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Archive for the ‘Magazines’ Category

Helen Humphreys–“Franklin’s Library” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Death, Dinosaur Jr., Fears, Helen Humphries, John Keats, My Bloody Valentine, Placebo, Short Story, The Walrus, Travel, Yuck on April 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: YUCK-Live at SXSW 2011 (2011).

Yuck has been on my radar for a little while.  I’ve heard very good things about them but hadn’t heard them until this concert.

They play a kind of distortion fueled alt-rock circa late 90s shoegazing style (and everyone laughs about this because the members are all like 20 years old).  Comparisons abound (Dinosaur Jr. My Bloody Valentine) but the one that I hear that no one else seems to is Placebo (for attitude of vocal style more than anything else).  But yes, what the band does with feedback is certainly enjoyable.

This is a great introduction to the band.  They sound fantastic live.  Although I admit that my impression is that this is a band that would sound great on a studio recording (think MBV).  And this show makes me want to go and get their debut album.

They play 8 songs here which vary from fast rockers to ballads to the 8 minute feedback epic “Rubber.”  Perhaps the most interesting thing about the band, though, is the singer’s speaking voice.  He seems so out of his element talking to the huge (and appreciative) Texas crowd, that you have to wonder if they’ve ever played live before (except that his voice sounds great while singing and the band is totally confident).  It’s just funny to hear him awkwardly addressing the crowd (with a meekness that rivals Droopy Dog):  “Our name is Yuck and this song is called “Suck” and those words rhyme with each other”.  Yikes.  But really it comes across as charming more than anything else and since the band sounds great it doesn’t hurt the crowd’s appreciation.

I’m looking forward to hearing their album.  You can listen, watch (!) and download their set from NPR.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Franklin’s Library”

This was the second story in The Walrus’ 2006 Summer Reading Issue.  It was a lengthy and rather complicated story.  There were really two stories, although in the end, she tied them together okay.

The story opens with a look at a young sailor.  The sailor has agreed to join the Erebus on its first expedition to the frozen north.  The title of the story comes from the ship’s library.  The sailor is young and more than a little afraid, but he is comforted by the scope of the ship’s library: leather-bound volumes in the hundreds.  The library looks to be the only place where one can have a little peace and quiet (aside from your bunk which is barely larger than you). (more…)

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Seven Love Letters: Meditations on Desire (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Best Coast, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Carrie Brownstein, David Bezmozgis, Dreams, Fantasy, Fears, Jonathan Lethem, Juli Zeh, Leonard Cohen, M.G. Vassanji, Margaret Atwood, Religion, Romance, Sex, Sheila Heti, The Muffs, The Walrus, Travel on April 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BEST COAST-Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington DC (2010).

Best Coast made Carrie Brownstein’s best album of the year accolades, but when I listened to the track she selected for the post, I wasn’t all that impressed.

But I have to say that live, Best Coast blew me away.  Bethany Cosentino, the lead singer and guitarist has an amazing stage presence.  She is charming and funny and very silly (and I guess she loves cats).  The band sounded tight and impressive and even though the songs are kind of dopey bubblegum pop, they are drenched in enough noise and rock to make them really wonderful

They seem like they should have come around during the 90s, when all those rocking female bands were all over the map.  And so this is like a wonderful blast from the past.  Best Coast is sort of like The Muffs (except they write love songs) and other bands that play really catchy pop but bury it under a layer of fuzz and rock.  This is a great set available on NPR, and will definitely get me to check out their album a little more.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Seven Love Letters”

Six of the seven letters here were later collected in the book Four Letter Word which I reviewed in September 2009.  When I reviewed the book, I didn’t give very much in the way of detail, I just summarized the letters.  I’m going to copy what I wrote then (since my thoughts didn’t change all that much), and I’m going to include a few more lines about some of the pieces (original stuff is in italics).  I’m also including titles which (for some reason) were not given in the book.

I’m also not sure why Sheila Heti’s story did not appear in the book.  (It’s only 4 paragraphs and is, indeed, a letter so why not include it?)  If you enjoyed the book, think of this story as a Bonus Feature. (more…)

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Yiorgos Skabardonis–“Pericles” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Culture Shock, Death, Fears, Humiliation, Military, Short Story, Surfer Blood, The Walrus, Violence, War, Yiorgos Skabardonis on April 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SURFER BLOOD-Live at SXSW (2010).

