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Archive for the ‘Fears’ Category

Bannister & Nykko–The ElseWhere Chronicles Book Six: The Tower of Shadows (2012) [translated 2013]

Posted in Bannister, Boredom, Carol Klio Burrell, Children's Books, Chris Squire, Fantasy, Fears, Nykko, Short Books, Supernatural, The Beatles, The Byrds, Yes on June 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

6SOUNDTRACK: YES-Yes (1969).

yesThis past weekend bassist and founding member of Yes died.  Up until about six weeks ago he was supposed to tour with Yes this summer.

It was surprising and sad news.  I was a huge Yes fan in college, and of course I love all things prog. But I started to lose patience with Yes since they had such a revolving door policy it wasn’t even clear is the people in the band even were part of the band (although Squire has played on every Yes album).  I hadn’t listened to anything new from them since the 1990s, and I was genuinely shocked to see how much new material they had released since then (about ten).

So here’s a bunch of their albums that I own.  I’m not going to pretend I don’t know their peak period stuff, so I’m looking at their first two albums with the hindsight of the 70s masterpieces.

Their debut album (look how 1969 that cover is) opens with a Chris Squire penned song called “Beyond and Before.”  Loud (and high) bass notes announce that this might just be a Yes album, even the vocal harmonies suggest Yes, and yet once the verse begins, it is a much more psychedelic version of Yes. The music feels very Summer of Love. And while Squire’s bass does come out from time to time, after that initial flurry it kind of settles down a bit. The song itself is quite good, as long as you’re not expecting classic Yes.

I feel the biggest sound difference is Anderson’s vocals which, while still powerful have a more gentle/sensitive feel (not too far off from his more famous style later on, but slightly mellower perhaps).

Next come s very jazzy cover of The Byrds’ “I See You” (a song I don’t really know, but the lyric “the cave of your hair” is pretty awesome.   This version is 7 minutes long with an extended jazzy solo from Peter Banks and suitable jazzy percussion from Bill Bruford. Tony Kaye on keyboards also features prominently.  The end is quite loud for such a hippie offering.

“Yesterday and Today” is a piano & vocal performance. It’s very delicate.  “Looking Around” has very heavy keyboard opening. The bass sounds like Squire but this is a very keyboard heavy song.  “Harold Land” opens with a kind of church organ and singing, but then the Yes sound comes in (you can almost hear the band forming). It feels, again very synthy, but certainly heading in the direction of Yes.

“Every Little Thing is a Beatles cover (! two covers on the debut album).  It begins with much chaos—noisy drumming, bass rumblings and keyboard noodling. The song is 5 minutes and the intro is almost 2 minutes. The big bass and drum really makes the song rock and the keyboards build some real drama into the track.

“Sweetness” is indeed a sweet slow track with a lot of acoustic guitars and soft keyboards.  It has a great descending chorus vocal line. If this were rerecorded and made a bit more modern sounding I think it could be a hit (well, maybe update the lyrics a bit too).

“Survival” is probably the most enduring track on the record. It opens with some great fuzzy bass and some actual catchy riffs. The opening vocals sound more like what latter-day Yes would sound like (subtle distinction, yes but it’s there). The chorus is very catchy and it’s a fun romp right until the end.  It’s a good send off, with a promise of better things.

Since almost every Yes album had different personnel, I’m going to keep a running tally here:

Chris Squire-bass
John Anderson-vocals
Bill Bruford-drums
Tony Kaye-keyboards
Peter Banks-guitar

[READ: February 16, 2014] The ElseWhere Chronicles Book Six

I ended my review of the last book by saying “now I’m hooked.”  But in the year since I read the last book I lost all the momentum of the series (since I’d read the first five in quick succession).  Which is a shame since the book was every bit as exciting as the rest, but I wasn’t quite as into it as I wanted to be.

Since Ilvanna died in the last book I should have been more upset about it and been more excited at the prospect of her return in this one, but I’d forgotten about it all.

As for the rest of the story, Theo, Max and Rebecca meet up with an old man who seems to know the secrets of the Other World.  He convinces Theo and Max to capture a creature who can take them to the Other World.

Meanwhile, in the Other World we see that the spirit of Rebecca is held be a mean looking guy known as the Master of Shadows.

