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Archive for the ‘Fears’ Category

Adam Gilders–“Barnyard Desires” (The Walrus, February 2006)

Posted in Adam Gilders, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, Fears, Funny (strange), Mystery, Oddities, Religion, Rheostatics, Short Story, The Walrus, Yuck! on April 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Night of the Shooting Stars (2001).

This was the first CD by The Rheostatics that I bought as it was released.  I had gotten into them in 1999 or so, and I remember being very excited that this disc was coming out.  I ordered mine from Maple Music (and it was even autographed!) and I recall the evening it came in the mail and I sat in my kitchen rocking out to it.  Night is probably their most accessible disc. There’s a bunch of tracks from Tim Vesely, (who writes the sweet melodies) and although Martin Tielli’s wonderful weirdness is present, it’s more weirdness within conventional songs rather than unconventional song structures.

The disc also features a lot of heavy guitar work.  The disc opens with a heavy guitar riff which morphs into an upbeat poppy number.  Of course, how many pop numbers are titled “These Days Are Good for the Canadian Conservative Youth Party Alliance,”  (Tielli, of course).  There’s a catchy repeated bridge “these days are good for us now” even if the chorus (chorus?) features the bizarre line: “I chipped my eyetooth on the back of a urinal.”

It’s followed by two of the catchiest, poppiest, most wonderful songs the Rheos have done “Mumbletypeg” a delightful ditty sung by Dave Bidini with (again) a wonderful chorus.  And, “P.I.N.”, (Tielli) too catchy by half, and featuring the wonderfully weird lyrics, (in a great descending melody): “You’ve got the key to my heart; you’ve got the P.I.N. to my guts”

“Superdifficult” is sung by Tim Vesely, and sounds a lot like the kind of songs he would later writer for The Violet Archers (he has the most delicate pop sensibility in the band).  Tim also sings “We Went West.”  It kind of slows the pace of the record down, but it is a beautiful song (done with different guitars in each headphone).

“The Fire” is a charming ditty sung by Tielli.  It continues the mellowness of “We Went West” and runs with it until Bidini takes over vocals and adds some heavy guitars.  They end the song with some beautiful harmonies and some screaming guitars.

The next two songs, Vesely’s “In It Now” and Bidinis’ “Here to There to You” are slight songs which are more charming than catchy.  They’re followed by the last three tracks which end the disc with a bang.

“The Reward” has a cool slinky riff and great vocals for Tielli. It’s also sprinkled with some heavy guitar pyrotechnics late in the song.  “Remain Calm” is a calming song from Vesely.  It seems perfectly located between the craziness of “The Reward and the wonderful rocking nonsense of “Satan is the Whistler.”

I always think that “Satan is the Whistler” is a much longer song (it’s six minutes) because there are two official parts to it.  The first 3 minutes are slow and moody, then half way through it bursts into a tremendously heavy riff (complete with whistles!).  It’s a great ending to the disc.

There are also two previously recorded tracks here in new form: “Song of the Garden” is from The Story of Harmelodia, done in a slightly more rocking version here.  And “Junction Foil Ball” (Tielli) was on their odd Nightlines Sessions release.  It opens with some odd effects and guitars and evolves into an incredibly, incredibly catchy riff.  The version here is not vastly different, but it’s a bit cleaner.

I’ve really loved this disc.  And even if the middle is a bit slow, it still rocks.

[READ: March 11, 2011] “Barnyard Desires”

This was a surprisingly odd and twisted story.  And for The Walrus, it was quite long, as well.

It opens with Leona hearing noises in her ceiling.  She suspects that the noises are from rats.  She has called the landlord out several times, but he hasn’t seen any rats.  In fact, he has stopped coming out because he thinks she’s crazy.  She imagines what the rats are up to up there: procreating mostly.  Eventually, she notices a kind of brown stain on the ceiling, which she is convinced is the rats mating and urinating.  The stain grows larger and larger, and it is right above her bed.  She also believes it is taking vaguely human shape.

