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Archive for the ‘Festivals’ Category

Emily Culliton–The Misfortune of Marion Palm (2017)

Posted in Backyard Show, Death, Embezzlement, Emily Culliton, Field Recordings, Merchandise, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Set at School on October 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MERCHANDISE-“Become What You Are” (Field Recordings, April 17, 2014).

I feel like I’ve heard of Merchandise, but I can’t be sure.  Especially given their complex history:

Merchandise got its start on the Tampa punk and hardcore scene, then got weirder as artier influences like krautrock took hold. As its sound became harder to pin down, the band inspired an 18-month bidding war between record labels: This year, Merchandise finally signed with 4AD, and adventurous new material has begun to trickle out.

For this Field Recording [Merchandise Sprawls Out In The Sunlight] singer Carson Cox and guitarist Dave Vassalotti — a configuration Cox describes as “some component of Merchandise” — held court for an informal session at Friends & Neighbors,

Before he starts singing a bird goes squawking by, Cox says, “The bird’s on backup vocals.”

As the song starts, it’s acoustic guitar and gentle crooning.  Then Vassalotti’s  electric guitar powers in.  It’s so much louder but the acoustic is perfectly audible–great mixing!  For all that build up of punk and krautrock, this proves to be a pretty straightforward folk song with buzzy guitars.

The end builds nicely with the two of them rocking out.  With the ending guitar solo, the song wends it way to over 9 minutes long.

Though it usually keeps its songs to reasonable lengths, Merchandise also knows how to sprawl out: Its new single, “Begging for Your Life/In the City Light,” spans a whopping 14 minutes. So it’s no surprise that even a truncated version of the group would be capable of wringing an epic out of such a casual environment.

[READ: June 2018] The Misfortune of Marion Palm

Because I have been trying to empty my drafts folder of all of the New Yorker and Harper’s stories that have been cluttering it for two years, I have not read that many books this year.  I’m usually good for 100+ books a year, but this year it will be closer to about 30, if that.

I’ve also read some of these books quite a while ago, so my memory isn’t as fresh as it should be.

I’m not exactly sure why I read this book.  The title was intriguing–“misfortune” is a rather compelling noun.  Plus the chapters are almost all around 3 pages.  But I think it was the very premise that was so fascinating.

Marion Palm is a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother.  She works at her children’s (fancy, expensive) school and was a devoted, if suffering wife.  But as the book opens, she is on the lam with $40,000 cash in her pockets.  She said goodbye to her children but did not say goodbye to her husband.

This is all questionable behavior.  What is even more questionable is that she said goodbye to her two girls (aged 8 and 13) in a diner and then ran out on the bill.  It was cash only and all of her cash was in her knapsack and she didn’t want her girls to see it.  So she left them there. (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“Usl at the Stadium” (New Yorker, October 12, 2015)

Posted in Backyard Show, Baseball, D.D Dumbo, Field Recordings, Humiliation, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Rivka Galchen, Short Story, SXSW on October 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: D.D DUMBO-“Walrus,” “Tropical Oceans” (Field Recordings, May 15, 2014).

I don’t know when people started looping drums and guitar to make fuller sounds.  I guess it’s been a decade or so.  But this recording from 2014 seems positively ancient.  And yet D.D Dumbo uses the technology perfectly.  And in this Field Recording [D.D Dumbo: Looping Sounds In An Austin Alleyway] this one guy sounds huge!

Mystery seems to swirl around D.D Dumbo. We’d heard all sorts of crazy rumors about this solo musician; namely, that Dumbo is a modern-day nomad whose only worldly possessions are his guitar and some crazy customized pedals. But once he arrived for one of our SXSW Backyard Sessions, here’s what we discovered: Dumbo was born outside of Melbourne, Australia (birth name: Oliver Hugh Perry). He performs with a 12-string electric guitar, a simple drum set-up and some loop pedals. And he prefers to let his eclectic, drone-filled music speak for itself — so, alas, no comment on the nomad rumors.

