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Archive for the ‘Funny (ha ha)’ Category

Sterling Archer–How to Archer: The Ultimate Guide to Espionage and Style and Women and Also Cocktails Ever Written (2012)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Archer, Audiobooks, Canadian Music, Communists, Cook Book, Drinking, Drugs, Eggs Woodhouse, Funny (ha ha), Gambling, Lacrosse, Rush, Sex, Short Books, Spies, Sterling Archer, Threats, Violence on May 10, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH on Archer (2011-2012).

Not really a soundtrack, but I wanted to mention some of the Rush references in Archer.

I was really hoping to use the Rush in Cleveland DVD as my Soundtrack, but I haven’t finished it yet.  And yes, I am padding this out a bit so that the pictures fit nicely.

Cobra Cobra Cobra (that’s a joke to the book below).

The Archer guys like Rush and they put nods to Rush in occasional episodes–usually through mad-scientist (I want to call him The Professor), Krieger.  Here’s three of Krieger’s vans.

I love the detail that went into “Vanispheres.”  Since Krieger always wears a lab coat, it’s a wonderful detail to have him wearing it as the nude man.  And, of course to have him as both the nude man and the clothed man is perfect.

Since it’s my favorite obscure Rush album, the Caress of Krieger van just cracks me up the most.

And just to add to the fun here’s a video of Krieger’s Neil Peart-like drum set

It’s pronounced “Why Why Zed.”

[READ:May 9, 2012] How to Archer

Although the Archie Meets Kiss comic proved to not be the joy I’d hoped, How to Archer easily made up for it.  I love Archer, it is one of my top ten shows ever, I think.  And this book is basically a print version of the show.

It’s designed as a how-to manual written by Sterling Archer himself.  He gives you tips on how to become the world’s best secret agent.  He teaches you how to dress (the details about buying shoes are amazing), how to drink (he provides cocktail recipes and his own opinion of subpar drinks), how to eat (a recipe for Eggs Woodhouse that sounds divine) and even a secret to gambling!

The fact that Archer is an abrasive, cocky, sexist, racist dick only makes the book that much funnier.

If you haven’t seen Archer (on FX), it’s a cartoon about a spy.  His mother, Malory, owns the spy agency and they have a very contentious relationship.  (The fact that his full name is Sterling Malory Archer should be just one clue to that).  Malory gets the introduction to the book, which is pretty darn funny as well. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 11] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 4.7-4.12 (end)] (1973)

Posted in Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Military, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Pink Floyd, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Russia, Sex, Squeeze, Steve Miller, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Threats, Travel, War on May 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PINK FLOYD-the final cut: a requiem for the post war dream (1983).

My college experience seems very unlike many people’s (especially the stories I hear from you young kids today).  And I’m just talking musically.  I went to college in the late 80 and early 90s.  And my freshman year, the most popular albums on campus  were Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits, Squeeze’s 45s and Under and Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  My friend John also loved this album.  And I think we listened to it hundreds of times, blasting out of dorm room windows.

It’s kind of strange that college freshmen would embrace an album about (more or less) Roger Waters’ father dying in WWII, especially since none of our fathers had died at all, much less in WWII.  But angst finds its home I suppose.

This album is not a sequel to The Wall, but it has echoes (see what I did there) from that album.  There were touches of WWII in The Wall.  And sonically a lot of this album sounds similar.  The big difference is that Roger Waters wrote pretty much the whole thing, long time keyboardist Richard Wright left the band and David Gilmour, sings on only one song.  So, it’s practically a solo project (and it fees a lot like Waters’ solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking).

This album seems to have alienated fans of Floyd. But I happen to like it quite a lot.  And, I it a lot while reading Gravity’s Rainbow.

“The Post War Dream” opens with military sounding horns and funereal organs, as befits an album about the war.  It also has an intriguing assortment of sound effects (I wonder where he gets most of this stuff).  It sounds very Pink Floyd–Roger Waters’ voice is pretty unmistakable).  But “Your Possible Pasts” sounds even more Pink Floyd.  Evidently this album has a number of songs that were cast offs from The Wall.  If that’s true, this is probably one of them, as it sounds like it could easily fit on that album–especially when the keyboards kick in during the second chorus (even if Richard Wright wasn’t on the album).  And the guitar solo is so David Gilmour–that’s what you call a signature sound.