At last the Master of Shadows meets the old man and Rebecca meets her double–a creature which he has created from a photo of Rebecca–he just needs her soul to complete the creation.  The final battle is pretty epic with swirling shadows all over the place and Rebecca’s grandfather pleading with her to destroy her doppelganger.

Meanwhile Theo and Max find Ilvanna who may or may not be dangerous, but she seems to want to help them.

This was the final book of series two of the series.  And the cliffhanger shows that the boys have found Dolean and the two Rebeccas have emerged–to what end?

The story was certainly exciting, but I recommend reading the whole second series together to really maximize the impact.

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Doug TenNapel–Tommysaurus Rex (2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Death, Dinosaurs, Dogs, Doug TenNapel, Fantasy, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jason Vieaux, Pallbearer, Short Books, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert, Yolanda Kondonassis on June 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

rexSOUNDTRACK: JASON VIEAUX AND YOLANDA KONDONASSIS-Tiny Desk Concert #443 (May 22, 2015).

yolandaTypically, the Tiny Desk doesn’t have performers back after they have played once.  But occasional exceptions are made, like when performers who played solo come back as a duo.  Like this.

Jason Vieuax was one of the first 20 people to play the Tiny Desk and Yolanda Kondonassis played back in 2010.  And here they are touring as a duo, which really helps to accentuate both of their skills.  And their music is beautiful together.

Vieuax is an amazing classical guitarist.  And Kondonassis plays an amazing harp that is more about singular notes than trills and “heavenly” sounds.  And in these songs, they work together doing harmony runs and fills–both instruments are lead instruments.

Apparently there aren’t very many pieces written for the combination of harp and guitar.  Kondonassis explains the origins of the Hovhaness piece (which gives some lovely context).

Vieaux explains the origins of the two movements of the Piejo suite.

The first piece is sweet, while the second one is a little more aggressive (but still lovely).  And the third one features some cool riffs and chords (especially on guitar) and percussion done on the instruments.

The three songs they play are

  • Gary Schocker: “Elysian” (from Hypnotized)
  • Alan Hovhaness: Fuga: Allegro – Andante grazioso, Canon: Allegro (from Sonata for Harp and Guitar, “Spirit of Trees”)
  • Máximo Diego Pujol: Vals, Candombe (from Suite mágica)

The pieces are familiar and yet quite different.  And 456+it is much fun to watch their fingers fly around their instruments.

[READ: January 24, 2015] Tommysaurus Rex

I brought this book home for Clark to read.  I wasnt going to read it myself but then I saw that I had read a book by TenNapel before and liked it.

But I did not care for this one.  Perhaps it was because it was marketed in my library as a kids book but I thought it was just too violent or something–the story turned me off.

Perhaps it was just that the story opens with the main character’s dog getting hit by a car and dying.  I mean, who needs that?  And the cover looks so fun, too. (more…)

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Mark Z. Danielewski–House of Leaves (The Remastered Full-Color Edition) (2000)

Posted in Anne Rice, Architectural Digest, Big Books, Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drinking, Fears, Funny (strange), Horror, J.G. Ballard, Karen Green, Laura Veirs, Mark Z. Danielewski, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Research, Sex, Stephen King, Thomas Pynchon, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on May 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

houseSOUNDTRACK: LAURA VEIRS-Tiny Desk Concert #49 (March 1, 2010).

lauraI have decided to contradict myself.  I simply cannot keep up with the regular release of Tiny Desk Concerts (sometimes 3 a week), so I’m going to focus on these older recordings for a while and occasionally devote a week or two to new ones.  we’ll see how that works out.

I only know Laura Veirs’ name, but not really anything she’s done.  So I wasn’t really sure what her “solo” work would sound like.  Well, she has a delightful voice and she writes really pretty songs.

She also offers one of the most dramatic screw ups I’ve seen in a live performance. She opens her song “Carol Kaye” with this lovely melody–just her and her guitar.  And then after about a minute, her band comes in with a beautiful harmony–in the wrong key!  The introduction of their voices is so dramatic (to go from her gentle voice to this huge chorus) was really amazing.  So much so that I didn’t quite realize they were in the wrong key at first.  Turns out that Laura put her capo on the wrong fret and it wasn’t until the keyboardist played the right note that they all sounded off.  And his mouth drops opens as he stares at Laura.  She laughs and says “you looked like this terrified Muppet.”

