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Archive for the ‘New Yorker’ Category

Paul Theroux–“The Furies” (New Yorker, February 25, 2013)

Posted in Dead Can Dance, Dentists, Humiliation, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Nine Inch Nails, Paul Theroux, Reunion, Sexism, Short Story, Swedish Music, The Art of Noise, The Knife on May 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_02_25_13Ulriksen.inddSOUNDTRACK: THE KNIFE-Shaking the Habitual (2013).

theknife2Since I reviewed the 19 minute song from this album yesterday I thought I’d check out the rest of the disc (still a handful).  I kept bearing in mind that The Knife are pretty much a dance duo.  So this departure is not only radical, it pretty much undercuts the kind of music they make.  The progress is probably exciting but I imagine fans would turn away in droves.  I wonder how this record will play out for them in the long run.  Incidentally, I wasn’t a fan before, so I don’t really have a horse in this race.

“A Tooth for an Eye” opens the record with an interesting percussion sound an a pulsing keyboard melody.  The keening vocals come in sounding weird and distant and more than a little eerie.  “Full of Fire” is a 9-minute song with a weird skittery “melody” that seems to float above the battered mechanical “drum.”  The whispered vocals are strained and also a little creepy.  The middle section has the skittery music jump around while the vocals get even more processed—making it simultaneously more friendly and less so.  It’s probably the coolest weird song on the disc, with parts that are catchy and interesting and parts that are just peculiar.  This is the single, by the way.

“A Cherry on Top” is 8 minutes of reasonable quietude, with the second half introducing an autoharp.  It’s certainly the most mellow thing on the disc.  Although it’s not exactly relaxing.  “Without You My Life Would Be Boring” seems like it should be the single—it is propulsive and while the vocals are certainly odd, they are the most conventional thing on the album.  “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” has big electronic pulsing drums and whispered vocals.  It’s a fairly normal sounding song (at least for this album), and could easily play in a goth club.

“Crake” is 55 second of squalling feedback.  The album also has “Oryx” which is 37 second of wailing noise.  In between is the 10 minute “Raging Lung” which is not available on Spotify.  “Networking” a skittering beat with a second beat that may just be a sample of a person making noise in his or her throat.  The “voices” get stranger throughout the song, keening, twisting and spinning, reminiscent of The Art of Noise.

“Stay Out Here” is a ten minute song.  It starts with a fairly standard electronic drumbeat.  Whispered vocals come in giving it a kind of Nine Inch Nails vibe, until the female vocals come in (and are quickly manipulated to sound kind of male).  The switch from male and female vocals is interesting, giving it an almost modern sounding Dead Can Dance feel.

“Fracking Fluid Injection” has sounds like scraping, rusted gates as the beat with sampled voices overlaid.  Again, this is nearly 10 minute long.  The problem with things like this, aside from their relative tediousness, is that they aren’t all that original.  Now originality is nothing to hold a band to, we all know, but if you’re going to do non-form sounds that are echoed with little else to it, it would be more interesting if there was something original to pin to it.  “Ready to Lose” ends the album with a steady beat and a pretty standard vocal line (even if the voices are processed).

So this album us a pretty radical departure for the band and it’s a pretty radical departure for dance music as a whole.  I’m curious to see if this will lead to a anything or if this will be their one weird album.

[READ: April 15, 2013] “The Furies”

The story opens with a rather creepy man stating at his wedding reception that he is in an exclusive club: “There are not too many men who can say that they’re older than their father-in-law.” Ew.  He was fifty-eight, his new wife 31.  His father-in-law is 56.  The father-in-law seems okay with this, but really how could he be?

Ray is a dentist and his new wife, Shelly, had been his hygienist for years.  When Shelly told him she was thinking of getting a new job, he professed his love for her, and informed his wife, Angie that he was in love with Shelly.  Angie took it badly, but he was surprised when she seemed mad that he didn’t do this years earlier while she still had a chance to meet someone (rather than being distraught that he was leaving her).  As a parting shot she says that she wishes him ill.  And she hope he suffers with the woman who took him from her.