“One of the Few” has something I love from Floyd–whispered vocals (“teach”) and creepy laughing; it works as a nice transition to the louder “The Hero’s Return.”  This track is very complex–all kinds of tonal shifts, echoed vocals and bitter lyrics.  It explodes into “The Gunner’s Dream,” a gentle piano ballad about a soldier being shot down.   It’s a surprisingly tender song (although not really given the topic of the album) and lyrically it is really impressive.  I don’t really care for the saxophone solo–it’s not my thing, but I think it actually works well for the song.  And, again the end sounds like it came from The Wall (Waters is amazing at angsty screams).

“Paranoid Eyes” is a delicate song that works, for me, as lead in to the wonderful “Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert” a short, string-filled somewhat goofy song that is very bitter under its seeming jocularity.  It’s followed by “The Fletcher Memorial Home,” a really dark track about old age with a lot of current political commentary thrown in (although the “group of anonymous Latin American meat-packing glitterati” always confused (and amused) me.  So even though it is “about” WWII, there’s plenty of anger at current political climate, right Maggie?.  Boom boom, bang bang, lie down, you’re dead–take it away David…

“Southampton Dock” is another gentle song, more of a story with musical accompaniment.  It segues into “The Final Cut” a fitting piano end to a sad album about death and loss, that also happens to reprise song elements from The Wall.

But that’s actually not the last song.  We get the incongruous “Not Now John.”  It really doesn’t fit with the album at all (I happen to love it, even if it doesn’t).  It’s way over the top, including the how-in-the-hell-did-they-think-this-would-be-a-single? opening lyrics: “fuck all that we gotta get on with this. (fuck all that).”  And yet, single it was, reaching #7 in the US.  Man it rocks.  Oi, where’s the fucking bar, John?

The album ends properly with “two suns in the sunset” a mostly acoustic track that returns the mood to more sombre feelings (except for the rocking section where you drive into an oncoming truck).  Never has futility felt so upbeat.  For an album as personal as this is, it really draws the listener in.  Of course, if you don’t want to be drawn in, it’s easy to resist, as many have.

The reissue (which I don’t have), includes the cool song from The Wall movie, “When the Tigers Broke Free.”  Which I imagine would work quite well contextually.

[READ: Week of April 30] Gravity’s Rainbow 4.7-end

And the book ends with a bang and a lot of leftover questions.  My first reaction is that I can’t get over Pynchon spent so much time in the last 60 pages talking about things that had nothing to do with the “plot” per se.  I never really felt like the story was all that hard to follow until the end, when Pynchon let loose the dogs of war on his writing.  There are several pages of stream of consciousness reverie where I was completely at a loss.  Of course, this has been true for much of the book–Pynchon would talk about something and then cycle back into it, filling in the gaps that he left open.  The whole book seemed to have this kind of coiled effect (perhaps a slinky). He would set up a scene as if you had been there all along.  And while you were puzzling over just who the hell he was talking about, he would flashback to whatever you needed to fill in the missing pieces.  And he is still doing that as the story comes to a close.

And although it starts out with a familiar figure, he quickly takes something and has a massive hallucination.  Is this even true? (more…)

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Julian Beever–Pavement Chalk Artist: The Three Dimensional Drawings of Julian Beever (2010)

Posted in Canadian Music, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Geddy Lee, Julian Beever, Rush on May 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH RADIO (rushradio.org) (since 1998).

How can this online site have been around for fourteen years and I’ve only just heard of it the other day.  And only by actively searching for a streaming Rush site.  Crazy talk!

So this site is what it says–streaming Rush 24/7.  After listening for a little while I determined that it’s basically this person’s iTunes playlist of every Rush song on shuffle.  It has that telltale iTunes shuffle–hey, didn’t I just hear that song two tracks ago, or as i na recent example, wasn’t that the song that just ended?–But there’s also a chance that you’ll hear a song that you haven’t heard in forever.  There’s even a chance you’ll hear a song you don’t like (!) “Dog Years” is easily my least favorite Rush track ever, but I heard it!

Of course it’s more exciting to randomly hear “The Necromancer,” which just happened.

I don’t understand how come this person is allowed to do this.  I don’t understand how he secured a .org domain name.  I understand even less how he got a PSA with Geddy Lee talking about something (I forget what already).  And I don’t care, I have been listening to this for the last few days and it totally resurrected my love of Rush.