I really enjoyed Surfer Blood’s album Astro Coast.  There was something familiar about it, yet it never aped any sound exactly.  It’s a fun collection of upbeat almost-summer music.

This live set is a great representation of the band.  They don’t break from the CD all that much, but the band is lively and generous.  They play 7 songs, all of them fast and fun (they say that one song is going to be slow, but it seems to wind up as fast as the rest-and someone in the crowd shots “Play another slow one”).

There’s some good banter and the audience is very appreciative.  It’s great set and worth checking out even if you don’t know them yet.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Pericles”

This story is set in Greece in 1941.  Bulgarians have occupied the land.  And as the first few paragraphs explain, a thief has come to steal some goats.  The goatherds catch the man (a Bulgarian) and kill him.

When the Bulgarians find out, they take it very seriously.  The army travels to the village and rounds up every single male and all of the young females and intend to shoot them in the center of the city.

The story pulls back to explain that during the occupation all of the men were forced to do labor.  This even includes Pericles, the strongest man in the village.  Before the occupation, he was a helpful giant, able to throw four bundles of hay at a time.  Of course, Pericles was also fearsome, and if he got drunk (which he did from time to time) everyone in the town hid until he sobered up (except for his diminutive wife who could calm him down with a look). (more…)

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Robin Collyer–“Fictional Houses” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Ministry, Photo Essays, Robin Collyer, Sleigh Bells, The Go! Team, The Walrus on April 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SLEIGH BELLS-Live at SXSW (2010).

Sleigh Bells were a very polarizing band last year.  Their album made many year end best of lists, but they were also hated by many music fans as well.  I fell somewhere in the middle.  They reminded me of The Go! Team, but without their quirky aspects.  Nevertheless, I found their songs to be a kind of industrial-lite, maybe a baby Ministry or something.  And that was interesting.

So I was intrigued by their live set which I downloaded from NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Their set is plagued by technical malfunctions.  And although they are the headliners (I guess, I don’t really know how SXSW works) their set barely ekes out to 25 minutes.  But they are very apologetic and seem to be nice enough folks.

They manage to play 6 songs (2 songs are beset with disaster–they restart “A/B Machines” but give up on the second to last song altogether and play a different one).  Their onstage dynamic was interesting (at first I thought they weren’t going to talk to the crowd at all, but once the machines broke, they were quite amiable).  I gather the whole band was Derek Miller playing guitar and all the samples and Alexis Krauss singing (she’s really out of breath when the song malfunctions, so she must be quite an energetic performer).  Their set impressed me enough to want to check out their CD for real (I only listened to one song when it made all those lists).

This is an interesting set, especially if you like to hear a band cope with technical difficulties.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Fictional Houses”

This third piece in The Walrus’ 2005 Summer Reading issue is more of a photo essay than anything.  But the premise behind it is really great (and it is included in the Fiction section of the magazine).

The essay explains that in neighborhoods across Canada, hydro companies created electrical substations to handle power for those communities.  But rather than allow huge electrical monstrosities to reside in these communities, they corporations built full houses around them.  These houses were not simple facades but actual houses with electricity and which really gave the appearance of families living there (even though no one ever would).  That is an amazingly thoughtful thing for a huge corporation to do.

Now, since these stations are no longer needed, the houses are being sold off. Collyer made a point of travelling around to as many as were still extant to take pictures of them.  The pictures themselves don’t speak much because they are simply normal houses that blend in with the community.  But it’s amazing seeing the seven houses and seeing how very different they are.  The two in Toronto are quite lovely two-story houses.  Indeed the one on Spadina Road, with the trees grown in, is quite lovely (see below).  The houses in Scarborough are smaller affairs but are not too shabby either. (more…)

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Wayne Johnston–“Cathechism” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in Agalloch, All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Cars, Eric Rücker Eddison, Swans, The Walrus, Wayne Johnston, Worm Ouroboros on April 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WORM OUROBOROS-Live at Le Pousson Rouge, March 22, 2011 (2011).

I had never heard of Worm Ouroboros before this concert. They opened up for black metal guys Agalloch.  I was very intrigued by their name, because I love the word ouroboros, and then I learned that their name comes specifically from a novel by Eric Rücker Eddison called The Worm Ouroboros.

Now Agalloch is a heavy, fast, scary kind of band, so I expected that WO would be too, but they are almost exactly the opposite.  A trio (bass, guitar/flute (!)/keyboards, and drums), the band plays very ethereal music.  It has a kind of sinister edge to it, but for the most part it never really has a beat or anything.  The sounds drift and flow over each other.  This is all held together by the gorgeous vocals of bassist Lorraine Rath and the even more gorgeous harmonies of guitarist Jessica Wray.  Their voices are reminiscent of Jarboe from Swans.