They play the song again, this time perfectly–and the harmonies are truly lovely.  As is the violin that swirls throughout the song.

“When You Give Your Heart” is another lovely song in which Viers’ voice and the violin play the same lilting melody.

“Sun is King” has some more lovely (that’s the word to describe her, clearly) harmonies–she has picked a tremendous backing band.  And they sound great in this small setting.

It’s hard to believe that the whole set (miscue and all) is only ten minutes long.

[READ: May 1, 2015] House of Leaves

I read this book when it came out in 2000.  I had the “2 Color” edition which the t.p,. verso explains has as features: “either house appears in blue or struck passages and the word minotaur appear in red (I had the blue version).  No Braille.  Color or black & white plates.”

The Full Color edition (which is the same price, amazingly) differs in this way:

  • The word house in blue, minotaur and all struck passages in red
  • The only struck line in Chapter XXI appears in purple
  • XXXXXX and color plates

So basically the full color edition isn’t really that big a deal although the three or four full color plates are much nicer.

Why do I have both?  Well, I bought the two color when it came out and then I won a free book at the library and there was this full color edition, so I brought it home.  I was amused to find that the previous owner had deciphered a clue in the back of the book (the first letters of sentences spell out a secret message).  She (it looks like woman’s handwriting) wrote out the secret message, which I appreciated as I didn’t feel like figuring it out.

ANYWAY.

This book had a huge impact on me when I read it.  Although I forgot a lot of the details, the overwhelming effect of the book has stayed with me an I never forgot the central conceit of a house that opened secret passages and expanded or contracted at will.  For, make no mistake about all of the accolades, this is a horror story.  One accolade, from Bret Easton Ellis: “One can imagine Thomas Pynchon, J.G. Ballard. Stephen King and David Foster Wallace bowing at Danielewski’s feet, choking with astonishment, surprise, laughter awe.” [Ellis will not be bowing apparently, and actually I can’t imagine Pynchon bowing before anyone].  It’s a very cool horror story with all kind of textual experimentation and twists and turns, but it’s still a pretty damned scary story.

The experiments are many and varied and they begin right from the start, as the title page lists Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves by Zampanò with an introduction and notes by Johnny Truant. The forward from the editors notes: “The first edition of House of Leaves was privately distributed and did not contain Chapter 21, Appendix II, Appendix III or the index.

This is all nonsense of course. (more…)

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Jess Walter–“To the Corner” (Harper’s, July 2014)

Posted in Adele, Fears, Guns, Harper's, Jess Walter, Jesse Boykins III, Jessie Ware, Racism, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Tracey Ullman on May 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

julySOUNDTRACK: JESSIE WARE-Tiny Desk Concert #434 (April 20, 2015).

jessieI don’t know Jessie Ware.  She is one of those singers who has a beautiful singing voice which totally masks the fact that her speaking voice has a hugely pronounced British accent (have you heard Adele speak?).  Ware’s speaking voice sounds a bit like Tracey Ullman, which I find charming.

She sings three songs.  They feature her and an electric guitar (played by Joe Newman) and they are soulful and pretty.  On the first song “Say You Love Me,” she is accompanied by her opening act Jesse Boykins III (meaning that this post features a Jess, a Jessie and a Jesse).

The other two songs are “Wildest Moments” and “Champagne Kisses.”

The blurb says that her shows are usually pretty big nightclub dramatic events (which is hard to imagine given how sweet she is).  I can see her really belting out these songs.  She sounds very good in this subdued setting, although it’s not my kind of music at all.

You can watch Jesse and Jessie here.

[READ: April 13, 2015] “To the Corner”

I didn’t really enjoy the other two items in this month’s Harper’s and I was a little disappointed with the way this story started out.  Interestingly, I checked and I didn’t like the way the last story of Walter’s that I wrote about started either.

This story starts with a bunch of kids–shirtless, pants hanging low, standing on a street corner. They are being tough, watching as the girl from their bus walks by.  And I just thought–yawn.

