Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Mark Millar & John Romita, Jr.–Kick-Ass 2 (2012)

Posted in Deqn Sue, Gangsters, Graphic Novel, John Romita Jr., Kick-Ass, Mark Millar, Superheroes, Technology, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Violence, Yuck! on December 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

kickass2 SOUNDTRACK: DEQN SUE-Tiny Desk #476 (October 5, 2015).

deqnDeqn Sue and her producer Kelvin Wooten play three songs at this Tiny Desk Concert.  And although she is the name and voice of the set, I’m more impressed by him.  He is sitting in front of a keyboard, holding a bass guitar.  He plays the bass, loops it and then plays it live again.  While the bass is looping he;s playing keyboards and all the while there’s percussion and other sounds that he’s programmed.

NPR had played “Bloody Monster” a while back.  It’s a wonderful kiss off song about a person that she thought was a friend until she called her “nigger” (which is addressed in the second verse).  The chorus is surprisingly poppy:  “Shimmy shimmy cocoa pop, you’re a crazy bitch.  I don’t even like that word, but for you I think it fits.”  It’s fun and bouncy.

The second song is “Flame.”  She says it’s the only song she’s written about love–most of her songs are more socially aware.  It’s got a cool bass line, although I don’t like her voice on this song.  She seems to sing better when it’s louder and faster.

“Magenta” is the first song they wrote together.  She explains that magenta is about the color you feel when you’re not specifically one: you’re not pissed, so you’re not red, you’re not sad so you’re not blue and you’re not scared so you’re not yellow.  You’re a mixture–magenta.  Each verse starts with her singing “I am a color” in a deep distorted voice.  It’s pretty cool.  The song is interesting and has some cool ideas in it.

Overall though I’m not all that impressed by her.  I feel like she’s close to being amazing, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet.

[READ: February 1, 2016] Kick-Ass 2

This book picks up right where the last one left off.

Hit Girl is still training Kick Ass (and beating the crap out of him), but she might have to give up.  Her mom is really fragile right now and if something happened to her, it would kill her mom.

And then we see that Red Mist has returned and set up a superhero brawl in Manhattan streets.  But that’s coming in the near future. The rest backtracks a bit.

Dave has joined a superhero gang–like a real-life X-Men called Justice Forever.  He is friends with a guy named Doctor Gravity (who claims that he has made a pole that can increase gravity (actually it’s a baseball bat wrapped in tinfoil). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Mark Millar & John Romita, Jr.–Kick-Ass 2: Prelude: Hit-Girl (2013)

Posted in Beauty Pill, Death, Gangsters, Graphic Novel, John Romita Jr., Kick-Ass, Mark Millar, Superheroes, Technology, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on December 12, 2016| Leave a Comment »

preludeSOUNDTRACK: BEAUTY PILL-Tiny Desk Concert #481 (October 23, 2015).

beauty-pill Beauty Pill is an unusual band.  They seem fairly conventional–guitars, baas and drums.  But they also feature a strange light up computer device (which is called a Monome) that is a sort of looping sampler trigger.  The samples are weird and unexpected and the music plays off of that–at times lurching and bouncing, at times playing smooth and conventional.

I love the crazy funky vibes as the first song “Afrikaner Barista” begins.  There’s interesting samples and a cool riff.  The song feels “assembled.”  And I was really excited to see where it would go.  But I really didn’t like the singer/speaker’s voice in his delivery of the verses.  It’s a little too unemphatic–it’s neither loud nor weird not even excessively deadpan.  It’s just kind of bland.  The chorus is cool though, and his delivery works because there are harmony vocals to accompany him.

I also like his sort of distorted guitar solo.  Mostly though, it’s fascinating watching Jean Cook play her Monome, watching her push buttons that light up and produce diverse sounds.  The drums are also great–complex and dynamic.

In all of the songs, there’ a lot of repeating of lyrics–almost like a mantra.  This song repeats, “I want to be the one you like.”  I’m not even clear if the words mean anything.  Even the title “Afrikaner Barista” is fun to say but I don’t know if its meaningful.