[READ: May 3, 2012] Pavement Chalk Artist

If you’ve never seen a three-dimensional chalk drawing, you’re really missing out.  But they’re all over the internet, so it’s easy to find one.  Like this one.  http://www.moillusions.com/category/3d-sidewalk-drawings-optical-illusions  The most recent one I’ve seen is  a Lego drawing, and this site http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/incredible-making-of-the-3d-lego-chalk-drawing shows you how they were done, too.

The design style is called anamorphic and it all depends on the angle at which you are looking at the picture.  Literally.  If you look at it from the wrong angle it looks like complete nonsense.  And in the case of this book (and Beever’s work in general), the designs were specifically created for his camera.  In other words, he set up the camera and looked through it to get the exact effect he wanted.  I can’t quite imagine how you have to look at it in real life for them to look as good as this.  (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 10] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 4.1-4.6] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), James Joyce, Language, Marilyn Manson, Military, Phoebus Cartel, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Tool, Travel, War on April 30, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PHOEBUS CARTEL-“Difficult,” “Asylum Energy,” “November”

If I had any idea how many bands were named after things in Gravity’s Rainbow, or were perhaps tangentially related to it, like this one, I would have never bothered mentioning bands that I actually know.

Phoebus Cartel is a heavy metal band based out of Denmark.  And…  well, that’s really all I know about them.  I found this image for them online which linked me to their site on bandbase (if you must, you can also get it in English–although there’s no extra information).

There are three songs here on the site.  They are all sung in English and all have heavy guitars.  The band is clearly heavy metal inspired, but they also classify themselves as “alternativ.”

“difficult” has elements of Marilyn Manson in the singing (and even the melody). It’s a very catchy interesting song and very heavy.  “asylum enemy” has some great heavy chugging guitars. I like the part in the middle where we just get two heavy notes and a pause.  It reminded me a lot of Tool.  “November” has the most normal sounding singing in the bunch–it’s also the least metal sounding–more like heavy alt rock.  Although the break in the middle with slow guitars is nicely atmospheric.

I really enjoyed all three songs.  I’d like to learn more about these guys but I literally can find nothing else about them anywhere.

[READ: Week of April 23] Gravity’s Rainbow 4.1-4.6

Section 4, the final section is here at last.  We are out of The Zone and into The Counterforce.  The epigram here is by Richard M. Nixon.  Hilariously it is simply, “What?”  Unfortunately, I found it to be way too apt for my own feelings while reading this pretty confusing section.  While some sections advanced the “plot,” there were a ton of new characters added and, even more confusingly, a bunch of scenes that were either hallucinations or fantasies  or both.  And none of these do much for you sense of what the hell is going on. (more…)

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Jeff Kinney–The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary: How Greg Heffley Went Hollywood (2010)

Posted in Books about writers, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Forever the Sickest Kids, Funny (ha ha), Jeff Kinney, Photo Essays, Short Books, Video Games on April 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FOREVER THE SICKEST KIDS-“What Do You Want from Me?” (2010).

I wanted to a pick a song from this soundtrack to add here.  Evidently there isn’t really a soundtrack so much as a score (who is buying the score from this film?).  Well, I’ll bet it was fun to write a piece called “Zoo Wee Mama.”

Anyhow, this song is apparently in the movie (over the end credits).  According to Amazon, you can order the MP3 that is somehow affiliated with the soundtrack.

So this is a poppy emo song.  It’s got loud guitars and a chanting chorus and it’s pretty darn catchy.  It sounds like so many other bands that I’d never have guessed it wasn’t by any of  dozen bands that are kinda punk but not really with high-pitched singers who are kind of bratty.  This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it–in small doses I like emo a lot.  I dislike that this had a lot of “Hey Ho” chanting which is just way too easy to make it catchy.  But aside from that, I would leave this song on at a party.

The actual Amazon MP3 is a “Diary of a Wimpy Kid Mix”.  I have no idea what they have changed about it, though as I only listened to the original.

[READ: April 25, 2012] The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary

I have enjoyed every one of the Wimpy Kid books (and now my son is enjoying them too, although he’s still too young to “get” them).  But I never bothered checking out this book because it seemed, well, unfunny.  Then I saw the book at Five Below for a couple bucks so I grabbed it.

