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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Adam Levin–Bubblegum [Week 4: pp. 283-377] (2020)

Posted in 10cc, Adam Levin, Bubblegum, Bugs Bunny, Cancer as plot device, Community, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Full Metal Jacket, Guns n' Roses, Infinite Zombies, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Language, LGBTQ, Nazis, Ohio Express, Parenting, Prison, Prostitution, Ronald Reagan, Suicide, The Cramps, The Fun and Games, The Monkees, Transgender, Violence, War on June 1, 2020| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FUN AND GAMES-“Elephant Candy” (1968).

indexI’d never heard of The Fun and Games before looking up this bubblegum pop song.

Amazingly there were six members of the band (and none of them were cartoons).

The band members and name were constantly in flux and they released only one album, Elephant Candy in 1968.

“Elephant Candy” is a two and a half minute pop delight.

The main music of this song sounds almost like the music of a merry-go-round–a kind of sugar-coated pipe organ.

The song opens with the preposterously catchy “elephant elephant candy did you know that elephants can be fun eating candy on the run.”  The second go-round features backing vocals of a steady “Ahhahahh” that sounds simultaneously unsettling and catchy: kind of like a fun house mirror.

The verse seems like its just an opportunity to pause in between the next appearance of the chorus.

If that weren’t catchy enough, the song moves up a step so it’s even more treacly. Somehow, the song even has time for two keyboard solos.

[READ: June 1, 2020] Bubblegum Week 4

Over at the Infinite Zombies site, there was talk of doing a Quarantine book read.  After debating a few books, we decided to write about a new book, not a book that everyone (or some people) had read already.  This new book would be Bubblegum by Adam Levin.  Many of us had read Levin’s massive The Instructions which was not especially challenging, although it was a complex meta-fictional story of books within books.  It was kind of disturbing, but also rather funny and very entertaining.

So I’ll be posting weekly ideas on this schedule

Date Through Page
May 11 81
May 18 176
May 25 282
June 1 377
June 8 476
June 15 583
June 22 660
June 29 767

Sometimes One Looks Like The Other, Bad Taste and Stupidity

This weeks reading was really intense.  It also showed things that I never imagined would come up.

  • A lengthy and carefully edited suicide note.
  • A lengthy treatise on transgendered persons/prostitution/homosexuality
  • Academic papers that are simultaneously well-written and yet obviously the work of a child.

Part Two, Section 5 of the book is called “Letters and Facts.”

This was an interesting place to stop/resume reading because, although they reference the same incident, the beginning of this section differs from the end of the previous section.  (more…)

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Adam Levin–Bubblegum [Week 3: pp. 179-282] (2020)

Posted in 10cc, Adam Levin, Bubblegum, Bugs Bunny, Community, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Full Metal Jacket, Guns n' Roses, Infinite Zombies, Kurt Vonnegut, Language, Nazis, Ohio Express, Parenting, Prison, The Cramps, The Monkees, Violence on May 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: OHIO EXPRESS-“Chewy, Chewy” (1967).

The name Ohio Express sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. Turns out that they did “Yummy Yummy Yummy” (which I could have put here, but “Chewy Chewy” seems more bubblegum-apt).

What I was fascinated to discover though, was that (according to Wikipwdia)

“Ohio Express” served as a brand name used by Jerry Kasenetz’s and Jeffry Katz’s Super K Productions to release the music of a number of different musicians and acts. The best known songs of Ohio Express (including their best scoring single, “Yummy Yummy Yummy”) were actually the work of an assemblage of studio musicians working out of New York, including singer/songwriter Joey Levine.

Several other “Ohio Express” hits were the work of other, unrelated musical groups, including the Rare Breed, and an early incarnation of 10cc. In addition, a completely separate touring version of Ohio Express appeared at all live dates, and recorded some of the band’s album tracks.

So basicaslly, Ohio Express were like The Monkees, but without a cute public face.