The most amazing part of the show comes on the occasional ends of songs when the band seems to come down to earth  and they play a loud and aggressive doom metal stomp. It only last for a minute or two and it doesn’t happen on every song, but it’s amazing and really surprising when it does.

I don’t know what the band sounds like on record, but they make an exquisite noise live.  And you can tell how intense they must be because the rowdy crowd is quiet and respectful for their entire set.  You can get a free download (or listen online) at NPR.

Worm Ouroboros – Winter from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

This is a video of “Winter” (a song that gets really heavy at the end) from the show.

[READ: March 26, 2011] “Catechism”

Although I have been posting past stories from The Walrus on Saturdays, the July/August 2005 issue was a Summer Reading Issue complete with 5 pieces of fiction.  So, it seemed like a good time (the week after the release of The Pale King, when I will be otherwise occupied) to go through thee five pieces.

This story uses a scene that I think is used an awful lot in fiction–that of the car sitting on a frozen lake with people taking bets as to when it will sink.  It’s not central to the story by any means, but this is I think the third time I’ve read it.  Of course I gather that if you have a  community that is frozen most of the time, it’s a reasonable thing to see there.

Anyhow, this is the tale of an East Coaster moving out to Regina to be writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library. He finds that there isn’t all that much to do (in the year he’s there, two people ask him for help with their novels in progress.  [Frankly, I would love to hear THAT story instead.  A story where the writer in residence helps these misfits with their novels.  It sounds great.  So, I enjoyed that aspect of the story very much].  In fact I enjoyed it more than what would eventually develop as the plot. (more…)

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Five Dials–Number 1 (2008)

Posted in 19th Century, Advice, Alain de Botton, All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Craig Taylor, Death, Essays, Five Dials, Funny (ha ha), Gustav Flaubert, Hari Kunzru, History, Iain Sinclair, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Letters, Monica Baldwin, Nick Dewar, Peter, Bjorn & John, Poetry, Rachel Lichtenstein, Short Story on April 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PETER BJORN AND JOHN-SXSW May 26, 2009 (2009).

This brief set at SXSW (available from NPR & KEXP) showcases the band’s (then) new record Living Thing.  The album was just about to be released, so these are all previews of the album (“New music is the best music”).  The album itself is very sparse and these live songs are equally sparse, but are slightly different in construction (some songs have different instrumentation live than on record).

The crowd is very responsive, and the band is really funny.  During “Just the Past” there’s a section where the song sounds like it ends, but it is just a pause, and the band tsk tsks the audience for applauding too early.  There’s also a joke about John being Joaquin Phoenix and taking up a career in rap.

It’s a wonderfully lively set, even if it is a bit short (the gripe with almost every SXSW download).  It’s a good introduction to the album and a great introduction to a band who has been around for ten years and just started making inroads into American consciousness a few years ago.

[READ: April 16, 2011] Five Dials #1

Five Dials is an online magazine.  It is free to subscribe (and to download).  All previous issues are available on the site in PDF format.  I learned about it because they printed the eulogies for David Foster Wallace in Issue 10.  But the magazine looked interesting in itself, so I decided to go back and read the whole run (the most recent issue is #18).

The only real complaint I have with the magazine is that they don’t put a publication date anywhere on it.  Which is a shame if you’re anal retentive like me. According to Wikipedia, the inaugural issue came out in June of 2008.   It’s a monthly (ish) publication and, although I originally thought it would be a literary magazine, it proves to be very much of a magazine-magazine.  And a good one at that.

There’s a letter from the editor, there’s Current-ish Events, there’s essays, reviews and even fiction.  There’s also a “classic” letter from a “classic” author.  The magazine also has some very cool black and white art in it.  The style is very crisp and one that I find quite agreeable. (more…)

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The Best American Comics 2006 (2006)

Posted in Africa, Alex Robinson, Alison Bechdel, All Songs Considered, Anarchy, Ander Nilson, Ben Katchor, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Bust, Canadian Content, Chris Ware, Collecting, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, David Heatley, David Lasky, Death, Depression, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Esther Pearl Watson, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Gilbert Shelton, Graphic Novel, HOB, Ivan Brunetti, Jaime Hernandez, Jesse Reklaw, Joe Sacco, Joel Priddy, John Porcellino, Jonathan Bennett, Justin Hall, Kim Deitch, Kurt Wolfgang, LGBTQ, Lilli Carré, Lloyd Dangle, Lynda Barry, Military, Olivia Schanzer, R. Crumb, Rebecca Dart, Rick Geary, Seth Tobocman, Sex, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Tom Hart, War, World Cafe Live on April 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH on World Cafe, August 21, 2006 (2006).