This is a movie tie-in book.  But what’s nice about this book as opposed to many other tie-ins is that Jeff Kinney actually wrote it (I think–his name’s on it, after all).  There are also new drawings that tie in to what he’s writing about and lots and lots of pictures from the movie.

If you’re a fan of the books, this book won’t do a lot for you.  Although there are a few insights into how Kinney got started making his series–including some original drawings.  But if you’re a fan of the movie, you’ll learn a lot.  Kinney talks about how they chose the actors they hired (which was quiet interesting), where the movie was filmed (Vancouver) and what kind of homework he made the two leads do (they had to write an essay from the point of view of who they were playing to make sure they understood the character). (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 9] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.25-3.32] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Mercury Rev, Military, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, The Flaming Lips, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War on April 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MERCURY REV-Deserter’s Songs (1998).

Mercury Rev has changed a lot as a band over the years.  They began as a noisy punk outfit who was getting kicked off of airplanes, and by this album (seven years after their debut), they’ve turned into a kind of sweet orchestral pop band (a transformation not unlike The Flaming Lips).  I got into them with their album before this See You on the Other Side with the seriously rocking song “Young Man’s Stride.”  This album came as something of a shock, it is often so delicate.

I used to really love this album a lot and then one day I thought that it was a little irritating sounding, and that has stuck with me ever since.  The irritation comes from a combination of the really high-pitched vocals and the musical saw that seems to accompany most songs.  However, I hadn’t listened to it in quite some time and hearing it now, I found it enjoyable once again.

It opens with “Holes” a five-minute song that layers many different instruments (musical saw, of course, and horns) over Jonathan Donohue’s timid and wavery voice and gentle keyboard washes.   “Tonite It Shows” continues in the pretty vein–a beautiful song that name checks Cole Porter.  “Endlessly” features more unearthly soprano singing (there’s a lot of high-pitched music on this disc).  It has a lovely melody and references “Silent Night” on the flute.

The first highlight has to be “Opus 40” which tempers all of the potential irritants but maximizes the beauty and wondrous songwriting.  It soars to the heavens but stays grounded with a cool retro organ solo.  The other major highlight is “Goddess on a Hiway.”  “Hiway” is even better than opus 40 at blending the wonderful elements of this album.

“Hudson Line” is an anomaly on the disc–raw saxophone solo and low vocals change the pace of the album quite a bit.  “The Funny Bird” actually sounds like a Flaming Lips song circa 2008.  The Flaming Lips comparisons aren’t all that surprising since Donahue played with the Lips back in the early 90s.  And “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp” is a pretty raucous song (“stomp” is correct).  It has a traditional feel and ends the disc on an upbeat note.

So, yes, although some of the effects on the disc veer into annoying, it’s still a great disc overall.

[READ: Week of April 16] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.25-3.32

We have finally exited The Zone this week.  The lengthy Section 3 has come to a close with an unceremonious send off to Slothrop, who I assume we’ll see in Section 4, with the reintroduction of old characters and with a chance meeting that made me go wow!

I’m really amazed at the interconnectedness of the book.  While I didn’t think that things would be unrelated, the number of unexpected connections is really tremendous.  And while I missed many of the other characters, seeing the occasional one pop up is pretty exciting.

I’m happy to leave the Zone, not because I didn’t like it (although I admit I Slothrop’s slog from one place to another was getting a little tiring), but because I really want to see how he wraps all this stuff up.  Connections are popping up everywhere, and I feel like he’s doing a whole lot more than I initially thought. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Secrets of Droon: Books 17-21 and SE#2 (2002-2004)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Demons, End of the World, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Kathleen Edwards, Magic, Mamma Yamma, Mystery, Supernatural, Threats, Tony Abbott on April 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-“Eat the Alphabet” on CBC Kids’ Mamma Yamma (2012).

I love Kathleen Edwards.  I think she has a wonderful voice (there’s something just slightly off that I think is really great).  I love all of her songs, because lyrically she’s clever and at times a little dark.

This is the only children’s song that she has sung that I know of. I don’t think it’s based on any of her proper songs.  It’s a simple strummed electric guitar ditty with a catchy chorus (as befits a children’s song).  Lyrically the song is all about different kinds of foods that start with the different letters of the alphabet.