In fact, if Wikipedia is to be believed, (and sure, why wouldn’t it), Ohio Express has a fascinatingly complex and questionable history.  Almost worth a novel in itself.

This song opens with a high -pitched “doo doodoodoo do” as the main verse breezes along in quite a familiar bubblegum style.  You can absolutely hear “Yummy Yummy Yummy” in the pedigree of this song.

It’s bouncy and catchy with the appropriate keyboard bops.  The biggest surprise comes at a minute and forty five seconds when the song throws in, inexplicably, the guitar riff from “Then He Kissed Me” for two measures as a kind of instrumental break then returns to the main melody.  This is no where near as catchy as “Yummy Yummy Yummy,” but it has its moments.

The album that this song comes from Chewy Chewy is remarkably annoying.  It’s under 30 minutes but it is just full of “comic” bits.  “Nothing Sweeter Than My Baby” opens with over 30 seconds (of a song that lasts 2:52) with one guy saying “Oh Bonnie” (or bunny) and the other guy in falsetto saying “Oh Clyde” over and over and over.  I don’t even assume it was funny back then.  “So Good So Fine” opens with a 30 second “skit” about Superman being stuck in a phone booth.  The full song is 2:10 and has nothing to do with Superman, phone booths or anything of the sort.

“Yes Sir” opens with a person saying “Hi, I’m chicken little.” The angry reply is, “I don’t care who you are get your beak out of my popcorn.”  What?  The song is practically a children’s call and response song.  “Little Girl” opens with a “dialogue” that includes a fairly lengthy backwards spoken section which is apparently the person talking?  The hilarious punchline is that the person is from Poughkeepsie, New York.  You know it’s funny because there is a silly fake cackle.  The ensuing song is pretty catchy though.  There’s even a pop version of “Simon Says.”

I guess writing pop hits isn’t as easy as it seems.

[READ: May 25, 2020] Bubblegum Week 3

Over at the Infinite Zombies site, there was talk of doing a Quarantine book read.  After debating a few books, we decided to write about a new book, not a book that everyone (or some people) had read already.  This new book would be Bubblegum by Adam Levin.  Many of us had read Levin’s massive The Instructions which was not especially challenging, although it was a complex meta-fictional story of books within books.  It was kind of disturbing, but also rather funny and very entertaining.

So I’ll be posting weekly ideas on this schedule

Date Through Page
May 11 81
May 18 176
May 25 282
June 1 377
June 8 476
June 15 583
June 22 660
June 29 767

Lacing up my rhinestoned shirt in Vegas or: Finking wrecks fun

Part Two of the book is called The Hope of Rusting Swingsets

So if you thought the swing set murders were not going to be revisited, you’d have been wrong.

Part 2 Section 1 is called “Look at Your Mother.”  It concerns Stevie Strumm.

Belt has had a crush on Stevie for a while.  She’s the only girl that he can comfortably talk to.  Stevie had once given him a mixtape because he liked her Cramps shirt.  Stevie, the second youngest Strumm, invited Belt over to destroy their rusted swingset (number ten in his murderous spree).  She was babysitting her younger sister while the rest of her family was at a G N’ R show.

The end of the second paragraph promises two events that we haven’t seen and may or may not.  He has a vertiginous feeling that he will feel “while dressing at the foot of Grete the grad student’s bed and after reading No Please Don’t‘s first review.” (more…)

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Fiona Maazel–“I Incriminate Myself So No One Else Can” (Harper’s, May 2020)

Posted in Adam Schlesinger, Coronavirus, End of the World, Environmentalism, Fears, Fiona Maazel, Fountains of Wayne, Friday the 13th, Harper's, Ice Nine Kills, Mother's Day, Parenting, Short Story on May 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ICE NINE KILLS-“Jason’s Mom” (2020).

I heard about this song from Metal Sucks who hilariously showed the three ways this song is perfectly timely:

  1. Paid tribute to one of the song’s writers, Adam Schlesinger, who died of COVID-19 last month.
  2. Paid tribute to the original Friday the 13th film, which turned 40 years old this weekend.
  3. Paid tribute to all of the world’s moms in time for Mother’s Day.

Ice Nine Kills’ songs are usually pretty heavy, so this acoustic number is quite a change (The video even shows the drummer using a hand drum rather than a kit).

It’s also an opportunity to hear how well they can sing (and harmonize).

But really, the fun of this song is in the lyrics

Jason, do you remember Camp wasn’t so great?
The counsellors had lots of sex while you drowned in the lake
But one woman stood by you when your life was taken
Yeah, she slaughtered them all and even killed Kevin Bacon
I’m making sure that she’s appreciated
She did it all for you and was decapitated

And of course, the twist on the chorus:

Jason, can’t you see the love behind her killing spree?
Whether her Head’s off or not
I’m in love with Jason’s Mom

Sometimes violence can bring people together with humor.

[READ: May 10, 2020] “I Incriminate Myself So No One Else Can”

This is a weird little story.

The sum total of the action is that a six year old girl is on the top of a slide in a playground. She is crying, getting more and more frightened.

Her mother is standing nearby desperately wanting the girl to get over her fear–to demonstrate internal fortitude.  She is getting angry as the girl screams louder and louder and other parents move in to see what’s wrong.

The story is, of course, the background of the mother. (more…)

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Lisa Taddeo–“Padua, 1966” (Harper’s, April 2020)

Posted in Babies, Drugs, Harper's, Italy, Jon Batiste, Jon Batiste and Stay Human, Lisa Taddeo, Marriage Trouble, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sex, Short Story, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Tiny Desk Concert on May 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JON BATISTE-Tiny Desk Concert #972 (May 4, 2020).

This Tiny Desk Concert was originally (sort of) posted on January 6, 2020 with this disclaimer

Jon Batiste’s Tiny Desk Concert was published prematurely. The new publication date is March 2020.

I don’t know if there was actually a video posted on Jan 6, but I’m curious if people got to see an unfinished version.

Regardless, here it is May (not March) and the Jon Batiste Concert is up. I now know Jon Batiste as the band leader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but I knew of him before that from an NPR recording with Stay Human back in 2014.

Batiste is a multi-talented musician, playing keys, and guitars.  He’s also a charming front man.  But he really lets his backing band shine here.

The New Orleans musician came to the Tiny Desk not with his late-night house band, but with an all-new cast. His all-female collaborators — Endea Owens on acoustic bass, Negah Santos on percussion, Sarah Thawer on drums, and Celisse Henderson on guitar and vocals — were an inspiration.

Batiste took us through some of the many sides of his rich musical history,

The soulful ballad titled “Cry” which features Batiste playing the Wurlitzer organ.  This is probably my favorite song of the set–I love the sound he gets.  He is a really impressive keyboard player, handling the cool Wurlitzer solo with ease.  The surprise for me came when Celisse Henderson played a great soulful guitar solo.  I just assumed he’d be doing all of the soloing, but everyone in the band had a moment to shine.

Before the song ended properly, Endea Owens started the next song with a great upright bass riff for the start of the jazz and hip-hop inspired “Coltrane.”  Batiste does an opening rap before the song slows down for the chorus where batiste jumps to the piano and the backing band sings along.

As is often the case when musicians perform in Washington (and especially blocks from the Capitol) the banter hinted at the political. Jon Batiste stopped to tell the NPR crowd, “we’re playing some music, and we’re coping. The times are in an interesting place, but music is always that universal language that can bring people in a room together.”

Then he says, “it’s the first time we’re ever playing these songs, and it’s the first time we’re playing together.”