“Drapetomania!” is introduced as a dark song although the singer, Chad Clark, thinks it resembles the Fat Albert theme song.  He says it’s about the suburbs.  When the song begins, it has a kind a of creepy circus quality to it and it opens with the dramatic line, “I want more life, fucker!”  There’s some fun lyrics in this song like “Morning Ralph, Morning Sam” (referencing the Bugs Bunny cartoons).  Or “The neighbor’s wifi’s called “magic negro” now / I am gonna burn his house down, if I may.”  And this great line: “deep in the heart of wildest Caucasia.”

The middle has a breakdown that’s lot of fun as the samples continue to play with all sorts of things, including, I believe, Clark’s voice.

The final song is called “Exit Without Saving” which he says is “either a Microsoft Word document or a situation where you feel trapped,”  I like the riff of this one and the samples too. There’s more great lyrics like “a five ton mastodon frozen in mid-snarl in a ten ton cube of ice, says I don’t know how I got in here but if I get out it ain’t gonna happen twice.”  There’s a repeated refrain of “you recognize that this is noise, right?”

It’s not always clear what he’s on about, but it’s fun to listen to them.

There’s so much about this band that I like but I feel like there’s just something missing–either in the voice or maybe that the samples and sounds need to be a little more prominent?  I’m curious to see what these guys do next though.

[READ: February 14, 2016] Kick-Ass 2: Prelude

This book is a sequel to Kick-Ass and a prequel to Kick-Ass 2.  It focuses on Hit Girl, but not her childhood (which we saw in Kick Ass).  Rather, it follows her in the days following the events of the first book.

We see that Hit Girl, Mindy McCready, is at home with her mom and her stepfather.  Her mom has calmed down (she has been quite hysterical lately) and her stepdad, Marcus, is a policeman trying to keep things orderly.  He knows about Mindy’s secret identity (he knows all about what kind of upbringing she had as well) and he wants her to stop the superheroing.  But overall, he is pretty cool.

We see Mindy at School (Kick Ass if there too, of course).  No matter how tough Mindy is when she has her costume on, she is still a little girl and she is crushed by the mean girls in school.  And so Mindy makes a deal–she’ll teach Kick Ass to actually fight and be a real superhero (as much as she is) if he’ll teach her to be normal. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1997-1998: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2015)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Bible, Birds, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Dilbert, Dogs, Easter, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Etiquette, Fantagraphics, Fantasy, Fears, Feminism, Football, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Hockey, Joe Shlabotnik, Letters, Los Hacheros, Paul Feig, Peanuts, Regrets, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Summer Camp, Surreal, Technology, Tennis, The Future, The Peanuts Movie, Tiger Woods, Tiny Desk Concert, War, World War I, World War II on December 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1997SOUNDTRACK:LOS HACHEROS-Tiny Desk Concert #546 (July 5, 2016).

hacherosLos Hacheros play “Afro-Caribbean music that provides the source material for modern salsa and all of its permutations.”

This music swings and bounces and with such simple instrumentation: an upright bass and a guitar.  With the main melodies constructed by the trombone and vocal (the trombonist doubles on violin).  But the rest of the band is there for percussion–cowbells, shakers and the conga.

The band plays three songs all sung in Spanish.  It’s fun to watch them get into the groove and begin to sway in unison to the music.

“Baila Con Los Hacheros” features a violin solo that is pretty intense “Papote’s Guajira” features an acoustic guitar solo that is complex and fun to watch. It also has a lengthy flute solo (the violinist also plays the flute!). “Bambulaye” features NPR’s own Felix Contreras on congas–he gets a solo–apparently he has been playing in bands for years.  What a nice surprise.

[READ: November 3, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1997-1998

This is the second to last book of collected strips from Schulz.  Rerun features quite prominently and Linus has faded somewhat.  Snoopy is no longer playing characters (except for the soldier..always soldiers) and Charlie is still pining for things he won’t get.