Of course, she gets off to a strange start because after doing A (apples and apricots) and B (broccoli and banana) she gets to C which is “for Cat and mine’s called Mr T”).  She gets back on track (feta cheese!).  Although she skips J&K (which aren’t that hard, frankly).  She also skips Q and then  T, U, and V (in a way that seems like it’s improvised, although surely it isn’t).

It’s fun that she ends with Y as Mamma Yamma, our favorite talking potato.  It’s not the greatest kids song, but it is certainly fun.

You can see it here:

[READ: January-February, 2012] The Secrets of Droon: Books 17-21 & SE#2

I established with my previous Droon post that I would write posts for the books in between the Special Editions.  The arcs may not be completed, but the Special Editions seem like a natural recapping point.

I’ve been reading this series to my son and he is totally hooked.  And I have to say by the next sequence of books I was really blown away by the twist that Abbott put into the series.  At this stage, each book is getting more intense, although they are all kind of formulaic.  By the end of Book 21, though, things start to change, and the series has just gotten better and better.

Book 17 is called Dream Thief.  It has the kids waking up with dreams of Jabbo.  And Eric wakes up with a silver stone in his hand–a stone that he brought from the dream world!  The action of this book is set in the Bangeldorn Forest, where the monkeys live.  They befriend Tweet and Woot and go to the Dark Lands. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 8] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.16-3.24] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Frank Zappa, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), James Joyce, Kid Rock, Language, Military, Molotov, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Research, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War on April 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MOLOTOV-¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas? (1998).

Molotov was the last Rock en Español band that I really bothered to check out.  They were probably most notorious for the cover of the album.  Interestingly, the cover is actually a four sided cover which you can flip to three other far less sexist scenes, so yes, that was pretty much a sales gimmick.  And it certainly attracted attention (and a law suit!).  So they reissued the title with the far less offensive, but very different cover below.

My Spanish is poor at best, but this album is a mix of Spanish and English.  And, of course, I know some bad Spanish words, so I get a sense of what this album is about. But here’s the thing–it rocks really hard and has some really great elements of the metal/rap/funk hybrid genre, regardless of whether you know what they’re talking about (although don’t go singing “Chinga Tu Madre” around the office, capiche?).

The opening song  “Que no te haga bobo Jacobo” has a very Rage Against the Machine vibe–heavy guitars and sound effects with militant rapped lyrics.  The riff is great and the vocals are smoother than Rage’s Zach–“Tito” Fuentes has great flow.  There’s also some good funky bass in the middle section.  “Molotov Cocktail Party” is a mix of English and Spanish, a pretty straightforward rap, not unlike Kid Rock.

“Voto Latino” has a more alt rock vibe in the guitars, although the vocals are pretty straightforward rap style.  The song title means Latino Vote, so perhaps there’s a politics context to it.  And “Gimme Tha Power” is a political song, too.  A rap (in Spanish) over some nice acoustic guitars.

There definitely isn’t in “Chinga Tu Madre” which has more of those cool guitar effects and group chanting, although it’ probably not worth investigating the lyrics much more.  But the chorus is catchy as anything.  “Matata Tete” and “Mas Vale Cholo” return to that Rage Against the Machine style, with vocals that are a bit more cookie monster-y (I’m not sure who sings lead on which songs, actually) although “Mas Vale Cholo” has some fun with the vocal delivery.  And there’s a spirit of early Red Hot Chili Peppers at work, too.

“Use It or Lose It” is rapped in mostly English.  It has a very cool acoutsic-feeling chorus (and a quote of the line, “what cha gonna do rap is not afraid of you.”).  “Puto” is presumably an anti-gay song (I suppose I should find that out before I say so).  “Porque No Te Haces Para Alla?…Al Mas Alla!” has a fun chorus and cool guitar effects once again.  “Cerdo” has a cool 70s vibe, with funky bass and scratchy guitars–it’s got a sexy feel, although the title means “pig,” so who knows.

The final track also rocks very well.  According to Wikipedia, the translated title of “Quitate Que Ma’sturbas (Perro Arrabalera)” is “Stay Away Because You Masturbate (Suburban Bitch)” which seems weird .  But maybe they had nothing better to write about.  Sometimes ignorance of a subject is not a bad thing.

¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas? is not the classiest album around, but it’s got some really interesting sonics.  And I’m led to believe their later albums are even better.