But after a few paragraphs, the perspective shifts to an old man who is watching the kids.  The man has lived in this house for nigh on fifty years.  He has been through boom and bust and bust and bust.  His siblings have all moved away and their houses are worth a fortune, but he remained, and his neighborhood has gotten worse.  He looks at the boys and their whole attitude offends him.  He, Leonard, worked hard all of his life: Korea, G.I. Bill, Junior College, marriage, kids.  And his kids are successes (even the one who listens to right-wing talk radio).  But look at these layabouts. (more…)

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Joshua Ferris–“Learning to Fly” Part 1 of 4 (Popular Mechanics, May 2015)

Posted in Airlines, Essays, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Joshua Ferris, Popular Mechanics, Set in New Jersey!, The Mountain Goats, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series on May 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Popular-MechanicsSOUNDTRACK: THE MOUNTAIN GOATS-Tiny Desk Concert #41 (January 3, 2010).

mgI have talked about Tiny Desk Concerts off an on (more than 100, if I’m counting right), but I never really made a concerted effort to do them all.  So now I’ve decided to make the effort.  My plan is to post two old concerts a week and also mention new ones when they pop up.  Since there are nearly 450 concerts, this will take ages and ages.  But I’ve been really enjoying the bands I like and it’s been fun listening to the bands I didn’t know.  And two a week seems reasonable enough.

I know the Mountain Goats, although I don’t know them all that well–I keep meaning to listen to them more.  So this is a good place to start.  It’s just John Darnielle and his guitar.

These four songs are simple enough and yet they have s much passion and inventiveness.  Darnielle is known primarily for his lyrics, but he throws a good melody over his songs too.

He plays two (then) new songs, the quiet “Hebrews 11:40” and the loud “Pslams 40:2.”  His voice is instantly recognizable in either song–it more or less just sounds like him singing louder, and yet there’s something slightly different in his rollicking singing voice–a bigger intensity, perhaps.

He also plays two old songs.  The slow “Color in Your Cheeks” and the rollicking “Going to Georgia” (which he starts and then interrupts and then starts again).

While his lyrics are serious, his between song banter is charming and funny (“I am permanently a young man, no matter how old I get”).  I just saw that the Mountain Goats were on Seth Meyers’s show, I’ll have to check that out too.

Watch the Tiny Desk Concert here.

[READ: April 21, 2015] “Learning to Fly Part 1”

I was going to let my Popular Mechanics subscription lapse.  I enjoy it a bit, but don’t really read it all that much.  But this issue has some good articles and the start of this four part essay by an author I really like.  Who knew that authors wrote for such unlikely places?

I suspect that Popular Mechanics readers probably aren’t used to long form essays, because this first part, called “Takeoff” is only four pages long–this is not a Harper’s essay we’re looking at, here.  But the writing is still really good.

Ferris talks about the two things that contributed to his decision to take flying lessons.  The first was the death of his father and the second was his absolute fear of flying. (more…)

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Simon Rich–Spoiled Brats: Stories (2014)

Posted in Fantasy, Fears, Fiona Apple, Funny (ha ha), Guster, Humiliation, Morality, New Yorker, Religion, Sex, Short Story, Simon Rich, The Beatles, Yuck! on February 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

spioiledSOUNDTRACK: THE BEATLES-Let It Be (1970).

letOf all the fascinating details about Beatles releases, I don’t think any are more fascinating than the details about Let It Be.  I’m not even close to understanding everything that went on here.  But in a nutshell, it seems that they went into the studio to record an album called Get Back. They were even going to film the whole things.  It got scrapped.  Some members quit the band then rejoined.  And then they recorded Abbey Road.

And then the band did a concert on a rooftop (almost exactly 46 years ago!).  And soon after they broke up. Then some producers decided to release Let It Be as a soundtrack to the documentary made about their recording.  They used some of the material from Get Back and some from the rooftop concert and then Phil Spector got involved and put all kinds of strings on everything and then the album was released in the UK on my first birthday.

There’s lots of snippets of dialogue which seem designed to make it feel like a soundtrack (which it doesn’t).  There’s really short snippets of songs, there’s raw live songs, there’s overproduced string laden songs.  It’s kind of a mess.  But in there are some good songs too.

“Two of Us” is a pretty folkie number that I like quite a lot although I first became familiar with it from a Guster cover (which is pretty fine.  I never quite understood the title of “Dig a Pony,” but it’s a big weird sloppy song. It’s kind of fun to sing along to—especially the falsetto “Beeeecause.”  This song was recorded from their rooftop concert and it feels rawer than some of the other songs.