Meanwhile, we learn about her upstairs neighbor.   The first time they met was in their building’s elevator.  He proudly (and very closely) admittedly that he was recently born again.  She made a quiet comment, turned away and hadn’t really spoken to him since. (more…)

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Robert Coover–A Child Again (2005)

Posted in Art, Darkthrone, Death, Dreams, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Ghosts, McSweeney's, Plague, Political Humor, Robert Coover, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator, Until the Light Takes Us, Violence on April 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DARKTHRONE-“Kathaarian Life Code,” (1992), “Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” (2004), “Canadian Metal” (2007).

After watching Until the Light Takes Us, I wanted to check out some of Darkthrone’s music.  According to their Wikipedia page, over the years the band who pioneered black metal has morphed away from the sound.  They’ve added elements of punk and speed metal to their bludgeoning sound.  In the movie Fenriz says that he listens to all kinds of music and is very open-minded.

“Kathaarian Life Code” is a ten minute dirge of black metal.  It opens the band’s second album (considered to be a black metal classic) with chanting and guttural spoken words.  Then it blasts forth with the jackhammer style of drums that is now standard in black metal.

It slows down from time to time, allowing for the really heavy parts to blast through the chaos of the fast parts.  It’s pretty intense and not for the faint of heart.  You can hear occasional guitars screaming through the din, but the production is intentionally murky, dark and noisy.  As they say in the movie, the bands intentionally recorded on the shittiest equipment they could find.

“Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” is a later song, taken from what is considered their final album in the black metal style.  The band was turning away from the traditional black metal sound, and there are elements of punk (guitar riffs that are audible, and a sound that is less bass heavy) present.  And the production, while still mired by noise is relatively cleaner.

“Canadian Metal” is from their third most recent album, after the shift from black metal was more or less official.  It sounds more like an early death metal song.  There’s low tuned notes, audible vocals (growled, but you can actually hear words) and a kind of headbanging aspect to it.  The album is called F.O.A.D. which was a song by Venom (and others, obviously), and this track reminds me of Venom somewhat.  I wouldn’t say that the band has sold out because there’s no way anyone is playing this on the radio, but it’s interesting to see how a band has managed to change things up and add new elements to its sound even though they were the forerunner and grandfather of a scene.

[READ: February and March 2011] A Child Again

This is a collection of short stories from Robert Coover.  There is a kind of theme throughout (most of) the stories about returning to childhood.  But the overall sense is one of despair, sadness, pointlessness and sex.  Lots and lots of sex.  And the sex is usually as vulgar and nasty as the tone of the book suggests it would be.  It’s a little off-putting, actually.

I was planning to say that I didn’t like this collection at all because I really didn’t enjoy the first half-dozen or so stories.  I continued because Coover has a great reputation that I didn’t want to give up after a few misfires.

The real disappointment came because the stories seem so promising: many of them are a kind of retelling of classic fairy tales that looks at “what happened afterward.”  However, and this was true for almost all of them, Coover tries to do two contradictory things with the stories.  He is playing with fairy tales but he is also writing stories that are completely unlike fairy tales.  By that I mean, Coover’s stories are long and very detailed, they bring far too much information to the story.  And a fairy tale is almost by definition short.  I mean, “Puff the Magic Dragon” is a song that’s about five paragraphs long.  But Coover’s “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” is 26 pages long.  So instead of playing with the original, it feels like an original story that uses someone else’s characters.  It’s unsettling and unsatisfying.

It’s also not very funny.   And I’m not sure fit’s supposed to be.  But with a title like “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” you expect the funny.  And there are funny moments.  I mean the whole premise is that little Jackie Paper has grown up into Sir John Paper.  He’s now an old Knight and he is sent to slay the dragon (Puff) who is plaguing the city.  Even though that is a tragic story, it is also inherently humorous.  And there are laughs when they reunite.  But it gets so bogged down in details, that the essence of the story seems to get lost.  Perhaps I’m just disappointed because it (they) turned out so unlike I wanted them to be. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Pride” (Harper’s, April 2011)

Posted in Alice Munro, Canadian Content, Fears, Harper's, PJ Harvey, Short Story on April 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Is This Desire? (1998).