As “Walrus” opens, he plays a nifty guitar riff that is part sliding notes and part harmonics.  These are looped.  He adds some vocal “ahhs” and “eeehs” and then puts in a very simple drum beat.  When the song properly starts, his style of playing reminds me of the West African guitarists I’ve heard on Tiny Desk.  It’s slinky and repetitive, almost turning into a droning rhythm.  He sings, but I’m not even sure if there are actual words.

The song builds and shrinks as he adds previously looped parts and it stops perfectly when he needs to do a quick guitar section before it starts again.

If you listen closely to his music, though, one thing is certain: It’s hard to nail down Dumbo’s influences. As he performed for a curious crowd at Austin’s Friends & Neighbors during SXSW, we heard numerous global destinations in his music — including stops in North African deserts, as well as a jaunt to the American South for a touch of the blues. Here, D.D Dumbo showcases two uniquely minimal songs: an unreleased song called “Walrus,” and “Tropical Oceans,” from his recent self-titled EP.

“Tropical Oceans,” starts with some scratched guitar strings as a percussive sound.  He builds t he ambiance by tapping his guitar body to create waves of sounds.  After the drum beats, he begins playing and singing the song proper.

[READ: June 26, 2014] “Usl at the Stadium”

So Usl is the name of a character in this story.  It’s a strange name and kind of distracts from the story somewhat because why would anyone be named that?

This story actually has nothing to do with his name, so it could have been something else and we wouldn’t even think about his name.

This story is about Usl at a Yankee game.  The Sunday game started at 2PM and Usl had gone. He had fallen asleep and was featured on the Jumbotron intermittently between 4:02 and 4:09.  Usl became an internet sensation because the announcers had talked about him while he was on screen.

So he was getting calls from newspapers and other places for “celebrities.” (more…)

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Kevin Barry-“Deer Season” (New Yorker, October 10, 2016)

Posted in Backyard Show, Field Recordings, Humiliation, Irish Writer, Kevin Barry, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Roberto Bolaño, Sergio Mendoza y La Orkestra, Sex, SXSW on October 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SERGIO MENDOZA Y LA ORKESTRA-Backyard Show (Field Recordings, June 4, 2014).

This Field Recording [Coffee And Mambo With Sergio Mendoza Y La Orkesta] differs from other ones because it is actually a mini-concert.  Almost like a Tiny Desk Concert outside.

Sergio Mendoza and his band La Orkesta are from Arizona and they play three songs in this backyard party.

They mix myriad Latin styles — what Mendoza calls “indie mambo,” salted with generous handfuls of cumbia, merengue and ranchera — and then feed all that through a psychedelic prism. They perform their songs with charm and panache, set off by the fireworks of the group’s resident showman, the multi-talented Salvador Duran.

While NPR Music was in Austin for SXSW this year, we coaxed Mendoza and his crew into a three-song backyard party after a little local coffee. But they didn’t really need the caffeine to get everyone’s blood pumping.

“Traicionera” (Treasons) has a great pedal steel guitar part running through it.  Duran is dancing and stomping on the stomp box and then he takes a great vocal run with his deep resonant voice.

“La Cucharita” (Little Spoon) Sergio sings thee main verses, but when the chorus comes in, Duran takes lead and Mendoza sings backups.  There’s an appropriate trumpet solo as well as a rocking guitar solo from the slide guitarist.

The final song “La Rienda” (The Reins) opens with a wah wah’d slide guitar–it sounds otherworldly.  Throughout the song he plays some very cool slide guitar sounds.  Duran sings lead and I love his gritty but beautiful voice.  As the song nears the end, during a relatively quiet part, you can hear a bird chirping as it quickly flies past–a nice bit of proof that it’s live and outside.

[READ: January 4, 2017] “Deer Season”

The title of this story confused me somewhat because while the story may be set in deer season, the story is actually about a seventeen-year-old girl.  The girl was “almost 18 and determined to have a fuck before it.”