“Across the Universe” is a lovely song.  Evidently Lennon didn’t contribute much to Let It Be, so they threw this on to give him more content.  I actually know this more from the Fiona Apple version (which I think is actually better than this processed version). I don’t really care for the strings and echoes feel on this version. “Dig It” is a short piece of nonsense. It was exerted from a lengthy jam but for some reason only this little snippet was included on the record–it sounds odd here.

“Let it Be” is quite a lovely song. I don’t really care for the Phil Spectorisms that were done to it—the strings and choruses seem a bit cheesy.  At the same time, the guitar solo (which is quite good) sounds too raw and harsh for the song.  “Maggie Mae” is a traditional song, another bit of fun nonsense.  I like “I Me Mine,” it’s rather dark and the chorus just rocks out.  “I’ve Got a Feeling”, was also recorded on the roof, so it feels raw.  There’s some great guitars sounds on it. Evidently it was initially two songs, and Lennon’s part (the repeated “everybody” section) was added to it.

“One After 909” sounds so much like an early Beatles song–very traditional rock and roll (which means I don’t really like it).  Although the version is raw sounding (it was also recorded from the rooftop) so that’s kind of cool. Huh, Wikipedia says “the song was written no later than spring 1960 and perhaps as early as 1957, and is one of the first Lennon–McCartney compositions.”   “The Long and Winding Road” is where all the controversy comes from.  McCartney hated what Phil Spector did to his song.  He HATED it.  And I have to agree.  It sounds nothing like the Beatles–it sounds very treacly and almost muzaky.  It feels endless.  At the same time, I’m not even sure if the song is that good–it’s so hard to tell after all these years. I think it kind of rips off the transition in “Hey Jude” which was used to much better effect.

“For You Blue” is a simple blues. I like it better than most of the Beatles’ blues, perhaps because of John’s slide guitar (and the funny comments through the song–which makes it seem like the band actually liked each other).  “Get Back” ends the disc as a fun rollicking romp.  I really like this song, although I’m surprised at how short it seems–I thought there was a lengthy outro.  The end of the song (and the disc) has John asking if they passed the audition–lots of fun going on in this contentious recording session.

So it’s not the best career ending disc, although I guess as a soundtrack it’s pretty good.  I’ve never seen the film, and I’m kind of curious to after having walked through all of these Beatles albums.

[READ: January 19, 2015] Spoiled Brats

I probably read too much Simon Rich too close together, but it’s so hard to resist him.  I’ve said before that I enjoy his shorter pieces the most, but there were some longer ones in this one which were really good as well.

This is the first book where I thought that Rich went a little too dark (although not as dark as Sarah thought he did).  That’s sort of the point of the book, though, to look at people (especially people named Simon Rich) who are horrible human beings.

“Animals” [New Yorker, April 10, 2013] opens from the point of view of a class hamster.  He is tormented by the children in the class and he knows that when Simon Rich is supposed to feed and give them water that their lives might just be over.  The Simon character is hilarious, and it’s nice to see that revenge is sweet.

“Gifted” wonders what if a child isn’t so much gifted as Satanic–how many euphemisms will be used for this one child?

“Semester Abroad” is the diary of a girl who has gone abroad–to another planet.  And how her insensitivity is handled during an intergalactic crisis.  I enjoyed this one a lot. (more…)

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Akhil Sharma–“A Mistake” (New Yorker, January 20, 2014)

Posted in Akhil Sharma, Culture Shock, Fears, New Yorker, Short Story, The Beatles, Yellow Submarine on February 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_01_20_14Blitt.inddSOUNDTRACK: THE BEATLES-Yellow Submarine (1969).

I220px-TheBeatles-YellowSubmarinealbumcover‘ve enjoyed listening to the Beatles lately, but I’ve been marveling more at how they were (I assume) pressured into releasing songs almost constantly (this is their tenth album in six years).  So, this album, a soundtrack to the film, came out six weeks after The Beatles.  Six weeks after a double album which was still on the charts (still #1 in the US) this album came out.

Even though it sold very well, I imagine it has to be the least-listened to Beatles album (even though it is the other vinyl Beatles album that I own, which I got when I was a kid).