But they had no children, just assets, and things were divided evenly and cleanly.  And he thanked his lucky starts to be with a new woman, someone who was fun and so different from his first wife. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Long Way Home” (New Yorker, April 1, 2013)

Posted in David Sedaris, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Poo, Sasha Frere-Jones, Swedish Music, The Knife, Travel on May 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_04_01_13Gutierez.inddSOUNDTRACK: THE KNIFE-“Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized” (2013).

theknife With the release of The Knife’s new album, the New Yorker review that I mentioned yesterday pointed out just how radically different this new disc is from the synth pop of yore.  Sasha Frere-Jones talked about the weird instrumentation that they use (and made themselves) and the processed vocals that often defy gender.  But he mostly focused on this, a 19 minute song.

What’s so radically different for The Knife is that the song isn’t really a song so much as a series of slow washes of keyboards which rise and fall.  There’s no melody at all and no singing either.  It’s basically an uneasy ambient song–quite a departure from the three-minute pop of “Heartbeats.”  There’s also a bunch of percussion, also seemingly random.  It sounds like a bleak landscape–the moon perhaps.

At around 10 minutes, the washes of sound (which have been pretty constant and low volume) are eclipsed by a processed steel drum sound which play a little melody and just as quickly goes away.  Helicopter-ish sounds come to the fore around 13 minutes.  And that louder noise stays with us for a couple of minutes until it is replaced by a very mechanical-sounding moaning.

After 19 minutes of this, it simply vanishes leaving a minute or so of silence at the end of the track.  You’re not going to get too many fans playing music like that.

 [READ: April 28, 2013] “Long Way Home”

In this piece, Sedaris revisits a moment that has got to be a major fear for a lot of people—the theft of a passport.  Sedaris has a British passport with an Indefinite Leave to Remain sticker on it.  This basically allows him (and partner Hugh) freedom to come and go as they please in the UK—a handy thing for a traveling author.  When the passport is stolen, it means that rather than waltzing back home, he has to go through the same old scrutiny (a writer, eh?) and very real threats that they could simply not allow him back in.

Evidently receiving this sticker is a laborious process not for the faint of heart (and not for those whose grasp of English is not perfect).  Which is why David let Hugh do all the prep work for it (although David did ace the test).  There’s a very funny sequence in which he wonders how non Westerners might deal with the question, “How might you stop young people playing tricks on you at Halloween?”  Needless to say, not having that sticker was a major hassle, but reapplying for it meant surrendering the new passport for several months while bureaucracy got its sticker together.  Which is what he eventually had to do. (more…)

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Kelly Davio–Burn This House (2013)

Posted in José González, Kelly Davio, New Yorker, Poetry, Poets, Sasha Frere-Jones, Short Books, Swedish Music, The Knife on April 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Burn-This-House-175x250SOUNDTRACK: THE KNIFE-“Heartbeats” (2002).

knifeheart

I learned of this song from the José González cover that was featured in the (very cool) Sony video with the bouncing balls.  The song turned me on to González, but not necessarily the song itself.  I knew The Knife did the original  and I remember when I first heard it, I didn’t like it nearly as much as the González version.

It’s been a few years and there’s a new The Knife album out and in the New Yorker review of it Sasha Frere-Jones mentioned this song again.  So I wanted to listen to it without the cover so prominent.  And indeed, the González cover is quite straightforward (acoustic guitar rather than mega synth, but otherwise pretty spot on). The Knife’s version is very retro synth-sounding .  It reminds me of a wacky 80s song.  Or perhaps a 2000’s Europop song.

The vocals are high-pitched and a wee bit over the top, but all in all it’s very catchy.  Frere-Jones said that The Knife version was very popular but evidently I didn’t travel in those circles because I don’t recognize it as being huge.

And I still like José’s version better.

I know it’s not really cool to show the video of the cover version when I’m talking about the original, and it’s really not that cool to use a commercial as a video, but it is still very fun to watch.