She lives out near the woods and has her sites set on a country man who she has seen around.

She sat out under a tree–knowing he would pass by–reading a novel by Roberto Bolaño.

She was worried that the book might be too much for him, but he seemed interested. Then he told her that he had to burn half of his books last winter to stay warm.  They shared pleasantries and go their ways.

She has about a week to go before her 18th birthday.  And she is planning accordingly. (more…)

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John Updike–“Playing with Dynamite” (New Yorker, October 5, 1992)

Posted in Christian Lee Hutson, Death, George Saunders, John Updike, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Newport Folk Festival, Nostalgia, NPR/PRI/PBS, Old Age, Phoebe Bridgers, Short Story, The Wild Reeds on October 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHOEBE BRIDGERS-Live at Newport Folk Festival (July 28, 2018).

I saw Phoebe Bridgers three days after this set at Newport Folk Festival (I had no idea).  She plays five more songs at my show than here (yay, me).

The size of the crowd does’t seem to intimate her in any way and she sounds just as great (and intimate) as she did in the small club where I saw her.

A few songs into her sun-drenched Saturday Newport Folk set, Phoebe Bridgers paused and proclaimed, “I am a puddle of sweat.” It was a one-liner that primed those huddled at the Harbor Stage for the 2018 Slingshot artist’s catalog: details delivered with specificity and a subtle sense of humor.

I will say the one thing about this recording is that I don;t think you can hear all of the percussion as clearly as I could at Asbury Lanes.

The show started much the same as mine did with a beautiful languid version of “Smoke Signals” and a try-to-hold-back-the-tears reading of “Funeral.”

For the next song, “Georgia,” she brought out songwriter Christian Lee Hutson who is “going to help me sing harmonies.”  Whether it was the song itself of Hutson’s addition, but Bridgers’ voice really soars on this song.

Even Bridgers’ stage banter reflected her striking style, mixing straightforward address and astute observation. “This song is about how every time I smoke weed, I remember why I don’t smoke weed,” she said of the plainspoken plea “Demi Moore.”

She continued: “I face plant and my brain is erased for many hours and I think I’m thinking too loud.”

There’s some gorgeous harmonies on the darkly sweet song, “Killer.”  Then she played “Steamroller” solo on the acoustic guitar.

Later, she called “Steamroller,” a devastatingly candid cut from her 2015 EP, Killer, “another dark love song, thanks.”

Introducing Gillian Welch’s song “Everything Is Free” she said. “This is my friend Marshall.  We’re going to sing my favorite song about music streaming ever written.”  I loved hearing this live and it sounds just as solid here.

Up next was a song she did not play at my show.  She welcomed Christian Lee Hutson (playing guitar with Jenny Lewis) and Sharon Silva (from The Wild Reeds) played bass with me for exactly one week and I waited for a really bassist…Emily.  Chris wrote this song for me.”  The chorus goes “”lets get the old band back together again, and there’s even a line, “with Emily on bass, it doesn’t feel the same.”

The crowd reacts strongly, as they should to her awesome song “Motion Sickness.”

Despite its venom, it’s a song that unspools with a sonic ease that feel refreshing, even for an overheated festival audience.

The songs sounds great live and she holds a 17-second note just for kicks.  The sets ends (as did ours) with “Scott Street.”  She says “This is about L.A. where we live;  where it’s hot all the time.”  It’s a quiet song, sounds and represents her music pretty perfectly–quiet, sad, with clever lyrics.

At our show, we got two encores after this, so again, yay for us.  But this is a great example of her live show.

[READ: April 22, 2016] “Playing with Dynamite”

Back in February of 2017, I posted about an essay by George Saunders from 2009 in which he remembers John Updike “Remembering Updike“.  He says that back in 1992:

 It was going to be in Tina Brown’s first issue and they marked this occasion by running two stories contrasting the new writers (Saunders) with the established.  Of course the establishment writer was going to be Updike.  Saunders said he was chagrined because he knew the contrast would go something like this:

Wonderful, established, powerful representative of the Old Guard kicks the butt of the flaky, superficial, crass poseurish New Guy.  Saunders’ story was “Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz.”