After the (to me) disappointing To Bring You My Love, PJ Harvey came back with Is This Desire? This disc seems like it took the techniques she explored on To Bring and added more structure to her songs.  Harvey’s songs are by nature minimalist, and that’s why I found To Bring disappointing: it was too minimal.  She fleshes things out here–there’s a kind of Nick Cave quality to the disc as well, especially on the opener “Angeline.”  (She had sung with Cave on his then recent disc)).

These first two songs show an amazing range.  “The Sky Lit Up” has some odd guitar effects and some crazy screams later in the song.  It’s less than 2 minutes long.  As is “My Beautiful Leah,” which is over the top noisy and distorted.  It’s as sinister a song as Harvey has written.  “The Wind” has a wonderful whispered vocal, but it is dynamic and allows her quiet background music to forge its own path).  The harmony vocals are a very nice touch.

But it’s “A Perfect Day Elise” that shows that for all of Harvey’s textures and sounds, she really is a singles writer.  This is a noisy track, but the chorus is simply beautiful.  A fantastic anthem for the late 90s.

But then the disc takes a turn for the ethereal.  “Catherine” and “Electric Light” are quiet, creepy numbers that never really engage. “The Garden” tries to come out of this quiet, and manages somewhat.   “Joy” is another of Harvey’s spookier songs (she can do insane things with her voice) that is filled with anguish.

After these tracks, Harvey returns to the earlier style of the disc, with the beautiful, haunting (but not creepy) “The River.”  “No Girl So Sweet” follows with a noisy short track utilizing some techno aspects and a lot of distortion.  Harvey rocks this song very hard with some great vocals, too.

The final track is “Is This Desire?” It opens with just drums and Harvey’s voice.  It builds in complexity until it reaches a  delicate chorus.  It’s a really beautiful, if not dark, song an a nice ending to a CD that is something of a mixed bag.

[READ: March 23, 2011] “Pride”

I tend to read a lot of peculiar short stories.  So every once in a while, I really enjoy reading a story that is simply about a person or two trying to get by. And if you ever want to read stories about simple human connection, Alice Munro is the way to go!

This story confused me at first because I normally assume that the protagonist of Munro’s stories is going to be female.  This one didn’t state one way or another for a few paragraphs, so I was reading him as a girl (especially since he was talking about another girl in his town).

But no, it is about a boy.  It opens in the 1920s in a small town in Canada.  The protagonist is a poor but reasonably happy boy–with a harelip.  The girl he is talking about is named Oneida (an unusual name that did not catch on in town).  Oneida’s family is wealthy.  Like in a class by themselves wealthy.  Until, that is, her father makes a bad investment (with his bank’s money) in steam automobiles and loses more than his money. (more…)

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Ransom Riggs–Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011) [prepub]

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Culture Shock, Death, Demons, Dreams, Fears, Fleet Foxes, Ghosts, History, Mental Floss, Nazis, Oddities, Photo Essays, Quirk Books, Ransom Riggs, Supernatural, Time Travel on April 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FLEET FOXES-Live at The Black Cat, Washington, DC, July 7, 2008 (2008).

I still love the Fleet Foxes debut album, and I listen to it quite often.  One of the most impressive aspects of the band is their amazing harmonies.  So how does a band that is so vocal-centric perform live?

In an interview included with the concert, Bob Boilen asks that question.  They explain that the bigger venues are a bit harder because they have to crank up their monitors.  They also try to stay close to each other to be able to hear the harmonies clearly.  Well, they did something right because the harmonies sound very impressive here.

The main problem comes because lead singer Robin Pecknold is sick.  As in, just getting over a major cold, sick. As in, he admits that their last few shows were something of a rip off for the attendees.  Tonight’s show, he says is half a ripoff.  And that is most evident in my favorite Fleet Foxes song, “Mykonos” in which Pecknold’s voice cracks with abandon.  I would feel bad for the audience if the band wasn’t so personable and friendly and generally cool.  They make the best of a rough situation, and again, the backing vocals sound fantastic.

There are also a ton of delays in this show.  Most of them seem technical, although there seems to be a lot of tending to Pecknold’s voice, too.  But as I said, the band is engaged with the audience, telling stories (someone in the band is from DC and he asks if anyone went to high school there), and generally keeping everyone entertained.  It’s probably not their best show ever, but it still sounds great.  You can listen and download at NPR.

