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Archive for the ‘LGBTQ’ Category

Roberto Bolaño–Last Evenings on Earth (1997/2001 trans. 2006)

Posted in bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Chris Andrews, Communists, Culture Shock, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, History, Humiliation, Infinite Zombies, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, Mystery, Nature, Nazis, Neurotics, Oddities, Poets, Political Humor, Religion, Roberto Bolaño, Romance, Sex, Short Story, Suicide, The Dead Milkmen, Threats, Translation, Travel, Violence, Yuck! on April 14, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Soul Rotation (1992).

And lo, the Milkmen grow up.

This disc is not funny (well maybe, a little funny); mostly it is  “thoughtful” (and sometimes absurd).  But what is most striking about it is how mature (mellow) it is.  For this is the first album by The Dead Milkmen on Hollywood Records (a subsidiary of Disney).  This combination raises far more questions than is worth looking at.  But suffice it to say that even though this disc is the Milkmen, its a very different Milkmen.

The most obvious difference is that the majority (10 out of 13) of the songs are sung by the artist formerly known as Joe Jack Talcum, now known as Butterfly Fairweather (perhaps Hollywood knew that “”Punk Rock Girl” was their big hit?).  Past DM records were mostly sung by Rodney Anonymous (who goes by H.P. Lovecraft on this disc).  And his were the heavier, weirder, funnier, absurdist tracks, for the most part.  So, when the first four songs here are sung by Butterfly, you know something different is afoot.  Oh, there’s horns on the disc as well!

The disc feels like a pretty typical alt-rock band from the 90s.  But it’s missing the sass, it’s missing the vulgarity.  Basically, it’s kind of dull.

That’s not to say there aren’t good songs on here, because there are.  “If I Had a Gun” is a great screamy Butterfly song, and “Wonderfully Colored Plastic War Toys” is full of Lovecraft’s snark. As is “The Conspiracy Song” a lengthy rant of absurdity.

The rest of the songs drift between mellow and alt-rock rockers.  And it works as a product of the alt rock 90s.  It’s just not much of a DM album.

[READ: April 8, 2010] Last Evenings on Earth

I have been reading Bolaño’s short stories for a while now.  And so I have read a couple of the stories in this collection already. The stories in this collection were taken from his two Spanish collections of short stories: Llamadas telefônicas (1997) and Putas aseinas (2001).  And I have looked at about a dozen sources but I can’t find which stories came from which original collection (I like  to know these hings).  I can’t even find a table of contents for the original books.  Anyone want to help out?

I enjoyed these stories more than I expected to.  I have read some of his stories in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and I’ve been okay with them, but this collection blew me away.  Whether it’s being immersed in his writings or just having them all in one place, I was thrilled by this book.

There so many delightful little things that he does in his stories that I find charming or funny or something.  Like that his narrators are usually two or three people removed from the details.  Or if they’re not, they act like its been so long they doesn’t need to get all the details right:  “U insults and challenges him, hits the table (or maybe the wall) with his fist” (“Days of 1978”).

I also get a kick out of all the stories with the protagonist named B.  Which seems a not so subtle way of saying he’s the narrator (even though I ‘m sure these things never happened to him quite like it says (despite all the biographical consistencies with his own life).

The opening story “Sensini” has the narrator working as a night watchman at a campground (much like Enric in The Skating Rink…a bit of biography perhaps?).  A number of his stories are simply biographies of interesting characters (something he went to extremes with in Nazi Litearture in the Americas): “Henri Simon LePrince” a failed writer in Post-WWII France.  “Enrique Martin” a delightfully twisted story about jealousy (aren’t they all, though?) and acting impulsively and foolishly (aren’t they all though?).  This one featured  a riddle that I’m not even sure we’re meant to get:

3860+429777-469993?+51179-588904+966-39146+498207853

which the narrator thinks is a word puzzle. (more…)

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Bill Cotter–Fever Chart (2009)

Posted in Bill Cotter, Constellation Records, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Fears, Funny (strange), Ghosts, Holidays, LGBTQ, McSweeney's, Neurotics, Punks, Sex, Suicide, The Dead Milkmen, Threats, Unreliable narrator, Violence, Yuck! on April 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: VIC CHESNUTT-At the Cut [CST060] (2009).