There are 13 tracks on the disc.  Two are repeated Beatles songs. Four are “new” songs (meaning they were thus far unreleased, but they were recorded a while back) and the rest are orchestral songs from the movie, composed by George Martin.

The repeated songs are “Yellow Submarine” (from Revolver, although obviously it makes sense here) and “All You Need is Love” which was just recently released as a single (and on Magical Mystery Tour in the US and which works fine in the movie).

The new songs include: “Only a Northern Song” written by George Harrison.  It was recorded during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper.  I didn’t know anything about the song, and I thought the lyrics were kind of, um, dumb?  But now I see that they were written because Harrison was angry about being a contracted songwriter to the Beatles’ publishing company, Northern Songs: “It doesn’t really matter what chords I play/What words I say or time of day it is/As it’s only a Northern Song.”  The song itself is kind of unusual.  It opens with a big organ sound. Then with the lines saying it doesn’t matter what chords the play, the backing music is pretty out there–not quite wrong, but certainly off.

Harrison got a second song (this has to be the most songs per disc for Harrison).  “It’s All Too Much.”  It also starts with an organ.  It’s the only psychedelic song on the album (and has Indian overtones).  It was recorded during Sgt Pepper and was supposed to appear on Magical Mystery Tour.  I like the song, but at 6 and a half minutes, it’s a bit long (the original mix was 8 minutes!)

“All Together Now” is a goofy song.  It’s clearly something written in five minutes–the lyrics and melody are so simple–but man is it catchy and fun to sing along to.   The final new song is “Hey Bulldog.”  I really like this song a lot and I’m bummed that it’s kind of overlooked on this soundtrack.  The riff is really hard rocking (even on piano) and I like the silliness with the barking and whatnot at the end.

The second side was the orchestral songs.  Most of them are about 3 minutes long.  If you know the film, they’re fun to listen to to revisit the visuals, but they’re not what you get a Beatles album for.  Of course, I always listened to sides one and two of my records, so I must have listened to the score three or five dozen times back in the day.

[READ: June 10, 2014] “A Mistake”

This was one of the 2014 New Yorker stories that I thought I had posted about but which I just found in my drafts pile.

This is the story of a boy from India who has emigrated to America with his family.

As the story opens we learn that the boy’s father always wanted to leave India, he felt he could do better in America, although the boy’s mother had no interest in leaving her home.

There’s some very funny lines about the father.  Like “I used to assume that my father had been assigned to us by the government. This was because he appeared to serve no purpose…all he did was sit in his chair in the living room, drink tea and tread the paper.  Often he looked angry.”  But then his father left for America and a year later called for them. (more…)

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Jess Row–“The Empties” (New Yorker, November 3, 2014)

Posted in Dystopia, End of the World, Faith No More, Fears, Fred Durst, Jess Row, Les Claypool, Martina Topley-Bird, Matt Stone, New Yorker, Primus, Rage Against the Machine, Short Story, South Park, Stewart Copeland, Tom Morello, Tom Waits on January 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

nov3SOUNDTRACK: PRIMUS-Antipop (1999).

This wasantipop the final album that Primus made before going on hiatus (ostensibly breaking up, but they did reunite a few years later).  I have distinct memories of buying this album and listening to it on the way home in the car.  I remember liking the songs but having the very distinct feeling that it didn’t really sound anything like Primus.  And that is still the case.

This album has a whole mess of guest producers and guitarists and critics seem to think that every song feels very different.  But I disagree.  It feels like a very heavy Les Claypool solo project.

About the album Claypool has said: “Antipop was the most difficult record we ever made, because there was a lot of tension between the three of us, and there was some doubt at the label as to whether we knew what the hell we were doing anymore… Primus sort of imploded.”  In the Primus book, Larry says that a few times he wondered why he was even there since there were so many other guitarists.  I noted that even though there were other guitarists, there were no extra bassists or drummers present, which is kind of shitty.

Producers include Fred Durst (!), Jim Martin (from Faith No More), Stewart Copeland (!), Matt Stone (!) and Tom Morello (from Rage Against the Machine) and Tom Waits.