1997 opens with Charlie showing Linus his autographed Joe Shlabotnik baseball.  But Linus thinks it’s a forgery.  Cue a week of strips about an autograph forger (who tries to hire Charlie as his accomplice).  I love that Schulz went on strange little tangents like this, but I always feel like he doesn’t follow through with these funny ideas. The whole premise of this just ends never to be heard from again.

And then in a surprise to me, Snoopy starts acting like a Revolutionary War patriot standing guard at Valley Forge.  He seems to have given up on WWI and gone back in time to a far less dramatic role–he mostly just stands around in the cold.  Strips about that occur from time to tome with him talking to General Washington.  The last one is in December 1998 where he realizes he is only guarding snow. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jay Holser–Last of the Sandwalkers (2015)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Bats, Bees, Beetles, Canadian Music, Charles Darwin, Constellation Records, Death, Explorers, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Jay Holser, Jeff Smith, Life in the Undergrowth, Mike Doughty, Moths, Nature, Osamu Tezuka, Paleontologists, Religion, Research, Revenge, Richard Owen, Sackville, Scholarship, Scientists, Social Distortion, Violence, YA Books on December 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

sandwalkerSOUNDTRACK: SACKVILLE-Low Ebb EP (1996).

lowebb Sackville was a Montreal based folk group who released one album through Constellation Records, and a couple of other releases on other labels.  When they broke up, most of the members of the band went on to play with other bands, many of whom were later released on Constellation.

The focus of the band is really singer/guitarist Gabe Levine whose voice shows a lot of folk, rock and avant garde influences.  His voice sounds at once familiar and also strangely unique.

And this EP was their first release.

The first song is “Messengers.” I love the way the violin cuts through the slow verses to add a great melody to the chorus (including some raw scratching sounds before the verse starts again).  There’s a hint of Mike Doughty in his delivery too. “Donkey Song” opens with some quiet verses and violins has a loud clamorous chorus—super fun and stomping with a nice side guitar riff.  “William” has a standard American folk song melody but the way he sings it is very Social Distortion (through a tinny modulator).  The fiddle gives it more of country sound, but still kind of alt

“Showcase Showdown”  opens with a cool slide guitar and very different vocal style delivered by Kurt Newman.  And the chorus is fund and perhaps a little silly in three-four  dance rhythm “your eyes scare us more than the mirrors on the dance floor.” It’s the most fun song on the disc.  “Low Ebb” continues with the more rocking sound with big brash guitar and crashing cymbals.  It also features some quiet but cool backing vocals—a kind of scream that acts as a drone.   “Thomas” opens with a slide guitar and quiet vocals, the chorus is a major highlight with the vocal duet playing against the loud crunching stop-start guitars.  “This Thing I Want, I Know Not What” is a straight ahead folk song with a lead violin and a pretty melody.  “Cheap” has a quiet melody ending with some slide guitars and violin.

It’s a solid E.P. with even better music on their full lengths.

[READ: June 25, 2016] Last of the Sandwalkers

This is a fascinating book that proves to be an amazing look at beetles and insects and a somewhat interesting adventure story.

I actually found myself a little confused by the story when it started because while I knew it wasn’t going to be realistic (the beetles are leaving their civilization to discover the world) it was also very rooted in real insect knowledge.  And then it got a little out-there so the level of reality in the story wavered from time to time and I found myself getting pulled out of the story to try to puzzle things together.

Which was a shame.  Another shame is that it doesn’t tell you that there are notes at the back of the book (do most people flip to the end to discover this?  Because I didn’t).  And the notes are one of the best parts of the book.  But more on that later.

The protagonist of the story is Lucy.  She is in charge of a small team who have decided to leave their home to go exploring.  Her team includes Professor Bombardier; Raef, a lighting bug (with a secret); Mossy, a giant beetle with a big horn and Professor Owen who has huge mandibles. They also run into Ma’Dog, an old storyteller who is rather cantankerous.