Vic Chesnutt died in December.  I have limited exposure to him, although I really enjoyed his previous Constellation release North Star Deserter.

This release (his second to last) shows him playing with much the same line up as North Star.  And it is just as harrowing and passionate as the other.

It opens with the fantastic “Coward” in which, stating how courageous it can be to be a coward her proudly sings “I am a Coward!”.  This track is one of the rocking ones on the disc, which is split pretty evenly between cacophonous rockers and slow moody acoustic pieces.  Another great rocker is “Chinaberry Tree.”  The lyrics are simple and the chorus is just the words Chinaberry Tree, but it is fantastic.

My preferences run to faster music, so I enjoy his noisier tracks to the simpler, acoustic ones.  And yet, lyrically, his songs are so moving that I easily get sucked into the narratives.  The most notable song on the disc is “Flirted with You All My Life” which is about death, specifically about his past suicide attempts.  It’s really moving.  And even the seemingly simple “Granny” is a well-written mood piece.

Chesnutt had all kind of physical problems (when he was 18 he was in a car accident and had been mostly paralyzed) and he had been in pain most of life.  It’s a shame he felt compelled to end his life, but we still have his music to enjoy.

[READ: March 27, 2010] Fever Chart

About half way through this first-person book, the narrator has a mental breakdown and tries to bite his hand off.  That should tell you right off the bat whether or not you want to read the book.  (Add to that that the narrator also has terrible bowel problems).

I had received an excerpt from McSweeney’s over the summer, and of all three books in the sampler, I enjoyed this one the most.  Little did I know how utterly surreal the story would get once that excerpt was over!

The cover of the book shows a man walking down the street with blood dripping from his hand.  This seemed like an odd choice to me.  However, for the bulk for the story, the narrator seems to be walking down streets with blood dripping from his hand (the one he eventually tries to bite off) so it perfectly encapsulates the tone of the book.

The story opens in the middle of a series of events from the narrator’s past (the first few sections are written in a wonderfully disjointed way that keeps the reader off balance).  Jerome Coe is currently living in an Apartment in Boston.  It has no heat.  His toilet is frozen solid and he is sleeping between his mattress and box spring to keep warm.  After ages of complaints to his landlord, one day the heat kicks on.  Full blast.  And Jerome cannot turn it off.  Soon, wallpaper is peeling of the walls and steam is flowing from his windows.  He is naked in his apartment and is preparing to run outside into the freezing weather just to escape the heat.

While he is standing outside, half-naked, a car pulls up and the driver, a woman named Tommy, asks him to jump in. (more…)

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JPod [tv series]

Posted in Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Douglas Coupland, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Growing Pains, JPod, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, Raugi Yu, Sex, Sherry Miller, Technology, Video Games, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), Work on April 4, 2010| 2 Comments »

Sarah and I watched a bit of the third or fourth episode of this show when it aired on CBC.  But jumping into the middle of this show is difficult.  The characters are established pretty quickly, their quirks are all explained in the first episode, and it’s a bit hard to care about them without knowing their whole story.

So, when the show released on DVD, I decided to give the whole series a shot. And it has now given me a new favorite actor of the month: Sherry Miller who plays Mrs Jarlewski is just fantastic.  She’s like an older,  subtler version of perennial  favorite Portia de Rossi.

The show also introduced a cast of relative unknowns (who have all gone on to do more since then), and gave a wonderfully twisted role to former Growing Pains dad Alan Thicke (he’s an alcoholic, a philanderer and a wannabe (but not very good) actor).  And in a (presumably) unintentional nod to Growing Pains, his wife’s name is Carol, too.   (more…)

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James Hannaham–God Says No (2009)

Posted in Demons, Depeche Mode, James Hannaham, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Racism, Religion, Sex, South, Virginity (Loss of) on March 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MONSTER MAGNET-God Says No (2001).