Travelling back even further on the NPR timeline, Sonic Youth appeared on World Cafe in 2006 to promote Rather Ripped.

This is a brief session (only three songs) but as with the interview with Thurston Moore, David Dye does another great interviewing the band here.  Although it must be said that saying the band is once again a four piece (when clearly there are five people in the picture and in the studio and when he later says two guitars, two basses and drums–which I also think is incorrect, as I’m pretty sure Kim switched to guitars at this point, although I don’t know if she did during this set) is not a great way to start the interview.

Facts aside, the interview is informative and interesting and provides a glimpse into the band’s psyche all these years into their career.

The set is also good (although Thurston’s voice sounds a little off on the opener “Incinerate”).  The surprising thing about the set is that even with the five of them, the feeling is one of restraint. True, the songs on Rather Ripped are not as noisy as previous records, but this feels like they are trying not to wake anybody up the NPR folks.  It’s a weird feeling for a Sonic Youth set, but the plus side to it is that you can really hear everything clearly.

The other two songs are sung by Kim: “Jams Run Free” and “What a Waste” (why do they never promote any of Lee’s songs??).  And there’s the very amusing comment that the first time they played “What a Waste” Thurston and Kim’s daughter said it sounded like the theme from Friends.  Ha!

[READ: April 15, 2011] The Best American Comics 2006

I just recently learned about this series from The Best American line of books.  I had known about the Best American Short Stories and Essays and even Non-Required Reading (which I have not yet read).  But once I found out about the best comics, I knew I had to check it out.

The first issue came out in 2006.  The series editor is Anne Elizabeth Moore and the Guest Editor for this volume was Harvey Pekar.  Each of them has an introductory essay in the book.  To me the amazing thing about Pekar”s essay is how aggressively defensive he sounds (a sort of, “you may not like this one, but try this one” attitude) about these comics and comics in general.  I don’t know much about Pekar’s work.  I know he’s a kind of underground icon, but I seem to have missed him.  My impression of him is that this sort of antagonistic/defensive attitude seems to go along quite well with his comics, so I guess that makes sense, but I didn’t find it very welcoming.

But that’s okay, because I really enjoyed the comics.  And quite a few were by artists that I had never read before, which is even better! (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“Farther Away” (New Yorker, April 18, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Birds, Books about writers, Daniel Defoe, David Foster Wallace, Death, Essays, Fears, Guitar Player, Harper's, Jonathan Franzen, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Memoirs, Nature, New Yorker, Orson Scott Card, Sarah Vowell, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Suicide, Thurston Moore, Travel on April 18, 2011| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THURSTON MOORE-in studio at KEXP, March 11, 2008 (2008).

This interview was headlined ‘Thurston Moore: Not a “Real Guitar Player”?’ which is pretty funny.  The Sonic Youth guys have been defying conventional guitar playing for years.  And then in 2008 Thurston put out a solo album called Trees Outside the Academy, a beautiful delicate album of acoustic guitar songs.

The interview covers this very subject and concludes that maybe back when they started he wasn’t a guitar player, but now, 25 years later, he certainly is.  Moore is charming and funny and relates a very amusing story about being on the cover of Guitar Player and then embarrassing himself in front of one of his idols.

But this download is all about the songs.  Thurston (and violinist Samara Lubelski–who plays great accompaniment, but doesn’t really get any on air time to speak) play four songs from Trees: “Sliver>Blue,” “The Shape is in a Trance,” “Frozen Gtr” and “Fri/End.”  He sounds great in this setting, especially under close scrutiny.  I’d always assumed that there was a lot of improv in the SY guitar world, so to hear him play these (admittedly not difficult) songs flawlessly is pretty cool.  I actually wondered if he’d be hesitant (he admits the acoustic guitar is a fairly new thing for him), but not at all (although he says he screwed up on a chorus, but I never heard it.

It’s a great set and its fun to hear Thurston so casual.