The story begins with Lucy’s diary as the teams sets out from Coleopolis.  They quickly discover Old Coleopolis which was destroyed by coconuts falling from a tree.  It was said that the city was destroyed 1,000 years ago by the god Scarabus, although Lucy can’t believe how not-overgrown it looks after 1,000 years.  It all seems very suspicious. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Anakana Schofield–“Under the Taps” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #2] (2016)

Posted in Anakana Schofield, Anna Calvi, Bathtubs, Blue Velvet, Canadian Content, Courtroom, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert on December 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: ANNA CALVI-Tiny Desk Concert #189 (January 26, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

calviAs with many artists on Tiny Desk Concerts, I thought that Anna Calvi was someone else (conflating two other names I’m sure).  But I certainly didn’t know this British guitarist born in 1982.

I find it unsettling that Calvi doesn’t take off her overcoat.  The drummer leaves his hat on, but that’s another thing altogether.  It seems odd that a woman who rocks would remain in her coat seeming very unrelaxed.

She plays three songs in under ten minutes and it’s a shame that the audio is mixed so poorly on this one, because the drums are louder than just about anything else and you really can’t hear her voice all that well.

“River To The Sea” is a cool instrumental that really shows off her guitar skills.  She’s all over the fretboard with different tempos and sounds.  It’s slow and moody (with a neat echo effect) until the end when there’s some really cool fast soloing.  I love the section where she’s playing some crazy looking chords on the high notes and that she emphasizes the individual strings and the chords at the same time—it’s great to watch (and to hear).

For the next two songs, it becomes apparent that she has on jeans and that she doesn’t seem quite a stiff and bundles as he coat suggests.  Phew.  “Surrender” has a very moody surf guitar feel.  This comes from the way she plays and the harmonium chugging along behind her.    Her singing style is very moody as well—I could see this song appearing in Blue Velvet.  Calvi has a captivating voice, but it is mixed way too quiet (it’s also embarrassing that there appears to be about 10 people watching her).

“Jezebel” is a rocking song, staying in that same vibe of 1950s surf guitar.  I like the way she plays the three brash chords at the end of each section.  She really belts out the last few words—I wish she was mic’d better throughout the show.

[READ: December 6, 2016] “Under the Taps”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived (a few days late for advent, but that was my fault for ordering so late) I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

This story started out in a very confusing way.  Set in Ireland, it opens with the narrator saying “This is what I intend to say tomorrow in court.  Be assured.”

It jumps to third person to give some context: she was the middle child, she had to learn to wait.

Then it jumps to the present.  She has brought her statement (what we are reading) to her solicitor.  He didn’t look at it when he filed it away.  He believes that she should compromise–it’s the only way to get her off.  But she will not compromise. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1995-1996: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2015)

Posted in Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Bill Corbett, Birds, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Conor Lastowka, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Hockey, Humiliation, Jealousy, Joe Shlabotnik, Kevin Murphy, Letters, Marbles, Math, Mike Nelson, MST3K, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Peanuts, Pranks, Rifftrax, Sandi Patti, Sean Thomason, Set at School, Surreal, Technology, The Bible, The Future, Tinariwen, Tiny Desk Concert, Up Front, War, World War I, World War II on December 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

peanuts-1995SOUNDTRACK: TINARIWEN-Tiny Desk Concert #184 (January 5, 2012).

tinariwenTinariwen are a band from northern Mali, whose members met in the training camps of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Much has been written about them and their story, which is pretty amazing.  I’m only going to talk about this Tint Desk Concert.

Typically, they play an interesting electric guitar kind of trance music.  But for this one they were all acoustic.  As Bob Boilen notes, they are his “favorite electric-guitar-based band on the planet.”  But he says he was:

“initially worried and disappointed when I learned that it was coming to play the Tiny Desk as a trio carrying acoustic guitars. My heart sank a bit more when the three Tuareg musicians from the Sahara arrived in jeans and polo shirts instead of the beautiful, flowing robes I’d seen them wear on stage so many times.

But they switched clothes and they do not disappoint on acoustic guitar.

I don’t know their music all that well, but it feels like the acoustic nature of this show is even more soothing and trance inducing.  The two acoustic guitars interweave–one playing lead (which is mostly hammered notes–not a “solo” per se) and the other strumming.  The percussion is the sound of two hands rubbing, clacking (with a cigarette lighter) and pounding (for bass drum) a large gourd.

