SOUNDTRACK: JAKE BUGG-“How Soon the Dawn” (2017).
Back in 2012 I recall Jake Bugg kind of buzzing around with his debut album. One of my co-workers at the time was really into him as well.
He basically fell off of my radar entirely until I saw him mentioned in this volume of Giant Days, which is why I looked him up. He has put out a couple of albums since 2012 with his latest being a 2017 acoustic album produced by Dan Auerbach.
This song has such an incredible 70s vibe both in the sound of his guitar and his vocal delivery. His voice is soft and clear and the chorus is really catchy. Really any song that has a “tooo” that you can turn into a lengthy “oooooh” section is going to be super catchy. It’s just acoustic guitar and a very minimal accompaniment and it suits him rather well.
His Wikipedia entry says that in 2018 he signed to a new label “in a bid to relaunch his career.” I guess that hasn’t happened yet. Shame, because this is a really pretty song.
Incidentally, in the book, he is mentioned when the girls are at a musical festival. Daisy says “Is ‘Jake Bugg’ good music?” and Esther says “No.”
Ouch.
[READ: January 20, 2020] Giant Days Vol. 5
In 2017 I wrote
I love this series so much. I can’t believe I have to wait forever for volume 5 to come out.
Turns out I took that forever more literally than I needed to. This book came out in 2017, but it took me until 2020 to read it. The only consolation is that I now have about 6 books to read right in a row!
Max Sarin’s drawings are still over-the-top cartoony which I rather like. Even though the story lines are realistic(ish), giving them a cartoony vibe allows the over-the-topness to feel natural.
This book focuses on the end of their first year of school (can it really be over so soon?).
Chapter 17 starts a mini thread with Daisy going on an archaeology dig. Susan’s comment that “You’d have thought we’d dug up all the Romans by now is interesting since just a few weeks ago (in the real world) even more remains were recently discovered. Daisy’s dig is a disaster because Professor Bradford (you mean bad-ford) is in charge and he criticizes everything Daisy does. “You’re doing it wrong” is a constant refrain. He is so mean because on his very first dig he sat on a mummified form and was basically never invited on another dig.
Susan is distracted by McGraw’s new lady whom Ed Gemmell describes as “she speaks better English than we do but in an accent that means I understand one word in three.” Susan refers to her as an Andalusian Succubus.
Ed reveals that he has been making spare change helping his roommate Dean with a translating project. Dean pays 25 pence for every three word phrase they translate. Like, “philosophical ideas about” becomes “recondite notions of,” and “brutally powerful world” becomes “mean planetoid.” It soon dawns of Esther though that making money this easily can’t be on the up and up and that’s when they realize that Dean is basically selling plagiarized papers (with very bad phrases included).
Chapter 18 sees Esther and Ed being so concerned that they will get in trouble for Dean’s work–there’s a Paypal trail–that they visit a 24 hour lawyer.
But the more concerning news (really) is that their beloved home, Catterick Hall is going to be torn down at the end of school.
There’s a delightful running joke about Daisy being an unwitting pool shark. She’s so good that McGraw, in his spare time, made her her own cue, which she calls a “pool pole.”
At the Farewell ball, Ed reconnects with Jenny. Jenny broke the story on Dean’s plagiarism ring but described the lower tier workers as “Mr. Hair and Vampiella” (hee hee). After a night of dancing, Ed Gemmell has fallen in love. Even if he and McGraw aren’t sure what they ‘re going to do if their roommate is in jail.
Chapter 19 is a delightful side trip to A Music Festival! Esther is all in, Daisy is quite nervous and Susan just doesn’t care. She has been smoking a lot more and when it comes time to set up her tent, she just lays it on the ground. She’s in a sleeping bag anyway, this is just another layer–“double bagged like in an American supermarket.” [Is that a uniquely American thing?].
Esther has a crush on the singer for Poison Nebula and wants to get right up close to hear their topical song “You’re my Napster you’re my wifi.” Esther followed the band to their bus (Daisy: “Don’t go into buses with strange men!”). It turns out Poison Nebula is really into…calligraphy: “Quill work on rag-edge parchment.” There a hilarious moment later on when Shinobi the drummer tries to barter one of his quills for food but the philistines don’t appreciate the quality of the tool.
Daisy is horrified by this spectacle and is looking for something with the majesty of Enya combined with the mystery of Enya, “You’re just jealous of her success. Everyone is.” But she soon finds herself loving the world music stage which means Susan can explore on her own.
Susan meets up with The Cowboy who drugs her drink and has her spinning and flying through the festival–not in a good way.
This is all just to much for daisy who needs to find a space to meditate. Which she does just as the sky opens up a downpour on them all. The only consolation is that Susan’s unpegged-tent is there to save the day.
Chapter 20 opens with two guys throwing a rager in a unfamiliar house. The furniture looks utterly destroyed. We find out the at this is the place the girls are living in this year. Amazingly it all looks beautiful. Until Susan sits on the couch and finds that it is all held together with school glue and tape. This can only mean one thing: a trip to IKEA!
Esther has never been to one (The deGroots fled the Netherlands to escape the jackboot march of flat-packed furniture) but she is instantly convinced of its awesomeness. The next page shows them sitting on all kinds of furniture with IKEA sounding-names (the note at the bottom translates” Orkan/Hat/Slukhål as hurricane/hatred/sinkhole.
Esther is allowed to buy one puppet and they have come in under budget which means meatballs! Susan explains that they are “made of the national meat of Sweden: swan.”
Then reality sets in–they have to transport all of those flat boxes home. AND put it all together. Susan refuses to let Daisy ask McGraw for help, but Daisy sneaks out to ask him for tools: “is one size of junior hacksaw enough?” “For 99% of the human race, probably.”
McGraw and Ed move into their new place. Ed has spent a fortune on a cappuccino maker which he says will save them a ton of money over the year. When they come back from their evening out, Dean has returned and has immediately destroyed the coffee maker by stuffing bananas into it and saying the smoothie maker is broken.
It’s going to be that kind of year.
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SOUNDTRACK: LOW-“War on War” (from WILCOvered, UNCUT Magazine November 2019).
The November 2019 issue of UNCUT magazine had a cover story about Wilco. It included a 17 track CD of bands covering Wilco (called WILcovered or WILCOvered). I really enjoyed this collection and knew most of the artists on it already, so I’m going through the songs one at a time.