[READ: Week of April 9] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.16-3.24

Last week ended with sex and this week opens with the way I felt–like a voyeur who can’t look away.  The exhausting orgy was exhausting to read about as well.  And I’m starting to wonder if Pynchon is making a point about sex rather than just enjoying writing about it.

This week’s read also brings back two characters from way way ago.  Well, one from not too long ago, but another from what seems like an eternity.  I assumed we’d see Pirate Prentice again, but I assumed that it wouldn’t be until Section 4. So that was a nice treat, even if it’s a less than happy return for him. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 7] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.11-3.15] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Military, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Rocket 00000, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War on April 9, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: ROCKET 00000-What Women Want (2010).

This is the second band that I have discovered because of this novel.  I was looking for images to paste in last week’s post for Rocket 00000, and I came across this EP.

Rocket 00000 are a trio from Cincinnati and this is their first (and only) release.   It’s got a kind of 80s punk vibe–I can’t really make out the words, but I like the feel.

There’s something very raw and almost amateurish about the record–but that seems deliberate, because the album sounds very professional–it’s recorded well and the band is very tight.  And since I like the bandcamp site quite alot, I’m going to provide the link with extras here so you can listen to the album, too.

There’s four songs–two are 5 minutes and two are around 3 minutes.  The two longer ones have intros and outros that extend the music to those long (for punk songs) times.  And I really like these instrumental sections. In fact, when I first listened, I thought maybe the whole first track was an instrumental.  Since  I liked the tone of the album I was okay with that.

The “Summer City” part of “Summer City/Conspiracy Theory” has a simple but effective guitar solo as an instrumental.  After about a minute and a half “Conspiracy Theory” kicks in, the vocals bring a new texture and a punk element into the song.  “Lethal Weapon 2 & 4” has a great title, but it doesn’t sound all that different from the other songs (although the lyrics, “We’re not perfect…but neither are you” are pretty clear).

“Signs” has some cool drum breaks and fills, and the end of the song is musically interesting.    “Braveheart: Forever Young” probably combines the music and vocals  best–I like the  upbeat music with the dark words.  The song ends with about 2 and a half minutes of instrumental (with interesting feedback) that works really well together.

It’s not the best punk EP, but it’s got some good qualities and the band has a good name.  I wonder how they “say” it?

[READ: Week of April 2] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.11-3.15

After last week’s breezy read, I figured that this week’s would be a bit rougher.  But for the most part, it wasn’t–aside from the very end which was a little hard to stomach.  There was a lot of technical discussion in this section–which was a  bit hard to comprehend.  There was a also a return of Franz Pökler–where we learned his story and what happened to him.  We assumed that he was killed by a police truncheon, but that turns out to be untrue.  His story is pretty dark and sad.  Sorry, as Marco points out below, it was Peter Sachsa who was killed by truncheon.  My conspiracy has been called out!

Section 3.11 opens uncomfortably with Franz Pökler… copulating with Leni in an aggressive and rough manner.  He has just come back from showing of Alpdrücken and imagines that it’s Margherita underneath him.  He assumes that men all over the country are doing the same thing because of the movie.  He calculates that it was that night that Ilse was conceived–they’d barely had sex around that time.  This flashback brings us forward to the scene of Franz waiting for Ilse to return to Zwölfkinder—a kind of children’s fantasy playground which would prove to be a very significant location for them. (more…)

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Gizmo Guys (RVCC Arts, Branchburg, NJ, April 1, 2012)

Posted in Big Apple Circus, Branchburg, NJ, Comedians, Funny (ha ha), Peking Acrobats, RVCC Arts, Set in New Jersey!, The Gizmo Guys on April 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 1, 2012] The Gizmo Guys

Our friends were going to see the Gizmo Guys, so we bought (surprisingly cheap) tickets and went to the same show as them.  I was under the impression that the Gizmo Guys were kind of science-tellers–doing “magic” with sciencey things.  Well, that was utterly wrong.

The Gizmo Guys are jugglers.  That’s it.  Well, they are comedians AND jugglers and they are very funny and very talented.    But there’s no science and, I have to say, very few gizmos.

The show opened with some jokes.  But these were jokes from the kids in the audience.  And our brave friend’s 7 year-old went on stage and told a joke! (while Clark cowered so he wouldn’t be chosen).  The joke section was cute and served as a nice warmup. (more…)

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