I can see why they paired the George Saunders story with this particular Updike story.  Both stories deal with grief and memory loss, although Updike’s does so in a very different way.  On the other hand, their writing styles are so very different that it’s nearly impossible to compare the two stories.

The story begins with an interesting image from childhood: “one aspect of childhood Fanshawe had not expected to return in old age was the mutability of things–the willingness of a chair, say, to become a leggy animal in the corner of his vision.”  But living now “in death’s immediate neighborhood” he allowed that things like that might happen and it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

There is then an episode in Fanshawe’s day when his wife, who was younger and more spry than he, passed him going down the stairs.  She caught her heel on her dress and fell down the stairs.  It was only after all the guests had left that she said to him, “Wasn’t I good, not to tell everybody how you pushed me me?” (more…)

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Yiyun Li–“When We Were Happy We Had Other Names” (New Yorker, October 1, 2018)

Posted in Death, Fears, Julia Jacklin, New Yorker, Newport Folk Festival, Parenting, Racism, Short Story, Suicide, Yiyun Li on October 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JULIA JACKLIN-Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2017).

I saw Julia Jacklin open for First Aid Kit and while I was looking for music by her I found this, her first show at Newport Folk Festival.

This show is a good representation of her live show, except that with when I saw her, she threw in a couple more upbeat songs–this set is a bit monotonous.  Or maybe that’s what an 11M crowd needs.

It’s often a sparse crowd that turns up to see an 11 a.m. set at a music festival — but not so at the Newport Folk Festival. When Julia Jacklin took the stage on Saturday morning, she seemed shocked to be faced with a tent full of attentive onlookers. (If it were any other festival, she pointed out, she’d probably be playing to an audience of four — and four hung-over people, at that.)

She played nine songs, several of which she played when I saw her.

“Hay Plain” is a slow meandering song  it takes almost 4 minutes before the full band kicks in, but when they do it really elevates the song.  ““Lead Light” she played when I saw her.  It has a kind of old school swing to it, almost 50s rock and roll.  The song build and stops several times.

“Cold Caller” is another slow-mover.  Midway through there’s a really cool–and to my mind, much needed–wicked guitar solo.  The backing vocals on “Motherland” mid way through the song perk things up.  She lets her vocals linger more on this one which shows of the power more.

“LA Dream” it is indeed dreamy and sweet and is mostly just her guitar.  “Eastwick” is a cool song that grows faster and louder in a rather slow and deliberate manner. “Coming Of Age” and “Pool Party” are slow brooding song.  “Pool Party” sounds familiar but defies what’s expected from a song with a title like that.

For the last song, “Don’t Let The Kids Win” the band left and it was just her on stage with her guitar.  The lyrics are so good and so well-delivered, it’s a real high point.

So, overall I find her songs to be pretty but a little flat.  She just not quite my thing.  But every time the rest of the band stepped up, the songs were much more fun for me (even when they werent “fun” songs).

To read some lyrics and what it was like to see her in person, check out this post.  That plaid skirt must be a trademark.

[READ: October 1, 2018] “When We Were Happy We Had Other Names”

This story is about death.

It opens in a funeral home, as the director is meeting with the protagonists Jiayu and her husband Chris.  The story is set in the States–Jiayu thinks about how much stranger living in the States would have been for her if it were fifty years earlier–but that’s doesn’t directly impact the story, exactly.

The gut punch of the story comes as we realize–it is mostly alluded to–that their son Evan has killed himself.  Their daughter Naomi is off at college and while she does come home for the funeral, she also cuts off a lot of access to her.

Jiayu and Chris spent a lot of time with grief–they asked if they had done something wrong–Evan had seemed so happy.  But things did have to move along.  Would they buy pumpkins for the holiday?  Christmas trees?  Would anyone notice or care if they didn’t?