Then Batitste picks up a square guitar to start the rocking Motown-inspired tune “Tell The Truth,” which he says is self explanatory.  Even though Batiste is on the guitar, Henderson gets the ripping solo again.    The middle of the song has a drum solo from Sarah Thawer but the real star is Negah Santos on percussion as her bongos really stand out.  Then Batiste takes out the melodica (like he uses on Colbert) and gets a terrific sound for a quick solo.

He ends the show with a bit of church.  He says “When times get weird we forget about the simple things, so I like to write a basic song to remind us of that.  That song is “I Need You.”  It opens with an amazing piano solo.  Batiste so casually plays all up and down the keys, it’s really impressive.  As is the solo he plays mid song.

[READ: May 1, 2020] “Padua, 1966”

Despite the title the story is actually set around Newark in contemporary times.  The 1966 part comes in a story told later.

I really enjoyed the way this story seemed to self-correct.

Miranda was tall and as dark-haired as they come.  I say was and not is and that is inaccurate because she is still around and I really am not.

Miranda was married to Luke, A WASP.  They had a daughter named Caroline, “a name I’ve never understood.”

How’s this for a line:

They fell out of love because they never were in love.

(more…)

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Nick Hornby–“What to Watch During the Lockdown: Month 38”

Posted in Carter Country, Cats, Coronavirus, Domenico Scarlatti, Downton Abbey, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), Jane Austen, Johann Pachelbel, Macon McCalman, Mahan Esfahani, Mel Powell, New Yorker, Nick Hornby, NPR/PRI/PBS, Paul Hindemith, Quarantine, Smokey and the Bandit, Soccer, The Believer, Tiny Desk Concert on May 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MAHAN ESFAHANI-Tiny Desk Concert #970 (April 27, 2020).

I love the sound of the harpsichord but always assumed that one played the harpsichord in addition to the piano, like for extra flavor.  That may be true, but Mahan Esfahani is not only “the instrument’s most ardent advocate,” he is also hilariously cocky about it.

For this Tiny Desk,

Esfahani, who grew up near Washington, D.C., but is now based in Prague, chose a double manual harpsichord — meaning two keyboards. This one was built by specialists Barbara and Thomas Wolf in 1991, but is based on a famous French instrument from 1770.

The harpsichord is a beautiful but notoriously fussy instrument. After we wheeled one behind Bob Boilen’s desk, it took the bulk of an hour to get the tuning just perfect for the very first Tiny Desk harpsichord recital. Given that our guest was Mahan Esfahani we were willing to wait.

His set began with classics: a pair of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, which share the same key but couldn’t be more opposite in personality. With elaborate curlicue ornaments in both hands, the opening sonata “Sonata in D, K. 534,” presents a sober, regal outlook. Its partner “Sonata in D, K. 535” is a flamboyant rocker, with the hands chasing each other across the two keyboards like a cat and mouse.

Before the next song Esfahani makes some wonderfully funny comments about the superiority of harpsichord players.

He says people thing harpsichordists take piano pieces and transcribe them for the harpsichord.  No, pianists take enough of our music; we’re a much classier bunch than them.  We have our own music.

He also tells us that there are many modern composers making harpsichord music.

But he also tells us that there modern composers making harpsichord music.  Composers are the best people as we all know.  It goes composers then harpsichordists, I think, then everyone else.

Mel Powell was a jazz pianist who worked with Benny Goodman. he then became a composer of “proper music” (as it was called in the 1950s).  he studied with Hindemith but unlike Hindemith, he’s not boring.

Angular and slightly jazzy “Recitative and Toccata Percossa,” from 1951, is a tour de force in this artist’s hands. It drives home a point he likes to make — that while the harpsichord had its heyday in the 18th century, it’s still a vibrant instrument and very much alive. “There are over 50 modern concertos for the harpsichord,” he told the audience.

He closes with a lesser known piece by a famous composer.  After giving the proper pronunciation of Pachelbel, he tells that Pachelbel was good enough to teach Bach’s brothers.