[READ: April 30, 2013] Burn This House

For the last day of April, the last day of poetry month, I read a new book of poetry that came across my desk today.  This is Kelly Davio’s first collection.  She is an MFA and quite an accomplished poet (managing editor and Pushcart nominee).  I also thought that I would see if she was a “modern, weird” poet or a more traditional one (I secretly hoped for more traditional as I’d burnt out on wacky ones).  For the most part she is more traditional and I liked most of her poems quite a lot.

The book was divided into five sections.  And I have to admit that the final few sections contained poems which seems a little forced to me (more on that later).  For it was in the early pages that I thought the poetry was most magnificent.

Although when I first started reading I was afraid that the poetry was going to be ponderous without enough concrete detail.  Like in “auguries” which showed a series of potential omens (Davio seems to have a thing with birds crashing into windows) which were effective, but I didn’t like the ending: “To what /significance such eroded things?” It seemed too vague to be powerful.

But the poems that came right after were just wonderful with detail like in “The First Lines” which had this description of a scarecrow: (more…)

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Roddy Doyle–“Recuperation” (New Yorker, December 15, 2003)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Depression, Dublin, Ireland, Irish Writer, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Roddy Doyle, Short Story, Telekinesis, Wild Flag on March 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

2003_12_15_p139SOUNDTRACK: TELEKINESIS-“Ghosts and Creatures” (Live at SXSW, March 21, 2013).

telekinesis

Telekinesis is, as far as I can tell, the brainchild of one guy (NPR points out twice in three paragraphs that the singer/songwriter is a drummer).  He has some special guests playing with him in this set (although nobody terribly famous–the keyboardist from Wild Flag (the only one in the band who I can never remember).

In a typical Telekinesis show the drums are up at the front of the stage.  That’s true here, too.  In this case the singer is standing, just playing maracas (and presumably the bass drum) for the first 2/3 of the song.  But by the end he sits down and starts pounding along with the song.

This song is a an interesting mix of dark (the keyboard’s minor chords) and bright (the guitar picking).  I enjoyed the way the song built over the course of its four minutes (including a cool break where it was just the keyboard).  At first I didn’t think there was much to the song, but after three listens I really got into it.  The harmonies were really good and there was some cool intricacy going on. I think watching the video helped as well (the bass player is really into it).

You too can watch it here.

[READ: March 26, 2013] “Recuperation”

This is the final uncollected story that I read from Roddy Doyle (okay, that Wikipedia list is clearly old as I see that both this and “Teaching” have since been collected in Bullfighting).  Oh well, that’s alright, then.

In this story, an old man goes for a walk.

And that’s it.

coolockWell, not entirely of course.  The man was told to go for walks by his doctor.  He needs the exercise and as he doesn’t golf or go to golf clubs or join groups, the doctor says he should go for a walk.  So the man walks around a nearby neighborhood, knowing that no one will stop and talk to him. And Doyle knows his area of Dublin, so we get a very detailed walkabout as the man traipses around Coolock in Dublin (by the Cadbury’s and the Classic Furniture). (more…)

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Roddy Doyle–”Teaching” (New Yorker, April 2, 2007)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Music, Depression, Drinking, Dublin, Ireland, Haim, Humiliation, Irish Writer, Metz, New Yorker, Roddy Doyle, Set at School, Short Story on March 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

2007_04_02_p139SOUNDTRACK: METZ-“Wet Blanket” (Live at SXSW, March 20, 2013).

metzIt’s amazing how much different two bands can sound (comparing Haim from yesterday to Metz from today).  Obviously, they play very different styles of music, but Metz is just three guys and they are loud and bass heavy and raucous. Whereas Haim, with their four members, have practically no low end at all.  It’s an amazing look at how different bands can be while playing basically the same instruments.