But thinking about death was an all-consuming act for Jaiyu.  She wound up creating a spreadsheet of all of the people she knew or had met who have died.  She entered birth and death year as well as cause of death.  She wanted to test her memory, so she didn’t look up anything.  By remembering each person it would prevent them from become generically dead. (more…)

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Sam Shepard–“Land of the Living” (New Yorker, September 21, 2009)

Posted in Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Depression, Field Recordings, Marriage Trouble, Newport Jazz Festival, NPR/PRI/PBS, Old Age, Parenting, Sam Shepard, Vacation, Van Halen on September 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BRIAN BLADE AND THE FELLOWSHIP BAND-“Landmarks” (Field Recordings, August 14, 2014).

Here’s yet another Field Recording at the Newport Jazz Festival [Chorale For Horns And iPad App, In The Pouring Rain].

The 2014 Festival must have been a rainy one, because some of the other Recordings seem wet as well.  The blurb explains

We had hoped to get the great drummer Brian Blade to give us a little private exhibition after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival this year. The weather, however, was proving much less generous than he and his band were. Early that morning, a steady all-day rain settled in over coastal Rhode Island, making it difficult to transport dry instruments anywhere. On top of that, a last-minute change to travel plans meant that Blade needed to get out of town quickly — to an airport over four hours away.

But he and the Fellowship Band — the group of guys Blade has been making music with for the better part of two decades or more — were game to figure out something for us. So we herded them into the shelter of a quiet tunnel in Fort Adams State Park.

Despite Blade being a drummer, they are unable to use drums or even bass.  So they decide to play a composition of the keyboardist.  Chris Thomas, the bassist, suggests that he could do an interpretive dance (but he does not).

As they get set up, Jon Cowherd starts tinkering on his iPad.  He gets a synth up and starts playing the opening to Van Halen;s “Jump” which gets everyone excited.  Then he starts playing a cool keyboard sound on the app and the two horns join in on the serene melody.

First Myron Walden starts playing the bass clarinet.  Then he is joined beautifully by Melvin Butler on soprano sax.  The song unfolds simply.  I love the way it just seems to grow and grow–slowly revealing more and more of itself.  But it’s over pretty quickly, with the notes fading in the tunnel.

So even though the featured performer, Brian Blades is not playing–and I still have never heard his drums, this was a nifty little piece.

[READ: April 17, 2016] “Land of the Living”

I had it in my head that Sam Shepard was a noir writer from the 1950s.

Well this story (and the surprising fact that the New Yorker published a second of his stories just a few weeks later) led to something entirely different.  This story is about a man who is going on vacation with his family.

It begins with a very funny exchange between the man and his wife,  She tells him, “It’s just amazing how friendly you become when you’re on Xanax”  And he agrees, “I feel this friendly person coming out in me and I wonder if maybe that’s my real nature.”

The family is currently waiting on a customs line in Cancun.  The heat is unbearable, especially since they have just come from Minnesota.

Their conversation is full of things that he says which she is surprised by: (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“How Can I Help?” (New Yorker, September 19, 2016)

Posted in Ages and Ages, Consumerism, Field Recordings, Language, New Yorker, Newport Folk Festival, NPR/PRI/PBS, Rivka Galchen, Short Story, Sisters, The Berklee Gospel and Roots Choir, Work on September 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AGES AND AGES-“Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)” (Field Recordings, August 28, 2014).

I really like this song.  I’ve heard several recordings of it.  The studio version, the Tiny Desk Concert, the one with the Northwest Children’s Choir and now this one.

Once again, done during the Newport Folk Festival, this Field Recording [Ages And Ages, Singing An Anthem For (And With) Everyone] corrals a band into a small, unused space. In this case, that space seems to be an unused room.  And in that small room, the band is joined by The Berklee Gospel and Roots Choir.