It’s not often I have a disc with the same name as a book.  But lo, here they are.  I’ve no idea if the album inspired Hannaham at all (or if he even knows of it) although the title track song does rather work well with the book, with lines like:

You won’t get caught if you don’t get queer/And you’ll be ready for a new frontier  You try and live And God says no.

I had loved Monster Magnet’s Powertrip quite a lot.  So, I was more than willing to get this follow up.  I’m a little disappointed in the disc overall, but I’m not entirely sure why.  It’s not quite a sharp as Powertrip, but it’s also not quite a trippy as their earlier stoner rock releases.

Having said that, there’s some great tracks here.  It opens very prominently with “Melt” and the phenomenal heavy rocker “Heads Explode” which features delightfully obscure lyrics like “I am a pillar of salt.  You’ll never be worse than me.”  And then comes, “Medicine 2001” another fast, chunky rocker.

There’s also some other way-out (for Monster Magnet) tracks, like the bluesy slide guitar sleaze of “Gravity Well.”

I think it’s the tracks at the end that kind of drag the disc a little bit “Queen of You” is an interesting slow track, but at nearly 7 minutes and coupled with the 7 minute “Cry,” it’s a bit too much all at once.  The final track, “Take It” is a weird, weird (for Monster Magnet) keyboard and drum machine track. It’s very mellow (and sounds like early Depeche Mode), and works as a weird experiment.  The actual final track is a bonus track, “Silver Future” which rocks once again.

I’m pleased that Monster Magnet experiments so much, but it feels like a full disc of MM songs with an extra EP of experiments tacked on.  I’m not sure what they could have done differently, but for some reason the disc falls a little short.

[READ: March 18, 2010] God Says No

This is a very simple tale of an overweight black man struggling with life in the 1990s.  The twist on the story is that he is not struggling because of his race or his size.  He is struggling because he is a good Christian man who is, without question, homosexual.

The book is written in first person and as such it reads like a memoir (although the main character has a different name than the author).  You can’t help but wonder how much of this book is true (although really it doesn’t make any difference), especially when one of  the characters dies.  It feels like tribute to an actual person.

The book opens with Gary Gray living in a dorm at a Christian college.  He is completely obsessed with his roommate, a hunky white guy who walks around in his boxers.  The roommate is clearly not interested in him, in fact he goes so far as to say he is repulsed by Gary (for being fat and black, in addition to anything else he may find flaw with). (more…)

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State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (2008)

Posted in Alexander Payne, Alison Bechdel, Anthony Bourdain, Anthony Doerr, Big Books, Blue Öyster Cult, Books about writers, Carrie Brownstein, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, Dagoberto Gilb, Dave Eggers, Death, Demons, Dip-in Books, Dreams, Drinking, Election, Essays, Fishing, Food, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Greed, Heidi Julavits, History, Holidays, Jacki Lyden, Jhumpa Lahiri, John Hodgman, Jonathan Franzen, Joshua Ferris, LGBTQ, Louise Erdrich, Lydia Millet, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Minnesota, Myla Goldberg, Natural Disasters, Nature, Newspapers, Nostalgia, NPR/PRI/PBS, Oddities, Racism, Religion, Rick Moody, Rush, S.E. Hinton, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Sarah Vowell, Set in New Jersey!, Sex, Sleater-Kinney, South, Supernatural, The X Files, Travel, Violence, War, Wayne's World, William T. Vollmann, WPA on March 18, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLUE ÖYSTER CULT-compilations and live releases (1978-2010).

For a band that had basically two hits (“Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Burnin’ for You”) and maybe a half a dozen other songs that people might have heard of, BOC has an astonishing number of “greatest hits” collections.

Starting in 1987 we got Career of Evil: The Metal Years (1987), Don’t Fear the Reaper (1989), On Flame with Rock n’ Roll (1990), Cult Classic (which is actually the band re-recording their old tracks (!)) (1994), and the two cd collection Workshop of the Telescopes (1995).  There’s even Singles Collection, (2005) which is a collection of their European singles & Bsides.

