SOUNDTRACK: JULIE DOIRON-Tiny Desk Concert #20 (July 6, 2009).
I don’t know Julie Doiron exactly–her name sounds familiar, and I know the band Eric’s Trip (she was the bassist), but I don’t really recognize her.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed her Tiny Desk Concert. Unlike most of the musicians, she busts out an electric guitar, and although it’s quiet, there’s some good buzzy distortion on it, especially in the first song “Heavy Snow.” And it sounds good with her voice, which is powerful, even if she does seem nervous.
On “Ce Charmant Coeur” she sings in French and then messes up when she admits she’s thinking of other things and is distracted by the intimacy of the setting. Bob and company calm her by saying that she is sweating less than Tom Jones did (and there’s very funny joke about her breasts popping out (they don’t)).
She plays “Tailor.” It seems like she tried earlier and stopped half way through and is now trying again (the Concert itself starts midway through, so I assume that’s what was cut off). It’s a pretty, mellow song (very different sounding from “Heavy Snow”).
For the last song she plays “Consolation Prize” which she says is unlike any she’d written before. There’s a chaotic section in the middle which they agree we can just imagine because shes not going to play it in this setting. The blurb with the show says that she normally rocks out pretty hard–something that I’d like to see.
In looking up Doiron’s past she was on Kill Rock Stars and Sub Pop, so I must have seen her name a lot back in the day. I now see she has recorded with all kinds of bands that I like, and I’m curious to hear her more rocking edge (especially since she is so polite and sweet and nervous here).
[READ: January 11, 2014] Hey Nostradamus!
After finishing the exciting All Families are Psychotic I moved on to his novel with my least favorite title and with a horrendous cover. You’d think that I would remember these books but I had no memory of this one either, and I’m fairly certain I read it within the last ten years.
Coupland must have been in a very dark place with this book as well.
There are four sections, each from a different person’s point of view. This technique of having a person tell his or her story is something Coupland does very well in all of his works–he loves to tell stories about telling stories.
But the darkness about the book is that it is set in a school just as three student gunman come in and shoot up the cafeteria, killing dozens of students, including the first narrator, Cheryl. This was written with the Columbine shootings in mind, although it has nothing specifically to do with Columbine.
In Part 1, Cheryl has already been killed as she is relating this story to us. She tells us about herself and her decision to join Youth Alive! a religious group in school. She and her friends in the group are very moral and are quite clique-y (and they are not widely liked).
The latest thing in Cheryl’s life which has her preoccupied and which has her Youth Alive! group very upset is that she has been spending a lot of unchaperoned time with Jason. Everyone knew they were dating, but it seems to have gone further now. And Cheryl explains to us (but not them) that she and Jason have started having sex. But not until after they rushed off to Vegas and were quickie-married (which no one knows, not even their parents). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 