Bob Boilen says:

I’ve seen many magical collaborations at the Newport Folk Festival over the years, as artists band together and create in the Newport spirit. This particular venture was epic, featuring the strongest anthem of the year — by the Portland band Ages and Ages — and the voices of the Berklee Gospel and Roots Choir.

This song always sounds better with a big chorus of singers.  There’s not much to it, but the full body of voices can lift anyone;s spirits.  Especially when they start singing various different melodies on top of each other.  It’s quite lovely.

Ages and Ages played near me recently and I thought about seeing them and then I realized that this is the only song I know by them!

[READ: January 2, 2017] “How Can I Help?”

This is a story about a woman and her sister.  But the way the story is revealed is really wonderful.

It begins: “Consider Hayley, our hire of two months, a relative endurance run.”

The narrator bemoans Hayley’s decisions, like spending $4.25 (roughly 31 minutes of work at her salary) each day on a skim latte coffee from an unnamed retailer even though their office offers the same coffee in-house for free.

In the second paragraph, she says “I like and admire Hayley, she is a team player.  I don’t judge.  But I have of late been tempted to judge.”

And that’s when she reveals that perhaps her objectivity is clouded because Hayley is her sister. (more…)

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Steven Millhauser–“A Report on Our Recent Troubles” (Harper’s, November 2007)

Posted in Field Recordings, Harper's, Newport Jazz Festival, NPR/PRI/PBS, Roxy Music, Short Story, Steven Millhauser, Suicide, Wild Beasts on September 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WILD BEASTS-A Simple Beautiful Truth” (Field Recordings, October 23, 2014).

I don’t know if there was an initial mission statement for Field Recordings, but I feel like this one fits my model of Field Recordings perfectly.  For this Field Recording [A ‘Beautiful Truth’ In A Beautiful Bar], NPR brought a band into Grand Central Station to play a song.

Of course, they can’t have the band play in the middle of Grand Central Station (well they could and that would be awesome–but not if they want a lush version of the song, which they do).  So they had them play in The Cambell Apartment, a bar tucked into Grand Central Station. What?

You can be 10 feet from The Campbell Apartment, a bar tucked into the corner of New York’s Grand Central Station, and not have any idea it’s there. The office of a member of the New York Central Railroad’s Board Of Directors in the 1920s (and later a storage closet and a jail), the room is intimate in spite of its 25-foot ceilings and the enormous leaded-glass window that faces Vanderbilt Avenue.

The band Wild Beasts does not in any way live up to their name.  There’s hardly anything wild or beastly about them.  They play a kind of new wave, almost old-time music (Roxy Music-ish): “The band’s sound — from the street-urchin-inspired lyrics of its early songs to the new-wave synths woven through its latest album, Present Tense — arrived fully intact via time machine.”

“A Simple Beautiful Truth” has a delicate synth line and loud electronic drums.  It wouldn’t make sense in Grand Central Station.  I’m not entirely sure it make seen here, but the band’s overall vibe does make sense in this old-timey bar.

[READ: October 10, 2017] “A Report on Our Recent Troubles”

This story is indeed written as a report.  The recent troubles are a euphemism for the rampant suicide that has struck a village.

But because the story is written as a report, it has a formal, detached tone that really allows for much thinking about suicide.  The suicide is so rampant that families have moved away, leaving those who remain to deal with their shattered existence.

The town was once pleasant–connected to the city and culture and yet with a rural sensibility.

They the undersigned are reluctant to look for one thing that changed everything but they can’t help but note that when Richard And Suzanne Lory killed themselves, things seemed to change.  Each in their early fifties, happily married and with lots of friends.  They killed themselves and left no note. An investigation turned up no scandal.

Two weeks later a 74-year-old retired high school math teacher killed himself.  He had been diagnosed with cancer of the liver.  This was less scandalous and almost understandable. (more…)

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Joy Williams–“Chicken Hill” (New Yorker, September 14, 2015)

Posted in Art, Death, Doctors, Drinking, Fede Graña Y Los Prolijos, Field Recordings, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Joy Williams, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, St. Vincent, SXSW on September 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FEDE GRAÑA Y LOS PROLIJOS-“”El Gigante” (Field Recordings, May 5, 2015).