Anyhow, Metz are a noise rock trio from Canada.  I’d never heard of them before this song.  There’s a lot of noise as the song opens, but once the groove starts, it’s fast and heavy with pounding drums and a persistent, fast bass.  The band, who are dressed nicely (the singer guitarist has a button down shirt open over his T-shirt), are really abrasive and punky.  And the singer/screamer is a wild man–climbing on the bass drum to wail his solo, feedbacking the guitar from the amps and not even playing the guitar as he screams into the microphone (but there is noise, so I wonder if he has an echo effect on).  At one point someone in the audience even holds the microphone closer to him while he screams as he seems to be having trouble with it.

It’s an intense set and I’d like to hear more from them.  Their debut came out last year (on Sub Pop).

You can watch this song here.

[READ: March 26, 2013] “Teaching”

Another story from Doyle, this one is a dark story about being an old and near-retirement teacher (Doyle was himself a teacher).

The story opens with a girl saying that he, the teacher, knew her mother.  This has been happening more and more now that the students he taught when he was young have had children who are now as old as they were.  The girl says her mom fancied him and he makes a poor joke wondering if the girl can believe it, but he’s just made uncomfortable by the exchange.

In fact, he mostly just seems to want to try to get through the day.  It’s only September and he has a whole school year ahead of him.  He never drinks at school, that is a rule he will always abide by, but that doesn’t mean he won’t drink after school.   Which he does.  Although to describe him as an alcoholic (which I guess he is) kind of takes something away from the thrust of the story.  The alcohol is a part of who he is but it doesn’t impact the story, exactly. (more…)

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Will Mackin–“Kattekoppen” (New Yorker, March 11, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, John Le Carré, Kattekoppen, Military, New Yorker, Of Montreal, Short Story, Sinkane, The Afghan Whigs, Threats, Usher, Will Mackin, Yeasayer, Yuck! on March 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_03_11_13Blitt.indd

SOUNDTRACK: SINKANE-“Jeeper Creeper” (SXSW, March 21, 2013).

sinkaneI’ve never heard of Sinkane either (was there anyone at this SXSW that I knew?).  NPR is streaming on song from this band.  It’s about 7 minutes of low-key funk with reggae-like guitars, some great bass jams and simple lyrics.  I really like the vibe that the song gives off.  They would be a great band to see live.

Sinkane later played with Usher and The Afghan Whigs, which shows a very cool range.  And evidently Sinkane leader Ahmed Gallab has collaborated with the likes of Yeasayer and Of Montreal.

Watch it here.

[READ: March 19, 2013] “Kattekoppen”

I had just finished John LeCarré’s excerpt in Harper’s when I read this short story (or possibly excerpt—it ended rather oddly).  So here was another spying operation, although this one was American and military-based.  I know very little about military operations, so this was all new to me.  And there were some things I liked about this story quite a bit. The story is set in Afghanistan where the army has just brought in a new howitzer-liaison (good job title, that) named Levi.  Levi is Dutch and yet somehow still in the US Army–and he is a good soldier.   His wife lives in Texas and is about to have a baby.

Levi gets Dutch care packages a lot.  In addition to stroopawaffles (yum!) are Kattekoppen which are cat-shaped licorice-like objects.  Levi loved them as a kid bit now he puts them on the shelf of things that people don’t want (until they desperately want them).  Eventually the narrator tries one and immediately spits it out because it tastes like ammonia.  He’s not even able to get the taste out with snow… or dirt.  It’s that bad.  I found this part of the story quite interesting.

The rest of the story was more specific to military operations.  He talks about how Levi targeted the howitzer and how he made target rings which offered an area of projection for where the shell would strike.  And that he was very good at it.  The minor problem was that Levi wanted to be home for his son’s birth.  Not a big problem except that thy Generals wouldn’t give them a new howitzer liaison in the meantime. (more…)

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Colm Tóibín–“Summer of ’38” (New Yorker, March 4, 2013)

Posted in Babies, Cocteau Twins, Colm Tóibín, Deftones, Duran Duran, Helmet, Irish Writer, Morrissey, New Yorker, Sex, The Cardigans, The Cars, The Cure, The Smiths, War on March 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_03_04_13Chast.inddSOUNDTRACK: DEFTONES-B-Sides & Rarities (2005).

220px-Deftones_-_b-sides

Deftones released this B-sides collection after Deftones.  It contains mostly covers.  They also later released an album called Covers which has all of these covers and some new ones.  Covers was released on Record Store Day and is really hard to get now.  The covers that are extra to that CD are: “Drive” (originally by The Cars), “Caress” (originally by Drive Like Jehu), “Do You Believe” (originally by The Cardigans), “Ghosts” (originally by Japan) and “Sleep Walk” (originally by Santo & Johnny).   Despite those interesting songs, B-Sides and Rarities is no slouch.

“Savory” is a cover of a song by Jawbox.  Chino’s voice sounds so utterly different here, I completely don’t recognize him.  It’s not the most impressive start to the collection as even after a lot of listens the song still hasn’t really stuck for me, but it’s also one of the few songs I didn’t know beforehand.  (It turns out the cover was actually by the band Far (with the members of Deftones playing as well)).  But it was the Cocteau Twins cover that really blew me away.  The Cocteau Twins, an ethereal lighter than air band get a very respectful treatment here.  “Wax and Wane” has a pretty heavy bass line which Chi produces (with cool effects on it), and while Chino doesn’t try to ape Elizabeth’s Fraser’s voice, he does a great job in her register (how he figured out the words, I can’t imagine). Lynyrd Skynyrd’s  “Simple Kind of Man” gets the Deftones treatment with whispered/creepy vocals in the first verse and a big loud chorus.  The cover of Helmet’s “Sinatra” is very heavy (I don’t know the original but I know other Helmet songs) but it doesn’t sound quite like Helmet–a perfect Deftones take on the band, with very low tuned bass strings.  The second biggest surprise comes from their cover of Sade’s “No Ordinary Love.”  I don’t know the original, but I do know about Sade and this song keeps all of the funky bass and the slinky sexiness of a typical Sade song.  But it adds an interesting slightly sinister vibe that really makes the song stand out.

The band performs a great spooky gothy cover of The Cure’s “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep” (at what I gather is a live tribute show) complete with that weird Middle Eastern sounding guitar and the cool splash cymbal.  It’s followed by a great cover of The Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” and he does a surprisingly good Morrissey.   Their cover of Duran Durans “The Chauffeur” was the first cover that I had heard by the band and it was the first time I thought about how cool a Duran Duran song could sound: win-win.

There are some reinterpretations of Deftones originals as well.  “Change (In the House of Flies)” works very well in the acoustic format–sounding somehow more dramatic.  “Teenager” has a trippy Twin Peaks vibe when it opens.  This is the “Idiot Version” with guys from Idiot Pilot joining the Deftones.  It doesn’t sound all that different from the version on White Pony and yet I really didn’t recognize it out of context.  “Crenshaw Punch/I’ll Throw Rocks at You” is the heaviest thing on the album, with loud abrasive guitars.  It was a B-Side from Around the Fur.  My least favorite track is “Black Moon” which is a sung by B-Real from Cypress Hill.  I liked Cypress Hill a lot back in the day, but there’s something unsatisfying about this pairing–or maybe it’s just that this songs really sticks out on the disc.  The acoustic “Digital Bath” is trippy and very cool–it’s amazing when they strip down their songs, which are usually so abrasive and heavy and they still manage to sound great.  “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” is another acoustic piece with a remix by DJ Crook.

More than just a stop gap or a collection of misfit tracks, this is a really cohesive Deftones album and actually a great place to start for people trying to ease their way into the band.

[READ: March 3, 2013] “Summer of ’38”

This story is about Montse.  Montse is an old woman with three children.  Her husband died some time ago and she is by herself.  Her daughters come to visit her but she doesn’t like to be a bother to them.  On this occasion, her daughter Ana says that she met a man who is writing a book about the war and he would like to talk to Montse to see if she has any recollections of the time (she was a teenager in 1938).

Montse doesn’t want to talk to the man, she says she won’t remember anything and why doesn’t he write the book without her.  But the man arrives anyway.  When he asks her questions, she says she knows nothing about the war.  But he says that a retired general (for Franco) is coming to their town to show the writer war locations.  The general says he remembers Montse’s name and would like to meet with her.  His name is Rudolfo Ramirez.  She says she barely remembers him and that maybe she’s even thinking of someone else.

The writer says it’s not a big deal but is she would like to meet with him he will be at the cafe on Saturday for a casual lunch. She gives a reluctant maybe and the writer leaves. (more…)

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William Trevor–“The Women” (New Yorker, January 14, 2013)

Posted in Culture Shock, Deftones, Marriage Trouble, Metallica, New Yorker, Short Story, Tool, William Trevor on February 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_01_14_13Mattotti.inddSOUNDTRACK: DEFTONES-Deftones (2003)

defTypically when a band has a self titled album in  the middle of their career a change is taking place–a re-imagining, perhaps or a return to roots.  Deftones is something of a return to roots.  Since I loved White Pony’s diversity so much that’s a little disappointing for me, and yet while there aren’t as many interesting sonic ideas, the songwriting is still top notch and there are some really catchy and clever ideas too.  The first song, “Hexagram” is a very heavy (and very screamy) song.  And although the guitars during the verse are bright and ringing (nods to alt rock) this song is all about being heavy (the vocals seems like Chino Moreno’s throat is literally shredding as he songs).  “Needles and Pins” has a cool complex drum patter (Abe Cunningham, fabulous) and the guitars (Stephen Carpenter, also fabulous) are staggered and interesting.  And when the bass really comes in on counterpoint (Chi Cheng, doing some amazing stuff on the bass), the song is far more complex than the screamed heavy chorus might indicate.

“Minerva” has all of the trappings of a hit–a big chorus in a major key, and great verses.  And yet, the song’s production is very claustrophobic (it kind of has a Tool feel).  That doesn’t detract from the song at all, but it’s interesting that they would take something that could have easily been huge and yet made it a little less user friendly.  “Good Morning Beautiful” has some really heavy guitars (especially in the chorus) but the vocals are kind of soaring here–more of that contrast adding up to something wonderful.

After the heavy onslaught of these songs, “Deathblow” slows things down.  The guitar and bass are slow and kind of stretched out(and sound great together).  They really let Chino’s voice show off.  “When Girls Telephone Boys” is a heavy blast from the start.  And like a lot of these songs the distortion might actually be a little too much–it kind of makes the song less pleasant than it might be–which is obviously intentional.  “Battle-axe” opens with a mellow guitar intro (not unlike Metallica’s “One”) but the verses immediately introduce the heavy guitars again.

And yet, just as this albums seems like it will be all heavy and relentless, the band throws in “Lucky You” a song with electronic trip hop drums and effects.  It is a creative song and quite interesting, it just seems so odd to throw this in almost all the way at the end of the disc.  It stays moody throughout with layers of vocals and guitars.  But “Bloody Cape” snaps you out of that with a pummeling guitar intro, although as with White Pony, the verses open up with some interesting guitar sounds making this song more than it seems at first.  But make no mistake, this is a punishing, pummeling song by the end.  “Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event” throws another curveball, though. It opens with a slow piano riff and stays as a slow ballad (complete with gentle percussion and washes of sound).

The disc ends with “Moana” probably the most conventional (which is not a bad thing) song on the record.  It doesn’t have the heavy downtuned riffs, just big guitars and Chino’s whispering voice.  So in some ways this album is a disappointment–especially coming after the experiments of White Pony.  And yet the album is not un-experimental it is simply experimenting within a much smaller genre pallete.  I’d read that it seemed like this album came before White Pony, and it does, as if they were stepping back from their crazier impulses.  But the quality of the songwriting is till strong.

[READ: February 28, 2013] “The Women”

I had started this story last month and then lost the magazine.  I thought that maybe I could pick up where I left off, but it turned out I only remembered the part about the two women, not the main character, so I had to start over again.

The story is about Cecilia Normanton who grew up in the 1908s with her father but didn’t know her mother.  Mr Normanton and his wife had a happy, laughter-filled marriage for two years and then she was gone (which in this case means she left–not that she died).  The first section of the story talks a lot about Cecilia in her daily life–she was very pretty for her age but also very naive and she was permitted a rather carefree life.

Until she was sent to boarding school.  Which she hated at first.  Then she grew to like it and her father was relieved about that.  The school is nice, she is well treated and she makes good friends   Although she hates being forced to go to the field hockey games–especially since her least favorite person is on the team (and the team never loses).

At one game, two older women are watching–Cecilia noticed them at one previous game as well.  She can’t figure out who they are–they’re not former students, they’re not for the other team, their presence is weird.  And at that game they almost interact when Cecilia drops her watch and the women narrowly avoid stepping on it, but really there is no connection.

Nevertheless, the narrative follows the women as they return from the game by train.  We learn about their lives and their history together–they used to work together and call each other by their last names.  (more…)

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Nicole Krauss–“Zusya on the Roof” (New Yorker, February 4, 2013)

Posted in Babies, Books about writers, Death, Garbage, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Nicole Krauss, Nirvana, Religion, Short Story on February 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_02_04_13Schossow.inddSOUNDTRACK: GARBAGE-Bleed Like Me (2005).

Wbleedhat happens when you take something slick and shiny and remove the shine?  You get something slick and dull.  And that’s the overall feel of Garbage’s fourth album.  After the dance pop of Beautiful Garbage, Bleed Like Me was d described as a return to the rock roots of Garbage.  And it’s true that there’s a lot more guitar.  But as in the production of Beautiful, the guitars feel really anemic–again, coming from Bitch Vig who made Nirvana’s guitars roar, this is a major surprise.

Worse than the production though s the utterly generic feel of the songs and the lyrics.  Manson was most powerful when she was personal.  Even if the songs were oblique, you knew they were about something.  But these songs just feel like words, and she sings them as if they were just words.

The single was “Why Do You Love Me” and it opens with a powerful heavy metal guitar riff.  But the verses quiet down and the chorus is fast but without any oomph.  It’s quickly forgotten and even the lyrics: “Why do you love me it’s driving me crazy” don’t really make you want to learn more about it.  “Run Baby Run” had potential for a radio friendly hit but it’s also quickly forgotten.

Then there’s the songs that seem to be about something.  “Sex is Not the Enemy” seems like it could be transgressive but it’s really not–it feels like a last stand from a beaten person rather than a rocking anthem.  Musically it’s mediocre and even lyrically it’s not that shocking/surprising.

“Boys Wanna Fight” brings some of that electronic feel back and it injects some life into the disc, but again the song isn’t that inspiring.

I wonder how much I would have liked this album without the history behind it.  I know that bands need to experiment and try different things, but it felt like Garbage fell especially far from the heights that I held them.  Garbage tool a pretty lengthy hiatus after this album–Shirley went into acting (catch her on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and it seemed like the band was finished.

[READ: February 7, 2010] “Zusya on the Roof”

I read a story with a very similar setup recently (not implying that Krauss read it or anything).  In Russell Banks’ story “Christmas Party” a divorced man goes to his ex-wife’s new house and takes her newborn baby and…  the story ends.  [Spoiler, sort of].  This story has a similar arc.  And I guess I don’t understand this arc.  Or maybe, although I’m usually okay with endings that are vague, when you have a person with a baby, there are so many different possible endings that not leaning in one way or the other is just unfair–yes we can get clues from the story, but one never fully knows what a person’s intentions are.

This story also relies a lit on Jewish tradition.  And I find a lot of Orthodox behavior inscrutable (as Zusya seems to).  So I tend to get lost in the traditions.  Especially when, as in this story, names are used to indicate a tradition that I simply don;t know (and yes, this is my fault, not the author’s, unless she wanted to appeal to a goyish crowd).

So in this story, Zusya is about to become a grandfather.  But he falls ill just as his grandson is about to be born.  In his haze of hospital care, the grandson is born and he imagines that he gave birth to the boy–a kind of my life for his deal.  And when the grandfather recovers, he has strong emotional ties to the boy. (more…)

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Zadie Smith–“The Embassy of Cambodia” (New Yorker, February 11 & 18, 2013)

Posted in Africa, Boredom, Garbage, New Yorker, Racism, Short Story, Swimming, Zadie Smith on February 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_02_11_13Greiner.inddSOUNDTRACK: GARBAGE-Beautiful Garbage (2001).

beautifulI loved Version 2.0 but never really absorbed just how poppy it was.  So Beautiful Garbage took me by surprise.  It seem like more of a natural progression if you listen in sequence but it’s impossible to imagine that the buzzing guitars of “Queer” would morph into something like “Can’t Cry These Tears” in just two albums.  “Tears” is practically girl groupy, it is so poppy and Spektorish.  Yes, there are some buzzy guitars, but wow.  What’s more surprising though  is the amount of manipulation that is done to Manson’;s voice.  Garbage was always about deconstruction and technology–they always mixed genres, but “Til the Day I Die” uses some pretty generic voice scratching  as if trying for a pop hit.  Or more specifically a dance hit.

The single from the album, “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)” doesn’t even sound like Garage–Manson’s voice is so treacly it has to be processed (and indeed it was sped up for the song).  “Shut Your Mouth” also seemed to head straight for the dancefloor and the rather anemic introductory sounds of “Androgyny” were a surprise.  What’s weird is that even the aggressive guitar riff is really so wimpy compared to the earlier albums.   Which is not to say that the song is bad–the riff, wimpy though it may be is still a good one and the chorus is catchy as anything.  It’s just a different audience.

“Cup of Coffee” removes all of the dancey/techno and is a simple ballad.  And it sounds like the Garbage of old.  It’ a very pretty, sad song.  “Drive You Home” is also a beautiful natural-sounding ballad.

But “Breaking Up the Girl” is the closest to the Garbage sound of old(ish) it could easily have come from 2.0.  “Nobody Loves You” has a much more interesting guitar based sound as it opens–implying something grand.  But after the opening, the song slows down into a more dark feel.  “Uncountable” returns to the dance floor (and even has some”uh uh”s).

So, overall this is a weird and unsatisfying album.  It sounds like they gave up on the rock side of things because their poppy songs were such a hit. But at the same time it sounds like their hearts just aren’t in it.  Even Manson’s lyrics are kind of lame.  Which is not to say the album is a disaster, it’s just…different.

[READ: February 6, 2013] “The Embassy of Cambodia”

In Zadie Smith’s previous piece in the New Yorker (which was an excerpt from her novel), she broke her story into a series of small sections.  It was unexpected from her.  And now she  has done it again.  The story has as a basic plot point a game of badminton.  Accordingly, all of the chapters are listed as a badminton score (a one-sided rout actually): 0-1, 0-7, 0-21.

The sections are mostly brief and kind of bounce back and forth between the main character of the piece, Fatou, and the citizens of Willesden (represented by a a single person–who took it upon herself to represent them, even if they didn’t want her to).  This unnamed narrator gives background information about Willesden and the eyes of the community who watch Fatou go about her business.  The narrator also talks about the titular embassy and how it’s not that unusual to see a building like it on their street, even if they never really see anyone Cambodian going into it,

The only thing that people can really see from the outside of the embassy is the shuttlecock which can be glimpsed over the top of the wall that surrounds the embassy   Clearly there is some kind of field there, although no one has ever seen it.  They just see the birdie arc over (and then get slammed back).

And Fatou enjoys watching it and imagining the people inside.  For Fatou is a housekeeper and sort of child watcher for a family that lives down  the street (the Derawals).  Fatou is African and her prospects are bleak.  She is not paid to work for them–she gets free room and board in exchange for her services.  In fact she does not even know where her passport is (Mr Derawal took it and she hasn’t seen it since).  At one point, after reading an article about a slave girl, she even wonders if she might be a slave.  (She decides she is not). (more…)

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