This doesn’t include any of the “budget price” collections: E.T.I. Revisited, Tattoo Vampire, Super Hits, Then and Now, The Essential, Are You Ready To Rock?, Shooting Shark, Best of, and the 2010 release: Playlist: The Very Best of).

The lesson is that you evidently won’t lose money making a BOC collection.

I don’t know that any of these collections are any better than the others.

The 2 CD one is for completists, but for the most part you’re going to get the same basic tracks on all of them.

And, although none of them have “Monsters” for the average person looking for some BOC, any disc is a good one.

Regardless of the number of hits they had, BOC was tremendous live.  And, as a result, there have also been a ton of live records released.  Initially the band (like Rush) released a live album after every three studio albums. On Your Feet or On Your Knees (1975) Some Enchanted Evening (1978) and Extraterrestrial Live (1982) were the “real releases.”

Then, in 1994 we got Live 1976 as both CD and DVD (which spares us nothing, including Eric Bloom’s lengthy harangue about the unfairness of…the speed limit).  It’s the most raw and unpolished on live sets.  2002 saw the release of A Long Day’s Night, a recording of a 2002 concert (also on DVD) which had Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma an Allan Lanier reunited.

They also have a number of might-be real live releases (fans debate the legitimacy of many of these).  Picking a concert disc is tough if only because it depends on the era you like.  ETLive is regarded as the best “real” live disc, although the reissued double disc set of Some Enchanted Evening is hard to pass up.  Likewise, the 2002 recording is a good overview of their career, and includes some of their more recent work.

If you consider live albums best of’s (which many people do) I think it’s far to say that BOC has more best of’s than original discs.  Fascinating.  Many BOC fans believe that if they buy all the best of discs, it will convince Columbia to finally reissue the rest of the original discs (and there are a number of worthy contenders!) in deluxe packages.  I don’t know if it will work, but I applaud the effort.

[READ: October 2009-February 2010] State By State

This is a big book. And, since it’s a collection essays, it’s not really the kind of big book that you read straight through.  It’s a perfect dip in book.  And that’s why it took me so long to get through.

I would love to spend a huge amount of time devoting a post to each essay in the book.  But, well, there’s 51 (including D.C.) and quite a few of them I read so long ago I couldn’t say anything meaningful about.  But I will summarize or at least give a sentence about each essay, because they’re all so different.

I’ll also say that I read the Introduction and Preface last (which may have been a mistake, but whatever).  The Preface reveals that what I took to be a flaw in the book was actually intentional.  But let me back up and set up the book better.

The catalyst for the book is the WPA American Guide Series and sort of Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.  The WPA Guides were written in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.  48 guide books were written, one for each state.  Some famous writers wrote the books, but they were ultimately edited (and many say watered down) by a committee.  I haven’t read any of them, but am quite interested in them (and am looking to get the New Jersey one).  Each guide was multiple hundreds of pages (the New Jersey one is over 800).

State By State is written in the spirit of that series, except the whole book is 500 pages (which is about 10 pages per state, give or take).  And, once again, famous writers were asked to contribute (no committee edited this book, though).  I’ve included the entire list of authors at the end of the post, for quick access.

So I started the book with New Jersey, of course.  I didn’t realize who Anthony Bourdain was until I looked him up in the contributor’s list (I’m sure he is thrilled to hear that).  And his contribution was simultaneously exciting and disappointing,.  Exciting because he and I had quite similar upbringings: he grew up in North Jersey (although in the wealitheir county next to mine) and had similar (although, again, more wealthy) experiences. The disappointing thing for me was that Bourdain fled the state  for New York City (and, as I now know, untold wealth and fame (except by me))  I felt that his fleeing the state, while something many people aspire to, is not really representative of the residents of the state as a whole.

And that dissatisfaction is what I thought of as the flaw of the book (until I read the Preface).  In the Preface, Matt Weiland explains that they asked all different authors to write about states.  They asked some natives, they asked some moved-ins, they asked some temporary residents and they asked a couple of people to go to a state for the first time.  In reality, this decision makes for a very diverse and highly entertaining reading.  In my idealized world, I feel like it’s disingenuous to have people who just stop in to give their impression of an area.  But hey, that’s not the kind of book they wanted to compile, and I did enjoy what they gave us, so idealism be damned.

For most of the book, whenever I read an essay by someone who wasn’t a native or a resident of a state, I assumed that there weren’t any famous writers from that state.  I’ve no idea if that played into anything or not.  From what I gather, they had a list of authors, and a list of states (I was delighted to read that three people wanted to write about New Jersey-if the other two writers ever decided to put 1,000 words  to paper, I’d love to read them (hey editors, how about State by State Bonus Features online, including any extra essays that people may have wanted to write).

From New Jersey, I proceeded alphabetically.  And, I have to say that I’m a little glad I did.  I say this because the first few states in the book come across as rather negative and kind of unpleasant.  Alabama (written by George Packer) comes across as downtrodden, like a place you’d really have to love to live there.  Even Alaska, which ended up being a very cool story, felt like a veil of oppression resided over the state (or at  least the part of the state that Paul Greenberg wrote bout.)  But what I liked about this essay and the book in general was that the authors often focused on unexpected or little known aspects of each state.  So the Alaska essay focused on Native fisherman and the salmon industry.  Obviously it doesn’t do justice to the rest of that enormous state,  but that’s not what the book is about.

The book is meant to be a personal account of the author’s experiences in the state. (more…)

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Craig Ferguson–American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot (2009)

Posted in Blue Öyster Cult, Books about writers, Boredom, Corporate skewering, Craig Ferguson, Culture Shock, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Late Late Show, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Political Humor, Politicians, Red Dwarf, Religion, Steppenwolf, Travel, Unreliable narrator, Virginity (Loss of) on February 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLUE ÖYSTER CULT–Blue Öyster Cult (1972).

Craig Ferguson mentions that the only concert he saw as a teen in America was Blue Öyster Cult.  My guess is that it would have been around the Agents of Fortune or Spectres tour (ie, around “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”) so that must have been a killer show.

In honor of his book, I’m going to look at the lesser known early work of BOC.  Their first disc is a fascinating amalgamation of hard rock, blues, boogie and psychedelia.  All of that is coupled with the utterly perplexing lyrics that they came up with. In addition to the huh? factor of titles like “She’s a Beautiful as a Foot” and “Before the Kiss, a Redcap” we also get fascinating title like “Transamaniacon MC” (later on John Shirley would write a book called Transmaniacon as a tribute to this song).

The album isn’t heavy by today’s standards, but at the time, this was some pretty heavy stuff.  The rocking chorus of “Transmaniacon,” the blistering speed of “Stairway to the Stars,” and yes, the undeniably heavy riff of “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll” let you know that this is no simple rock album.

And yet, they work so well with the fundamentals: Steppenwolf is clearly an inspiration.  This is classic rock that doesn’t quite fit the classic rock mode (which, frankly, makes it far more interesting).  There’s a lot to like here, and there’s more to come.

[READ: February 26, 2010] American on Purpose

I keep saying I don’t read memoirs but then I keep reading them. Yes, I’m a liar.

Well, in this case, I felt it was justified because a) Craig Ferguson is hilarious and I assumed his book would be too and b) he has already written a novel that I really liked (as well as 3 screenplays which I have not seen). So I figured it would be a well-written, funny book.  And, since it turned out I had two days off because of the “snow” I finished the book in a couple of days.

Right, so Craig Ferguson is the host of The Late Late Show, a show that Sarah and I fell in love with last year and then kind of forgot about it. And then we caught it again recently and have been enjoying some TiVo’d bits every now and then. Ferguson has a wonderfully warped sense of humor and his show veers into the bizarre more often than not.   But he is always enjoyable, and his celebrity interviews are worth watching for how funny and un-promotional they are.
But what about this book? This book basically details his life growing up in Scotland, moving to the States and becoming a “huge star.”

But the crux of the book is about his descent into alcoholism, how it destroyed his first marriage and several other long term relationships, as well as potentially his career. (more…)

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Ross Campbell–Wet Moon 2: Unseen Feet (2006)

Posted in Arcade Fire, Austin City Limits, Boredom, Canadian Music, David Lynch, Demons, Drinking, Funny (strange), Goths, Graphic Novel, LGBTQ, Oddities, Ongoing, Oni Press, Ross Campbell, Set at School, Sex, South, The X Files, Twin Peaks, Universities on February 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ARCADE FIRE Austin City Limits (2007).

Recorded in support of Neon Bible, this concert blew me away.  I enjoyed Neon Bible quite a lot, but seeing the band in this concert setting was really amazing. The band was so exciting live.

From Win Butler’s intense performance (both on stage and in the audience) to his wife, Régine Chassagne’s multi-instrumental extravaganza (even if she does look like Susie Essman when she’s about to go off on a foul-mouthed tirade).  To the exhausting and exhaustive rest of the band.  They never stop.  Even when they’re not playing anything, the are happy to join in on a random drum or cymbal.

Plus, how many bands do you get to see play the hurdygurdy?

There’s just so much going on onstage with this band (and of course they throw in little video screens as well!).  And when Win grabs his mike stand and moves literally into the audience to finish one of the last songs, it was really invigorating (and would have been very exciting to have been in the front row there).

Even though it was televised, I felt like I was there.  Oh, and it wasn’t just the theatrics, the band sounded amazing too.  If I ever get the chance I hope to see them live, myself.

[READ: February 11, 2010] Wet Moon 2

I finally received Wet Moon 2 & 3 in the mail the other day.   I was quite excited to get to them.  And Volume 2 did not disappoint.

It is very apparent from Volume 2 that Campbell is in it for the long haul.  Which is one way of saying that not very much “happens” in this book.  Several plot threads from book 1 are teased out a bit, but nothing conclusive happens anywhere.

But that’s not to say that nothing happens at all.  We learn the identity of the long-haired person whom Cleo runs away from in book one (an ex). We learn a little back story (and about a curious upside-down contraption from the person with no hair (who is named Fern).  We learn that Wet Moon is full of more and more bizarre characters, and that there’s an FBI agent around town.  We also learn that another Cleo Eats It sign has been found, although we don’t know anything more about who did it.

(more…)

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Jamie S. Rich & Marc Ellerby–Love the Way You Love Side B: “Songs of Devotion”

Posted in Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, Books about music, British Sea Power, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jamie S. Rich, LGBTQ, Marc Ellerby, Oni Press, Romance, YA Books on January 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BRITISH SEA POWER-Do You Like Rock Music? (2008).

I’ve heard a lot about British Sea Power over the years, and I’ve enjoyed their smarty-pants attitudes.  I think that their first album is most highly recommended.  But I was able to get this disc with an autographed booklet from my favorite record store of all time, the long-missed (since they have no locations near me) Newbury Comics.  So I tried them out.

I can’t speak for their earlier discs, but I’m surprised by how much this disc reminds me of The Arcade Fire, which is odd given their Britrock pedigrees.  It opens with “All In It” which sounds like it could be an Arcade Fire outtake.  And as the rest of the disc continues, I found myself hearing bits and pieces of other bands.  I couldn’t put my finger on anything specific, but I kept thinking, ‘hey, that sounds like–.”

The biggest problem I had with the disc was that even after a few listens, most of it didn’t stick with me.  There were definitely moments where things really stood out (chanting choruses and whatnot), but overall, I kind of felt a lack of anything special.

The album closes with “We Close Our Eyes” which is a reprise of sorts of the awesome opening track.  Whereas the first track is 2 minutes, this one is 8, and it has lots of silences or quiet sound effects and it ultimately ends with a similar chant to the beginning.  But by the time that kicks back in, you’re just sort of annoyed by it.

I wish I could use that as a metaphor for the disc, but I can’t.  I enjoyed some of it, and didn’t dislike any of it really, but it doesn’t make me want to rush out and get their first album, even if it is supposed to be much better (and actually rather different).  I just wanted this disc to be better.

[READ: January 23, 2010] Love the Way You Love: Side B

I really enjoyed part A of this story.  And, at the end of that review, I had asked if Jamie S. Rich had recorded any of the Like a Dog songs.  Jamie wrote back to say that “Love the Way You Love” is available, on MySpace.  Now, I only wish he had included the wonderfully scalding punk B side, “Mighty Joe Marxism” that is featured in this second book.

But back to the story.

When we left off in Book A, Tristan has successfully wooed Isobel away from the evil record producer, Marcus King.  And he had successfully signed his band Like a Dog to a righteous indie label.

But all is now not well.  Marcus has pulled strings and caused a huge backlash on Like A Dog.  No clubs will book them and no distributors will carry their soon-to-be recorded first single.  And Isobel feels responsible for Tristan’s sadness.  This becomes even more apparent when Marcus basically says that he’ll lift the ban if Isobel goes back out with him. (more…)

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Jan Van Meter, Christine Norrie & Ross Campbell–Too Much Hopeless Savages Part Three

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Christine Norris, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Graphic Novel, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Jan Van Meter, LGBTQ, Mystery, No Forcefield, Oni Press, Primus, Punks, Religion, Ross Campbell, Threats, Travel, Violence, YA Books on January 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NO FORCEFIELD-God is an Excuse (2001).

I was looking up what Larry LaLonde, guitarist for Primus, had been up to while Primus seems to be on hiatus.  I hadn’t heard a word from him, so I was surprised to see that he had released two albums with a band called No Forcefield.

I looked for the discs, and found both of them used for $1.00 each.  So I ordered them without really knowing what they were about, except that they were described as “experimental.”

This is the second disc by the band which consists of Brain and Ler from Primus as well as assorted other fellows (Bob Cock) and guests.  And experimental is an okay word to describe the record.  But a better one is disappointing.

With the lineage that these guys bring to the band, it’s surprising how mundane the disc is. It opens with a phone message about Bin Laden and God which morphs into the hilarious Denis Leary bit about CDs and the silver dog bone thing.  It then becomes a fairly straightforward electronic track.  And this electronic stuff is kind of the purpose of the group, I think.  There are at least 3 long, simple instrumentals that are little more than a few notes repeated over a drum beat.

The other tracks are complete nonsense: a faux TV show with “products” for sale which is a teensey bit funny, but not really.  There’s also Billy Roz, whoever that may be, crooning “You Are My Sunshine” as well as some polkas over a drum machine (he sings like an old doddering man).  And finally a short drum solo.

It’s not even clear to me why Ler is in the band as it seems to be mostly drums and a simple keyboard chord.  The only interesting track on the disc is “How to Purify Street Heroin” which is an awesome scratchy workout which I assume is by DJ Disk from the Invisbl Skratch Piklz.  And that’s pretty much it.

I was really disappointed my first go around, as I was expecting something, anything, more than this.  On subsequent listens, I can appreciate the disc as background/comedy although really neither one is a reason to hunt this down.

[READ: January 21, 2010] Too Much Hopeless Savages

This third collection of the Hopeless Savages saga sees many new revelations.  Turns out that Nikki Savage’s mom has come under the influence of a preacher who is intent on praying at the Hopeless-Savage house trying to get them to react in some way.  (I’m a little unclear exactly what his goal is here).

At the same time, Arsenal and her boyfriend and Twitch and his boyfriend (the  boyfriends are brothers) are off to the boyfriends’ homeland of Hong Kong.  Arsenal is there for a martial arts competition and Twitch heads along so that the H-S siblings can meet their boyfriends’ great grandmother.

Hijinx naturally ensue.  In this case, Arsenal is slipped a very valuable package and she soon has numerous groups of men after her (it’s unclear if any of them are up to any good).  The rest of the family decamps for Hong Kong to escape from all the praying (and they bring grandma along to de-brainwash her).

What is surprising about the story is the emotional depth that comes out of an incident from Arsenal’s past.  (more…)

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Jan Van Meter, Andi Watson, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Christine Norrie & Chynna Clugston-Major–Hopeless Savages: Ground Zero (2003)

Posted in Andi Watson, Books about music, Boredom, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Christine Norris, Chynna Clugston-Major, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jan Van Meter, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Oni Press, Punks, Romance, Set at School, Tom Waits, YA Books on January 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  TOM WAITS-Glitter and Doom Live (2009).

Sarah bought me Tom Waits’s 3 disc collection for Christmas last year and I was sure it would be another Waits Xmas since this was nicely timed for an under the tree gift.  But no!  I had to buy this one myself (she says she forgot, but as punishment I may just make her listen to this one).

It’s a two disc set.  The first is a collection of live tracks from all over the world (well actually Birmingham, Edinburgh, Tulsa, Knoxville, Milan, Jacksonville, Paris, Dublin, Atlanta and Columbus–a strange Western Europe-Southern U.S. Tour, apparently).

I’ve never seen Tom live, although I have seen videos from Big Time.  And this is the first batch of live tracks I’ve heard in these latter days of his career.  And I have to say he sounds great.  The gravel in his throat is thick and gritty, yet he still hits all the notes.   And while his studio tracks are full of all kinds of cool instrumentation and embellishments, the spare live band (who sound fantastic) shows that his songs are great even without the bells and whistles.

The funny thing to me is how “Dirt in the Ground” an older song that I love sounds so very different, even though Tom’s voice isn’t all that different.  Of course, he plays some even older tracks that are totally reworked. And they sound great, too.  This all keeps the tracks fluid and seamless, and while the older tracks wouldn’t sound dated anyhow, it makes them all sound new.

Disc Two is a 35 minute track called “Tom’s Tales.”  It is a spliced together “story” of all the interstitial talking bits that Tom throws into his shows.  There’s jokes, there’s stories, there’s nonsense, and it’s all good fun.  For all his dour music, he;s quite a funny performer.  It’ll probably get one or two plays at most, but it’s certainly fun to listen to.

I just read a review of the disc that complains about the separation of music and talk.  And I see the critic’s point: cutting out the banter removes an essential part of Tom’s shows, while having all the talking bits together kind of dooms that disc to be listened to only once or twice.

While I agree with the sentiment, I’m not sure about the musical disc lacking something without the banter.  While it would be fun to have it in there, there is something nice about having just the music.  (And of course, there is one tale tacked on like an encore break (and one song at the end of the music disc, too).  It keeps the flow very solid and makes for an excellent song collection.

It’s a great place to find out what Tom has been up to on the last half dozen or so albums.

[READ: January 17, 2010] Ground Zero

Trade paperback #2 of Hopeless Savages collects the entire second series, with a few extras thrown in (and a very nice introduction).  And while I enjoyed the first series, Ground Zero is leaps and bounds more sophisticated and satisfying.  Even the title is a pun, what with Zero, the youngest Hopeless-Savage being grounded for most of the story.

The main focus is Zero’s burgeoning romance.  She is mostly off the boys at her school (typical comment: Your name is Skank, you must be easy), until she meets a boy in her science class who totally impresses her.  He’s named Ginger, after Ginger Baker, nice touch there.  And in a flashback we learn that although she hasn’t paid him any attention, he has loved her for years since their first accidental meeting.

I’m going to quote from Andrew Wheeler’s introduction because he sums up exactly what I think of the story: “It tells us that the most courageous thing of all is simply to fall in love.  The bravest thing to do is to place your heart in someone else’s hand.”  And that hits the nail on the head.  Pretty good for a comic book. (more…)

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