Fede Graña Y Los Prolijos are from Uruguay and play a stomping bluegrass (which is why this is called A Bluegrass Ditty By Way Of Uruguay).

Every year SXSW hosts a night of music from Uruguay.

Nestled between Argentina and Brazil way down on the southern tip of the Americas, Uruguay spends way too much time in the shadows of its better-known neighbors.

But a closer listen reveals something for just about everyone: rockeros, sure, but also fans of hip-hop, folk-influenced downtempo music and singer-songwriters with distinct voices and stories to tell.

With an electric bass and a small hand drum laying down the thumping rhythm and an accordion adding to the flair, the fascination comes from the very American-sounding guitar solo that introduces the song.  But once you comfortably know that this is bluegrass, it’s even more surprising when they all sing in Spanish.

After a couple of verses, there’s an accordion solo followed by an acoustic guitar solo (from the other guitarist).  There’s a slow down that seems like an ending but it’s a fake out as the song takes off once more,.

There’s some great guitar fingerwork by he singer as the song races to an end

What a fun song, although I never heard the word “Gigante” once..

[READ: January 5, 2017] “Chicken Hill”

Joy Williams’ stories never do what I expect them to do–for better and worse.

This is the story of Ruth.

It begins with Ruth going to a memorial fundrasier at the Barbed Wire, a biker bar “in a somewhat alarming part of town.”  She had donated $30 to the memorial of a boy, Hector, who has been run over by a sheriff’s deputy.

Ruth was pleased that the father was suing the sheriff–then she found out it was the boy’s fault–he had run in to traffic against the light.

The transition is a strange one: “It was probably just a coincidence that a child appeared not long after that.”  This was a girl who lived in a house nearby.  She was the daughter of a doctor and rather than introducing herself she said to Ruth “I would like to draw you in plein air.” (more…)

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Robert Coover–“Invasion of the Martians” (New Yorker, September 12, 2016)

Posted in Aliens, Apanhador Só, Brazil, Field Recordings, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Political Humor, Robert Coover, Sex, Sexism, SXSW, Violence on September 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: APANHADOR SÓ-“Prédio” (Field Recordings, May 13, 2015).

Apanhador Só  is from Brazil.  At the beginning of the video you see the guys in the band gathering…junk.   Childen’s toys boxes of refuse and homemade instruments.

The video starts and the singer explains that Prédio means building.  He says the song is about a different vision of life, a different perspective.  As it pans back we see that the only conventional instruments are a floor tom and a guitar.  And all kinds of weird other things.

In this video, shot during SXSW in Austin (2015), its members coax rhythms and beats from a trunkload of found items, including a children’s bicycle and other playthings. The resulting performance of “Prédio” is the stuff of hip-swaying joy.

The song starts with one of them tapping a bicycle bell.  Soon he starts keeping time by spinning the wheel and clacking the spokes.  Then he switches to a jug of some kind that changes the sound as he uncovers the opening.

There’s even a kazoo solo.

Near the end of the song, there’s wonderful breakdown where you can see then hitting and kicking everything at their feet-all kinds of junk that makes a cool cacophony.  The song is really catchy and lovely, although I admit I was more focused on what they were playing more than what they were playing.  (The items rather than the melody).

[READ: January 4, 2017] “Invasion of the Martians”

This was the funniest , most enjoyable thing I’ve ever read by Robert Coover.  Probably because it is so base and straightforward, it transcended some of his usual stylistic things.

A Senator from Texas is in bed with two women–the Secretary of the Interior (whom he calls the Secretary of the Posterior) and his intern–when he gets the news that Martians have landed in his home state.

He greets them warmly with Southern hospitality, but they don’t seem to speak any civilized languages.  They also don’t have any papers.  As the Senator was explaining this to them, they shot him. (more…)

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