The songs tend to be almost looping.  Like they could go on forever.  There’s no real verse chorus structure that I can tell.  It’s more of a meditative sound.

All of the vocals are in Tamashek and I have no idea what the songs are about.

On “Adounia” both guitarists sing and the voices sound very traditional, almost atonal. “Takkest Tamidaret” opens with a more conventional sounding guitar lick, but it’s all so quiet in the mix, that you can’t tell how much his fingers are moving.  The lyrics are a bit slower, but still in that droning style.  I love the way “Tenhert”  has a a cool riff from the lead guitar–one that probably sounds more intense on electric guitar.  He sing/speaks incredibly quickly.  “Tahlamoyt” is a much slower song with the lyrics pretty much all spoken word.

The “Mali sound” is pretty distinctive and Tinariwen are great proponents of it, spreading it around the world for all to hear.

[READ: June 8, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1995-1996

I was under the impression that these last few volumes of books would show a serious drop in quality.  I had assumed that with the amount of product the Peanuts characters were sponsoring that these strips would be more cute.  But that is far from true.  I enjoyed this book as much if mot more than some of the other recent volumes.

I was also surprised to discover that I really enjoyed the Sunday cartoons more than the dailies.  In the past I haven’t really gotten big laughs form the Sundays–it seemed like the big stories and jokes were in the dailies and the Sundays were unrelated one offs with varying degrees of punch.  But I enjoyed a dozen or so in this book.

One of the major additions in this book is the inclusion of a slightly older Rerun.  He is now mobile and even heading to kindergarten (I love that he is aging while the others aren’t).  But rather than using Rerun for obvious cute child jokes (he’s no longer riding the back of his mom’s bike) Rerun is now making funny “outsider” observations about the world of Peanuts–he is constantly disenchanted with the way  things are going and with the belief that people are always lying to him.  There are also a ton of strips of him trying to shoot a basketball and failing miserably.  Schulz has always tended to take an idea and run and run and run with it, but this one is pretty good for the number that he uses it. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Kirstin Cronn-Mills and E. Eero Johnson–Original Fake (2015)

Posted in Art, Banksy, Concept Albums, Constellation Records, Death, Drawing, E. Eero Johnson, Fears, Graphic Novel, Kirstin Cronn-Mills, LGBTQ, Matana Roberts, Pizza, Racism, Religion, Revenge, Slavery, The Rocky Horror Picture Show on November 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

fakeSOUNDTRACK: MATANA ROBERTS-Coin Coin: Chapter 3 Mississippi Moonchile [CST110] (2015).

cst110cover_258x242I felt like the first Coin Coin disc was way too long, so imagine my surprise to discover that the whole Coin Coin series is planned as a 12 chapter collection!

Unlike the previous 2 chapters, this album was created entirely by Roberts.  She is credited with playing saxophone, Korg Monotron and a 1900s upright piano.  But like the others, the tracks bleed into each other and seem to end indiscriminately.

This disc also quotes from The Star Spangled Banner, Beautiful Dreamer, The Pledge of Allegiance, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Lift Every Voice and Sing and All the Pretty Horses.  As well as samples from Malcolm X and a field recording of a travel through Mississippi, Louisiana Tennessee and NYC.

The first song, “All is Written” is 10 minutes long.  She sings quietly and starkly (voice breaking) while spoken words overlap behind her voice (and the saxophone and drones).  Her singing is at times pained and strained—aching with the truth of her words.  As “The Good Book” begins, the spoken word continues but the main sound is an industrial throbbing.  Near the end, a new metallic sound comes screeching in and then resolves into a kind of drone while angelic voices takes over for song three, “Clothed to the Land, Worn by the Sea” which is more pleasant.

“Dreamer of Dreams” resumes some spoken word and synth noises while two overlapping tracks of sax solos play.  “Always Say Your Name” has some more drones and a wild sax solo.  “Nema Nema Nema” experiments with analog synth noises while she sings a pretty melody with other voices circulating behind her.  “A Single Man o’War” has a high pitched drone. which is accompanied by several three note chants.