[READ: March 27, 2011] Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Quirk Books, publishers of mash-ups like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (as well as many other, well, quirky, titles) has published this fantastically exciting novel.

The cover depicts a creepy girl who is hovering off the ground.  But the girl herself is SO creepy that I didn’t even notice the hovering part.  She is just one of the peculiar children within the book.  And this picture is one of 50 included within the book (I’m only bummed that two pictures were not available in my copy).

So the story opens with Jacob Portman talking about his grandfather.  His grandfather (Abe) was a young boy in Poland during the 1940s.  When the Nazi’s invaded, his family was killed and he was sent to Wales, to the titular Miss Peregrine’s Orphanage (not widely known as a home for peculiar children).  But as details emerge from his grandfather’s version of the tale, things seem not right.

Abe talks about the monsters that chased him out of Poland–but he wasn’t describing Nazis, he was describing actual monsters, with multiple tongues and horrifying faces.  They followed him to Wales and were actually chasing him to that very day, in America.  And when he talked about Miss Peregrine’s house, he talked about the special kids who live there: the girl who could call forth fire out of thin air, the girl who could levitate, and the boy who had bees living inside of him.

Of course, that was all nonsense, just post traumatic stress from being attacked by Nazis, right?

That explanation works until the night that Abe is murdered.  He calls Jacob for help (they think he is going senile).  When Jacob gets to his house, he finds the screen door torn open and Abe missing.  The follow a trail and find Abe, bleeding in the woods.  Jacob thinks he can see the same kind of monster that Abe had always described lurking right nearby in the woods.  Although Jacob’s friend (who drove them to Abe’s house), didn’t see anything.

And now, Jacob’s dreams are plagued by scary monsters.  And he can’t get his grandfather’s cryptic last words out of his head.  Time to see a therapist, obviously. (more…)

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Franz Kafka & Coleridge Cook–The Meowmorphosis (2011) [prepub]

Posted in Angst, Boredom, Coleridge Cook, Dreams, Fears, Franz Kafka, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Futility, Humiliation, Joss Whedon, Mash-up, Quirk Books, Translation on March 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ANGST-“The Weather’s Fine” (1988).

I recently rediscovered the band Angst.  They were part of the second wave of SST bands (the ones who never went anywhere and were summarily dropped with no forwarding address).  I know of Angst from their song on The Blasting Concept Volume II (which I love).  I decided to investigate Angst a little further and my good friends at YouTube came through with a number of Angst tracks that I’d never heard.

Like this one.

Angst is a kind of jangly pop band.  This song in particular would not be out of place on the radio in 1992 or indeed now.  It has an early R.E.M. feel, but I think what makes it stand out somewhat is that the chorus feels kind of short–you kind of expect Peter Buck to sing a second part of the chorus, but that never materializes.

Angst is a band that could have been huge (SST was not much for marketing).  And as far as I can tell all of their discs are utterly out of print.  Pity.  This is some good stuff.

Tap your feet along!

[READ: March 22, 2011] The Meowmorphosis

I received this book as an Advance Reader’s Copy.  I absolutely loved Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.  I didn’t read Quirk Classics’ other mash-ups: Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters or Android Karenina (although I love the title of that one).  Nor did I read any of the other mash-ups that Quirk Press did not print.  It became rather passe after one great idea.

But this one seemed different somehow….  In part, Kafka.  But also, it’s not a classic novel plus horror.  It’s more horror plus…cats.  And the opening line is wonderful:

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.

Anyone who has read The Metamorphosis knows that it’s about 85 pages long.  So, how did Coleridge Cook (which is a pseudonym, FYI) get 200 pages out of it?  Well, it’s not simply The Metamorphosis.  It incorporates aspects of  The Trial and the short story “Little Woman” (and quite possible some other things as well).

And in that respect, it’s pretty neat.  He takes these three separate Kafka stories and interweaves them, all keeping with the same basic structure of The Metamorphosis with Gregor as a cat.

And so, as in the original, Gregor is abused by his family.  But unlike the original, he eventually escapes outside where he meets Josef K. and is put on trial.  He is eventually let go and returns home where he imagines the tearful return he will have with his sister.

