SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-“Timber” (MGM Grand Garden Arena, Friday 10, 31, 2014).
In honor of Halloween, these Ghost Box stories will be attached to a recent Phish Halloween show [with quoted material from various reviews].
Known for dawning musical costumes to celebrate [Halloween], Phish broke with tradition last year to offer a set of original music. The Phish Bill read that Phish’s musical costume would be a 1964 Disney album of sound effects – Chilling, Thrilling Sounds Of The Haunted House. But it wasn’t a cover set. Phish played original music set amongst an incredibly psychedelic, theatrical graveyard stage accentuated by zombie dancers and a ghoulish MC. At the start of the set, the stage was cleared before a graveyard came to the foreground. Smoke filled the air, zombie dancers appeared, and music filled the venue. A haunted house was brought to the front of the stage, which eventually exploded, and all four-band members appeared, dressed in white like zombies.
This song is not to be confused with “Timber Ho!” the wonderful cover of the Josh White and Sam Gary song. That one is also known as “Timber (Jerry)” and “Timber (Jerry the Mule).” This new song is a chilling thrilling track in which “you are an expert woodsman.” You climb up the branches of a tree and you begin to saw
“Timber” was another guitar-heavy rocker. It uses the back-and-forth of the saw to set the beat before stating a five note guitar/bass riff with echoes attached on the piano. The shriek of the plummeting woodsman is added from time to time for dramatic effect. There’s some good soloing from everybody here, especially when Page and Trey trade off on leads.
[READ: October 16, 2017] “The Pear-Shaped Man”
Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar comes The Ghost Box.
This is a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening) that contains 11 stories for Halloween. It is lovingly described thusly:
A collection of chilly, spooky, hair-raising-y stories to get you in that Hallowe’en spirit, edited and introduced by comedian and horror aficionado Patton Oswalt.
There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, on the inside cover, one “window” of the 11 boxes is “folded.” I am taking that as a suggested order.
I have not read anything by George R.R. Martin (surprisingly). So I don’t know how this fits into his general oeuvre.
I actually thought it might be a recent story (I don’t know why I though that). But there were two things that made it feel dated. It had a casual sexism that made me bristle. Nothing too over the top, but just a mild amount that I was surprised by (and which I don’t think I see too much recently) and the guy plays the “new Linda Ronstadt album” (that dated it even more to me).
So this story is long (unsurprisingly). The plot is actually quite simple and easy to encapsulate in a shorter story But Martin does wonders with ambiance and tension. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 