“As Years Roll By” is spoken words, with drone and church bells.   And lots of “Amens.”  “This Land is Yours” has lots of voices speaking and overlapping.  It ends with someone singing “come away with me come away,” which segues into “Come Away” with a noisy background and spoken voices talking about Zanzibar.  Then there is a keening, pained voice singing the middle. “JP” is a speech about he slave trade.

Although this album is difficult, it is more manageable than her other releases in this series.  But manageability clearly isn’t her plan, she is making a statement and it is exciting and frightening to listen to.

[READ: August 10, 2016] Original Fake

You should never judge a book by its cover.  But I really liked the cover of this book a lot.  And the title was intriguing, so I grabbed it off the new book shelf.

And what a great, fun story it was.

The book opens with Frankie sneaking into his school at 6:30 AM.  No one else is there except maybe the janitor.  He is sneaking into the school to do a small amount of vandalism. But the vandalism is not your typical vandalism.  On the school hallway is a mural that is currently being painted.  Frankie is an artist but he was not asked to paint the mural (no one really knows he does art).  The mural is a of a lake and farm fields and all that.  And he has decided to tag the mural.  He has painted a water-skiing abominable snowman giving the hang loose sign in the corner of the lake.  “He’s maybe six inches tall, and I kind of put him close to a rock so he’d blend in, but if you get close, its pretty obvious he doesn’t belong. He’s completely amazing.”

Amid the telling of the scene is a drawing of Frankie painting the snowman–this book is full of illustrations by Johnson.  Most of the illustrations complement the story but a couple actually tell the story, too. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1993-1994: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2014)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Bernard Malamud, Bill Mauldin, Birds, Boredom, Butterflies, Calvin and Hobbes, Cats, Charles Schulz, Citizen Kane, Comic Strips, Dogs, Etiquette, Fantagraphics, Fantasy, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Hockey, Humiliation, Jake Tapper, Jealousy, Laura Numeroff, Leo Tolstoy, Leon Bridges, Letters, Math, Peanuts, Regrets, Religion, Romance, Sam Cooke, Sexism, Summer Camp, Technology, Tennis, The Bible, The Future, Tiny Desk Concert, World War I, World War II on November 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1993-1994 SOUNDTRACK: LEON BRIDGES-Tiny Desk Concert #469 (September 8, 2015).

leonLeon Bridges has a great old soul voice.  Indeed, I had no idea he was so young until he started speaking after the third song and all manner of young person chat came out of his mouth: “Thanks to my main man, you all looking beautiful man.”  His voice is pure and clean and hearkens back to 1960s soul singers like Sam Cooke.

The way he sings “baby baby baby” in “Coming Home” is classic soul.  And his enunciation of “mouth” is just gorgeous.  This song features the backing vocals of his sister Jesse.

“Smooth Sailin'” features a sax solo and Bridges on guitar.  Since there are 2 guitarists already Bridges’ guitar doesn’t  add much, but for me it’s all about his voice anyhow.

“Twistin’ & Groovin'” is about how his grandparents met.  He says the first time he saw her at a party the thing he noticed first about her was her long legs.

“River” is just him on acoustic guitar with Jesse singing backing vocals.

It’s a solid set and Bridges’ star has continued to rise since this show.

[READ: September 18, 2016]  The Complete Peanuts: 1993-1994

I didn’t like the previous book all that much, but this one picked things up a bit.

The year starts with Snoopy taking a test in school and acing the true false part–the only one to do so!

1993 has Schulz’ first celebration of MLK day.  Patty mentions the “I have a dream speech” but I love that she just mentions it without making it a big deal, it quickly changes to an unfair lunch swap between a carrot stick and french fry.  Speaking of old words, Lucy begins insulting Linus with: blockhead airhead, noodleneck but then finds that these older words work better: puzzlewit, dimbulb.