But here’s the problem.  Unlike P&P&Z which made a whole new plot and added so much excitement to the original story, all that this mash-up does is to change him from a cockroach into a kitten.  So really, the story is exactly the same but instead of scenes with creepy, gross cockroach detail, we get scenes with cute and cuddly kitten details.  And as such, it’s hard to understand exactly why the family is so creeped out by him. (more…)

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Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott–Donald (2011)

Posted in Batman, Donald Rumsfeld, Eric Martin, Fears, History, McSweeney's, Military, Mogwai, Morality, Prison, Religion, Short Books, Stephen Elliott, Threats, Torture Porn, WMDs on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-Ten Rapid (1997).

The release of this disc hot on the heels of Young Team rather confused me, especially when trying to keep track of which discs were “real” and which ones were compilations.  This one is a compilation.  It’s subtitled: (Collected Recordings 1996–1997).  And the fact that it has ten songs on it tells you just how much they released in those two years.  (It appears that they released 4 or 5 singles, although all the songs don’t seem to appear on Ten Rapid, and there seems to be a song or two unaccounted for.  Wikipedia also suggests that some of the songs were re-recorded for Ten Rapid.  Gosh, what’s a completist to do?).  And given all that they released back then, it’s also a surprise at how short this collection is  (just over 30 minutes).

The amazing thing is how much the disc sounds like a complete recording and not a collection of singles.  It is mostly Mogwai’s slower, quieter pieces, and the overall tone is one of “mood” rather than “songs.”  And, for those of us who thin of Mogwai as a really loud band, the prominent use of glockenspiel comes as something of a surprise (as does the quiet singing on two of the tracks).

The opener “Summer” is not the same as “Summer [Priority Version]” on Young Team.  This one is a beautiful track with glockenspiel while the YT version is much heavier and darker. “Helicon 2” (also known as “New Paths to Helicon, Pt. 2”), is a wonderful track with an interesting riff and texture.  On a recent live disc, it was expanded greatly. “Angels vs Aliens” and “Tuner” are the two tracks with vocals.  They’re both rather quiet and kind of soothing.

“I am Not Batman” is mostly washes rather than a riff based song.  “Ithica 27ϕ9” is one of their best early songs. It’s also the one track here that really experiments with sound dynamics.   It opens with a beautiful melody that swirls around for a bit.  Then the loud guitars come screaming out until it returns to that melody (and all in under 3 minutes).

The final track “End” is an entirely backwards recordings.  Wikipedia says that it is “Helicon 2” backwards, and I’ll take their word for it.

Ten Rapid is a really solid collection of songs showing just how good Mogwai was from the start.

[READ: March 8, 2011] Donald

This book is a speculative piece of fiction that answers the question: what would happen if Donald Rumsfeld was sent to Guantanamo Prison.  Note also that the cover is a parody of the cover of Rumsfeld’s own memoir (released around the same time).

The main character is clearly Rumsfeld, although he is never mentioned by his full name, always “Donald.”  But his description and his biography make it obvious that it is him.  There is a Note at the end of the book which states that the information about Donald is as accurate as possible.

First we see Donald in a library, presumably working on his memoirs.  He is accosted by a young kid who asks him questions.  Donald is annoyed by the kid and more or less blows him off.  Donald then has a fancy dinner with his wife and “Ed and Peggy” (two people who I can’t place historically).

That evening, masked people break into Donald’s home and haul him off to a prison (he is bound and his head is covered so he doesn’t know where).  The rest of the book sees him taken from one prison to the next, tortured in various ways (nothing too graphic, most of the torture consists of thinks like disrupting sleep, keeping the temperature really hot or really cold, and asking him lots and lots of questions, sometimes for 20 hours at a time.  There is no physical torture (again, it’s not graphic). (more…)

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Mary Gaitskill–“The Other Place” (New Yorker, February 14 & 21, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Butthole Surfers, Death, Drinking, Fears, Mary Gaitskill, Mayyors, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Short Story, The Jesus Lizard, Threats, Unlikable main character, Violence on March 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MAYYORS: 3 EPs (online only) (2008-2009).

