitar permeates this song.

“Turn of the Century” is a 7 minute song. It is mellow and is mostly Howe’s classical guitar and waves of keyboards.  The song slowly builds.  It is quite pretty.  It was originally supposed to be short but it grew during the recordings and includes a very lovely Wakeman piano solo and a beautiful Howe classical solo at the end.

“Parallels” was written by Chris Squire and was supposed to be on his solo album, but it didn’t fit.  So instead Yes recorded it together.  It opens with Rick Wakeman playing a church organ (there’s a fascinating story about how they recorded that).  This of course makes the song feel bigger than it needs to.  But Squire has a great sense of interesting vocal lines, and this song sounds like pure Yes.

“Wonderous Stories” is a sweet song that sounds like it could be the closing credits of a kids’ fantasy movie.  “Awaken” is the fifteen minute song.  It opens with a classic sounding piano section.  The keyboard washes come in with Anderson’s vocals.  And the around 1:30 the song kicks in with a cool Howe guitar riff and some big Squire bass.  This middle section rings as classic Yes–lots of guitar and bass pyrotechnics and Anderson’s voice floating over the lot.   The solo culminates in what feels like a great conclusion to this song–except that the song has only hit the 5 minute mark (and there’s ten more to go), but that doesn’t stop the song from building and building (with some great Wakeman moments). And then it reaches a hard stop for a pause as the song rebuilds with a lot of percussion and keyboards.   This meandering instrumental section is cool and trippy and lasts for about four minutes.  When the song resumes, it picks up more or less where it stopped with Anderson’s voice soaring over what sounds like ea choir of voices.  Around 12 minutes in, Wakeman gets another pipe organ solo–it’s a brief flourish before the song kicks back in to build to the proper conclusion.  Except that once again, the song fades away and there is a quieter coda, of keys and bells and Anderson’s voice.  It feels like it should be bigger and grander somehow.  And it may just be a poor production quality that makes this album seem flat.

Since almost every Yes album had different personnel, I’m going to keep a running tally here.   Here we have the first time someone has returned to the band, with Wakeman deciding (for no doubt complicate reasons) to return.

Chris Squire-bass
Jon Anderson-vocals
Alan White (#2)-drums
Rick Wakeman (#2 replaced Patrick Moraz #3)-keyboards
Steve Howe (#2)-guitar

[READ: April 12, 2015] “French Town Rock”

This is another excerpt from a novel (A Brief History of Seven Killings).  This excerpt is done in a Jamaican dialect, which I found challenging to read.

I enjoyed that there was a guy named Shotta Sheriff.

The story comes down to gambling and money.  There’s a character known as the Singer.  His brother fixed a horse race and made a ton of money.  But then he absconded with the profits. (more…)

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Rachel Kushner–“The Great Exception” (Harper’s, November 2014)

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, History, Rachel Kushner, Roger Dean, Romance, Short Story, Simon and Garfunkel, West Side Story, Yes on July 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  nov2014YES-Yesterdays (1975).

yesterdaysAfter Relayer, Yes decided to explore solo projects.  And their label released this compilation.  Oddly enough, it consists entirely of songs from Yes and Time and a Word (and is a great collection of those two middling albums).  It also includes a B-side called “Dear Father” and, most unexpectedly, a 10 minute version of the Simon and Garfunkel song “America.”  All the songs have the original lineup except “America” which features Howe and Wakeman and was recorded in 1972.

“Looking Around” and “Survival” from Yes and “Time and a Word,” “Sweet Dreams” “Astral Traveler” and “Then” from Time and a Word.

“Dear Father” is a  sounds very much like a B-side from Time and a Word (meaning it has elements of Yes, but not enough to make the song especially interesting).  The bass is thumping, but there’s also strings which add a less dramatic element than intended.  The ending sounds very 1970s (almost like a TV special) especially in the way the strings swell, but it’s a cool sounding end to the disc.

The sound of “America” (which opens the disc) is pure early 70s’s Yes, with loud guitars and some good bass lines.  They play around with the original quite a lot (and most of the time it is unrecognizable).  I really enjoy that the guitar and bass throw in lines from the West Side Storys “America.”  There’s moments where you know the S&G original (like the “I don’t know why” line and they play it totally wrong (but in very Yes fashion), but other parts like “counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike” sounds different but also really good.  This is the kind of cover I like, when a band completely make a song their own.  I still prefer the original, but this is an interesting interpretation.