In pop culture notes, April 1993 sees Snoopy as Joe Grunge and in May 1993 Sally asks why is Barney purple? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Andy Hirsch–Varmints (2016)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Andy Hirsch, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Constellation Records, Fantasy, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, HangedUp, Herbie The Love Bug, The Velvet Underground, Tony Conrad, Trains, Unfinished series, Unlikable main character, Western on November 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

varmintsSOUNDTRACK: HANGEDUP & TONY CONRAD-Transit of Venus [091] (2016).

conradHangedUp & Tony Conrad have the third of three discs released as part of Constellation’s Musique Fragile 02 set. From the Constellation site: Transit Of Venus documents this fertile collaboration and includes some enormous slabs of drone rock alongside more decomposed pieces and gorgeously gritty string duos.  [[The performers] recently plunged back into the archives and started shaping an album from the various 2-track and live-mixed [improvisations and] multi-track source material.

“Flying Fast n Furious” has clattering percussion and squeaky violins.  There’s some fast drumming and violin playing in the middle with a great wobbly low bass around.   About 4 minutes in the sounds are almost otherworldly/underwatery.  “Transit Of Venus” has the return of that low wobbly bass—big round fat bass notes that just seem to linger as the drums clatter away.  The sawing violin is a little less interesting than I’d like, however.  “Principles” features a buzzy violin that scratches over the interesting drum pattern.  After a minute or so some strange sounds percolate under the drone.  The sounds are mechanical, organic, (balloons?) digital—unclear.  It’s 8 minutes long and there’s a few moments when the big bass notes come in that are very cool.  In the last minute or so a new violin solo comes out of the din but it doesn’t alter the tone of the song all that much

“Bright Arc Of Light” is 4 minutes of slow bowed and plucked violins.  It’s quite minimal.  “Gentil The Unlucky Astronomer ” is 11 minutes long and it starts with multi layered violins.  It sounds a bit like The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” and after 2 minute the slow drums come in.  Once the drums enter, the song stays mostly the same—sawing violins and a steady drums with some other occasional percussion.  It’s very droney.  Around 6 minutes things change slightly and the song becomes more insistent.  It continues like this for most of the rest of the song and then ends with some solo violins.  The final track is “Panorama From Maxwell Montes” which opens with some dissonant scratchy violins.  The drums come in and start playing an intersection complex rhythm making this a good album closer.

fragileMusique Fragile Volume 02 is the second in our series of limited-edition, artwork-intensive box sets featuring three full-length albums by three different artists, available on heavyweight vinyl and as a digital bundle. The vinyl set will be limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, lovingly designed and hand-assembled.

[READ: November 1, 2016] Varmints

I really enjoyed the drawing style in this book.  The main characters were cute and cartoony and yet the backgrounds were reasonably realistic looking.  It really conveyed the setting (the old west, I guess) effectively.

However, I had a huge problem with the story.  The book felt like it was part 2, but to the best of my knowledge it isn’t.  There just seemed to be huge gaps in the story that were never filled in.  Not to mention, this is supposed to be a children’s story, but we find out (very late in the story) that the childrens’ mother was killed in cold blood–more or less on a whim.  It’s a shocking piece of violence which I suppose little kids can handle but, woah, what the hell, dude?

The story begins with Opie and Ned in a saloon.  They are young kids, Opie is Ned’s older sister–a joke is made about Opie being a weird name for a girl, but sadly, nothing more comes of that.  Opie is holding her own in a game of cards but Ned is bored and keeps interrupting the game as annoying little brother will do.