Esfahani closed with a little-known chaconne by Johann Pachelbel. Its steady bassline and colorful variations were a pleasant reminder of the composer’s one-hit claim to fame, “Pachelbel’s Canon.”

I’ve never seen a harpsichord that looked like this before.  It sounded great.  I love that there are muted passages in the Pachebel piece–I’ve nevee heard a muted harpsichord before.  This was another great Tiny Desk.

[READ: May 3, 2020] “What to Watch During the Lockdown: Month 38”

I used to really look forward to Nick Hornby’s (mostly) monthly columns in The Believer. I’m not really sure what he’s been up to since, but it’s great to see a new column from him.

This one features his delightfully obscure references to entertainment and football.

My wife and I are apparently the only people who will come out of this quarantine with even more shows to watch than we started with.  We have so much to do during the day–house fixing, yard prepping, reading–that we barely watch an hour of TV a night.  And there’s about 35 shows that I would like to binge.

So, I appreciate this essay intellectually, but not on a practical level (even if it is hilariously absurd). (more…)

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Diane Williams–“Five Stories” (Harper’s, November 2019)

Posted in And the Kids, Artemis, Diane Williams, Flash Fiction, Harper's, Huh?, Maya Hawke, NPR/PRI/PBS, Rubblebucket, Stranger Things, Tiny Desk Concert, Tōth on April 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TŌTH-Tiny Desk Concert #967 (April 13, 2020)

For reasons I’m unclear about, I thought that Tōth was a heavy metal band.  Well, they aren’t.  At all.

The last time we saw Alex Toth at the Tiny Desk, he was standing against the shelves, trumpet to his lips. He performed in 2015 with Rubblebucket and his partner Kalmia Travers was singing lead. This time around, Alex sings about their relationship’s end in the song “Copilot.”

It’s a quiet song with gentle guitar and throbbing synths from Ben Chapoteau-Katz.  Alex Toth sings softly and drifts into a high falsetto during the chorus. There’s even some whistling.

“Copilot” is one of two songs Tōth performed at the Tiny Desk from his album Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary. These songs are thoughtful, honest reflections on the end of his personal relationship with Kalmia Travers (although it continues professionally).

The arrangements here are spare but textured with bits of Alex on trumpet and touches from Ben Chapoteau-Katz on sax and electronics. The rhythm section of drummer Rebecca Lasaponaro and bassist Ryan Dugre pin it all together.

Rebecca Lasaponaro drums with And The Kids and she is fantastic.  Her drumming here is a bid more subdued, but she has a lot of electronics at her disposal which is fun.

“No Reason” is a slower song which features some mellow drums, but  also some lovely twinkling keys and Toth’s trumpet solo in the middle.

He says he’s thrilled to be drinking tea out of an NPR mug at NPR.

Up next is an excerpt from a new record:

The new tune “Turnaround (Cocaine Song)” is a funny/sad (and I’ll assume true) tale of poorly timed indulgence at his Aunt Mary’s funeral in New Jersey.

It’s a slow meandering (silly sounding) story about an embarrassing incident involving cocaine.  There’s a muted trumpet solo and a simultaneous sax solo from Chapoteau-Katz.

Toth says “Juliette” has an amazing and weird video starring Maya Hawke from Stranger Things.  There’s also audience participation which he’ll teach during the song.  Oh, he also has to take his beanie off.

The song begins with everyone shouting wha wha / wha wha ooh ooh. A simple bass line from Ryan Durge runs through the whole song as everything else is quietly performed (including more sax solos).  The song is sweet and odd but pretty catchy.

At the end, while everyone sings along, Toth recites a romantic scene

there’s a double rainbow and children dance all around us with ice cream cones and red balloons and lots and lots of puppies!

Sometimes I’ll see a band at my desk and wish I could jump in and join. That’s what happened when Tōth played the Tiny Desk. I felt a deep connection to both the fun and emotion in their music. Besides, I loved their outfits.