I learned about Mayyors from the NPR’s Best Metal and Outer Sounds releases of 2009 on All Songs Considered.  I enjoyed Viking’s picks for 2010 quite a bit so I thought I’d investigate his previous years’ selections.  I’d never heard of Mayyors before, but he makes the band sound so intriguing (and dirty).

The write up is so wonderfully enigmatic that I had to find the tracks online.  I mean, how can you pass up this:

This is a plea to Mayyors: If you’re going to release one of the ugliest pieces of noise rock this side of The Jesus Lizard, please start issuing your music in editions bigger than David Yow’s beer gut. After a couple of ripped 7″ singles made the rounds on blogs last year, those seeking the puss-popping skronk of Mayyors scavenged message boards and listservs to get their hands on the next limited affair. (After all, these Sacramento-based dudes don’t have a Web site or any known email addresses. Punk rock, I guess.) The Deads 12″ EP significantly dirties the rock gene pool with nauseating feedback and power chords dumber than the actual mud driven over the orange covers. Once again, Google is your friend.

That link to Google is the only way I was able to find these songs.

So Mayyors have released three EPs since 2008.  Each had a pressing of about ten copies, apparently.  You really can’t find any information about them online.  I don’t even understand how the band plays shows since their total recorded output is about 2o minutes long.  But I was able to get all 9 songs.

Having said all, that I don’t always like the music.  It hurts your head. The general sound is really downtuned sludge rock.  It’s not squealy feedbacky noise, it’s just distorted guitars played very loud and fast with vocals that are pretty incomprehensible (with lots of echo!). I have no idea what he’s singing about.  I’m sure it’s not very nice.  But I feel like their music would be even more subversive if they sang about love and kindness (or like the cover of Megan’s LOLZ: unicorns and rainbows).

The first EP: Marines Dot Com has two tracks “Metro” (3:08) and “Fatigure” (3:35).  “Metro” reminds me a lot of early Butthole Surfers.  “Fatigure” has a discernible riff (which is of course very downtuned.  It’s entirely possible they have only a guitar and a bass.  About half way through, the song changes into a noise-fest.  Of course, nearly 4 minutes of noise is pretty tough to handle.  Especially since the noise is sludgy and loud loud loud.

The middle EP, Megan’s LOLZ, is my favorite.  Three songs: “Intro” (0:59), “Airplanes” (3:23), “White Jeep” (2:18).  The noise and sludge is still there, but you can actually hear nascent riffs under all the noise. It also seems a little crisper (or something), which makes the tracks stand out a little more.

“Intro” actually plays around with different kinds of noise, suggesting they’re in for something new on this EP (of course, it’s still buried under noise and sludge).  “Airplanes” has another discernible riff, although it does sound like it’s recorded in an airplane hangar.  “White Jeep” has a similar (if not the same) riff, but it plays a bit more with feedback and genuinely piecing noises.  (There’s even a  kind of guitar solo).

The latest EP, the one that Viking likes, is called Deads.  It has four songs: “The Crawl” (1:41), “Ghost Punch” (1:41) “Clicks (2:42) and “Deads” (2:53).  And as he describes above, the cover does appear to have been driven over by a muddy truck.

This album is a bit more “polished” (how dare anyone use that word).  In fact the sludge doesn’t really get put onto “The Crawl” until about 50 seconds in.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a sludgy mess, but you can sort of tell what instruments there are and that there’s a guy singing.   “Ghost Punch” sounds a bit more death metal-like than their other songs, although it’s so tinny, it sort of transcends the genre somewhat.  “Clicks” seems to be the song of choice for examples of what Mayyors can do.  It’s got intense delay, squealing noises and a vocal melody! (Do I hear screams of sellout?).  Hear it and “The Crawl” here.  “Deads” actually has staccato notes in the opening, but it’s all sludge from there.

And then there’s silence.  Blissful silence.  Mayyors: Not for the sensitive.

[READ: March 5, 2011] “The Other Place”

Mary Gaitskill is generally acknowledged as a master short story writer.  I haven’t read all that much by her.

I’m not sure if her stories are all as dark as this one, but man this is quite dark, indeed.  It’s about a man and his son.  Well, actually it begins with the son.  He is into guns. Like really into guns. He draws them, he makes stories about them, he plays guns outside even if they don’t have guns.  He also loves violence on TV, especially if it’s funny.  The boy is thirteen.

