SOUNDTRACK: PARTS & LABOR-“Runaway” (2011).
Parts & Labor cover Kanye West’s “Runaway” at the AV Club.
I didn’t know Parts & Labor when I played this, but I was really curious to see how any band of non-rappers would perform this awesome Kanye West track. It’s a testament to how great the song is that Parts & Labor (who totally kick ass) can play around with it as much as they do (they wisely don’t rap) and retain the greatness of the song.
Parts & Labor seem like a pretty standard punk-type outfit: guitars, bass, drums and keys (although some of their studio albums belie that simplicity). But the keyboardist (who opens the song) is playing notes while manipulating effects pedals on top of the keyboard. It’s a great introduction. The bassist (with his amazing beard) sings in a couple of different registers that work out the angst of the song wonderfully.
But for me the guy I can’t stop watching is the drummer. He opens the track with his snare drum on his lap. While keeping the beat with one finger on a floor tom he is clearly playing the snares of his snare drum with a guitar pick. When the song breaks half way through and he puts his snare back, he is a maniac of intensity and cacophony. It is amazing. The second half of the song is a cathartic release for the noisy beginning.
This is a wonderful cover. And I’ll be checking out Parts & Labor on Spotify to see what I’ve been missing. Watch it here.
[READ: July 20, 2011] “High School Confidential”
Continuing with the New Yorker’s Fiction Issue, we get this Starting Out essay from Téa Obreht. Now, Obreht’s story was the least believable of the five for me. As you can see by this photo, Obreht is adorable. Now we all know people who blossomed from an ugly childhood or had a youthful gangly phase or grew into beauty or whatever. But the introduction of her essay, when she describes herself in quite unflattering terms seems like it may be, if not over the top, then at least wishful thinking.
Téa
She claims she was awkward, tall, gangly with coke bottle glasses a huge gap in her teeth from one that never came in. In reading it again I guess it’s not as dramatic as I though the first time, and corrective work could fix those things, but still. It seemed a bit like that MTV show Awkward (second mention in a few days–it’s been a slow summer, TVwise), in which the main character is way too cute to be considered an outcast.
Too cute to be that awkward
But hey, maybe cute people have problems too.
It’s when Obreht moves past that and talks about being made fun of for what she wanted to be that things get interesting.
Obreht has always wanted to be a writer and when she let her classmates known that, they picked on her (oh are you going to write about that). But she pressed on. She was most devastated when the stories she gave to a boy in confidence were soon being read, aloud, by a girl who hated her.
Maybe cute girls are unpopular too. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 