Ned says he wants a hat, and since no one will give him one, he climbs a mountain of a man (he’s so tall we can’t see his face and he is wearing a full-sized bear as a cloak of some sort) and takes the hat off of him.  Chaos ensues, the hat flies off (and gets two holes in it) and the kids wind up stealing the giant man’s horse and taking off. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Robert Christie, Deborah Lang–Quirk’s Quest: Into the Outlands (2016)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Constellation Records, Cute, Death, Deborah Lang, End of the World, Fantasy, First Second :01, Fraggle Rock, Graphic Novel, Pacha, Robert Christie, Short Books on November 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

 quirkSOUNDTRACK: PACHA: Affaires Étrangères [CST090] (2012).

pachaPacha has the second of three discs released as part of Constellation’s Musique Fragile 02 set.  Pacha is the solo work of percussionist Pierre-Guy Blanchard and this disc is made of rhythm-heavy instrumentals, propelled by Middle-Eastern synth lines and sprinkled with guitar, bass and oud along with the odd looped field recording. It’s like electronic music with an Arabic pop fixation.  And the instrumentation is really interesting:

“L’Aeroport De Charlo” is mostly thumping drums and a buzzy synth.  There are some synth solos with distinctively Middle Eastern tones.  I like the way the basic rhythm alters throughout the nearly 5 minute track.  About half way through it turns to nearly all percussion a great rumbling drumming with one middle eastern instrument playing over the top (it sounds like a buzzy clarinet).   “Macedonian Mind” has some great, complex drumming behind a simple synth riff.  The music feels slightly menacing as the synths are quite buzzy, but the drums are just a lot of fun.   The middle of the song uses that Middle Eastern sound with a melody line (I can’t tell if its voice or instrument or what) that works perfectly with the main Rockies riff.

“Modern Malaise” opens with a vocal choir, singing while there’s a simultaneous, seemingly unrelated bass line.  And then a very cool funky section with more great drums and a kind of sneaky sounding riff.  As the song progresses some spacey synths enter the song amid a clatter of echoing drums before it all resolves to that initial cool riff.  In “La Gare De Podgorica” slow synths play over some complex drumming with a bunch of what sounds like hand drums.  “Tunel” has some great hand drumming and low droning synths.   And then comes the most middle eastern sounding riff of the disc.  This track is my favorite–catchy and funky with some great hand drumming.  The keys sound very later 60s.

“Ankara” is a fast song with complex hand drumming and an almost drone with vocals samplings, and a lot of the instrument listed below (Omar Dewachi plays saz and oud) and a warbly synth line.   It is one of the longest songs on the disc and has the most going on it.  “Starcevo” opens with some deep hand drums and what sounds like violins or maybe sampled voices or both.  It’s kind of a disconcerting track with the drums the only thing keeping things steady.  “Le Soviet” is played on a bunch of synths with a kind of carnivalesque feel to the sound.  There’s a Middle Eastern riff and some interesting solos that sound almost classical.

From the Constellation site:

Blanchard received a BA in music in 2003, majoring in percussion performance, and then escaped the ‘new music’ trajectory by traveling extensively and immersing himself in Middle Eastern and Balkan traditions, studying under various masters and playing with a wide range of regional groups. During his periods back in Canada he performed as guest percussionist for Black Ox Orkestar … has also performed regularly with Sam Shalabi’s jazz/psych/arabic orchestra Land Of Kush.  … Constellation re-sequenced and remastered the Affaires Étrangères CD-R for vinyl and is proud to be giving this album a more substantial life. It marks Blanchard’ first attempt at a definitive musical statement of his own and we think it succeeds wildly.

.

fragileMusique Fragile Volume 02 is the second in our series of limited-edition, artwork-intensive box sets featuring three full-length albums by three different artists, available on heavyweight vinyl and as a digital bundle. The vinyl set will be limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, lovingly designed and hand-assembled:

[READ: October 31, 2016] Quirk’s Quest 1

This story threw out so much disconnect for me that I never really determined if I liked it.

The artwork is adorable–the characters look like Fraggle Rock creatures–soft and furry with big round ping pong ball eyes.  Even the bad guys (much taller with four eyes) don’t look all that fierce.

And yet.

In the first 30 pages, these monsters kill and eat some of the cute Fraggle Rock creatures. What?!

This book looks ostensibly like a children’s book.  It is really cute.  But the diary entries of the Captain are written in a cursive that even I had a hard time reading (particularly because the captain’s named is Quenterindy Quirk and he is sailing on the H.M.S. Gwaniimander (hard enough to read that, imagine trying to figure it out in cursive!).

So just what’s it about? (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »