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Archive for the ‘Harper’s’ Category

Megan Williams & Uri Geller–“Remote Control” (Harper’s, June 2019)

Posted in Brexit, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 1, First Nations, Harper's, Interviews, Jeremy Dutcher, NPR/PRI/PBS, Psychics, Therea May, Tiny Desk Concert, Tobique, Uri Geller, Wolastoq on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JEREMY DUTCHER-Tiny Desk Concert #851 (May 22, 2019).

I have seen this photo from the Tiny Desk of Jeremy Dutcher in his shiny purple clothes for a month or so now and I’ve been very curious about just what was going on.

I had no idea that he was a First Nations performer or that this performance would be so intense.

Jeremy Dutcher came to the Tiny Desk with sparkling, purple streams of glitter draped around his shoulders. Then he set his iPad on our Yamaha upright piano, not to read his score as pianists do these days, but to play a centuries-old wax cylinder recording of a song sung in the incredibly rare language of Wolastoq.

Dutcher is

a 27-year-old, classically trained opera tenor and pianist. He’s not only a member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada, but one of fewer than 100 people who still speak — and in his case also sing — in Wolastoq.

The song that used that wax cylinder recording was “Mehcinut” which begins with lovely gentle piano music by some quiet cello.

Jeremy Dutcher, along with cellist Blanche Israel and percussionist and electronics wizard Greg Harrison, wove that old recording into a remarkably passionate performance that was very 21st-century, with a deep nod to a century past.

Then the song jumps into a faster rhythm and the drums are added.  When Dutcher sings he sounds operatic and I assumed that he was singing in Italian.  It’s fascinating to learn that it is in Wolastoq.  Then I heard the old recording play.  I wasn’t watching, so I didn’t know what was happening.  That part is even more interesting to know what it is and the way he has based the song melody around that.

His album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa from which these song are taken won the 2018 Polaris prize.

“Pomok naka Poktoinskwes” [“The Fisher and the Water Spirit”] opens with more beautiful piano melodies and cello drones.  After a verse or so, he slams on the piano and the song takes off.  The percussion grows loud and heavy with Harrison hitting all kinds of things (acoustic and electronic) with both sides of his mallets and cello sliding up to high notes.

His voice As the song nears the end, he sings into the opening of the piano and you can hear his voice echoing as if from miles and miles away.   It’s outstanding.

His Tiny Desk performance illustrates his deep respect for his heritage, even as he sings through vocal processors and looping devices of the very present.

But more importantly, he stresses awareness of a people nearly extinct, to a culture often too steeped in the present.

Introducing “Koselwintuwakon” he says our earth mother is very sick. She will take care of herself.  But we must build relationships with each other.  These should be built on love and song.  He asks everyone to sing a drone–a symbolic and fun gesture that everyone an partake in.

This is a much quieter piece, with his voice looped.  It is peaceful and feel magical.  Harrison starts bowing something–I can’t tell what it is, but it adds magical sounds and his low thumping drums bring this ethereal song down to earth.

By the end of the piece, all of Dutcher’s voices have been looped and he sits at the piano manipulating the sounds.

It’s an amazingly moving moment and really unites the centuries and the cultures.  One can only hope that he inspires others to learn the language as well.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “Remote Control”

This is an excerpt from an interview on the CBC between Megan Williams and Uri Geller, the Israeli-British psychic who I can’t believe is still alive.

I don’t usually post about things like this but I enjoyed this so much I felt it needed to be posted here.

Geller wrote an open letter and made a “threat of sorts” to Theresa May attempting to get her to stop Brexit. (more…)

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Jill Ciment–“Then Again” (Harper’s, June 2019)

Posted in Ensemble Signal, Excerpt, Harper's, Jill Ciment, Jonny Greenwood, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Memory, NPR/PRI/PBS, Olivier Messiaen, Radiohead, Sex, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Tiny Desk Concert on June 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ENSEMBLE SIGNAL PLAYS JONNY GREENWOOD-Tiny Desk Concert #850 (May 20, 2019).

The blurb for this piece is actually by Jonny Greenwood (instead of an NPR staffer), so I’ll keep the whole thing.

I’ve watched a lot of Tiny Desk concerts over the years. It’s good to see musicians in the raw, away from stage lighting and backing tracks — as if they’ve just stopped by an office to play over a lunch break, with desk-bound employees watching on. The performances should expose flaws, but instead they tend to expose musicians being casually brilliant, like the members of Ensemble Signal, who certainly play these pieces beautifully.

Unfortunately, I was nowhere near Washington, D.C. for this recording. And I still find it bizarre that you can put a musical idea on paper and have it reproduced at such a distance — and with such added life. We’re used to sounds and images being shared as exact clones of one another, but the pleasure in using ink and paper is that the music is interpreted rather than just reproduced. All those years of practice, in all those players, distilled into 15 minutes of music. It’s a big privilege — and a continuing motivation to write the best I can.

The first piece, Three Miniatures from Water, was originally a sketch for an Australian Chamber Orchestra commission in 2014. I thought it’d be easier to approach writing for full orchestra by starting with a piano miniature and scaling it up. In fact, only some of the material made it to the final commission, and I always felt the original three miniatures hung together well enough as its own piece of music.

I’m a big admirer of composer Olivier Messiaen, and one of the musical scales he favored was the octatonic mode. It’s a lot like an Indian rag in that it’s a rigid set of notes, yet isn’t necessarily in a major or minor key. There are hundreds of rags in Indian music, but I was surprised to find that Messiaen’s octatonic scale isn’t one of them. Despite this, it sits nicely over a drone — and that was the starting point for this music. That and the glorious sound of the tanpura, the drone instrument that underpins everything in classical Indian music.

The piece is called Water, after the Philip Larkin poem with the same title, and was especially inspired by the final stanza:

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

The second piece, called 88 (No. 1), is also in one of Messiaen’s modes in the first half, before becoming a celebration of the mechanical nature of the piano. The performer has to put fingerless gloves on halfway through, partly in tribute to the immortal Glenn Gould, and partly because the technique requires some painful hammering. But don’t let that fool you into thinking the music is dark or angry: It is — or is meant to be — joyful.

“Three Miniatures from Water” features lots of drones from the strings ( Lauren Radnofsky on cello and Greg Chudzik on bowed upright bass).  There’s also the excellent tanpura drones from Paul Coleman and Elena Moon Park. The violin from Olivia De Prato plays a slow melody that seems to appear and disappear while the piano plays a somewhat spooky pizzicato melody.

“88 (No. 1)” is a solo piano piece by Lisa Moore (who played piano on the other piece as well).  It does seem to use all 88 keys in various fashion.  Indeed, she does put on fingerless gloves a little more than half way through the piece where she does play quite possibly every note (I can’t imagine what that looks like on paper).  For the last 45 seconds, she seems to be banging relentlessly (but tunefully–are there chords?) all over the keys.

Neither one of these pieces seem particularly joyful to me–they both seem kind of scary, but I am fascinated at the kind of compositions the guy from Radiohead makes.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “Then Again”

This is an excerpt from The Other Half, a manuscript that Ciment is writing to rebut her own 1996 memoir, Half a Life.

In that original memoir, she wrote about meeting her husband.  At the time she was seventeen and he was forty-seven (and her art teacher).

She asks what should she call him now.  “My husband”?  Yes, if it is the story is about the man she married and lived with for forty-five years.  But what if it is about an older man preying on a teenager.  Should she call him “The artist” or “the art teacher.”

She says he didn’t know what to expect when he kissed her for the first time–she could have screamed or slapped him.  But she had fantasized about him for the last six months, so that was not going to happen. (more…)

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Naguib Mahfouz–“Assassin” (Harper’s, January 2005)

Posted in Assassination, Death, Diet Cig, Feminism, Harper's, Prison, Raymond Stock, Short Story, Translation on May 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DIET CIG-“Tummy Ache” (2019).

Diet Cig put on one of my favorite Tiny Desk Concerts.  I am really looking forward to seeing them live.  Singer/guitarist Alex Luciano has more energy than anyone I’ve seen.  And drummer Noah Bowman is a perfect foil for her.

As a duo, they play simple pop punk songs that are full of energy.  Their bio sums them up quite nicely.

Diet Cig are here to have fun. They’re here to tear you away from the soul-sucking sanctity of your dumpster-fire life and replace it with pop-blessed punk jams about navigating the impending doom of adulthood when all you want is to have ice-cream on your birthday.
But there’s also a deeper, more powerful fuck-you among the bangers that see Diet Cig grow into an unstoppable and inspiring force. “I’m not being dramatic, I’ve just fucking had it with the things that you say you think that I should be” spits Luciano on ‘Link in Bio’;

Over a four chord pattern, Luciano sings

Well i’m just a kid, a girl, a runt
And i’m starting to get real sick of
Trying to find my voice
Surrounded by all boys

Between verses the guitars get louder and play a slight variation before returning to verse two:

I’ve been yelling my whole life
And finally it’s time
to make my words count
In a way i haven’t quite figured out

And i don’t need a man
To hold my hand
And that’s just something you’ll never understand x2

The end of the song shifts tone while she quietly sings

And my stomach hurts
Cause it’s hard to be a punk while wearing a skirt

Then the instrumental passage above proves to be the music for this repeated refrain/chorus.  A simple, catchy and fun song with a message.  Can’t wait for them to come back around.

[READ: May 11, 2019] “Assassin”

Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock

This is the story of Bayumi.

He has been down and out and living as a beggar.  He’d been to prison, had no friends left and no way to make money.

He wondered how he could get out of this rut.

Then someone called out to him.  The man had Bayumi follow him and then asked indifferently if he would kill al-Hagg Abd al-Samad al-Habbani. (more…)

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Chris Bachelder–“Deep Wells, USA” (Harper’s, January 2005)

Posted in Chris Bachelder, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Phish, Political Humor, Short Story, Tom Marshall, Trey Anastasio, Trey Anastasio Band on May 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TREY ANASTASIO & TOM MARSHALL-Trampled By Lambs and Pecked By the Dove (2000).

This album is a collection of songs that Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall recorded in a bunch of barns in Vermont back in 1997.  Most of the songs later appeared on the Phish albums The Story of the Ghost [GHOST] and Farmhouse [FARM]. A couple were recorded by Trey on his solo albums [TAB] and some were never properly recorded but have been played live many times [Live].

This collection was released in 2000 after the two proper albums came out and they give context for the songs and show just how fully formed most of the ideas were when the band recorded them.

“Brian and Robert” [GHOST] This version has a keyboard melody and backing washes.  “Limb by Limb” [GHOST]sounds a lot like the final product (same guitar sound) although Tom’s backing vocals aren’t anywhere near as good.  “Blue and Shiny” is a jazzy guitar song with the two singing in harmony.  It has apparently never shown up anywhere else.

“Twist” [FARM] is slower than the original but with all of the parts including the “Whoo!”  “Wading in the Velvet Sea” is a bit slower and of course less full than the final version. There’s sirens in the background which I can’t decide if they are intentional.  Although the liner notes say they were hundreds of miles from anyone else, so it’s unlikely they were police driving by.

“Farmhouse” [FARM] sounds just like the record except that Tom sings and the notes are a bit high for him.  “Saw It Again” [Live] is one of my favorite raw Phish songs.  I love hearing it every time they play it.  Although they’ve never recorded it for an album. This original version has the raw guitar sound and chanted vocals–a kernel of the final product.

“Piper” [FARM] is a 48 second nugget.  But it showcases the vocals in the round that are so awesome in the song.  “Flat Tornados” is another 48 second track.   But this one is just drums and a synth melody–nothing substantial.  “I Don’t Care” is a minute long  guitar piece.  Apparently it was played live twice and then never again.

“Windora Bug” [TAB] is an a capella piece of looped vocals (“Is that the wind.  Or a bug?  It’s a windora bug.”  The TAB version stretches out for ages and has a reggae feel.  “No Regrets” is a goof–lots of laughing and silliness over a heavy two note riff for all of 90 seconds.

“Water in the Sky” [GHOST] sounds the same except that they music here is more circusy than the final product.  But the melody and vocals are the same.  “Heavy Things” [FARM] sound pretty much the same, although with an acoustic guitar and no repeated high notes on the guitar (it’s nice to see that some things are still added afterward).

“Never” {TAB] is a pretty song with a quiet melody on synths.  “Vultures” [Live] is a quietly sing song with piano and guitar in a jazzy melody.

“Ghost”[GHOST] sounds very very different from the final version.  The vocal melody is the same but the guitar style is way different (the final product is much better).  “Dirt” [FARM] feels like the full song.  It’s quiet with whistling and a nice guitar solo.  “Driver” [FARM bonus] also sounds complete played on a quiet acoustic guitar.

“Sleep” [FARM] has the lovely guitar melody and gentle vocals.  “Olivia’s Pool” was later recorded on [GHOST as “Shafty”].  This is a bouncy jaunty jazzy version which is sung as “oblivious fool.”  “Somantin” is a full song (over three minutes long) but was never recorded anywhere else and has not been played live.  It’s mostly vocals in a round so I guess there’s not much to it.

“Bug” [FARM] is fully realized with guitar licks and piano riff all in place.  “Name” is a 2 minute quiet, simple country-sounding song.  I’m surprised he hasn’t recorded it on a solo album.  “Dogs Stole Things” [live] has never been recorded but it gets a lot of live workouts.  This version is slow and sloppy (although not that different from the live version).

This collection is really for die hards or people who like to see songs evolve.

[READ: May 9, 2020] “Deep Wells, USA”

This is the third time I’ve read this story.  The previous two times it didn’t really click with me, but this time I really liked it.

Word is out: A baby has been lost in a well!  The story has XXI sections (and an epilogue) in which we get to hear input from dozens of people involved directly or not with this crisis.

It is set up like a play, sort of, with “characters” speaking dialogue.  It begins with a Celebrity saying there is an unconfirmed report of a baby in a well.  Consumer: “Hot damn. I love well babies.”  And off we go.

The first eyewitness describes the baby as drunk with tattered clothing who fell in a box with sand in it.  That’s not a baby in a well.  That’s a wino in a sandbox. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Child’s Play” (Harper’s, February 2007)

Posted in Alice Munro, Harper's, Jealousy, King Crimson, Lakes, Led Zeppelin, Relationships, Religion, Short Story, Summer, Summer Camp, Trey Anastasio, Violence on May 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TREY ANASTASIO-One Man’s Trash (1998).

This is Trey Anastasio’s first solo album. It is a 30 minute collection of odds and ends (hence the title) and experimental pieces.  There are some kernels of real songs and some simple noise experiments (most of which are shorter).

The first three songs are kernels of songs.  “Happy Coffee Song” is a simple blues riff with a guitar solo and scatting lyrics.  “Quantegy” is three minutes long.  It’s got a bass line like Led Zeppelin’s The Lemon Song but with Trey just narrating about quantegy and materials with synths behind him.  “Mister Completely” sounds like a Phish song with intertwining lines and a catchy riff.

“A Good Stalk” is the first of the experimental noise tracks.  Feedback and backwards drum sounds make a 50 second soundscape that does indeed sound like a “A Good Stalk.”

“That Dream Machine” is a fast looping guitar pattern that sounds like it could be a King Crimson melody from the 80s.  “The Way I Feel” introduces a funky bass line (with cowbell).   “Rofa Beton” is almost three minutes of soft but fast echoing drum patterns.

“For Lew (My Bodyguard)” brings lyrics into the songs again.  This song is about two minutes long, primarily keyboard washes and synths that follow the vocal line for

‘Cause Satan is real on the fainting couch,
I can feel my curved back sink into the hot orange light;
Feels good against my arms.

Mustard walls surround me like soldiers face to face
At the Battle of Trenton.
I can feel my curved back sink into the chapel pew.
While Maurice stands guard outside, no one can defy me.
No one can get by me with Maurice standing guard outside.

‘Cause Satan is real on the fainting couch.
Satan is real inside me,
From my head down to my kidney bean.

Yup.

It’s followed by three way experimental pieces.  “At The Barbecue” is a kind of free jazz saxophone/trumpet experimental piece.  “Tree Spine” is similar to “Stalk” with pulsing deep sounds and what could be the sound of insects eating a tree.  “Here’s Mud In Your Eye” is a minute of splashing sounds–made by mouth?

“The Real Taste of Licorice” returns to proper songs with a lively three minute acoustic guitar piece.

“And Your Little Dog Too” is the longest piece at 4 minutes.  It’s echoing drums and sound effects with Trey yelling in the background.  It sounds like it is meant to be almost a savage dance.

“Jump Rope (fast version)” is thirty five seconds of meandering keyboards and what sounds like fast whipping loops (yes, like a jump rope).  “Jump Rope (slow version)” is not a slowed down version of the above.  In this one the looping sound is like a slow moving UFO.

“Kidney Bean” closes the album.  The phrase kidney bean appeared earlier (in “For Lew”).  The return is an elliptical 30 second song with the loud monotone recitation of “Now we’re talking kidney bean.”

There’s not a lot here for the casual listener.  Or even for big fans.  It’s the kind of thing that would be released for free if that was something that could have happened in 1998. I suspect people were kind of pissed to have paid money for this.

But it is kind of fun, if you like weird Phish nonsense.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “Child’s Play”

Alice Munro is a master of the short story.  This story is utterly fantastic.  They way it is written and the stunning ending are mind-blowing.

The story more or less begins with an introduction to Marlene and Charlene.  They were not twins as people might have guessed (from their names).  They were not even related.  But they were at camp together and they bonded over their similar names.  They bonded over their physical similarities and differences.  They bonded over the camp counselor they didn’t like (Arva, “she even had an unpleasant name”).

Camp was religious, but it was United Church of Canada, so there wasn’t much talk of religion, exactly.  Mostly it was talk of being nice.  But Marlene had a story of being not nice.

There was a girl in Marlene’s neighborhood named Verna.  She was described as her neighbor’s granddaughter, but there was no evidence of Verna’s mother.  Marlene had an aversion to her right from the start.  She told her mother that she hated Verna.

Her mother’s standard reaction was “The poor thing.”  Marlene’s didn’t think her mother liked Verna either rather it was  “a decision she had made to spite me, she pretended to be sorry for her”  She said “How can you blame a person for the was she was born?” (more…)

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Jonathan Lethem–“The Ecstasy of Influence: a plagiarism” (Harper’s, February 2007)

Posted in Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Charlie Parker, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dizzy Gillespie, Essays, Free Speech, Harold Bloom, Harper's, Heinz von Lichberg, Jonathan Lethem, Lewis Hyde, Mary Shelley, Michael Maar, Muddy Waters, Museum of Modern Art, Nazis, Negativland, Robert Boynton, Robert Johnson, Robert The, Saul Bellow, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Son House, The Beatles, The Monkees, The Simpsons, Thomas Jefferson, Vladimir Nabokov, William Gibson on May 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO-My LIfe in the Bush of Ghosts [Remix website] (1981, 2006).

I’m stealing the bulk of these comments from a Pitchfork review of the album reissue because I have never actually listened to this album which I’ve known about for decades.

When Eno and Byrne released My Life in 1981 it seemed like a quirky side project.  But now, Nonesuch has repackaged it as a near-masterpiece, a milestone of sampled music, and a peace summit in the continual West-meets-rest struggle. So we’re supposed to see Bush of Ghosts as a tick on the timeline of important transgressive records.  Nonesuch made an interesting move that could help Bush of Ghosts make history all over again: they launched a “remix” website, at www.bush-of-ghosts.com, where any of us can download multitracked versions of two songs, load them up in the editor of our choice, and under a Creative Commons license, do whatever we want with them.

The only thing is, at the time this review was written, the site was not up yet.  And as I write this in 2019, there’s nothing on the site except for a post from 2014 about Virgin Media and Sky TV.  Alas.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “The Ecstasy of Influence”

Back in the day I was a vocal proponent of free speech.  It was my Cause and I was very Concerned about it.

It’s now some thirty years later and I don’t really have a Cause anymore.  It’s not that I care less about free speech, but I do care less about the Idea of free speech.

Had I read this article in the 1990s, I would have framed it.  Right now I’m just very glad that people are still keeping the torch alive.

Lethem begins this essay about plagiarism by discussing a novel in which a travelling salesman is blown away by the beauty of a preteen girl named Lolita  That story, Lolita, was written in 1916 by Heinz von Lichberg.  Lichberg later became a journalist for the Nazis and his fiction faded into history.  But Vladimir Nabokov lived in Berlin until 1937.  Was this unconscious borrowing or was it “higher cribbing.”

The original is evidently not very good and none of the admirable parts of Nabokov’s story are present in the original.

Or Bob Dylan.  He appropriated lines in many of his songs.  He borrowed liberally from films, paintings and books.  Perhaps that is why Dylan has never refused a request for a sample. (more…)

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Dinaw Mengestu–“Addis Ababa, 1977” (Harper’s, February 2007)

Posted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dinaw Mengestu, Ethiopia, Excerpt, Harper's, Kelsey Lu, Politicians, Skrillex, Violence on May 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KELSEY LU-“Due West” (2019).

I hadn’t intended to listen to so much of the Kelsey Lu album, but the third track was the one produced by Skrillex and I was curious what it would sound like.

I was expecting something very dancey and poppy.  It is nowhere near as over the top as I would have imagined.  Rather, it has a wonderful subtle hook in the bridge just because she sings a few words faster than the other.  Nearly everything else she sings is soft and slow, this little uptick is really cool.

Of the three songs, this is certainly the peppiest. It has some catchy electronic drums and definitive dance quality.  It’s still remarkably understate.

But i can see that the whole album could have sounded very different had she picked different producers.

The song ends with a surprisingly long guitar passage.  It is gentle and sweet with what sounds like crickets playing in the background.

I really don;t know all that much about Skrillex, but I think he’s a wild dancey EDM kinda guy.  The little I know leaves me astonished that he could produce something so subtle and pretty.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “Addis Ababa, 1977”

This is an excerpt from the novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.

It is a horrifying example of what it was like to grow up in Ethiopia in 1977.

The bedroom is a wreck and letters are scattered all over.  He will forever be able to see the room, the house, like this.

Soldiers have arrived. The house guards had already left (begging forgiveness as they fled).  There are three soldiers in the house and at least four waiting in the truck,

The lead solider pushes his father in to the room, considering him weak and vulnerable.  The soldiers can’t be more than a year or two older than the narrator. (more…)

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Miranda July–“The Swim Team” (Harper’s January 2007)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Kelsey Lu, Miranda July, Romance, Short Story, Skrillex, Swimming on May 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KELSEY LU-“Pushin Against the Wind” (2019).

The Kelsey Lu album has a song produced by Skrillex, and I was really surpirsed at how gentle the first song on the album was.  I was listening on Spotify and the second song started.

I was astonished how much the song sounded like a 70’s (British) folk song.

“Pushin Against the Wind” opens with a quiet, simple guitar melody.  Kelsey sings softly over the top.  The thing that sets it apart happens about a minute in when the tone changes.  She sings slightly faster and this bridge is punctuated by chunky percussion accents.  But those modern sounds are sparingly used, and this song feels delightfully timeless.

The song never gets all that big, but the end pulls the sound back even further to a simple cello and xylophone melody as she sings over the top.

This song is quite enchanting.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “The Swim Team”

This is a very short story (two pages) about the narrator living in a small town called Belvedere when she was twenty-two. The town was so small it wasn’t even a town–just houses near a gas station.

The citizens of the town thought her name was Maria and she was overwhelmed by the task of correcting people.

She knew three people: Elizabeth, Kelda and Jack Jack. (“I am not completely sure about the name Kelda, but that’s what it sounded like and that’s the sound I made when I called her name”).  They were all in their eighties at least.

There are no bodies of water or pools in Belvedere, but “Maria” gave the three of them swimming lessons.  None of the three of them could swim, and when Maria said she used to swim on her high school team, they asked her to be their coach. (more…)

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Pamela Lu–“Ambient Parking Lot” (Harper’s, January 2007)

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, Huh?, Kelsey Lu, Music, Pamela Lu, Skrillex, The Flaming Lips, Theater on May 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KELSEY LU-“Rebel” (2019).

I saw that Kelsey Lu was playing NonCOMM this year.  I had never heard of her, but her record was getting some high praise.  Then as I was going through some older Harper’s things, I saw this story by Pamela Lu.  I quickly thought it might be the same person.  Then I double checked and of course they are different, they just have the same last name.

Kelsey Lu is a classically trained cellist and has become one of many classical performers who have migrated into the pop world.  She is certainly underplaying her chops on the record, going more for melody than virtuosity.

This piece opens with a pizzicato cello (looped I assume).  It is overlaid with a mournful melody before Kelsey sings in her quiet but affecting voice.

The song is just over three and a half minutes and it slowly builds with more and more organic sounds–strings and voices.  By the half way point, there’s echo and by the three minute mark, this quiet, almost chamber pop song has built into a full-sounding piece which just as quickly drops nearly all the music as two cellos fade the song to the end.

It’s an astonishingly pretty and subtle song to start an album that has production credits from Skrillex (on a different song).

[READ: April 24, 2019] “Ambient Parking Lot”

I started reading this excerpt and thought it might have had something to do withe The Flaming Lips’ Parking Lot Experiments:

During 1996 and 1997, The Flaming Lips ran a series of events known as “The Parking Lot Experiments”. The concept was inspired by an incident in Coyne’s youth, where he noticed that car radios in the parking lot at a concert were playing the same songs at the same time, Wayne Coyne created 40 cassette tapes to be played in synchronization. The band invited people to bring their cars to parking lots, where they would be given one of the tapes and then instructed when to start them. The music was “a strange, fluid 20 minute sound composition.”  [from Wikipedia]

I’ll assume there is some kernel of something, maybe, that inspired this, frankly, disappointing piece.

It begins by talking about the recording of “Ambient Parking #25.”

With just a little filtering, the empty landscape managed to express its industrially generated solipsism and came to overshadow even the engine gunning and trunk popping of SUVs.

The seven inch vinyl was released two weeks later on an indie label.

It was a huge success compared to attempts 1-24 and inspired them to make a full album. (more…)

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Joyce Carol Oates–“The Unexpected” (Harper’s, May 2019)

Posted in Canadian Music, Harper's, Joyce Carol Oates, Nostalgia, Rheostatics, Short Story, Surreal, The Tragically Hip, Universities, tagged on April 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, ON (December 11, 1996).

This is the 22nd night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour.  This is the last date of the tour (so far) for which there are recordings.

The show opens with a great “Midwinter Night’s Dream” followed by a rocking “Fat.”  As the song ends with the “bye byes” Dave save “see you in the next song, Martin.”

“All the Same Eyes” is a rocking good time.  And then, after a little riff, Martin starts “Motorino” which sounds great.

Dave says, “Hi we’re the Rheostatics, not to be confused with The Howl Brothers–they couldn’t make it.  But we’ve got their jackets.”  He mentions that they have a new album out, “get it before its reduced to clear.”

During “Bad Time to Be Poor” after “feeling winter through a crack in the door,” Tim goes brrrrrr.  More Tim on “Claire” with some great soaring harmony vocals before Martin’s rather grunting solo.  Although at the end, instead of spelling C-L-A-I-R-E, Tim seems to be singing Steve L.A. yea yea yea confides in me”

The set ends with two scorching tracks.  A terrific “California Dreamline” and a roaring “Feed Yourself” (with a really intense ending).

As the feedback fades, Dave says, “Thanks to the Tragically Hip.  God bless.”

It’s a nice way to end the tour–but maybe someday we’ll hear those last two shows.

[READ: April 9, 2019] “The Unexpected”

This was a darkly amusing story (yes, it is Joyce Carol Oates) that I had to wonder if it was in any way autobiographical or just horrifyingly possible.

The story is about a writer receiving an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the community college near her home town in update New York.  She left and never came back, but has been writing about her home town for much of her career.

She is awkward from the start, “Thank you for the honor.  I am very–honored.”

She receives applause–not thunderous, but polite, even warm .  But her speech seems to fall flat (if it can even be heard over the fighter jets).  But when she is finished, she pauses and the response is enthusiastic and she wonders “Is there where I belong now?” (more…)

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