Tom Morello features quite prominently on the disc, producing and playing on 3 tracks.  And on the songs he’s on, I feel like you can’t even hear Larry (if he’s on them at all).  Morello gets co-writing credit on the songs too, and they feel more like Rage songs than Primus songs–they are very heavy and very metal.  “Electric Uncle Sam” is certainly catchy and rocking.  I rather like it although it feels far more Morello than Claypool.  “Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool” also sounds quite Rage like to me.  There’s certainly Primus elements, but it feels very conventional–it’s again very aggressive with no sign or Ler.  “Power Mad” is Morello’s third song. It’s the least interesting song on the disc.

Matt Stone from South Park produced “Natural Joe.”  It feels quite like Primus–a bit heavier, perhaps tahn usual and with that now ever present slap bass.  The “son of a bitch-a” line seems like it might have had a Matt Stone influence.

Fred Durst produced “Lacquer Head” the album’s only single.  It is really catchy.  Durst says it was his idea for Primus to get more heavy (like in the old days) but this is much heavier than anything they had done.  I have to think that the “Keep on sniffing” section was Durst-influenced as it sounds kind of rap-metally.

“Dirty Drowning Man” was produced by Stewart Copeland and features Martina Topley-Bird on backing vocals.  The opening sounds very Primus, but the chorus is very conventional.  Martina barely registers on backing vocals, which is a shame.

Songs credited to just Primus are “The Antipop” which is also quite heavy and strangely catchy given the sentiments.  Perhaps the most unusual track on the disc is the 8 minute “Eclectic Electric” which has three parts.  The first is slow and quieter with a catchy/creepy verse.  Part 2 is much heavier, while Part 3 revisits part 1.  I do rather like it.  James Hetfield plays on it although I can’t tell where.  “Greet the Sacred Cow” has a funk bass part and a real Primus vibe.  It’s a quite a good song.  “The Ballad of Bodacious” seems like a Primus cover band from music to concept.  The final song they did was “The Final Voyage of the Liquid Sky.”  I love the crazy watery bass that opens the song.  The verses also have a real Primus feel.  And those choruses are unreasonably catchy.

The final song was produced by Tom Waits.  It doesn’t sound like Primus at all. Rather, it sounds like a big ol’ sea shanty  A perfect Tom Waits-ian song.  And it’s a really good song too.  You can definitely feel the Primus vibe though, even if it doesn’t really sound like a Primus song exactly.

There’s a bonus track, which is a cover of their song “The Heckler” from Suck on This.  This version is good (although not quite as good as the original version).  But it shows how far removed the new stuff is from their earliest recordings.  This also means that “Jellikit” is the only song from Suck that has not been played on another record.

So while I can see that many fans of Primus would hate this album, fans of heavy rock from the era should certainly check it out.  Les’ voice is heavier, more metal, and the guitars are pretty conventional.  And I still think there are some good songs here.

[READ: January 16, 2015] “The Empties”

This story is set after the end times (which happened in August 2015).  I enjoyed that in the story two characters argue over whether they are living in dystopian or postapocalyptic time.  The one guy argues that “dystopia means an imaginary place where everything’s exactly wrong and what we’re living in is a postapocalyptic prelapsarian kind of thing.”  Our narrator says they are both wrong because those two words pertain to stories and this is real life.

It has been two years since E.T. (End Times).  Very few people still bother to charge anything on the extant towers.  And most of the weak died in the first winter.  Our survivors are in Vermont which has brutal winters but also have wood burning stoves which she imagines many city folk do not have.

Our narrator has been writing in a journal that she received B.E.T. (Before End Times) and then one day she decides to go to the library (the only building still with a lock) to see if she can use the type writer to write a history of their lives since E.T. began.   The “librarian” is heavily armed and is frisking everyone who leaves–books are valuable commodity.  She says they don’t have any paper but that she is welcome to use the reverse side of her own novel (Shroud of the Hills by Matilda Barnstone copyright 2003) which she sent out to many places but never got a response. (more…)

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M.T. Anderson–Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware (2006) M. T. Anderson’s Thrilling Tales (Pals in Peril Book 3) [audiobook 2009–Marc Carman]

Posted in Adventure, Anachronisms, Audiobooks, Children's Books, Culture Shock, Delaware, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, M.T. Anderson, Marc Carman, Meta, Monks, Revenge, Stare-Eyes, Technology on January 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: December 29, 2014] Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware

delWe are now hooked on the Pals in Peril series.  This, the third book, promised to be the funniest and weirdest yet.  I mean, look at the title.

But this book proved problematic for us for two somewhat related reasons.  The first is that we usually listen to longer books like this when we have a lot of driving to do.  We didn’t have any major big drive ahead so we wound up listening in small chunks, which was a little confusing.  The kids were able to follow quite well, but after a couple of weeks some details are bound to get lost.  The second reason is that this book is long.  It was a 6 hour audio book as opposed to the 3 hours of the other two books.

The brevity of Whales on Stilts was a real treat.  In it, Anderson wrote that he didn’t like to write action scenes because they were all the same.  Same with chase scenes.  But in this book, he has our heroes slogging through the wilderness for literal days (and almost an entire disc).  It got a little samey, I feel–especially since we were listening in small chunks at a time.

This is not to say that the book wasn’t enjoyable. There were hundreds of hilarious moments in it.  Even in the duller sections, he often threw in an absurd joke (or ten) that made me laugh.  So maybe if we had listened all at once this would have held up better.  But honestly it was only the middle that was kind of trudging (when they were trudging) because the beginning and end were great.

This happens to be another book where reading it would have been entertaining in other ways–the characters of Delaware have virtually no vowels in their names.  Mark Cashman (who did another awesome job reading) does a fine job saying their names, but I had to find a print copy in the library because I needed to know how these crazy words were spelled.

So, what happens? (more…)

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Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez–Locke & Key: Volume Six : Alpha & Omega (2014)

Posted in Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Christmas Album, Death, Demons, Fears, Gabriel Rodriguez, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Happy Flowers, Joe Hill, Record Labels, Revenge, Supernatural, Violence, Yuck! on January 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

locke6 SOUNDTRACK: HAPPY FLOWERS-“All I Got Were Clothes Christmas” (1986).

godsAfter all of this mostly respectful Christmas music, I had to throw in one crazy stupid ugly horribly song.  But that’s mostly because I forgot it existed until I stumbled on it the other day.  The Happy Flowers were a terrible band (seriously).  They were the kind of band that seemed to blossom in the late 1980s which don’t seem to exist anymore (for better or worse).  They were beyond noise, this was just a crazy noisy pile of sound with screamed lyrics that have nothing to do with the music.

I loved them.  But not really, because they were terrible.  But it was fun to know that people not only made music like this but that it could find a record label (and presumably an audience).  I used to enjoy playing their songs on my radio show.

The Happy Flowers were two guys from Charlottesville, VA.  They were in another band (the Landlords) so presumably they could play their instruments, although I don’t know that band at all.  Their stage names were Mr. Horribly Charred Infant, (drums, vocals) and Mr. Anus, (guitar, vocals), so you have a sense of what we’re dealing with here.  And yet you really can’t be prepared for it.

This song is basically just feedback and two adult men screaming about how they wanted to get toys for Christmas but all they got was clothes.  For four minutes.  And it made it onto the above compilation, God’s Favorite Dog, with Big Black and the Butthole Surfers.

If your Christmas didn’t live up to your expectations, perhaps you need to hear this.  Or perhaps not.

[READ: December 29, 2014] Locke & Key 6

I knew I couldn’t hold out until the new year to finish this series.  I was compelled to keep going.  There was nothing I could do to hold back, as if some kind of spirit kept pulling me towards the books.

And the ending did not disappoint.  Well, it did disappoint a little in that so many people ended up dead.  I couldn’t believe how many people who I grew to care about were killed in various ways.

There’s really no time for flashbacks in this book, although we do get occasional look-backs.  We see the Locke kids make up with the friends that they have alienated. We also see that the kids’ mom has been sober for 30 days (this whole series takes place over a much longer time than it seems).

We also see Rufus come to say goodbye to the Locke family. While he is waiting for Bode to come up from the water, Rufus sees Bode’s ghost who tells him that the person in Bode’s body is not him but is actually Scout.  Rufus immediately attacks Bode when he arrives.  This send Rufus to the same institution that Erin Voss is in.  While he’s in there we see him already making plans to escape.  And it turns out that Erin Voss is able to communicate with him (sort of) and she is able to help in her own way. (more…)

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