When I read the story, I initially thought that the father was upset or worried about this gun fascination, because he opens the story with “How did this happen?”  But he seems to know how this happened: “The way everything does, of course.  One thing follows another, naturally.”

And so, with the wrong impression, I couldn’t quite understand why the father was so surprised by the son’s behavior because as the father relates his own past, it’s pretty full of violence itself.  Indeed, as it progresses, it seems like the son inherited all of his father’s traits. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–original articles that comprise A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1991-1996)

Posted in Blue Velvet, Book Reviews, Books about writers, Boredom, Cigarettes, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, David Lynch, Dune, Esquire, Essays, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, Harvard Book Review, Lost Highway, PJ Harvey, Premiere, Religion, Research, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Smarty Pants, Tennis, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Twin Peaks, Virginity (Loss of), Yuck! on March 21, 2011| 14 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-4-Track Demos (1993).

After the intensity of the Steve Albini produced Rid of Me, Harvey releases this collection of demos.  The amazing thing is that these versions actually seem more intense than the Albini version. Or if not more intense, then certainly more raw.

The songs definitely have an unfinished feel about them, and yet they only vary from the final version in polish (and Albini’s stamp).

“Rid of Me” is just as quiet/loud, and has those high-pitched (and scary) backing vocals.  Speaking of scary vocals, her lead screams in “Legs” are far scarier here than on Rid of Me–like really creepy.  (Which sort of undermines that idea that this was released because Rid of Me was too intense for fans).   “Snake” actually features even creepier vocals–Harvey must have had a field day making these sounds!

I admit that I like the finished version of “50 Ft Queenie” better,”but there’s something about this version of “Yuri-G” that I like better.

The disc also has some tracks unreleased elsewhere.  “Reeling” is an organ-propelled song of female strength with the nice lyric: “Robert DeNiro sit on my face.”  “Hardly Wait” is a slow grinder that is fairly quiet for this time period.  “M-Bike” is a cool angry rocker about a guy and his motorcycle which is one of my favorite tracks on the disc.

It’s a great companion to Rid of Me.

[READ: end of February to early March]  original articles that comprise A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

As I mentioned last week, I decided to compare the articles in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again with the original publications to see what the differences were.  It quickly became obvious that there were a lot of additions to most of the articles, and it seems rather pointless (well, actually it seems exhausting and really outrageously time-consuming) to mention them all.  But what I did want to note was the things that are in the articles that have been removed from the book.   There’s not a lot but there are a few juicy tidbits (especially in the early articles) that are fun to note for anyone who read only the book and not the original articles.

My process for this was rather unthorough: I read the article and then right afterward I read the book.  If I noticed any changes, I made a note on the article version.  Many of them were surprisingly easy to note as DFW’s writing style (especially his idiosyncratic phrases) really stand out.  This is especially true in the Harper’s articles.  The academic ones were less notable, I believe, and I’m sure I missed a bunch.

I’m not sure in any way how these pieces were dealt with initially by the magazine or DFW.  I assume that DFW handed in the larger article (like we see in the book) and the magazine made suggested edits and DFW edited accordingly.  Then the book copies are probably the originals, bt which have also been updated in some way.

In most cases, it’s not really worth reading the original article, but I’m including links (thanks Howling Fantods), for the curious.

As for length, it’s hard to know exactly what the conversion from magazine article to book is.  The “Tornado Alley” tennis article is 8 pages (more like 4 pages when you take out the ads) and the book is 17.  Perhaps more accurately it seems like one Harper’s column = just under one book page.  I’ll try to figure out what the conversion is if I can.

One last note, whenever I say “article” I mean the original magazine version.  And obviously “book” means ASFTINDA. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1997)

Posted in A.M. Homes, Andre Agassi, Balthazar Getty, Blue Velvet, Book Reviews, Boredom, Chess, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Lynch, Don DeLillo, Dune, Esquire, Essays, Fears, Funny (ha ha), George Gilder, H.L. Hix, Harper's, Harvard Book Review, Jay Cantor, Lobster, M*A*S*H, Mark Leyner, Max Apple, Meta, Michael Joyce, Michael Martone, Nine Inch Nails, Ping-Pong, PJ Harvey, Postmoderism, Premiere, Quentin Tarantino, Religion, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Robert Coover, Saturday Night Live, St. Elsewhere, Tennis, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Travel, Twin Peaks, Virginity (Loss of), William T. Vollmann, Yuck! on March 14, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Rid of Me (1993).