I’m not sure how memorable these songs are, but they are sure fun to listen to.

[READ: April 30, 2020] “Five Stories”

Here is yet another installment of microfiction from Diane Williams.

Every time I read stories from her I try to imagine how they were constructed.  I have considered that she takes pieces from other stories and jams them randomly together into short fiction.  But now I’ve decided that the way she writes her stories is that she writes a longer story and as she edits it, she accidentally deletes more than she meant to but then just leaves it.

Her stories just leave me going… huh? (more…)

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Kevin Devine / Petal / Jaded Hart / Pearla [Asbury Park Music + Film Festival] (House of Independents, Asbury Park NJ, March 17, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Asbury Park Music + Film Festival, Asbury Park, NJ, Coronavirus, House of Independents, Jaded Hart, Jaded Heart, Kenny O'Brien & The O'Douls, Kevin Devine, Pearla, Petal, Postponed, Quarantine on April 24, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: March 17, 2020] Kevin Devine / Petal / Jaded Hart / Pearla

indexThe Asbury Park Music + Film Festival was scheduled for April 23-26.

There was going to be a lot of Music and movies at various locations throughout Asbury Park.

I actually wasn’t interested in the festival, but I was quite interested in seeing Kevin Devine (especially after his Kenny O’Brien St. Patrick’s Day show was cancelled).

Unsurprisingly, the entire Festival has been postponed, with the intention of rescheduling this summer.

Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band was one of my favorite recent shows.  Having seen him with the full band, I was interested to see him solo again (I’ve seen him solo twice).

I have also seen Petal twice before.  The first time she was solo, the second time with a full band.  While I didn’t really need to see her again, she puts on an emotionally charged show and since she and Kevin are mates, I’m sure they would have done something together.

I hadn’t heard of Jaded Hart and when I looked them up, I misspelled the name as Jaded Heart which brought up a German metal band which seemed–incongruous.  Looking up Jaded Hart, though, I can’t find much of anything about them. There’s a musician named Christopher Wilkerson who comes up in the search, but his Jaded Hart is a cover band from the 1990s.  But I’m thinking it’s not that Jaded Hart.

Pearla is a 23 year old singer-songwriter from Brooklyn.  She sings a kind of mildly psychedelic folk pop.

I’m quite curious what the lineup will look like come summer time.

 

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Juana Molina (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, April 22, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Juana Molina, Juana y Sus Hermanas, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Underground Arts on April 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: April 22, 2020] Juana Molina

indexJuana Molina is a wonderfully bizarre performer.

Molina is from Argentina and she plays a  blend of folk, electronica, and experimental pop (which I find to be more than a little out of the mainstream), playing with some great noises and percussion.

She recently released a more or less punk EP, Forfun, which she was the foundation of this tour.

This show was only cancelled a couple of days ago–they really held out until the last minute for this one.

This show was scheduled for the same night as the Real Estate/Palm show, so I was torn about which show to go to.  I really want to see Palm again, but I feel like Juana Molina would be a much more interesting and rare treat.

I do hope she reschedules.

Apparently it is common knowledge that her career began with her initial success coming as a massively popular comedic actress on the show “Juana y Sus Hermanas” in the early-1990s.  She walked away during the height of its popularity to pursue music.  The music was not well received at home, but she was embraced here in the States.

 

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King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard–Chunky Shrapnel [film] (2020)

Posted in Australia, Concert, Coronavirus, Film & TV, John Angus Stewart, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, NME, ORB, Quarantine, Stonefield on April 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: April 17, 2020] Chunky Shrapnel

In 2020, the ever productive King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard released a soundtrack and a live documentary/concert film.

NME explains:

Chunky Shrapnel was supposed to have premiered earlier this month in two sold-out screenings at the Astor Theatre in the band’s stomping grounds of Melbourne. But the coronavirus pandemic put paid to that, so the movie will now premiere for 24 hours on Vimeo, April 17-18. Stewart promises that plans for wider distribution – including a theatrical release in cinemas around the world – are in the works.