The cover of the album is the last one that Roger Dean would do for the band for a while.  It’s pretty bizarre (even for a Dean cover) with a little boy peeing on the back.

[READ: March 27, 2015] “The Great Exception”

This story comes from The Strange Case of Rachel K.  I assume it is a short story, as I can’t even imagine what it might have to do with Rachel K in general.

This piece opens with Part 1 in which there is a brief history of people’s beliefs in the flatness and/or roundness of the Earth.  The Admiral goes to the queen to inform her that the Earth is actually shaped like a pear or violin and he requests gold for his expedition.  But when he is in her presence, and a little drunk and a little bold, he informed her that the earth was really shaped like a woman’s breast.  The orient was the protrusion.  And the nipple–he locked eyes with the queen–was warm and tumultuous.

The Cardinal had given him excessive jewels to wear on his hand and they flash as he makes the shape of breasts in the air in front of the queen.  She gave in to his request and he set sail with no instruments, using only his instincts. (more…)

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Max Blecher–“In a Waxworks” (Harper’s, January 2015)

Posted in Death, Excerpt, Harper's, Max Blecher, Phish, Short Story, The Breeders, Translation on June 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harp janSOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait 10 (2014).

bait 10The last time I checked, there hadn’t been a new Live Bait release for quite some time.  I wasn’t even sure if there were going to be any more.  And then, when I was browsing the Phish site I saw that this had come out a few months ago.  It’s so hard to keep up.

This is yet another great selection of live songs.  There’s eleven songs in over three hours with most of them clocking in around 20 minutes.

“What’s the Use” opens this set.  It’s an amazing instrumental and one I haven’t heard them play very often.  It comes from The Siket Disc and is really stellar in this live setting (from 1999).  One of the great things about the Bait discs is they way the songs jump around from different years  So, the “Stash” from 1994 with its wild raging solos butts up nicely to the 30 minute “Tweezer” from 1995.  The band seems to have been really fun back then with the jam section of the song being really wild.  Right after the “Uncle Ebeneezer” line, they go nuts banging on their instruments.  The jam proceeds along until it comes to an almost staggered halt which morphs into The Breeder’s “Last Splash” (sort of).  The jump to 2010’s “The Connection” is only jarring because I haven’t heard too many live shows with this new song on it.  But it sounds great.

Disc Two (if you burn this to disc) starts with a great 24 minute version of “Down with Disease” from 2011, and then jumps back to 1998’s “Bathtub Gin” which is also kind of wild and zany.  I gather that their shows may have mellowed some over the years.  I like the way the jam section of this song returns to the melody of “Gin” since most of the time the jams just kind of fade out.  1992’s “My Sweet One” is a lot of fun.  There’s a really long intro before the lyrics (almost 3 and a half minutes) during which they play the Simpsons theme and Fish shouts “oh fuck” but who knows why.  There’s also thirty seconds of silence as they try to find the “pitch, pitch, pitch” before the final “name.”  “The Mango Song” is 18 minutes long.  The jam section starts around 5 minutes in and the first five minutes still sound like the Mango Song (because of the piano) then the last 8 are really trippy with lots of echoes.

Disc 3 opens with “Fee” which I always love to hear and assume they don’t play much anymore (based on nothing, really).  There’s a 5 minute jam before the start of “The MOMA Dance” which you can kind of tell is “The Moma Dance” but not really.  The song merges into “Runaway Jim.”  And the final song is a great version of “Chalk Dust Torture” from 2012 (as the liner notes state: Fans of recent performances will also find the “Chalk Dust Torture” played during the iconic “Fuck Your Face” set at Denver’s Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.)

Glad to have the Bait back.

[READ: March 21, 2015] “In a Waxworks”

This piece was translated from the Romanian by Michael Henry Heim and comes from Blecher’s Adventures in Immediate Irreality.  I don’t know what the full book is about and I found this excerpt to be more than a little puzzling.  Perhaps most fascinating though is that Blecher was born in 1909 and died in 1938 from tuberculosis of the spine.

It is a series of thoughts about the infinite and how thinking about things in reality would impact his thoughts about the infinite shadow–of birds in flight, the shadow of our planet, or even the vertiginous mountain chasms of caves and grottoes.

As he was a youngish man, thoughts turn to sex, and there’s some connection to a wax model of the inner ear.

But primarily the story concerns the world as a stage–as if life was some kind of artificial performance. He felt that the only person who could possibly understand the world the way he did was the town idiot. (more…)

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