[READ: April 14, 2011] “Farther Away”

The subtitle of this essay is “‘Robinson Crusoe,’ David Foster Wallace, and the island of solitude.”  As with Franzen’s other recent essays, this one is also about birding.

Franzen explains that he is hot off the work of a book tour (for Freedom) and is looking for some solitude.  He decides to travel by himself to the island of Alejandro Selkirk, a volcanic mass off the coast of Chile.  The island is named after Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish explorer who is considered the basis for Robinson Crusoe.  As such, Franzen decides to travel to the remote island, decompress and read Robinson Crusoe while he’s at it.  The locals call the island Masafuera.

I haven’t read Robinson Crusoe as an adult, so I don’t know the ins and outs of the story.  Franzen has a personal resonance with the story because it was the only novel that meant anything to his father (which must say something about Franzen’s father, no?).  The upshot of what it meant to Franzen’s father was that his father took him and his brother camping a lot as a way to get away from everything.

However, for Franzen, on his first experience of being away from home for a few days (at 16 with a camping group), he had terrible homesickness.  He was only able to deal with the homesickness by writing letters.

When he arrives on Masafuera, Franzen’s writing really takes off.  He has some wonderful prose about this treacherous space.  Although he comes off as something of a yutz for relying on a Google map to learn about the terrain and for bringing an old GPS which has more or less run out of battery. (more…)

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Randy Boyagoda–“Water Spider” (The Walrus, March 2006)

Posted in Africa, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Death, Demons, Fears, Jane Siberry, Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Boyagoda, Rheostatics, Short Story, Squarepusher, The Walrus, Violence, War on April 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-2067 (2004).

This was the Rheostatics’ final release.  I’m not sure if they knew this would be their last disc, but it kind of feels like they are throwing everything they can into it.

It opens with a delicate song from Martin which reminds me of Jane Siberry (the “row upon row” section).  Although at about 4 minutes it starts rocking out.  It’s a kind of meandering song, which is odd to open an album with.

It’s followed by “Little Bird Little Bird” a great folky song form Bidini.  But the disc really come alive with “Marginalized” a song that reminds me in some ways of “Horses,” as it is rocking and a little twisted (it seems surprising that it came from Tim Vesely).  It’s got some great guitar and an impressive keyboard solo (!) from new member Michael Phillip Wojewoda.

“The Tarleks” follows (with some fun frog noises). It opens slowly (as Martin songs tend to do) but once it really takes off, its got a great riff with his wonderful dramatic pauses and really funky sound from the bass/keyboards.  Then we get the wonderfully odd “Power Ballad for Ozzy Osbourne.”  It’s a kind of joke (but not really) about rock performers aging gracefully.  Bidini gets a bunch of songs on this disc, and here he gets two in a row, with the bizarrely wonderful “I Dig Music.”  The subtitle is “The Jazz Animal” and it tells you a lot about the song…it is indeed a kind of high-octane jazz.  But it has many different segments (and a lyric that references Squarepusher).

“Here Comes the Image” is a 6 minute track from Vesely which sounds very much like his more mellow tracks.  I’m not sure his tracks belong in the middle o f a disc because they tend to really bring the momentum to a halt.  Although it is a pretty song, it’s quite mellow (the organ solo at the end is pretty sweetly retro).  It’s followed by the five-minute slow instrumental “Who is This Man and Why is He Laughing?”  It really feels like an album ender.

So when “The Latest Attempt on Your Life” comes in, it revitalizes the sleepiness that those two songs imbue.  This track has the wonderful repeated chant “Everyone hates you, you sing like a woman”).  “Polar Bears and Trees” follows and it’s another kind of crazy song from Bidini.  It has such simple verses but the chanted “hey hey ho ho” rocks hard and is wonderfully fun.  (The lyrics are clever too).

Vesely returns with the beautiful, wonderfully catchy “Making Progress” which has another great retro keyboard solo at the end. The final track “Praise This Mutilated World” is one of the most beautiful songs in their output.  It starts as a fairly simple acoustic track (Bidini knows a good melody).  At about two minutes in, the band joins in with amazing harmonies.  The quiet parts keep coming back only to be overwhelmed by the harmonies once again.  The last two minutes are a spoken section.  It goes on a bit long, but is redeemed by another gorgeous chorus.

There’s a bonus track which is a very electronic version of  “Record Body Count.”  So this disc is definitely overly long in some places.  There are some great parts to the disc, but it feels like it could have used a good editor.  Nevertheless, since it’s the band’s final release, respect is due.

[READ: March 15, 2011] “Water Spider”

This very short (three-pages) story turned very dark rather quickly.

It opens with an African man, Bokarie, settling into his life as a convenience store clerk in Ottawa.  We learn that he was granted asylum, and that he has the scars to prove it.  He was quite nervous about leaving his country, and he still puts cinder blocks behind his door, to discourage uninvited guests.

At the same time, the action of the story concerns the accidental drowning of Caitlin, a young girl who presumably got too close to the creek when it overflowed.  The town is obviously distraught that one of their youngest and most innocent kids was killed, and they are planning a memorial service.  They are encouraging everyone to wear pink to the service and are even hoping to get a wreath put on the town’s crest.

Bokarie looks on this entire scene with a kind of bemusement.  His life in Africa was full of death.  Most of it horrifying.  So he seems somewhat unsure of what to make of the town’s outpouring for one lost child.  And then the story slowly reveals a shocking truth.

The truth is NOT that he killed Caitlin.  That’d not how the story is going (I didn’t really think it would go there, but it was a possibility).  Rather, the truth comes out about Bokarie himself, and his life back in Africa.  And it’s frankly horrible.

As the story draws to a close, Bokarie makes a decision that is going to impact the community.  It’s a little unclear what his motivation is, but it opens so many possibilities, that it really brings out a whole new realm to the story,

In some ways this story reminded me of Damon Galgut’s “An African Sermon (from The Walrus July/Aug 2004)  which also had an African character whose past has a hidden element and which turns out to be much darker than originally laid out.

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David Foster Wallace–three items about what didn’t make Infinite Jest

Posted in Big Books, Black Flag, David Foster Wallace, Gone, Newsweek, October Faction, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Saccharine Trust, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Tom Troccoli's Dog on April 11, 2011| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK FLAG: The Process of Weeding Out (1985).

Fans of Black Flag were (justifiably) freaked out by this EP.  It’s a four songs that clock in at almost 30 minutes (from the band who gave us the one-minute long hit “Wasted”).

This album is all instrumental and it provided Greg Ginn yet another outlet for his experimental guitar workouts (see also: Gone, October Faction, Saccharine Trust, Tom Troccoli’s Dog etc.)

So what you get is Kira’s fantastic and unusual bass riffs (she did amazing work with Black Flag), Bill Stevenson’s intense (and cymbal fueled) drums and Greg Ginn’s what the hell? guitars.  I’ve always found Ginn’s guitar work to be somewhat off.  It always struck me that maybe he didn’t exactly know how to play the guitar.  And yet he was always right on with his riffs and chords, it’s just that his solos never conformed to any standard version of guitar solo I’d ever heard.

So this EP comes across more as fee jazz than punk.  “Your Last Affront” is 9 minutes of chaos all under-girded by an interesting if unconventional riff.  It’s followed by the two-minute “Screw the Law” a much faster song, with an intense riff repeated for much of it.  The last 30 seconds or so has some screaming solos from Ginn, but of all the tracks, this is probably the most user-friendly.

The second side has the title track starts with a lengthy solo from Ginn.  A few minutes in, Stevenson’s drums come clacking around the place and Kira is somewhat relegated to the back as her bass is steady but not that exciting.  Until about 3 and a half minutes in, when the band takes over and Kira plays a super cool riff and when Ginn joins in, the song is really solid.  “Southern Rise” ends the disc with 5 minutes of relative quiet.  Although the main instrument appears to be the drums.

The whole things sounds like they were jamming in Greg’s garage.  And I’ll bet lots of fun was had in that garage.

[READ: March 15, 2011] three items about what didn’t make it into Infinite Jest

In honor of The Pale King’s release this week, I’m doing this post on Infinite Jest-related stuff.  This is all of the stuff that we lay people have access to without going to the Wallace archives to find all of the cool DFW stuff.

After finishing IJ this summer, I found out that it was initially much much longer (I think around 300 pages longer).  I grew mildly obsessed with wondering what had gotten cut.  And I had to wonder, if you have an 1100 page book, what difference would an extra 500 pages make, really?  Initially, I thought that the things that were cut were just minor changes, but then I heard about fairly large things that were removed.  And I dreamed of a “director’s cut” of the book.  That will never happen, and that’s fine (I’m less obsessed now).  But these little glimpses into scenes that didn’t make the book are fascinating.

And all told, they confirm that most of the cuts were minor, although there were some large scenes that were left on the cutting room floor. (more…)

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