For Rid of Me, PJ Harvey jumped to the big leagues (relatively) by enlisting maniac Steve Albini as a producer.  And he takes the rawness of Dry one step further into a sound that is both raw and sharp.  He really highlights the differences between the highs and lows, the louds and quiets.  And man, when this came out I loved it.

Like NIN’s “March of the Pigs,” the opening of “Rid Of Me” is so quiet that you have to crank up the song really loud.  And then it simply blasts out of the speakers after two quiet verses.

“Legs” turns Harvey’s moan into a voice of distress, really accentuating the hurt in her voice.  And Harvey hasn’t lightened up her attitudes since Dry, especially in the song “Dry” which has the wonderfully disparaging chorus: “You leave me dry.”

“Rub Til It Bleeds” is a simple song that opens with a few guitars and drums but in true Albini fashion it turns into a noisy rocker.  “Man Size Quartet” is a creepy string version of the later song “Man Size” (I’ll bet the two together would sound great).  And the wonderful “Me Jane” is a great mix of rocking guitars and crazy guitar skronk.   Albini really highlights the high-pitched (male) backing vocals, which add an element of creepiness that is very cool.

For me the highlight is “50 Foot Queenie”.  It just absolutely rocks the house from start to finish.  The song is amazing, from the powerful…well…everything including the amazing guitar solo.  “Snake” is a fast rocker (all of 90 seconds long) and “Ecstasy” is a song that feels wrung out, stretched to capacity, like they’ve got nothing left.

It’s not an easy record by any means, but it is very rewarding.  This is a CD that really calls for reamastering.  Because it is too quiet by half, and could really use–not a change in production–just an aural boost.

[READ: end of February and beginning of March] A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

This is a collection of 7 essays that DFW wrote from 1990-1996.  Three were published in Harper’s, two in academic journals, one in Esquire and the last in Premiere.  I devoured this book when it came out (I had adored “Shipping Out” when it was published in Harper’s) and even saw DFW read in Boston (where he signed my copy!).

click to see larger

[Does anyone who was at the reading in Harvard Square…in the Brattle Theater I THINK…remember what excerpts he read?]

The epigram about these articles states: “The following essays have appeared previously (in somewhat different [and sometimes way shorter] forms:)”  It was the “way shorter” that intrigued me enough to check out the originals and compare them to the book versions.  Next week, I’ll be writing a post that compares the two versions, especially focusing on things that are in the articles but NOT in the book (WHA??).

But today I’m just taking about the book itself. (more…)

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Eden Robinson–“Minnows” (The Walrus, October 2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Demons, Eden Robinson, Fears, Funny (strange), Jian Ghomeshi, Lights, The Walrus, Violence on February 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LIGHTS-“February Air” (2006).

Lights is a Canadian singer who is managed by Jian Ghomeshi.  She is a young cute pop singer and this was her second hit (I think–Wikipedia says it was used in an Old Navy ad).  I admit that I’d never heard of her before seeing her on Jian’s page.

I think of everything that Jian touches to be unique and always interesting.  And although this is certainly poppy and catchy, it’s only mildly  interesting and is kind of indistinguishable from a lot of other poppy catchy songs (the middle section stands out a bit, admittedly).

She’s received a number of accolades (best new artist at the 2009 Junos), so good for her (and Jian).  But I think I’ll be passing on her discs.

[READ: January 10, 2001] “Minnows”

This very short story (two pages) is dark and quite twisted.  Both in content and in structure.

The story opens with a woman seeing her daughter at the door.  We quickly learn that the daughter is not happy, but when the visit turns violent it’s unclear whether the older woman is crazy or hallucinating or if the violence is really happening.

Then we get some background story about their relationship.  Which sets things straight (sort of). (more…)

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