Primary filming was done by John Angus Stewart.  In that NME interview he says

because I was shooting on film, and you don’t really know what you’ve got until you’ve got it processed, which takes a few weeks. I was shooting things, in a way, blindly.

With documentaries about musicians or even about filmmakers, a lot of the time, to give it a narrative thread, they pry into artists’ personalities or whatnot, trying to extract this deeper narrative to make it feel like a three-act film.

But to me, I think [King Gizzard’s] performance and their music is so fuckin’ interesting that you don’t have to do that.

If you like this music, you’ll get an insight into who these people are. But I didn’t want to frame them as these godlike figures, because to me that’s kind of bullshit. They’re just normal dudes.

So what’s the film like? (more…)

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David Thorne–Burning Bridges to Light the Way (2019)

Posted in Australia, Concert, Coronavirus, Daniel Day Lewis, David Thorne, Essays, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Guns, Humiliation, King Princess, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Peter Goers, Quarantine, Smarty Pants, Squirrels, Teenagers, The Prodigy, Threats, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Toilets, Unlikable main character, Video Games, Yuck! on April 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KING PRINCESS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #6 (April 8, 2020).

I’ve heard a lot of buzz around King Princess–that she’s fun and puts on a wild show.

This home Tiny Desk is not wild in any way.

“Welcome to the quarantine shed!” King Princess exclaims. She’s in jogging pants and sitting on a fluffy white chair, with two guitars, an amp and a tiny keyboard at her side. “I’m in Hawaii and brought as much gear in the carry-on of my plane ride as possible.”

She calls herself KP, which I rather like.  These songs are really quiet. She plays “the three songs from her late 2019 album, Cheap Queen, in ways I never would have imagined.”

“Isabel’s Moment” is played on a quiet keyboard.  She says it’s an homage to people experiencing quarantine thirstiness–texting their exes and ex friends and everyone.  It’s my least favorite of the three because I don’t like the keyboard sound she chose.  But her voice is excellent.

“Prophet” is played on one of her guitars (with lots of echo and slightly out of tune she admits).  The chorus turns surprisingly bright. She says it’s about the entertainment business and it is now more relevant than ever.  We’re all out of jobs right now.

She says this is back to making music in my room, trying to find that creative spark we had as children, when I could sit in my room and make things for hours.

“Homegirl” is also on that guitar and sounds really pretty, too.  I really like her singing voice quite a lot. It holds up well in this quiet setting–so if Bob says that it’s very different from what he’s used to, I’m very curious about what her live show is like.

But I really don’t like her speaking voice, I must admit.

[READ: February 2020] Burning Bridges to Light the Way

Evidently I asked S. for a book by David Thorne a few years ago.  I don’t know what book it was, I don’t recognize any of his titles and I didn’t even recognize his name when I saw this book.  She didn’t get me the book then, but she did get me one this past Christmas.

Turns out that David Thorne is an Australian smart ass.

As the foreword from Peter Goers puts it, this book is full of “barely coherent rants about friends, family, and colleagues.”  He continues,

David isn’t a dreadful human being all the time.  He has to sleep and I know he cares a lot about squirrels.  There are parts of this book that even hint at a certain degree of empathy for other human beings.  Some human beings, not all of them, maybe three.

I’m not sure who Peter Goers is, but his introduction is very funny.  Don’t skip it:

I once asked David if he’s autistic and he replied, “It’s pronounced artistic and no, not really, I can draw a cat though.”  I assume he was joking but it’s hard to tell with David.

In the first essay, David says that every year when he releases a new book friends and associates say that they are going to sue him if he says anything derogatory about them in his book.  But he’s not worried. Nobody he knows has enough money to hire a lawyer. (more…)

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